PC/WI: Keep the UK out of the French Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars1

But, the whole British "reasoning" was just a national paranoia based on an irrational assumption that possession of the Austrian Netherlands immediately enables (and even forces) someone to invade Britain.

Ecuador the British have an u derstanding of the prevailing winds and river trade in the North Sea it is actually an existential threat.


Why would they believe that the French would withdraw and not annex the Austrian Netherlands especially once the French have already occupied them?

Especially as it has been a French objective since the war of devolution.
 
Ecuador the British have an u derstanding of the prevailing winds and river trade in the North Sea it is actually an existential threat..

I was not aware of the fact that Britain (or even its trade) ceased to exist between 1792 and 1814 when France hold Belgium. Not sure how Ecuador got into the picture. :cool:
 
I was not aware of the fact that Britain (or even its trade) ceased to exist between 1792 and 1814 when France hold Belgium. Not sure how Ecuador got into the picture. :cool:

Tolerable while a state of war continued, so that we could keep the French fleet in its proper place, ie at the bottom of the sea. That's a different thing from letting them keep it indefinitely after the peace.

For Pete's sake, a century later we were jittery enough about the German HSF at Kiel, which is a lot further way than Antwerp.
 
Tolerable while a state of war continued, so that we could keep the French fleet in its proper place, ie at the bottom of the sea. That's a different thing from letting them keep it indefinitely after the peace.

For Pete's sake, a century later we were jittery enough about the German HSF at Kiel, which is a lot further way than Antwerp.

Sorry, but not being British, I can't feel that logic convincing. Attacking someone who is not at war with you just because in the case of war (in which they are not interested) it may do you some harm (quite limited because you still have a superior navy) and on the top of it pushing other countries into the war in which they did not have any real interest, just because they have trade relations with you.

BTW, circa 1792 Antwerp was not even quite operational and remained so until Napoleon spent a lot of money on cleaning its access to the sea.
 
Sorry, but not being British, I can't feel that logic convincing. Attacking someone who is not at war with you just because in the case of war (in which they are not interested) it may do you some harm (quite limited because you still have a superior navy) and on the top of it pushing other countries into the war in which they did not have any real interest, just because they have trade relations with you.

BTW, circa 1792 Antwerp was not even quite operational and remained so until Napoleon spent a lot of money on cleaning its access to the sea.


Not sure what you're driving at.

Have you evidence that Britain did not in fact regard French possession of Antwerp as dangerous? If not, then it doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether the belief was well-founded or not. If it was believed, then it would be acted on.
 
Not sure what you're driving at.

Have you evidence that Britain did not in fact regard French possession of Antwerp as dangerous?

It most definitely regarded it as dangerous even when the port was almost unusable. But Britain also considered Russian presence in the Central Asia as a danger to their possessions in India (more than 1000 miles away). The issue is not existence or absence of a fear but its foundation in a reality. If the fear is based on something real (for example, clear aggression) it is a good excuse for an action. If it is just fear for fear's sake, it is paranoia.
 
It most definitely regarded it as dangerous even when the port was almost unusable. But Britain also considered Russian presence in the Central Asia as a danger to their possessions in India (more than 1000 miles away). The issue is not existence or absence of a fear but its foundation in a reality. If the fear is based on something real (for example, clear aggression) it is a good excuse for an action. If it is just fear for fear's sake, it is paranoia.

If so it was a remarkably long-lived paranoia, apparently shared by virtually every British government and people from Louis XIV's day through WW1 - a span of over two centuries!

Personally, I find it easier to assume that those concerned were correct in their assumptions, whatever someone or other with a couple of centuries hindsight may choose to believe. But in any case the point is moot. If that is what just about everyone did believe at the time, then that was what would determine their actions. Postmortems to the contrary are irrelevant.

Of course, even if they were wrong about Antwerp, it doesn't change the fact that France - whether ruled by Republicans, Royalists, Bonapartists or Seventh Day Adventists - was still Britain's biggest imperial rival, so we'd still have an interest in preventing it from making major gains of territory and power, even if the port of Antwerp had never existed.

BTW, wasn't it Napoleon who referred to Antwerp as a pistol pointed at the heart of England? If this notion was merely British paranoia, how did a Corsican general, who never set foot in Britain in his life, come to share it?
 
I was not aware of the fact that Britain (or even its trade) ceased to exist between 1792 and 1814 when France hold Belgium. Not sure how Ecuador got into the picture. :cool:

Because river trade up the Rhine is not interdicable by the RN and allows the establishment of an Arsenal at Antwerp.
 
If so it was a remarkably long-lived paranoia, apparently shared by virtually every British government and people from Louis XIV's day through WW1 - a span of over two centuries!

And what's so unusual about that? Paranoia about the Russian conquest of India lasted for only a slightly shorter period of time but was it rational? Or, for objectivity sake, Soviet paranoia about rest of the world trying to "get them" lasted for 70 years (and, it seems that it is still alive in post-Soviet Russia so it is a century old and keeps going).

IIRC, during the reign of Louis XIV at least initial paranoia was about Dunkirk, not Belgium and, anyway, why Belgium? France had quite a few ports reasonably suitable for the invasion while Antwerp was held out of circulation by the Dutch and, due to the natural reasons, was almost nonfunctional until Napoleon invested huge resources into it restoration.



