Culture and Misperception: The Law and the Press in the Outbreak of War in 1803

Abstract

Studies cultural preconceptions, derived from decision-makers' own political systems and projected on to others, affect their perceptions of other people's actions. Thus, one observer of the Fourth Republic suggests that 'members of the French political class frequently act in the field of foreign affairs as if their foreign counterparts were so like themselves that the issue at stake could be treated as a domestic issue'.1 However, it is often impossible to identify the ways in which national traditions affect perception, as cultural assumptions, usually taken for granted, are rarely recorded: as the result, most case-studies ignore them.2 This study of the breakdown of the peace of Amiens in 1802-3 analyses the misperceptions that arose from the cultural differences between France and Great Britain. James L. Richardson divides misperception in international crises into four analytical categories: misperception of an adversary's capabilities; of its intentions; of the likely effects of one's own actions; and of the capacity, intention, or response of third parties.3 Of the four, only the second and third misperception of one's adversary's intentions and of the likely repercussions of one's own actions affected the peace of Amiens.4 And although three types of issue caused tension between France and Britain in 1802-3 ~ territorial and strategic; emigres and the press; and commercial and colonial only misperceptions deriving from the first two led to the