Introduction:
As we saw in the first article, the Seven Years’ War – when it began in 1756 – ended up consuming Europe, North America, India and South East Asia. It involved, in one capacity or another, dozens of nations – both large and small, powerful and weak – across the world. The French, the British, the Prussians, the Russians, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Mughals, various Native American tribes, various smaller German Kingdoms – everyone was drawn in. But, in this war, 4 nations played the most significant parts and these 4 nations are our focus over the next two articles: the Bourbon Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of Great Britain (not to be confused with the modern United Kingdom), the Kingdom of Prussia and the Russian Empire.
In this article, we will explore the British and French objectives for the war and how they intended to fight it, given that they commanded forces with marked differences in fighting style combined with the obvious advantages and disadvantages of how their militaries were organised. Over the coming articles, we will focus on other nations and other theatres of war – but for now, our focus remains squarely on Europe and – the centre of attention early in the war – North America.
The Principal Nations – Great Britain and France:
Though the war was fought by multiple nations, it was dictated solely by Britain and France. To an extent, it can be said that the aims and goals of all “subordinate” nations on either side were dictated by the aims and goals of Britain and France; the two principal nations. For Britain and France, the war always remained a colonial conflict. They did not seek to defeat the other; there was no plan to take Versailles or London, for instance. Some historians consider the Seven Years’ War an extension of the previous major conflict of the century; the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), which saw – again – Britain and France try to redefine their colonial boundaries while using a European conflict as an excuse for the same.
Though, in 1754, the governments in London and Versailles were generally unwilling to engage in a shooting war – as was explained in the previous article – by 1756, any compunctions they harboured had disappeared. This was largely due to the efforts of 2 statesmen; the Duke of Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, who was the Secretary of State when the war broke out and Prime Minister from 1757-1762 and the Duc de Choiseul, Etienne Francoise de Stainville, who was the First Minister of State of France (essentially, Prime Minister) for the majority of the war and an important minister before the war. Thanks to these two ministers, by the time the war began, Britain and France had the strategies and troops in place to fight the war – across the world and throughout the whole of their Empires.
The British had a very simple objective – they intended to redraw the border of their colonies in North America and force France to remain in modern-day Canada, while allowing the British colonies to expand in modern-day USA. They also had various other goals in the war, such as cutting France out of India once and for all and completely monopolising the spice trade with Asia.
The French had similar objectives, though theirs were limited in scope to North America. Given that they were in a much stronger position in their American colonies – they outnumbered the British colonial forces by a significant number – and they were very much on the back foot in India and Asia, they decided to remain focused on Europe and America. The French objectives differed from the British in one key feature, however. Where the British focused their entire energies on their Empire, the French focused a larger part of their military might on Europe with the goal of taking territory to use on the negotiating table.
The Strategies of Britain and France:
Like any competent military force, the strategies chosen by Britain and France reflected their strengths – but they were also influenced by the ghosts of the War of the Austrian Succession.
The French strategy was influenced by two things; their inferiority on the seas against the British Royal Navy and their desire to crush the Kingdom of Prussia and the Kingdom of Hanover and divide the remnants between the Russian Empire and the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. These considerations resulted in a strategy where the majority of the French Army, considered to be the best in continental Europe, remained in France. To understand this strategy, it is important to understand the French Army. It was considered to be the best in Europe with good reason; it was extremely well led and had a streamlined military administration (whereas the British Army lacked cohesion early in the war), it was huge and it was well drilled. At the outbreak of war, during the meetings of the Council of State, a “limited” plan envisaged a French Army of almost 200,000 men for deployment around Europe. Of these, 100,000 would be regular French troops while the rest would be Austrian, Hungarian and friendly German troops, which would be trained by, led by and funded by the French for service with the Habsburgs. No other European power at the time, apart from Russia, could field so large an Army.
Given this obvious advantage – and the seemingly unquenchable desire of their Austrian and Russian allies for the destruction of Prussia – the French chose to maintain their Army within the continent. This would prove to be a wise decision and gave France a string of early victories in the war… but more on that later. They also had a very obvious disadvantage; their lack of maritime control over the sea routes to the colonies. This meant that they could only send token amounts of assistance to their colonies in America and the colonies had to rely on themselves to fight the British. This was a repeating strategy because the French could not deploy to America in large numbers during the previous war either.
The British knew they could not match the French Army – certainly not in numbers. They knew that if they were to commit their limited number of troops to Europe, the war was lost. That was part of the reason they chose to form an alliance with the Kingdoms of Prussia and Hanover. They had the combined military might capable of fielding an Army large enough, provided that they were funded by the British (who were vastly wealthy off the back of the East India Company), to keep in check the French designs in Europe. In America and India, however, the situation was very different. The armies of the East India Company outnumbered every European force present in India and the British had the free reign of the seas required to send as many troops as necessary to their colonies in America. In other words, the British strategy was predicated almost entirely on the Royal Navy. Unlike the British Army at the time, which had a disjointed leadership at best, the Royal Navy was one of the best led forces in the world. They had a strong central leadership and left little room for error in the issuance and interpretation of orders. This meant that they exerted equal amounts of control over all their ships, officers and men, no matter where they were in the world. They also maintain numeric and qualitative superiority over the French Navy for the entirety of the war and handed them multiple defeats, such as the Battle of Quiberon Bay – but, again, more on that later.
The competing French and British strategies would result in monumental clashes that cannot be discussed in this article. A meaningful conclusion of an analysis of these strategies can only be reached upon discussing in detail the engagements of the war, both on land and at sea and in territories and locations across the world.
Sources:
Mark Danley (ed.), Patrick Speelman (ed.), The Seven Years War: Global Views (Brill; 2012)
Daniel Baugh, The Global Seven Years War 1754–1763; Britain and France in a Great Power Contest (Routledge; 2021)
Christian Buchet, The British Navy, Economy and Society in the Seven Years War (Boydell & Brewer; 2013)
Leave a Reply