Colegiul Național ,,Vasile Lucaciu’’

LUCRARE DE ATESTAT
LIMBA ENGLEZĂ

The War of the Conquest

MÂȚ IONELA-ADRIANA
CLASA A XII-A H
PROF. COORDONATOR: BUCIUMAN ANGELA
Colegiul Național ,,Vasile Lucaciu’’

LUCRARE DE ATESTAT
LIMBA ENGLEZĂ

The War of the Conquest

MÂȚ IONELA-ADRIANA
CLASA A XII-A H
PROF. COORDONATOR: BUCIUMAN ANGELA
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………... 2
2. THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION AND THE PRELUDE TO THE
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR…………………………………….…….. 3
2.1 THE INTERESTS OF THE EUROPEAN POWERS…………………………….....4
2.2 PRELIMINARY NEGOTIATIONS AND HOSTILITIES IN THE COLONIES..…6
2.3 DEFENSIVE ALLIANCES………………………………………………..….……..9
3. THE COURSE OF THE WAR ……………………………………..…….12
4. THE TREATIES OF PEACE……………………………………………..28
5. CONSEQUENCES………………………..………………...…………….29
6. MUTUAL, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ADAPTATION……..…….30
7. COLONIAL SPACE……………………………………………….…...…31
8. ECONOMIC IMPACT AND EFFECT………………………………...…31
9. HISTORIOGRAPHY AND MEMORY…………………….…...………..33
BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………......………….35

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 Austrian forces attacking an encamped Prussian army at the Battle of Hochkirch,
Saxony, October 14, …Imagno/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1. INTRODUCTION
The War of the Conquest (1756–1963), the last major conflict before the French Revolution
to involve all the great powers of Europe. Generally, France, Austria, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia
were aligned on one side against Prussia, Hanover, and Great Britain on the other. The war arose
out of the attempt of the Austrian Habsburgs to win back the rich province of Silesia, which had
been wrested from them by Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia during the War of the Austrian
Succession (1740–48). But the Seven Years’ War also involved overseas colonial struggles
between Great Britain and France, the main points of contention between those two traditional
rivals being the struggle for control of North America (the French and Indian War; 1754–63) and
India. With that in mind, the Seven Years’ War can also be seen as the European phase of a
worldwide nine years’ war fought between France and Great Britain. Britain’s alliance with
Prussia was undertaken partly in order to protect electoral Hanover, the British ruling dynasty’s
continental possession, from the threat of a French takeover.

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2. THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION AND THE PRELUDE TO THE WAR

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which concluded the War of the Austrian
Succession, left wide grounds for discontent among the powers. It did nothing to allay the colonial
rivalry between Great Britain and France, and it virtually guaranteed a subsequent conflict between
Austria and Prussia by confirming the conquest of Silesia by Frederick the Great. The
aggrandizement of Prussia was seen by Russia as a challenge to its designs on Poland and the
Baltic, but it had no voice in the negotiations. Under the Treaty of St. Petersburg of December 9,
1747, Russia had supplied mercenary troops to the British for use against the French in the last
stage of the war, and the French, in reprisal, had vetoed any representation of Russia at the peace
congress.

The War of the Austrian Succession had seen the belligerents aligned on a time-honoured
basis. France’s traditional enemies, Great Britain and Austria, had coalesced just as they had done
against Louis XIV. Prussia, the leading anti-Austrian state in Germany, had been supported by
France. Neither group, however, found much reason to be satisfied with its partnership: British
subsidies to Austria had produced nothing of much help to the British, while the British military
effort had not saved Silesia for Austria. Prussia, having secured Silesia, had come to terms with
Austria in disregard of French interests. Even so, France had concluded a defensive alliance with
Prussia in 1747, and the maintenance of the Anglo-Austrian alignment after 1748 was deemed
essential by the duke of Newcastle, British secretary of state in the ministry of his brother Henry
Pelham. The collapse of that system and the aligning of France with Austria and of Great Britain
with Prussia constituted what is known as the “diplomatic revolution” or the “reversal of
alliances.”

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2.1 THE INTERESTS OF THE EUROPEAN POWERS

George II, detail of an oil painting by Thomas Hudson, c. 1737; in the National Portrait
Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London
The Hanoverian king George II of Great Britain was passionately devoted to his family’s
Continental holdings, but his commitments in Germany were counterbalanced by the demands of
the British colonies overseas. If war against France for colonial expansion was to be resumed, then
Hanover had to be secured against Franco-Prussian attack. France was very much interested in
colonial expansion and was willing to exploit the vulnerability of Hanover in war against Great
Britain, but it had no desire to divert forces to central Europe for Prussia’s sake. French policy
was, moreover, complicated by the existence of le Secret du roi—a system of private diplomacy
conducted by King Louis XV. Unbeknownst to his foreign minister, Louis had established a

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network of agents throughout Europe with the goal of pursuing personal political objectives that
were often at odds with France’s publicly stated policies. Louis’s goals for le Secret du
roi included an attempt to win the Polish crown for his kinsman Louis François de Bourbon, prince
de Conti, and the maintenance of Poland, Sweden, and Turkey as French client states in opposition
to Russian and Austrian interests.
On June 2, 1746, Austria and Russia concluded a defensive alliance that covered their own
territory and Poland against attack by Prussia or Turkey. They also agreed to a secret clause that
promised the restoration of Silesia and the countship of Glatz (now Kłodzko, Poland) to Austria
in the event of hostilities with Prussia. Their real desire, however, was to destroy Frederick’s power
altogether, reducing his sway to his electorate of Brandenburg and giving East Prussia to Poland,
an exchange that would be accompanied by the cession of the Polish duchy of Courland to Russia.
Aleksey Petrovich, Graf (count) Bestuzhev-Ryumin, grand chancellor of Russia under the
empress Elizabeth, was hostile to both France and Prussia, but he could not persuade Austrian
statesman Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz to commit to offensive designs against Prussia so long as
Prussia was able to rely on French support.

