The Seven Years War

The Seven Years War was a time when most of the main countries of the world were fighting against one another. The countries did not fight on their own though, they joined with one another until there were only two groups, some countries that were allied before, turned against one another and joined other countries, this is known as the Diplomatic Revolution. The two sides were, Britain and Prussia against France and Austria, which had previously been Britain and Austria against France and Prussia, although other countries did get pulled into the turmoil. The Seven Years War began in Europe, although, not all of Europe was involved, Italy and the Netherlands remained neutral during this time. Before long Spain, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony got into the mix, Britain in spite of everything still hoped that Europe could avoid a massive conflict. But it didn’t take long for that hope to be shattered as France gathered it’s forces to attack Minorca, which was a Mediterranean island. As it turned out, the French won the island as the British were not able to get reinforcements in time. Fredrick III, leader of Prussia, ally of Britain, saw the war as an opportunity to gain territory, he first arranged his soldiers to protect Prussia’s main regions and then using the rest of his army to head east and attack Saxony. Since Austria was very close to Saxony they decided to support them and send an army to fight for them, but they were unable to defeat the strong Prussian army. Saxony was overthrown and its soldiers were forced to fight for the Prussian army, this victory was beneficial for Prussia, and the rest of Europe was startled by it and it strengthened the opposition toward the country of Prussia. Britain started to support Prussia as it sent money and warriors to it. For the next 6 years the war in Europe got more and more serious. The year 1757 was for the most part a year of Prussian success, but 1758 was a different story, the Prussians were continually beaten, for this span of time the only thing keeping them going was the support of Britain and Hanover and King Frederick III, who was determined. After losing 50% of his men in the Battle of Kunersdorf, Frederick was in real trouble, to make matters worse, both Russia and Austria were marching on him. Prussia’s defeat was almost guaranteed, but almost miraculously both Austria and Russia ran out of supplies and the whole attack was called off. Frederick called this event “the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.” If that was not enough, the Second Miracle of the House of Brandenburg occurred when the Russian Empress died, saving them from another complete defeat. At this point the war was pretty much under raps as the Treaty of St. Petersburg was arranged by Russia in 1762, and it stated that Austria would be fighting Prussia on its own, this gave King Frederick new hope for winning the war. Even though Prussia had a good chance of winning, the people cried out for the war to end or for the King to deny Britain’s support, this eventually led to the Treaty of Paris in the year 1763, where there was also an arrangement made called the “status quo ante bellum,” it meant that all the country that was gained or lost during the war was given back to the previous owner. 

The Seven Years War was largely in Europe, but there was also great conflict in areas such as the Caribbean, West Africa, India, South America, and the Philippines. Britain owned certain areas in the Caribbean along with controlling all of eastern North America, in addition to all of that they also took most of Florida from Spain and the capital of Cuba, Havana. Spain and Portugal fought all the wars in South America. By overtaking Colonia de Sacramento and Rio Grande de Sao Pedro the Spanish took Portugal off guard, those two cities were located in Uruguay in Brazil and were important cities of port. For many years France and Britain were in argument over who really had more trading country in India. Over the war, Britain was able to take almost all of the French coastal forts in India, they even defeated a French ally called Bengal. Going forward, the British became the dominant European country in India. Britain seemed to be winning the war at this point, it was conquering forts and settlements everywhere, it even captured the city of Manila. The capital of the Philippines was a port city, owned by the Spanish, but soon, it too was taken by the formidable British forces, although they were never able to control the entire country. During the colonization period, the French had little by little built up their settlements in Western Africa, but in the war the British captured Senegal, a colony of France, this among their other great successes were part of Britain’s, 1759 “Annus Mirabilis,” (Year of Miracles), in which they had, had an amazing streak of victories. Britain did not seem very powerful at the start of the war, and it did not do much at the beginning, but by about half way they became a great conqueror, and it looked like it had the advantage over the rest of the world. The Seven years war was a costly and brutally unforgiving time, but in its closing, it is seen that the entire thing was almost completely futile, as treaties were instituted, there was another status quo ante bellum and all ground lost or gained went back to its previous owner, so the end result is, thousands dead and wounded and virtually nothing accomplished.

You might be wondering what the point of all the fighting and killing was when in the end all the land went back to its former colonizer, but I think that this may have been something to renew trust between countries after they had been at war for seven years. It is interesting also that the entire war began because of a fifteen minute skirmish called the Battle of Jumonville Glen, even though so short, it had international consequences, and from this incident I see how even the smallest things we do can have tremendous consequences on us and those around us, so it just goes to show how careful we need to be in situations, otherwise we might get into a serious conflict, as seen here.

Information gathered from the Ron Paul curriculum 8^th grade history class.