This dissertation explores the influence of late eighteenth-century British imperial and global paradigms of thought on the formation of British policy and strategy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It argues that British imperial interests exerted a consistent influence on British strategic decision making through the personal advocacy of political leaders, institutional memory within the British government, and in the form of a traditional strain of a widely-embraced British imperial-maritime ideology that became more vehement as the conflict progressed. The work can be broken into two basic sections. The first section focuses on the formation of strategy within the British government of William Pitt the Younger during the French Revolutionary Wars from the declaration of war in February 1793 until early 1801. During this phase of the Anglo-French conflict, British ministers struggled to come to terms with the nature of the threat posed by revolutionary ideology in France, and lacked strategic consistency due to acute cabinet-level debates over continental versus imperial strategies. The latter half of the work assesses Britain’s response to the challenges presented by Napoleonic France. Beginning with the debates surrounding Anglo-French peace negotiations in late 1801, the British increasingly came to define Napoleonic France as a regime harboring imperial aspirations that represented an explicit threat to British imperial interests. By defining the Napoleonic regime as an aspirational imperial power, British opponents of the Peace of Amiens provided the intellectual framework for the hegemonic struggle between land and sea powers that would define the Anglo-French struggle until its conclusion in June 1815. While Britain ultimately proved successful in defeating France in Europe, the expanse of the conflict also exposed the strengths and weaknesses of British force projection outside of Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. / History

In 1793, the British government embarked on a war against Revolutionary France that few expected would last twenty-five years and engulf all of Europe. Radical French policies provided an opportunity for William Pitt, the British prime minister, to endeavor to cobble a European alliance, including a number of Mediterranean states. These efforts never progressed beyond theory and negotiations because of conflicted policy and tension between the British diplomatic corps and Royal Navy over the strategic goals in the region. With diplomats focused on coalition building and military commanders focused on national objectives, British efforts never congealed into a unified effort to defeat Revolutionary France.

Dans la production de longs métrages des années 2000 il y a un numéro spécial de films où la figure de l'enfant semble être le chemin à parcourir, restaurer et critiquer le passé traumatique issue des dictatures du Cône Sud et les guerres révolutionnaires des années 60, 70 et 80 du XXe siècle. La présence d'enfants dans ces récits mémoriels a des implications importantes pour la définition des formes narratives à travers lequel le passé est mis à jour. Ce travail établit d'abord un genre poétique qui naît de la présence des enfants au cinéma en trois constellations (l'enfant et de la misère, la sexualité et de l'enfant, et les enfants et le passé) pour, dans une seconde moment, approfondir l'analyse des formes narratives de la troisième constellation. Sa complexité et son intérêt naissent de la multiplicité des opérations narratives qui se trouvent dans ces films dans lesquels l'enfance surgit dans le récit des adultes porte sur un passé nostalgique qui au même temps implique la dénonciation des conditions d'une enfance impossible et de la perte de celle-ci. Mais ces films non seulement doivent convoquer un passé traumatique lié à la fin de l'enfance, ils sont contraints aussi de prendre en compte les règles du cinéma de fiction ce qui donne lieu, dans la négociation, à une poétique (comme émergence dans l'histoire) dont son analyse sera l'objet final de ce travail. Cette poétique, comprise comme un horizon narratif, politique et idéologique, est le résultat de l'analyse fait sur les sept films du corpus qui parlent du passé des dictatures chilienne et argentine et les guerres révolutionnaires de l’Équateur, de la Colombie, du Venezuela, du Nicaragua et du Salvador. / During the 2000s there is a special production of Latin-American fiction films in which the figure of the child appears as the path to visit, restore and criticize the southern cone’s dictatorships traumatic past and the revolutionary wars of the 60s, 70’s and 80’s of the twentieth century. The presence of childhood in these memorial stories has important implications for the definition of the narrative forms through which that past is updated. This work aims to establish a poetics of the genre in three constellations (the child and the misery, sexuality and the child, and the childhood and the past). In a second moment it will go deepen in the analysis of the narrative forms of the third constellation. Its complexity and interest result from the multiplicity of narrative operations that take place in these films where childhood manifests itself through the nostalgia of the adult story about a past that at the same time is object of denunciation of the conditions of an impossible childhood and of the loss of it. But these films not only call a traumatic past linked to the end of childhood, they must also assume the rules of storytelling, producing in the negotiation a poetics (such as the emergence of history) that will be the final object of this work. This poetics, understood as a narrative, political and ideological horizon, will be the result of the analysis made of the seven films of the corpus that relate the past of the dictatorships of Chile and Argentina, and the revolutionary wars of Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and El Salvador. / En la producción de largometrajes argumentales en América Latina en los años 2000 hay una cantidad especial de películas en las que la figura del niño aparece como el camino para recorrer, restablecer y criticar el pasado traumático de las dictaduras del cono sur y las guerras revolucionarias de los años 60, 70 y 80 del siglo XX. La presencia de la infancia en estos relatos memoriales tiene implicaciones importantes para la definición de las formas narrativas a través de las cuales se actualiza ese pasado. Este trabajo establece en un primer momento una poética del género que surge de la presencia de los niños en el cine en tres constelaciones (el niño y la miseria, la sexualidad y el niño, y la infancia y el pasado), para en un segundo momento profundizar en el análisis de las formas narrativas de la tercera constelación. Su complejidad e interés surge de la multiplicidad de operaciones narrativas que tienen lugar en estas películas donde la infancia se manifiesta a través de la nostalgia del relato adulto sobre un pasado que al tiempo es objeto de denuncia de las condiciones de una infancia imposible y de la pérdida de la misma. Pero estas películas no sólo convocan un pasado traumático vinculado con el fin de la infancia, también deben asumir las reglas propias delcine argumental, produciendo en la negociación una poética (como el surgimiento a la historia) cuya dinámica será el objeto final de este trabajo. Esta poética, entendida como un horizonte narrativo, político e ideológico, será el resultado del análisis hecho de las siete películas del corpus que relatan el pasado de las dictaduras de Chile y Argentina, y las guerras revolucionarias de Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Costa Rica y El Salvador.

This thesis examines the role of national defence in British parliamentary politics between 1794 and 1812. It suggests that previous analyses of the late eighteenth-century political milieu insufficiently explore the impact of war on the structure of the state. Work by J.E. Cookson, Linda Colley, J.C.D. Clark, and Paul Langford depicts a decentralised state that had little direct involvement in developing a popular “British” patriotism. Here I argue that the threat of a potential French invasion during the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France provoked a drive for centralisation. Nearly all the defence measures enacted during the period gave the government a much greater degree of control over British manpower and resources. The readiness of successive governments to involve large sections of the nation in the war effort through military service, financial contributions, and appeals to the British “spirit”, resulted in a much more inclusive sense of citizenship in which questions of national participation and political franchise were unlinked. National identity was also affected, and the focus on military defence of the British Isles influenced political attitudes towards the regular army. By 1810, however, the nation was disillusioned by the lengthy struggle with France. The result of lingering political weakness was that attention shifted from national defence onto domestic corruption and venality. The aftermath of the Irish Act of Union, too, demonstrated the limits of attempts to centralise the policy of the whole United Kingdom. Significantly, however, the debates over the relationship between the centre and the localities in the 1830s and 1840s, and the response to a new French invasion threat in the 1850s and 1860s, revived themes addressed during the 1790s and 1800s. The political reaction to the invasion threats between 1794 and 1812 ultimately had more in common with a Victorian state bureaucracy than an eighteenth-century ancien régime.