Friends who are interested in World History should be familiar with the Hundred Years of War between Britain and France. This war is a general term for many major wars that broke out between Britain and France from 1337 to 1453 AD. This war can be said to have a profound impact on the establishment of modern Britain and France. But in fact, Britain and France were still hostile for a long time after entering modern times, especially between 1689 and 1815 AD. Britain and France also regarded each other as their biggest opponents for a long time, and many fierce wars broke out between them in Europe and overseas colonies. Therefore, some historians also call this period the Second Hundred Years' War in Britain and France, and the birth of the United States is largely related to these wars. So what wars did the Second Hundred Years' War in Britain and France include? What is the result?
British-French War caused by the abolished king of Britain
The direct cause of the Second Hundred Years of War in Britain was the British " Glorious Revolution " in 1688 AD, and its roots can be traced back to the English Reformation in 1534 AD. Around 1534 AD, England broke with the Roman Catholic Church due to the divorce of King Henry VIII. Later, the Church of England broke away from the sphere of influence of the Roman Catholic Church and joined the Protestant camp.
England's last Catholic king James II
But for more than 100 years, the Catholic forces within England still had a great influence, and the throne inheritance system based on the medieval feudal system in Europe inevitably made some nobles who still believe in Catholic kings, so this also caused great contradictions within England. For example, in 1685 AD, the Catholic English nobleman James II became the king of England. After that, he introduced a series of measures to bring England back to the Catholic camp. For example, he abolished the ban on Catholics from taking office in public and gave all English nationals the right to freedom of religious belief.
At the same time, after becoming the throne, James II, was naturally in love with France, the major Catholic country in Europe. But James II's approach soon aroused fierce opposition from Protestant nobles in England. On June 20, 1688, the son of James II was born, which meant that his Protestant daughter had no chance of the throne in England. Therefore, the English Parliament, which was controlled by Protestants at the time, quickly launched a coup, deposed James II, and invited James II's Protestant daughter Mary and her husband, Dutch , ruling Prince Orange, William, to England to be king.
William led a fleet to land in England in scene
On November 5 that year, William led 15,000 troops to land in England. James II, who knew he could not resist, was forced to flee, and the Protestantism regained control of England. When the UK made major changes, France was not idle either. They took advantage of the powerful neighbors of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty and launched a large-scale invasion of the Habsburg dynasty in August 1688.
. William from the Protestant fortress of the Netherlands quickly terminated his friendly relations with France after becoming the British king. After seeing France start fighting with Austria , he quickly regards this as an excellent opportunity to weaken France, so he quickly leads Britain to form an alliance with Austria and starts war with France. Before and after the United Kingdom and Austria formed an alliance, Spain, Germany Brandenburg, Saxony and Bavaria also formed alliances with Austria one after another. This war was later called the Grand Alliance War . The Grand Alliance War also kicked off the Second Hundred Years' War in Britain and France.
King Louis XIV welcomed James II who was in exile to France and
. In this war, France was very unwilling to accept the Catholicism's loss of power in Britain, so it quickly provided strong support for former British King James II who was in exile to France, hoping to help him regain the throne in Britain. But in 1690 AD, the British army defeated James II's army in the Battle of Boyne River in Ireland, basically shattering James' attempt to regain the throne.However, not long after, the French Navy defeated the British-Dutch joint fleet in the naval battle of Beech Point of the English Channel, and once controlled the English Channel , which restored the balance between the two sides.
Beeka Sea Battle Scene
In addition to fighting in Europe, Britain and France quickly expanded the war to their overseas colonies. The British army quickly captured the Port of Loire, a French colony located in Jamaica, America today, but today, Canada's Quebec was defeated by the French army. The French army defeated the British in New York and New England in the United States today, but was unable to capture the important British colonial town Boston . At the same time, Britain, France and the Netherlands also broke out fierce wars in Asian colonies of various countries, mainly around India.
After eight years of fierce fighting, both Britain and France suffered heavy losses, and their citizens were tired of continuing the war. In the end, the two sides reached a peace agreement. France no longer supported the resettlement of James II, and at the same time returned part of the Dutch territory, and the two sides ceased to fight.
Schematic diagram of France helping the remnants of James II in riots in the UK
However, although France promised not to support the reset of James II in order to end the war, it did not actually give up its support for James II and his children and grandchildren. The James II family relied on the remaining Catholic forces in Britain for three generations to launch riots in England in 1715 and 1745 respectively. But both riots failed shortly after. France gradually realized that the James family had no hope of resetting in England, so it finally stopped supporting him in 1748 AD and deported James II's grandson, , Charles . At this point, the series of conflicts between Britain and France for the British throne came to an end, but the confrontation between the two sides quickly expanded to other areas.
France loses Quebec but gives birth to American independence ?
In the 1740s, Britain began to continuously expand its colony on the east coast of the American continent, and soon clashed with the Mississippi Valley in France. In order to prevent Britain's expansion, France also built a series of fortresses in the Pennsylvania region. In 1754 AD, Britain officially started war with France and some Native American tribes that had formed an alliance with France.
French army united Native Americans and British forces to fight scenes
At the same time in Europe, Prussian formed an alliance with Britain in 1756 AD to provide protection for the British king's territory in Hannover, Germany, and further tense the situation between Britain and France. Soon after, France launched an attack on the British-occupied island of Mecano in Mediterranean , and the two sides also started war again in Europe. In this war, the Holy Roman Empire led by Austria formed an alliance with France, and joined forces with countries such as Sweden and Spain to fight for many years with countries such as England, Prussia, and Portugal in many places in the world such as Europe, Asia and the United States.
