I will have to present this rivalry in 2 parts.
because I am obliged to make a long prelude. I specify that I will tell this rivalry from a French point of view.
This second hundred year war between France and England to begin under Louis XIV until 1815. War of the League of Augsburg, War of Spanish Succession, Seven Years' War and War of Revolution and Empire
Before talking about this second hundred years war between France and England, it is necessary to understand an important principle, France had a historical objectives, it wanted to remake what one called the "3 Gaulles Romaine" and which will be later known as the "Natural Frontier" and unify the continent around it.
When France thought it had reached its goal, the rules of the game changed, in 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia secured French domination over continental Europe. England By enacting its "Act of navigation" in 1651, gave itself the means of its domination on the seas.
From 1648, the France of Richelieu and Mazarin was the leading demographic, military and cultural power. His State is a model for all European sovereigns. Louis XIV will be the father of all enlightened despots of the 18th century, just as the nation-state, born of the French Revolution, will be the mother of all continental European nations.
By the navigation edict of 1651, England declared that all her maritime traffic would be strictly reserved for her own ships; this measure caused war with Holland, which then controlled a large part of international traffic and even English cabotage. The Royal Navy won. England then arrogated to herself the unheard-of right to control all sea routes, flouting "the oldest, most essential and most indisputable maritime rights." From then on, all English traffic with its colonies could only be done on English ships, with crews three quarters English - and all British imports could only land on English coasts on ships flying the English flag. . This regulatory and protectionist corset is the origin of England's power. By her act of navigation, England did not respect the freedom of the seas, and arrogated to herself the power to control any ship that did not obey British regulations. It took only three short years for France to find its Carthage.
If the discovery of America had changed the fate of England, placing it at the heart of the promising transatlantic trade, the revolutions of 1648 and 1689 were the political prerequisite for its economic orbit. Reflecting successively the Republic and the Absolute Monarchy, the two French regimes par excellence, England established, more than a century before France, its July Monarchy. The younger branch replaced the eldest Stuart, and set up a parliamentary and aristocratic regime, where the king reigns but does not govern, and where censal suffrage protects the interests of "fifteen hundred and fifty thousand egotists" (Talleyrand). The Cromwell episode enabled an open English "establishment" to find in the divine fury of the Old Testament the necessary blessing for its mundane affairs. It is the reign of freedom that takes hold.
While the English aristocrats imposed a parliamentary monarchy on the king, the French rebels failed and laid the groundwork for a decisive strengthening of the absolute and centralized monarchy. This defeat of the French sling was inevitable; she came from afar. Already under Louis XIII, from the execution of Chalais to that of Cinq-Mars, the imperious couple Richelieu-Louis XIII had stopped in blood the project of the great ones of the kingdom to establish a regime at the same time feudal and liberal. This French destiny paradoxically came from the initial weakness of the Capetians, small nobility of Île-de-France who sought allies within the third estate, bourgeois whom successive monarchs ennobled; they jointly resisted the great feudal lords, some of whom were more powerful than the King of France. Never, during the Fronde, did the junction between the aristocracy of the sword and the nobility of the robe, the two "social classes" rebel successively against the cardinal, turn out to be strong enough or durable enough to impose an English-style regime on the monarchy. . In the mid-seventeenth century, the King of England therefore found himself surprised and disarmed in the face of the solid and firm alliance - which was- of the two aristocracies, sword and silver, which imposed on him, a aristocratic monarchy. In 1642, King Charles I entered the British Parliament, accompanied by five armed men, to demand the arrest of rebel deputies to the Crown; but the "announcer" refuses and does not comply with the injunctions of the monarch who must leave empty-handed. In 1661, the young Louis XIV appeared in hunting clothes, boots on, and whip in hand, before the magistrates of the Parliament of Paris, to impose his will on them during a litigation. The seventeenth century had sealed the fate of France: France would not be England.
