The
Seven Years' War was a major military conflict
that lasted from
1754 in North America and
1756 in Europe until the conclusion of the
treaties
of Hubertusburg
and Paris in
1763. It involved all of the major European powers of
the period.
The war
pitted Prussia
and Britain
and a coalition of smaller German states against an
alliance consisting of Austria
, France,
Russia
, Sweden
, and
Saxony. Russia
temporarily changed sides in the later stages of the war.
Portugal (on the side of Great Britain)
and Spain
(on the side
of France) entered the conflict later, and a force from the neutral
Dutch Republic was attacked in
India.
Fighting between Britain, France, and their respective allies in
North America had broken out in 1754, two years before the general
conflict, as part of an Imperial rivalry. The fighting in North
America is sometimes considered a separate war, the
French and Indian War.
War in
Europe began in 1756 with the French
siege of British Minorca in the Mediterranean Sea
, and Frederick
the Great of Prussia's invasion of Saxony on the continent
which also upset the firmly established Pragmatic Sanction put in
place by Charles VI of Austria. Despite being the main
theatre of war, the European conflict resulted in a bloody
stalemate which did little to change the pre-war
status quo, while its consequences in Asia and
the Americas were wider ranging and longer lasting.
Concessions made in
the 1763 Treaty of Paris
ended France's position as a major colonial power in the Americas (where it lost most of its possessions on
the mainland of North America, in addition to some West Indian
islands). Prussia confirmed its position in
the ranks of the great European powers, retaining the formerly
Austrian province of Silesia.
Great Britain
strengthened its territories in India and North America, confirming
its status as the dominant colonial power.
Because of its global nature, it has been described as the "first
World War". It resulted in some 900,000 to
1,400,000 deaths and significant changes in the balance of power
and territories of several of the participants.
Etymology
In Canada, France and the United Kingdom, the name
Seven Years'
War is used to describe the North American conflict as well as
the European and Asian conflicts. This conflict, though called the
"Seven Years' War," lasted nine years from 1754 to 1763. In the
United States, however, the North American portion of the war is
popularly known as the
French
and Indian War. Many scholars and professional historians
in America, such as
Fred
Anderson, however, follow the example of their colleagues in
other countries and refer to the conflict as the "Seven Years'
War," regardless of the theatre. In Quebec, the conflict is also
referred to as
La Guerre de la Conquête, meaning
The
War of Conquest. The conflict in India is termed the
Third Carnatic War while the
fighting between Prussia and Austria is called the
Third Silesian
War.
The war was also described by
Winston
Churchill as the first "
world war", as
it was the first conflict in human history to be fought around the
globe, although most of the combatants were either European nations
or their overseas colonies. As a partially Anglo-French conflict
involving developing empires, the war was one of the most
significant phases of the 18th century
Second Hundred Years' War.
Background
This war is often said to be a continuation of the
War of the Austrian
Succession that had lasted between 1740 and 1748, in which King
Frederick II of Prussia,
known as Frederick the Great, had gained the rich province of
Silesia from Austria. Empress
Maria Theresa of Austria had signed
the
Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle only in order to gain time to rebuild her
military forces and to forge new
alliances, which she did with remarkable
success. The political map of Europe had been redrawn in a few
years as Austria abandoned its twenty-five year
alliance with Britain. During the
so-called
Diplomatic
Revolution of 1756, the centuries-old enemies of France,
Austria and Russia formed a single alliance against Prussia.
All the participants of the Seven
Years' War.
Blue: Great Britain, Prussia,
Portugal with allies.
Green: France, Spain, Austria,
Russia, Sweden with allies.
Prussia's only major assistance came from Great Britain, their
newfound allies, whose ruling dynasty saw its ancestral
Hanoverian possession as being
threatened by France. In many respects the two powers' forces
complemented each other excellently. The British had the largest,
most effective
navy in the world, while Prussia
had the most formidable land force on continental Europe, allowing
Great Britain to focus its soldiers towards colonial expeditions.
