The treaty of utrecht put an end to the war of Spanish succession which had opposed France to practically the whole of Europe especially in front of the two maritime and commercial power the United Kingdom and the United Provinces which had seen in the French land and maritime power an imminent danger for their own security and their interests.
England is the biggest beneficiary of these treaties: in exchange for the recognition of Philip V, she obtained the recognition of Queen Anne and that of the Protestant succession as well as the abandonment of the support of France to the Stuarts; in America, Louis XIV cedes to her the island of Saint-Christophe, the territories of the bay of Hudson, Acadia and Newfoundland (subject to the right of fishing maintained to the French sailors who will be able moreover to unload on the coast northeast and northwest [known from then on as French Shore] to dry the fish); in Europe, she obtains the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk and is made recognize by Philip V the possession of Gibraltar and Minorca
Finally, it was granted commercial advantages of the first order: France granted it the re-establishment of the customs tariffs of 1664 and the right to enjoy the conditions of the most favored nation, while Spain confirmed the concession made in March 1713 of the double privilege of the ship of permission and of the asiento (for thirty years) in Spanish America. These treaties established the maritime preponderance of England and above all the United Kingdom managed to establish the European balance, to which Louis XIV had to submit.
However, historians explain that despite all this, the domination of England was not yet established and that France had not yet definitively lost the battle for the domination of the globe.
Did the rise of England as a great power begin in 1713 with the treaty of utrecht?
I think it is substantially true but something of a slow burn from 1713. The first British Empire would end in 1776 with the loss of the American colonies as part consequence of the War of Spanish Succession's Indian Wars & if you include the seven years war that increased British possessions (1754-1763) at the expense of France. The thirty years war (1618-1648) was significant previously. The Battle of Plassey 1757 was significant as a beginning of the second empire before the end of the first!
It was a pretty busy period and I simply don't have your depth and breadth of understanding but take my comments for what they are worth.
I think the Glorious Revolution in 1688 was highly significant because it ended absolute rule by the Stuarts and set up parliament to be a responsible gov't & allowed it to be influenced by mercantile interests. The flag follows trade as the saying went.
Not so sexy as wars and treaties was metallism i. e. what backed a countries currency... which can take us up to Charles de Gaulle in 1960's snaffling up as much gold as he could at the low official price. But that started roughly in 1717 when the renowned Sir Issac Newton initiated the gold standard by setting the exchange of silver to gold lower. My understanding was Spanish pieces of eight (silver) dominated till then and afterwards. It certainly helped to have the best currency and Australia, Canada to a lesser degree California chipped in towards that.
Napoleon help out a bit, because it helped that Spain lost the Potosi silver mine.
Had France not been forced by Utrecht to be hands off with Spain than British expansion could have been more difficult and a dual crown of Spain and France could have led to different outcomes. I'd guess loss of Potosi (1809) would have been delayed. So there would probably been more funds for French ambitions. Maybe the French Revolution would not have happened as the American Revolution would have been more affordable to France.
But then the industrial revolution would still have happened and that was probably the most significant item in the 18th century.
I have just thrown a whole of mud at the wall to see what might stick because I haven't thought about all this before. Yeah Utrecht was very significant but not necessarily causal to Great Britain's rise is my net surmise.
And indeed it took other long struggle for the United Kingdom to impose itself as the great world power, however from 1713 the bases of its domination are laid, note that the acquisition of gilbratar had great consequences on France, because thanks to that the United Kingdom will be able to block the French fleet in the Atlantic and thus prevent the reunion of the French fleet, which will prevent France to have the maritime superiority.
Then another important thing and which had great consequences, it is the Finance, the United Kingdom will become the first financial place of the world, and will allow him to borrow on the financial markets of enormous sums, whereas France it will be obliged to borrow at enormous rates.
However in 1713 if Louis XIV accepts the idea of European balance it is to better concentrate on the overseas territories and the navy, for Louis XIV nothing was still played
During the Seven Years War, the United Kingdom won very important overseas gains and France was the great loser, the United Kingdom became the great power.
However, the French revolutionaries and Napoleon tried to reverse the consequences of the treaty of Paris in 1763.
Note that for the United Kingdom the domination of France on Belgium, the Low Countries, and Germany was for it a mortal danger, for this reason even if FRANCE did not have any more possessions overseas, its domination on the continent was for the United Kingdom unacceptable and if France had succeeded in imposing definitively its domination on the continent, the British maritime domination would not have been useful.
But definitively in 1815 the United Kingdom eliminates the French threat and never again France will be able to find its hope of domination
There is no doubt that Great Britain (England no longer existed as a kingdom after 1707) did well out of Utrecht. Gibraltar was a great gun platform undoubtedly and relevant still in WW2. Upper management wasn't that enthusiastic. George III complained it was a cause for war and gov't tried to give it back quite a few times but were vetoed by parliament.
Undoubtedly GB did commercially well out of it with getting a slave franchise for 30 years and with Dunkirk being destroyed as a privateer nest. It was nice France would no longer support Jacobean pretenders but that time was past in reality.
