title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: While the English and French had been frequently acrimonious, they had always had a common culture and little fundamental difference in identity. Nationalism had been minimal in days when most wars took place between rival feudal lords on a sub-national scale. The last attempt to unite the two cultures under such lines was probably a failed French-supported rebellion to depose Edward II. It was also during the Middle Ages that a Franco-Scottish alliance, known as the Auld Alliance was signed by King John of Scotland and Philip IV of France.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The English monarchy increasingly integrated with its subjects and turned to the English language wholeheartedly during the Hundred Years' War between 1337 and 1453. Though the war was in principle a mere dispute over territory, it drastically changed societies on both sides of the Channel. The English, although already politically united, for the first time found pride in their language and identity, while the French united politically.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Several of the most famous Anglo-French battles took place during the Hundred Years' War: Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Orléans, Patay, Formigny and Castillon. Major sources of French pride stemmed from their leadership during the war. Bertrand du Guesclin was a brilliant tactician who forced the English out of the lands they had procured at the Treaty of Brétigny, a compromising treaty that most Frenchmen saw as a humiliation. Joan of Arc was another unifying figure who to this day represents a combination of religious fervour and French patriotism to all France. After her inspirational victory at Orléans and what many saw as Joan's martyrdom at the hands of Burgundians and Englishmen, Jean de Dunois eventually forced the English out of all of France except Calais, which was only lost in 1558. Apart from setting national identities, the Hundred Years' War was the root of the traditional rivalry and at times hatred between the two countries. During this era, the English lost their last territories in France, except Calais, which would remain in English hands for another 105 years, though the English monarchs continued to style themselves as Kings of France until 1800.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: France and Scotland agreed to defend each other in the event of an attack on either from England in several treaties, the most notable of which were in 1327 and 1490. There had always been intermarriage between the Scottish and French royal households, but this solidified the bond between the royals even further.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The English and French were engaged in numerous wars in the following centuries. They took opposite sides in all of the Italian Wars between 1494 and 1559.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: An even deeper division set in during the English Reformation, when most of England converted to Protestantism and France remained Roman Catholic. This enabled each side to see the other as not only a foreign evil but also a heretical one. In both countries there was intense civil religious conflict. Because of the oppression by Roman Catholic King Louis XIII of France, many Protestant Huguenots fled to England. Similarly, many Catholics fled from England to France. Scotland had a very close relationship with France in the 16th century, with intermarriage at the highest level.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Henry VIII of England had initially sought an alliance with France, and the Field of the Cloth of Gold saw a face to face meeting between him and King Francis I of France. Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) was born to King James V and his French second wife, Mary of Guise and became Queen when her father was killed in the wars with England. Her mother became Regent, brought in French advisors, and ruled Scotland in the French style. David Ditchburn and Alastair MacDonald argue:


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Queen Elizabeth I, whose own legitimacy was challenged by Mary Queen of Scots, worked with the Protestant Scottish Lords to expel the French from Scotland in 1560. The Treaty of Edinburgh in 1560 virtually ended the "auld alliance." Protestant Scotland tied its future to Protestant England, rejecting Catholic France. However, friendly relations at the business level did continue.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: While Spain had been the dominant world power in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the English had often sided with France as a counterweight against them. This design was intended to keep a European balance of power, and prevent one country gaining overwhelming supremacy. France replaced Spain as the dominant power after 1650 so the basis of English strategy was the fear that a French universal monarchy of Europe would be able to overwhelm the British Isles.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: At the conclusion of the English Civil War, the newly formed Republic under Oliver Cromwell, "the Commonwealth of England" joined sides with the French against Spain during the last decade of the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659). The English were particularly interested in the troublesome city of Dunkirk and in accordance with the alliance the city was given to the English after the Battle of the Dunes (1658), but after the monarchy was restored in England, Charles II sold it back to the French in 1662 for £320,000.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Following the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, and as France finally overcame its rebellious "princes of the blood" and Protestant Huguenots, the long fought wars of the Fronde (civil wars) finally came to an end. At the same time Spain's power was severely weakened by decades of wars and rebellions – and France, began to take on a more assertive role under King Louis XIV of France with an expansionist policy both in Europe and across the globe. English foreign policy was now directed towards preventing France gaining supremacy on the continent and creating a universal monarchy. To the French, England was an isolated and piratical nation heavily reliant on naval power, and particularly privateers, which they referred to as Perfidious Albion.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: However, in 1672, the English again formed an alliance with the French (in accordance with the Secret Treaty of Dover of 1670) against their common commercial rival, the rich Dutch Republic – the two nations fighting side by side during the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) and Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–1674). This war was extremely unpopular in England. The English had been soundly beaten at sea by the Dutch and were in a worsening financial situation as their vulnerable global trade was under increasing threat. The English pulled out of the alliance in 1674, ending their war with the Netherlands and actually joining them against the French in the final year of the Franco-Dutch War in 1678.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: During the course of the century a sharp diversion in political philosophies emerged in the two states. In England King Charles I had been executed during the English Civil War for exceeding his powers, and later King James II had been overthrown in the Glorious Revolution. In France, the decades long Fronde (civil wars), had seen the French Monarchy triumphant and as a result the power of the monarchs and their advisors became almost absolute and went largely unchecked.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: England and France fought each other in the War of the League of Augsburg from 1688 to 1697 which set the pattern for relations between France and Great Britain during the eighteenth century. Wars were fought intermittently, with each nation part of a constantly shifting pattern of alliances known as the stately quadrille.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Partly out of fear of a continental intervention, an Act of Union was passed in 1707 creating the Kingdom of Great Britain, and formally merging the kingdoms of Scotland and England (the latter kingdom included Wales). While the new Britain grew increasingly parliamentarian, France continued its system of absolute monarchy.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The newly united Britain fought France in the War of the Spanish Succession from 1702 to 1713, and the War of the Austrian Succession from 1740 to 1748, attempting to maintain the balance of power in Europe. The British had a massive navy but maintained a small land army, so Britain always acted on the continent in alliance with other states such as Prussia and Austria as they were unable to fight France alone. Equally France, lacking a superior navy, was unable to launch a successful invasion of Britain.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The quarter century after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 was peaceful, with no major wars, and only a few secondary military episodes of minor importance. The main powers had exhausted themselves in warfare, with many deaths, disabled veterans, ruined navies, high pension costs, heavy loans and high taxes. Utrecht strengthened the sense of useful international law and inaugurated an era of relative stability in the European state system, based on balance-of-power politics that no one country would become dominant. Robert Walpole, the key British policy maker, prioritised peace in Europe because it was good for his trading nation and its growing British Empire. British historian G. M. Trevelyan argues:


