Seven Years' War (1756-1763): The First Truly Global Conflict

The Seven Years’ War was a conflict fought from 1756 to 1763 that involved every great power in Europe and spread to North America, the Caribbean, India, West Africa and the Philippines. Britain and Prussia fought France, Austria and Russia, among others, in what many historians call the first truly global war. It made Britain the world’s leading colonial power, confirmed Prussia as a great power and set the stage for the American and French Revolutions.

Background: two rivalries

The war grew out of two unresolved conflicts. In central Europe, Maria Theresa of Austria was determined to win back Silesia, which Frederick II of Prussia had seized during the War of the Austrian Succession. Overseas, Britain and France were competing for North America and India, where the peace of 1748 had settled nothing.

From 1754 British and French colonists and their Native American allies were already fighting in the Ohio Valley, in what Americans call the French and Indian War. Britain formally declared war on France in May 1756, after French troops landed on the British-held Mediterranean island of Minorca, which fell in June. The British admiral John Byng, blamed for failing to relieve it, was court-martialled and shot in 1757.

The Diplomatic Revolution

In 1756 Europe’s alliances were turned upside down. To protect Hanover, which belonged to George II, Britain signed the Convention of Westminster with Prussia in January 1756. France, Austria’s enemy for over two centuries, responded by allying with Austria in the First Treaty of Versailles in May. This shift, engineered largely by the Austrian chancellor Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, is known as the Diplomatic Revolution.

Russia under Empress Elizabeth, hostile to Frederick, joined Austria, and Sweden and most of the Holy Roman Empire’s states followed. Prussia, with a population of only around 4–5 million, faced a coalition of states with many times its resources.

The war in Europe

Frederick struck first, invading Saxony on 29 August 1756 and forcing its army to surrender. In 1757 he invaded Bohemia and won at Prague but was badly defeated at Kolin in June. Russian armies entered East Prussia, a French army forced the British-Hanoverian army under the Duke of Cumberland to capitulate at Klosterzeven, and Prussia seemed lost.

Frederick then won two of his most famous victories. At the Battle of Rossbach on 5 November 1757 he routed a much larger French and imperial army in about 90 minutes, and at Leuthen on 5 December he defeated the Austrians using his celebrated oblique order of attack.

The following years were a desperate struggle. Frederick fought the Russians to a bloody draw at Zorndorf in 1758 and was surprised by the Austrians at Hochkirch. On 12 August 1759 a combined Russian and Austrian army crushed him at Kunersdorf, and for a time he believed all was lost. Berlin was briefly occupied by Russian and Austrian troops in October 1760. In western Germany, an allied army under Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, paid for by Britain, defended Hanover and defeated the French at Minden on 1 August 1759.

By late 1761 Prussia was exhausted. Then Empress Elizabeth died in January 1762. Her successor, Peter III, admired Frederick and quickly made peace, an event Prussians called the “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg”. Although Peter was overthrown by his wife, Catherine, in July 1762, Russia did not re-enter the war.

How the war was fought

Armies in the Seven Years’ War were professional forces of long-service soldiers, drilled to fight in tight lines and fire volleys of musketry. Prussia’s army was famous for its discipline and speed of manoeuvre, and Frederick II used inner lines to move troops quickly between fronts against enemies who coordinated poorly. Battles were extremely bloody: at Zorndorf and Kunersdorf, a third or more of the troops engaged were killed or wounded.

Sieges, supply and money mattered as much as battles. Prussia relied on British subsidies, on the resources of occupied Saxony and on debasing its own coinage. Austria reformed its artillery and command, and its general Gideon von Laudon proved a match for Frederick. France, fighting in Germany and overseas at once, was overstretched and could not protect its colonies, while Britain used its credit and its navy to fight a war on a global scale.

The war at sea and overseas

Britain’s war was directed from 1757 by William Pitt the Elder, who concentrated resources on the navy and the colonies while subsidising Prussia. In North America the British took Louisbourg in 1758 and Fort Duquesne the same year. On 13 September 1759 General James Wolfe defeated the Marquis de Montcalm at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, and Quebec fell. Montreal surrendered in September 1760, ending French rule in Canada.

