Britain & the Defeat of France in the Napoleonic Wars

All of the European ruling classes reacted negatively to the French Revolution in the late 1780s; they viewed it as a dangerous precedent for the classes in their own countries who were essentially excluded from the function of governing. Many in England also viewed the events in France with distaste, especially after the experience of the American Revolution a few years earlier. There were strong elements in England which were sympathetic to the Revolution, especially among businessmen who wanted to reshape Parliament in order to increase their representation and decrease the established influence of the Church of England. The Revolution also inspired the Irish, who sought any available opportunity to weaken the British (Palmer & Colton, 1984, p. 367).

The British government had another reason for reacting negatively to the Revolution. By the end of the 18th Century, Britain was the premie

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eon were then free to pursue his dreams of French domination over the Mediterranean and Near East. When he tried to carry out these designs, however, Napoleon was thwarted by the Royal Navy, which defeated the French naval forces and drove them out of the Mediterranean (Weigley, 1991, pp. 321-331). The action which finally ended the open naval war between Britain and France was, of course, the Battle of Trafalgar in October of 1805. By that time, Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor of France and had become open about his ambition to establish French hegemony over all of Europe. He decided that he could only eliminate Britain as an enemy by invading the British Isles and occupying the country. A complex plan involving an alliance of French and Spanish naval forces was destroyed by the British victory at Trafalgar; with it died any hopes of invasion. After Trafalgar, Britain retained supreme control over the seas and Napoleon was forced to accept the fact that he could not ultimately end British opposition to France. Consequently, he could not avoid having to react to British actions in Europe (Weigley, 1991, pp. 331-353; Palmer & Colton, 1984, pp. 394-95). But British naval force could not ultimately defeat the French by i
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Approximate Word count = 2167
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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