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: But "balance" needed armed enforcement. Britain played a key military role as "balancer." The goals were to bolster Europe's balance of power system to maintain peace that was needed for British trade to flourish and its colonies to grow, and finally to strengthen its own central position in the balance of power system in which no one could dominate the rest. Other nations recognised Britain as the "balancer." Eventually the balancing act required Britain to contain French ambitions. Containment led to a series of increasingly large-scale wars between Britain and France, which ended with mixed results. Britain was usually aligned with the Netherlands and Prussia, and subsidised their armies. These wars enveloped all of Europe and the overseas colonies. These wars took place in every decade starting in the 1740s and climaxed in the defeat of Napoleon's France in 1814.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: As the century wore on, there was a distinct passage of power to Britain and France, at the expense of traditional major powers such as Portugal, Spain and the Dutch Republic. Some observers saw the frequent conflicts between the two states during the 18th century as a battle for control of Europe, though most of these wars ended without a conclusive victory for either side. France largely had greater influence on the continent while Britain were dominant at sea and trade, threatening French colonies abroad.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: From the 1650s, the New World increasingly became a battleground between the two powers. The Western Design of Oliver Cromwell intended to build up an increasing British presence in North America, beginning with the acquisition of Jamaica from the Spanish Empire in 1652. The first British settlement on continental North America was founded in 1607, and by the 1730s these had grown into thirteen separate colonies.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The French had settled the province of Canada to the North, and controlled Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean, the wealthiest colony in the world. Both countries, recognising the potential of India, established trading posts there. Wars between the two states increasingly took place in these other continents, as well as Europe.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The French and British fought each other and made treaties with Native American tribes to gain control of North America. Both nations coveted the Ohio Country and in 1753, a British expedition there led by George Washington clashed with a French force. Shortly afterwards the French and Indian War broke out, initially taking place only in North America but in 1756 becoming part of the wider Seven Years' War in which Britain and France were part of opposing coalitions.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The war has been called the first "world war", because fighting took place on several different continents. In 1759, the British enjoyed victories over the French in Europe, Canada and India, severely weakening the French position around the world. In 1762, the British captured the cities of Manila and Havana from Spain, France's strongest ally, which led ultimately to a peace settlement the following year that saw a large number of territories come under British control.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Seven Years' War is regarded as a critical moment in the history of Anglo-French relations, which laid the foundations for the dominance of the British Empire during the next two and a half centuries.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Having lost New France (Canada) and India in the northern hemisphere, many Frenchmen turned their attention to building a second empire south of the equator, thereby triggering a race for the Pacific Ocean. They were supported by King Louis XV and by the Duc de Choiseul, Minister for War and for the Navy. In 1763, Louis Bougainville sailed from France with two ships, several families, cattle, horses and grain. He established the first colony in the Falkland Islands at Port Saint Louis in February 1764. This done, Bougainville's plan was to use the new settlement as a French base from where he could mount a search for the long-imagined (but still undiscovered) Southern Continent and claim it for France.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Meanwhile, the Secretary of the Admiralty, Philip Stephens, swiftly and secretly dispatched John Byron to the Falklands and round the world. He was followed in 1766 by Samuel Wallis who discovered Tahiti and claimed it for Britain. Bougainville followed and claimed Tahiti for France in 1768, but when he tried to reach the east coast of New Holland (Australia), he was thwarted by the Great Barrier Reef.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Admiralty sent Captain Cook to the Pacific on three voyages of discovery in 1768, 1772 and 1776. Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779 and his two ships, "Resolution" and "Discovery", arrived home in October 1780.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: At the same time, more Frenchmen were probing the South Seas. In 1769, Jean Surville sailed from India, through the Coral Sea to New Zealand then traversed the Pacific to Peru. In 1771, Marion Dufresne and Julien–Marie Crozet sailed through the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Later in 1771, another French expedition under Yves de Kerguelen and Louis St Aloüarn explored the southern Indian Ocean. St Aloüarn annexed the west coast of New Holland for France in March 1772.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In August 1785, King Louis XVI sent Jean-François Lapérouse to explore the Pacific Ocean. He arrived off Sydney Heads in January 1788, three days after the arrival of Britain's First Fleet commanded by Arthur Phillip. The French expedition departed Australia three months later in March 1788 and, according to the records, was never seen again.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The race for territory in the South Seas continued into the nineteenth century. Although the British had settled the eastern region of New Holland, in 1800 Napoleon dispatched an expedition commanded by Nicolas Baudin to forestall the British on the south and west coasts of the continent.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: As American Patriot dissatisfaction with British policies grew to rebellion in 1774–75, the French saw an opportunity to undermine British power. When the American War of Independence broke out in 1775, the French began sending covert supplies and intelligence to the American Patriots.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1778, France, eager to capitalise on the British defeat at Saratoga, recognised the United States of America as an independent nation. Negotiating with Ambassador Benjamin Franklin in Paris, they formed a military alliance. France in 1779 persuaded its ally Spain to declare war on Britain. France despatched troops to fight alongside the Americans, and besieged Gibraltar with Spain. Plans were drawn up, but never put into action, to launch an invasion of England. The threat forced Britain to keep many troops in Britain that were needed in America. The British were further required to withdraw forces from the American mainland to protect their more valuable possessions in the West Indies. While the French were initially unable to break the string of British victories, the combined actions of American and French forces, and a key victory by a French fleet over a British rescue fleet, forced the British into a decisive surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. For a brief period after 1781, Britain's naval superiority was threatened subdued by an alliance between France and Spain. However, the British recovered, defeated the main French fleet in April 1782, and kept control of Gibraltar. In 1783 the Treaty of Paris gave the new nation control over most of the region east of the Mississippi River; Spain gained Florida from Britain and retained control of the vast Louisiana Territory; France received little except a huge debt.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The crippling debts incurred by France during the war, and the cost of rebuilding the French navy during the 1780s caused a financial crisis, helping contribute to the French Revolution of 1789.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The continental European monarchies went to war against France to protect their monarchies against the Revolutionary threat of republics. The British goals were more complex: not just to defend its national security but even more to uphold the European balance of power so that France would not dominate the continent. British decision-making was in the hands of Prime Minister William Pitt and lords Grenville and Lord Melville. They devised strategies to use the superior Royal Navy and superior financial resources. Both sides demonised each other, thereby broadening the base of warfare to include the total population. London tried to foment rebellions inside France while Paris sent an invasion force to Ireland to stir up a revolt there. French leaders emphasised their nation's much larger population, the excitement of its revolutionary ideology, and popular hatred of the exiled aristocrats.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: While France was plunged into chaos, Britain took advantage of its temporary weakness to stir up the civil war occurring in France and build up its naval forces. The Revolution was initially popular with many Britons, both because it appeared to weaken France and was perceived to be based on British liberal ideals. This began to change as the Jacobin faction took over, and began the Reign of Terror in 1793–1794.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The French were intent on spreading their revolutionary republicanism to other European states, including Britain. The British initially stayed out of the alliances of European states which unsuccessfully attacked France trying to restore the monarchy. In France a new, strong nationalism took hold enabling them to mobilise large and motivated forces. Following the execution of King Louis XVI of France in 1793, France declared war on Britain. This period of the French Revolutionary Wars was known as the War of the First Coalition. Except for a brief pause in 1802–03, the wars lasted continuously for 21 years. During this time Britain raised several coalitions against the French, continually subsidising other European states with gold (called the "Golden Cavalry of St George"), enabling them to put large armies in the field. In spite of this, the French armies were very successful on land, creating several client states such as the Batavian Republic, and the British devoted much of their own forces to campaigns against the French in the Caribbean, with mixed results. The British and their allies got off to a poor start in 1793–94. The main problem was poor coordination between London and Vienna, including delays in planning, poor preparations, and diversion of forces. The result was diplomatic and military reversals in Flanders in the summer of 1794.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Following the execution of King Louis XVI of France in 1793, France declared war on Britain. This period of the French Revolutionary Wars was known as the War of the First Coalition. It lasted from 1792 to 1797. Relying on its large Royal Navy rather than its small army, British strategy was to support smaller allies against France, and try to cut off food shipments. That was an innovative strategy in modern warfare, but the French prioritised feeding their army over the populace, and carried on. Britain's continental allies did nearly all of the actual fighting on land. France meanwhile set up the conscription system that built up a much larger army than anyone else. After the king was executed, nearly all the senior officers went into exile, and a very young new generation of officers, typified by Napoleon, took over the French military. Britain relied heavily on the Royal Navy, which sank the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, trapping the French army in Egypt. In 1799, Napoleon came to power in France, and created a dictatorship. Britain led the Second Coalition from 1798 to 1802 against Napoleon, but he generally prevailed. The Treaty of Amiens of 1802 was favourable to France. That treaty amounted to a year-long truce in the war, which was reopened by Britain in May 1803.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Britain ended the uneasy truce created by the Treaty of Amiens when it declared war on France in May 1803, thus starting the War of the Third Coalition, lasting from 1803 to 1805. The British were increasingly angered by Napoleon's reordering of the international system in Western Europe, especially in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Kagan argues that Britain was insulted and alarmed especially by Napoleon's assertion of control over Switzerland. Britons felt insulted when Napoleon said it deserved no voice in European affairs (even though King George was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire), and ought to shut down the London newspapers that were vilifying Napoleon. Russia, furthermore, decided that the Switzerland intervention indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution. Britain had a sense of loss of control, as well as loss of markets, and was worried by Napoleon's possible threat to its overseas colonies. McLynn argues that Britain went to war in 1803 out of a "mixture of economic motives and national neuroses – an irrational anxiety about Napoleon's motives and intentions." However, in the end it proved to be the right choice for Britain, because in the long run Napoleon's intentions were hostile to British national interest. Furthermore, Napoleon was not ready for war and this was the best time for Britain to stop them. Britain therefore seized upon the Malta issue (by refusing to follow the terms of the Treaty of Amiens and evacuate the island).


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The deeper British grievances were that Napoleon was taking personal control of Europe, making the international system unstable, and forcing Britain to the sidelines.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1798, French forces invaded Ireland to assist the United Irishmen who had launched a rebellion. Although the French joined by thousands of rebels, they were defeated by British and Irish loyalist forces. The fear of further attempts to create a French satellite in Ireland led to the Act of Union, merging the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom in 1801. Ireland now lost its last vestiges of independence.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: After he had triumphed on the European continent against the other major European powers, Napoleon contemplated an invasion of the British mainland. That plan collapsed after the annihilation of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, coinciding with an Austrian attack over its Bavarian allies.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In response Napoleon established a continental system by which no nation was permitted to trade with the British. Napoleon hoped the embargo would isolate the British Isles severely weakening them, but a number of countries continued to trade with them in defiance of the policy. In spite of this, the Napoleonic influence stretched across much of Europe.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1808, French forces invaded Portugal trying to attempt to halt trade with Britain, turning Spain into a satellite state in the process. The British responded by dispatching a force under Sir Arthur Wellesley which captured Lisbon. Napoleon dispatched increasing forces into the Iberian Peninsula, which became the key battleground between the two nations. Allied with Spanish and Portuguese forces, the British inflicted a number of defeats on the French, confronted with a new kind of warfare called "guerrilla" which led Napoleon to brand it the "Spanish Ulcer".