Indeed, the English aristocrats had all power in their counties, where their French counterparts were, from the sixteenth century, in competition with the royal power, intendants and others, who arbitrated in the name of the general interest. When, in the eighteenth century, the English aristocrats closed the communal fields for their own benefit, without taking into account the protests of a peasant servant, precarious since the Middle Ages, accustomed to submitting without saying a word to the "will of the lord" - the gentlemen-farmers changed with each generation of tenants - the French aristocrats could not imitate them. They met with multiple resistances, retreated in front of peasants assured of the inheritance of their tenures, and supported by the representatives of the central power, judges and royal intendants. However, this movement of enclosures was at the origin of both British elite parliamentarism and early industrial development in England, based on the investments of English gentlemen-farmers and the mass of proletarian peasants, offering themselves for a modest price. in new factories. The King of France would ultimately be swept away by the egalitarian swell he had created.
Between France and England, between land and sea, we could have envisioned a fair division. We'll never get it. Louis XIV and Colbert will arm a powerful navy, which will allow the Sun King to conquer the most beautiful colonial empire that France has ever had: Louisiana, Caribbean, India. The English will never stop seeing that France never reaches its "natural limits" on the continent. One of the two had to give in; it will be France. It is this story, this failure, this renunciation, that we do not get over. This country programmed for a thousand years to give "Roman peace" to Europe had to fall into line. This wound is still bleeding.
At the end of his reign, Louis XIV fell into an impossible trap. He could not refuse the Spanish inheritance for his grandson, for fear of being caught again by the Habsburgs; he could not accept it either, because it would frighten the whole of Europe, already wracked for twenty years by the Anglo-Dutch-Protestant propaganda which mocked the "king of the world". In the negotiations leading up to the war, he was offered a solution which he embraced without hesitation: to exchange Milan for Madrid, Cisalpine Gaul for Spain; but after a night of intense meditation, the Duke of Anjou refused to give up his throne. The absolute king bowed to the choice of Philip V; the grandfather gave in to his grandson's whim. Gruesome weakness. Beyond the terrible war that would ensue, defeats, famines, aggravated by the great winter of 1708-1709, France had missed the unique opportunity to pursue its millennial Gallo-Roman project - after the Rhine, the Piedmont - and to grab one of the richest lands in Europe, just as Spain was sinking into decline.
The consequences were gigantic. At the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, England - which became the United Kingdom since its union with Scotland in 1707 - was recognized as possession of the Rock of Gibraltar; this country of the North and the Atlantic led to the Mediterranean, from where it would protect its Indian conquest. English “globalization” was launched. With the treaties of 1713, France took, without saying it, without even knowing it, its place in a world system organized for and by England, which one would call with the charming and beguiling word of "European equilibrium". Its place, its whole place, but nothing but its place: no longer the first. The "European equilibrium" in fact meant that France renounced - in the name of peace - its historic dream: to replace the Roman Empire; and that continental Europe accepted its historical, political and economic marginalization in a large-scale maritime, commercial and financial globalization built by the United Kingdom. This was the time when the Abbé de Saint-Pierre imagined what a perpetual peace could be, through a permanent congress of diplomats that foreshadowed the UN. It was no accident. Market globalization and “collective security” go hand in hand. The economic realities of nascent capitalism and pacifist window dressing, everything was already written down. Peace indeed rested on the agreement between London and Versailles. The subjection of Versailles to London.
It is not certain that many understood the real meaning of the Treaty of Utrecht - even Louis XIV. The old king, once so belligerent, gave a patina of magnificence and even arrogance to this major historical renunciation. He thus inaugurated a French tradition of glorious defeats. No doubt he thought he was sorting things out, in the state of exhaustion in which his kingdom found itself. After all, he had saved his grandson's throne in Spain, even though there were still the Pyrenees; he would not be Charles V, but there would still be two Bourbon kingdoms as there were two Habsburg kingdoms. Separations that already feel the decline. In his ultimate strategic vision, he recommended the reconciliation with yesterday's enemy, which was achieved by Louis XV in 1756: he understood that he no longer had the means to dominate the European continent on his own. Sad sunset for the Sun King.