The British hoped that the new series of alliances that had been
formed during the Diplomatic Revolution would allow peace to
continue, but they in fact provided the catalyst for the eruption
of war in 1756.
The Austrian army had undergone an overhaul according to the
Prussian system. Maria Theresa, whose knowledge of military affairs
shamed many of her generals, had pressed relentlessly for reform.
Her interest in the welfare of the soldiers had gained her their
undivided respect. Austria had suffered several humiliating defeats
to Prussia in the previous war, and strongly dissatisfied with the
limited help they had received from the British, they now saw
France as the only ally who could help them retake Silesia and
check Prussia's expansion.
The second cause for war arose from the heated colonial struggle
between the
British Empire and
French Empire which, as they
expanded, met and clashed with one another on two continents. Of
particular dispute was control of the
Ohio
Country which was central to both countries' ambitions of
further expansion and development in North America. The two
countries had been in a
de facto state of war since 1754,
but these military clashes remained confined to the American
theatre.
Strategies
For much
of the eighteenth century, France
approached
its wars in the same way: it would let its colonies fend for
themselves, sending only small numbers of troops — or perhaps
inexperienced soldiers — abroad, anticipating that battles for
the colonies would likely be lost anyway. This strategy was
to a degree forced upon France: geography coupled with the
superiority of the British navy made it difficult for the French
navy to provide supplies and support to French colonies. Similarly,
several long land borders made an effective domestic army
imperative for any ruler of France. Given these military
necessities, the French government, unsurprisingly, based its
strategy overwhelmingly on the army in Europe: it would keep most
of its army on the European continent, hoping that such a force
would be victorious closer to home. The plan was to fight to the
end of the war and then, in treaty negotiations, to trade
territorial acquisitions in Europe in order to regain overseas
possessions lost. This approach did not serve France well in the
war, as the colonies were indeed lost, but France had few
counterbalancing European successes.
The British—by inclination as well as for pragmatic reasons—had
tended to avoid large-scale commitments of troops on the Continent.
They sought to offset the disadvantage this created in Europe by
allying themselves with one or more Continental powers whose
interests were antithetical to those of their enemies, particularly
France. For the Seven Years' War, the British chose as their
principal partner the greatest military strategist of the day,
Frederick the Great, and his
kingdom,
Prussia, then the rising power in
central Europe, and paid Frederick substantial subsidies to support
his campaigns. In marked contrast to France, Britain strove to
actively prosecute the war in the colonies, taking full advantage
of its
naval power. The British pursued
a dual strategy of
naval blockade and
bombardment of enemy ports, and also utilised their ability to move
troops by sea to the utmost. They would harass enemy shipping and
attack enemy colonies, frequently using colonists from nearby
British colonies.
The formal opening of hostilities in Europe was preceded by
fighting in North America, where the westward expansion of the
British colonies located along the eastern seaboard began to run
afoul of French claims to the
Mississippi valley in the late 1740s
and early 1750s. In order to forestall the expansion of
Virginia and
Pennsylvania, in particular, the
French built a line of forts in what is now
western Pennsylvania in the mid-1750s, and
British efforts to dislodge them led to conflicts generally
considered to be part of the
French and Indian War, as the Seven
Years' War is known in the United States.
War in Europe
1756
The British Prime Minister
The Duke
of Newcastle remained optimistic that war could be prevented
from breaking out in Europe by the new series of alliances.
However a
large French force was assembled at Toulon
, and the
French opened the campaign against the British by an attack on Minorca in the
Mediterranean. A British attempt at relief was foiled at the
Battle of Minorca and the island
was captured on 28 June (for which
Admiral
Byng was court-martialed and executed). War between Britain and
France had been formally declared on 18 May nearly two years after
the first fighting had broken out in the
Ohio Country.
Having
received reports of the clashes in North America, and having
secured the support of Great Britain with a Anglo-Prussian alliance, Frederick II of Prussia crossed the
border of Saxony
on 29 August
1756, one of the small German states in league with Austria.
He intended this as a bold pre-emption of an anticipated
Austro-French invasion of
Silesia. The Saxon
and Austrian armies were unprepared, and their forces were
scattered.
