Seven Years' War

SEVEN YEARS' WAR. - After the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle the continental Powers aimed to prepare a coalition against Prussia, which Austria regarded as a dangerous rival in Germany and Russia as an obstacle to its march toward the west. This induced England to reach an understanding with Prussia, concluded in 1756 with the Treaty of Alliance of Westminster; and this decided France, already concerned about England's penetration in the Mediterranean, to join Austria, overturning the traditional system of its alliances. Immediately afterward England declared war on France, and Frederick II attacked Austria.

But after initial successes Frederick was repeatedly defeated, and only the death of the Tsarina Elizabeth and the subsequent withdrawal of Russia from the coalition saved him from utter ruin. Meanwhile the French fleets were being destroyed by the English. In 1761 France asked for peace, and London's refusal provoked the conclusion of the "Family Compact" between the Bourbon courts and the intervention of Spain. Benedict XIV took pleasure in the alliance between the Catholic Powers, but while Frederick II in the first phase of the campaign had sought to give the war a religious coloring, Benedict and his successor Clement XIII made every effort to preserve its exclusively political character (even Protestant princes fought against Prussia). With the Peace of Paris (1763) Frederick II obtained Silesia; France ceded to England Canada, almost all of India, Senegal and other colonies; Spain ceded Florida.

In this war and in the wars of succession, the sole victor was England, which had brought down Spanish power, eliminated the hegemony of France by partly destroying its colonial empire, and by alternately setting the Habsburgs and the Bourbons against each other, and, by favoring the consolidation of Prussia, had established in Europe that balance of forces which was the foundation of its policy.

Roberto Palmarocchi