Seven Years War (1756-63). This was in reality two separate conflicts, the first fought in Germany and central Europe between Prussia and a coalition headed by Austria, France, and Russia, and the second overseas between Britain and France, latterly assisted by Spain. The two struggles were linked principally by France's involvement in both, though as the war continued this link became increasingly fragile. Both conflicts were to prove decisive, albeit in different ways: that in Europe established Prussia and Russia as great powers, while in the maritime and colonial sphere Britain overwhelmingly defeated the two leading Bourbon monarchies and secured a dominant position by 1763. The principal loser in both struggles was France, whose standing as the leading continental power was destroyed for a generation and would only be restored by the armies of the French Revolution during the 1790s.

The European conflict had a clear-cut beginning which the colonial war lacked. On 29 August 1756 Frederick ‘the Great’ led his troops across the border into neighbouring Saxony. He was convinced that he would be attacked in the following spring by a coalition assembled by the Austrian Chancellor Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, which aimed to recover the former Habsburg province of Silesia, seized by Prussia during the War of the Austrian Succession. This powerful alliance now contained not only Austria but France and Russia, and would subsequently be extended to include the declining second-rank state of Sweden and contingents of soldiers provided by the Holy Roman Empire. In the period before the Seven Years War Frederick's foreign policy was pacific; he believed that any further conflict could only imperil his possession of the rich and well-populated territory of Silesia. But he recognized the military threat posed by Saxony, which could serve as a bridgehead for an invasion of Brandenburg, the core of the Hohenzollern monarchy. The river Elbe bisected both territories and would be used to move supplies, while his capital Berlin was only some 50 miles (80 km) from the exposed frontier with the Saxon electorate. Though ostensibly neutral, the electorate was firmly in the political orbit of Austria and France and a Saxon princess was married to the heir to the French throne. Believing he would inevitably be attacked by Austria and Russia in the spring of 1757, Frederick took the initiative and invaded Saxony at the very end of August 1756.

The Seven Years War, 1756-63, and related actions worldwide. This 'world war' overlapped with continuing British-French colonial conflicts in America (top) and India (right), but at its centre was the Prussia of Frederick the Great and its fight for survival (bottom).
(Click to enlarge)


Click to enlarge

His action was, at first sight, successful. The Saxon army was speedily surrounded and disarmed. Its officers were permitted to go into exile with the ruler and his court, which moved to Warsaw (the Elector Augustus was also king of Poland), and the rank and file was incorporated into Prussian regiments, though most of these unwilling recruits subsequently deserted. An attempted Habsburg counter-attack was repulsed, confirming Frederick in his disdainful view of Austrian military power. The political repercussions of his invasion were more serious. It ensured that France would fight actively to defeat Prussia, and enabled Kaunitz to transform his defensive alliance into an offensive coalition, which confronted Frederick in the campaign of 1757.

Encouraged by his early success and anxious for a short war (because of Prussia's very limited resources, particularly when measured against the overwhelming advantage which his enemies seemed to enjoy), Frederick went on the offensive in this first campaign. He invaded Bohemia, winning a hard-fought victory at Prague (6 May) but suffering a severe reverse at Kolin (18 June), in a battle which forced him to acknowledge the progress which the Austrian army had made since the defeats of the 1730s and 1740s. Simultaneously the Russians advanced upon isolated East Prussia, the source of the Hohenzollern royal title but cut off from the dynasty's heartlands by several hundred miles of Polish territory. Two months after the reverse at Kolin, Russia's troops inflicted a serious defeat on the Prussians at Gross Jägersdorf (30 August). Prussia's first crisis of the Seven Years War in autumn 1757 was overcome by Frederick's comprehensive victory at Rossbach over a Franco-imperial force twice his own strength and, a month later, by an even more impressive success over the Austrians at Leuthen.

Rossbach was the war's most decisive battle, because of its enormous repercussions within France. Louis XV's monarchy was Europe's leading military power and had not expected such a shattering reverse, particularly at the hands of an upstart such as Prussia. It was also involved in a worldwide struggle with the rising British empire, its colonial and commercial competitor throughout the 18th century. The outbreak of the colonial war was far less clear-cut than the European. Britain and France were neighbours as well as rivals in North America, and the peace settlement which had ended the previous conflict, that over the Austrian succession, at Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), had been only a truce. The two colonial powers competed for territory and influence, especially in the Ohio river valley, and the French and Indian war had been underway throughout the 1750s. Britain's actions in sending a force under Gen Braddock in December 1754 to punish the French for an earlier attack and her seizure of French ships on the high seas in 1755, signalled a sharp deterioration in relations, though these initiatives were viewed in London as responses to earlier provocations. After the French destroyed Braddock on the Monongahela the two states were openly at war, even if it was not formally declared until May 1756.

