Coordinating monetary and fiscal policies in Britain during the French Wars (1793–1821).

The article examines how the United Kingdom financed the French Wars (1793–1821) through a detailed analysis of monetary and fiscal policies across four distinct regimes: initial tax smoothing; suspension of the gold standard combined with Real Bills policy and war taxation; the Bank of England’s active price support of government securities; and the post-war return to the pre-war monetary order. Using newly assembled quantitative and qualitative data—including digitized Bank of England balance sheets and archival evidence—the study challenges the dominant view that inflation during the wars was caused by excessive note issuance, instead attributing price changes primarily to fiscal news shocks and supply-side factors, especially in agriculture. It highlights the Bank’s limited autonomy under “fiscal dominance,” showing that the Bank was compelled by the Treasury to purchase large amounts of short-term government debt to maintain market stability. The article also details the successful exit strategy involving debt conversion and the resumption of the gold standard in 1821, which restored monetary stability after the war.