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Maintaining naval hegemony in the industrial age: Britain, 1850–1889
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- By John F. Beeler, John F. Beeler is Professor in History at the University of Alabama, United States
- Edited by Christian Buchet, N. A. M. Rodger
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- Book:
- The Sea in History - The Modern World
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 26 May 2017
- Print publication:
- 17 February 2017, pp 137-147
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
ABSTRACT.It is a paradox that Britain came to feel under threat from foreign navies in an age when the Royal Navy outmatched all its potential enemies together, in numbers and even more in quality. The coming of the iron, armoured warship greatly advantaged the country whose engineering and shipbuilding industries dominated the world. Nevertheless, the British did not feel as confident in their naval superiority as they pretended, because they were beginning to experience the long-term consequences of abandoning the Corn Laws and the Navigation Acts. Now dependent on imported food and raw materials to feed and give work to the new mass electorate, Britain found herself reliant on command of the sea in a new and radical sense. In reaction, Britain started in 1889 what was to become a multi-national naval arms race lasting almost forty years.
RÉSUMÉ.Le fait que la Grande-Bretagne se soit sentie menacée par les marines étrangères à une époque où la Royal Navy surpassait, par son nombre et plus encore par sa qualité, tous ses ennemis potentiels est paradoxal. La création d'un cuirassé blindé en fer avantagea particulièrement le pays, dont les industries de construction navale et d'ingénierie dominaient le monde. Néanmoins, les britanniques n'étaient pas aussi confiants de leur supériorité maritime qu'ils ne le prétendaient. l'abandon des « Corn Laws » et des « Actes de Navigation », dont ils commençaient à ressentir les conséquences à long terme, rendit le pays tributaire de l'importation de nourriture et de matières premières pour nourrir et faire travailler son nouvel électorat de masse. La Grande-Bretagne se retrouva dépendante du contrôle de la mer, dans un sens radical et nouveau. En réaction, elle débuta en 1889 ce qui devint une course à l'armement naval internationale qui dura plus de quarante ans.
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONTEXT, 1850–70
This period opened with the government's adoption of free trade, symbolized less in this context by the repeal of the Corn Laws(1846) than by that of the Navigation Acts(1849). The latter had been a foundation stone of British imperial policy since first enacted in 1651 and were a key factor, in more ways than one, in the Royal Navy's rise to global dominance. The abandonment of mercantilism, therefore, put the navy's relationship to the government and the economy on a different footing than that which had existed for the past two centuries.