Frederick II, painting in the Castello di Miramare, Trieste, Italy.Archivo Iconografico

The Great saw Saxony and Polish West Prussia as potential fields for expansion but could
not expect French support if he started an aggressive war for them. If he joined the French against
the British in the hope of annexing Hanover, he might fall victim to an Austro-Russian attack. The
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hereditary elector of Saxony, Frederick Augustus II, was also elective king of Poland as Augustus
III, but the two territories were physically separated by Brandenburg and Silesia. Neither state
could pose as a great power. Saxony was merely a buffer between Prussia and Austrian Bohemia,
whereas Poland, despite its union with the ancient lands of Lithuania, was prey to pro-French and
pro-Russian factions. A Prussian scheme for compensating Frederick Augustus with Bohemia in
exchange for Saxony obviously presupposed further spoliation of Austria.

2.2 PRELIMINARY NEGOTIATIONS AND HOSTILITIES IN THE COLONIES

Maria Theresa.Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

To gratify Austria, the British government proposed Hanoverian support for the election
of Maria Theresa’s son Joseph as the next Holy Roman emperor. That proposal foundered on the
opposition of Frederick the Great (elector of Brandenburg as well as king of Prussia), whom the
other German electors did not dare to antagonize. In 1750 Great Britain acceded to the Austro-

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Russian defensive alliance of 1746, but without subscribing to the secret clause on Silesia and
without obtaining from the two empires a guarantee of the status quo in Hanover.

Kaunitz, Wedgwood medallion portrait; in Gripsholm Castle, SwedenCourtesy of the

Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm
In 1750 Kaunitz went to France to urge French participation in Austro-Russian plans
against Prussia. France, however, was neither ready to resume diplomatic relations with Russia
(severed in 1748) nor willing to connive in the destruction of Prussia, a development that would
have restored Austria to incontestable hegemony in Germany. By 1753, when Maria Theresa
recalled him to Vienna to serve as chancellor, Kaunitz had achieved only a vague atmosphere of
Franco-Austrian goodwill.

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 Map of British and French dominions in North America, 1755.The Newberry Library,
The MacLean Collection
Meanwhile, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had done nothing to ease tensions between the
French and British East India companies, and in North America relations between the colonists
had deteriorated steadily from 1752. By1754 French aggression in North America had reached a
level that the British could no longer ignore. London’s policy, which had been to “let Americans
fight Americans,” had resulted in a series of French military victories. British Admiral Edward
Boscawen attacked French ships in the Strait of Belle Isle in June 1755, beginning an undeclared
naval war between the two countries. Before the British government could declare open hostilities
against France, it had to safeguard Hanover. British naval superiority could then be brought to bear
while France’s superior land forces in Europe were held in check by some Continental ally of the
British.

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2.3 DEFENSIVE ALLIANCES

Kaunitz, Wedgwood medallion portrait; in Gripsholm Castle, SwedenCourtesy of the

Svenska Portrattarkivet, Stockholm
Concerned primarily with Silesia, Austria was most reluctant to become implicated in the
Anglo-French quarrel. Kaunitz believed that Great Britain should hire German and Russian
mercenaries to defend both Hanover and the southern Netherlands; the latter had served as a
launching point for previous Austro-British and Dutch operations against France. The decline of
the Dutch as a military force had compromised the defense of the Austrian Netherlands, and
Kaunitz was in fact willing to consider ceding the territory to the French in return for help
regarding Silesia. Ultimately, the force that Kaunitz was willing to exert against France for the
defense of Hanover or the Netherlands was far less than what the British required from him.
Rebuffed by Austria, the British sought a new treaty with Russia, and on September 30, 1755, a
preliminary agreement was signed in St. Petersburg by Bestuzhev and the British ambassador, Sir

9
Charles Hanbury Williams. It stipulated that Russia should maintain 55,000 men on the Livonian-
Lithuanian frontier so that they could be promptly moved to defend British interests on the
Continent if necessary. In exchange, Russia would receive a yearly subsidy of £100,000, a sum
that would be increased to £500,000 in the event of an attack. Bestuzhev, assuming that the treaty
was aimed at Prussia, was delighted to have British money to spend on his own projects. At the
same time, and without Russia’s knowledge, the British were in contact with Frederick the Great.
Afraid of Austro-Russian intentions and alarmed at the Anglo-Russian negotiations, Frederick
welcomed Britain’s overtures, though the result was unlikely to please his French ally. On January
16, 1756, the Convention of Westminster was signed, whereby Great Britain–Hanover and Prussia
agreed to respect one another’s territory in Europe and undertook to jointly resist any invasion of
“Germany” by a foreign power. The Austrian Netherlands were expressly excluded from that
guarantee.