Personally, I find it easier to assume that those concerned were correct in their assumptions, whatever someone or other with a couple of centuries hindsight may choose to believe. But in any case the point is moot. If that is what just about everyone did believe at the time, then that was what would determine their actions. Postmortems to the contrary are irrelevant.

Completely agree with that.

Of course, even if they were wrong about Antwerp, it doesn't change the fact that France - whether ruled by Republicans, Royalists, Bonapartists or Seventh Day Adventists - was still Britain's biggest imperial rival, so we'd still have an interest in preventing it from making major gains of territory and power, even if the port of Antwerp had never existed.

Pure imperialism is logical and quite understandable and, as you wrote, has nothing to do with Antwerp or Belgium.

BTW, wasn't it Napoleon who referred to Antwerp as a pistol pointed at the heart of England? If this notion was merely British paranoia, how did a Corsican general, who never set foot in Britain in his life, come to share it?

Sorry, but sequence of the events is wrong: Britain was at war with France and already subsidized a couple of coalitions before Bonaparte became Napoleon. BTW, Nappy wanted peace with Britain. On his conditions, to be sure, but without any damage to the British colonial empire.
 
Because river trade up the Rhine is not interdicable by the RN and allows the establishment of an Arsenal at Antwerp.

And (just out of curiosity) how exactly Ecuador got into the picture? AFAIK, it was far away from the Rhine. :)

Arsenal in Antwerp could be established but the port was almost dysfunctional (population shrunk down to 40,000) until 1800 when Napoleon started a major project of its revival which was not finished during his rule.
 
Sorry, but sequence of the events is wrong: Britain was at war with France and already subsidized a couple of coalitions before Bonaparte became Napoleon.


How does this make the slightest difference to whether or not he believed that Antwerp was a pistol pointed at the heart of England? And if this seemed credible to him, why should it seem any less so to the British government?
 
How does this make the slightest difference to whether or not he believed that Antwerp was a pistol pointed at the heart of England? And if this seemed credible to him, why should it seem any less so to the British government?

Ah, you used the key word, "believing". ;)

As I said from the very beginning, positive answer to the question of how to keep Britain out of the Revolutionary Wars is in Brits not "believing" that a danger of invasion from Belgium is an imminent threat and not doing things that make it a self-fulfilling prophesy. I said nothing about such a change of perception being realistically possible. Without the ASBs it was not.

However, if for a moment we assume that Britain IS (by whatever reason) is neutral, why would Nappy start making statements like that? Just because he would think that invasion of Britain can be done just for fun?
 
Ah, you used the key word, "believing". ;)

As I said from the very beginning, positive answer to the question of how to keep Britain out of the Revolutionary Wars is in Brits not "believing" that a danger of invasion from Belgium is an imminent threat and not doing things that make it a self-fulfilling prophesy. I said nothing about such a change of perception being realistically possible. Without the ASBs it was not.

Well, on that last point, at least, we can agree. It certainly is ASB.

OTOH, there might be another way to achieve British neutrality. If the French are less successful vis a vis Austria, and never get into the Austrian Netherlands in the first place, then Britain has no reason to intervene. Still a relatively low probability, but not ASB.
 
Well, on that last point, at least, we can agree. It certainly is ASB.

OTOH, there might be another way to achieve British neutrality. If the French are less successful vis a vis Austria, and never get into the Austrian Netherlands in the first place, then Britain has no reason to intervene. Still a relatively low probability, but not ASB.

Taking into an account general British attitude toward France, I doubt that anything short of a complete French defeat would prevent Britain from interfering under one pretext or another.

As for not getting into the Austrian Netherlands, what options the Revolutionary French had (unless they are defeated, of course)? Just stop on a border giving Austrians time to recuperate and attack again at the time of their choice? Wouldn't such strategy look more than a little bit stupid?

BTW, why was it OK for Austria to have Belgium?
 

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BTW, why was it OK for Austria to have Belgium?

Because Austria was weaker than France, and because of its geography could never use Antwerp with the same effect as the French or even the Dutch could.

And because when Austrian-ruled Belgium did make a bid to become a commercial threat (the Ostend Company), Britain told them to shut it down and the Austrians folded like a blanket.
 
Because Austria was weaker than France, and because of its geography could never use Antwerp with the same effect as the French or even the Dutch could.

And because when Austrian-ruled Belgium did make a bid to become a commercial threat (the Ostend Company), Britain told them to shut it down and the Austrians folded like a blanket.

That's true (and the question was a provocation) but, as you hopefully agree, still reflects rather a "preventive" mindset than reaction to a real danger: France had more than one port of its own to be used against Britain and in OTL the works on re-making Antwerp into to 1st class port started in 1800 and did not end by 1814 so it hardly could be considered a clear and present danger.

This is why I said at the very beginning that with the mindset prevailing at that time in Britain a prolonged peace with Revolutionary/Napoleonic France was impossible. With the Old Regime and general peace in Europe Britain was not in a good position to do something against France outside the colonial zone but French Revolution was something like a (excuse for the comparison) a hand grenade thrown into a latrine: <you know what> was all over the place and Britain could safely join the general fun. ;)
 
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