At the Battle of Lobositz
, Frederick prevented the isolated Saxon army from
being reinforced by an Austrian army under General Browne. The Prussians then
outmaneuvred and surrounded the Saxon army which surrendered at
Pirna
in late 1756, resulting in the Prussian occupation
of Saxony. The only significant Austrian success was the
partial occupation of Silesia.
Britain had been surprised by the sudden Prussian offensive, but
now began shipping supplies and money to their allies.
A combined German
force was organised under the Duke of Cumberland to
protect Hanover
from a French invasion. The British
attempted to persuade the
Dutch
Republic to join the alliance, but the request was rejected as
the Dutch wished to remain fully neutral. Despite the huge
disparity in numbers, the year had been a successful one for the
Prussian-led forces on the continent, in contrast to disappointing
British campaigns in North America.
1757
In early 1757, Frederick again took the initiative by marching into
Bohemia hoping to inflict a decisive defeat
on the Austrian forces.
After the bloody Battle of Prague, the Prussians
laid siege to the city, but
had to lift the siege after a major Austrian counter-attack and
Frederick's first defeat at the Battle of Kolin
. That summer, the Russians had invaded
East Prussia and defeated a smaller
Prussian force in the fiercely contested
Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf.
Further defeats followed. Frederick was forced to break off his
invasion of Bohemia, and withdraw back into Prussian-controlled
territory.
Things were looking very grim for Prussia at this time, with the
Austrians mobilizing to attack Prussian-controlled soil and a
French army under
Soubise approaching from
the west. In what
Napoleon would call "a
masterpiece in maneuver and resolution" in November and December
the whole situation in Germany was reversed. Frederick devastated
first a French invasion at the
Battle
of Rossbach and then routed a vastly superior Austrian force at
Battle of Leuthen. With these
great victories, Frederick once again established himself as
Europe's finest general and his men as Europe's finest soldiers. In
spite of these successes the Prussians were now facing four major
powers attacking on four fronts (France from the West, Austria from
the South, Russia from the East and Sweden from the north). This
problem was compounded when the main Hanoverian army under
Cumberland was defeated at the
Battle of Hastenbeck and then forced to
surrender entirely at the
Convention of Kloster-Zeven. The
Convention removed Hanover and Brunswick from the war leaving the
Western approach to Prussian territory extremely vulnerable.
Frederick sent urgent requests to Britain for more substantial
assistance, as he was now without any military support for his
forces in Germany.
The
British had suffered further defeats in America, particularly at
Fort William
Henry
. At home however stability had been
established. Since 1756 successive governments led by
Newcastle and
William Pitt had both
fallen. In August 1757 the two men agreed to a political
partnership and formed a
coalition
government which gave new, firmer direction to the British war
effort. The new strategy emphasised both Newcastle's commitment to
British involvement on the
European
continent particularly in defence of Germany and William Pitt's
determination to use British naval power to launch expeditions to
seize
French colonies around the
globe. The "dual strategy" would dominate British policy for the
next five years.
1758–60
Into late 1758 the general tide of the war continued to be in
favour of the Prussians and British.
In the west, the
French were beaten in the Battle of Krefeld
by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick.
Finally later in 1758 in the east, at the
Battle of Zorndorf in Prussia, a Prussian
army of 35,000 men under Frederick fought to a standstill with a
Russian army of 43,000 commanded by Count
Fermor. The Russians withdrew from the field.
In the undecided
Battle of Tornow
on 25 September, a Swedish army repulsed six assaults by a Prussian
army.
Operations of Russian army from Polish territory during Seven
Years' War 1756–1762.
The green arrows are Russian movements, and green circles are
Russian bases
The back-and-forth nature of the war continued as on 14 October,
Marshal Daun's Austrians surprised the main Prussian army at the
Battle of Hochkirch. Frederick
lost much of his artillery but retreated in good order, helped by
the densely wooded landscape.