The Convention of Westminster dismayed Bestuzhev and his empress, who had not yet
ratified the British treaty. Elizabeth peremptorily informed the British that the common enemy
envisaged in the treaty could only be Prussia, and, when the British rejected that interpretation, the
whole Russo-British arrangement came to nothing. The French government was no less angry at
the duplicity of its one ally, Prussia. The French, hoping to thaw relations with Russia and gain
more information about the Anglo-Russian talks, had sent a Scottish Jacobite refugee, Alexander
Mackenzie, on a clandestine mission to St. Petersburg in autumn 1755. Mackenzie was acting in
the service of le Secret du roi as well as the French foreign ministry, but the chief agents of le
Secret in Poland had been kept unaware of his mission, lest they regard an overture to Russia as a
betrayal of the anti-Russian line to which they had been dedicated. Mikhail Illarionovich
Vorontsov, the Russian vice-chancellor and a persistent enemy of Bestuzhev, received Mackenzie
very favourably, and Elizabeth’s indignation at the Convention of Westminster served to
accelerate a Franco-Russian rapprochement. In April 1756 the Russians pledged 80,000 men to
Austria for an attack on Prussia.

To Kaunitz the Convention of Westminster provided obvious reasons for self-

congratulation. It justified his view that the British alliance was no longer worthwhile, and it
obliged France to draw closer to Austria for fear of isolation now that Prussia was defecting.

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Franco-Austrian negotiations—which had been resumed in summer 1755 by Austrian ambassador
Georg Adam, Graf von Starhemberg, and the French statesman François-Joachim de Pierre de
Bernis, a protégé of Louis XV’s mistress, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, marquise de Pompadour—
had reached a stalemate in December. The announcement of the Convention of Westminster gave
them new impetus, however, and on May 1, 1756, the First Treaty of Versailles was concluded.
That pact was a defensive alliance between France and Austria, with either party pledging to send
24,000 men to support the other in the event of attack. Notably, it exempted Austria from any
obligation to join in a war against Great Britain.

The Convention of Westminster and the First Treaty of Versailles are generally taken as
the constituent factors of the diplomatic revolution, but they did not make war in Europe inevitable.
Both being expressly defensive, they might well have had the contrary effect, though Kaunitz at
least could see the Austro-French agreement as a step toward enticing France into an Austro-
Russian offensive alignment against Prussia. The French conquest of British Minorca, achieved in
a monthlong campaign from April 19 to May 20, 1756, did not oblige Prussia to war on the British
side and was, of course, no concern of Austria’s.

Frederick the Great had tried, unavailingly, to present the Convention of Westminster as
not inconsistent with his French alliance. He had, accordingly, to profess to regard the First Treaty
of Versailles as harmless to Prussia, but that treaty was clearly advantageous to Austria and so,
indirectly, to Russia. In fact, both Austria and Russia were now massing troops on their frontiers
nearest to Prussia. Throughout July and as late as August 20, 1756, Frederick appealed to Maria
Theresa for assurances of her good intent toward him, but he received no satisfactory reply. On
August 29, 1756, Frederick led his army into Saxony, on the way to Austria’s Bohemian frontier.
The motive for Frederick’s decisive action, which started the European war, has been much
debated. Was he frightened into a preventive war, intending only to seize what military advantage
he could in the face of imminent aggression by Austria and Russia, or did he think that the moment
had come for another war of annexation? However much the British were annoyed at the prospect
of having to support Frederick if his war went ill, the French were aghast at his action. Whereas
they had signed their Austrian treaty in the belief that their hands would be free for the vital war
against the British and that they could later choose whether or not to abet an Austrian offensive

11
against Prussia, they now found themselves committed to defend Austria against the unforeseen
aggression.

3. THE COURSE OF THE WAR

1756

Heinrich, Reichsgraf (imperial count) von Brühl, detail from an engraving by J.J.
Balechou, Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin
Crossing the Saxon frontier with 70,000 Prussians on August 29, 1756, Frederick entered
Dresden, the Saxon capital, on September 10. The Saxon army, numbering no more than 20,000,
fell back to Pirna, in the southeast. Prussia offered assurances of its good intentions to Saxon
elector Frederick Augustus and his minister, Heinrich, Reichsgraf (imperial count) von Brühl, but
those promises, quite naturally, were greeted with mistrust, and an Austrian force of 32,000 under
Maximilian Ulysses, Reichsgraf Browne, moved from Bohemia to reinforce the Saxons. To

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prevent that union, Frederick advanced southward into Bohemia, where he soundly defeated
Browne at Lobositz (now Lovosice, Czech Republic) on October 1. Returning to Saxony,
Frederick received the capitulation of the Saxons at Pirna (October 16), whereupon he took nearly
all of them into his own service. Frederick Augustus and Brühl retired to the former’s kingdom of
Poland.
Russia might have dispatched forces to assist Austria at once, but the most-direct route to
the conflict lay across Poland, a country that was within the French sphere of influence and largely
opposed to Russian designs. For the perfect achievement of an anti-Prussian coalition, it was most
desirable, as Kaunitz saw, for Russia and France to come to terms. The Russians, however, saw
the new development as an occasion for extracting concessions from France with regard not only
to Poland but also to Sweden and Turkey. The French foreign ministry was ready to admit swift
passage of Russian troops across Polish territory and thus relieve France of the obligation to help
Austria. However, that came into conflict with le Secret du roi, a primary purpose of which was
to exclude the Russians from Poland at any cost. In Great Britain the accession of William Pitt the
Elder to office as virtual prime minister in November 1756 would have a decisive effect on the
development of the war.