(Side diversion. Finally the Jacobean line and the Hanoverian lines unite with Prince William. Lady Di was a Jacobean descendant).
We need to demonstrate causality to the rise of the industrial revolution since that was when GB was at it's peak of great power status. There is more causality from the Glorious Revolution (1688) which predated Utrecht.
Most of the Glorious Revolution consequences were unplanned but an important one was the Dutch influence that came with William of Orange.
Lending money to monarchs was always a dodgy business - especially for war. Dutch practice was to quarantine the necessary %age of revenue to service the gov't debt. That had the effect of changing a dodgy business to being a rock solid asset. As an amusing illustration Charles II (England) needed military uniforms during an invasion (that failed). After the Restoration, he could have said I will finally pay those tailors. Did he?/ No. Prince Charles picked up the tab in 2008 more than 350 years later.
Meanwhile in France, lending to monarchs remained a dodgy business with consequential higher interest rates because it wasn't a rock solid asset as in GB.
The point is in GB there was a Financial and Administration Revolution that was a precursor to the Industrial Revolution. Property became collateral for loans. Debt became salable and transferable because there was an asset backing it.
The money supply increased because of fractional lending. Bank gives you a loan for 1000 and you spend it on spinning jennies with Person B. B banks that 1,000 and the bank lends C 900 - keeping back 100 in case someone wants their money back. Without any additional overseas trade the money supply increased.
So in time for the IR somebody wanting to build a textile factory could 1/ borrow money on his property 2/ form a partnership 3/sell shares in it to others.
This went differently in France. A scot, John Law, set up a bank 'Banque Generale' in 1716 which then became 'Banque Royale'. It had all together too much dodgy gov't paper and Law set up the Mississippi Co which like the South Sea bubble blew up. From what I have read it took till the 1776 to get rid of the bad taste of anything with Banque in the name. It seems that even Napoleon wanted State favors and expected banks to run off 100 million francs or so in 1804. Not so different to the old regime.
I'm sure you will know far better than I from a skim of a paper on the history of French banking.
None of this post Glorious Revolution stuff was planned and a lot of it came about because of the GB gov't needing to borrow to fund all those wars. But it bore fruit and was still being refined in the 1800's.
I think you'll find section 5 of this link interesting. The title is a play on a sarcastic book called 1066 And All That. Nice to see an academic work with a sense of humor.
I believe Britain was already a great power at this stage. It was the only country that came out of the war of spainish succession not crippled by debt.
Probably the most important war was British and her allies victory in the seven years war against France, Spain, Sweden, Austria which was fought all over the globe. Britain emerged the big winner of the conflict gaining florida, Canada and India. Later during the Napoleonic wars there was no nation that could oppose Britain at sea or abroad. You could probably take the whole 100 year period as one big war as Britain was always fighting someone and was a military state.
Humphreys explains Britain's policy on Europe over the last few hundred years.
That is a great clip. And substantially true. It was an objective to stop one country dominating Europe. It was a mistake to end Splendid Isolation in WWI
Of course! One of the interesting things with WWI was it was actually a relatively close run thing that Britain entered the land war and the then Foreign Minister said later they could have avoided it.
But Sir Humphrey was exactly right. Britain's long term policy was to keep Europe divided and it became clear France would need some help warding off Germany so as to keep Europe divided.
There are some fascinating what-ifs that could be posed around this
@RavVid in WW1 none of the politicians realised the magnitude and carnage of what was then modern war. They were thinking back to maybe the Crimean war.
No it seems the horrors of industrial war was not realized.
I have maybe a peculiar view. For a long time war had been aristocratic. Emperor A grabbed a bit of land and if he could convincingly demonstrated he could hold it, then defeated Emperor B accepted the loss and set about reclaiming it in a few years.
Now you could easily say the American Civil War should have given pause for thought on being home by Christmas. Even the Crimean war showed cavalry and swift movement was undone by a thin red line of rifles. It is not as if the British had no understanding of machine guns. Kitchener and Churchill had first hand experience in Africa.
But then the Austro Prussian war was reasonably swift and the Franco Prussian war even more so. That might have given the impression that industrial wars would be quick if bloody.
Apart from being an industrial war it was also a thoroughly national war. So I think it was a bit harder to let go of than Aristocratic wars where Emperor A & B might jointly think we are not getting anywhere and it'll just cost us more to continue.
I would say it started when England consolidated power in Britain and then later started colonies in North America. This treaty definitely made them more powerful though.
Eh, honestly I think a big part of it was the sinking of the Spanish Armada in 1588. They spent sooooooo much money and time building that fleet to attack and invade England, and then they were all destroyed. I don’t think Spain ever really recovered.
After that who were the English really competing against? The Dutch and French.
I'd argue it happened during the first Elizabethan age and England's rise as a sea power. Then time during the various Henry wars with France. Finally the work of the trading companies in the Far East.
11.6K opinions shared on Society & Politics topic.
It is difficult to say; the formulation of an opinion requires the ability to link subsequent events to the events you described, and I am afraid my knowledge of history is deficient in this regard.
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