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The 'Second Hundred Years' War' is a phrase used by some historians to describe the series of military conflicts between the Kingdom of Great Britain and France that occurred from about 1689 to 1815. Like the Hundred Years' War, this term does not describe a single military event but a persistent general state of war 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's colonial empires.
The various wars between the two states during the eighteenth century usually involved other European countries in large alliances; but except for the War of the Quadruple Alliance, France and Britain always opposed one another. Some of the wars, such as the Seven Years' War, have been considered world wars and included battles in the growing colonies in India, the Americas, and ocean shipping routes around the globe.

Contents

Summary of the trend

"Carthage" and "Rome"

Wars included in the extended conflict

See also

Footnotes

References

Summary of the trend

The series of wars began with the accession of William III as King of England in the Revolution of 1688. The later Stuarts, as converts to Roman Catholicism, had sought friendly terms with Louis XIV. James I and Charles I, both Protestants, had avoided involvement as much as possible in the Thirty Years' War; they, too, had sought peaceful terms with France during the seventeenth century. 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 Jacobites who sought to overthrow the later Stuarts and, after 1715, the Hanoverians.^[1]
After William III, the opposition of France and Britain shifted from religion to economy and trade: the two states vied for colonial domination in the Americas and Asia. The Seven Years' War was one of the greatest and most decisive conflicts.
The military rivalry continued with British opposition of the French Revolution and the ensuing wars with first the new Republic and then the First Empire of Napoleon. His defeat in 1813 at the Battle of Leipzig, followed in 1815 by the Hundred Days and the second defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, effectively ended the recurrent war between France and Britain. The recurrent rhetoric used in each country shifted from references to a "natural enemy" to an agreement to tolerate one another. After another century, the two were able to establish the Entente Cordiale, demonstrating that the "first" and "second" Hundred Years' Wars were in the past; cultural differences continued, but violent conflict was over.

"Carthage" and "Rome"

Many in France argued against Britain with the nickname "Perfidious Albion," criticizing Anglo-Saxons as an untrustworthy people. They compared Britain and France to ancient Carthage and Rome, with the former being cast as a greedy imperialist state that collapsed, while the latter was an intellectual and cultural capital that flourished:

The republicans knew as well as the Bourbons that British control of the oceans weighed in Continental power politics, and that France could not dominate Europe without destroying Britain. "Carthage"—vampire, tyrant of the seas, "perfidious" enemy and bearer of a corrupting commercial civilization—contrasted with "Rome", bearer of universal order, philosophy and selfless values.^[2]

This classical association served the French because, of course, Rome defeated Carthage. It was in keeping with contemporary views that the two peoples were intrinsically different and could not come to peaceful resolutions; war was the only way to solve their differences. France was Britain's "natural enemy", but Britain was France's greatest impediment in dominating Europe.

Wars included in the extended conflict

★ French and Indian Wars (1688–1763)

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★ King William's War (1688–1697)

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★ Queen Anne's War (1702–1713)

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★ King George's War (1744–1748)

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★ French and Indian War (1754–1763)

★ Nine Years War (1688–1697)

★ War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713)

★ War of the Austrian Succession (1742–1748)

★ Seven Years' War (1756–1763)

★ American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)

★ French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1802)

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★ War of the First Coalition (1793–1797)

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★ War of the Second Coalition (1798–1801)

★ Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815)

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★ Peninsular War (1808–1814)

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★ Hundred Days (1815)

See also

★ Anglo-French relations

★ France-Habsburg rivalry

★ French-German enmity

★ Perfidious Albion

Footnotes

1. Claydon, ''William III''
2. Tombs, ''That Sweet Enemy'', p. 208.

References

★ Blanning, T. C. W. ''The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660-1789''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

★ Buffinton, Arthur H. ''The Second Hundred Years' War, 1689-1815''. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1929.

★ Claydon, Tony. ''William III''. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited, 2002.

★ Crouzet, Francois. "The Second Hundred Years War: Some Reflections." ''French History'' 10 (1996), pp. 432-450.

★ Scott, H. M. Review: "The Second 'Hundred Years War' 1689-1815." ''The Historical Journal'' 35 (1992), pp. 443-469. (A collection of reviews of articles on the Anglo-French wars of the period, grouped under this heading)

★ Tombs, Robert and Isabelle. ''That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present.'' London: William Heinemann, 2006.