1757

Prussian soldiers assaulting an Austrian position in a churchyard in the Battle of

Leuthen, Saxony, Kean Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

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 After weeks of negotiation at cross-purposes, Mackenzie, having returned to St. Petersburg
as France’s official agent, obtained Russia’s accession to the First Treaty of Versailles by secretly
pledging that France would assist Russia in the event of an attack by Turkey (December 31, 1756
[January 11, 1757, New Style]). That contradiction of the long-standing Franco-Turkish entente
was immediately disavowed by the French government. A personal letter from Louis XV
to Elizabeth, the first of an important series, finally secured Russia’s accession to the treaty without
the objectionable appendix (April 19). An Austro-Russian offensive alliance against Prussia was
concluded on February 2, 1757, with each party undertaking to put 80,000 men into the field and
forswearing any separate peace, while secret articles provided for a partition of Prussia.
On May 1, 1757, Austria and France signed the Second Treaty of Versailles, an offensive alliance
against Prussia that additionally provided for significant territorial adjustments. Austria was to
recover Silesia but would cede the Netherlands to Louis XV and his Spanish Bourbon cousin,
Philip, duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. Philip’s Italian possessions would then revert to
Austria. Militarily, France was to maintain 105,000 men in Germany, in addition to the contingent
to be supplied to Austria (which was raised from 24,000 to 30,000), and would grant an annual
subsidy of 12 million livres to Austria. Shortly after the treaty was concluded, Bernis was named
French foreign minister.

By a large majority of votes in the Council of Princes of the Reich, Austria secured the
declaration of a “war of the Empire” against Prussia. Though Hesse-Kassel, Brunswick, and,
naturally, Hanover opposed it, some Protestant states supported Austria, despite Frederick’s
attempt to pose as the champion of Protestantism against an Austro-French Roman Catholic
coalition. In April 1757 the Prussians again advanced into Bohemia. On May 6 the 66,000
Austrians under Browne and Charles, prince of Lorraine and Bar, were routed by Frederick’s force
of 64,000 at the Battle of Prague. An Austrian force under Leopold Joseph, Graf von Daun, arrived
too late to affect the outcome of the battle, and the Austrians lost more than 14,000 men. Some
16,000 escaped to join Daun while the rest took refuge in Prague itself, which the Prussians, who
had taken comparable losses, proceeded to besiege. A month later Daun, with more than 50,000
men, moved to relieve Prague, and Frederick met him with a force of 34,000. On June 18 the two
groups met at the Battle of Kolín, and Daun won a great victory, inflicting 13,000 Prussian

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casualties while suffering just 8,000 of his own. Raising the siege of Prague, the Prussians
evacuated Bohemia.

Prussia, meanwhile, was exposed to attack from several directions. The French began their
spring campaign by sending Louis-Charles-César le Tellier, comte d’Estrées, with 100,000 men
against the so-called Army of Observation, a force of Hanoverians and their allies under the
command of William Augustus, duke of Cumberland, a younger son of George II. Defeated at
Hastenbeck on July 26, 1757, Cumberland withdrew to Stade, near the Elbe estuary, abandoning
the defense of the electorate and Brunswick. French command then passed to Louis-François-
Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, and on September 8 he forced Cumberland to sign the
Convention of Klosterzeven, which stipulated the disbanding of the Army of Observation and the
evacuation of Hanover. Richelieu then advanced on Prussia’s western frontier while another
French army, of 24,000, under Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise, was crossing Franconia to
join Austria’s German allies under Joseph Frederick William of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
Furthermore, Sweden, having signed an alliance with France and Austria on March 21, invaded
Prussian Pomerania in September with the intention of annexing it.

A Russian army of 90,000 men, which had begun to cross Polish territory in May, at last
entered East Prussia in August 1757. On August 30 Russian commander Stepan Apraksin inflicted
a crushing defeat on the Prussians under Hans von Lehwaldt at Gross-Jägerndorf, west of
Gumbinnen (now Gusev, Russia). In a puzzling move, Apraksin then began a retreat, pleading
difficulties of supply. It seems that his conduct was caused, partly at least, by a consideration that
was long to bedevil Russian affairs—the fact that the empress Elizabeth, who hated Prussia, was
in notoriously uncertain health, while her heir, the future emperor Peter III, adored Frederick and
opposed the anti-Prussian war. Any Russian general or statesman who did too much harm to
Prussia was therefore risking the displeasure of his future master.