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1812, Napoleon's invasion of Russia caused a new coalition to form against him, in what became the War of the Sixth Coalition. In 1813, British forces defeated French forces in Spain and caused them to retreat into France. Allied to an increasingly resurgent European coalition, the British invaded southern France in October 1813, forcing Napoleon to abdicate and go into exile on Elba in 1814.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Britain and France never went to war after 1815, although there were a few "war scares." They were allied together against Russia in the Crimean War of the 1850s.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Britain emerged from the 1815 Congress of Vienna as the ultimate leading financial, military and colonial power of the world, going on to enjoy a century of global dominance in the Pax Britannica. France recovered from its defeat to rebuild its position on the world stage. Talleyrand's friendly approaches were a precursor to the Entente Cordiale in the next century, but they lacked consistent direction and substance. Overcoming their historic enmity, the British and French eventually became political allies, as both began to turn their attentions to acquiring new territories beyond Europe. The British developed India and Canada and colonised Australia, spreading their powers to several different continents as the Second British Empire. Likewise the French were quite active in Southeast Asia and Africa.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: They frequently made stereotypical jokes about each other, and even side by side in war were critical of each other's tactics. As a Royal Navy officer said to the French corsair Robert Surcouf "You French fight for money, while we British fight for honour.", Surcouf replied "Sir, a man fights for what he lacks the most." According to one story, a French diplomat once said to Lord Palmerston "If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman"; to which Palmerston replied: "If I were not an Englishman, I should wish to be an Englishman." Upon seeing the disastrous British Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War against Russia, French marshal Pierre Bosquet said 'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.' ('It's magnificent, but it's not war.') Eventually, relations settled down as the two empires tried to consolidate themselves rather than extend themselves.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1830, France underwent the July Revolution to expel the reactionary Bourbon kings, and install the Orléanist Louis-Philippe as king. By contrast, the reign of Queen Victoria began in 1837 in a peaceful fashion. The major European powers—Russia, Austria, Britain, and to a lesser extent Prussia—were determined to keep France in check, and so France generally pursued a cautious foreign policy. Louis-Phillipe allied with Britain, the country with which France shared the most similar form of government, and its combative Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston. In Louis-Philippe's first year in power, he refused to annex Belgium during its revolution, instead following the British line of supporting independence. Despite posturings from leading French minister Adolphe Thiers in 1839–1840 that France would protect the increasingly powerful Muhammad Ali of Egypt (a viceroy of the Ottoman Empire), any reinforcements were not forthcoming, and in 1840, much to France's embarrassment, Ali was forced to sign the Convention of London by the powers. Relations cooled again under the governments of François Guizot and Robert Peel. They soured once more in 1846 though when, with Palmerston back as Foreign Secretary, the French government hastily agreed to have Isabella II of Spain and her sister marry members of the Bourbon and Orléanist dynasties, respectively. Palmerston had hoped to arrange a marriage, and "The Affair of the Spanish Marriages" has generally been viewed unfavourably by British historians ("By the dispassionate judgment of history it has been universally condemned"), although a more sympathetic view has been taken in recent years.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Lord Aberdeen (foreign secretary 1841–46) brokered an Entente Cordiale with François Guizot and France in the early 1840s. However Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was elected president of France in 1848 and made himself Emperor Napoleon III in 1851. Napoleon III had an expansionist foreign policy, which saw the French deepen the colonisation of Africa and establish new colonies, in particular Indochina. The British were initially alarmed, and commissioned a series of forts in southern England designed to resist a French invasion. Lord Palmerston as foreign minister and prime minister had close personal ties with leading French statesmen, notably Napoleon III himself. Palmerston's goal was to arrange peaceful relations with France in order to free Britain's diplomatic hand elsewhere in the world.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Napoleon at first had a pro-British foreign policy, and was eager not to displease the British government whose friendship he saw as important to France. After a brief threat of an invasion of Britain in 1851, France and Britain cooperated in the 1850s, with an alliance in the Crimean War, and a major trade treaty in 1860. The Cobden–Chevalier Treaty Of 1860 lowered tariffs in each direction, and began the British practice of encouraging lower tariffs across Europe, and using most favoured nation treaties. However Britain viewed the Second Empire with increasing distrust, especially as the emperor built up his navy, expanded his empire and took up a more active foreign policy.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The two nations were military allies during the Crimean War (1853–56) to curb Russia's expansion westwards and its threats to the Ottoman Empire. However, when London discovered that Napoleon III was secretly negotiating with Russia to form a postwar alliance to dominate Europe, it hastily abandoned its plan to end the war by attacking St. Petersburg. Instead Britain concluded an armistice with Russia that achieved none of its war aims.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: There was a brief war scare in 1858-1860 as alarmists in England misinterpreted scattered hints as signs of an invasion, but Napoleon III never planned any such hostility. The two nations co-operated during the Second Opium War with China, dispatching a joint force to the Chinese capital Peking to force a treaty on the Chinese Qing Dynasty. In 1859 Napoleon, bypassing the Corps législatif which he feared would not approve of free trade, met with influential reformer Richard Cobden, and in 1860 the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty was signed between the two countries, reducing tariffs on goods sold between Britain and France.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: During the American Civil War (1861-1865) both nations considered intervention to help the Confederacy and thereby regain cotton supplies, but remained neutral. The cutoff of cotton shipments caused economic depression in the textile industries of both Britain and France, resulting in widespread unemployment and suffering among workers. In the end France dared not enter alone and Britain refused to go to war because it depended on food shipments from New York.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Napoleon III attempted to gain British support when he invaded Mexico and forcibly put his pawn Maximilian I on the throne. London was unwilling to support any action other than the collection of debts owed by the Mexicans. This forced the French to act alone in the French Intervention in Mexico. Washington, after winning the civil war, threatened an invasion to expel the French and Napoleon pulled out its troops. Emperor Maximilian remained behind and was executed. When Napoleon III was overthrown in 1870, he fled to exile in England.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In the 1875–1898 era, tensions were high, especially over Egyptian and African issues. At several points, these issues brought the two nations to the brink of war; but the situation was always defused diplomatically. For two decades, there was peace—but it was "an armed peace, characterized by alarms, distrust, rancour and irritation." During the Scramble for Africa in the 1880s, the British and French generally recognised each other's spheres of influence. In an agreement in 1890 Great Britain was recognised in Bahr-el-Ghazal and Darfur, while Wadai, Bagirmi, Kanem, and the territory to the north and east of Lake Chad were assigned to France.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Suez Canal, initially built by the French, became a joint British-French project in 1875, as both saw it as vital to maintaining their influence and empires in Asia. In 1882, ongoing civil disturbances in Egypt ("see Urabi Revolt") prompted Britain to intervene, extending a hand to France. France's expansionist Prime Minister Jules Ferry was out of office, and the government was unwilling to send more than an intimidating fleet to the region. Britain established a protectorate, as France had a year earlier in Tunisia, and popular opinion in France later put this action down to duplicity. It was about this time that the two nations established co-ownership of Vanuatu. The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 was also signed to resolve territory disagreements in western Africa.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: One brief but dangerous dispute occurred during the Fashoda Incident in 1898 when French troops tried to claim an area in the Southern Sudan, and a British force purporting to be acting in the interests of the Khedive of Egypt arrived. Under heavy pressure the French withdrew and Britain took control over the area, As France recognised British control of the Sudan. France received control of the small kingdom of Wadai, Which consolidated its holdings in northwest Africa. France had failed in its main goals. P.M.H. Bell says:


