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The Second Hundred Years' War is a periodization or historical era term used by some historians[1][2][3] to describe the series of military conflicts around the globe between Great Britain and France that occurred from about 1689 (or some say 1714) to 1815, including several separate wars such as the War of the Spanish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. The Second Hundred Years' War is named after the Hundred Years' War, which occurred in the 14th and 15th century. The term appears to have been coined by J. R. Seeley in his influential work The Expansion of England (1883).[4]
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Like the Hundred Years' War, this term does not describe a single military event but a persistent general state of war between the two primary belligerents. The use of the phrase as an overarching category indicates the interrelation of all the wars as components of the rivalry between France and Britain for world power. It was a war between and over the future of each state's colonial empires.
The two countries remained continual antagonists even as their national identities underwent significant evolution. Great Britain was not a single state until 1707, prior to which it was the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, albeit with a shared Crown and military establishment. In 1801, Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom. The period also saw France under the Bourbon dynasty, the regimes of the French Revolution and the First Empire.
The various wars between the two states during the 18th century usually involved other European countries in large alliances; except for the War of the Quadruple Alliance when they were bound by the Anglo-French Alliance, France and Britain always opposed one another.[citation needed] Some of the wars, such as the Seven Years' War, have been considered world wars and included battles in the growing colonies in India, the Americas, and ocean shipping routes around the globe.
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The series of wars began with the accession of the Dutch William IIIasKing of England in the Revolution of 1688. The Stuarts had sought friendly terms with Louis XIV: James I and Charles I, both Protestants, had avoided involvement as much as possible in the Thirty Years' War, while Charles II and the Catholic convert James II had even actively supported Louis XIV in his War against the Dutch Republic. William III, however, sought to oppose Louis XIV's Catholic regime and styled himself as a Protestant champion. Tensions continued in the following decades, during which France protected and supported Jacobites who sought to overthrow the later Stuarts and, after 1715, the Hanoverians.[5] The principle Anglo-French conflicts in this time period were The Nine Year's war and the War of Spanish Succession. The war of Spanish Succession saw Britain begin its ascendancy as a commercial and naval power, but after the Peace of Utrecht, the two formed an Anglo-French alliance, their interests converging as they wished to prevent the rise of Spanish or Russian power. The alliance soon fell apart, and the two countries soon became bitter rivals once again.
After William III, the rivalry between the two countries shifted from being primarily about religion to being primarily about trade, colonies, and maintaining a balance of power. The primary conflicts in this time period between Britain and France were, in order: The War of the Austrian Succession, The Carnatic Wars, The Seven Years' War, and the American Revolutionary War. By the end of the Seven Years war, Britain decisively overtook France as Europe's greatest power, destroying French colonial power in India and North America. Yet France took advantage of American Revolutionary War to undermine British colonial hegemony in North America by supporting the rebellious colonists with both men and material, but debts from that conflict in turn sowed the economic seeds of France's own revolution shortly thereafter.
The outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars led to a renewed period of conflict between Britain and France, the latter now under the control of a republican government. The British led a pan-European coalition which opposed the French in the wars of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth coalitions. Despite Britain's allies in the Coalition suffering repeated defeats at French hands, British naval successes against the French, which deprived France of large parts of the French colonial empire, helped ensure the continued existence of further coalitions during the Napoleonic Wars. The final defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo led to his abdication and exile, and effectively ended the recurrent conflict between France and Britain, with Britain decisively affirming its naval, imperial, and colonial supremacy over France for the foreseeable future. The British goal of restoring the French monarchy was confirmed by the Treaty of Paris and the subsequent Congress of Vienna.[6]
After the end of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, direct conflict between France and Britain came to an end, as both countries focused on expanding their colonial empires and consolidating influence in their respective spheres of influence. The two nations fought on the same side in the Greek War of Independence and the Crimean War, reflecting an increasing level of alignment in British and French foreign policies concerning Europe.[7] During the fin de siècle period, growing levels of fear in both nations over the growing power of the German Empire (which was established in 1871 as a result of the Franco-Prussian War) led to the Entente Cordiale, a rapprochement in Anglo-French relations marked by a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904. The Entente Cordial also resolved colonial disputes between Britain and France, and marked the definitive end of almost a thousand years of intermittent conflict, and replaced the modus vivendi that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 with a more formal agreement.[8]
| Ruler | Reign |
|---|---|
| Queen Mary II | 1689–1694 |
| King William III | 1689–1702 |
| Queen Anne | 1702–1714 |
| King George I | 1714–1727 |
| King George II | 1727–1760 |
| King George III | 1760–1820 |
| Ruler | Reign |
|---|---|
| King Louis XIV | 1643–1715 |
| King Louis XV | 1715–1774 |
| King Louis XVI | 1774–1792 |
| National Convention | 1792–1795 |
| Directory | 1795–1799 |
| First Consul Bonaparte→Emperor Napoleon I | 1799–1814; 1815 |
| King Louis XVIII | 1814–1815; 1815–1824 |