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 Friedrich Wilhelm, Freiherr (baron) von Seydlitz, detail from a portrait by an unknown
artist; in Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin
Frederick, with Saxony as his main base, decided first to confront the danger from the west,
leaving Frederick Francis of Brunswick-Bevern to face the Austrians in Silesia. To prevent
Richelieu from joining forces with Soubise and Saxe-Hildburghausen, Frederick marched first
toward Halberstadt, but Austrian successes in Silesia, where Brunswick-Bevern was defeated at
Moys (near Görlitz) on September 7, made him turn eastward again. Meanwhile, Frederick’s
nephew Charles William Ferdinand of Brunswick remained to observe Saxe-Hildburghausen, and
a daring Austrian raid on Berlin caused further diversion of Frederick’s forces. Finally, hearing
that Soubise and Saxe-Hildburghausen were in Thuringia, Frederick moved to engage them.
The Battle of Rossbach followed on November 5, 1757. The combined strength of the French and
the Army of the Reich was at least 41,000 against just 21,000 Prussians, but the aggressive Saxe-
Hildburghausen and the more-cautious Soubise were at odds. When at last the battle was joined,
the greatly superior mobility of the Prussians, with the brilliant cavalry leadership of Friedrich
Wilhelm, Freiherr (baron) von Seydlitz won the day. In less than two hours’ fighting, the Prussians
inflicted 7,000 casualties on the allies while losing only 550 men. Encouraged by the news of
Rossbach, the British government repudiated Cumberland’s Convention of Klosterzeven. The
British decided to reinforce the Hanoverians and to transfer the command in western Germany to
Frederick’s brother-in-law, Field Marshal Ferdinand of Brunswick. In September a British naval
expedition against the French base of Rochefort had been a failure.

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 Prussian soldiers assaulting an Austrian position in a churchyard in the Battle of
Leuthen, Saxony, Kean Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In Silesia the Austrians took Schweidnitz (now Świdnica, Poland) on November 11 and
Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) on November 22. Frederick then force-marched his army from
Thuringia to support Brunswick-Bevern, and at the Battle of Leuthen (December 5, 1757), he won
the greatest of his victories. With 43,000 men, he attacked the 72,000 under Charles of Lorraine
and utterly routed them with an unexpected cavalry charge followed by an artillery bombardment.
Frederick suffered 6,000 casualties, but Charles lost 22,000 men, including 12,000 who were taken
prisoner. Shortly thereafter the Prussians reclaimed Breslau. In the course of the winter, Lehwaldt
drove the Swedes back into their own part of Pomerania, where they were able to hold the Prussians
outside Stralsund. Frederick’s masterful handling of well-disciplined troops, combined with
Apraksin’s retreat, saved Prussia from a situation which, after Kolín, had appeared desperate.

1758

William Fermor, a Scottish emigre in Russian service, had taken Apraksin’s place in
autumn 1757, and on January 22, 1758, he captured the East Prussian capital of Königsberg (now
Kaliningrad, Russia). With the onset of spring, however, thawing snows made the northern roads

17
impassable, and his force was temporarily immobilized. In Russia itself, the anti-French Bestuzhev
was arrested, and power came into the hands of his rival Vorontsov.

Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, detail from a portrait by ZiesenisArchiv für

Kunst und Geschichte, Berlin
Ferdinand of Brunswick, with his Anglo-Hanoverians, launched a successful offensive
against the French in Westphalia, and on March 27 he crossed the Rhine River at Emmerich, near
the Dutch frontier. On June 23, with 40,000 men, he defeated 70,000 men under Louis de Bourbon,
comte de Clermont, at Krefeld. The effect of that victory, which enabled him to secure all of
northwestern Germany, was scarcely offset by subsequent French successes farther to the south,
in Hesse and Thuringia. Apart from reinforcing Hanover, on April 11 the British signed a new
treaty with Prussia, promising an annual subsidy of 4,000,000 talers (£670,000), and both parties
undertook not to make a separate peace with any of the other belligerents.
Frederick began the year’s campaign with an offensive in Silesia, where Schweidnitz fell on April
16. He then advanced into Moravia to lay siege to Olmütz (now Olomouc, Czech Republic). In
July, however, the Austrians forced Frederick to abandon the siege by threatening his supply bases.
In the north, meanwhile, a new Swedish attack on Prussian Pomerania was being fended off by
Lehwaldt, but the Russians were on the march again, going southwestward from East Prussia
toward the Oder River and Brandenburg.

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 To evade the Austrians, Frederick had to march first northwestward into Bohemia, then
northward across Silesia. Fermor’s 52,000 Russians, having reached the Oder, began a siege of
Küstrin (now Kostrzyn nad Odra, Poland) on August 15, but Frederick was at Frankfurt an der
Oder by August 20. He then moved around Fermor’s east flank and, with a total of 36,000 men,
attacked the Russians at Zorndorf (now Sarbinowo, Poland) on August 25. In the bloodiest battle
of the war, the Russians lost 42,000, with 21,000 killed, and the Prussians lost 13,500. Leaving
Christoph von Dohna to pursue the defeated Russians, Frederick hastened back to Saxony to save
his brother Prince Henry from attack by superior Austrian forces under Daun. Daun fell back until
he found a strong position at Kittlitz, where he decided to stand with his 90,000 men. Frederick,
with 37,000, advanced as far as Hochkirch, not believing that Daun would venture an offensive.
Daun’s attack, in the early morning of October 14, took the Prussians by surprise, but Hochkirch
would prove to be an expensive victory for Daun. He lost 7,500 men (the Prussians lost 9,500),
and he was unable to interfere with Frederick’s retreat into Silesia. Daun advanced on Dresden
again, but the news of Frederick’s approach through Lusatia caused him to withdraw to Pirna in
November.

The duc de Choiseul, detail of a portrait by L.-M. Van Loo; in the Musée de Versailles
Cliché Musées Nationaux, Paris

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 Hochkirch put new spirit into the French, who after Krefeld and Zorndorf had been inclined
to despair of their European war. Étienne-François de Choiseul, duc de Choiseul, became foreign
minister in December in the place of the exhausted Bernis, whose overtures for a separate peace
had been scorned by the British government.

