| 20 April 1792 | The French Revolutionary Wars begin with the French declaration of war on Austria; Prussia joined soon thereafter, creating the War of the First Coalition |
| 1 February 1793 | France declares war on Britain, Holland and Spain, who join Austria and Prussia; Britain begins blockade of Brest and Toulon with the intention of halting the importation of food and other commodities; the Royal Navy, working in concert with the Army, begins defence of Britain’s West Indian possessions and the seizure of enemy colonies |
| 21 May 1794 | Captain Horatio Nelson, with a body of sailors and marines, captures Bastia, Corsica, marking his first action in a long and distinguished career |
| 1 June 1794 | British victory over the French off Ushant, known as the ‘Glorious First of June’; although 25 ships of the line commanded by Admiral Earl Howe defeat 26 French ships under Rear-Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, a vital grain convoy from America nevertheless reaches port |
| January 1795 | French invade and conquer the United Provinces (Holland), converting it into a satellite state known as the Batavian Republic |
| 16 May 1795 | Treaty of Basel; Prussia and Spain abandon the First Coalition and conclude peace with France |
| 19 August 1796 | Treaty of San Ildefonso; Spain allies herself with France, so imperilling the position of the British Mediterranean Fleet, which is obliged to evacuate Corsica and withdraw from the Mediterranean, apart from Gibraltar |
| 8 October 1796 | Spain declares war on Britain |
| 14 February 1797 | Admiral Sir John Jervis, despite being outnumbered by 15 to 27 ships, defeats the Spanish at the battle of St Vincent; Nelson executes a remarkable manoeuvre by engaging seven enemy ships, two of which he boards and captures in succession |
| 11 October 1797 | The British Channel Fleet, under Admiral Adam Duncan, defeats the Dutch fleet under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter, off the north-west coast of Holland at Camperdown; Duncan captures 11 enemy ships and the Dutch commander |
| 17 October 1797 | Treaty of Campo Formio; Austria formally recognizes French annexation of the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) |
| 1 July 1798 | General Napoleon Bonaparte lands in Egypt with an expeditionary force intended to capture Suez and threaten British control of India |
| 1–2 August 1798 | Decisive British victory over the French at the battle of the Nile in Aboukir Bay; Nelson commands a fleet for the first time, utterly overwhelming Admiral François de Brueys by doubling the French line; nine French ships are captured and two others are destroyed |
| 29 December 1798 | Russia, by allying herself with Britain, establishes the Second Coalition, to which Turkey, Naples and Portugal adhere; Austria joins in June 1799 |
| August–October 1799 | An Anglo-Russian expeditionary force fails to occupy the Batavian Republic, though the enemy fleet is captured; Russia leaves the Second Coalition as a result of failures here and in Switzerland |
| 16 December 1800 | Russia, Prussia, Denmark and Sweden form the League of Armed Neutrality as a protest against the British practice of maritime search and seizure; the existence of the League threatens Britain’s access to naval supplies from the Baltic, especially timber and hemp |
| 9 February 1801 | Treaty of Lunéville; Austria concludes peace with France, which receives further territorial concessions in northern Italy |
| 8 March 1801 | A British expeditionary force lands in Aboukir Bay, beginning a campaign that will force the French to surrender Egypt five months later |
| 2 April 1801 | British naval victory at the battle of Copenhagen, where Nelson, second in command to Admiral Hyde Parker, destroys the Danish fleet while it sits anchored under the guns of the city’s fortifications; in response, Russia abandons the League of Armed Neutrality |
| 27 March 1802 | Treaty of Amiens between Britain and France concludes the French Revolutionary Wars; the former restores all French and French allied colonial possessions apart from Ceylon and Trinidad; Britain pledges to evacuate Malta but refuses to do so as a result of French territorial acquisitions on the Continent |
| 18 May 1803 | Britain declares war on France; start of the Napoleonic Wars |
| 19 October 1803 | Under coercion, Spain agrees to pay a substantial subsidy to France |
| 12 December 1804 | Spain declares war on Britain |
| 11 April 1805 | Britain and Russia conclude an offensive alliance, forming the Third Coalition, to which Austria and Sweden adhere in August and November, respectively |
| 21 October 1805 | Nelson decisively defeats the Franco-Spanish fleet under Villeneuve at the battle of Trafalgar, the most decisive naval action of modern times |
| 2 December 1805 | Napoleon defeats the combined Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz in Moravia, obliging Austria to leave the Third Coalition and forcing the Russians to withdraw far to the east |
| 6 October 1806 | War of the Fourth Coalition formed, with Prussia the principal adversary against France, distantly supported by Britain and Russia; most of the latter’s troops will not confront the French until February 1807 |