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Fashoda was a diplomatic victory for the British because the French realised that in the long run they needed friendship with Britain in case of a war between France and Germany.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: From about 1900, Francophiles in Britain and Anglophiles in France began to spread a study and mutual respect and love of the culture of the country on the other side of the English Channel. Francophile and Anglophile societies developed, further introducing Britain to French food and wine, and France to English sports like rugby. French and English were already the second languages of choice in Britain and France respectively. Eventually this developed into a political policy as the new united Germany was seen as a potential threat. Louis Blériot, for example, crossed the Channel in an aeroplane in 1909. Many saw this as symbolic of the connection between the two countries. This period in the first decade of the 20th century became known as the "Entente Cordiale", and continued in spirit until the 1940s. The signing of the Entente Cordiale also marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent conflict between the two nations and their predecessor states, and the formalisation of the peaceful co-existence that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Up to 1940, relations between Britain and France were closer than those between Britain and the US. This also started the beginning of the French and British "Special Relationship". After 1907 the British fleet was built up to stay far ahead of Germany. However Britain nor France committed itself to entering a war if Germany attacked the other.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1904, Paris and London agreed that Britain would establish a protectorate over Egypt, and France would do the same over Morocco. Germany objected, and the conference at Algeciras in 1906 settled the issue as Germany was outmaneuvered.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Britain tried to stay neutral as the First World War opened in summer 1914, as France joined in to help its ally Russia according to its treaty obligations. Britain had no relevant treaty obligations except one to keep Belgium neutral, and was not in close touch with the French leaders. Britain entered when the German army invaded neutral Belgium (on its way to attack Paris); that was intolerable. It joined France, sending a small expeditionary force to fight on the Western Front, later reinforced by volunteers and conscripts to form a large army.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: There was close co-operation between the British and French forces. French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre worked to coordinate Allied military operations and to mount a combined Anglo-French offensive on the Western Front. The result was the great Battle of the Somme in 1916 with massive casualties on both sides and only limited gains. Paul Painlevé took important decisions during 1917 as France's war minister and then, for nine weeks, premier. With some reservations, he promoted the Nivelle Offensive—which failed badly and drove the French Army to mutiny. The disasters at Passchendaele hurt Britain, its army and civil-military relations. The positive result was the decision to form the Supreme War Council that led eventually to unity of Allied command.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Unable to advance against the combined primary alliance powers of the British, French, and later American forces as well as the blockade preventing shipping reaching German controlled North Sea seaports, the Germans eventually sued for peace after four years of heavy fighting.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Following the war, at the Treaty of Versailles the British and French worked closely with the Americans to dominate the main decisions. Both were also keen to protect and expand their empires, in the face of calls for self-determination. On a visit to London, French leader Georges Clemenceau was hailed by the British crowds. Lloyd George was given a similar reception in Paris.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Lloyd George worked hard to moderate French demands for revenge. Clemenceau wanted terms to cripple Germany's war potential that were too harsh for Wilson and Lloyd George. A compromise was reached whereby Clemenceau softened his terms and the U.S. and Britain promised a Security Treaty that would guarantee armed intervention by both if Germany invaded France. The British ratified the treaty on condition the U.S. ratified. in the United States Senate, the Republicans were supportive, but Wilson insisted this security treaty be closely tied to the overall Versailles Treaty, and Republicans refused and so it never came to a vote in the Senate. Thus there was no treaty at all to help defend France.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Britain soon had to moderate French policy toward Germany, as in the Locarno Treaties. Under Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1923–24 Britain took the lead in getting France to accept the American solution through the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan, whereby Germany paid its reparations using money borrowed from New York banks.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Both states joined the League of Nations, and both signed agreements of defence of several countries, most significantly Poland. The Treaty of Sèvres split the Middle East between the two states, in the form of mandates. However the outlook of the nations were different during the inter-war years; while France saw itself inherently as a European power, Britain enjoyed close relationships with Australia, Canada and New Zealand and supported the idea of imperial free trade, a form of protectionism that would have seen large tariffs placed on goods from France.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In the 1920s, financial instability was a major problem for France, and other nations as well. it was vulnerable to short-term concerted action by banks and financial institutions by heavy selling or buying, in the financial crisis could weaken governments, and be used as a diplomatic threat. Premier and Finance Minister Raymond Poincaré decided to stabilise the franc to protect against political currency manipulation by Germany and Britain. His solution in 1926 was a return to a fixed parity against gold. France was not able to turn the tables and use short-term financial advantage as leverage against Britain on important policy matters.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In general, France and Britain were aligned in their position on major issues. A key reason was the Francophile position of Foreign Minister Austen Chamberlain, and the ambassador to Paris the Marquess of Crewe (1922–28). They promoted a pro-French policy regarding French security and disarmament policy, the later stages of the Ruhr crisis, the implementation of the Geneva Protocol, the Treaty of Locarno and the origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The high point of cooperation came with the Treaty of Locarno in 1925, which brought Germany into good terms with France and Britain. However, relations with France became increasingly tense because Chamberlain grew annoyed that foreign minister Aristide Briand's diplomatic agenda did not have at its heart a reinvigorated Entente Cordiale.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Furthermore, Britain thought disarmament was the key to peace but France disagreed because of its profound fear of German militarism. London decided Paris really sought military dominance of Europe. Before 1933, most Britons saw France, not Germany, as the chief threat to peace and harmony in Europe. France did not suffer as severe an economic recession, and was the strongest military power, but still it refused British overtures for disarmament. Anthony Powell, in his "A Dance to the Music of Time", said that to be anti-French and pro-German in the 1920s was considered the height of progressive sophistication.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In the 1930s, Britain and France coordinated their policies toward the dictatorships of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. However, public opinion did not support going to war again, so the diplomats sought diplomatic solutions, but none worked. Efforts to use the League of Nations to apply sanctions against Italy for its invasion of Ethiopia failed. France supported the "Little Entente" of Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia. It proved much too weak to deter Germany.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed between Britain and Nazi Germany in 1935, allowing Hitler to reinforce his navy. It was regarded by the French as the ruining of the anti-Hitlerian Stresa front. Britain and France collaborated closely especially in the late 1930s regarding Germany, based on informal promises with no written treaty. Efforts were made to negotiate a treaty but they failed in 1936, underscoring French weakness.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In the years leading up to World War II, both countries followed a similar diplomatic path of appeasement of Germany. As Nazi intentions became clear, France pushed for a harder line but the British demurred, believing diplomacy could solve the disputes. The result was the Munich Agreement of 1938 that gave Germany control of parts of Czechoslovakia settled by Germans. In early 1939, Germany took over all of Czechoslovakia and began threatening Poland. Appeasement had failed, and both Britain and France raced to catch up with Germany in weaponry.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: After guaranteeing the independence of Poland, both declared war on Germany on the same day, 3 September 1939, after the Germans ignored an ultimatum to withdraw from the country. When Germany began its attack on France in 1940, British troops and French troops again fought side by side. Eventually, after the Germans came through the Ardennes, it became more possible that France would not be able to fend off the German attack. The final bond between the two nations was so strong that members of the British cabinet had proposed a temporary union of the two countries for the sake of morale: the plan was drawn up by Jean Monnet, who later created the Common Market. The idea was not popular with a majority on either side, and the French government felt that, in the circumstances, the plan for union would reduce France to the level of a British Dominion. When London ordered the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force from France without telling French and Belgian forces and then refused to provide France with further reinforcements of aircraft the proposal was definitively turned down. Later The Free French resistance, led by Charles de Gaulle, were formed in London, after de Gaulle gave his famous 'Appeal of 18 June', broadcast by the BBC. De Gaulle declared himself to be the head of the one and only true government of France, and gathered the Free French Forces around him.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: After the preemptive destruction of a large part of the French fleet by the British at Mers-el-Kebir (3 July 1940), as well as a similar attack on French ships in Oran on the grounds that they might fall into German hands, there was nationwide anti-British indignation and a long-lasting feeling of betrayal in France. In southern France a collaborative government known as Vichy France was set up on 10 July. It was officially neutral, but metropolitan France came increasingly under German control. The Vichy government controlled Syria, Madagascar, and French North Africa and French troops and naval forces therein. Eventually, several important French ships joined the Free French Forces.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: One by one de Gaulle took control of the French colonies, beginning with central Africa in autumn`1940, and gained recognition from Britain but not the United States. An Anglo-Free French attack on Vichy territory was repulsed at the Battle of Dakar in September 1940. Washington maintained diplomatic relations with Vichy (until October 1942) and avoided recognition of de Gaulle. Churchill, caught between the U.S. and de Gaulle, tried to find a compromise.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: From 1941, British Empire and Commonwealth forces invaded Vichy controlled territory in Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East. The first began in 1941 during the campaign against Syria and the Lebanon assisted with Free French troops. In two months of bitter fighting the region was seized and then put under Free French control. Around the same time after the Italian defeat in East Africa, Vichy controlled French Somaliland subsequently became blockaded by British and Free French forces. In a bloodless invasion the colony fell in mid 1942. In May 1942, the Vichy controlled island of Madagascar was invaded. In a seven-month campaign the island was seized by British Empire forces. Finally in the latter half of 1942, the British with the help of US forces took part in the successful invasion of French North Africa in Operation Torch. Most Vichy forces switched sides afterwards to help the allied cause during the Tunisian Campaign fighting as part of the British First Army.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Following D-Day, relations between the two peoples were at a high, as the British were greeted as liberators and remained so till the surrender of Germany in May 1945. At the end of that month, however, French troops, with their continued occupation of Syria, had tried to quell nationalist protests there. With heavy Syrian civilian casualties reported, Churchill demanded a ceasefire. With none forthcoming, he ordered British forces into Syria from Jordan. When they reached Damascus in June, the French were then escorted and confined to their barracks at gunpoint. That became known as the Levant Crisis and almost brought Britain and France to the point of conflict. De Gaulle raged against 'Churchill's ultimatum' and reluctantly arranged a ceasefire. Syria gained independence the following year and France labelled British measures as a 'stab in the back'.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The UK and France nevertheless became close as both feared the Americans would withdraw from Europe leaving them vulnerable to the Soviet Union's expanding communist bloc. The UK was successful in strongly advocating that France be given a zone of occupied Germany. Both states were amongst the five Permanent Members of the new UN Security Council, where they commonly collaborated. However, France was bitter when the United States and Britain refused to share atomic secrets with it. An American operation to use air strikes (including the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons) during the climax of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in May 1954 was cancelled because of opposition by the British. The upshot was France developed its own nuclear weapons and delivery systems.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Cold War began in 1947, as the United States, with strong British support, announced the Truman Doctrine to contain Communist expansion and provided military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey. Despite its large pro-Soviet Communist Party, France joined the Allies. The first move was the Franco-British alliance realised in the Dunkirk Treaty in March 1947.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1956, the Suez Canal, previously owned by an Anglo-French company, was nationalised by the Egyptian government. The British and the French were both strongly committed to taking the canal back by force. President Eisenhower and the Soviet Union demanded there be no invasion and both imposed heavy pressure to reverse the invasion when it came. The relations between Britain and France were not entirely harmonious, as the French did not inform the British about the involvement of Israel until very close to the commencement of military operations. The failure in Suez convinced Paris it needed its own nuclear weapons.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Immediately after the Suez crisis Anglo-French relations started to sour again, and only since the last decades of the 20th century have they improved towards the peak they achieved between 1900 and 1940.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Shortly after 1956, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg formed what would become the European Economic Community and later the European Union, but rejected British requests for membership. In particular, President Charles de Gaulle's attempts to exclude the British from European affairs during France's early Fifth Republic are now seen by many in Britain as a betrayal of the strong bond between the countries, and Anthony Eden's exclusion of France from the Commonwealth is seen in a similar light in France. The French partly feared that were the British to join the EEC they would attempt to dominate it.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Over the years, the UK and France have often taken diverging courses within the European Community. British policy has favoured an expansion of the Community and free trade while France has advocated a closer political union and restricting membership of the Community to a core of Western European states.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In 1958, with France mired in a seemingly unwinnable war in Algeria, de Gaulle returned to power in France. He created the Fifth French Republic, ending the post-war parliamentary system and replacing it with a strong Presidency, which became dominated by his followers—the Gaullists. De Gaulle made ambitious changes to French foreign policy—first ending the war in Algeria, and then withdrawing France from the NATO command structure. The latter move was primarily symbolic, but NATO headquarters moved to Brussels and French generals had a much lesser role.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: French policy blocking British entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) was primarily motivated by political rather than economic considerations. In 1967, as in 1961–63, de Gaulle was determined to preserve France's dominance within the EEC, which was the foundation of the nation's international stature. His policy was to preserve the Community of Six while barring Britain. Although France succeeded in excluding Britain in the short term, in the longer term the French had to adjust their stance on enlargement in order to retain influence. De Gaulle feared that letting Britain into the European Community would open the way for Anglo-Saxon (i.e., US and UK) influence to overwhelm the France-West Germany coalition that was now dominant. On 14 January 1963, de Gaulle announced that France would veto Britain's entry into the Common Market.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: When de Gaulle resigned in 1969, a new French government under Georges Pompidou was prepared to open a more friendly dialogue with Britain. He felt that in the economic crises of the 1970s Europe needed Britain. Pompidou welcomed British membership of the EEC, opening the way for the United Kingdom to join it in 1973.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The two countries' relationship was strained significantly in the lead-up to the 2003 War in Iraq. Britain and its American ally strongly advocated the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, while France (with China, Russia, and other nations) strongly opposed such action, with French President Jacques Chirac threatening to veto any resolution proposed to the UN Security Council. However, despite such differences Chirac and then British Prime Minister Tony Blair maintained a fairly close relationship during their years in office even after the Iraq War started. Both states asserted the importance of the Entente Cordiale alliance, and the role it had played during the 20th century.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Following his election in 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy attempted to forge closer relations between France and the United Kingdom: in March 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that "there has never been greater cooperation between France and Britain as there is now". Sarkozy also urged both countries to "overcome our long-standing rivalries and build together a future that will be stronger because we will be together". He also said "If we want to change Europe my dear British friends—and we Frenchmen do wish to change Europe—we need you inside Europe to help us do so, not standing on the outside." On 26 March 2008, Sarkozy had the privilege of giving a speech to both British Houses of Parliament, where he called for a "brotherhood" between the two countries and stated that "France will never forget Britain's war sacrifice" during World War II.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In March 2008, Sarkozy made a state visit to Britain, promising closer cooperation between the two countries' governments in the future.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The final months towards the end of François Hollande's tenure as president saw the UK vote to leave the EU. His response to the result was "I profoundly regret this decision for the United Kingdom and for Europe, but the choice is theirs and we have to respect it."


