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List of wars involving the United Kingdom

Wars involving the United Kingdom From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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This is a list of conflicts involving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its predecessor states (the Kingdom of Great Britain (and Ireland)). Notable militarised interstate disputes are included. For a list of wars before the Acts of Union 1707 merging the Kingdom of England and Scotland, please see List of wars involving England & List of wars involving Scotland. For a list of wars involving the predecessors of both states and a broader list of wars fought on the Island of Great Britain, see the list of wars in Great Britain. Historically, the United Kingdom relied most heavily on the Royal Navy and maintained relatively small land forces. Most of the episodes listed here deal with insurgencies and revolts in the various colonies of the British Empire. During its history, the United Kingdom's forces (or forces with a British mandate) have invaded, had some control over or fought conflicts in 171 of the world's 193 countries that are currently UN member states, or nine out of ten of all countries.[1]

  British victory
  Another result *
  British defeat
  Ongoing conflict

*e.g. a treaty or peace without a clear result, status quo ante bellum, result of civil or internal conflict, result unknown or indecisive, inconclusive

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Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1801)

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1801–1922)

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United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1922–present)

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See also

Notes

  1. Some historians name the 1861–1865 war the "Second American Civil War", because in their view, the American Revolutionary War can also be considered a civil war (since the term can be used in reference to any war in which one political body separates itself from another political body). They then refer to the Independence War, which resulted in the separation of the Thirteen Colonies from the British Empire, as the "First American Civil War".[5][6] A significant number of American colonists stayed loyal to the British Crown and as Loyalists fought on the British side while opposite were a significant amount of colonists called Patriots who fought on the American side. In some localities, there was fierce fighting between Americans including gruesome instances of hanging, drawing, and quartering on both sides.[7][8][9][10]
    • As early as 1789, David Ramsay, an American patriot historian, wrote in his History of the American Revolution that "Many circumstances concurred to make the American war particularly calamitous. It was originally a civil war in the estimation of both parties."[11] Framing the American Revolutionary War as a civil war is gaining increasing examination.[12][13][14]. You can read part two of his 1789 book in full here
    • A group of Bristol, England merchants wrote to King George III in 1775 voicing their "most anxious apprehensions for ourselves and Posterity that we behold the growing distractions in America threaten" and ask for their majesty's "Wisdom and Goodness" to save them from "a lasting and ruinous Civil War.". You can read the 1775 petition in full here
    • The "constrained voice" is a good synopsis of how the British viewed the American Revolutionary War. From anxiety to a foreboding sense of the conflict being a civil war,
    • In the early stages of the rebellion by the American colonists, most of them still saw themselves as English subjects who were being denied their rights as such. "Taxation without representation is tyranny," James Otis reportedly said in protest of the lack of colonial representation in Parliament. What made the American Revolution look most like a civil war, though, was the reality that about one-third of the colonists, known as loyalists (or Tories), continued to support and fought on the side of the crown.
  2. France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in 1778, turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict.
    • The Revolution was both an international conflict, with Britain and France vying on land and sea, and a civil war among the colonists, causing over 60,000 loyalists to flee their homes.
    • Until early in 1778 the conflict was a civil war within the British Empire, but afterward it became an international war as France (in 1778) and Spain (in 1779) joined the colonies against Britain. Meanwhile, the Netherlands, which provided both official recognition of the United States and financial support for it, was engaged in its own war against Britain.
  3. Nominally the Holy Roman Empire, under Austrian Habsburg rule, also nominally encompassed some other Italian states abolished in 1797, as well as other Habsburg states such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
  4. Duchy of Warsaw as a state was in effect fully occupied by Russian and Prussian forces by May 1813, though most Poles remained loyal to Napoleon.
  5. Militarised interstate dispute over fishing rights in waters near Iceland;[60] Iceland has never fought in a full-scale war.[61]
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References

Further reading

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