1759

The Third Treaty of Versailles, already drafted by the end of December 1758, was signed
in March 1759 and ratified in May. Under its terms French obligations of direct help to Austria in
men and money were considerably reduced, and the 1757 plan concerning the Netherlands and
Parma was discarded. The French, however, were still to maintain 100,000 men in Germany. On
April 13 Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had advanced against the French in southwestern Germany,
was defeated by Victor-François, 2e duc de Broglie, at Bergen, near Frankfurt am Main. Broglie
took Minden, on the Weser River, on July 9, once again opening a passage into Hanover. When
Marshal Louis Georges Érasme, marquis de Contades, joined Broglie, the French could field
60,000 men against Ferdinand’s 43,000 Anglo-Hanoverians. On August 1, however, at the Battle
of Minden, Ferdinand contrived to lure Contades into an engagement which—thanks partly to
accident and partly to extraordinarily stubborn fighting by British regiments—resulted in the
complete rout of the French.

20
 1st Baron Hawke, detail of an oil painting by F. Cotes; in the National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich, …Courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Eng.
Choiseul had relieved France of its heavier commitments to Austria in order to prosecute
the war against Great Britain with greater vigour. He planned an ambitious cross-Channel invasion,
with landings around London and in Scotland. To transport and escort the expeditions, the
Mediterranean fleet from Toulon was summoned to join the Atlantic fleet at Brest. On its way
northward the former fleet was attacked and scattered by Boscawen in the Battle of Lagos (August
19) off the Portuguese coast. Meanwhile, Edward Hawke was maintaining a blockade of Brest. On
November 9 Hawke withdrew to English waters, and the Brest fleet took to sea. Hawke then
reappeared, and in the Battle of Quiberon Bay (November 20–21) the French suffered a decisive
defeat. Not only was the planned invasion scrapped, but British naval superiority was established
for the remainder of the war.

21
 French military leader the marquis de Montcalm dying during the Battle of Quebec,
Bettmann/Corbis
Minden, Lagos, and Quiberon Bay, together with outstanding successes in North
America—the capture of Fort Niagara on July 24 and, of far more significance, that of Quebec on
September 13—made 1759 the annus mirabilis for the British. From its strong position, the
government began negotiations for peace with France. Britain’s terms were too stiff to be accepted
by the French, and its proposals were made in association with its Prussian ally, which, at the end
of the year, was in no position to expect favourable treatment from its enemies. Furthermore,
Austria and Russia strongly objected to France’s treating separately with the British.
In May 1759 the Russian command had been transferred from Fermor to Pyotr Saltykov.
Advancing across Poland through Poznań and into Brandenburg with 70,000 men, Saltykov
defeated 26,000 Prussians under Carl Heinrich von Wedel at Züllichau (now Sulechów, Poland),
east of Crossen an der Oder (now Krosno Odrzańskie, Poland), on July 23. Saltykov then moved
down the Oder toward Frankfurt while Daun sent 35,000 Austrians under Gideon Ernest, Freiherr
von Laudon, northward from Saxony to join forces with him. Frederick, who had been facing
Daun, promptly moved to block the Austro-Russian junction, but he failed to do so. Having joined
forces with Wedel and with another Prussian army, under Friedrich August von Finck, Frederick,

22
now commanding some 50,000 men, boldly assailed the Austro-Russian position at Kunersdorf
(now Kunowice, Poland), east of Frankfurt, on August 12. The result was an appalling disaster for
Frederick, who in six hours lost more than 18,000 men. Saltykov made no immediate use of his
victory, but Daun, advancing against the diminished Prussian forces in Saxony, took Dresden on
September 14.

Attempts at further concerted action by Daun and Saltykov were frustrated by Frederick’s
skillful movements after Kunersdorf. When lack of supplies forced Saltykov to retire from the
scene, Frederick turned on Daun again. Finck was sent with more than 12,000 men to attack Daun’s
rear, but he was surprised by 42,000 of Daun’s men at Maxen, south of Dresden, and had to
surrender (November 21). The year had been a bad one for Frederick, and the necessity of
reinforcing him after Kunersdorf had precluded the full exploitation of Ferdinand’s victory at
Minden.

1760

Russia and Austria chose Silesia as the main field of operations for the campaign of 1760.
On June 23 Laudon destroyed a Prussian force at Landeshut (now Kamienna Góra, Poland), and
on July 26 he captured the stronghold of Glatz (now Kłodzko, Poland). Saltykov, from his base at
Poznań, marched south to join him. Frederick, having been monitoring Daun in Saxony, at first
moved eastward against Laudon, then turned back to besiege Dresden (July 12) upon hearing that
Daun was moving to support Laudon. When Daun likewise turned back, Frederick raised his siege
and hastily marched through Meissen and Lusatia into Silesia. While 20,000 Russians under
Zakhar Grigoryevich Chernyshev occupied Prince Henry of Prussia in the vicinity of Breslau, the
Austrians converged on Frederick. On August 15, at Pfaffendorf, near Liegnitz (now Legnica,
Poland), I.audon launched an attack on Frederick’s columns in the hope of preventing their escape
from encirclement, but he was rebuffed with heavy losses. A ruse of Frederick’s tricked
Chernyshev into retreating, and the Austro-Russian plan for a decisive victory in Silesia came to
naught.

