Was there a policy of preemptive attack on foreign fleets in the British Empire?
Upvote:4
I don't know of any such official policy. It would not have made much sense to deliberately and continuously start wars with other "great powers" of the time.
If you take, for example, the 1807 attack on Copenhagen, this was specifically motivated by reports that Napoleon was pressuring the Danes to use their fleet against the British or to give it to France. Napoleon had been engaging in war throughout Europe and had intended an invasion of England.
The British were not set on preemptive attack, they offered a more peaceful alternative that would place the Danish fleet out of Napoleon's reach:
Canning offered Denmark a treaty of alliance and mutual defence, with a convention signed for the return of the fleet after the war, the protection of 21 British warships and a subsidy for how many soldiers Denmark kept standing.
The next day Napoleon demanded Denmark prepare for war against Britain or face French invasion.
Everything points to the attack on Copenhagen being a reaction to a specific threat rather than a specific application of a general policy.
More post
- 📝 In the past were there gifts on the days leading up to Christmas instead of them all being on the one day?
- 📝 Did this "sledge rigged like a sloop" vehicle ever exist, or was it an invention of Jules Verne?
- 📝 Has there ever been a society that viewed prostitution as a prestigious vocation?
- 📝 Why was Calcutta a node in the opium smuggling network prior to the Opium Wars in China?
- 📝 When and why was the Shinkolobwe Mine flooded and re-opened?
- 📝 Why are Vikings singled out for raids in Britain and Ireland when records may indicate most raids were by local rulers?
- 📝 Why were eighteenth century financial inventions only patentable under French law for 21 months?
- 📝 How was St Edwards Crown fixed after Blood flattened it?
- 📝 Average ages of US Army officers at the turn of the 20th century
- 📝 Before television sets became commonplace, did people generally watch movies only once?
- 📝 Were the heavy war reparations on Germany after World War I the main cause of its hyperinflation in 1923?
- 📝 Did soldiers wear helmets in the 19th century?
- 📝 What sources do we have on the 5th Century AD in the Gauls and Roman Empire?
- 📝 What exactly was the Philby Plan?
- 📝 Which company offered this aircraft interior in the 60s?
- 📝 Transatlantic Zeppelin Flight Time
- 📝 Is there any historic record of using a wooden bow as a club?
- 📝 Why during the colonial era were Berber countries referred to as “Arab”?
- 📝 How did the general population of England convert so smoothly to Protestantism?
- 📝 What went wrong with India's scientific development as a society?
- 📝 How important were "columnar" strategies in Japan's invasion of China?
- 📝 What examples are of French and Arab cultural integration?
- 📝 Were Soviets invited to the Marshall Islands to observe the first hydrogen bomb detonations?
- 📝 WW1 Uniform - Which country does this uniform belong to?
- 📝 Is this anecdote about use of poison in guerrilla war mentioned by Schopenhauer based on facts?
- 📝 Why did John Ganson vote contradictorily on the 13th Amendment?
- 📝 What did the Japanese military do to maintain their fighting edge during the Edo era/Bakufu (1603-1868)?
- 📝 How did the different regions' cultures in colonial America eventually begin to unify?
- 📝 Who is speaking here?
- 📝 What did cataphract units wear under the armour?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was there a policy of preemptive attack on foreign fleets in the British Empire?
- 📝 Was there a tax in the fifties for British citizens traveling abroad?
- 📝 How profitable was India for the British Empire in the 1800s?
- 📝 What was the foreign policy of 1791 France?
- 📝 Was the British Empire financially capable of maintaining India as a colony after WW2?
- 📝 Was the British Empire bigger than the combined empires of the Iberian Union in terms of claimed land area?
- 📝 Did the Russian Empire have a claim to Sweden? Was there ever a time where they could have pursued it?
- 📝 Could Great Britain have built the British Empire if it was not the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution?
- 📝 Who thought there might be a war between the British Empire and the United States of America in the 1920s?
- 📝 Does anyone have a concrete example of the British Empire using revolution to gain control over foreign resources, governments?
- 📝 Was there ever support for any persons outside of the empire to be elected Holy Roman Emperor?
- 📝 During World War II, were there any parts of the Japanese overseas empire that was capable of local re-supply?
- 📝 Why was there such tension between the Ottoman Empire and Russia during the Armenian genocide?
- 📝 Was there a British Royal tradition associated with the name Elizabeth?
- 📝 What was the official policy of British administration about the integration of Indian Princely States in 1947?
- 📝 Was there any other Germanic person who gained an important position in The Byzantine Empire other than Emperor Tiberios III Apsimar?
- 📝 Was there a rational reason for Napoleon to attack Russia while the Peninsular War was still in progress?
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the British Parliament was reluctant to deal with the Nassau Pirates because they made a convenient bogeyman?
- 📝 If there was truly 3 hours of darkness in Roman empire following the crucifixion, would we expect some sort of record to survive of this happening?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 Was there ever a treaty between 2 entities with significantly different translations to the detriment of one party?
- 📝 In the "Christmas truce" of 1914 were there any football (soccer) matches between British and German troops?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?
- 📝 Why was there a surge in the US incarceration rate during the 1990s?
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the "war on drugs" was a cover for class warfare?
- 📝 Why was the Roman Empire considered an empire rather than a kingdom (again)?
- 📝 Was there an assassination attempt against Xerxes in the battle of Thermopylae?
- 📝 Was there a King of England, or an heir to the throne, in 1831 who idolized Michael Faraday?
- 📝 Why was the northern boundary of the Mongol empire set where it was?