Eric Hobsbawm - Age Of Revolution 1789 -1848

THE AGE OFREVOLUTIONtrouble; but the Anglo-American war of 1812-14 was the outcome ofsuch a conflict.The French hostility to Britain was somewhat more complex, but theelement in it which, like the British, demanded a total victory wasgreatly strengthened by the Revolution, which brought to power aFrench bourgeoisie whose appetites were, in their way, as limitless asthose of the British. At the very least victory over the British requiredthe destruction of British commerce, on which Britain was correctlybelieved to be dependent; and a safeguard against future Britishrecovery, its permanent destruction. (The parallel between the Franco-British and the Rome-Carthage conflict was much in the minds of theFrench, whose political imagery was largely classical.) In a more ambitiousmood, the French bourgeoisie could hope to offset the evidenteconomic superiority of the British only by its own political and militaryresources: e.g. by creating for itself a vast captive market from which itsrivals were excluded. Both these considerations lent the Anglo-Frenchconflict a persistence and stubbornness unlike any other. Neither sidewas really—a rare thing in those days, though a common one today—prepared to settle for less than total victory. The one brief spell ofpeace between the two (1802-3) was brought to an end by the reluctanceof both to maintain it. This was all the more remarkable, sincethe purely military situation imposed a stalemate: it was clear fromthe later 1790s that the British could not effectively get at the continentand the French could not effectively break out of it.The other anti-French powers were engaged in a less murderous kindof struggle. They all hoped to overthrow the French Revolution,though not at the expense of their own political ambitions, but after1792—5 this was clearly no longer practicable. Austria, whose familylinks with the Bourbons were reinforced by the direct French threat toher possessions and areas of influence in Italy, and her leading positionin Germany, was the most consistently anti-French, and took part inevery major coalition against France. Russia was intermittently anti-French, entering the war,only in 1795-1800, 1805-7 and 1812. Prussiawas torn between a sympathy for the counter-revolutionary side, amistrust of Austria, and her own ambitions in Poland and Germany,which benefited from the French initiative. She therefore entered thewar occasionally and in a semi-independent fashion: in 1792-5, 1806-7(when she was pulverized) and 1813. The policy of the remainder ofthe states which from time to time entered anti-French coalitions,shows comparable fluctuations. They were against the Revolution but,politics being politics, they had other fish to fry also, and nothing intheir state interests imposed a permanent unwavering hostility to84