At sea the Royal Navy defeated French fleets at Lagos and at Quiberon Bay in 1759, ending French invasion plans. In Britain 1759 became known as the “year of victories”. British forces also captured French Caribbean islands, including Guadeloupe in 1759 and Martinique in 1762, and French trading posts in West Africa, such as Gorée.

In India, Robert Clive of the East India Company defeated the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey in June 1757, opening the way to company rule in Bengal. Eyre Coote beat the French at Wandiwash in January 1760, and the main French base of Pondicherry fell in 1761.

Not every overseas campaign went Britain’s way. In North America the French and their Native allies won early victories, including the defeat of General Edward Braddock near Fort Duquesne in 1755 and the capture of Fort William Henry in 1757, and a British assault on Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) was bloodily repulsed in 1758. In India the French commander Thomas Arthur, comte de Lally, besieged Madras in 1758–1759 before being forced to withdraw.

Spain joined France in 1762, and it paid dearly. A British expedition captured Havana in August 1762 after a long siege, and another took Manila in the Philippines in October.

Key people

• Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786): king and commander whose survival against a great coalition made his reputation as “the Great”.
• Maria Theresa (1717–1780): Habsburg ruler whose aim of recovering Silesia drove Austria’s war.
• William Pitt the Elder (1708–1778): British minister who directed the global strategy that won Britain its empire.
• Elizabeth of Russia (1709–1762): empress whose death in January 1762 saved Prussia.
• Étienne-François, Duke of Choiseul (1719–1785): French chief minister who negotiated the peace and later rebuilt the French navy.

The peace of 1763

Two treaties ended the war in February 1763. By the Treaty of Paris of 10 February, signed by Britain, France and Spain, France ceded Canada and all its lands east of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, to Britain. Spain gave Florida to Britain in return for Havana, and had already received Louisiana west of the Mississippi from France. France regained Guadeloupe, Martinique and its Indian trading posts, but could no longer fortify them. Britain kept Senegal and recovered Minorca.

The Treaty of Hubertusburg of 15 February, between Prussia, Austria and Saxony, restored the situation before the war. Prussia kept Silesia, and Frederick promised his vote to Maria Theresa’s son Joseph in the coming imperial election.

By the numbers

Consequences

Britain emerged with a world empire but also a huge debt. Its attempts to make the American colonies pay towards their defence, through taxes such as the Stamp Act of 1765, and its limits on western settlement, provoked the resistance that led to the American Revolution. In North America, Native nations who lost their French allies rose against British rule in Pontiac’s War of 1763.

France, humiliated, sought revenge by backing the American rebels after 1778, which added to the debts that helped bring on the French Revolution. In India, the war marked the start of British territorial power. In Europe, Prussia’s survival made it Austria’s equal in Germany, a rivalry that lasted until 1866.

The war also changed how states thought about power. Britain’s success showed the value of naval strength, public credit and overseas trade, while the exhausted continental monarchies began programmes of reform in taxation, administration and military training. In Austria, Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II pushed ahead with centralising reforms, and in France the defeat fed public criticism of the monarchy.

Timeline

• 1756, January: Britain and Prussia sign the Convention of Westminster.
• 1756, May: Austria and France ally; Britain declares war on France after the French invasion of Minorca.
• 1756, 29 August: Frederick II invades Saxony.
• 1757, 23 June: Clive’s victory at Plassey in Bengal.
• 1757, 5 November and 5 December: Prussian victories at Rossbach and Leuthen.
• 1759, 1 August: Allied victory over the French at Minden.
• 1759, 13 September: British victory at Quebec.
• 1759, 20 November: Royal Navy victory at Quiberon Bay.
• 1762, January: Death of Empress Elizabeth; Russia makes peace with Prussia.
• 1763, 10 and 15 February: Treaties of Paris and Hubertusburg end the war.

Why it matters

The Seven Years’ War redrew the map of the world. It made Britain the dominant colonial and naval power, removed France from mainland North America, began British rule in India and established Prussia among Europe’s great powers. Its costs and consequences helped cause both the American and the French Revolutions.