It was not a strategic defeat at all; it was a strategic opportunity ignored.

It was a huge strategic victory for the English, in that it prevented the French from being able to attack Sicily for 4 long years. Sicily is all that the English really cared about, from a strategic standpoint.

Be sure to read the Corbett excerpt I posted. He really spells out the whole situation in a very coherent way. All I would add is that it's important to consider that Sir Sidney was sent to Naples under the directions of Pitt and Nelson, they wanted action which with Smith they would certainly get. By the time of Maida, Pitt and Nelson were both dead and Fox was now in as Foreign Secretary and his brother was the general sent to replace Stuart in Sicily. It's a fact that Secretary Fox was actively willing to sacrifice Sicily to Napoleon for peace. It thus would have been grand folly to continue supporting and directing a fierce guerrilla war in Calabria when the plan was to give everything away to the French. That, regardless of the pathetic excuses presented by general Fox, Moore, and Stuart, is the reason for calling off Sir Sidney's, what had up to then been highly successful, operations.

People too easily let all the sparkling Napoleonic-glory of Ulm, Austerlitz, and Jena, influence their thoughts on the matter. However, even as he stood triumphant in Berlin, N. knew full well that he was not one step closer to Constantinople: Sicily barred the path. And, as he so clearly stated in the 29th Bulletin of 1806, it was that "infamous" Sir Sidney Smith who slammed the door shut.