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When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

theatlantic.com

41–50 of 108 posts

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#41
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would have been other allies most probably if it were not for France.

Well you would have had to have a similar revolution to the French revolution and not sure if any other countries are good candidates. More to the point if George III had wanted to recover the lost colonies as much as he was anti catholic - the war of 1812 might well gone very differently.

The French Revolution post dates the American one and without French support the American Revolution would have failed. The French monarchy spent so much money supporting the Americans it basically bankrupted them and without naval support the Royal Navy would have had a much easier time moving troops.

> The expanded French fleet, in combination with the Spanish, outnumbered the British one and was able to temporarily gain sufficient command of the Atlantic to prevent Lord Cornwallis and a large British army, besieged by George Washington and 5,800 French regulars at Yorktown on the Chesapeake Bay in 1781, from being evacuated or reinforced by sea, forcing Cornwallis to surrender. This was the decisive battle of the war that ended with the Peace of Paris in 1783. Washington himself handsomely acknowledged the significance of the French contribution in a letter to Admiral De Grasse in which he said, “You will have observed that whatever efforts are made by the land armies, the navy must have the casting vote in the present contest” (Lloyd 1965, p. 174). The Canadian historian W. J. Eccles (1987, p. 153) is even more explicit: “French initiative, French tactics, French ships, French guns and men achieved that unexpected and decisive victory. The Americans could not have done it on their own.”

...

> The war also had very severe consequences for France’s much more disorderly fiscal system, where the finance minister Calonne and his predecessor Necker together borrowed over 900 million livres in the decade from 1777 to 1787 (Doyle 1988, pp. 43– 52). The situation was so bad that Calonne informed Louis XVI that no fiscal remedies could be found without a complete overhaul of the society and administrative system of the ancien régime, leading to the summoning of the Estates-General in 1789 and the outbreak of the French Revolution.

Power and Plenty, Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#42

> Marshal Pétain, 84 years old and the great hero of World War I, believed it was his duty to save France from total destruction and accept an armistice with Germany. Britain was doomed, he said, and union would be “fusion with a corpse.” Another minister concluded: “Better be a Nazi province. At least we know what that means.” Reynaud later wrote in his memoirs, “Those who rose in indignation at the idea of union wi…

It only makes any kind of sense in the context of the times. France in the '30s had been run by a left-wing coalition, the Popular Front ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_(France) ), which had put things like the rights of workers and a move away from laissez faire capitalism front and center. The head of that coalition was a Jewish socialist, Léon Blum ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Blum ). Th…

Errm, if I'm understanding that Wiki article right, one of the key factions in the Popular Front was a French communist party that was literally the local affiliate of Russian communism, complete with the usual support for Stalinism. Which wasn't terribly uncommon - part of the reason World War II happened the way it did was that Stalinist communism was a real, genuine threat in much of Europe, and of course much more than that in eastern Europe.

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#44
post #32
post #2

I thought they meant when the King of England was an actual frenchman and French was the upper-class language of the UK.

Or, "How William The Bastard became William The Conqueror"

A more interesting transformation is William of Orange leading "the Dutch invasion of Great Britain" vs "The Glorious Revolution" as we now call it.

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#45

The idea came up again in 1956, during the Suez crisis, though with an alternative option of joining the Commonwealth: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jan/15/france.eu

That would have been a particularly interesting alternative timeline, as right after Eden rejected both of Mollet's proposals France looked firmly to Europe, signed the Treaty of Rome and we know where that led...

A Franco-British Union is (probably) unlikely to have continued with the moves to progress the Coal and Steel Community toward the Treaty of Rome. The alternative play of course would have been a far more Europhile UK within the Franco-British Union.

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#46
post #10

[flagged]

The UK is a country full of hatred, racism and xenophobia. I say this as a Brit. It's not better than France in any way, shape or form. France is not without its issues either though. Both countries need to be better.

> The UK is a country full of hatred, racism and xenophobia

Sure. But where else have you lived?

I'd argue the UK both has a terrible problem with racism and xenophobia, but is also one of the least racist and xenophobic countries in the world. Both the Chancellor and the Mayor of London are brown men with Muslim roots, we had a Jewish prime minister in the 1800s, nearly 15% of the population were born abroad, and London is France's 6th biggest city.

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#48
post #2

I thought they meant when the King of England was an actual frenchman and French was the upper-class language of the UK.

That didn't exactly bring union, despite Norman French being the language of the ruling elite for hundreds of years. That actual Frenchman (William the Conqueror) had a son (Henry I) whose plans for succession tipped us into The Anarchy that was, in part, the Norman French wars of succession and part 15 year civil war.

Not a very unified union. :)

Re: When Britain and France Almost Merged into One Country (2017)

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is a country full of hatred, racism and xenophobia. I say this as a Brit. It's not better than France in any way, shape or form. France is not without its issues either though. Both countries need to be better.

> The UK is a country full of hatred, racism and xenophobia Sure. But where else have you lived? I'd argue the UK both has a terrible problem with racism and xenophobia, but is also one of the least racist and xenophobic countries in the world. Both the Chancellor and the Mayor of London are brown men with Muslim roots, we had a Jewish prime minister in the 1800s, nearly 15% of the population were born abroad, and Lo…

totally agree

Australia is ashamed of how racist it is.

SE Asia is blatantly racist and sees nothing wrong with that.

The USA isn't racist per se - it's just that race is a major factor in everything.

the UK is pretty non-racist as countries go.

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