How Did The British Dominate France In The 19th Century

In the last module we saw how the rivalry between France and Britain progressed, and how France at the onset of the 17th century had the mightiest military in all the world, but by the 18th would be eclipsed by England. Because of the island nation’s geography, they could fend off its enemies at sea, and would never have to worry about a land invasion. In contrast France’s bid for dominance during the Napoleonic wars drew France’s neighbors to unite and would keep the countries ambitions in check for more than a century. The British empire also had better banking practices, and more political stability than France. Indeed, England had so many advantages over its rival France, that by the 19th century England was in a league all its own, and
At the onset of World War 1 the fruits of the industrialized age bore more advanced weapons with vastly more destructive power, planes, tanks, artillery, landmines, razor-wire, sniper rifles, and more create a nightmarish new kind of trench warfare which will turn a war everyone in Europe was optimistic would end in a few months into a tortuous slog, and all the munition and blood that was shed in those four years made the “Great War” of 1793-1815 look like child’s play. In the century before WW1 we see England who arguably reached its zenith in 1815, was allowed to “luxuriate in the consequent half-century of virtually unchallenged maritime and imperial preeminence.” (226) This same country would a century later be engaged in a war that many historians consider to be, “a self-inflicted death blow to European civilization.”
In 1830 despite France having a larger population than England, both countries in 1830 are almost on par, but by 1890 France’s GNP was approximates two-thirds the size of England’s.