| 14 October 1806 | Prussian forces decisively defeated by the French at the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt; in the course of the ensuing weeks the French relentlessly pursue the remaining Prussian forces and occupy all of the principal fortresses |
| 14 June 1807 | Battle of Friedland; having already fought them to a bloody standstill at Eylau on 7 February, Napoleon decisively defeats the Russians |
| 7–9 July 1807 | Treaties of Tilsit; peace concluded between France on the one hand and Russia and Prussia on the other; Napoleon imposes a heavy indemnity on Prussia and occupies the country; Russia allies herself to France and agrees to shut her ports to British shipping; Russia declares war on Britain on 31 October |
| 27 September 1807 | Fearing that Napoleon will use Danish naval resources to re-establish the fleet lost at Trafalgar, Britain dispatches a naval and military expedition to bombard Copenhagen and seize the fleet; the Danes quickly capitulate |
| 27 October 1807 | Treaty of Fontainebleau; France and Spain conclude an alliance against Portugal |
| November–December 1807 | French Army proceeds through Spain and occupies Portugal in an effort to close her ports to British trade |
| 19 March 1808 | King Charles IV of Spain abdicates, followed in May by his son, Ferdinand; both are imprisoned by the French, who place Joseph Bonaparte on the Spanish throne |
| 2 May 1808 | Uprising against the French in Madrid; beginning of the Peninsular War; Spain establishes a Junta and concludes peace with Britain on 4 July |
| 1 August 1808 | British expeditionary force under Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) lands in Portugal |
| 9 April 1809 | Alliance concluded between Austria and Britain; formation of the Fifth Coalition |
| 5–6 July 1809 | Battle of Wagram; Austrians defeated in the decisive action of the campaign |
| 14 October 1809 | Treaty of Schönbrunn; Austria concludes peace with France, ceding territory in Italy and along the Adriatic |
| 28 July 1809 | Major British expeditionary force embarks for the Scheldt estuary; troops land on Walcheren Island, intending to capture Antwerp, but the outbreak of disease leads to the army’s withdrawal by late December |
| 18 June 1812 | The United States, annoyed at the Admiralty’s policy of naval impressment and partly motivated by territorial designs on Canada, declares war on Britain |
| 22 June 1812 | Napoleon and his Grande Armée of 600,000 men crosses the river Niemen to invade Russia |
| 19 August 1812 | USS Constitution (44 guns) cripples HMS Guerriere (38) in a half-hour engagement off Nova Scotia |
| 10 September 1812 | American naval squadron on Lake Erie crushes its British counterpart |
| 25 October 1812 | The heavy frigate USS United States, under the hero of the Tripolitan War, Commodore Stephen Decatur, drubs HMS Macedonian in a 90-minute encounter off Madeira |
| December 1812 | Last remnants of the Grande Armée recross the Niemen after having suffered catastrophic losses during the campaign, mostly during the winter retreat |
| 29 December 1812 | USS Constitution wrecks the 38-gun HMS Java off the coast of Brazil |
| 27 February 1813 | Prussia joins Russia in forming the Sixth Coalition, together with Britain, Spain and Portugal; Sweden and Austria subsequently join, the latter on 12 August |
| 10 September 1813 | Battle of Lake Erie; Oliver Hazard Perry, commander of the American squadron, breaks the British line and annihilates Barclay’s naval force |
| 16–19 October 1813 | Austrian, Russian, Prussian and Swedish forces decisively defeat Napoleon at the battle of Leipzig in Saxony; French forces, all their German allies having abandoned them, retreat to the Rhine |
| February–March 1814 | Campaign in France; despite a number of stunning, though minor, victories Napoleon fails to stem the Allied advance on his capital |
| 31 March 1814 | Allied forces occupy Paris |
| 6 April 1814 | Napoleon abdicates and agrees to exile on the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba |
| 19 August 1814 | Admiral Sir John Cockburn’s squadron disembarks British troops in Chesapeake Bay; Washington is briefly occupied and the White House burned, 24–25 August |
| 11 September 1814 | Battle of Lake Champlain; Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, commanding the American squadron, decisively defeats his British counterpart, Captain George Downie |
| 13 December 1814 | British expeditionary force lands along the Gulf Coast near New Orleans |
| 24 December 1814 | Treaty of Ghent; peace concluded between Britain and the United States based on the status quo ante bellum; with the war over in Europe, impressment is a dead issue and does not feature in the treaty terms |
| 1 March 1815 | Sailing in secret from Elba, Napoleon lands in southern France with a small force and reaches Paris on the 20th, gathering thousands of adherents along the way; Louis XVIII abandons the capital and flees to Brussels |
| 13 March 1815 | Formation of the Seventh Coalition by Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain |
| 18 June 1815 | The Duke of Wellington and the Prussian commander, Marshal Blücher, decisively defeat Napoleon at Waterloo, in Belgium; Napoleon abdicates on the 21st, surrenders to the British on 16 July, and is exiled to the remote south Atlantic island of St Helena, where he dies on 5 May 1821 |