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

theatlantic.com

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

#61

Post by henrikschroder »

hos234 wrote: post #15
tus88 wrote: 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.

They are all related. From Niall Ferguson's- The Square and the Tower "The Times noted in 1863, the history of the Saxe-Coburgs showed ‘how much one success leads to another in Princely life’. Augusta of Saxe-Coburg’s grandchildren included not only both Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, but also Ferdinand, who married the Queen of Portugal, and Leopold’s son, namesake and heir to the Belgian throne. The Saxe-C…

To say that it's the Saxe-Coburgs who rule all of Europe is... charitable. You could claim it's the other way around, after all, pretty much every single European monarch and royal house is somewhere in the British order of succession.

(Norway #73, Yugoslavia #103, Sweden #283, Denmark #321, Greece #565, Spain #699, The Netherlands #1160, Belgium #1345, Luxembourg #1687, Liechtenstein #1916, Romania #4146, etc... There's even a Napoleon in there. And a million German princes.)

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

#62

Post by DonaldFisk »

gerdesj wrote: post #38

Judging by some of the comments here, I perceive a general lack of understanding about how history works 8) The human experience (barring some amusing drug related experiments) generally has things happen first and those things become history. Now, those things are related in some way from past to future and the relation might be fact (ie "true"), false news, wibble or bollocks. That is actually a closed set there -…

Normandy evacuation? Dunkirk is nowhere near Normandy. It's close to the border with Belgium.

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

#63

Post by blaesus »

tus88 wrote: 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.

Especially the "Angevin Empire"[0], when Kings of England also ruled large portions of Kingdom of France.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angevin_Empire

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

#64

Post by Iv »

gerdesj wrote: post #38

Judging by some of the comments here, I perceive a general lack of understanding about how history works 8) The human experience (barring some amusing drug related experiments) generally has things happen first and those things become history. Now, those things are related in some way from past to future and the relation might be fact (ie "true"), false news, wibble or bollocks. That is actually a closed set there -…

I don't know what their source is, but I remember reading about it in one of Charles de Gaulle's book.

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

#65

Post by casefields »

gerdesj wrote: post #38

Judging by some of the comments here, I perceive a general lack of understanding about how history works 8) The human experience (barring some amusing drug related experiments) generally has things happen first and those things become history. Now, those things are related in some way from past to future and the relation might be fact (ie "true"), false news, wibble or bollocks. That is actually a closed set there -…

There’s hyperlinks linking to sources throughout the article.

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

#66

Post by carty76ers »

Merrill wrote: post #54
seisvelas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sincere question here - was it really that lucky? Other colonies that didn't separate seem to have a similar (occasionally even higher) standard of living than the US. Were a lot of really good things caused by the independence of the US? Just off hand, it seems like slavery likely would have ended much sooner and the rise of fascism in Europe could have been greatly abated with a non-independent US. Of course, it's…

The US would not have developed as fast if it had continued to be a British colony. A major cause of the War of Independence was that when Britain took control of the Ohio after the French and Indian War, the crown claimed the right to all negotiations with the Indian tribes and prevented the colonists from buying and/or seizing Indian land in the Ohio River Valley. Recall that Washington had been to the headwaters o…

> As a British Colony, the US would not have been as available to other Europeans, and development would have been slower.

Do you have a source for this? My understanding is that in 1775, the British colonies of America were the fastest growing and most populous of the British empire. So if the war happened, why would this not continue to be the case?

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

#68

Post by ShinTakuya »

war1025 wrote: post #57
ShinTakuya wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. France was both powerful and generous, name a potential ally that could have provided anywhere near the level of support.

Talking about an alternate history where Britain and France got along opens up any number of possibilities, to the point that it's not really worth speculating on.

Sorry, but I think that's a flippant and lazy reply. The reality is that no other major power had a navy that could rival Britain and France. The Dutch and Spanish might have still helped America, but without French opposition the British navy would have wiped them out.

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

#69

Post by emmelaich »

roywiggins wrote: post #8

The deal fell apart at the end of June, and by July the Brits bombed out the French navy (killing 1300) as the French refused to turn it over to the British. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir

Yes! It would not have lasted long.

> a British naval attack on French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers El Kébir on the coast of French Algeria. The bombardment killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleship and damaged five other ships, for a British loss of five aircraft shot down and two crewmen killed.

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

#70

Post by TMWNN »

rsynnott wrote: post #28
maelito wrote: post #22

We shouldn't exclude the possibility of a frexit and then a new union.

Er, yes, we probably should; both are implausible.

Macron admitted in 2018 that the French would probably have voted to leave the EU in a UK-style referendum.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/21/emmanuel-macro...

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