Seven Years War
One of the pivotal conflicts in modern history.
Seven Years War (1755-1763)
During the late seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, there had been a series of international wars fought between the major
European powers, but generally with France pitted against England. The wars during the eighteenth century included Spanish Succession (1701-1713),
Jenkins?s Ear (1739-1742), and Austrian Succession (1742-1748. The causes for these conflicts included disputes over trade, and maintenance of what
contemporary politicians called the balance of power. The balance of power was the idea that no one country or coalition of countries would become too
powerful so as to threaten the security of another country or coalition of countries. England, for example, distrusted the intentions of France, and
particularly French efforts to acquire territory. The War of Spanish Succession resulted from the ascension to the Spanish throne of Felipe V, the
grandson of French king Louis XlV.
The Seven Years War (1755-1763) actually began in North America, when a Virginia militia force attempted to dislodge the French from a fort they had
built on the site of modern Pittsburgh. The British sent a larger expedition to dislodge the French, but this ended in a major defeat. From the
beginnings in North America, the war rapidly spread to include Spain and the other major European powers, and campaigns were fought on every
continent.
Spain entered the war in 1761, and experienced several major defeats. In 1762, British amphibious expeditions occupied Manila in the Philippines and
Havana in Cuba. At the end of the war Spain regained Cuba, but at the expense of Florida, that passed to the British. The defeat in the war proved
decisively that the strategy of depending on fortifications in the major ports for defense did not work, a strategy that appeared to be successful
following the failed British attack on Cartagena de Indias in 1741. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Spanish government initiated a major
military reform and reorganization in the Americas. This military reform in turn lead the Spanish government to initiate the economic and
administrative reforms generally called the Bourbon Reforms by scholars.
Selected Bibliography
Allan Kuethe, ?La batalla de Cartagena de 1741: nuevas perspectivas.? Historiograf?a y Bibliograf?a Americanista. Escuela de Estudios
Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla. Sevilla 18:1, 1974, p. 19-38.
Allan Kuethe, Military reform and society in New Granada, 1773-1808. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1978
Allan Kuethe, Cuba, 1753-1815: Crown, military, and society. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1986.
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