The Anglo-French war in Europe began with important French victories, especially the capture of Britain's Mediterranean base of Minorca in June 1756, her defeat in Germany at Hastenbeck (26 July 1757), and the capitulation by Cumberland at Klosterseven (10 September). This proved a false dawn for France. The rout at Rossbach in November destroyed French military power for a generation and undermined the confidence of her generals and statesmen. Throughout the 18th century France's strategic Achilles' heel had been that even the great resources available to her were insufficient to support two simultaneous wars: that with the Habsburgs on the continent and with Britain overseas. The rivalry with Austria had apparently been ended by the first Treaty of Versailles signed in May 1756, one purpose of which had been to enable French resources to be concentrated on the overseas struggle, now widely seen in France as the greater priority. Frederick's invasion of Saxony had frustrated this intention, and Rossbach demonstrated the disastrous consequences of attempting to fight two wars. Thereafter France's commitment to the continental struggle was scaled down, being formally reduced by the third Treaty of Versailles (March 1759), after which French troops fought only in Westphalia, where they engaged in indecisive operations against the so-called Army of Observation. This treaty was concluded by the Duc de Choiseul, who had become foreign minister in December 1758 and who was determined to concentrate available resources on the colonial struggle with Britain.

France's changed priorities proved decisive in the continental war. Prussia's desperate struggle was reduced in scale, becoming primarily a war against Austria and, increasingly, Russia. Sweden, though a member of the anti-Prussian coalition, contributed little to the struggle and her military effort was viewed disdainfully by Frederick. Meanwhile Britain, where William Pitt ‘the Elder’ had secured real authority in 1757 after the early defeats, moved to support Prussia effectively. From 1758-61 London provided an annual subsidy of £670, 000, which contributed almost one-fifth of the total costs of Prussia's war effort, and more practical help in the shape of the so-called ‘Army of Observation’ which protected Prussia's vulnerable western flank for the remainder of the war and which was financed and in part manned by Britain. The stalemate on the Westphalian front, together with the ineffective Swedish military effort, significantly reduced the threat of encirclement which Frederick had faced in 1756-8.

The war now became a less unequal struggle than it had been initially. Frederick's exposed geographical position did not become a strategic liability. The provinces of the Hohenzollern monarchy sprawled across northern Europe, from the Rhineland in the west to the Niemen far to the east. Territorial dispersal had long been a problem facing rulers in Berlin. During the Seven Years War the king abandoned the outlying possessions: those in Westphalia were under French occupation from the first campaign of the struggle, while East Prussia was occupied by the Russians from January 1758 onwards. Instead he concentrated upon his compact central position, adopting a strategy of interior lines and fighting the war in Brandenburg, Saxony, Silesia, and Bohemia. The Prussian offensive in 1757 had, for a time, seemed likely to end in disaster. Thereafter Frederick adopted a strategy of attrition, striking first against one opponent and then against another, with the aim of preventing his enemies, with their massively superior resources, from uniting and delivering the decisive blow which he feared. This was successful, though along the way he lost as many battles as he won: his towering military reputation after the war reflected more his survival, in the face of overwhelming odds, than his battlefield successes.

This survival owed much to non-military factors. The Prussian home front proved stronger than that of its enemies. Despite its officials being unpaid for extended periods during the war, Prussia's famed administration was able to scrape together the men, money, and matériel needed to sustain the struggle. Though the quality of recruits declined during the second half of the war, the canton system of territorial recruitment proved more able to provide soldiers than its Austrian counterpart. The brutal and haphazard conscription of the Russian empire provided more soldiers than were available to Frederick, and the continental war became a life-and-death struggle between Prussia and her powerful rival in north-eastern Europe.