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The then-Economy Minister and current President Emmanuel Macron accused the UK of taking the EU "hostage" with a referendum called to solve a domestic political problem of eurosceptics and that "the failure of the British government [has opened up] the possibility of the crumbling of Europe."


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In contrast, the vote was welcomed by Eurosceptic political leaders and presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan as a victory for "freedom".


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In the aftermath of Brexit, fishing disputes, notably the 2021 Jersey dispute, have caused turbulence in relations between the two countries.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In May 2021, France threatened to cut off electricity to the British Channel Island of Jersey in a fight over post-Brexit fishing rights.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In August 2021, Tensions emerged between the countries after the announcement of the AUKUS agreement between the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In October 2021, the UK Foreign Office summoned the French ambassador over "threats" made by French officials against Jersey. In November, France threatened to ban UK fishing vessels from French ports.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In November 2021, relations became more stagnant after the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian claimed that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a "populist who uses all elements at his disposal to blame others for problems he faces internally". A few days later, after 27 migrants drowned in the English Channel, Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a letter that was sent to French President Emmanuel Macron which had irritated him due to the letter being made public on Twitter. The French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin cancelled a proposed meeting with British Home Secretary Priti Patel over the migrant crossings due to the row over the letter.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: On March 6, 2022, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin urged Britain to do more to assist Ukrainian refugees trapped in the French port of Calais, claiming that British officials were turning them away owing to a lack of permits or papers.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: On August 25, 2022, Liz Truss, the expected candidate for Prime Minister from the Conservative Party was asked if she sees Macron as a friend or a rival. Truss hesitated and replied that "The jury's out. But if I become prime minister, I'll judge him on deeds, not words".


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: This answer brought a sharp reaction on behalf of the Labor Party when David Lammy, who serves as the party's foreign affairs spokesman, said in response that "the fact that she chose to unnecessarily insult one of our closest allies shows a lack of judgment, and that lack of capacity is a terrible and worrying thing."


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Macron himself responded that "the British people, Britain itself, are a friendly, strong nation and our ally, regardless of the identity of its leaders, and sometimes despite its leaders or the small mistakes they make in their attempt to impress the audience". He added: "If we, France and Britain, are unable to say whether we are friends or enemies - and the term is not neutral - then we are on the way to serious problems. If I were to be asked this question, I would not hesitate for a second - Britain is France's friend."


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The two nations have a post WWII record of working together on international security measures, as was seen in the Suez Crisis and Falklands War. In her 2020 book, Johns Hopkins University SAIS political scientist Alice Pannier writes that there is a growing "special relationship" between France and the UK in terms of defence cooperation.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: On 2 November 2010, France and the UK signed two defence co-operation treaties. They provide for the sharing of aircraft carriers, a 10,000-strong joint reaction force, a common nuclear simulation centre in France, a common nuclear research centre in the UK, sharing air-refuelling tankers and joint training.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Their post-colonial entanglements have given them a more outward focus than the other countries of Europe, leading them to work together on issues such as the Libyan Civil War.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: France is the United Kingdom's third-biggest export market after the United States and Germany. Exports to France rose 14.3% from £16.542 billion in 2010 to £18.905 billion in 2011, overtaking exports to the Netherlands. Over the same period, French exports to Britain rose 5.5% from £18.133 billion to £19.138 billion.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The British Foreign & Commonwealth Office estimates that 19.3 million British citizens, roughly a third of the entire population, visit France each year. In 2012, the French were the biggest visitors to the UK (12%, 3,787,000) and the second-biggest tourist spenders in Britain (8%, £1.513 billion).


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Entente Cordiale Scholarship scheme is a selective Franco-British scholarship scheme which was announced on 30 October 1995 by British Prime Minister John Major and French President Jacques Chirac at an Anglo-French summit in London.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: It provides funding for British and French students to study for one academic year on the other side of the Channel. The scheme is administered by the French embassy in London for British students, and by the British Council in France and the UK embassy in Paris for French students. Funding is provided by the private sector and foundations.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The scheme aims to favour mutual understanding and to promote exchanges between the British and French leaders of tomorrow.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The programme was initiated by Sir Christopher Mallaby, British ambassador to France between 1993 and 1996.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Concorde supersonic commercial aircraft was developed under an international treaty between the UK and France in 1962, and commenced flying in 1969. It was a technological success but a financial disaster and was closed down after a runway crash in 2003.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In general, France is regarded with favour by Britain in regard to its high culture and is seen as an ideal holiday destination, whilst France sees Britain as a major trading partner. Both countries are famously contemptuous of each other's cooking, many French claiming all British food is bland and boring, whilst many British claim that French food is inedible. Much of the apparent disdain for French food and culture in Britain takes the form of self-effacing humour, and British comedy often uses French culture as the butt of its jokes. Whether this is representative of true opinion or not is open to debate. Sexual euphemisms with no link to France, such as "French kissing", or "French letter" for a condom, are used in British English slang. While in French slang, the term "le vice anglais" refers to either BDSM or homosexuality.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: French classical music has always been popular in Britain. British popular music is in turn popular in France. English literature, in particular the works of Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare, has been immensely popular in France. French artist Eugène Delacroix based many of his paintings on scenes from Shakespeare's plays. In turn, French writers such as Molière, Voltaire and Victor Hugo have been translated numerous times into English. In general, most of the more popular books in either language are translated into the other.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The first foreign language most commonly taught in schools in Britain is French, and the first foreign language most commonly taught in schools in France is English; those are also the languages perceived as "most useful to learn" in both countries. Queen Elizabeth II of the UK was fluent in French and did not require an interpreter when travelling to French-language countries. French is a substantial minority language and immigrant language in the United Kingdom, with over 100,000 French-born people in the UK. According to a 2006 European Commission report, 23% of UK residents are able to carry on a conversation in French and 39% of French residents are able to carry on a conversation in English. French is also an official language in both Jersey and Guernsey. Both use French to some degree, mostly in an administrative or ceremonial capacity. Jersey Legal French is the standardised variety used in Jersey. However, Norman (in its local forms, Guernésiais and Jèrriais) is the historical vernacular of the islands.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Both languages have influenced each other throughout the years. According to different sources, more than 50% of all English words have a French origin, and today many French expressions have entered the English language as well. The term Franglais, a portmanteau combining the French words ""français"" and ""anglais"", refers to the combination of French and English (mostly in the UK) or the use of English words and nouns of Anglo-Saxon roots in French (in France).


