Imperial Rivalries of the Long Eighteenth Century

wolfe

 

What drove imperial expansion?
16th/17th c and 18th c compared

I. Nation building

fiscal military states > modern nation states

A. Britain

Stuarts > Glorious Revolution/ Wm of Orange (1688) > Hanoverian succession (1714): GI, GII, GIII, GIV. . .
-no Catholic on the English throne!

Act of Union (1707): United Kingdom of Great Britain

Ireland: conquest, penal laws, rise of the Ascendancy

British Empire: Caribbean; North America; India (Madras, Bombay, Fort William) [map]

Britishness: free, Protestant, island nation, commercial

 

B. France

Bourbons: ancien regime (absolutism); Catholic

French Empire: Caribbean; New France - traders and missionaries, metis; India (Surat, Masulipatam, Chandernagore, Pondicherry) [map]

 

II. wars, 1690-1815

-territorial claims within Europe
-dynastic claims [European dynasties]
-trading claims
-national prestige

 

1689-1697

War of the League of Augsburg

William & allies vs. Louis XIV

King William's War Treaty of Ryswick
1701-1713

War of the Spanish Succession
death of King Ch II of Spain (1700)
first British troops in N America (1711)

Grand Alliance vs. Louis XIV

Queen Anne’s War Treaty of Utrecht: Gibraltar, Minorca, St. Kitts, Acadia, Hudson Bay, asiento
1739-1748

War of Jenkins Ear and War of the Austrian Succession [image]

death of Ch VI, HRE (1740)
Frederick II of Prussia; Silesia
Captain Robert Jenkins
Georgia (James Oglethorpe)
continental strategy
France, Prussia, Spain, Bavaria & Saxony vs. Austria, Britain, the Netherlands

 King George’s War Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle: status quo ante bellum
1756-1763

Seven Years War

Caribbean trade
North America: settlement or fur trade?
diplomatic revolution

French & Indian War Treaty of Paris: Minorca, Grenada, Domenica, St. Vincent, Tobago, New France, Cape Breton Island, Florida, n. America east of the Miss, Senegal, Bengal
1775-1783  War of American Independence American Revolution Treaty of Versailles

 

vernon

 

1738 Jenkins displays his ear to the Hosue of Commons
1739 (Oct) Britain declares war on Spain
1740 death of HRE Charles VI; succession of Maria Theresa (r. 1740-1780) [Pragmatic Sanction of 1713]
Frederick II (r. 1740-1786) of Prussia invades Silesia
Prussia, France, Spain, Bavaria, and Saxony vs. Austria, Great Britain, and the Netherlands
1742 collapse of the anti-Austrian alliances when Prussia concludes a separate peace with Austria: MT recognizes Prussia's conquest of Silesia
1745 Frederick, having re-entered the war to ensure his conquest of Silesia, drops out again

British troops and the Massachusetts militia capture Louisbourg
British naval action disrupts French Caribbean trade

1746 the French take Madras from the British
1748

Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle: Prussia retains Silesia but all other conquests restored to their former owners

recognition of:
MT's right to inherit Hapsburg domains
Francis I (MT's husband) as HRE
British claims to Hanoverian lands
Prussia's emergence as a great power