The debt left by the Sun King obeyed the fate of the monarchy. Driven by financial necessity, the dazzlingly intelligent Regent was perhaps one of the few French people to understand the secret and sorry meaning of the treaty signed in 1713 by his glorious uncle; he dared a daring rapprochement with England and Holland, those Protestant and banking powers which possessed the money which we so dearly needed. The Regent sought the benevolence of this City which had persecuted his uncle, prolonging the War of the Spanish Succession for a few years, even though the English troops and governments were as weary and weary as their French adversaries. But this alliance with the devil forced Louis XIV's cousin to wage war against the Spain of Louis XIV's grandson! We must have chuckled in London! The Regent tried to imitate the banking and financial organization of the English, but Law's system ended in disaster.
The inflation which it provoked nonetheless allowed to deflate the colossal debt of the State left by Louis the Great, and even to irrigate undeniable economic growth in the eighteenth century. It remained to face the clergy and the nobility to impose taxes on them. Already, under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, the taxation of the Church, the first land and property owner in France, had been considered. And then the "absolute" king bowed. The inability of the monarchy to deliver an efficient and fair tax system made it unable to withstand confrontation with its English rival. She will eventually have her skin.
The eighteenth century ushered in an era in which we have not ceased to live: that of giants, of superpowers. In the 17th century, France was the only “mastodon”, in the words of General de Gaulle. In the eighteenth century, everything changed. By sea, England began her great march towards the first globalization of the nineteenth century; the European continent was in danger of being overwhelmed, marginalized by the UK's "globalist" commercial and maritime dynamism. By land, Prussia and Russia grew, swelled, without measure; no geographic or political barrier stopped them. The renewed confrontation of future centuries between land and sea, between globalization and the unification of the European continent was taking place. The order of 1648 was shaken.
Louis XV did not take the measure of the mortal danger for his kingdom. He was the son of the Duke of Burgundy. He had been educated by Cardinal Fleury, steeped in Fenelonian ideology. He hated war. In 1748, at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, after a victorious war, Louis XV renounced Belgium. London could not bear that France to get hold of Belgium and its precious ports. Only Frederick II kept his Silesian prey torn from Austria; the little Parisian people, disgusted, then coined the expression: "To work for the King of Prussia. The France of Louis XV is a satisfied kingdom. Of its civilization, of its power, of its dimensions. The German divisions allow him to maintain an impression of domination on the continent. She is one of the sated nations. His great reversal of alliance with Austria confirms this development. France no longer wants to conquer, but to conserve. She wants (to) make believe that this is a show of strength, while it is an admission of weakness. Frederick II of Prussia ridiculed this country ruled by a woman, Madame de Pompadour, who, forcing a restive Bernis, was the great inspirer of this policy. During the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Louis XV victorious was magnanimous. At for the Treaty of Paris in 1763, Louis XV, defeated at the end of a long Seven Years' War, was no doubt convinced that he had saved the essential. Yet we were losing the most beautiful colonial empire in French history. Louis XV used an economic reasoning, he kept the slave colonies.
Louis XV's economic reasoning first bore fruit: in the 18th century, France became the leading sugar power in Europe, thanks to its plantation colonies in the West Indies (Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe) and in the Indian Ocean (Ile de France, which will become Mauritius, and Ile Bourbon, future Reunion Island): its exports to Europe exceeded those of Great Britain and made the fortunes of the Atlantic ports, Bordeaux and Nantes in particular. But, if sugar was becoming a mass consumption product, this success was insufficient.
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 marked the irreparable defeat of France in the looming globalization. "What is France losing," noted Michelet? Nothing if not the world. "The history of the French eighteenth century is a mirror of the larks. Apparently, everything is a feast for the senses and intelligence, luxury, pleasure. In truth, everything is debt, ruin, decline.
