War of Jenkins ear France intervenes

WI du7ring the war of Jenkins ear France supported Spain and declared war on Englandf. In otl if France had joined spain the combined franco Spanish fleet would outnumber the british heavily. At the same time lets say they intervene after the battle of cartagenia de indias when the British fleet gets destroyed by the Spanish.
How would the war progress and what would French intervention do to the war between Spain and Britain.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
I like this war... it's the only war I actually find somewhat funny on the face of it...:D


Is that bad of me?:eek:
 
WI du7ring the war of Jenkins ear France supported Spain and declared war on Englandf. In otl if France had joined spain the combined franco Spanish fleet would outnumber the british heavily. At the same time lets say they intervene after the battle of cartagenia de indias when the British fleet gets destroyed by the Spanish.
How would the war progress and what would French intervention do to the war between Spain and Britain.

By the time news of the completion of the Battle of Cartagena de Indias in early May 1741 (the big one you reference, in which the British fleet was heavily damaged) reached Europe, France had already joined the War of the Austrian Succession on the Prussian side under the Breslau Treaty in early June. As Hanover - in personal union with Great Britain - was already fighting on the Austrian side, this inevitably dragged Great Britain into the continental war and France into the colonial war; though we don't really talk about it as such, the conquest of Louisbourg by the Thirteen Colonies was really at the time considered an extension of the campaigns for Jenkins' Ear, rather than as a separate war.

The French naval focus in this period was on their Indian interests, and their fleet did actually score several victories against the British in that theater, including the conquest of Madras, and they also scored strategic victories against the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean. Further, there was a failed French-backed invasion of Scotland as part of the Austrian Succession War in Europe. Furthermore, the same treaty which ended the Austrian Succession War between Great Britain and France (and various other powers) also concluded the Jenkins' Ear conflict with Spain.

From 1741 forward, though the wars rarely directly interacted with each other, Jenkins' Ear pretty much was an extension of the war in Europe, and one can hardly count the conquest of Madras, Anglo-French clashes in the German frontier and an invasion of the British home nations as a lack of French involvement.

To really get a different result, what you need to look into is how to get the French to commit to an American strategy rather than an Indian one, which is a rather tall order considering the relative profit margins.
 
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