Britain and French war Strategies of Napoleonic wars?

Question

Anything about it. Just different strategies, mostly naval

Answer 1

The first thing you have to appreciate is that Britain and France had diametrically different military capabilities.

Britain was a great power at SEA. It had the largest and best navy, but the army was small.

France was a great power on LAND. It had a huge and very experienced army. But the navy was greatly inferior to Britain's.

There is a famous cartoon from 1805 which illustrates the problem:

http://www.worldgallery.co.uk/giclee-pri...

With the French strong on land and the British strong at sea, it was extremely difficult to defeat the other!

The main British strategy employed against France was the NAVAL BLOCKADE.

http://www.answers.com/topic/blockade?nr...

There were different types of blockade. Normally, the British would use the so-called "close blockade", which meant deploying a British fleet close to a French port, so that French ships couldn't escape without a fight.

The close blockade was a very demanding strategy. It meant keeping ships off the coast month after month, exposed to the high seas and the weather. The alternative was the "open blockade", where the British fleet would lie some distance away from the port. This was less demanding on the ships, but increased the risk that the French would escape. Nelson favoured using open blockades because he wanted to tempt the French out of port and into battle.

The British were not just interested in bottling up French warships. Another purpose of the blockade was to strangle French trade. Whereas larger warships would blockade the ports, smaller warships typically patrolled the seas in order to intercept and seize enemy merchant ships. The British also intercepted neutral merchant ships suspected of trading with France. (Eventually this policy led to war with the United States: The War of 1812).

Although the British blockade was generally very effective, there were a couple of occasions when the French managed to escape ("run the blockade"). One occasion was in 1798, when the French Mediterranean fleet escaped from Toulon and brought an army to invade Egypt. Unfortunately for the French, Nelson caught up with the fleet in Egypt and destroyed it at the Battle of the Nile. The other notable occasion was in 1805 before the battle of Trafalgar. That also ended in tears for the French. You can read all the details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_T...

In general it wasn't possible for the French to challenge the British at sea (especially after the destruction of the French fleet at Trafalgar). So Napoleon had to use other methods to try to fight the British.

In 1806 he introduced a policy called "The Continental System", which basically meant banning all the countries of Europe from trading with Britain. Napoleon was able to do this because his army either controlled most of Europe, or else initimidated countries into following his instructions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental...

Although it caused some damage to the British economy, the Continental System ultimately caused much more damage to France. It was very unpopular throughout Europe, and widely evaded. To enforce it, Napoleon was forced to invade one country after another, beginning with Portugal in 1807.

The invasion of Portugal was the beginning of the so-called Peninsular War. When Napoleon tried to make his brother the king of Spain in 1808, the Spanish also revolted against the French.

This provided the British with an ideal opportunity to use their small army very effectively. They sent it to support the Portuguese and Spanish who were fighting against the French. Although the French army was much bigger, it was tied down defending its supply lines, and dealing with Spanish guerrillas. Under Wellington, the small British army won many battles against the French, eventually invading southern France in 1814.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_...

The Continental System also contributed to Napoleon's War with Russia in 1812, which led to the destruction of the mighty French army.

The British were ultimately able to defeat Napoleon because they had the help of the large Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies on land. Throughout the Napoleonic wars the British paid large subsidies to their allies.

Britain had a much better developed financial system than France, and its control of the seas gave it significant trade income. An important part of British strategy was therefore using this financial strength, paying allies to fight against the French.

Ultimately, this neutralized the French advantage on land, enabling Britain and her allies to win the war.

Answer 2

French- the idea was to get into a large, decisive battle. France had a lot of people so it was easy to grow new armies.