The year 1759 saw some severe Prussian defeats. At the
Battle of Kay, or Paltzig, the Russian Count
Saltykov with 47,000
Russians defeated 26,000 Prussian troops commanded by General
Carl Heinrich von Wedel.
Though
the Hanoverians defeated an army of 60,000 French at Minden
, Austrian general Daun forced the surrender of an
entire Prussian corps of 13,000 men in the Battle of Maxen. Frederick himself
lost half his army in the
Battle of
Kunersdorf, the worst defeat in his military career, and one
that drove him to the brink of abdication and suicide. The disaster
resulted partly from his misjudgment of the Russians, who had
already demonstrated their strength at Zorndorf and at
Gross-Jägersdorf.
The French
planned to invade the
British Isles during 1759 by accumulating troops near the mouth
of the Loire and concentrating their Brest and Toulon fleets.
However, two sea defeats prevented this. In August, the
Mediterranean fleet under
Jean-François de La
Clue-Sabran was scattered by a larger British fleet under
Edward Boscawen at the
Battle of Lagos.
In the Battle of
Quiberon Bay
on 20 November, the British admiral Edward Hawke with 23 ships of the line caught the French Brest
fleet with 21 ships of the line under Marshal de Conflans and sank, captured
or forced aground many of them, putting an end to the French
plans.
1760 brought even more disasters to the Prussians. The Prussian
general
Fouqué was
defeated in the
Battle of
Landshut.
The French captured Marburg
, and the Swedes part of Brandenburg-Prussian
Pomerania
. The Hanoverians were victorious over the
French at the Battle of
Warburg
, their continued success preventing France from
sending troops to aid the Austrians against Prussia in the
east. Despite this the Austrians, under the command of
General Laudon
captured
Glatz in Silesia. In the
Battle of Liegnitz Frederick
scored a victory despite being outnumbered three to one. The
Russians under
General Saltykov and
Austrians under
General
Lacy briefly occupied his capital, Berlin, in October. The end
of that year saw Frederick once more victorious, defeating the able
Daun in the
Battle of Torgau, but
he suffered heavy casualties and the Austrians retreated in good
order.
1761–62
Prussia began the 1761 campaign with just 100,000 available troops,
many of them new recruits. 1762 brought two new countries into the
war. Britain declared war against Spain on 4 January 1762; Spain
reacted by issuing their own declaration of war against Britain on
18 January. Portugal followed by joining the war on Britain's
side.
At the
Battle of
Villinghausen
Prince Ferdinand
of Brunswick defeated a 92,000-man French army.
The
Russians under Zakhar Chernyshev
and Pyotr Rumyantsev stormed Kolberg in Pomerania, while
the Austrians captured Schweidnitz
. The loss of Kolberg had seen Prussia lose
its last port on the Baltic
Sea
. In Britain, it was speculated that a total
Prussian collapse was now imminent.
Britain now threatened to withdraw its subsidies if Prussia didn't
seriously consider offering to make concessions to secure peace. As
the Prussian armies had dwindled to just 60,000 men
Frederick's survival
was severely threatened. Then on 5 January 1762 the Russian
Empress Elizabeth died. Her
Prussophile successor,
Peter
III, at once recalled Russian armies from Berlin (see: the
Treaty of Saint
Petersburg ) and mediated Frederick's truce with Sweden.
In the
aftermath, Frederick was able to drive the Austrians from Silesia
in the Battle of Freiberg (29
October 1762), while his Brunswick allies captured the key town of
Göttingen
and compounded it by taking Cassel.
The long British naval blockade of French ports had sapped the
morale of the French populace.
The French will to continue collapsed yet
further when news of a French failure
in Newfoundland reached Paris.
Feelers for peace were now extended to the British.
1763
By 1763 Frederick had Silesia under his control and had occupied
parts of Austria. The British subsidies had been withdrawn by the
new Prime Minister
Lord Bute, and the
Russian Emperor had been overthrown by his wife
Catherine the Great who now switched
Russian support back to Austria and launched fresh attacks on
Prussia. Austria, however, had been weakened from the war and like
most participants they were facing a severe financial crisis. In
1763 a peace settlement was reached at the
Treaty of Hubertusburg ending the war
in central Europe.
