Just a change of focus here. I am interested to understand why Britain sought to get involved in the wars on the continent, and over turn the revolution and reinstall a king to the throne. Britain vehemently opposed revolutionary France and Napoleon. Was this a series of wars that they really needed to fight, or were they just on an old fashioned imperialist quest for power and empire trying to bring down a potential rival so they could have a free hand around the world?
I can see that there was a point after 1805 when Britain feared a French invasion, but this was largely in response to the consistent belligerence of the British forming new alliances, encouraging new armies and coalitions against France, and the tearing up of the Treaty of Amiens.
I am also curious as to why the British and the Prussians felt that they had to fight Napoleon again in 1815 after his return to power? Napoleon wasn't fixing for a fight as far as I know. In fact France was tired of war. France was no longer occupying vast swathes of Europe either. What was really at stake?
A few thoughts. "Or at least just protect its vital interests eg. trade routes"
That is precisely what they were doing. This was the Maritime policy that governed British foreign affairs for 200 years, based on a strong navy supporting small expeditionary forces on land.
“No one actually attacked or threatened invasion of Britain.”
You may be forgetting the army assembled on the Channel coast in the summer of 1805. There had been acute concern over the possibility French invasion in the 1750s, 1770s and 1790. French expeditionary forces, ineffectual they may have been on those occasions, had actually landed in Jersey, Wales and Ireland
“France was continually threatened by its neighbours which kind of forced it to go to war or accept their armies marching into Paris.”
The French revolutionary government had indeed declared war on the European powers after the humiliation and judicial murder of the Habsburg Emperor’s sister. Shortly after that their armies invaded the Low Countries. Tactless, really- but this was not merely a defensive measure by an otherwise pacific nation.
Louis XIV had established France as the dominant military power in western Europe in the mid-C17th, beneficiary of the exhaustion of other Continental powers, notably the Habsburgs, in the wake of the Thirty Years War. England and Scotland, while enduring their own internecine strife had been spared the worst of that prolonged conflict. Initially the restored Stuarts had been clients of Louis XIV but when the Dutchman King William III drew England and Scotland into his wars with Louis XIV, the long century of Franco-British conflict began. Marlborough commanded a successful alliance on the continent but colonial expansion across the oceans ensured the Americas and the Indies would become the focus of Franco-British competition. The Nine Years War and the WOSS can be viewed from one perspective as the start of a long process of containment of French power on the continent, of which Britain and Prussia were the principal beneficiaries. The massive block of Habsburg rule, rumbled on, mostly by dint of its own size and inertia, its focus as much to the east as the west. Russia still had to realise fully its aspiration to be a European power.
“The British also installed their rulers around the world, and fought wars to impose their brutal control on anyone who rebelled, Just look at anglo Irish history, and anglo American and Canadian history at the time. “
Something of a broad generalisation, with an undefined time-frame What rulers were these? The USA did invade Canada at this time. The United Irishmen rising, supported by a French expeditionary force saw bloody episodes on both sides. Civil rebellion in that era did tend to meet short shrift, as the Bretons discovered, especially in time of international conflict. Both the French and British sent forces to counter insurgency on the Sugar Islands. The violence was not for its own sake. For both powers there was good deal was at stake. This was effectively a world war in scale and scope.
“Britain was a fairly belligerent nation towards France. It didn't need to get involved at all.
Britain wanted to gain strategic hegemony over any rival power to build its own imperial ambitions. The British problem with Napoleon was simply that he was too powerful. The fact that he wasn't of royal blood, just added to it. “
Of course the Austrians, Prussians and Russians had their own opinion on French dominance in Europe. To describe Napoleon as “simply” being too powerful is a contradiction in terms. If Napoleon’s power was too powerful, the perceived threat is defined.
The key word there is rival power. As discussed, France and the British realm been in competition since the late C17th.
“It was the same policy that they had before the revolution.”
As it was France’s policy as well. QED. See the American War of Independence
It’s a mistake, if convenient, to depict Britain simply as ‘Perfidious Albion,’ the entitled eldest son of some wealthy aristocrat throwing his weight around. At the start of the 18th century Britain was a secondary power, dynastically unstable, punching above its weight and yet to establish itself as a leading military power, primarily in the form of the Royal navy by which it was able to develop and serve its colonial possessions. While the country’s wealth grew, there was much incompetence. The first decade of the long French war was marked by dismal military failure on the continent. It was only when Nelson had destroyed the French fleet at the Nile and Abercromby defeated the army that Bonaparte abandoned in Alexandria that the tide began gradually to turn. Trafalgar set the seal on British naval dominance and only from 1809 did Wellington enjoy fairly continuous success in the Peninsular, a campaign on which Napoleon turned his back to pursue his ends in central Europe. Ultimately, the allies together brought about his downfall.
Louis XVIII was not merely the ‘preferred’ king, he was, for better or worse, France’s legitimate monarch and legitimacy was what the victorious powers wished to restore in the wake of 20 years war. As it is, the French before too long dismissed the Bourbons for good - and it is worth bearing in mind that shortly after another Bonaparte had been installed on the throne of France, following the successful allied effort in the Crimea, with France the major and more efficient, if prodigal, partner, a diplomatic crisis in 1859 once again generated revived fears, if somewhat hysterical, of a French invasion of England. Cue the Rifle Volunteers. Forty years later there was a further and final crisis over Fashoda. Seventy years after Waterloo, the spirit of Franco-British colonial rivalry was strong as ever. Since then it has all been sweetness and light.
It is simple, in my view. It was about trade/money and a perceivced sense of a threat to national security, which is usually the cause of most wars.
I actually feel like these are a couple of different questions mixed into one. One would be why Britain felt the need to interfere on the continent at all, being in their rather secure geographical position.
Another would be why they felt threatened or saw a reason to interfere at certain times.
Personally, without knowing much (or anything, actually 😗) about internal British politics, I always figured it was a mixture of a very conservative society reacting to social upheavals that might threaten the status quo, and the old principle of a "balance of power" on the continent (which is the 18th century English translation of "divide et impera" - just make sure they're always at each others' throats, so we don't need to worry about anything going on in our back and have both hands free). It made the British, that's my impression, rather disliked all over the continent, even among their nominal allies (possible exception Prussia, and of course their "continental vassal state" Portugal).
But it's truly an interesting question. I would also love to know in how far the British government was involved in all the assassination attempts on Napoleon Bonaparte during the consulate. I understand Georges Cadoudal lived in Britain, had contact with British agents and was transported back to France on a British vessel?
I am also curious as to why the British and the Prussians felt that they had to fight Napoleon again in 1815 after his return to power? Napoleon wasn't fixing for a fight as far as I know. In fact France was tired of war. France was no longer occupying vast swathes of Europe either. What was really at stake?You must be joking, Boney at large again, after almost devastating whole Europe, for sure there was a reason the fight this git, and whole Europe stood against him, not only the Brits and Prussians. At stake was the just established peace after bloody wars from 1792 - 1814.
I think there isn't a single Why.
On my website, it's in german, I recently added articles about peace negociations. And those give a good insight what the intentions might have been. Things were discussed in parliament as well in newspapers. And there was also debat about the alliances, discussion on the need to subsidize foreign powers.
And then there are the allegations from the french government to oppose all these british goals.