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Modern and Middle English reflect a mixture of Oïl and Old English lexicons after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, when a Norman-speaking aristocracy took control of a population whose mother tongue was Germanic in origin. Due to the intertwined histories of England and continental possessions of the English Crown, many formal and legal words in Modern English have French roots. For example, "buy" and "sell" are of Germanic origin, while "purchase" and "vend" are from Old French.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In the sport of rugby union there is a rivalry between England and France. Both countries compete in the Six Nations Championship and the Rugby World Cup. England have the edge in both tournaments, having the most outright wins in the Six Nations (and its previous version the Five Nations), and most recently knocking the French team out of the 2003 and 2007 World Cups at the semi-final stage, although France knocked England out of the 2011 Rugby World Cup with a convincing score in their quarter final match. Though rugby is originally a British sport, French rugby has developed to such an extent that the English and French teams are now stiff competitors, with neither side greatly superior to the other. While English influences spread rugby union at an early stage to Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as well as the Commonwealth realms, French influence spread the sport outside the commonwealth, to Italy, Argentina, Romania and Georgia.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The influence of French players and coaches on British football has been increasing in recent years and is often cited as an example of Anglo-French cooperation. In particular the Premier League club Arsenal has become known for its Anglo-French connection due to a heavy influx of French players since the advent of French manager Arsène Wenger in 1996. In March 2008 their Emirates stadium was chosen as the venue for a meeting during a state visit by the French President precisely for this reason.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: Many people blamed the then French President Jacques Chirac for contributing to Paris' loss to London in its bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics after he made derogatory remarks about British cuisine and saying that "only Finnish food is worse". The IOC committee which would ultimately decide to give the games to London had two members from Finland.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The busiest seaway in the world, the English Channel, connects ports in Great Britain such as Dover, Newhaven, Poole, Weymouth, Portsmouth and Plymouth to ports such as Roscoff, Calais, Boulogne, Dunkerque, Dieppe, Cherbourg-Octeville, Caen, St Malo and Le Havre in mainland France. Companies such as Brittany Ferries, P&O Ferries, DFDS Seaways and LD Lines operate ferry services across the Channel.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: In addition, there are ferries across the Anguilla Channel between Blowing Point, Anguilla (a British Overseas Territory) and Marigot, Saint Martin (an overseas collectivity of France).


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: The Channel Tunnel (; also referred to as the Chunnel) is a 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) undersea rail tunnel (linking Folkestone, Kent, in the United Kingdom with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais, near the city of Calais in northern France) beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. Ideas for a cross-Channel fixed link appeared as early as 1802, but British political and press pressure over compromised national security stalled attempts to construct a tunnel. The eventual successful project, organised by Eurotunnel, began construction in 1988 and was opened by British Queen Elizabeth II and French President François Mitterrand in a ceremony held in Calais on 6 May 1994. The same year the American Society of Civil Engineers elected the Channel Tunnel as one of the seven modern Wonders of the World.


title: France–United Kingdom relations

text: There are lists of twinnings (including those to towns in other countries) at List of twin towns and sister cities in France and at List of twin towns and sister cities in the United Kingdom.


title: Barbatos

text: Barbatos is the 8th spirit named among the list of 72 demons in "The Lesser Key of Solomon". According to grimoire tradition, he holds the rank of Duke, and (like the demon Buer) may appear when the sun is in the sign of Sagittarius. When summoned, he appears "with four noble kings and their companions in great troops". Barbatos grants the ability to understand the spoken language of animals, such as the singing of birds and the barking of dogs. He reveals hidden treasures that have been concealed by the enchantment of magicians, gives knowledge of past and future events, and reconciles disputes between friends and those who hold power. Barbatos has 30 legions of spirits under his command, and once belonged to the angelic order of Virtues.


title: Barbatos

text: In the "Grand Grimoire", Barbatos is named as the 6th of the 18 spirits who serve the seven superior spirits, namely, he is under the command of Satanachia along with Pruslas and Aamon.


title: History of Austria

text: The history of Austria covers the history of Austria and its predecessor states, from the Early Stone Age to the present state. The name "Ostarrîchi" (Austria) has been in use since 996 AD when it was a margravate of the Duchy of Bavaria and from 1156 an independent duchy (later archduchy) of the Holy Roman Empire ("Heiliges Römisches Reich" 962–1806).


title: History of Austria

text: Austria was dominated by the House of Habsburg and House of Habsburg-Lorraine ("Haus Österreich") from 1273 to 1918. In 1806, when Emperor Francis II of Austria dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, Austria became the Austrian Empire, and was also part of the German Confederation until the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. In 1867, Austria formed a dual monarchy with Hungary: the Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867–1918). When this empire collapsed after the end of World War I in 1918, Austria was reduced to the main, mostly German-speaking areas of the empire (its current frontiers), and adopted the name, The Republic of German-Austria. However, union with Germany and the chosen country name were forbidden by the Allies at the Treaty of Versailles. This led to the creation of the First Austrian Republic (1919–1933).


title: History of Austria

text: Following the First Republic, Austrofascism tried to keep Austria independent from the German Reich. Engelbert Dollfuss accepted that most Austrians were German and Austrian, but wanted Austria to remain independent from Germany. In 1938, Austrian-born Adolf Hitler annexed Austria to the German Reich under the "Anschluss" concept, which was supported by a large majority of the Austrian people. Ten years after the Second World War Austria again became an independent republic as the Second Austrian Republic in 1955. Austria joined the European Union in 1995.


title: History of Austria

text: Since the territory understood by the term 'Austria' underwent drastic changes over time, dealing with a "History of Austria" raises a number of questions, e.g., whether it is confined to the current or former Republic of Austria, or extends also to all lands formerly ruled by the rulers of Austria. Furthermore, should Austrian history include the period 1938–1945, when it nominally did not exist? Of the lands now part of the second Republic of Austria, many were added over time – only two of the nine provinces or "Bundesländer" (Lower Austria and Upper Austria) are strictly 'Austria', while other parts of its former sovereign territory are now part of other countries e.g., Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and Czechia. Within Austria there are regionally and temporally varying affinities to adjacent countries.


title: History of Austria

text: Human habitation of the current territory of Austria can be traced back to the first farming communities of the early Stone Age (Paleolithic era). In the late Iron Age it was occupied by people of the Hallstatt Celtic culture (c. 800 BC), one of the first Celtic cultures besides the La Tène culture in France. They first organized as a Celtic kingdom referred to by the Romans as Noricum, dating from c. 800 to 400 BC. At the end of the 1st century BC, the lands south of the Danube became part of the Roman Empire, and were incorporated as the Province of Noricum around 40 AD.


title: History of Austria

text: The most important Roman settlement was at Carnuntum, which can still be visited today as an excavation site. In the 6th century, the Bavarii, a Germanic people, occupied these lands until it fell to the Frankish Empire in the 9th century. Around 800 AD, Charlemagne established the outpost of the Avar March ("Awarenmark") in what is now Lower Austria, to hold back advances from Slavs and Avars.


title: History of Austria

text: In the 10th century an eastern (east of the River Enns) outpost of the Duchy of Bavaria, bordering Hungary, was established as the "Marchia orientalis" (March of the East) or 'Margraviate of Austria' in 976, ruled by the Margraves of Babenberg. This 'Eastern March' (borderland), in German was known as "Ostarrîchi" or 'Eastern Realm', hence 'Austria'. The first mention of "Ostarrîchi" occurs in a document of that name dated 996 CE. From 1156 the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa created an independent duchy (Privilegium Minus) under the House of Babenberg, until its extinction in 1246, corresponding to modern Lower Austria.


title: History of Austria

text: Following the Babenberg dynasty and a brief interregnum, Austria came under the rule of the German king Rudolf I of Habsburg (1276–1282), beginning a dynasty that would last through seven centuries becoming progressively distinct from neighbouring Bavaria, within the Holy Roman Empire. The 15th and early 16th century saw considerable expansion of the Habsburg territories through diplomacy and marriages to include Spain, the Netherlands and parts of Italy. This expansionism, together with French aspirations and the resultant Habsburg–French or Bourbon–Habsburg rivalry were important factors shaping European history for over 200 years (1516–1756).