British amphibious "descents"
Great
Britain planned a "descent" (an amphibious demonstration or raid) on
Rochefort
, a joint operation to
overrun the town and burn the shipping in the Charente
. The expedition set out on 8 September 1757,
Sir John Mordaunt commanding
the troops and
Sir Edward Hawke the
fleet.
On
23 September, the Isle
d'Aix
was taken, but due to dithering by military staff
such time was lost that Rochefort became unassailable, and the
expedition abandoned the Isle d'Aix, returned to Great Britain on 1
October.
Despite the operational failure and debated strategic success of
the descent on Rochefort,
William Pitt — who
saw purpose in this type of asymmetric enterprise — prepared
to continue such operations. An army was assembled under the
command of
Charles Spencer, 3rd
Duke of Marlborough; he was aided by
Lord George
Sackville. The naval escorts for the expedition were commanded
by
Anson, Hawke, and
Howe.
The army landed on 5
June 1758 at Cancalle Bay, proceeded to
St.
Malo
, and burned the shipping in the harbor; the arrival
of French relief forces caused the British to avoid a siege, and
the troops re-embarked. An attack on Havre de Grace
was called off, and the fleet sailed on to Cherbourg
; but the weather being bad and provisions low, that
too was abandoned, and the expedition returned, having damaged
French privateering and provided a further strategic demonstration
against the French coast.
Pitt now prepared to send troops into Germany; and both Marlborough
and Sackville, disgusted by what they perceived as the futility of
the "descents", obtained commissions in that army. The elderly
General Bligh was appointed to command
a new "descent", escorted by Howe. The campaign began propitiously
with the
Raid on Cherbourg. With
the support of the navy to bombard Cherbourg and cover their
landing, the army drove off the French force detailed to oppose
their landing, captured Cherbourg, and destroyed its
fortifications, docks, and shipping.
The troops were re-embarked and the fleet moved them to the
Bay of St. Lunaire in
Brittany where, on 3 September, they were landed to
again operate against St. Malo; however, this action proved
impractical. Worsening weather forced the two armies to separate:
the ships sailed for the safer anchorage of
St. Cast, while the army proceeded
overland.
The tardiness of Bligh in moving his forces
allowed a French force of 10,000 men from Brest
to catch up
with him and open fire on the re-embarkation troops. A
rear-guard of 1,400 under General Dury held off the French while
the rest of the army embarked; they could not be saved, 750,
including Dury, were killed and the rest captured.
War in the colonies
The
colonial conflict mainly between France and Britain occurred in
India, North America, Europe, the Caribbean isles, the Philippines
and coastal Africa. During the course of the
war, Great Britain gained enormous areas of land and influence at
the expense of the French.
Great
Britain lost Minorca
in the Mediterranean to the French in 1756 but
captured the French colonies in Senegal
on the African continent in 1758. The
British
Royal Navy captured the French
sugar colonies of
Guadeloupe in 1759 and
Martinique in
1762, as well as the Spanish cities of
Havana in Cuba, and
Manila in the Philippines, both
prominent Spanish colonial cities.
North America
For North American events, see French and Indian War.
Beginning
with the victory of George
Washington, then a lieutenant
colonel in the British colonial militia Virginia Regiment, at Jumonville
Glen
in 1754 and his surrender
at the Battle of Fort Necessity
a month later, the French and Indian War escalated into
the worldwide conflict known as the Seven Years War. In
1757, following three years of warfare in the
Ohio Valley, the British mounted an attack on
New France by land as well as sea.
French
forces defeated British attacks in the Hudson Valley and French
naval deployments successfully defended the key fortress of
Louisbourg
on Cape Breton Island
, as well as the approaches to Quebec.
However, a renewed British offensive in 1758 succeeded in taking
Louisbourg.
Then on 13 September 1759, following a
three-month siege of Québec
, General
James Wolfe defeated the French forces at the Plains of
Abraham
outside the city. The French staged a
counteroffensive in the spring of 1760 with some success, but
failed to retake Québec due to a lack of naval support.
