Timeline: 1768-1800
1768: France invades the Corsican Republic. Strong Corsican resistance is encountered across the island. The Coriscans receive arms from Britain, Spain and Sardinia.
1769: A British expedition is sent to Corisca, defeating a major French army and prompting a French withdrawal. The island nation's independence is recognized, and it allies itself closely with Britain and Sardinia.
1770: A dispute over ownership of the Falkland isles begins. Spain and France nearly go to war with England, the eventual victor of the crisis. The French King, having refused to defend France against British aggression twice in two years, is highly unpopular with the army.
1772: Lord North rises to power in the English government.
1775: The War of American Independence erupts with the Battle of Lexington. France and Spain begin supporting George Washington's Continental Army with gunpowder.
1776: A failed invasion of Quebec loses the Americans the support of the British public. Although the year started poorly for the Americans, with the Continental army nearly disbanding, the tables turn at the Battle of Trenton.
1777: British forces emerge victorious in Saratoga and Philadelphia. However, the tide soon begins to turn against the British. The French, fearing what appeared to be imminent rebel defeat, entered the war formally. Soon thereafter, Spain follows.
1778: Beginning of the Siege of Gibraltar. The French navy also begins to achieve success in the Caribbean.
1779: The British begin to withdraw forces from the North to reinforces their positions in the Caribbean, achieving many victories but failing to drive the French and Spanish from the Caribbean and failing to definitively defeat the Continental Army.
1780: The Dutch Republic formally enters the war. The British, faced with a potential joint invasion of England, are forced to the bargaining table. The British are forced to grant independence to the 13 colonies, but fail to surrender all territory beyond the Appalachians. The Dutch gained virtually nothing through this treaty, Frances gains were much less than her expenses fighting the war, and Spain's hold on newly gained territories would prove short lived.
1785: Members of the Western Confederacy, in retaliation against American attacks on their villages during their War of Independence, had led attacks on illegal American settlers beyond the Appalachians for five years. Responding to settlers demands of protection, George Washington leads his army into a standoff with the natives. The skirmishes along the border only help drive the natives closer together.
1787: Tensions in the Northwest erupt into all-out war. The Americans are generally defeated. The war prompts the natives to create a formal governing body; representatives from each village meet annually to attempt to solve inter-village disputes and protect their territorial integrity against American aggression.
1789: Tensions in Paris erupt, beginning the French Revolution. France quickly becomes a constitutional monarchy, with the king stripped of almost all of his power and feudalism abolished. Many French nobles have been forced to flee by armed peasantry and urge surrounding countries to support them in counter-revolution; surrounding countries are increasingly fearful of spreading liberalism.
1791: Vermont officially joins the province of Quebec after negotiations with Britain.
1792: With radicals in France urging the spread of the revolution and counter-revolutionaries encouraging invasion of France abroad, war between France and Austria breaks out. Belgium is occupied by the end of the year, as are Savoy and Nice.
1793: The Dutch Republic is drawn into the war on the Austrian side as rumors of French atrocities in Belgium mount. Spain and Portugal also enter the war. The French declare war against Britain soon thereafter. Although pushed out of Belgium, the French policy of internal repression and conscription leaves them in an unexpectedly strong position. The King is executed, and France becomes a Republic.
1794: A revolt in Ireland, backed by the Americans and the French, begins to see moderate success. A French invasion of the Spanish Caribbean is vastly successful, with Hispaniola conquered within the year.
1795: The Irish Revolt is finally crushed. French forces take the Netherlands, establishing a puppet Batavian Republic. Spain exits the war, as does Prussia, which secretly negotiates with France to cede the Rhineland.
1796: The French are bested by joint Corsican-Sardinia forces under the joint command of Napoleon Bonepart, blocking a plan to seize Vienna via the Italian Peninsula. British and Portugese forces, with assistance from a large Russian contigent, land in the Batavian republic, and it is liberated by the end of the year.
1797: France is finally beaten into submission through Coalition invasion of Flanders. Peace is established between Portugal, Britain and France. Belgium and parts of Flanders are incorporated into the Dutch Republic, reformed into a monarchy under William Frederick of Orange-Nassau, as a result of the peace.
1798: Peace is established between Austria and the French Republic. The Austrians are extremely resentful of being deprived of Belgium and abandoned by their allies.