When did the British Empire assumed naval supremacy? Was there a particular event that led to this?

Just before the start of the war of 1812, how they got there is a mystery.

Trafalgar

Trafalgar.

1588 when they defeated the Spanish Armada.

you mean when they weaponized storms

jewish banking

t. Saltiard

u wot

t. butthurt Spaniard

Speaking of butthurt, my butt hurts from shitting hard on the toilet. I don't think it'll heal quickly.

Rocroi was charged with symbolic value as it was used to disprove the myth of the invincibility of the Spanish Tercios, even though the batte itself would actually point to the contrary. It's the whole war in itself, with France being able to field more armies and better finance the war effort -along with the internal rebellions in the Spanish Monarchy during critical moments- what efeffectively marked the transition.

The Spanish Armada is another one charged with simbolism and myth rather than substance; the English counter-Armada one year ended equally in disaster and with bigger English loses than the Spanish Armada. Basically, there was no hegemonic naval power, but strategic equilibrium until the Napoleonic France wars. The XVIII equilibrium was represented by the equation French+Spanish Navy > British Navy. The other significant naval powers, the Dutch and.the Danish would factor in.
The absolute naval incompetence of Revolutionary/Napoleonic France, squandering their fleet bit by bit in disastrous, absourd operation such as the Egyptian Expedition tipped the balance in favour of the British navy, who then quickly proceeded to eliminate the other navies to obtain an absolute naval superiority.

Too late.

Too early.

>When did the British Empire assumed naval supremacy?
Early 19th century

>Was there a particular event that led to this?
Trafalgar

It's interesting that England and Spain briefly became allies in 1680s. I guess only for the Nine Years War. But still, Catholic Spain allied with Protestant England agaist another Catholic nation - France. I wonder what puritans had to say about it since they used to have such strong influence on the parliament.

>I guess only for the Nine Years War

More like for all of Louis XIV's wars
Spanish Succession included since most of the country was under Charles' control at the start

Btw, since France won that war and had a Bourbon placed on the throne, Spain became France's bitch until the revolution which is why they were on France's side rather than Britain's in the 18th century wars

Probably the glorious revolution and the reforms of Samuel Pepys. Previously they were sparring with the Dutch with no clear advantage, afterwards the Dutch stopped holding them back and upper levels of government paid closer attention to the navy, reducing corruption and increasing investment. Britain was much more adventurous from then on.

has it been said?
1588 spanish armada defeated, no gaul-germanic navy, mainland falls, empire is created
2-0 at 1666 v dutch

England was allied with France for the most part of Louis XIV wars of expansion over the Spanish Monarchy and the HRE.

Castille and Navarre had elected Phillip over Charles. Aragon did too eventually, including Catalonia although they switched sides later.

Phillip as King of Spain didn't mean being a 'bitch' of France, as Charles winning wouldn't have meant being the bitch of Austria. In fact, there was war with the frogs in the 1720's when Phillip was already King of Spain.

The Bourbon Alliance happened later, but it wasn't systematic. The Anglo-Spanish war of the 1740s didn't involve France; Spain didn't enter the 7yrs war until 1761, after a lot of frog begging Spain to pretty please help them against the english, as the frogs were kicked the fuck out of the entire North-American mainland and Luisiana became Spanish :)

>Why did a island nation surrounded by the sea focus on power that operates on the terrain and environment most crucial to its survival as a military power?
Woah, this is a really hard question, right guy?

He asked "when" did became the leading naval power, no why it focused in the navy.

>tfw no one wants bag milk

the armada was beaten by the british, destroyed by the storms on its retreat.

the two events are separate, the spanish fleet had been beaten and was attempting to withdraw home to spain, when it was sunk by storm

I think the naval campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars really cemented the naval supremacy of Great Britain. The British were better trained and better equipped than the French. Most high ranking naval officers of the day where aristocrats, and most of those who served in the french navy were imprisoned or executed. The British where able to fire a cannon ever 90 seconds where as the french could only manage to fire once every 3-4 minutes. The British where better disciplined the french not so much as fighting and brawling with Spanish allies were common place. The naval campaigns of the Napoleonic era from about 1794, The Glorious 1st of June for example to the really last great engagement of the Battle of Trafalgar are a really interesting time. Of course Britain has always been successful at sea as an island nation, even before the Napoleonic wars but I think if there was a point where you could really say "Yep, they have complete naval supremacy." it's the end of the 18th to early 19th century.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_First_of_June

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar

So? Cromwell was allied with Catholic France against Catholic Spain and Calvinist United Provinces. Wow?. There never was a catholic bloc vs a protestant bloc. That's a meme that's somehow catched on in pop history and plebs parrot it back and forth.