In its middle years no clear decision was evident in the war for Silesia. Despite a series of reverses, particularly at the hands of the Russians—a bloody tactical draw at Zorndorf on 25 August 1758, serious defeats at Kay (Paltzig) on 23 July 1759 and especially at Kundersdorf on 12 August of that year—Frederick retained the ability to win sufficient victories to keep the struggle going. Though he had lost Hochkirch to the Austrians (14 October 1758), decisive victories at Liegnitz (15 August 1760) and Torgau (3 November) broke Habsburg will to sustain the conflict. In 1761 Austria was forced to reduce the size of her army, though the fighting continued, and embark upon the further administrative changes which were essential. Vienna had contributed to its own failure. Though Austrian troops had fought bravely, earning Frederick's respect, Habsburg generalship was at best mediocre and frequently did not rise to that level. The French alliance had not produced the expected contribution, in men and money, to the war effort, while Russia was too much of a political rival in eastern Europe ever to be a comfortable partner: the military co-operation of the two powers, upon which so much rested particularly during the second half of the war, was beset by mutual suspicion and distrust.

The indecisive, though bloody, struggle in central Europe was in sharp contrast to the clear-cut outcome overseas. France's concentration on the war against Britain from 1759 onwards did not bring success: on the contrary defeats soon began to mount up in this theatre as the British war effort, now directed by William Pitt, gained purpose and momentum. Britain was far superior at sea, and this was underlined by decisive victories in European waters during 1759 at Lagos (July) and in Quiberon Bay (November). Maritime supremacy was the basis of a series of British successes which destroyed 18th-century French imperial power for ever. The losses in the French and Indian war were particularly striking. There Britain's objective in 1758-60 was the conquest of the French colony of Canada, and this was achieved in stages. The vital base of Louisbourg on Cape Breton island in the Gulf of St Lawrence was captured in July 1758, and Fort Duquesne (renamed Fort Pitt, now Pittsburgh) in December. In the following year Quebec was taken, after the dramatic scaling of the Heights of Abraham by Wolfe. The British conquest of Canada was completed by the seizure of Montreal in September 1760. In the Indian subcontinent France's position was undermined by a series of British successes. Victory by Clive in the small-scale but decisive battle of Plassey gave Britain, or rather her East India Company, control of Bengal, while subsequent successes at Wandiwash (January 1760) and Pondicherry (January 1761) weakened the French position on the Carnatic coast in the south-east. Other colonial trophies were seized from the near-prostrate French monarchy, above all the West Indian Islands of Guadeloupe (May 1759) and Martinique (February 1762).

As Britain's gains mounted up in the annus mirabilis of 1759, Horace Walpole famously remarked that so numerous were the successes the church bells were worn out ringing for victories. Whether these gains were the result of a clear-cut strategy, so much as superior naval power and war finance, better generals and admirals, and experience of previous successful struggles with France, must be doubted. Pitt was an energetic and, more important, a lucky war leader, rather than a strategist of genius. His reputation, at the time and since, owes much to the skilful way he was careful to exploit the successes and ring the bells of victory: his greatness rested on his undoubted abilities as a propagandist.

By 1760 Britain had comprehensively won the Anglo-French Seven Years War. The scale of that victory was reduced by a series of events during the next two years. George III's accession in October 1760, and the coming to power of his minister-favourite, the Earl of Bute, in the following year seriously reduced British willingness to pay for a ‘German war’ which appeared to be deadlocked and, more important, did not appear to be contributing to Britain's struggle with France. Anglo-French peace negotiations in 1761 failed to produce a settlement. Choiseul, from that year Louis XV's leading minister, now broadened the war by signing the so-called Bourbon Family Compact with Spain. During the reign of Ferdinand VI (1746-59) Madrid had remained neutral, but the accession of the anti-British Charles III (1759-88) opened the way for a Franco-Spanish alliance, concluded in August 1761. Pitt favoured an immediate attack upon Spain and its vulnerable empire and, when his cabinet colleagues refused support, resigned (October 1761). Spain entered the Anglo-French war in January 1762, but this only enabled the victorious British forces to win a further series of victories, especially the capture of Havana and of Manila later in that year.

