The rivalry of Britain and France since the late seventeenth century, starting as war and continuing as divergent views of the world, defines not just their relations with each other but, through a combination of depth and longevity, has affected the rest of the world more than the rivalry of any two other nations.
Isabelle and Robert Tombs are historians married to one another. Isabelle is French and mostly a historian of England. Roger is English and mostly a historian of France. As well as writing compellingly about how England and France viewed each other through their intertwined history, they add occasional debates where Isabelle articulates the French view of a period in history and Robert the converse. (Robert later wrote the absolutely superlative The English and Their History https://theobliqueview.com/2015/11/03/the-english-and-their-history-the-first-thirteen-centuries-by-robert-tombs.)
One of the joys of the book is the way it shows how one country’s national myth looks from the other side. For example, We are all currently delighting in Dunkirk, that defining moment (in perception and probably reality) in modern, perhaps all, British history when the island people snatched victory from the jaws of defeat by living to fight another day, giving refuge to those fleeing Europe to continue the battle against the forces of darkness and finally saving the world.
To France, Dunkirk was the moment the British deserted in the face of the enemy to leave France on its own against Germany. France’s plan had been to create a redoubt in Northern France, supplied from the sea, which would force the main German advance to divert north, away from Paris, allowing France to re-gather itself, as it had been able to do in 1914. Sure, the redoubt may have been liquidated but fighting the Germans was costly. Instead, the British, as they had threatened to do at similar vulnerable moments in late 1914 and early 1918, left. Who was it, do we think, who really held the perimeter at Dunkirk to allow Empire troops to embark? “England will fight to the last Frenchman”.
The flight from Dunkirk convinced France, Vichy and in due course Gaullist, that the only solution to the German problem was a deal with Germany. A strategy of containment was fundamentally flawed because it depended on an alliance with Britain that was unreliable. De Gaulle believed the differing destinies of Britain and France was all geography; France was a cape at the end of Europe, Britain an island. Perhaps, but the Tombs offer another view.
Their story starts in 1689. Our Glorious Revolution was, to the rest of Europe, when the Dutch successfully invaded Britain in order to prevent it becoming more fully part of Louis XIV’s sphere of influence. Britain under Charles II had been pro-France, fighting wars with the Dutch but had been a little semi-detached from the continental struggle. James II’s Catholicism and consequent policy threatened to move Britain into a fuller alliance with France to the detriment of its enemies. William of Orange struck first.
At that moment, Britain was a modest part of a broader alliance. France was, on all measures, the dominant force in Europe – population, land mass and wealth. Moreover, France, at that moment, was as much of an overseas power as Britain. It had a presence in the all-important Caribbean, as well as North America, North Africa and Asia. In 1689, you would not have concluded that Britain would become the dominant European and global power. So what happened?
Their narrative is that from 1689 to 1815, Britain benefitted from a self-reinforcing cycle where victory and the accumulation of overseas territories and assets allowed it finance ever greater sea power allowing it to accumulate yet more overseas wealth and so on. France started the period with vibrant Atlantic and Channel ports supporting merchant shipping and naval power. As, however, Britain naval power grew and suffocated French naval activity, the ports withered and economic emphasis moved to the east.
They remind us that there were many moments right into the Napoleonic period when France threatened to invade England and where it might have had a reasonable chance of success. Had it been successful, the story would have reversed. France would have continued along the path of maritime power. Even without a successful invasion, the paths taken by Britain and France were not straight. Britain’s defeat in 1783 at the hands of the French, nominally the Americans, led British politicians to believe their imperial days were over. They were back to where they had been pre-1689. But what finally emerged was that France became the dominant force by land and Britain the dominant force by sea.
That said, the Tombs do recognise there is more to it than accident. There were cultural differences. One of abiding differences was in relative formality and elegance. The British were relatively informal in their dress, manners, relations between classes, use of language, structure of literature and so on. The French were more formal and more elegant. They cover too the interplay between the two nations in social, economic and political ideas. There was much sharing. Britain was politically avant garde until the Revolution. Thereafter it seemed relatively reactionary. But some stuff does not travel. As the Tombs point out, the French have never bought into Adam Smith. An abiding French metaphor was that Britain was Carthage and France Rome.
Wrapping things up, the Tombs point to the profound gap between a top down and bottom up view; principle versus pragmatism. The British ask why you would stick with a plan when it evidently is not working. Why stick with a social model that creates perpetual unemployment? The French ask why you would sign up to plan with which you disagree. What did the British think “Ever closer Union” actually meant?
The irony, of course, is that, if Britain and France started in 1689 as divergent entities, by the twenty first century, no two countries are quite as similar as Britain and France on so many metrics. But in that time, despite our growing similarities, our sense of how the world does and should work has not converged. And because Britain and France remain influential powers, it affects others. If Britain and France are a couple in restaurant (John Bull and Marianne), when they argue, it is not with muted voices and sullen silence but with loud voices, gesticulations and calls to other diners to take sides. You cannot help noticing.
The Oblique View 