Under Louis XIV France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to the Holy Roman Empire and Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War.
The "land of Francia", from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne, who established the nucleus of the future French state. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes.
The Romans eventually emerged victorious through the campaigns of Julius Caesar. The first major recorded wars in the territory of modern-day France itself revolved around the Gallo-Roman conflict that predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC. It participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495 more than any other European state. The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas including modern France, Europe, and a variety of regions throughout the world.Īccording to historian Niall Ferguson, France is the most successful military power in history. The English subsequently lost their major remaining possessions on the European continent. The victory at Castillon showcased the power of artillery against charging masses of infantry and allowed the French to capture Bordeaux a few months later. In July 1453, a French army defeated its English opponents at the Battle of Castillon, the last major engagement of the Hundred Years War.
0 kommentar(er)