Also, Spain and England were allied 'on paper' during the 9 years war. The 30yw didn't ended in Westfalia for France and Spain, it went on until 1659, with England being an ally of Louis XIV's wars of expansion more or less systematically since Cromwell to the 1688 event.

So, after 1659 though Spain was 'on paper' involved in all the wars with France, because France was attacking and grabbing clay from Spanish Netherlands and the HRE(Alsace-Lorraine), but it had ceased to actually make an effort and attention focused on the Americas and rebuilding of the economy. That new scenario is behind the strategic switch to Phillip d'Anjou being elected as King of Spain by the Courts of Castille, Navarre and Aragon over the Austrian Archduke, as England had been clearly appearing as the prime strategic enemy over France since Cromwell, and the holding of Spanish Netherlands, Luxembourg and so on a political, military and economic pointless cause by then as a result, and it would also hurt Netherlands, the other rival, as they would no longer have a buffer state to protect them from French expansionism, as Spain would simply hand it over to France. This is what truly triggered the war of Spanish Succession. Eventually Austria was cucked into filling that role though.

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somewhere between that time

Armada began their powerful ass navy while Trafalgar destroyed their final rival

>The British where able to fire a cannon ever 90 seconds where as the french could only manage to fire once every 3-4 minutes. The British where better disciplined the french not so much as fighting and brawling with Spanish allies were common place

Basically this
Villeneuve knew about Nelson's ebin tactic of breaking the lines and tried to counter it, but his firepower was so inferior he failed
Basically, Britain having a shitty army, they compensated by focusing on their navy which resulted in having very well trained sailors.
France treated the navy as a secondary stuff and thus couldnt match the British one

The destruction of the Spanish Armada knocked the Spanish of the position as the unrivalled naval power in the world, and making England one of the contenders for naval supremacy. The Dutch probably were the major naval power in the mid 17th century, but that didn't last very long partly due to the disaster year 1672. The Spanish never suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Dutch and didn't have the money to rebuild due to the way the thirty years war played out. The English were in the years between the destruction of the Spanish And Trafalgar the main naval power for small periods at a time. After Trafalgar Britannia was undisputed master of the waves, and didn't lose that naval superiority until the end of ww2, when they were surpassed by the US.

An Island nation whose wealth comes from numerous far off over seas colonies which are vulnerable to piracy is a combination which requires an excellent navy.

I'd say you can probably pinpoint it to the mid-late C17th. The English surpassed the United Provinces after the Dutch Wars, and France after the War of Spanish Succession
Bunch of political shit led to this and i cba to go in depth because I gotta sleep

The question is when did it happen.

All answers here are wrong.

Britain aimed to become the foremost and most competent naval power after their navy got utterly defeated in Battle of Beachy Head. From then on England started to double down their efforts both in shipmaking and crew training, over the years they solidified this tradition and prestige of their navy both in its position of importance in the state and its use to project power.

No single event allowed Britain to achieve it's naval supremacy rather it was a long period of increasing naval competency that was challenged and checked by French and Spanish navies. They also got defeated by French navy in American revolution but learned from their mistakes. It was finally after Napoleonic wars, when a lot of French naval crew and officers were either exiled, executed or ran away that led to France not being able to compete anymore, even when they had superior number and quality of ships that was praised by English, especially their 80-gun ships-of-the-line. French military staff also simiarly got exiled, executed or run away but France at the time provided ground with constant warfare to grow young but experienced generals with skills beyond their age and raised to position by sheer meritocracy. Something that didn't happen with their navy because after France's initial defeats, their ships could never leave ports anymore and they simply lacked the skill, experience and crew numbers. It is said that during Battle of Trafalgar the French and Spanish crews got sea-sick that was the degree of inexperience that was present French navy.