Choiseul and Vergennes tried to
restore French power. They leaned on the other European Bourbons, in Madrid and Naples. No doubt the ideological influence of the alliance with the Habsburgs. But, behind the scenes, they were preparing revenge against the English. As after 1870, the motto of the French monarchy could already have been: "Never talk about it, always think about it." »Not without success. We began to build a navy capable of competing with the royal Navy; but Louis XV, prudent, limited the tonnage of the Royal to half that of the British navy. Louis XVI brilliantly completed his grandfather's work. Louis XVI did not want any more wars or conquests either. In any case, on earth. Louis XVI was a sailor who had never seen the sea. This very intelligent man understood that, in the eternal clash between sea and land, it is the sea that wins most often; and, when the earth wins, when Rome crushes Carthage, it is by sea. With him, France finally possessed the navy that Colbert dreamed of. This navy enabled him to avenge the English affront by emancipating his American colony. This daunting task, which we still pride ourselves on today, was perhaps Louis XVI's biggest blunder. She turned against the monarchy and France. America will continue to be all English; from France, Jefferson preferred Chateau-yquem bottles! In 1792, invaded France sought help from America in vain. America will pay its debt. In 1917! And we'll see under what conditions. The ideas of freedom, of a republic, will take off never before seen in France. The English secret services will avenge the outrage by shamelessly financing the revolutionary activities of the Duke of Orleans, including the Jacobins. War will ruin the monarchy: the equivalent of ten years of budget! The convocation of the states-general will be the direct result of the war in America. An assembly which, unlike its English counterpart, will not restore the old order, but will wipe out the past; will not limit the power of the monarch, but will pose as a rival to the king.
To explain the Revolution, one rarely thinks of international questions. Paradoxically, it is the Anglo-Saxon historians (Jonathan R. Dull, Edmond Dziembowski) who insist on this point. The work of Father Jean-Louis Soulavie, which, from 1801, showed that the reversal of the alliance of 1756 was "one of the causes of the Revolution".
America, finally, was still nothing: thirteen states united in a fragile federation; two million inhabitants; but a myth, already: freedom. And a potential. Immense. The rare European visitors have a presentiment of it. At the time, it was still only an agricultural country. With the arrival of German immigrants at the end of the 19th century, it would become the great industrial power.
France still saw herself as a giant that she no longer was. She had lost the battle for globalization in 1763; it was potentially marginalized in Europe. On April 15, 1788, two treaties of alliance, one Anglo-Dutch, the other Dutch-Prussian, supplemented on August 13 by an Anglo-Prussian defensive agreement, surrounded western Europe and isolated France. England was taking a resounding revenge on the American War of Independence. Empress Catherine II wrote with jubilation that successive failures in France's foreign policy were ruining her ambitions and prestige accumulated "for two hundred years." In the height of its magnificence, France was unaware that it was stepping down from history. The reign of Louis XVI is this transitional period when France is no longer a predator but not yet a prey. I will tell the rest in a last Mytakes. Or I would speak of the wars of the revolution and the empire, until the English domination in 1815
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
3Opinion
Not going to say a lot about Part I as this seemed to be the summarization, in effect, of your historical argument. It is fine, though not without its' biases of course, and it has some peculiar detours along the way.
For example, what has the British - strictly speaking English - aristocracy's treatment of its peasant class to do with Anglo-French relations? If the message is British/English bad, French good, that comes out through your whole piece. However, it is not really - particularly given the limited space - relevant to the question.
Also, as an aside, have to admit that I laughed at the comment about Louis XIV being the model for "enlightened despots." Enlightened he may have been, but leaving aside again the question of its relevance to the Anglo-French rivalry, are you sure despotism - enlightened or otherwise - is a selling point to "model."
Also, not sure what this meant: "When France thought it had reached its goal, the rules of the game changed, in 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia secured French domination over continental Europe. England By enacting its "Act of navigation" in 1651, gave itself the means of its domination on the seas."