Although the two sides finally ended in a tie in Europe and fully maintained their pre-war situation on the European continent, Britain achieved a decisive victory over France in both America and Asia. In September 1759 AD, the British army captured Quebec, the core area of French Canada in North America, and occupied the entire French Canada the following year. In 1761 AD, the British East India Company joined forces with some Indian separatist regimes to defeat the French East India Company and the Mughal Empire, forcing France to withdraw troops from all the colonies it had previously occupied in India. Since then, Britain has dominated the situation in India. This comprehensive war between Britain and France, which took place in the three continents of Europe, Asia and the United States, was later called the Seven Years' War. It can be said that Britain became the winner in this war, but this war also laid the groundwork for the later American independence.
Before the war, the territory of the French American colonies
After France was defeated by Britain, the British North American colonies had basically no foreign military threats, so the local relations with Britain also changed quickly. Although Britain defeated France before, it also spent a lot of money on the war, so it was eager to get more returns from North America and make up for its expenditure. So soon began to impose taxes on North American colonies for various reasons.But the European descendants of the North American colonies no longer depended on Britain at this time, so they soon began to resist taxes on the grounds that they had no right to represent the British Parliament. Finally, on April 19, 1775, the American War of Independence officially broke out.
British and French navy fierce battle scenes in North America
. In the early days of this war, the British army once had an absolute advantage. At the very least, the North American army had only 5,000 people left, and the UK had also expected to quell the rebellion within one year. But France, which had lost Quebec shortly before, saw the best chance of revenge on Britain, so they provided arms to North American troops almost from the beginning and opened their own American-controlled ports to them, supporting their continued war with Britain. In February 1778, King of France and the United States officially recognized the independence of the United States and signed a military alliance treaty with it. In June of that year, France declared war on Britain, and the French army officially joined the North American War of Independence . Some historical data show that during the entire American War of Independence, France sent a total of 36,000 troops and 63,000 navy to participate in the war, while the total strength of North American troops was only 40,000 at the peak of the total force during the war. Under the joint attack of French and American troops, the situation of the American War of Independence quickly reversed. On October 19, 17,000 French and American troops accepted the surrender of 8,000 British troops in Yorktown, eastern Virginia, and the North American war was basically over. On September 3, 1783, Britain and the United States signed the "Hanglin Peace Treaty in Paris" in Paris, France, and the United States officially became independent. France successfully revenges Britain in North America.
Napoleon failed to end the Second Hundred Years of Britain and France
In this way, because he devoted all his national strength to help the United States gain independence, King Louis XVI of France was once regarded by the United States as the same person as his founding ancestors. However, in order to support the independence of the United States, France also devoted all its national strength and owed a large amount of foreign debts. It is recorded that the total debt of the French government at that time reached 2 billion lira (the currency unit of France at that time). In order to repay the debt, Louis XVI also imposed a large amount of taxes on the public, which triggered the economic crisis of and strong public anger. Coupled with the intensification of the contradiction between the old and new French nobles and the new thoughts brought by the Enlightenment movement , the Great Revolution broke out in France, Louis XVI's rule was overthrown, and he himself was executed in 1793 AD.
Louis XVI charity the poor, from which we can also see the hardships of French civilians in life
, and Britain, which had just suffered losses in France in North America, saw the opportunity to retaliate against France again. Although Britain hated Louis XVI, who helped the United States to be independent, before and after Louis XVI was imprisoned or even executed, Britain formed an anti-French alliance with Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, some German and Italian city-states in the name of maintaining the monarchy, and set off an anti-French alliance with Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and some German and Italian city-states to go to war with the newly established French Republic.
Although the anti-French alliance army once advanced to Paris in August 1792, the French Republic successfully counterattacked in desperate situations. With the temporary civil army, it defeated the anti-French alliance army in Valmé in northeastern France on September 20 of that year, successfully ensuring the survival of the Republic. Within almost 10 years after this, Britain joined forces with the European monarchy to fight against France, but in the end, France, which was isolated, successfully defeated the anti-French alliance and forced Britain to make peace with it and sign the Peace of Amiens to truce with it.
This famous painting depicts Napoleon of this period. The French general Napoleon also successfully rose by leading his army to win this series of wars, and in 1799 AD, he became the new ruler of France through political affairs. In 1805 and 1806 AD, Britain and Russia, Austria and Prussia formed the third and fourth anti-French alliances, but both anti-French alliances were defeated by Napoleon, and the Holy Roman Empire eventually disintegrated in these failures. After that, Russia once withdrew from the anti-French alliance, while Napoleon signed a peace treaty with the Russian emperor Alexander I and introduced a mainland blockade policy, and implemented an economic blockade against Britain.
But in 1811 AD, Napoleon and Russia fell in love, and the following year he suffered a crushing defeat in the invasion of Russia, and France's national strength declined again. In 1813 AD, Britain, Russia, Pu and Austria formed the sixth anti-French alliance , and finally defeated the French army in Leipzig, Germany in October of that year. On March 31 of the following year, the anti-French alliance occupied Paris, and soon Napoleon was forced to abdicate.
Waterloo Battle Scene
However, in 1815, Napoleon successfully sneaked back to France from his exile place Elba Island and gained power again. Later, Britain led European countries to form the seventh anti-French alliance . On June 18 of that year, British Wellington Duke Arthur Wellesley and Prussian marshal Blüchel led his army to defeat Napoleon's French army again in Waterloo, Belgium. In the end, Napoleon officially surrendered on July 15 of that year. Since then, Britain has completely overwhelmed France and has become the most dominant country over the global situation for almost 100 years. Since then, no large-scale wars broke out between Britain and France, and the second Hundred Years of War between Britain and France came to an end. (Pictures from the Internet)