23
 Most of Saxony remained defenseless against Daun, and Brandenburg was open to the
Russians. A detachment under Russian General Gottlieb Totleben took Berlin on the night of
October 8–9 and was able to retire unmolested on October 13. Daun concentrated 64,000 men
around Torgau, and Frederick met him with about 45,000. The Battle of Torgau, Frederick’s last
major victory, began on November 3. Austrian artillery devastated his advancing troops, but he
sent wave after wave of them forward in an attempt to break the Austrian line. A late afternoon
attack by Prussian General Hans Joachim von Zieten finally turned the tide of battle and drove the
Austrians from the field. Frederick had lost 13,000 men, Daun 11,000; additionally, some 7,000
Austrians were made prisoners.

In western Germany Broglie won a victory at Korbach on July 10, 1760, but it was offset
by Ferdinand’s victory at Warburg on July 31. Hanover was again saved from French invasion,
but Ferdinand’s subsequent attempt to advance across the Rhine was reversed by Charles Eugène
Gabriel de Castries at Klosterkamp on October 16. George II of Great Britain died on October 25.
His grandson and successor, George III, was far more attached than his predecessor to British—as
distinct from Hanoverian—interests and had a strong dislike for Pitt, who was the foremost
exponent of the Anglo-Prussian alliance. Without British subsidies Prussia could not have fought
on.

1761

John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, detail of an oil painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds; in the
National …Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London
24
 By March 1761, when George III’s favourite, John Stuart, 3rd earl of Bute, became British
secretary of state, the members of the anti-Prussian coalition were at variance in their attitudes
toward the war. France wanted a negotiated peace with Britain. Austria desired a general congress
of the powers, at which the retrocession of Silesia might be obtained from Prussia. The Russian
empress was committed to pursuing war against Frederick until Prussia could be carved up. Formal
discussions between the French and the British broke down in July over Pitt’s demand that Britain
be permitted to continue to aid Prussia but that the French should reduce their support of Austria
to a minimum. Additionally, the British desired to keep all their colonial conquests. Choiseul
would not submit to that dictation, and he countered it with a plan which he had long had in mind:
the introduction of Spain into France’s war against Great Britain. In August a “Family Compact”
between the two Bourbon kings, Louis XV of France and Charles III of Spain, was concluded.
Spain would declare war on Great Britain if France had not obtained peace by May 1, 1762, and
France would see that Spanish claims against Great Britain were met at the final peacemaking. On
October 5, when the British government refused to declare immediate war on Spain, Pitt resigned.
Meanwhile, the fighting in western Germany continued. Ferdinand advanced southward from
Westphalia but was repulsed by Broglie at Grünberg on March 21. A French counterthrust into
Westphalia was checked by a vastly outnumbered Ferdinand at Vellinghausen on July 15–16. In
that battle British commander John Manners, marquess of Granby, won great distinction for his
role in repulsing a pair of French attacks. By October, however, the French had made considerable
progress eastward. Between April and June a British expedition achieved the capture of Belle-Île-
en-Mer, off the Breton coast of France.

For Prussia, Frederick’s first concern was to prevent the junction, in Silesia, of Laudon’s
72,000 Austrians, based in Glatz, with a Russian army of 50,000 under Aleksandr Borisovich
Buturlin. He concentrated his available forces around Schweidnitz, but, after two months of
skirmishing and marching, the allies effected their junction between Liegnitz and Jauer (now
Jawor, Poland) on August 23. Cut off from the north and outnumbered three to one, Frederick
entrenched himself at Bunzelwitz (now Boleławice, Poland), where his enemy did not dare to
attack him. When Buturlin withdrew to the north in September, leaving only 20,000 Russians
under Chernyshev in Silesia, Frederick was free to move toward Brandenburg. Laudon took
Schweidnitz on October 1, however, enabling the Austrians to winter in Silesia. In Saxony Daun

25
made gradual progress against Prince Henry, and on the Pomeranian coast the fortress and harbour
of Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, Poland) fell to the Russians under Pyotr Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev
on December 16. With the departure of Pitt, Frederick was no longer certain that he could rely on
a British subsidy to continue the war, and he saw that only luck could save him from destruction
in the coming year.

1762

Peter III, oil on canvas by Lucas Conrad Pfanzelt (also spelled Pfandzelt or Fanzelt),
1761; in the …Fine Art Images/Heritage-Images
Frederick’s salvation came from the death of the empress Elizabeth, which took place on
January 5, 1762, and brought the Prussophile Peter III to the Russian throne. On May 5 Peter made
peace with Frederick, and on May 22 the Treaty of Hamburg was concluded between Prussia and
Sweden through Peter’s mediation. In June Peter not only allied himself with Frederick for action

26
against Denmark over his ancestral home of Holstein but also instructed Chernyshev to help
Frederick expel the Austrians from Silesia. In July, when Peter was deposed and murdered, his
widow and successor, Catherine II (the Great), countermanded his measures against Denmark and
Austria, but she did not renew the war against Frederick.
Daun had been given the Austrian command in Silesia, with Laudon receiving a
subordinate position. Before Catherine’s recall of Chernyshev became effective, Frederick and
Daun converged on Schweidnitz, the former attempting to recapture the city and the latter trying
to relieve it. Daun was defeated at Burkersdorf (now Burkatów, Poland) on July 21, and his second
relief effort was similarly beaten back at Reichenbach (now Dzierżoniów, Poland) on August 16.
On October 9 Schweidnitz fell again to the Prussians. In Saxony Prince Henry and Seydlitz
together won a significant victory over the Austrians at Freiberg on October 29. Less than a month
later, on November 24, Austria and Prussia signed an armistice.

