The history of French foreign relations covers French diplomacy and foreign relations down to 1981. For the more recent developments, see foreign relations of France.
Valois and Bourbon France: 1453–1789
Franco-Ottoman alliance The Franco-Ottoman alliance was a military alliance established in 1536 between King Francis I of France and the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I. The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance was one of the most important foreign alliances of France, and was particularly influential during the Italian Wars. It enabled France to fight the Holy Roman Empire under Charles V on equal terms. The Franco-Ottoman military alliance reached its peak around 1553 during the reign of Henry II of France. The alliance was exceptional, as the first alliance between a Christian and Muslim state, and caused a scandal in the Christian world, especially since France was heavily committed to support Catholicism. Carl Jacob Burckhardt called it "the sacrilegious union of the lily and the crescent".C. J. Burckhardt, Richelieu vol. 2 (1947; English edition 1970); cited after Avner Ben-Zaken, Cross-Cultural Scientific Exchanges in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1560–1660 (2010), p. 209. A contemporary Swiss song by Benedikt Gletting called it the union of "the dolphin and the crocodile". R. Schwarzenbach, Schweizerisches Archiv für Volksunde 74 (1978), p. 6 It lasted intermittently for more than two and a half centuries,Merriman, p.132 until the Napoleonic invasion of Ottoman Egypt, in 1798–1801.
Louis XIV and Louis XV Under the long reigns of kings Louis XIV (1643–1715)John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (1968) and Louis XV (1715–1774),Colin Jones, The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon, 1715–99 (2002). France was second in size to Russia but first in terms of economic and military power. It fought numerous expensive wars, usually to protect its voice in the selection of monarchs in neighboring countries. A high priority was blocking the growth of power of the Habsburg rivals who controlled Austria and Spain.G. Zeller, "French diplomacy and foreign policy in their European setting". In F.L., Carsten, ed., The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume V The Ascendancy of France, 1648–88 (1961): pp 198–221.
Warfare defined the foreign policies of Louis XIV, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled "by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique", Louis sensed that warfare was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military.James Nathan, "Force, Order, and Diplomacy in the Age of Louis XIV." Virginia Quarterly Review 69#4 (1993) 633+.
Louis XIV had at his service many notable military commanders and an excellent support staff. His chief engineer Vauban (1633–1707) perfected the arts of fortifying French towns and besieging enemy cities. The finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83) dramatically improved the financial system so that it could support an army of 250,000 men. The system deteriorated under Louis XV so that wars drained the increasingly inefficient financial system. Louis XIV made France prouder in psychology but poorer in wealth; military glory and cultural splendor were exalted above economic growth.Cathal J. Nolan, Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650–1715: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization (2008) with over 1000 entries in 607pp.
Under Louis XIV, France fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession. There were also two lesser conflicts: the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions.
Louis XV did merge Lorraine and Corsica into France. However France was badly defeated in the Seven Years' War (1754–1763) and forced to give up its holdings in North America. It ceded New France to Great Britain and Louisiana to Spain, and was left with a bitter grudge that sought revenge in 1778 by helping the Americans win independence. Louis XV's decisions damaged the power of France, weakened the treasury, discredited the absolute monarchy, and made it more vulnerable to distrust and destruction, as happened in the French Revolution, which broke out 15 years after his death. Norman Davies characterized Louis XV's reign as "one of debilitating stagnation", characterized by lost wars, endless clashes between the Court and Parliament, and religious feuds. A few scholars defend Louis, arguing that his highly negative reputation was based on propaganda meant to justify the French Revolution. Jerome Blum described him as "a perpetual adolescent called to do a man's job."Jerome Blum, et al. The European World: A History (3rd ed 1970) p 454
American Revolutionary War
France played a key role helping the American Patriots win their War of Independence against Britain 1775–1783. Motivated by a long-term rivalry with Britain and by revenge for its territorial losses during Seven Years' War, France began secretly sending supplies in 1775. In 1777, American captured the British invasion army at Saratoga, demonstrating the viability of their revolt. In 1778, France recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation, signed a military alliance and went to war with Britain. France built a coalitions with Netherlands and Spain, provided Americans with money and arms, sent a combat army to serve under George Washington, and sent a navy that prevented the second British army from escaping from Yorktown in 1781.Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy 1774–1787 (1975)
India was a major battlefield, in which France tried to form alliances with Indian states against the British-controlled East India Company. Under Warren Hastings, the British managed to hold their own throughout the war. When the war began Britain quickly seized all of France's Indian possessions, especially Pondicherry. They were returned to France in the 1783 peace treaty.François-Joseph Ruggiu, "India and the Reshaping of the French Colonial Policy (1759-1789)." Itinerario 35.2 (2011): 25-43.
