History 2186A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Glossary Of Patience Terms, Byrsonima Crassifolia, Vikings
22 May 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Thursday, March 7th — Threats to the Nation
•the invasion scare means if your enemy is on the other side of the border with masses of
heavily armed soldiers, panicking can actually be pretty rational"
•not really paranoia but rather good thinking"
•examples in history where the prospect of an invasion was fictitious and yet the panic was
produced non the less"
•England under siege"
•moth European countries had been invaded dozens of times over centuries"
•England has been invaded 4 times"
•by the Romans in 43AD"
•Germanic tribes in 450-750"
•vikings in 870"
•Normans in 1066"
•there have also been many planned invasions but they weren’t successful because of the
water"
•crossing the water and landing on a hostile coast is very different from crossing land"
•3 episodes where the threat of invasion was real but in none of those instances was there
broad panic because"
•there was lots of time to prepare in each of these invasions as they knew what was facing
them since they can all see it"
•trust or faith that the system will work work for them"
•in each of the instances England was lucky enough to have supreme leaders in which
everyone had enormous faith"
•The Spanish Armada (1588)"
•Angland had broken away from the Roman Catholic church meaning popish plots arose
(i.e. anti-Catholicism generated panic in England for hundreds of years)"
•most of this panic was without cause because the chances of England being taken over
from within were relatively low but by the same token the chances of England being
invaded by pirates from the continent was very real"
•England was right in thinking that Catholic pirates wanted to invade"
•England’s greatest enemies (i.e. the French and Spanish) were quite keen to tak eup the
challenge"
•a Spanish King Philip II was keen to invade England on behalf of Spain and the Catholic
church so he looked for the Pope’s support"
•the Pope said yes, that he would pay for it, and he would give his blessing"
•English were right that the Pope was willing to finance invasions of England"
•created the Army of Flanders in 1588 which was the most powerful and most equipped
army in Europe"
•the army was led by Duke of Parma who was respected and feared across the continent
for his skill as a soldier"
•began to collect ships, sailors, and artillery, and stock pile them on the continental side of
the English Channel in preparation for a massive invasion"
•knew that the English defences were poor at best and that the post was defended by
poorly trained volunteers"
•the English navy attacked and Spanish ships scattered and tried to come back together
only to be attacked again"
•the realized that their escape route south where they came from in Portugal was blocked
so they tried to escape north to Scotland, but as they were coming past Ireland they were
hit by savage storms"
•by the time the fleet returned to Portugal half of the original Armada was gone and many
soldiers had been lost"
•this great threat turned out to lead to nothing"
•despite the fact that there was an enormous Catholic army a few miles away from
England there was not evident panic but rather calm in England"
•Elizabeth I was the leader at the time and she had the country’s hearts and minds, and
therefore their trust, so there was no panic"
•in 1588 she made a famous speech in the east of England at Tilbury (i.e. Tilbury
Speech)"
•didn’t take long for news of this speech to move around so it had a powerful impact on
restoring confidence and faith"
•Elizabeth’s speech had a huge impact on maintaining a level of calm"
•this was a time when people believed that monarchs rule by divine right so when the
queen says something they took it seriously because they thought they were actually
speaking with the sanction of God, so they believed her when she said they will throw
the Spaniards into the sea"
•Napoleon Bonaparte (1800)"
•Britain and France had been at war for 10 years and decided to come to a truce"
•Napoleon saw this truce as a pause and had big plans to make himself the leader of
Europe"
•he had already taken control of France and wanted to become the king of Europe"
•he was determined to crush any enemy that stood in his way and regarded England as
his most dangerous enemy so their peace was irrelevant to him"
•created a vast invading army in France with many well trained, well equipped, and
experienced soldiers"
•arranged for barges to carry him across the channel"
•there weren’t many ports that could take that many barges so he had to rebuild ports
which cost a lot of money"
•he had to figure out how to pay for it so he sold Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson (i.e the
Americans) in 1803"
•the Americans didn’t have the money for it so they got a loan from Britain"
•essentially got a loan from a Britain bank to give money to the French so the French
could invade Britain so Britain was actually paying for the French to invade their country"
•the invasion never happened because Napoleon was never able to gain control of the
English Channel even though he only needed to control it for a couple of days"
•after many months of frustration he eventually took his army and invaded somewhere else"
•the Army of England was broken up and the invasion ceased to be a threat"
•not very far from England there were many soldiers ready to invade but there wasn’t
much panic at all"
•England built massive coastal defences like Dover Castle because the British had lots of
time to prepare"
•this may be why panic didn’t occur"
•English built Royal Military Canal to seal off invasion"
•built small Martello Towers along the south coast which were easy, cheap, and efficient"
•despite the fact that there were many French troops the English felt extremely prepared to
deal with anything Napoleon could offer"
•made propaganda that also stopped panic (e.g. Napoleon crossing the channel in a box)"
•most believed that the French would never get passed the Royal Navy"
•Operation Sealion (1940)"
•Nazu Germany was on the edge of world domination"
•they were poised to take their biggest step which was an invasion of England"
•many troops had swept through western Europe in a matter of weeks, they had a vast
fleet of invasion barges, and ports along the channel were filled with them ready tot ake
these troops to England"
•the troops that had just defeated a succession of European armies from Poland and
France were ready to invade England but never got the chance to"
•by this time, and unlike the Napoleon Era, there was another element in the air"