title: History of Austria

text: By the Edict of Worms ("Wormser Vertrag") of 28 April 1521, the Emperor Charles V (Archduke of Austria 1519–1521) split the dynasty, bestowing the hereditary Austrian lands ("Österreichische Länder") on his brother, Ferdinand I (1521–1564) and the first central administrative structures were established. By 1526 Ferdinand had also inherited the kingdoms of Bohemia, and Hungary after the Battle of Mohács which partitioned the latter. However the Ottoman Empire now lay directly adjacent to the Austrian lands. Even after the unsuccessful first Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1529, the Ottoman threat persisted for another one and a half centuries. There was a battle where the Christian Polish king, John III Sobieski stopped the Muslim attack against Christians and the city Vienna in 1683.


title: History of Austria

text: The 16th century also saw the spread of the Reformation. From around 1600 the Habsburg policy of recatholicization or Catholic Renewal ("Rekatholisierung") eventually led to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Originally a religious war, it was also a struggle for power in central Europe, particularly the French opposition to the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire. Eventually, the pressure of the anti-Habsburg coalition of France, Sweden, and most Protestant German states contained their authority to the Austrian and Czech lands in 1648.


title: History of Austria

text: In 1683, the Ottoman forces were beaten back from Vienna a second time and eventually, in the Great Turkish War (1683–1699), pushed back beyond Belgrade. When the main (Spanish) line of the Habsburgs died out in 1700, it precipitated the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) between the Habsburgs and King Louis XIV of France. Subsequently, Austria gained control, through the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, of the Spanish Netherlands, Naples and Lombardy.


title: History of Austria

text: These acquisitions together with conquests in the Balkans gave Austria its greatest territorial extent to date. 1713 also saw the Pragmatic Sanction, designed to prevent any further division of the territory. But when Charles VI (Archduke 1711–1740) died and was succeeded by his daughter, Maria Theresa (1740–1780) Austria was perceived as weak, leading to the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Subsequently, Austria lost Silesia to Prussia. Austria also lost prior conquests from the Ottomans except Banat of Temeswar and Syrmia in the Austro-Russian–Turkish War despite being allied with Russia.


title: History of Austria

text: These Silesian Wars initiated a long-standing tension between Austria and Prussia. Maria Theresa effectively reigned as Empress through her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine (d. 1765) and they founded the new dynasty of Habsburg-Lorraine. During her reign, extensive reforms were initiated, and when Francis died in 1765, these were continued by her son, Joseph II (Emperor 1765–1790; Archduke 1780–1790). However, his successor, his brother, Leopold II (1790–1792), was much more conservative.


title: History of Austria

text: The next emperor, his son Francis II (1792–1835), found himself at war with France in the First (1792–1797) and Second (1798–1802) Coalition wars, the prelude to the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), in which Austria lost further territory. Following further Austrian losses in the Third Coalition War (1803–1806) the future of the Habsburg Empire looked increasingly uncertain. Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France in May 1804 and was busy reorganising much of the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, and looked to be assuming the title of emperor too, as a second Charlemagne. Francis II responded by proclaiming the Empire of Austria in August, taking the new title of Emperor. In 1806, having held both titles in the interim, he resigned the imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which then ceased to exist.


title: History of Austria

text: Following the Congress of Vienna, Austria became part of the German Confederation till the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. In the 19th century nationalist movements within the empire became increasingly evident, and the German element became increasingly weakened, whilst most of Austria's Italian-speaking lands were gained by the new Kingdom of Italy. With Austria's expulsion from the German Confederation following its defeat by Prussia in the war in 1866 the Dual Monarchy with Hungary was created by the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867. This succeeded in reducing but not removing nationalist tensions as it left mostly Slavic peoples and Romanians dissatisfied; dissatisfactions which were to boil over with the 1914 assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and the ensuing chain reaction resulting in the First World War. The losses of the war resulted in the collapse of the empire and dynasty in 1918.


title: History of Austria

text: The non-German ethnic groups broke away leaving Austria's current boundaries as German Austria, which was proclaimed an independent republic. The severe global economic crisis coupled with domestic political tensions led to civil strife in February 1934, with the May Constitution of 1934 resulting in an authoritarian corporate state. Just two months later the Austrian Nazis staged the July coup, wanting to annex the country to into Nazi Germany, resulting in the assassination of Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. While the coup failed, Adolf Hitler succeeded in annexing Austria on 12 March 1938 as "Ostmark", until 1945. Austria was divided into four occupation zones after the Second World War and then in 1955 became the independent sovereign state (Second Republic) that has existed to the present day. In 1995, Austria joined the European Union.


title: History of Austria

text: The modern state of Austria is considered to have three geographic zones. The biggest consists of the Alps, which covers 62.8% of the country's landmass. In the north, across the Danube, is the Austrian (southern) portion of the Bohemian Massif, called the ""Böhmerwald"" or Bohemian Forest, a relatively lower mountain range of granite that makes up another 10% of the Austrian land area. The remaining parts of the country are the Pannonian lowlands along the border with Hungary (11.3%) and the Vienna Basin (4.4%).


title: History of Austria

text: The Bohemian Massif and its foothills were formed in the Variscan orogeny of the late Paleozoic era. Another important element of Austrian geology and geography is the late Mesozoic Alpine orogeny, and the subsequent formation of the Paratethys ocean and Molasse Basin in the Cretaceous era.


title: History of Austria

text: The extensive alpine regions are sparsely populated, and form a barrier to the passage of peoples apart from strategic passes providing access to Italy. Austria is positioned between the eastern European countries and central-western Europe, a position that has dictated much of its history. The Danube Valley has always been an important corridor from the West to the Balkans and the Orient.


title: History of Austria

text: The Alps were inaccessible during the Ice Age, so human habitation dates no earlier than the Middle Paleolithic era, during the time of the Neanderthals. The oldest traces of human habitation in Austria, more than 250,000 years ago, were found in the Repolust Cave at Badl, near Peggau in the Graz-Umgebung district of Styria. These include stone tools, bone tools, and pottery fragments together with mammalian remains. Some 70,000-year-old evidence was found in the Gudenus Cave in northwestern Lower Austria.


title: History of Austria

text: Upper Paleolithic remains are more numerous in Lower Austria. The best known are in the Wachau region, including the sites of the two oldest pieces of art in Austria. These are figurative representations of women, the Venus of Galgenberg found near Stratzing and thought to be 32,000 years old, and the nearby Venus of Willendorf (26,000 years old) found at Willendorf, near Krems an der Donau. In 2005 in the same area, a double infant burial site was discovered at Krems-Wachtberg, dating from Gravettian culture (27,000 years old), the oldest burial ground found in Austria to date.


title: History of Austria

text: Mesolithic remains include rock shelters (abris) from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine Valley, a funeral site at Elsbethen and a few other sites with microlithic artifacts which demonstrate the transition from living as hunter-gatherers and sedentary farmers and ranchers.


title: History of Austria

text: During the Neolithic era, most of those areas of Austria that were amenable to agriculture and were sources of raw materials were settled. Remains include those of the Linear pottery culture, one of the first agrarian cultures in Europe. The first recorded rural settlement from this time was at Brunn am Gebirge in Mödling. Austria's first industrial monument, the chert mine at "Mauer-Antonshöhe" in the Mauer neighborhood of the southern Vienna district of Liesing dates from this period. In the Lengyel culture, which followed Linear Pottery in Lower Austria, circular ditches were constructed.


title: History of Austria

text: Traces of the Copper Age (Chalcolithic era) in Austria were identified in the Carpathian Basin hoard at Stollhof, Hohe Wand, Lower Austria. Hilltop settlements from this era are common in eastern Austria. During this time the inhabitants sought out and developed raw materials in the central Alpine areas. The most important find is considered to be the Iceman Ötzi a well-preserved mummy of a man frozen in the Alps dating from approximately 3,300 BC, although these finds are now in Italy on the Austrian border. Another culture is the Mondsee group, represented by stilt houses in the Alpine lakes.


title: History of Austria

text: By the beginning of the Bronze Age fortifications were appearing, protecting the commercial centers of the mining, processing, and trading of copper and tin. This flourishing culture is reflected in the grave artifacts, such as at Pitten, in Nußdorf ob der Traisen, Lower Austria. In the late Bronze Age appeared the Urnfield culture, in which salt mining commenced in the northern salt mines at Hallstatt.


title: History of Austria

text: The Iron Age in Austria is represented by the Hallstatt culture, which succeeded the Urnfield culture, under influences from the Mediterranean civilizations and Steppe peoples. This gradually transitioned into the Celtic La Tène culture.


title: History of Austria

text: This early Iron Age culture is named after Hallstatt the type site in Upper Austria. The culture is often described in two zones, Western and Eastern, through which flowed the rivers Enns, Ybbs and Inn. The West Hallstatt area was in contact with the Greek colonies on the Ligurian coast. In the Alps, contacts with the Etruscans and under Greek influence regions in Italy were maintained. The East had close links with the Steppe Peoples who had passed over the Carpathian Basin from the southern Russian steppes.


