British-French colonial conflict
The British-French colonial conflict or British-French colonial war was an almost uninterrupted global colonial war for global supremacy between the two world powers at the time, the French Empire and the British Empire of the United Kingdom and their respective allies, from 1792 to 1814 .
France, which had lost almost all of its colonies to other great powers as a result of the French Revolution between 1792 and 1800, tried under Emperor Napoleon I after the first coalition wars not only in mainland Europe but also worldwide to establish and establish the supremacy of the empire founded in 1804 to enlarge his colonial empire again. Great Britain, which after the French occupation of Spain and Portugal was the only remaining colonial power not dependent on France, tried to counter this. The height of the war marked the year 1812. France had overtaken Great Britain and had become the world's strongest colonial power. The defeat of Napoleon in the Russian campaign in 1812 , however, marked the rapid decline of the French Empire and the final defeat of France in 1814.
Today this colonial war is one of the greatest conflicts of the 19th century and was part of the coalition wars in the overseas territories.
prehistory
At the beginning of the 17th century, America in particular was the main objective of colonization for France . In North America, it claimed what is now Canada , the entire central region of the United States, as well as some Caribbean islands and part of India . The Peace of Paris at the end of the Seven Years' War forced France to cede most of its American and Indian possessions to Great Britain ; West Louisiana had previously given it to the allied Spain so as not to let it fall into British hands.
Due to the heavy defeat in the war and the loss of other colonies, such as that of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in 1783, France considered concentrating on mainland Europe. The country conquered the Austrian Netherlands in the course of the French Revolution in 1794 and occupied parts of Italy in the Italian campaign in 1795 . Despite the victories, France was not yet claiming any new colonies. This attitude changed when Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in 1799.
Course of war
From 1800 to 1812
In the shadow of the coalition wars in Europe, Great Britain occupied almost all of the Dutch colonies . In 1795 the Cape Colony and after the sea battle at Camperduin in 1797, lost for the Netherlands, Ceylon was occupied by the British.
In 1800, France-occupied Spain was forced by Napoleon to cede its stake in Louisiana to France ( Secret Treaty of San Ildefonso , October 1, 1800). The approximately 2.1 million km² territory was sold to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 for 80 million francs (15 million dollars).
After the sale, the Haitian Revolution broke out at Saint-Domingue . The newly formed Haiti Empire was occupied by the Grande Armée together with Santo Domingo, which is still in fact still Spanish . The entire island of Hispaniola was again part of the French colonial empire this time. After occupying the island, France began to gain a foothold in Africa from 1805. The Grande Armée invaded Benin and took possession of the coast for France. In 1805 Senegal was officially taken over. The longstanding conflict over the British colony of Gambia flared up again. Before that, the British had tried to occupy Benin from Nigeria .
In order to compete with the French, Great Britain expanded its colonial empire rapidly in 1806. In Canada , the British Army began exploring new areas inland and the Cape Colony was occupied and annexed by the Royal Navy . In the same year France occupied Gabon . So that the new French colonies would not be lost again to other great powers, Napoleon concluded a military and economic alliance with the previously neutral Ottoman Empire ( Franco-Ottoman Alliance ) and Persia ( Franco-Persian Alliance ). As a result, Britain became increasingly isolated in foreign policy and seemed paralyzed. Napoleon took advantage of this and surprisingly had the Cape Colony and Ceylon occupied. The occupations did not encounter any resistance worth mentioning. In retaliation, the British only occupied the island of Martinique . The tide turned when Russia left the continental blockade in 1810, a sanction designed to ruin Britain economically. France reacted indignantly and annexed the satellite state of Holland , which had previously been ruled as a kingdom by Louis Bonaparte and, much to France's displeasure, had not participated in the continental blockade. The conflict flared up again with full severity.
Russian campaign of 1812
On the eve of the Russian campaign in 1812, the French Empire reached its greatest expansion. After the annexation of Catalonia, the monarchy had an area of around 2,500,000 km² and touched every continent on the globe. Great Britain, still weakened, achieved its military capabilities with the battles for the Coromandel Coast in India and Ceylon . France, on the other hand, had the Grandé Army, around 1.5 million soldiers strong and well-equipped multiethnic army. Emperor Napoleon I provided around 250,000 soldiers against the British for the rebuilding of French India .
After long preparations and the opinion that France no longer needed Russia as an ally in Europe, the Russian campaign began on June 24, 1812 . The emperor expected a quick victory, his strategic goal was to put the main Russian forces in battle and to defeat them as soon as possible. The advance ended by bad weather and swamps but in October 1812. The subsequent retreat from Moscow and the beginning of the Sixth Coalition War bound France to mainland Europe.
The End
With the Sixth Coalition War, France lost control of almost all of its colonies. The uncoordinated Grande Armée was driven out or captured by the British in the occupied colonies. The Cape Colony and Ceylon had to be left to the British in 1812. With the loss of Spain and the associated end of the Napoleonic Wars on the Iberian Peninsula , France lost its last great ally in the struggle overseas. Liberated Spain occupied Hispaniola and restored Haiti's independence. The Kingdom of Portugal , liberated by the British in 1811, occupied Cape Verde and took it back into possession.
More colonies were lost in 1813 and 1814. Before the campaign of 1814, France only had its African colonies and New Caledonia .
With the abdication of Napoleon I, France had to cede the Ionian Islands , Malta , the Seychelles , Mauritius , St. Lucia and Tobago to Great Britain in accordance with the conditions negotiated at the Congress of Vienna . The British received Trinidad from Spain, and Guiana and the Cape Colony from the liberated Netherlands, which briefly took over their colonies again . In return, the British returned Guadeloupe , Martinique , Gorée , French Guiana and Réunion to France, and Java and Suriname to the Netherlands - territories they had occupied during the coalition wars.
aftermath
After the Congress of Vienna and the final defeat of Napoleon , the French colonial empire consisted of only a few islands and exclaves in Africa in 1815. The Grande Armée had largely withdrawn from the African colonies and New Caledonia in 1814 on the instructions of the Congress of Vienna. In 1816 the British Empire had become the undisputed strongest colonial empire. The rivalry between the two states continued. This peaked in the Faschoda crisis in 1898 .
Beginning with the conquest of Algeria in 1830, France again established a colonial empire, which in the age of imperialism comprised around a third of Africa. That of Napoleon III. The ruled Second Empire was able to trump the First Empire in terms of colonies, but in Europe it could not match the size of Napoleonic France.
literature
- Wm. Roger Louis (Ed.): The Oxford History of the British Empire . Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 1998–1999. 5 volumes:
- Volume II: PJ Marshall (Ed.): The Eighteenth Century . 1998, ISBN 0-19-924677-7 .
- Volume III: Andrew Porter (Ed.): The Nineteenth Century . 1998, ISBN 0-19-924678-5 .
- François de Dainville, Jean Tulard (ed.): Atlas administratif de l'Empire français: d'après l'atlas rédigé par ordre du duc de Feltre en 1812. Genève a. a. 1973.