Pivot
Today we spread our wings beyond Somerset and ask if we are at a pivot point in history? A moment when the geopolitical blocks around the globe are shifting. And if so, where does that leave Britain?
Dear readers
Today’s article is for our paying subscribers. If you’d like to join them and get an extra 48 articles a year exclusive to our paying subscribers (just like this one), you can sign up here:
Thank you
Andrew Lee - Editor
How do we know when we are at a pivot point in history? The broad sweep of wars and changing alliances over time can be complicated and hard to follow in some cases. More predictable in others.
Let’s take two prominent examples.
After 1,000 years of enmity and competition, it was surely obvious to any educated person in the 19th century that France was England’s implacable enemy. After all, that century started with Napoleon, Trafalgar and Waterloo.
If by the middle of the century we were on the same side in the Crimea, it was grudging and not without some sniping (c’est magnifique mais ce n’est pas la guerre*).
Yet by the end of the century, the unthinkable had happened. We had the Entente Cordiale and have been more or less friends ever since.
What man or woman on the street in the 1890s would have thought that possible?
How many expected the relationship to fail?
To see it as just a passing fad, a blip in the arc of history?
The USA too
By the same token, the USA had also been our implacable enemy. From the War of Independence to the War of 1812 through to British interference in the American Civil War. As late as 1895 a long forgotten crisis involving, would you believe, Venezuela, saw Britain and the USA once more on the verge of war. This time over a dispute as to who had the better claim to a chunk of British Guiana, Essequibo. Britain opposed Venezuela on the dispute and the USA intervened on the side of Venezuela.
