THE WORLD ATLAS

War · 17 May 1756 – 15 February 1763

Seven Years' War

Two rivalries merged into one global war: Britain and France contested North America and India, while Austria sought to recover Silesia, which Prussia had seized in the 1740s. In the 'Diplomatic Revolution' of 1756 Britain allied with Prussia and France with its old enemy Austria; Russia and Sweden joined Austria, and Spain entered in 1762.

Frederick II of Prussia invaded Saxony and survived years of fighting against much larger armies, winning at Rossbach and Leuthen but nearly collapsing after Kunersdorf, until Russia left the war in 1762. Britain subsidised Prussia and defended Hanover, but used its navy to conquer French Canada, beat the French in India and seize Havana and Manila. In India the East India Company also defeated the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey. The Treaty of Paris gave Britain Canada, Florida and dominance in India, while the Treaty of Hubertusburg left Silesia with Prussia. Britain's war debts later fed the quarrel with its American colonies.

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Dates
17 May 1756 – 15 February 1763
Casualties
Military deaths among the main powers are estimated at close to 900,000 (roughly France 200,000, Prussia 180,000, Austria and the Empire 165,000, Britain 160,000 and Russia 120,000), with heavy civilian losses besides.

The sides

Britain, Prussia and allies

France, Austria and allies

Nawab of Bengal (against the East India Company)

Timeline of the Seven Years' War

  1. Britain declares war on France

    British and French colonists and soldiers had been fighting in the Ohio valley since 1754, where a young George Washington was defeated in the first clashes. Meanwhile the alliances of Europe were reshuffled: in January 1756 Britain agreed the Convention of Westminster with Prussia, and in May France signed the First Treaty of Versailles with Austria. Britain's formal declaration of war on France in May 1756 turned the undeclared colonial conflict into a European and then global war.

  2. Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab of Bengal, captures British Calcutta

    The new Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, objected to the East India Company fortifying Calcutta without his permission. His forces occupied the town and the garrison of Fort William surrendered on 20 June. Many British prisoners died overnight in a cramped cell remembered as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta', though the numbers given at the time are disputed. The Company sent Robert Clive from Madras to recover the town.

  3. Minorca falls to France

    A French expedition landed on the British-held Mediterranean island of Minorca and besieged Fort St Philip at Port Mahon. A British fleet under Admiral John Byng failed to relieve it, and the garrison surrendered on 28 June. The loss caused outrage in Britain; Byng was court-martialled and shot. It was an early sign that Britain's navy was not yet ready for the war.

  4. Prussia invades Saxony

    Frederick II of Prussia believed Austria, Russia and France were preparing to attack him and decided to strike first. On 29 August his army invaded Austria's ally Saxony, aiming to use it as a base and to seize its resources. The Saxon army was trapped in its camp at Pirna. To much of Europe the invasion made Prussia the aggressor, and it brought Austria, France, Russia and the Holy Roman Empire into the war against him.

  5. Battle of Lobositz: Frederick turns back an Austrian relief army

    An Austrian army marched from Bohemia to rescue the Saxons trapped at Pirna. Frederick met it at Lobositz (Lovosice) on the Elbe on 1 October and forced it to withdraw after a hard fight. Cut off from help, the starving Saxon army surrendered in October, and Frederick forced many of its soldiers into Prussian service. Saxony would be occupied and taxed by Prussia for the rest of the war.

  6. Battle of Prague: costly Prussian victory in Bohemia

    In spring 1757 Frederick invaded Bohemia and attacked the Austrian army outside Prague on 6 May. The Prussians won, but at heavy cost, and the Austrians retreated inside the city, which Frederick besieged. A relieving Austrian army then defeated him at Kolín later that year, forcing him to lift the siege and leave Bohemia. Meanwhile French and Russian armies were advancing towards Prussia from the west and east.

  7. Battle of Plassey: Clive defeats Siraj ud-Daulah

    After retaking Calcutta in January and capturing the French post of Chandernagore in March, Robert Clive marched on the Nawab with about 3,100 men. At Plassey (Palashi) the Nawab's much larger army, supported by a small French artillery unit, was defeated after his commander Mir Jafar, who had secretly conspired with the British, held back his troops. Mir Jafar was made Nawab as a British client, and the Company gained de facto control of Bengal's revenues.

  8. Battle of Rossbach: Frederick routs a Franco-Imperial army

    A French army joined by troops of the Holy Roman Empire's Reichsarmee advanced into Saxony. At Rossbach Frederick, with a much smaller force, caught them on the march with a rapid cavalry charge and swift infantry fire, and the allied army collapsed. The victory made Frederick a hero in Protestant Britain and ended French attempts to strike directly at Prussia from the west.

  9. Battle of Leuthen: Frederick recovers Silesia

    While Frederick was in Saxony, the Austrians had overrun most of Silesia and taken Breslau. A month after Rossbach he marched east and attacked a far larger Austrian army at Leuthen, west of Breslau, using the 'oblique order' to fall on its flank. The Austrians were heavily defeated and Breslau soon surrendered. Leuthen is often counted Frederick's greatest victory, and it saved his hold on Silesia.

  10. Louisbourg surrenders to the British

    Under William Pitt, Britain poured troops and ships into North America. An expedition under Jeffery Amherst, with James Wolfe as a brigadier and Admiral Boscawen's fleet, besieged the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island from 8 June. Governor Drucour surrendered on 26 July. Its fall opened the St Lawrence River to British fleets and provided the base for the attack on Quebec the next year. Fort Duquesne in the Ohio valley also fell in 1758.

