Influence of French and British Military Conflicts on British Perceptions
(Brookner 7)
"They scorn'd to truck, for base, unmanly arts,
Their native plainness, and their honest heart
Whene'er they deign'd to visit haughty France,
Twas arm'd with bearded dart, and pointed lance.
No pompous pageants lured their curious eye,
No charms for them had fops or flattery ;
Paris they knew, their streamers waved around,
There britons saw a british Harry crown'd.
Far other views attract our modern race,
Trulls, toupees, trinkets, bags, brocades, and lace ;
A flaunting form, and a fictitious face.
Rouse ! re-assume ! refuse a gallic reign,
Nor let their art win that their arms could never gain." (Foote
14)
"I have a great many things to say of their military character, and their punctilios of honour, which last are equally absurd and pernicious. . . ." (Smollett 69).
“The Seven Years War was the most dramatically successful war the British ever fought. . . . They drove the French out of most of their Indian, West African and West Indian possessions” (Colley 101).
France in
American Revolution
- In a move that will become quite familiar to future Americans, France claims a
win even though the English colonists saw far more action. This is later known
as "de Gaulle Syndrome", and leads to the Second Rule of French Warfare; "France
only wins when America does most of the fighting (GeographyIQ).
“Only when the new French regime guillotined Louis XVI and threatened to invade Holland did mainstream opinion in Britain begin to change and harden. In Feb. 1793 Britain and France went to war again” ("French").
Tobias Smollett
This segment will deal primarily with Smollett's Travels Through France and Italy,
particularly France. Smollett has numerous opinions of the French and nothing
is held back.
Smollett’s journey to France and Italy was his last chance to
travel and search for a cure for his illness. During his travels, he was
extremely critical and very harsh on their culture. On the French’s worth as a
friend, Smollett says, “If a Frenchman is capable of real friendship, it must
certainly be the most disagreeable present he can possibly make to a man of a
true English character” (67). He searched for and found nothing but distaste in
France and left for his last tour, Italy.
Helen Maria Williams
Williams chronicles the French Revolution in its entirety in her letters to a
friend. She wholeheartedly supports the Revolution and believes England could
benefit from the changes. Here we will look at her ideas on religion and the
French Army.
She
was mesmerized by their religious ceremonies. Writing on religion, Williams
relates, “Surely religious worship was never performed more truly in the spirit
of the Divine author of Christianity, whose great precept is that of universal
love!” (90)
(Furet 67)
Her
profound interest in the Army, especially the mass of the army, is explicit in
her writing. Williams, writing on the French Army observes:
The horrors which desolated the interior part of France had
too long formed a melancholy
contrast with the
resplendent glories that hung around its frontiers; and the honour of the French
name, sinking beneath the obloquy with which it was loaded by the crimes of its
domestic
tyrants, was only sustained by the astonishing achievements of the
French armies. They alone
remained pure and unsullied by the contagious guilt
which overspread their country. They alone
appear to have been the true
representatives of the French nation, and every family in France
could boast of
having a deputy upon their frontier. It was the duty of the French soldiers not
to
deliberate upon internal commotions, but to repulse the hostile invader: and
Europe, which has
been the theatre of their exploits, has been awed by their
overwhelming greatness.” (190)
Unlike Smollett, Williams supports and raves about the French. She later even becomes a French citizen. She preferred being in France to being in England.
For more on the information on the organization of the French Army.
Researched by Tim Greenberg