French
forces retreated to Montréal
, where on 8 September they surrendered in the face
of overwhelming British numerical superiority. This defeat
has serious ramifications in Canada to this day, as the Quebec
sovereignty movement continues to see this as their nation's
defining moment.
In 1762,
toward the end of the war, French forces attacked St. John's,
Newfoundland
. If successful, the expedition would have
strengthened France's hand at the negotiating table.
Though they took St.
John's and raided nearby settlements, the French forces were
eventually defeated by British troops at the Battle of
Signal Hill. This was the final battle of the war in
North America, and it forced the French to surrender to the British
under
Lieutenant
Colonel William Amherst. The victorious British now controlled
all of eastern North America.
The history of the Seven Years' War, particularly the siege of
Québec and the death of Wolfe, generated a vast number of ballads,
broadsides, images (see
The
Death of General Wolfe), maps and other printed materials,
which testify to how this event continued to capture the
imagination of the British public long after Wolfe's death in
1759.
India
For events in India, see Third
Carnatic War.
In India the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in Europe resulted in
a renewal of the long running conflict between French and British
trading companies in the region for influence.
The war spread beyond
southern India and into Bengal
, where
British forces under Robert Clive
recaptured Calcutta
from the Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah, a French ally, and ousted
him from his throne at the Battle of
Plassey. In the same year the British also captured
the French settlement in Bengal at Chandernagar
.
However, the war was decided in the south.
Although the French
captured Cuddalore
, their Siege of
Madras failed, while the British commander Sir Eyre Coote decisively defeated the French
under the Comte de
Lally at the Battle of
Wandiwash in 1760 and overran the French territory of the
Northern Circars.
The
French capital of Pondicherry
fell to the British in 1761; together with the fall
of the lesser French settlements of Karikal
and Mahe this effectively
eliminated French power from India.
West Africa
In 1758
at the urging of an American merchant Thomas Cumming, Pitt despatched an expedition
to take the French settlement at Saint Louis
. The British
captured Senegal with ease in May 1758
and brought home large amounts of captured goods.
The success of the
mission convinced Pitt to launch two further expeditions to take
the island of Gorée
and the
French trading post on the Gambia
. The loss of these valuable colonies further
weakened the French economy.
Outcome
The
Anglo-French hostilities were ended in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, which involved a
complex series of land exchanges, the most important being France's
cession to Spain of Louisiana, and to Great Britain the
rest of New France except for the islands of St. Pierre
and Miquelon
. France was given the choice of retrieving
either
New France or its Caribbean island
colonies of
Guadeloupe and
Martinique, and chose the
latter to retain these lucrative sources of
sugar, writing off New France as an unproductive,
costly territory. France also returned Minorca to the British.
Spain
lost control of Florida to Great
Britain, but received New
Orleans
and the Louisiana
Territory west of the Mississippi
River from the French. The exchanges suited the British
as well, as their own Caribbean islands already supplied ample
sugar, and with the acquisition of New France and Florida, they now
controlled all of North America east of the Mississippi, with the
exception of New Orleans.
In India, the British retained the
Northern Circars, but returned all the
French trading ports. The treaty, however, required that the
fortifications of these settlements must be destroyed and never
rebuilt, while only minimal garrisons could be maintained there,
thus rendering them worthless as military bases.
Combined with the
loss of France's ally in Bengal and the
defection of Hyderabad to the
British side as a result of the war, this effectively brought
French power in India to an end, making way for British hegemony
and eventual control of the subcontinent.
European
boundaries were returned to their
status quo ante bellum by the
Treaty of Hubertusburg (February
1763). Prussia thus maintained its possession of Silesia, having
survived the combined assault of three neighbours, each larger than
itself. Prussia gained enormously in influence at the expense of
the
Holy Roman Empire. This
increase in Prussian influence, it is argued, marks the beginning
of the modern German state, an event at least as influential as the
colonial empire Great Britain had gained. Others, including
Fred Anderson, author of
Crucible of War, believe the war was needless and overly
costly.
