The Seven Years War
The Seven Years War has been described as the first global conflict in history. It engulfed the Euro-Atlantic world from 1756 to 1763, and engaged the energies of European cabinets as never before.
More than previous conflicts, the Seven Years War involved a variety of approaches to armed conflict, and taxed the military, material and moral resources of both belligerent and neutral powers. It affected relationships not only between government and governed, but also between and within governments themselves. Moreover, the conduct of the war only partly foretold its outcome, as unanticipated political change affected strategy and diplomacy on a global scale.
Drawing on a diverse array of archival, printed primary and secondary sources, The Seven Years War covers the wars origins, its conduct on land and at sea, its effects on logistics and finance, its interactions with domestic politics, its influence on international relations and its approach to peace. The book highlights the role of personality alongside the enduring importance of communication, misperception and strategic intelligence. In so doing, it endeavours not merely to chronicle the wars events but to situate them in the context of mid-eighteenth century warfare, finance, politics and diplomacy.
The Seven Years War will be of great interest to students of European, American, Atlantic, maritime, diplomatic and military history.
Matt Schumann holds a doctorate from the University of Exeter, and teaches at Eastern Michigan University.
Karl Schweizer holds a doctorate from Cambridge University and is a professor in the Federated Department of History at Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Arts and author or editor of 20 books.
War, history and politics series
Series editor: Jeremy Black
Trade, Empire and British Foreign Policy, 16891815
Politics of a commercial state
Jeremy Black
Citizens, Soldiers and National Armies
Military service in France and Germany, 17891830
Thomas Hippler
America, War and Power
Defining the state, 17752005
Edited by Lawrence Sondhaus and A. James Fuller
Great Powers and the Quest for Hegemony
The world order since 1500
Jeremy Black
The Seven Years War
A transatlantic history
Matt Schumann and Karl Schweizer
The Seven Years War
A transatlantic history
Matt Schumann and Karl Schweizer
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Transferred to Digital Printing 2009
2008 Matt Schumann and Karl Schweizer
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN10: 0-415-39418-X (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-93271-4 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-39418-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-93271-1 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements
No book can be written without the assistance of others, even in the case of co-authors who have dedicated the majority of their professional lives to studying the Seven Years War and related topics. In particular, we wish to thank those whose efforts allowed us access to the information contained herein, and to acknowledge those who took the time to discuss our work, to read it, to offer comments and criticisms, and to distract our minds on occasion when even a subject as exciting as the Seven Years War tested the limits of our patience.
Neither of us could have written anything, however, without the kind assistance of archivists and curators both past and present, whose efforts to accommodate our needs greatly eased the task of research. We therefore gratefully acknowledge the staff and curators of the Geheime Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, and its previous incarnation the Deutsches Zentral-Archiv in Merseburg; the Archiv Vneshnei Politikii Rossii and Tsentralnyi Gosudarstvennyi Archiv Drevnikh Aktov in Moscow; the Arkhiv Instituta Istorii SSSR, Leningradskoe otdelenie, and the Saltykov-Shchedrin Library in St Petersburg; the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv and Kriegsarchiv in Vienna; the Niederschsisches Staatsarchiv in both Hanover and Wolfenbttel; the Staatsarchiv Oldenburg, Germany; the Rigsarkivet in Stockholm, Sweden, and its counterpart in Copen-hagen; the Archives Nationales, the Archives du Ministre des Affaires trangres, the Bibliothque Nationale and the Bibliothque du Ministre de la Marine, in Paris; the Freie Universitt, Berlin; the British National Archives, previously the British Public Record Office in Kew; the British Museum (British Library), the Bedford Estate Office (papers now at Woburn Abbey) and Imperial War Museum in London; the Royal Archives in Windsor; the Record Offices of East and West Suffolk in Ipswich and Bury St Edmunds, respectively; of Norfolk, in Norwich; of Hampshire, in Winchester; the Bedford Record Office, the National Maritime Museum (Greenwich); the Staffordshire Record Office, the Kent Archive Office (County Hall, Maidstone), the Hertfordshire County Record Office, the House of Lords Record Office, the Warwick County Record Office, the Sheffield Central Library, the Berkshire Record Office, the Essex County Record Office, the Buckinghamshire Record Office and Sheffield archives, the University of Cambridge Library, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.
We are also grateful to the numerous holders of private collections all over the British Isles, in particular to the Marquess of Bute, the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Grafton, Viscount Barrington, the Rt. Hon. Lady Lucas and Dr John Weston-Underwood.
On this side of the Atlantic, for their facilities and ever-helpful staff, we likewise thank the William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan; the Henry Huntington Library in San Marino, California; the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; the University of Texas Library, Austin; the University of North Texas Library, Denton; the Rutgers University Library, New Brunswick and Newark, New Jersey; the Princeton University Library; the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York; the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester Massachusetts, the New York Public Library; the New York Historical Society Library; the Library of Congress; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the William Perkins Library, Duke University; the Beinecke Library, Yale University; the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut; the Massachusetts Public Library (Boston); the Historical Societies of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Virginia; the John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, and the Public Archives of Canada (Ottawa); and Public Records Office (Halifax, Nova Scotia).
