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This chapter focuses the peace that prevailed on the Continent from the signing of the treaty of Campo Formio in October 1797 to the attack on Rome by the King of Naples in November 1798, which proved to be the opening episode in the War of the Second Coalition, and hence of the grand climax or confrontation in 1799 between the Old Regime and the New Republican Order. It argues that the peace was no more than a semi-peace. On the one hand, neither France nor Austria could accept the terms of Campo Formio with any finality. Each looked for bastions against the other in Switzerland and Italy. On the other hand, France with its Dutch ally remained at war with Great Britain. While British diplomacy worked to bring Continental armies back into the field against France, the French first threatened to invade England and support revolution in Ireland, then redirected their fleet and army into the expedition to Egypt, from which it was hoped that Bonaparte could counteract the growth of British power in the Indian Ocean, where both French and Dutch interests were at stake. The Egyptian campaign transferred the Anglo-French conflict to the Mediterranean and the Near East.

This chapter examines how far British supply diplomacy in 1940 reflected genuinely critical military needs, and how far it served broader diplomatic goals. In his correspondence with Roosevelt, Churchill repeatedly raised the prospect of British defeat without American aid. These assertions of critical dependency informed aircraft supply, which remained at the forefront of the Anglo-American supply relationship through Roosevelt's ‘all aid short of war’ support for Britain throughout the crisis of 1940 and the evolution of Lend-Lease which followed.

This chapter first examines the historical relationship between Britain and the United States. It discusses how American power eclipsed British power in the world stage by the end of the nineteenth century, and the Lend-Lease Act in early 1941 — a measure designed to relieve the exhausted British dollar exchange resources needed to purchase American supplies in World War II. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to examine what the British wanted from American aircraft supply, how far they were able to meet those goals, and what affected the achievement of them. The study explores three key areas to expand and deepen the understanding of British aircraft supply diplomacy with the United States. Firstly, there is the issue of diplomacy itself. Secondly, there is the question of what contemporary British planners realistically expected in terms of aircraft supply and how they expected to employ it. Finally, there is the question of how successful American supply was in meeting those objectives, and what contemporary value it was seen to have as a result.

British diplomacy was an occupational sub-culture of genteel public service rather than anything resembling a professional bureaucracy. Ritual should not, however, be seen in simple terms as either a site of contest or mechanism of subordination. The gendered division of labour that became apparent in British diplomacy after 1780 has parallels in Europe. This chapter mentions the need to examine the extent to which the changing ideas about gender at home raised standards of public service for men and women. Diplomats' accounts of war and travel mark Britain's second arrival as a great power in 1815. This pride, married to an increasing set of investments in the empire, would play an important role in Britain's increasing sense of separation from Europe over the course of the nineteenth century.

This chapter describes how British supply diplomacy devolved into a series of transatlantic personal missions concerning the implementation of American aid to Britain. These began as Lend-Lease, evolved at the end of 1940, and then became law in March 1941 after a series of Congressional hearings and extensive public debate. The period was marked by continuing British appeals for immediate aid in the short term, and the conclusion of a long-term aircraft allocation agreement as an integral part of the first Anglo-American strategic discussions.

This chapter examines the extent of contemporary British dependency on American supplies. It shows that far from ending British supply problems, the nature and complexity of the problems involved in aircraft supply persisted long after Lend-Lease. Delivery delays and supply diversions ensured that aircraft actually procured under Lend-Lease legislation took up to a year to arrive in British units. Thus, British supply remained the mainstay of Royal Air Force (RAF) air strength both in Britain and in the overseas theatres originally selected to become dependent upon American supply. This conclusion provides substantial problems for the uncritical acceptance of the assertions of ‘critical dependency’ made by British diplomacy at the time, and any assumption that British supply needs were automatically met as a result of the aircraft supply diplomacy of 1940–42.

This chapter outlines the structure of the journal, the topics to be discussed, and the critical approaches utilised for analysis. It introduces each nation’s key objectives: the use of naval diplomacy and power to avoid conflict; the suppression of piracy through co-operation force; and the advance of their economic powers. It also outlines their clashing objectives surrounding the slave trade - Britain’s goal of suppressing the slave trade for economic gain and America’s reluctance to address the topic. It introduces the concept of naval relation studies, interest-based naval analysis, and the comparative methodologies used in the analysis. It also introduces the sources consulted in the following chapters - primarily American and British newspapers, policy documents, naval documents, and naval and economic statistics. It concludes by summarising each chapter’s aims.

This chapter examines the migration of Haitians to Jamaica against the backdrop of the social and political challenges that each country faced. It also considers the role of British diplomacy and public opinion in Jamaica's economic and social downturn and Soulouque's brutal rule through the texts of diplomats and travelers.