Seven Years War

Seven Years War 1756-63, worldwide war fought in Europe, North America, and India between France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and (after 1762) Spain on the one side and Prussia, Great Britain, and Hanover on the other.

Nature of the War

The struggle was complex in its origin and involved two main distinct conflicts—the colonial rivalry between France and England and the struggle for supremacy in Germany between the house of Austria and the rising kingdom of Prussia. It was preluded in America by the outbreak of the last of the French and Indian Wars and in India by fighting among native factions and the struggle there between the French governor Dupleix and the British statesman Robert Clive .

The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) had left Austria humiliated. Seeking to recover Silesia from Prussia, Empress Maria Theresa even before the conclusion of that war had secured the alliance of Elizabeth of Russia. In the years following the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), Kaunitz , as Austrian ambassador to France and then as chancellor, worked for a rapprochement with France.

The War Begins

In 1755, when hostilities broke out in North America, George II, king of England and elector of Hanover, negotiated the Treaty of Westminster with Frederick II of Prussia, who guaranteed the neutrality of Hanover. This event hastened the alliance (1756) of France and Austria, sometimes called the "diplomatic revolution." Shortly afterward Frederick II opened hostilities by invading Saxony. In Jan., 1757, war was declared on the aggressor in the name of the Holy Roman Empire. Austria concluded alliances with France and Russia and was joined by Sweden. The main European phase of the war began with the Prussian invasion of Bohemia early in 1757.

Conduct of the War

Victorious at first, Frederick was severely defeated by the Austrians under Daun at Kolin (June, 1757) and had to evacuate Bohemia. The fighting was carried into Saxony and Silesia, where Frederick gained the great victories of Rossbach (Nov., 1757) and Leuthen (Dec., 1757) over the French and Austrians. The Russians, who had invaded Prussia, were defeated by Frederick at Zorndorf (Aug., 1758). The English and Hanoverians, at first unsuccessful against the French in NW Germany, began a vigorous effort when William Pitt (later earl of Chatham ) came into power; the troops then won the victories of Krefeld (June, 1758) and Minden (Aug., 1759).

However, Frederick soon found himself in an almost desperate situation. He was badly beaten by Daun at Kunersdorf (Aug., 1759) and in Nov., 1759, Daun captured a Prussian army of 13,000 at Maxen. In Oct., 1760, the Russians took Berlin. Days later, as Frederick's army approached, they evacuated it, and in November Frederick defeated Daun at Torgau. Nonetheless, his situation remained critical, especially after the fall of Pitt (1761) deprived him of British subsidies. The death (Jan., 1762) of Elizabeth of Russia and the accession of Peter III , Frederick's ardent admirer, helped save him from defeat.

Peace

By the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1762) Russia made peace and restored all conquests; Sweden made peace in the same year. Now fighting alone in the east, the Austrians were soundly defeated at Burkersdorf (July, 1762). The French, too, had suffered severe reverses. In America they had lost Louisburg (1758), Quebec (1759), and some possessions in the West Indies; in India, the British victories at Plassey (1757) and Pondichéry (now Puducherry; 1761) had destroyed French power; on the sea, the French took Port Mahón from the British (1757) but were defeated by Hawke in Quiberon Bay (1759). The entry of Spain into the war under the terms of the Family Compact of 1761 was of little help to France, where the war had never been popular.

After protracted negotiations between the war-weary powers, peace was made (Feb., 1763) among Prussia, Austria, and Saxony at Hubertusburg , and among England, France, and Spain at Paris (see Paris, Treaty of , 1763). The treaty of Hubertusburg, though it restored the prewar status quo, marked the ascendancy of Prussia as a leading European power. Through the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain emerged as the world's chief colonial empire, which was its primary goal in the war, and France lost most of its overseas possessions. For Russia the Seven Years War was the first great venture into purely European affairs.

Bibliography

See studies by L. J. Oliva (1964), R. Savory (1966), and H. H. Kaplan (1968).

Seven Years War, 1756–63. In the years immediately after the War of the Austrian Succession, a ‘diplomatic revolution’ took place in Europe. France and Austria, with support from Russia, Sweden, and Saxony, aligned themselves against Frederick II of Prussia, effectively surrounding his country. In 1756 Frederick made a pre-emptive strike into Saxony, followed a year later by an advance into Bohemia. As his enemies responded by threatening Prussia from all sides, Frederick turned to Britain for aid. An ‘Army of Observation’ under the duke of Cumberland was deployed to western Germany, comprising Hanoverian, Hessian, and Prussian troops, but when the French invaded, Cumberland was beaten at Hastenbeck (26 July 1757) and forced to sign a convention to disband his army. This was countermanded by the British prime minister, William Pitt ( the Elder), who sent British units to reinforce the remains of Cumberland's army, under the command of Ferdinand of Brunswick. As Frederick II fought for his own survival, winning victories against the French at Rossbach (November 1757) and the Austrians at Leuthen (December 1757), the British, now known as the ‘Army of Execution’, prepared for action in the west. Initially, the British did well, winning a victory against the French at Krefeld in 1758, but in the following year they were forced to pull back towards Hanover. A hard-won victory at Minden on 1 August 1759 allowed the ‘Army of Execution’ to consolidate its hold over western Germany, but the war was by no means over. Further east, Frederick had managed to survive only by fighting desperate battles at Zorndorf (1758) and Kunersdorf (1759); he had to fight further battles at Liegnitz and Torgau (1760) and at Schweidnitz (1762), shifting his armies from one side of Prussia to the other to defeat the French, Austrians, and Russians in turn. Only when Russia withdrew from the war on the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth in 1762 did Frederick receive any respite. The war ended in February 1763 with the peace of Paris.

But the fighting was not confined to Europe. Preoccupied with their war against Prussia, the French were in no position to protect their overseas possessions, and Britain took full advantage. In North America spasmodic fighting between British and French settlers had been going on for years. In 1758 Pitt dispatched an expeditionary force of 12,000 men under General Amherst to capture the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island and, when this proved successful, ordered a more ambitious advance into French-held Canada. On the night of 12–13 September 1759 Major-General James Wolfe, commanding no more than 3,000 men, mounted a surprise attack on Quebec on the upper reaches of the St Lawrence river. Carried there by a British fleet under Admiral Saunders, Wolfe's men scrambled up cliffs to the south of Quebec under cover of darkness and, as dawn broke, faced a force of about 5,000 French soldiers under the marquis de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham. The ensuing battle was short and decisive; although both Wolfe and Montcalm were fatally wounded, the French retreated and Quebec fell. Montreal followed, leaving Britain in control of much of Canada.

By then, the British had also consolidated their power in India, where the pro-French nawab Siraj-ud-Daula was defeated by Robert Clive at the battle of Plassey in 1757 to give the East India Company control of Bengal. By 1761, when the French outpost at Pondicherry surrendered to General Eyre Coote, this control had been extended into the Carnatic.

John Pimlott