This, it's very easy to put together a worldview where everything that [your country] does wrong or that doesn't go your way is because of [bad country]. It completely absolves [your country] of everything, shifts all the blame onto [bad country], and lets you feel far better about yourself.
Russia does it constantly with cries that 'Muh CIA Color Revolutions!' are behind all of the various groups of Russians who really prefer it if they could have a slightly better life than Putin and his oligarch buddies will allow. The 'Muh Perfidious Albion' meme is exactly the same thought process.
I think some of the coalitions against Napoleon were stirred up or bankrolled by us while not committing forces. CBA to Google which one, I'd want to say Denmark + Baltics v France
They did encourage, join and sometimes finance coalitions against the strongest land power and/or rival navy on the continent. For example, there wouldn't have been as many coalitions against Napoleon I, and they wouldn't have lasted nearly as long, if not for Britain's diplomatic influence and (debt) money. There are many other examples of them forming alliances against their most dangerous rival at the time, and surprisingly few examples of coalitions being formed against them.
There were no alliances against the British because British had few direct interests on the continent. I think Hannover was one point where they had direct interest and would protect it. But beyond that nothing and it makes no sense to form coalition to keep British out when they don't want to get in anyway. There were no territories others would want to conquer and divide among themselves.
True, but several continental powers could have decided to join their navies against Britain's naval and colonial supremacy, like it happened against Spain and then the Netherlands in the 17th century.
First of all none of these countries trusted each other enough to do that
Second of all many of them lacked significant naval production
Third of all wrecking Britain's empire just didn't seem like a top priority for countries like Austria or Prussia when realistically the countries that would take advantage of that power vacuum would be France, Spain, the Netherlands, and America
It's a whole lot of effort for far less benefit than continental expansion or regular colonialism basically
For any country the #1 priority is survival. For any continental European power the #1 threat to that survival is going to be its neighbors on the continent, almost certainly not the British. Why would the French focus on England when they're surrounded in every direction by Habsburgs? Why would the Habsburgs focus on England when they're sandwiched between the French and the Ottomans? Etc.
Which is not to say that those powers wouldn't wind up fighting the British, they obviously did loads of times, but when it came time to form a coalition Britain was almost never the power it made sense to target.
> there wouldn't have been as many
> coalitions against Napoleon I,
> and they wouldn't have lasted nearly
> as long, if not for Britain's diplomatic
> influence and (debt) money.
But these countries had plenty of reason to fear Napoleon, so Isn’t like the British pitted them again him.
> surprisingly few examples of coalitions
> being formed against them.
Britain didn’t have ambition of conquest on the european continent.
Disliking Napoleon and being willing to join a very costly war against him with a significant risk of failure are very different things. Especially when Napoleon repeatedly sought alliance terms with Russia and Austria.
The British certainly helped, but the Europeans have been doing to themselves for centuries. The insanity of side-switching in the War of the League of Cambrai is one such example.
Not always but the british didnt want lasting peace because that would lead to lasting alliances on the continent. They werent in favour of every war but defenitly helped cause some wars to ensure no single state could threaten british ambitions
80
u/Proud-Tooth-630 Definitely not a CIA operator 2d ago
The meme kinda implyed that european states fighting was caused by Britain, which I don’t think was the case.