The continental war was effectively decided by the death of Frederick's implacable foe, the Russian Empress Elizabeth, in January 1762. Her successor was the pro-Prussian Peter III, who immediately concluded first an armistice and then a peace treaty with his Prussian hero. Austria continued to fight for one further campaign, in the course of which Frederick won a final tactical victory at Burkersdorf (July 1762). Though preparations for the next campaign went ahead, neither state had either the will or the human and material resources to continue fighting. Peace negotiations between Austria and Prussia began on 30 December 1762, and were quickly concluded. By the peace of Hubertusburg (15 February 1763), signed at the Saxon elector's hunting lodge, the continental war was ended on the basis of the territorial status quo. Seven years of intensive and at times desperate fighting had produced a settlement which merely restored the position which had prevailed before the war began. Frederick famously compared his own predicament during the conflict to that of a trapeze artist who was always one step from disaster. By 1763 he had safely reached the end of the high wire, an outcome which had been in doubt for much of the struggle.

The Anglo-Bourbon peace settlement took far longer to conclude, though it was signed in the same month. During complex and prolonged negotiations in 1762-3 Choiseul's skilful diplomacy, together with Britain's war-weariness, limited Bourbon losses: the final settlement was more generous to France and Spain than the prevailing military situation might have required. Yet the terms of the Peace of Paris (10 February 1763) were still a serious defeat for the Bourbon allies. France was excluded from the North American mainland, retaining only a precarious foothold in the Newfoundland fisheries through the possession of the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon, while her position in the Indian subcontinent was effectively destroyed. Her ally Spain handed over Florida to Britain, subsequently receiving Louisiana from France in compensation. The Seven Years War had thus established Britain's maritime and colonial dominance over her Bourbon rivals, and after 1763 she was clearly Europe's leading commercial and imperial power. Within Europe, by contrast, no such clear-cut result was apparent. Yet the political consequences of the continental fighting were in some ways even more momentous. The survival of Prussia and the military victories won by Russia established these two states as continental great powers. France by contrast had been defeated in both struggles, while the war's enormous cost was a major source of the massive financial problems of the Bourbon monarchy during the next generation which made a major contribution to the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789.

Bibliography

• Dorn, W. L., Competition for Empire, 1740-1763 (New York, 1940).
• Duffy, Christopher, Frederick the Great: A Military Life (London, 1985).
• Middleton, Richard, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years' War, 1757-1762 (Cambridge, 1985).
• Peters, Marie, The Elder Pitt (London, 1998).
• Showalter, Dennis E., The Wars of Frederick the Great (London, 1996)

— Hamish Scott

For more information on Seven Years' War, visit Britannica.com.

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. 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, 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. 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 and costly battles at Zorndorf (1758) and Kunersdorf (1759); he had to fight further battles at Liegnitz and Torgau (1760) and at Schweidnitz (1762), 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. In 1758 Pitt dispatched an expeditionary force of 12, 000 men under General Amherst to capture the fortress of Louisbourg and, when this proved successful, ordered a much 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. The ensuing battle was short and decisive; although both Wolfe and his opponent 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.

Seven Years War (1756-63). War between Prussia on the one hand and Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony on the other; the battles between Frederick the Great and the allies are described with ferocious irony in the early chapters of Voltaire's Candide. Britain joined Prussia, and the resulting naval warfare between France and Britain led to the French loss of Canada, described by Voltaire as ‘quelques arpents de neige’ [see Quebec].

[Peter France]

The Seven Years' War (called the French and Indian War in the colonies) lasted from 1756 to 1763, forming a chapter in the imperial struggle between Britain and France called the Second Hundred Years' War. In the early 1750s, France's expansion into the Ohio River valley repeatedly brought it into conflict with the claims of the British colonies, especially Virginia. During 1754 and 1755, the French defeated in quick succession the young George Washington, Gen. Edward Braddock, and Braddock's successor, Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts. In 1755, Governor Shirley, fearing that the French settlers in Nova Scotia (Acadia) would side with France in any military confrontation, expelled hundreds of them to other British colonies; many of the exiles suffered cruelly. Throughout this period, the British military effort was hampered by lack of interest at home, rivalries among the American colonies, and France's greater success in winning the support of the Indians. In 1756 the British formally declared war (marking the official beginning of the Seven Years' War), but their new commander in America, Lord Loudoun, faced the same problems as his predecessors and met with little success against the French and their Indian allies.

