France in the Seven Years' War
France was one of the leading participants in the Seven Years' War which lasted between 1754 and 1763. France entered the war with the hope of achieving a lasting victory against Prussia, Britain, and their German allies and with the hope of expanding its colonial possessions.
While the first few years of war proved successful for the French, in 1759 the situation reversed and they suffered defeats on several continents. In an effort to reverse their losses, France finished an alliance with their neighbor,
Background
The previous major conflict in Europe, the War of the Austrian Succession, ended in 1748 with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. This peace agreement was very unpopular with the French populace who saw the terms as excessively lenient to France's enemies, specifically Britain and the Dutch Republic, and many regarded it as a breathing space before war resumed.[1]
France and Britain were engaged in an intensifying global rivalry after they superseded Spain as the leading colonial powers. Hoping to establish supremacy, both countries engaged in several minor wars in North America. French colonies in Louisiana, Illinois, and Canada had largely surrounded British colonies strung out in a narrow strip along the coast. All the French needed to totally envelop the British was control of the Ohio Country. Attempting to gain control of this territory, France built a complex system of alliances with the area's Native American tribes and brought them into conflict with Britain.[2]
In the mid-18th century, France was an absolute monarchy: all power resided with the King. Louis XV was a weak personality easily manipulated by his advisors and confidants. Chief amongst them was Madame de Pompadour, his mistress who exercised enormous influence over appointments and matters of grand strategy. Other advisors rose and fell with rapid succession, continuing the lack of stability which had plagued the monarchy in the early 18th century.
War in Europe
While the war began in North America, in 1756 France became drawn into a major war in Europe. Allied to
France had opened the war against Britain in Europe by capturing
By this stage France's finances were in a poor state, despite the efforts of Silhouette to keep down expenditure, and France was only kept afloat by a major loan from neutral Spain. Despite the Spanish government's official policy of neutrality, they were slowly shifting towards supporting an outright pro-French position, encouraged by Choiseul. In December 1761, war finally broke out between Britain and Spain – but the Spanish involvement did not provide the relief to the French that had been hoped. Instead French troops were needed to bolster Spanish efforts to invade Portugal, and became bogged down there.[4] Spain also suffered defeats in Cuba and the Philippines in 1762, and by the end of the year both Spain and France were urgently seeking peace.[5]
War in North America
France began asserting control over the Ohio Country as early as 1749, issuing warnings and threats to British colonial traders active in the region. When the French began constructing a series of forts in the Ohio River watershed in 1753, the British responded with claims and demands of their own. In 1753, George Washington sparked the beginning of the war with an attack on a French scouting party near present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When they learned that the British were planning to send regular army troops to the area for the 1755 campaign, the French sent a large body of troops to New France before the British could blockade their ports. These troops, combined with a strong alliances with native tribes and poor British military administration, gave France a string of victories from 1755 to 1757; its only significant loss was Acadia, whose remaining territories fell into British hands after the 1755 Battle of Fort Beauséjour, inaugurating the expulsion of the Acadians. France was able to maintain control of the Ohio Country as well as the strategically important Great Lakes. After their initial successes in North America, however, France began to starve the theatre of forces and supplies, preferring to concentrate on the war in Europe rather than risk large numbers of troops on expeditions across the British-dominated Atlantic Ocean.
This contrasted sharply with the British, who put great emphasis on the war for control of North America. In 1758 the British launched several major offensives,
In 1760 the French launched a surprise effort to re-capture Quebec, which succeeded in blunting one British advance on
War in Asia
The French position in India had been severely weakened following the
The French war in India started badly, with the loss of the
The Mughals led by
-
Lally at Pondicherry.
-
Shah Alam II.
War in Africa
In April 1758 a British expedition conceived by the merchant Thomas Cumming and authorised by Pitt captured the French settlement of Saint-Louis in Senegal. The scheme had been so successful and profitable that two further expeditions were despatched the same year which captured the island of Gorée and the French trading station on the Gambia.
The loss of these valuable colonies further weakened France's finances. In 1762 a force was prepared to retake the Senegal territories, but had to be abandoned.
Peace treaty and aftermath
The French began negotiations in Paris in late 1762. Because of a change in the British government, they were offered more lenient terms than might otherwise have been expected. While they lost Canada to the British, Martinique and Guadeloupe were returned to them in exchange for Menorca.
The French defeat had a devastating impact on French political life, and a number of senior figures were forced out of public office. Realizing the deficiency in the French navy, Louis XV began a massive rebuilding program to match British naval strength. Choiseul drew up a long-term plan to gain victory over the British which was partially put into action during the
See also
References
Bibliography
- Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. Faber and Faber, 2001.
- Anderson, Fred and Cayton, Andrew. The Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America 1500–2000. Penguin Books, 2005.
- Black, Jeremy. Pitt the Elder. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
- Browning, Reed. The Duke of Newcastle. Yale University Press, 1975.
- Harvey, Robert. Clive: The Life and Death of a British Emperor. Sceptre, 1998.
- Horne, Alastair. Friend or Foe: An Anglo-Saxon History of France. Phoenix, 2005.
- Longmate, Norman. Island Fortress: The Defence of Great Britain, 1603–1945. Harper Collins, 1993.
- McLynn, Frank. 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World. Pimlico, 2005.
- Palmer, Alan. Northern Shores: A History of the Baltic Sea and its peoples. John Murrtay, 2006.
- Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire. Penguin Books, 2008.