After a century of war had come a century of peace between France and Britain, which, given their history, was no mean achievement. It also gives us less cause to disagree. Yet there were at least half a dozen occasions when war was seriously expected, and even expensively prepared for on both sides. That it did not happen was owing to more than just good luck or good sense. There was after Waterloo rarely if ever a credible prospect of French Continental hegemony. The expansionary policy of Napoleon III seemed the nearest to a threat – though in fact he was determined never to make an enemy of Britain. So most disputes, from the July Monarchy to the Third Republic, were colonial. Tahiti, Egypt or Fashoda could cause strong emotions, but they were never important enough to motivate a major conflict. Besides, wars only break out when both sides think they can win. The French no longer did. The Royal Navy made Britain invulnerable, and the only time the British worried was when something happened to make them doubt that, as for example when the French launched the steam-powered ironclad La Gloire in 1860. But British naval power could meet any challenge, while its economic strength and eventually even its population outdistanced that of France.
Peace gave opportunities for trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchange. As in the eighteenth century, they were amply taken, but now they affected a far greater proportion of the two populations, and extended into more areas of life. In economic development, literature, ideas, politics, fashion, art, sport and even food, both countries gave (or sold) so much to each other that they permeated each other’s material and cultural lives. If Paris was, as is often said, ‘the capital of the nineteenth century’ in fashion and amusement, London was the capital of the world in finance and politics. Both remained very interested in each other, and many distinguished writers wrote thoughtful analyses. From the Hebrides to the Pyrenees, increasing numbers came to look, learn and enjoy. For all that, nineteenth-century relations often leave a sour taste: the bickering, sneering and overweening self-glorification on both sides soon ceases to be amusing, whether it comes from pompous British conservatives or envious French republicans. That the bluster often betrayed unease hardly makes it less tedious.
Does it matter? The Pritchard affair, the Spanish marriages, the prudery of the anti-Zolaists, the jingoism over Fashoda and so on could simply be taken as burlesque. Yet there is a serious side. France and Britain were the two most powerful constitutional states. Idealists wanted them to form an alliance to defend and promote liberal values in Europe: together, they might have calmed the political conflicts of the mid-century decades in Spain, Italy and Central Europe. Had they restrained their rivalry in colonial matters, it would have benefited non-European peoples. All in all, a more stable world, extending into the twentieth century, might have been within the reach of genuine Franco-British cooperation. So their failure was a serious one.
RT: France was unfortunately not a reliable partner in a project to stabilize and liberalize Europe or the wider world. A recent study concludes that ‘liberal solidarity played no discernible role’ in French foreign policy.1 It was constantly trying to overturn the 1815 treaties. French historians are now recognizing the virulence of French nationalism, which even idealists such as Guizot were obliged to genuflect to. Outside Europe, France, whatever the nature of its regime, was grabbing at anything within reach, from Mexico to Indochina. Liberalism and republicanism both encouraged a rapacious imperialism based on the claim to possess a unique global ‘civilizing mission’. Perhaps, with hindsight, Britain should have tried harder to restrain Prussian expansion in the 1860s. But given the instability in Europe that Napoleon III had deliberately created, it is hard to see what it could have done. And there is no reason why Britain should – even if it could – have intervened in 1870 to save Napoleon III and strengthen him for further adventurism. That was no way to prevent future disasters.
IT: The real roots of the problem were Britain’s growing detachment – diplomatic and psychological – from Europe, combined with an invincible suspicion of France. We have seen how the genuine desire of the July Monarchy for an entente cordiale was repeatedly rebuffed by jingoists like Palmerston, who nourished absurd fears about France’s eternal enmity, even covering the South Coast with huge fortresses. This culminated in a myopic lack of interest in European affairs in the 1860s, including near indifference to France’s fate in 1870–71. As French politicians warned, this was against Britain’s own interests, as it permitted Bismarck’s Prussia to set up an illiberal and potentially aggressive German Reich, with terrible consequences for France, Britain and the world. Britain only woke up to this when it was too late.