How did the rules of the game change, particularly if France signed the treaty. In effect, it agreed to the rules change. It may be just a question of translating French into English, but the sentences in question seemed to suggest that France was somehow duped. This is not the case, and even if it was, international relations, to repeat, is about power and influence. The only rule being that there are no rules except as imposed by those with the power to impose them.
One last point. This is a VERY good historical summary, but it is not clear what the "opinion" is supposed to be. That may come in Part II, but this is an opinion site. You will not have made good use of your time if you simply write, in effect, a summary of a history that most people can look up for themselves.
France good, Britain bad is not sufficient. You love your country and that is all to the good and to be admired. The problem is the "why." What is it about the rivalry that you want to say? What issue or issues do you wish to dispute? You may wish to say that history would have been "better" had France prevailed. (By the way, given the degree to which the French revolutionary doctrines have been subsumed into Western thought generally, what suggests that, in a sense, France did not prevail?)
This is a very fine summary, and you know your "stuff." Now what you need to answer is "Why am I reading this summary and what is the specific point I want to persuade your readers to adopt?
Well first of all thanks for the advice. And I am sorry that some things are not very clear, as you know I have enormous difficulties for English and I have helped myself with a dictionary, all this took me two hours to write and I grant you that I had to write things that were not very clear.
I just wanted to show the different paths taken by the English monarchy and the French monarchy and which will obviously have a big impact on the way in which each of the two countries will "build" their society, their vision of the economy etc. So it was important for me to explain this difference between these two monarchies which will be done in the 17th century. I hope my explanations are more complex than saying that England was "mean"
You did not quite understand the point of view on the Treaty of Westphalia, the Treaty of Westphalia is an excellent thing for France thanks to the skilful Mazarin and let us not forget Richelieu whom I admire. The Treaty of Westphalia is for France something very good so that it can realize its "dream" of the "3 Gaules" but only 3 years after this treaty England will make its act of navigation of 1651 is 3 years after only the Treaty of Westphalia which will obviously create a huge rivalry with France and in the long term prevent France from reaching these "natural borders" in this sense that the "rules of the game" will change.
So my objective is not to say that England were "mean" and I really tried to do a more nuanced analysis than that, but it is undeniably a French point of view, forgive me for that. Add to that my difficulty in the English language which sometimes undeniably made a bad translation and therefore a difficulty in understanding and reading.
I hope despite everything that this remains an interesting read 🙂
Absolutely it was a very interesting read - and I look forward to the rest. As to your English, there is bound to be some difficulties, but your English beats my French by a wide margin.
No complaints, believe me. I merely offered some suggestions that you might find helpful.
Also, while I do not doubt that the "vision" each country holds influences its policies, if your intention is to discuss strategic competition, in widening out your paper to these broader questions, you may be writing a 10 volume history as opposed to a short essay. As I say, you need to narrow your focus a bit given the space limitations you face. (Also keep in mind that you are writing for an audience that may have limited time and almost certainly will be reading off of a screen. Reading off a screen as opposed to out of a book or other written document always reduces the retentive capacities of the reader.)
Bottom line, I thought this was going to be a discussion of geostrategy. Not a comparison of systems. The latter, as I say, will well exceed the length you have to write this piece.
Finally, I am still not clear on how the Treaty of Westphalia was undermined by the Act of Navigation. Westphalia was the foundation of the modern state, but it did not necessarily define the territorial limits of that state. In any case, the Navigation Act, it could just as easily be argued, allowed England - as it then was - to define its own territorial limits by insuring that could not be violated by a continental power.
Bottom line, your argument puts you in something of an intellectual hall of mirrors. You may have to work on that a bit.
In any case, I greatly enjoyed your piece. My compliments. I just thought I would ask for a few clarifications and make a few suggestions.
@nightdrot I have the impression that she considers the "Anglo-Saxons" to use her terms as eternal enemies of France and her people.
Yet we helped France during the First and Second World War. and this French girl seems to forget it.
and most British and Americans don't feel any hatred against France, so I don't understand that feeling she has.