  11. Battle of Zorndorf: bloody clash of Prussians and Russians

    A Russian army had overrun East Prussia and advanced to the Oder, besieging Küstrin. Frederick attacked it at Zorndorf, northeast of Berlin, on 25 August. The battle was one of the bloodiest of the century, with both armies suffering very heavy losses, and neither was destroyed; the Russians withdrew afterwards. Frederick had stopped the immediate threat to Brandenburg, but his army was being worn down.

  12. Battle of Minden: allied army saves Hanover

    A French army advancing on Hanover met the allied army of British, Hanoverian and other German troops under Ferdinand of Brunswick before Minden on the Weser. Six British and two Hanoverian infantry regiments repulsed repeated attacks by French cavalry, and the allies drove the French from the field. Minden ended French plans against Hanover for 1759 and was counted in Britain's 'year of victories'.

  13. Battle of Kunersdorf: Russians and Austrians crush Frederick

    A combined Russian and Austrian army took position at Kunersdorf, near Frankfurt an der Oder. Frederick attacked on 12 August but his army was shattered, losing a large share of its men, and he briefly despaired of the war. The allies failed to follow up and march on Berlin, and Prussia survived, but with ever-thinner resources. Kunersdorf was Frederick's heaviest defeat of the war.

  14. Battle of the Plains of Abraham: the British take Quebec

    After a summer besieging Quebec, General James Wolfe's troops climbed the cliffs above the St Lawrence at night and formed up on the Plains of Abraham outside the city. The Marquis de Montcalm attacked and was defeated in a short battle; both commanders were mortally wounded. Quebec surrendered days later. Montreal, the last French stronghold, capitulated in 1760, completing Britain's conquest of Canada.

  15. Battle of Quiberon Bay: Britain destroys a French fleet

    France had gathered troops and transports to invade Britain. When its Brest fleet put to sea, Admiral Edward Hawke chased it into Quiberon Bay off Brittany in a November gale, among dangerous shoals, and destroyed or scattered it. The invasion plan was abandoned. With Quiberon Bay, Britain controlled the seas for the rest of the war, cutting France off from its colonies in Canada, the Caribbean and India.

  16. Battle of Wandiwash: British defeat the French in southern India

    In the Carnatic, on India's southeast coast, the French under the Comte de Lally had besieged British Madras without success. At Wandiwash (Vandavasi) a Company army under Sir Eyre Coote decisively defeated Lally. The British then captured French posts across the region and confined the French to their main settlement of Pondicherry. The battle ended France's chances of building an empire in India.

  17. Pondicherry surrenders to the British

    After Wandiwash, British forces blockaded Pondicherry by land and sea. The French garrison held out for months before surrendering in January 1761, and the British razed its fortifications. Although the Treaty of Paris returned Pondicherry and other trading posts to France, they had to stay unfortified, leaving Britain the dominant European power in India. The French commander, the Comte de Lally, was later tried in France and executed, blamed for the loss of French India.

  18. Empress Elizabeth of Russia dies

    By late 1761 Prussia was close to collapse. Then Empress Elizabeth, a determined enemy of Frederick, died on 5 January 1762. Her successor, Peter III, admired Frederick and moved at once to end Russia's war with him. The sudden change saved Prussia from likely defeat. Peter III soon made peace and even briefly sent Russian troops to help Prussia. Without Russian armies, Austria could no longer hope to recover Silesia, and Sweden also withdrew from the war.

  19. Treaty of St Petersburg: Russia makes peace with Prussia

    Russia and Prussia concluded peace on 5 May. Russia agreed to return all the lands its troops had occupied, including East Prussia, and to help arrange peace between Prussia and Sweden, which also left the war that spring. Peter III was soon overthrown by his wife, Catherine II, who kept the peace but did not rejoin the war. Frederick could now concentrate on Austria.

  20. Havana surrenders to a British expedition

    Spain joined France in 1762 under the Family Compact, and Britain declared war on it in January. A large British force under the Earl of Albemarle and Admiral George Pocock besieged Havana, Cuba, from 6 June; after the Morro fortress fell, the city surrendered on 13 August. In October another British force took Manila in the Philippines. Spain's invasion of Britain's ally Portugal that year failed.

  21. Battle of Freiberg: last major battle in Germany

    With Russia and Sweden out of the war, Prussia recovered ground against Austria in Silesia and Saxony. On 29 October a Prussian army under Frederick's brother, Prince Henry, defeated Austrian and Reichsarmee troops at Freiberg in Saxony. It was the last major battle of the war in Europe. Exhausted and unable to win, Austria and Prussia opened peace talks soon after.

  22. Treaty of Paris: Britain gains Canada, Florida and Indian supremacy

    Britain, France and Spain signed peace in Paris, with Portugal agreeing the same day. France ceded Canada and its lands east of the Mississippi to Britain; it had already given Louisiana west of the river to Spain. Spain ceded Florida to Britain and recovered Havana and Manila. France kept fishing rights off Newfoundland, regained Guadeloupe and Martinique, and recovered its Indian trading posts but not their fortifications.

  23. Treaty of Hubertusburg ends the war in Germany

    Five days later Austria, Prussia and Saxony signed peace at the Hubertusburg hunting lodge between Dresden and Leipzig. It restored the prewar borders of 1748: Silesia and Glatz stayed Prussian and Saxony was returned to its elector. Prussia agreed to support Archduke Joseph's election as future emperor. Prussia had survived as a great power, at enormous human and economic cost.

Related

Other wars of the time

Sources