The tide turned in 1757 because William Pitt, the new British leader, saw the colonial conflicts as the key to building a vast British empire. Borrowing heavily to finance the war, he paid Prussia to fight in Europe and reimbursed the colonies for raising troops in North America. In July 1758, the British won their first great victory at Louisbourg, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. A month later, they took Fort Frontenac at the western end of the river. Then they closed in on Quebec, where Gen. James Wolfe won a spectacular victory on the Plains of Abraham, September 1759 (though both he and the French commander, the Marquis de Montcalm, were fatally wounded). With the fall of Montreal in September 1760, the French lost their last foothold in Canada. Soon, Spain joined France against England, and for the rest of the war Britain concentrated on seizing French and Spanish territories in other parts of the world.

At the peace conference in 1763, the British received Canada from France and Florida from Spain, but permitted France to keep its West Indian sugar islands and gave Louisiana to Spain. The treaty strengthened the American colonies significantly by removing their European rivals to the north and south and opening the Mississippi Valley to westward expansion.

See also Colonial Wars.

The Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763) involved nearly every European state and was watershed in world history. It arose as a result of the Anglo-French colonial rivalry and because of the growing might of Prussia in central Europe, which threatened the interests of Austria, France, and Russia. The outcome ensured that England became the dominant power in North America, and the war consolidated the growing power and prestige of Frederick the Great's Prussia. For this, he could thank Russia and its bizarre participation in the war. Internally, Russian actions in the Seven Years' War also brought about a palace coup and the subsequent rule of Catherine II.

Prussia had emerged as a potential European power by the middle of the eighteenth century. Under Frederick II (r. 1740 - 1786), Prussian policies became increasingly ambitious. Frederick wanted to consolidate his power and territories gained at the expense of Austria during the 1840s. Austria, for its part, desired a return of territories such as Silesia. Russia and France also worried over Prussian power and potential incursions near their respective borders. When war broke out between France and England over their North American territories, Prussia signed an alliance with England in January 1756. The alliance brought a rapprochement between France and Austria. By the end of 1756, Russia signed a new alliance with its traditional ally, Austria. The sides had been drawn.

After war broke out in 1756 on the continent, Frederick's forces enjoyed success against the Austrians. By April 1756 the Prussians reached Prague. In the Bohemian capital the Austrians rallied, and Frederick's forces retreated. At that point Austria's allies, including Russia, entered the conflict. Despite the numbers stacked against him, Frederick continued to win surprising victories, and 1757 established his reputation as a brilliant commander.

The following year brought mixed results and mounting casualties for the Russians, who lost twelve thousand troops at August's Battle of Zorndorf. In 1759 the allies, and particularly Russia, ratcheted up the pressure. Led by General Pyotr Saltykov, the Russian army occupied Frankfurt in June 1759. By 1760 Frederick had only half the numbers of his Russian and Austrian opponents, who began to close the circle against Frederick. Russian commanders in particular focused on Berlin, and even occupied the Prussian capital for three days in September and October 1760. Exhausted by the continuous marching demanded of eighteenth-century warfare, the two sides fought no serious battles for the rest of 1760 and most of 1761. Frederick's situation, however, was grave. Russia and Austria could count on more soldiers and supplies, and Prussia was cut off from Silesia, a major supplier of food.

Then the situation changed dramatically. On January 5, 1762, the Empress Elizabeth died. Her successor, Peter III, was a fervent admirer of Frederick II and all things Prussian. When he took the throne, Peter ended the war with Prussia, called his troops back, and returned all territorial gains. As a result, Frederick recovered and defeated the Austrians. France, defeated in North America and more disinterested about the continental war, also signed a treaty with Prussia. Frederick's "miracle" had resulted from Russia's flip-flop, and his victory brought the first step toward Prussian domination of Germany.

At home, Peter III's decision ran counter to Russia's strategic and political interests. Contemporaries called the conflict the "Prussian War," and even popular prints of the time depicted the war as a struggle solely between Russia and Prussia. The decision to hand Frederick victory thus did not go over well within any segment of the population. Catherine, Peter's German wife, led a palace coup against her husband that toppled him from power on July 9, 1762. Catherine II's rise to power would have been inconceivable had it not been for Russia's participation in the war.

Bibliography

Anderson, Fred. (2001). Crucible of Empire: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754 - 1766. New York: Vintage.

Keep, John L. H. (2002). "The Russian Army in the Seven Years' War." In The Military and Society in Russia, 1450 - 1917, ed. Eric Lohr and Marshall Poe. Leiden: Brill.