So it's not a single event but years of importance and prestige given to navy that led to Britain having best naval crew and then Napoleonic wars completely erasing competition due several factors, one of which was Britain's superior crew that snatched close victories early in the revolution.

By the time Trafalgar happened, Villeneuve's fleet was pretty much all that was left of the French Navy. Britain had vast reserves.

>Britain having a shitty army
this keeps getting repeated.

it had a small army, raised from volunteers it wasnt shitty on a per unit basis, a british battalion being at least as effective as a french battalion.

something doesn't become good simply because leaders decide to make it good. if it was that simple, every country on the planet would have the best navy on the planet.

oh, see, that's exactly how it DOESN'T happen.

you have a good command of historical facts, but you prove once again that Veeky Forums is the stupidest board.

the fact of the matter is, as seeral posters have already said, they took over dutch ship production technologies and then kept their improvements a secret. their inability to enforce land power in pretty much ANY context led to an incentive structure that forced their navy to be better, not becuase they "wanted"or "decided" to be, but because they had to be.

none ofthis would have been possible without their mercantilist tradition. france was ruled by processes and the ancient regime, which was necessary for land management, whilst britain had open processes and was adaptable.

Seconding this.

Thanks William.

You are spouting memes too.

Britain possibly had more ships than fleet #2 and it possibly was better and skill crews and blablabla, and none of that prevented them being BTFO on a good number of occasions along the century or the Royal Navy anchoring at the solent in 1779 with plan a) 'well, bloody fugg' and plan b) '?????' in the inminence of a Franco-Spanish naval invasion of England that didn't materialise because France was running low on moneys.

Naval hegemony, as it's conceived of nowadays, simply couldn't happen in an age of sail where a fuckton things can go wrong and half your well skilled crew can get 404'd by malaria. Unless you literally entirely destroy every single European Navy. The French Revolution was a golden opportunity to do just that; absolute strategic mess, breaking up of the franco-spanish naval entente, most french naval officers desertingand so the French Navy becoming a circus of utter incompetence, Holland fucked up and not knowing whether to sink or handle their fleet to Napo and etc. So England took the chance to go 1v1 and proceeded to dismantle every single one all the way to surprise buttsex attack in Copenhage :-DDD.

But even so, you can do what you can do with that naval technology, and that's why the burgers navy with 4 shitty floating turds and a mcbarge managed to run blocades, assault british ports and give a lot of headache to the ''''Hegemonic British Navy''' in the war of 1812.

It's interesting that most of the dutch warships that rekt shit during the anglo-dutch wars of the XVII during the golden age of the Dutch Navy were actually armed merchantmen, and similarly the English caused way more damage with their own merchantmen-turned-privateers to the dutch than the actual British Navy did.

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good post, but again, it underscores the fact that there was no "decision" on any level to make british navy the best

you're right, the tech was too crude in the age of the sail to gain hegemony. and then the merchant fleets took dutch tech and innovated and kept most of it secret, which finally led to the breaktrhough.

the innovation was the result of, as I said above, incentives. not top-level decisions. militaries often function off of strange incentive structures that force them not to change. no such barrier existed for the dutch or english merchants.

the dutch and english merchant fleets were, respectively, the largest and most effective militaries on the planet at the time.

it's because it was privatized.

no top-down decision amde them good.

Think Thin Red line.... They were a competent Army that had to face some massive disparities in numbers at times.
But no matter what the state of the world the British navy was active and was needed to do at least a minimum job to keep Britain going.

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>good post, but again, it underscores the fact that there was no "decision" on any level to make british navy the best

It's not a "decision" to make British navy the best, it's prestige and importance given to British navy by the rulers that allowed navy to draft aristocrats that wanted to make a name for themselves. Also the relatively high budget given to it compared to other European powers allowed them to have better trained crew.

So I was never saying it was that alone made them good but that decisions by the top set the circumstances that gave British navy its ability to have a high quality crew and a lot of competent captains. Because it was considered prestigious and important, it's where the ambitious went.

I hate how good that smells, but only because it's British. Am i prejudiced?