Britain and France
A rivalry fought on two continents
- Rivalry between Britain and France resulted in world wars fought both in Europe and in the colonies, with Britain supplanting France as the greatest European power.
- The CED calls them world wars, in the eighteenth century, and the phrase is deliberate.
- A war fought simultaneously in Europe, North America and Asia is settled by whoever can sustain all three theatres.
The CED calls the Anglo-French conflicts...
Fought both in Europe and in the colonies.
The economic consequence
- Sustaining three theatres requires borrowing on a scale neither state had attempted before.
- Britain's financial institutions — 3.3's new practices, developed further — let it borrow more cheaply for longer.
- So the economic consequence of the rivalry is partly a test of fiscal systems, and one system passed.
The CED's verdict is that Britain ____ France as the greatest European power.
A political fact with a date.
The political consequence
- Britain supplanting France as the greatest European power is the CED's own verdict, and it is a political fact with a date.
- For France, the same wars left a debt that 5.4 will name among the revolution's short-term fiscal causes.
- So one state's victory and another's revolution have the same origin, which is the most useful sentence in this subtopic.
Military, economic, or the political outcome?
Sort each element of the Anglo-French rivalry.
Britain could borrow more cheaply partly because...
The fiscal outcome traces back to 3.8's forms of political power.
One state's victory and the other's revolution have the same origin. The wars that made Britain the greatest European power left France with the debt the CED names among the revolution's short-term fiscal causes — which is why 5.3 and 5.4 must be read together.
Britain's victory and France's revolution have the same origin.
The wars left France the debt 5.4 names among the revolution's fiscal causes.
Why the two states differed
- 3.2 gave Britain a constitutional settlement in which taxation required consent — and therefore commanded confidence.
- 3.7 gave France an absolutist structure in which the crown could decree but could not credibly promise.
- So the fiscal outcome traces back to the forms of political power compared in 3.8.
Select all the consequences this lesson names.
Empires expand in this period; they do not end.
Economic and political consequences
- The objective names both, and they are connected by one mechanism: the cost of sustained war.
- Economic: debt, taxation, and a demonstrated difference in borrowing capacity.
- Political: Britain's primacy, and a French fiscal crisis that becomes a constitutional one.
Two states borrow to fight the same war. One pays a lower rate because its lenders believe a body that represents them will honour the debt; the other pays more because a crown that can repudiate might. Over three decades that difference is the size of a fleet.
Rivalry between Britain and France resulted in world wars fought both in Europe and in the colonies, with Britain supplanting France as the greatest European power. Sustaining three theatres required unprecedented borrowing, and the difference in fiscal systems traces back to 3.2's and 3.7's forms of political power. The same wars left France the debt 5.4 names among the revolution's causes.