Leonard, Carol. (1993). Reform and Regicide: The Reign of Peter III of Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

—STEPHEN M. NORRIS

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Encompassing conflict in Europe, North America, the Caribbean, and India, the Seven Years' War resulted from a collision between two very different international problems. First, there was the growing colonial and imperial friction between Britain and France, which became acute in the early 1750s as the French authorities and the British colonists in North America began staking out rival claims to the Ohio River Valley. Open warfare then erupted in the backcountry during 1755, and this was followed by repeated British seizures of French shipping in the North Atlantic. In response Louis XV despatched Louis Joseph, marquis of Montcalm, with reinforcements for the French colonial forces, to take military command in New France (Quebec) in April 1756.

Second, the Seven Years' War stemmed from Austria's refusal to accept the loss of Silesia to Frederick II of Prussia during the War of the Austrian Succession, and from Russian determination to humble Prussia. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) had merely suspended Austro-Prussian conflict over Silesia. While Austria carried out internal reforms to her administration, Count Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, one of Maria Theresa's inner councillors who became chancellor in 1753, pursued the possibility, remote at first, of a French alliance against Prussia. Nevertheless, during 1755–1756 his patience and hard work began to pay dividends. Great Britain, anxious about the security of George II's German domains and no longer able to rely on Austrian support, secured Russian guarantees in September 1755 for George's electorate of Hanover in exchange for promised subsidies. This Anglo-Russian agreement in turn prompted a fearful Frederick II of Prussia to manage a reconciliation with Britain in January 1756 in the shape of the defensive Convention of London. But the unforeseen consequence was the "diplomatic revolution." A furious Russia all but repudiated her agreement with Britain and tightened her alliance with Austria, and both powers prepared for a combined war against Prussia. Now bereft of allies, Louis XV took up Kaunitz's proposal of an end to 250 years of Franco-Habsburg antagonism, and on 1 May the defensive first Treaty of Versailles was signed between France and Austria (Russia acceded to this treaty in January 1757). Two weeks later, after France invaded British-ruled Minorca, war broke out between the two states. Frederick II, now acutely aware of the forces gathering against him, felt he had no choice but to launch a preemptive strike in August to seize Saxony and take over its army, causing France to activate its Austrian alliance.

Prussia's Struggle for Survival

Not until the summer of 1757 did the triple alliance launch an assault on Prussia, after France and Austria concluded the offensive second Treaty of Versailles (1 May) with the purpose of dismembering Frederick's state. Frederick's invasion of Bohemia was halted, and the Russians invaded East Prussia, but more damaging was the neutralization of the trapped Anglo-Hanoverian army by the French at Kloster-Zeven in early September. In the face of such a crisis, Frederick fought a campaign of strategic brilliance. First he crushed the poorly commanded and logistically weak Franco-Imperial army at Rossbach (5 November), deploying the greatly improved Prussian cavalry under Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz and moving his infantry swiftly across the battlefield in echelon, rather than linear, formation. Then he followed this up with the defeat of the Austrians at Leuthen, two hundred miles to the east and exactly a month later, using the "oblique order" in an attack on the enemy right flank. After Rossbach, George II repudiated the convention of Kloster-Zeven, and Anglo-Hanoverian operations resumed under the command of Frederick's protégé Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolffenbüttel. Moreover, thanks to William Pitt's return to power in June 1757, Britain began subsidizing both the Hanoverian forces and, from April 1758, Frederick's Prussia. With the odds evened up, Austria henceforth sought to wear Prussia down by a process of attrition, but this presupposed a certain strength within the triple alliance that itself was fading.

In 1758 the French were pushed back over the Rhine by Ferdinand, while the emerging dominance within the French government of Étienne-François, duke of Choiseul, produced in March 1759 the third Treaty of Versailles, in which France reduced her role in the continental war to that of an Austrian auxiliary, and concentrated instead on trying to force Britain into peace. Yet when the French returned to Westphalia in 1759, Ferdinand of Brunswick smashed them at Minden on 1 August. The principal burden of attacking Prussia had in fact passed in 1758 to the Russians, a symptom of their growing strength and stamina. Königsberg, in East Prussia, was captured in January, forcing this kingdom under Russian occupation for the rest of the war. However, in his Brandenburg heartland, Frederick II defeated the Russians in the bloody battle of Zorndorf in August, while an Austrian surprise attack at Hochkirch in October failed to loosen his control of Saxony and Silesia. Despite the apparent stalemate, the Austrians and Russians made a further joint offensive against Prussia during 1759, in which Frederick suffered his worst defeat ever, at Künersdorf, forcing him to abandon Saxony and Silesia. The following year saw victories on both sides, but Frederick's success against the Austrians at Torgau was bought with greater casualties than were suffered by the vanquished (3 November), and Russian troops even reached Berlin and held it to ransom.