title: History of Austria

text: The population of Hallstatt drew its wealth from the salt industry. Imports of luxury goods stretching from the North and Baltic seas to Africa have been discovered in the cemetery at Hallstatt. The oldest evidence of an Austrian wine industry was discovered in Zagersdorf, Burgenland in a grave mound. The Cult Wagon of Strettweg, Styria is evidence of contemporary religious life.


title: History of Austria

text: In the later Iron Age, the Celtic La Tène culture spread to Austria. This culture gave rise to the first-recorded local tribal (Taurisci, Ambidravi, Ambisontes) and place names. Out of this arose Noricum (2nd century to "c". 15 ) – a confederation of Alpine Celtic tribes (traditionally twelve) under the leadership of the Norici. It was confined to present-day southern and eastern Austria and part of Slovenia. The West was settled by the Raeti.


title: History of Austria

text: Dürrnberg and Hallein (Salzburg) were Celtic salt settlements. In eastern Styria and the Burgenland (e.g., Oberpullendorf) high-quality iron ore was mined and processed, then exported to the Romans as "ferrum noricum" (Noric iron). This led to the creation of a Roman trading outpost on the Magdalensberg in the early 1st century , later replaced by the Roman town Virunum. Fortified hilltop settlements ("oppida"), e.g. Kulm (east Styria), Idunum (mod. Villach), Burg (Schwarzenbach), and Braunsberg (Hainburg), were centers of public life. Some cities such as Linz ("Lentos") date back to this period also.


title: History of Austria

text: Although Noricum and Rome had been active trading partners and had formed military alliances, around 15 BC the majority of what we now know as Austria was annexed to the Roman Empire, beginning 500 years of so-called "Austria Romana" (as it became known in the 19th century). Noricum became a province of the Roman Empire.


title: History of Austria

text: During the reign of the Emperor Claudius (41–54 AD), the Roman province of Noricum had as its boundaries to the north the Danube, to the north-east the Vienna Woods, and in the east approximately the current eastern border of Styria, while in the south-east and south it was bounded by the Eisack and Drava rivers. Later, under Diocletian (284–305), the province was divided along the main Alpine ridge into a northern ("Noricum ripense") and a southern ("Noricum Mediterraneum"). Across the Ziller in the west, corresponding to the present provinces of Vorarlberg and Tyrol, lay the province of Raetia, incorporating the earlier territory of Vindelicia. In the east lay Pannonia, including what is today the Burgenland. To the south was Region 10, "Venetia et Histria". The Danube river formed the Danubian "limes" ("limes Danubii"), a defensive line separating Upper and Lower Austria from the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni and Quadi.


title: History of Austria

text: The Romans built many cities that survive today. They include Vindobona (Vienna), Juvavum (Salzburg), Valdidena (Innsbruck), and Brigantium (Bregenz). Other important towns were Virunum (north of the modern Klagenfurt), Teurnia (near Spittal), and Lauriacum (Enns). Significant archaeological sites from the Roman period include Kleinklein (Styria) and Zollfeld (Magdalensberg).


title: History of Austria

text: Christianity appeared in Austria in the 2nd century AD, prompting Church organization that can be traced back to the 4th century AD. After the arrival of the Bavarii, Austria became the object of missionary efforts, such as Rupert and Virgil of the Hiberno-Scottish mission.


title: History of Austria

text: The Great Migration ("Völkerwanderung") sealed the decline of Roman power in Austria. In the First Phase (300–500 AD) the Roman Empire was increasingly harassed by Germanic tribes from the 5th Century, including Goths and Vandals. As the fabric of the Roman Empire crumbled, the ability of Raetia, Noricum, and Pannonia to defend themselves became increasingly problematic. Radagaisus overran part of the country in 405. (Géza Alföldy pp. 213–4). After several raids on Italy, the Visigoths arrived in 408, under Alaric I.


title: History of Austria

text: As described by Zosimus, Alaric set out from Emona (modern Ljubljana) which lay between Pannonia Superior and Noricum over the Carnic Alps arriving at Virunum in Noricum, as had been agreed to by the Roman general Stilicho, following several skirmishes between the two. Alaric was voted a large amount of money to maintain peace, by the Roman Senate, at Stilicho's instigation. From there he directed his operations against Italy, demanding Noricum among another territory, finally sacking Rome in 410 but dying on the route home that year.


title: History of Austria

text: The Visigoths eventually moved on, allowing a short period of stability apart from domestic disturbances in 431. (Alföldy p. 214). 451 saw the Huns pour through the land, and in 433, Pannonia had had to be evacuated under the Hun attacks. The death of Attila in 453 allowed the Ostrogoths to scatter his Hunnish empire. Many tribes, formerly under the Huns now started to settle along the Danube basin and assert their independence. Among these were the Rugii, who formed their own lands (Rugiland) across the Danube and started to impose their will on Noricum.


title: History of Austria

text: From 472 Ostrogoths and Alamanni invaded the area but did not subdue it. Even after Odoacer had overthrown the last Western Roman Emperor in 476, there remained remnants of the Roman administration in the provinces before the final collapse of Late Antiquity in this area (see Severinus of Noricum and Flaccitheus). Noricum was eventually abandoned in 488, while Raetia was abandoned by the Romans to the Alamanni.


title: History of Austria

text: Abandoned and devastated towns and buildings slowly fell into disarray during the 4th and 5th centuries. By 493 the area was part of the lands of the Ostrogoth king Theodoric and there were no remaining Roman influences. The collapse of the Ostrogothic empire began with his death in 526.


title: History of Austria

text: During the second phase of the Migration Period (500–700 AD) the Langobardii (Lombards) made a brief appearance in the northern and eastern regions around 500 AD, but had been driven south into northern Italy by the Avars by 567. The Avars and their vassal Slavs had established themselves from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. After the Avars suffered setbacks in the east in 626, the Slavs rebelled, establishing their own territories. The Alpine Slavs (Carantanii) elected a Bavarian, Odilo, as their count and successfully resisted further Avar subjugation.


title: History of Austria

text: The Slavic tribe of the Carantanians migrated westward along the Drava into the Eastern Alps in the wake of the expansion of their Avar overlords during the 7th century, mixed with the Celto-Romanic population, and established the realm of Carantania (later Carinthia), which covered much of eastern and central Austrian territory and was the first independent Slavic state in Europe, centred at Zollfeld. Together with the indigenous population they were able to resist further encroachment of the neighboring Franks and Avars in the southeastern Alps.


title: History of Austria

text: In the meantime, the Germanic tribe of the Bavarii (Bavarians), vassals of the Franks, had developed in the 5th and 6th century in the west of the country and in what is now known as Bavaria, while what is today Vorarlberg had been settled by the Alemans. In the northern alps the Bavarians had become established as a stem dukedom around 550 AD, under the rule of the Agilolfings until 788 as an eastern outpost of the Frankish Empire. At that time the lands occupied by the Bavarians extended south to current South Tyrol, and east to the river Enns. The administrative center was at Regensburg. Those groups mixed with the Rhaeto-Romanic population and pushed it up into the mountains along the Puster Valley.


title: History of Austria

text: In the south of present-day Austria, the Slavic tribes had settled in the valleys of the Drava, Mura and Save by 600 AD. The westward Slavic migration stopped further Bavarian migration eastwards by 610. Their most westward expansion was reached in 650 at the Puster Valley (Pustertal), but gradually fell back to the Enns River by 780. The settlement boundary between Slavs and Bavarians roughly corresponds to a line from Freistadt through Linz, Salzburg (Lungau), to East Tyrol (Lesachtal), with Avars and Slavs occupying eastern Austria and modern-day Bohemia.


title: History of Austria

text: Carantania, under pressure of the Avars, became a vassal state to Bavaria in 745 and was later incorporated into the Carolingian empire, first as a tribal margravate under Slavic dukes, and after the failed rebellion of Ljudevit Posavski in the early 9th century, under Frankish-appointed noblemen. During the following centuries, Bavarian settlers went down the Danube and up the Alps, a process through which Austria was to become the mostly German-speaking country it is today. Only in southern Carinthia, the Slavic population maintained its language and identity until the early 20th century, when a process of assimilation reduced their number to a small minority.


title: History of Austria

text: Bavarian relationship with the Franks varied, achieving temporary independence by 717 AD, only to be subjugated by Charles Martel. Finally Charlemagne (Emperor 800–814) deposed the last Agilolfing duke, Tassilo III, assuming direct Carolingian control in 788 AD, with non-hereditary Bavarian kings. Charlemagne subsequently led the Franks and Bavarians against the eastern Avars in 791, so that by 803 they had fallen back to the east of the Fischa and Leitha rivers. These conquests enabled the establishment of a system of defensive marches (military borderlands) from the Danube to the Adriatic. By around 800 AD, Österreich, the "Kingdom of the East," had been joined to the Holy Roman Empire.


title: History of Austria

text: Among these was an eastern march, the Avar March ("Awarenmark"), corresponding roughly to present day Lower Austria, bordered by the rivers Enns, Raab and Drava, while to the south lay the March of Carinthia. Both marches were collectively referred to as the Marcha orientalis (Eastern March), a prefecture of the Duchy of Bavaria. In 805, the Avars, with Charlemagne's permission, led by the Avar Khagan, settled south-eastward from Vienna.