The
French Navy was crippled by the war,
which meant that only an ambitious rebuilding program in
combination with the
Spanish
fleet would see it again able to challenge the
Royal Navy's command of the sea.
However, the British now faced the delicate task of pacifying their
new French-Canadian subjects, as well as the many American Indian
tribes in the western lands who had supported the French. George
III's
Proclamation of 1763,
which forbade white settlement beyond the crest of the
Appalachians, was intended to appease the latter, but led to
considerable outrage in the
Thirteen
Colonies whose inhabitants were eager to acquire native lands.
The
Quebec Act of 1774, similarly
intended to win over the loyalty of French Canadians, also spurred
resentment among American colonists. Victorious in 1763, Great
Britain would soon face another military threat in North
America —
this time from its
longtime subjects.
It should be noted, that while Frederick the Great's earlier acts
of aggression towards Austria can to some degree be blamed for the
outbreak of the Seven Years' War, the war was waged against him by
a far stronger coalition of the largest European powers intent on
reversing Prussia's fortunes. The nations and empires allied
against Prussia during most of the war comprised over half of
Continental Europe, and
Frederick's forces were compelled to fight at times on four fronts.
To maintain the defense of Prussia "against the greatest
superiority of power and the utmost spite of fortune" in the words
of
Lord Macaulay, while retaining
Prussia's earlier territorial gains, stands as a significant
accomplishment of leadership in itself. The Austrian army also
performed well and sometimes successfully against a Prussian army
led by a man later acknowledged by
Napoleon Bonaparte as a greater military
leader than himself, and thanks to Maria Theresa's leadership the
war was not such a great loss for Austria that Austrian prestige or
internal stability were seriously harmed. However, the same cannot
be said of France.
The Seven Years' War was the last major military conflict on the
European continent before the outbreak of the
French Revolutionary Wars in
1792.
Cultural references
See also
Footnotes
- The Treaty of Paris in
- Tombs, Robert and Isabelle. That Sweet Enemy: The French
and the British from the Sun King to the Present. London:
William Heinemann, 2006.
- West p.129
- Rodger p.265–67
- West p.170
- Carter p.84-102
- West p.176
- West p.211–12
- West p.176–77
- West p.491
- West p.492
- West p.498
- Julian Corbett, England in the Seven Years' War: A Study in
Combined Strategy, 2 Vols., (London, 1918).
- Virtual Vault, an online exhibition of
Canadiana at Library and Archives Canada
- The Canadian Encyclopedia, retrieved 17 June
2006.
- E.g., Canada to Confederation p. 8: Barriers to
Immigration, mentioning mother country's image of New France as
an "Arctic wasteland with wild animals and savage Indians".
- According to Anderson, "Beyond the inevitable adjustments in
the way diplomats would think of Prussia as a player in European
politics, six years of heroic expenditure and savage bloodshed had
accomplished precisely nothing." (p. 506)
- Essay on Frederic the Great, Essays vol. 5 (1866) Hurd and
Houghton
Bibliography
- Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and
the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. Faber
and Faber, 2000.
- Carter, Alice Clare. The Dutch Republic in Europe in the
Seven Years War. MacMillan, 1971.
- Fish, Shirley When Britain ruled the Philippines, 1762–1764: the story
of the 18th century British invasion of the Philippines during the
Seven Years War. 1stBooks Library, 2003. ISBN 1410710696,
ISBN 9781410710697
- Fowler, William H. Empires at War: The Seven Years' War and
the Struggle for North America. Vancouver: Douglas &
McIntyre, 2005. ISBN 1553650964.
- Keay, John. The Honourable Company: A History of the
English East India Company. Harper Collins, 1993
- Marston, Daniel. The Seven Years' War. Essential
Histories. Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2001. ISBN 1841761915.
- McLynn, Frank. 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the
World. London: Jonathan Cape, 2004. ISBN 022406245X.
- Rodger, N.A.M. Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of
Britain 1649–1815. Penguin Books, 2006.
External links
and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania
.
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