How was it, though, that the three greatest military powers on the Continent failed to crush Frederick's Prussia? To begin with, Austria and Russia both suffered from sluggish systems of planning and logistics that impeded offensive operations. Furthermore, their leading generals were cautious, unimaginative, and relatively uncooperative, and in the French case frequently incompetent. Maria Theresa and her advisers displayed poor strategic sense, waging a war of aggressive intent in a largely defensive and attritional fashion that allowed Frederick to deal with his enemies in turn in each campaign. Elizabeth of Russia was similarly unable to provide clear strategic direction after her stroke in 1757 allowed a major split to open up in her council. Related to this, the aims of the three powers diverged sufficiently to impede any overriding common purpose of destroying Prussian power. All this combined to prevent Frederick's enemies from holding the initiative for any length of time, and from following up their military successes.

The weaknesses of the triple alliance were matched by the remarkable resilience of Prussia. Britain's financial support of Prussia and Anglo-Hanoverian military protection of Brandenburg from the west enabled Frederick to concentrate his forces against only two enemies after late 1757: Austria and Russia. Frederick's strategic, operational, and tactical skill, while by no means flawless, enabled a united Prussian command, and a heavily centralized and obedient state, to take full advantage of the deficiencies in the triple alliance's war effort. If Prussia was exhausted financially and materially, with underage and substandard recruits filling the army's ranks by 1760, the Austrians and the French were also incapable of further offensive action.

The Anglo-French Imperial Struggle 1755–1760

While the war in Europe produced stagnation, the Anglo-French conflict was vastly more decisive, in large part because Pitt was determined to destroy as much of France's overseas power as possible. In India, Robert Clive's skillful handling of indigenous auxiliary troops and combined operations with the navy allowed him to recapture Calcutta from the Nawab of Bengal in March 1757 after its loss the previous year; and he followed this by gaining control of all Bengal after his victory at Plassey (26 July). But in North America things were going considerably less well for the British. Montcalm made much progress in the backcountry in 1756–1757, but this only forced the British commanders to reconsider their strategy and plan instead for a full assault on New France up the Saint Lawrence River, for which they requested massive land and sea reinforcements from London.

They were fortunate that Pitt endorsed their request, and in early 1758 the issues that had bedeviled relations between the regular forces and the colonies were resolved to the satisfaction of the colonists, unlocking colonial military resources immediately. As if to prove the need to attack New France by sea, in July 1758 Montcalm blocked the British advance at Fort Ticonderoga at the foot of Lake Champlain, but the same month the French were unable to prevent a British amphibious seizure of their fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Four months later the British also reduced Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, and the cumulative effect of these successes was to neutralize the American Indian nations, who now came to an accommodation with the British colonial authorities. In the meantime, during 1758 Pitt launched a series of diversionary amphibious attacks on the French Atlantic coast, the mere threat of which pinned down French forces so they could not be deployed either against Hanover or in the colonies.

Worse was to come for Louis XV in 1759. Montcalm's forces in New France were suffering from a lack of supplies and dwindling manpower, in spite of the mass mobilization of the colony's adult males. Britain, by contrast, sent out eight thousand fresh troops under James Wolfe, who in June sailed up the Saint Lawrence with twenty-two ships of the line to Quebec City, which soon found itself cut off and with dwindling supplies. While Amherst captured Ticonderoga, securing New York and Massachusetts, in September Wolfe provoked Montcalm into a battle just outside Quebec where both commanders were killed, but the British were victorious. Although Quebec surrendered, remnants of the French army managed to escape, and, reinforced to seven thousand men, marched on Quebec to attempt its recapture in April 1760. Yet Lévis's victory over a British force just outside the city walls could not prevent the abandonment of the siege in the face of British relief, and in September the French governor, Pierre François de Rigaud, marquis of Vaudreuil, surrendered the rest of New France. But in spite of this vigorous campaign, the outcome in North America had, in reality, been determined the previous year at sea, when the British had destroyed one French battle fleet off Lagos (Portugal) on 17 August, and defeated the other at Quiberon Bay off the coast of Brittany (20 November). Not only did this dash Choiseul's serious hopes of an invasion of Britain; it also assured Britain command of the Atlantic and English Channel, allowing the blockade of French ports and cutting off the French overseas from the homeland. In June 1761 Britain even managed to capture Belle-Isle, dominating the southern coast of Brittany.