By 1789, the French debt acquired to fight in that war came to a staggering 1.3 billion livres. It "set off France's own fiscal crisis, a political brawl over taxation that soon became one of the reasons for French Revolution."Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth, "Bridging the Continental Divide: Colonial America's 'French Quarter.'" OAH Magazine of History 25.1 (2011): 19–24. France did obtain its revenge against Britain, but materially it gained little and its huge debts seriously weakened the government and helped facilitate the French Revolution in 1789.
Benjamin Franklin served as the American ambassador to France from 1776 to 1785. He met with many leading diplomats, aristocrats, intellectuals, scientists and financiers. Franklin's image and writings caught the French imagination – there were many images of him sold on the market – and he became the cultural icon of the archetypal new American, and even a hero for aspirations for a new order inside France.
French Revolution and Napoleon: 1789–1815
French Revolution
After the stated aim of the National Convention to export revolution, the guillotining of Louis XVI of France, and the French opening of the Scheldt, a European military coalition was formed against France. Spain, Naples, Great Britain, and the Netherlands joined Austria and Prussia in The First Coalition (1792–97), the first major concerted effort of multiple European powers to contain Revolutionary France. It took shape after the wars had already begun.Steven T. Ross, European Diplomatic History 1789–1815: France Against Europe (1969).
The Republican government in Paris was radicalised after a diplomatic coup for the Jacobins said it would be the Guerre Totale ("total war") and called for a Levée en masse (mass conscription of troops). Royalist invasion forces were defeated at Toulon in 1793, leaving the French republican forces in an offensive position and granting nationwide fame to a young hero, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). Following their victory at Fleurus, the French occupied Belgium and the Rhineland. An invasion of the Netherlands established the puppet Batavian Republic. Finally, a peace agreement was concluded between France, Spain, and Prussia in 1795 at Basel.Geoffrey Bruun, Europe and the French Imperium, 1799–1814 (1938) online.
Napoleonic wars
By 1799 Napoleon had seized power in France and proved highly adept at warfare and coalition building. Britain led a series of shifting coalitions to oppose him. After a brief truce in 1802–3, war resumed. In 1806 Prussia joined Britain and Russia, thus forming the Fourth Coalition. Napoleon was not alone since he now had a complex network of allies and subject states. The largely outnumbered French army crushed the Prussian army at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806; Napoleon captured Berlin and went as far as Eastern Prussia. There the Russian Empire was defeated at the Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807). Peace was dictated in the Treaties of Tilsit, in which Russia had to join the Continental System, and Prussia handed half of its territories to France. The Duchy of Warsaw was formed over these territorial losses, and Polish troops entered the Grande Armée in significant numbers.
Napoleon then went back to the west, to deal with Britain. Only two countries remained neutral in the war: Sweden and Portugal, and Napoleon then looked toward the latter. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau, a Franco-Spanish alliance against Portugal was sealed as Spain eyed Portuguese territories. French armies entered Spain in order to attack Portugal, but then seized Spanish fortresses and took over the kingdom by surprise. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was made King of Spain after Charles IV abdicated. This occupation of the Iberian peninsula fueled local nationalism, and soon the Spanish and Portuguese fought the French using guerrilla tactics, defeating the French forces at the Battle of Bailén (June and July 1808). Britain sent a short-lived ground support force to Portugal, and French forces evacuated Portugal as defined in the Convention of Sintra following the Allied victory at Vimeiro (21 August 1808). France only controlled Catalonia and Navarre and could have been definitely expelled from the Iberian peninsula had the Spanish armies attacked again, but the Spanish did not.Charles J. Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits & Adventurers in Spain, 1808–1814 (2004).
Another French attack was launched on Spain, led by Napoleon himself, and was described as "an avalanche of fire and steel." However, the French Empire was no longer regarded as invincible by European powers. In 1808 Austria formed the Fifth Coalition in order to break down the French Empire. The Austrian Empire defeated the French at Aspern-Essling, yet was beaten at Wagram while the Polish allies defeated the Austrian Empire at Raszyn (April 1809). Although not as decisive as the previous Austrian defeats, the peace treaty in October 1809 stripped Austria of a large amount of territories, reducing it even more.
In 1812 Napoleon could no longer tolerate Russian independence. He assembled a gigantic army and invaded. The French invasion of Russia (1812) was a total disaster, caused primarily by weather, partisan attacks, disease and inadequate logistics. Only small remnants of the invading army returned from Russia. On the Spanish front the French armies were defeated and evacuated Spain.Michael Adams, Napoleon and Russia (2006)