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TheSecond Hundred Years' War is a term ofperiodization, or a historical era designation, coined byJ. R. Seeley in his workThe Expansion of England (1883).[1] This term has been used to describe the series ofmilitary conflicts betweenGreat Britain andFrance that occurred from about 1689 (or 1714) to 1815.[2] These included several distinct wars such as theNine Years' War, theWar of the Spanish Succession, theWar of the Austrian Succession, theSeven Years' War, theAmerican Revolutionary War, and theFrench Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
This concept has not been widely accepted in academia and has been challenged by somehistorians, who question whether it accurately reflects the complex and distinct conflicts between Britain and France during that period.[3][4][5] The Second Hundred Years' War is named after theHundred Years' War, which occurred in the 14th and 15th centuries.
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Like theHundred Years' War, this term does not describe a single military event but a persistent general state ofwar between the two primary belligerents. The use of the phrase as an overarching category indicates the interrelation of all the wars as components of the rivalry between France and Britain for world power. It was a war between and over the future of each state'scolonial empires.
The two countries remained continual antagonists even as their national identities underwent significant evolution. Great Britain was not a single state until 1707, prior to which it was the separate kingdoms ofEngland andScotland, albeit with a shared Crown and military establishment. In 1801, Britain was united with theKingdom of Ireland to form theUnited Kingdom. The period also saw Franceunder the Bourbon dynasty, the regimes of theFrench Revolution and theFirst Empire.
The various wars between the two states during the 18th century usually involved other European countries in large alliances; except for theWar of the Quadruple Alliance when they were bound by theAnglo-French Alliance, France and Britain always opposed one another.[citation needed] Some of the wars, such as theSeven Years' War, have been consideredworld wars and included battles in the growing colonies inIndia, theAmericas, and ocean shipping routes around the globe.
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The series of wars began with the accession of theDutchWilliam III asKing of England in theRevolution of 1688. TheStuarts had sought friendly terms withLouis XIV:James I andCharles I, bothProtestants, had avoided involvement as much as possible in theThirty Years' War, whileCharles II and theCatholic convertJames II had even actively supported Louis XIV in hisWar against the Dutch Republic. William III, however, sought to oppose Louis XIV's Catholic regime and styled himself as a Protestant champion. Tensions continued in the following decades, during which France protected and supportedJacobites who sought to overthrow the later Stuarts and, after1715, theHanoverians.[6] The principal Anglo-French conflicts in this time period were theNine Years' War and theWar of Spanish Succession. The war of Spanish Succession saw Britain begin its ascendancy as a commercial and naval power, but after thePeace of Utrecht, the two formed anAnglo-French alliance, their interests converging as they wished to prevent the rise of Spanish or Russian power. The alliance soon fell apart, and the two countries soon became bitter rivals once again.
After William III, the rivalry between the two countries shifted from being primarily about religion to being primarily about trade, colonies, and maintaining a balance of power. The primary conflicts in this time period between Britain and France were, in order:The War of the Austrian Succession,The Carnatic Wars,The Seven Years' War, and theAmerican Revolutionary War. By the end of the Seven Years war, Britain decisively overtook France as Europe's greatest power, destroying French colonial power in India and North America. Yet France took advantage ofAmerican Revolutionary War to undermine British colonial hegemony in North America by supporting the rebellious colonists with both men and material, but debts from that conflict in turn sowed the economic seeds of France's ownrevolution shortly thereafter.
The outbreak of theFrench Revolutionary Wars led to a renewed period of conflict between Britain and France, the latter now under the control of arepublican government. The British led a pan-European coalition which opposed the French in the wars of thefirst,second,third,fourth,fifth andsixth coalitions. Despite Britain's allies in the Coalition suffering repeated defeats at French hands, British naval successes against the French, which deprived France of large parts of theFrench colonial empire, helped ensure the continued existence of further coalitions during theNapoleonic Wars. The final defeat ofNapoleon in theBattle of Waterloo led to his abdication and exile, and effectively ended the recurrent conflict between France and Britain, with Britain decisively affirming its naval, imperial, and colonial supremacy over France for the foreseeable future. The British goal of restoring the French monarchy was confirmed by theTreaty of Paris and the subsequentCongress of Vienna.[7]
After the end of theFrench Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, direct conflict between France and Britain came to an end, as both countries focused on expanding their colonial empires and consolidating influence in their respectivespheres of influence. The two nations fought on the same side in theGreek War of Independence and theCrimean War, reflecting an increasing level of alignment in British and French foreign policies concerning Europe.[8] During thefin de siècle period, growing levels of fear in both nations over the growing power of theGerman Empire (which wasestablished in 1871 as a result of theFranco-Prussian War) led to theEntente Cordiale, a rapprochement in Anglo-French relations marked by a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904. The Entente Cordial also resolved colonial disputes between Britain and France, and marked the definitive end of almost a thousand years of intermittent conflict, and replaced themodus vivendi that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 with a more formal agreement.[9]
| Ruler | Reign |
|---|---|
| QueenMary II | 1689–1694 |
| King William III | 1689–1702 |
| Queen Anne | 1702–1714 |
| King George I | 1714–1727 |
| King George II | 1727–1760 |
| KingGeorge III | 1760–1820 |
| Ruler | Reign |
|---|---|
| KingLouis XIV | 1643–1715 |
| KingLouis XV | 1715–1774 |
| KingLouis XVI | 1774–1792 |
| National Convention | 1792–1795 |
| Directory | 1795–1799 |
| First Consul Bonaparte→Emperor Napoleon I | 1799–1814; 1815 |
| KingLouis XVIII | 1814–1815; 1815–1824 |
The paradigm of the "Second Hundred Years War" is amply commented and criticized by Scott 1992 and Crouzet 1996.