Conflicts in the Caribbean, and in particular the seizure of colonial bases and islands throughout the wars, could potentially have some effect upon the European conflict. The series of naval and colonial conflicts, including a large number of minor naval actions, resembled those of the French Revolutionary Wars and the preceding centuries of European warfare. Napoleon's plans to invade Britain failed due to the inferiority of his navy, and in 1805, Lord Nelson's fleet decisively defeated the French and Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar, which was the last significant naval action of the Napoleonic Wars. Īfter a relatively quiet pause from 1801-1803, war resumed in Europe when the British declared war on France and ended the uneasy peace maintained by the Treaty of Amiens. French ports were blockaded by the Royal Navy. Therefore, the British invested all the money and energy it could raise into the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon, who came to power in 1799, threatened invasion of Great Britain itself, and with it, a fate similar to the countries of continental Europe that his armies had overrun. With the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793, the French Revolution became a contest of ideologies between the conservative, royalist Kingdom of Great Britain and its allies and radical Republican France. Through its command of the sea, financial subsidies to allies on the European mainland, and active military intervention in the Peninsular War, Britain played the central role in Napoleon's downfall even as all the other major powers switched back and forth. Between 17, under the rule of King George III, the Kingdom of Great Britain (later the United Kingdom) was the most constant of France's enemies.
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