Colin Partridge & Jean de Préneuf 
The Channel Islands in Anglo-French Relations, 1689-1918 

Examines how the Channel Islands have been crucial to Britain’s successful maritime superiority in the English Channel.


The Channel Islands have played a key role in both naval warfare and Anglo-French diplomacy, but this has not always been highlighted sufficiently even though Britain and France were at war for most of the period 1689-1815. This book considers a wide range of maritime subjects where the role of the Channel Islands has been significant, such as intelligence gathering, piracy and privateering, and naval strategy and control of the Channel. It also examines topics in relation to the Channel Islands specifically, such as surveying and hydrography, fortifications, trade and Channel Islands societies. It charts changes over time, including the impact of technological changes, from the wars of Louis XIV and William III, through the many Anglo-French wars of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and includes planning for wars which were anticipated but avoided. Throughout the issues are discussed from the perspectives of Britain, France and the Channel Islands themselves, equal weight being given to all three perspectives. Andrew Lambert is Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and one of Britain’s foremost maritime and naval historians. Colin Partridge is a former consultant to the States of Guernsey’s ‘Fortress Guernsey’ programme for the restoration and interpretation of Guernsey’s fortifications. Jean de Préneuf is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Lille and Head of the Research, Teaching and Studies Unit at the Historical Branch of the French Ministry of Defence at Vincennes.

Table of Content

List of illustrations

List of contributors

Preface

Introduction: ‘The Ehrenbreitstein of the English Channel’, Andrew Lambert

Part 1: Corsairs: the Ancien régime and French Wars from 1689

1. Granville’s Privateers and Anglo-French Conflict in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Michel Aumont

2. ‘Fire No Guns, Shed No Tears’: Channel Island Privateers, British Strategic Thinking, and the Politics of Neutrality During the Seven Years War, Anna Brinkman-Schwartz

Part 2: The Islands – French and British intelligence from the Seven Years War to 1815

3. The Channel Islands in Anglo-French Strategy, 1756-82, Richard Harding

Part 3: Territorial Waters – The Land and Sea Interface from 17th to 20th centuries

4. Channel Islands Territorialisation:
A challenge between Local, National, and International Law (XVII° – XIX°), Frédéric Saffroy


5. Surveying the Islands: Captain Martin White RN and the Hydrography of the Islands, Michael Barritt:

Part 4: Engineering strategic change.

6. The development and fate of the Channel Harbours of Refuge, William Allsop

Part 5: Alderney and the Channel Islands – Naval Strategy from 1815 to 1905

7. French Naval Strategy and the Anglo-Norman Islands 1815-to 1914, Jean de Préneuf:


8. Commanding the Channel: The Channel Islands in British Grand Strategy, 1814 -1914, Andrew Lambert

Part 6: Civil Societies and Anglo-French Naval Rivalry – the 19th century to WWI

9. Hydrographic and nautical knowledge in French coastal defence strategy: the case of Channel Islands area, Isabelle Delumeau:

10. Alderney: The Impact of National Defence, Colin Partridge

Part 7: Trade War – the protection of Channel Islands shipping in the Great War

11. The Channel Islands in French Naval Strategy during the First World War, Thomas Vaisset

12. Royal Navy Trade Defence in the English Channel during the First World War, Alexander Howlett

Afterword: Alderney, The Channel Islands, and the Study of History, Alan James

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Andrew Lambert is Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and one of Britain’s foremost maritime and naval historians.