Of course we are not in agreement on all political issues but we are also obliged to defend our interests
@nadia831 Well, it is not up to me to characterize @julielamar2's viewpoint. You should ask her directly.
All I can tell you is that I am an American and that @julielamar2, who is French, and I have had very many exchanges that have been cordial. Her command of English, as she herself says, is not the greatest and throw in that exact translations of French into English and vice versa are hard to do and there is room for error in interpretation.
@julielamar2 loves her country, which is to be admired, and sometimes that comes off as defensive. I do not think it is intended as such and she simply wants to French case to be heard. Fair enough.
When she writes Part II, we will, I assume get a better sense of her views. This first part being more of an historical overview - and I thought it quite comprehensive and well done given the character limits on the site.
As to the use of the term Anglo-Saxon, that is quite common outside the USA and the UK and I do not attach to it any pejorative meaning. Strictly speaking, as a matter of categorization, it is a reasonably accurate term and while it has been used pejoratively, I am quite confident that @julielamar2 does not so intend it to be.
Anyhow, as I have told @julielamar2in the past, she does tend to react emotionally and she has taken that criticism very well. We will see how well she is able to apply it in Part II. There is, after all, a case to be made that a dominant France may have conduced to less bloody European history. I tend to disagree, but we will see if she is able to make it based on geostrategy and history and not simply patriotic sentiment.
My well intentioned advice to you is do not, in reacting to @julielamar2 do not make the mistake of reacting emotionally and overread her yourself. Approach this as a dispassionate scholar and not as a patriotic advocate as ultimately, the funny part is, being the former conduces to being the better patriot.
@nadia831 Hi, well @nightdrot it's right I don't use the term Anglo-Saxon in a prejudicial way.
No madam, I have not forgotten the sacrifice of American and English soldiers. I have too much respect to forget.
I know that the vast majority of Anglo-Saxons do not hate us, just as the majority of French people, of whom I am part, do not hate Anglo-Saxons. But at the political level I am always wary of Anglo-Saxons and Germans, because we have often been fooled in our relations with these countries.
Well, the objective of my Mytakes is not to say that France is nice and the Anglo-Saxons mean, it is to give a French point of view of this rivalry. Astonishing thing is that even French historians since the 80s have started to adopt the Anglo-Saxon point of view, for example on the Vichy Paxton regime has become even for French historians a god on his undoubted Olympus, the disagreement deal about what Paxton says, makes you sound like an extremist.
so my goal is just to give a French point of view
oh is one last thing, i know my nation is not perfect that it has committed acts like colonialism, escalavgism etc.
@julielamar2
@nightdrot
i feel like i'm reading a discussion between a professor and a doctorate candidate...
you two, awesome. good back and forth, everything you each write informs and educates me more.
i just want to than the both of you for opening my eyes to more relevant history.
now... i'm gonna go take a nap!
hopefully some of this sinks in and sticks in my brain.
@Andres77 Thanks so very much for your very generous and kind compliments. I am very glad that you have found value in what we both write. Also, if I may add, I have nothing but good things to say - and echo your remarks - about @julielamar2.
She is a thoughtful and intelligent writer and I always enjoy discussions with her.
Thanks again.
Very Informative and Intriguing.
You know a lot about the history of your nation and culture, and seem to have pride in your nation.
I always love to see people who are patriotic and love their country even if they aren’t from my country.
Viva La France.
🇺🇸🤝🇫🇷
Merci Beaucoup 😊
De Rien.
How did you develop such a interest and passion for history?
I had a history teacher who fascinates me. And then over time by listening to debates I understood more and more the importance of history, I decided to deepen my knowledge but I still have a lot to learn
Then it is good you did not have a woke teacher who spoke negatively about France and focused on negative things from the past.
I’m sure you have deeper knowledge then most people of your generation.
Really enjoyable read, I couldn't help but imagine what if France, England & Spain could have formed a long-term alliance.
Thank you 🙂 Very good question, but our interests were too divergent. Besides, we could have imagined a fair division between England and France between maritime and land power but that will never happen.