Domestic Politics and the Ending of the War

However, by the end of 1760 there was a general war-weariness among all the belligerents, even the British, whose economy was flourishing. Indeed, during 1761 Anglo-Prussian relations deteriorated largely because Frederick II refused to consider any concessions to his enemies, culminating in the curtailment of British subsidies in April 1762. All this notwithstanding, the hostility of Elizabeth of Russia to Frederick II, and Pitt's determination to wring a "Carthaginian peace" out of France prolonged the conflict. What pushed the great powers toward peace was not victories or defeats but rather changes in their domestic political configurations.

George III's accession in October 1760 produced a notably more pacific tone in the British government, driving Pitt out of the ministry a year later. France sought to profit from this, ratcheting up demands in peace negotiations. Louis XV forged a third Family Compact in August 1761 with the anglophobe Charles III of Spain, who had acceded to his throne in 1759. This produced in January 1762 a Spanish declaration of war against Britain, ostensibly to protect Charles's New World economic interests, but Charles's rash decision was soon repented, as Britain captured both Havana (August) and Manila (October) in successful amphibious operations. That same year, the British also captured the islands of Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Grenada, and Tobago from France, to add to earlier seizures of Guadeloupe in 1759 and La Gorée in West Africa (1758). The Franco-Spanish position at the end of 1762 was worse than it had been a year earlier. Nevertheless, John Stuart, earl of Bute, now directing the British government, concluded the unnecessarily lenient Peace of Paris (10 February 1763) in which Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, and La Gorée were returned to France. All of New France, except Saint Pierre and Miquelon and fishing rights off Newfoundland, was retained by the British, and in India France was permitted to retain only the five trading posts held in 1748; Minorca was returned to Britain in exchange for Belle-Isle. To recover Cuba and Manila, Spain ceded Florida to Britain, receiving compensation from Louis XV in the form of Louisiana. Britain had shattered the French empire, and France had seen her armies humiliated (with serious domestic political consequences), but the French territories George III handed back to Louis XV were the most productive.

Prussia's survival intact, with peace concluded at Hubertusburg (15 February 1763), equally owed much to changes in domestic politics: the death of Tsarina Elizabeth in January 1762, and Peter III's immediate withdrawal of Russia from the triple alliance. Catherine II, after her usurpation of the throne six months later, maintained Russian neutrality but refused to assist Frederick as her husband had wished to do. With the treaty, Europe reverted to the status quo ante bellum. By merely carrying on the war, and regularly defeating his enemies against massive odds, Frederick II acquired the sobriquet "the Great" for himself and Prussia's recognition as a great power by the other states. Austria had failed dismally in the attempt to regain Silesia, prompting a further bout of administrative reform that, in less than a decade, increased the quality and quantity of her armies. Yet Russia, in spite of making no territorial gains from the war, emerged as the arbiter of eastern Europe, in part through her military performance but also thanks to the new tsarina, Catherine II, who was determined that Russia would henceforth act to maintain its newly acquired pivotal role.

Bibliography

Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of the Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. London, 2000.

Dorn, Walter L. Competition for Empire, 1740–1763. London and New York, 1963. See chapter 8. Still the best narrative of the war.

Middleton, Richard. The Bells of Victory: the Pitt-Newcastle Ministry and the Conduct of the Seven Years' War, 1757–1762. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1985.

Scott, H. M. The Emergence of the Eastern Powers 1756–1775. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 2001.

—GUY ROWLANDS

A war fought in the middle of the eighteenth century between the German kingdom of Prussia, supported by Britain, and an alliance that included Austria, France, and Russia. Prussia and Britain won, and their victory greatly increased their power. Britain, in particular, won all of Canada and consolidated its rule over much of India. Several of the war's battles were fought in North America, where it was called the French and Indian War.