In western Germany Ferdinand of Brunswick won victories over Soubise at Wilhelmsthal

(June 24) and over Prince Xavier of Saxony at Lutternberg (July 23). On August 16 Ferdinand
took Göttingen. The French had a success at Johannisberg, near Nauheim, on August 30 but lost
Kassel on November 1.

In the west Britain declared war on Spain on January 2, 1762, three months after the
rejection of Pitt’s advocacy of the same measure and four months ahead of the Family Compact’s
deadline for Spanish intervention. The Spaniards then attacked Portugal, which the British
promptly reinforced. The Portuguese fortress of Almeida fell to the Spaniards on August 25, and
overseas the Spanish took Colonia do Sacramento, on the estuary of the Río de la Plata, opposite
Buenos Aires. Those Spanish successes were overshadowed by the British capture of Havana on
August 13 and Manila on October 5. Three important West Indian islands had also fallen to the
British: Martinique and Saint Lucia in February and Grenada in March.

Russia’s defection from the anti-Prussian alliance convinced Austria that nothing was to
be gained from prolonging the war. After the removal of Austria’s objections, France soon came
to terms with Great Britain, which in turn had no interest in continuing to back Prussia in a quarrel
with Austria about Silesia. France in October induced the disappointed Spanish to join in the

27
negotiations with the British. On November 3, 1762, anticipating the Austro-Prussian armistice by
three weeks, Great Britain and France signed preliminaries of peace at Fontainebleau.

4. THE TREATIES OF PEACE

Just as there had been, in theory, two wars—the Franco-British and the Austro-Prussian—
so too there were two final treaties of peace. The definitive Treaty of Paris was concluded on
February 10, 1763, between Great Britain, Hanover, France, and Spain, with Portugal expressly
understood to be included. By that treaty France renounced to Great Britain all of mainland North
America east of the Mississippi River (excluding New Orleans and environs); the West Indian
islands of Grenada, Saint Vincent, Dominica, and Tobago; and all French conquests made since
1749 in India or in the East Indies. Great Britain restored to France the West Indian islands of
Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galante, and La Désirade; the Atlantic islands of Saint-Pierre and
Miquelon; the West African colony of Gorée (Senegal); and Belle-Île-en-Mer. Britain also ceded
Saint Lucia to France. Spain recovered Havana and Manila, ceded Florida to the British, and
received Louisiana, including New Orleans, in compensation from the French. Moreover, the
French evacuated Hanover, Hesse, and Brunswick. The British concessions to France in the West
Indies were made partly in order to secure the French evacuation of Prussian exclaves in western
Germany. France claimed to be obliged to occupy those areas pending Austria’s settlement with
Prussia. A vociferous section of the British public would have preferred to retain the West Indian
islands or to retrocede Canada instead.

The Treaty of Hubertusburg, between Austria, Prussia, and Saxony, was signed on
February 15, 1763, at a hunting lodge between Dresden and Leipzig. Negotiations had started there
on December 31, 1762. Frederick, who had considered ceding East Prussia to Russia if Peter III
helped him secure Saxony, finally insisted on excluding Russia (in fact, no longer a belligerent)
from the negotiations. At the same time, he refused to evacuate Saxony until its elector had
renounced any claim to reparation. The Austrians wanted at least to retain Glatz, which they had
in fact reconquered, but Frederick would not allow it. The treaty simply restored the status quo of
1748, with Silesia and Glatz reverting to Frederick and Saxony to its own elector. The only

28
concession that Prussia made to Austria was to consent to the election of Archduke Joseph as Holy
Roman emperor.

Bute’s settlement with France was mild compared with what Pitt’s would have been. He
had hoped for a lasting peace with France, and he was afraid that if he took too much, the whole
of Europe would unite in envious hostility against Great Britain. Choiseul, however, had no
intention of making a permanent peace, and, when France went to war with Great Britain during
the American Revolution, the British found no support among the European powers.

Prussia emerged from the war as a great power whose importance could no longer be
challenged. Frederick the Great’s personal reputation was enormously enhanced, as his debt to
fortune (Russia’s volte-face after Elizabeth’s death) and to the British subsidy were soon forgotten
while the memory of his energy and his military genius was strenuously kept alive. Austria’s
prestige was diminished by Prussia’s success. Russia, on the other hand, made one great invisible
gain from the war: the elimination of French influence in Poland. The First Partition of Poland
(1772) was to be a Russo-Prussian transaction, with Austria only reluctantly involved and with
France simply ignored.

5. CONSEQUENCES

Britain's decision to retain Canada was the result of different strategic priorities. On the
one hand, there was a need to appease the French, who – defeat in war notwithstanding – continued
to present a major threat to British interests given their demographic advantage. This implied
giving up either Canada or the French Caribbean islands. Ultimately, the decision was taken to
forfeit the French sugar islands even though they were far more economically significant than the
North American French colonies. This was in part because annexing the French Antilles would
have been a blow to national pride that the French Monarchy would have been unable to accept,
thus hampering the prospect of a rapid and mutually beneficial peace settlement. But more
importantly, the retention of Canada was motivated by the argument that removing the French
presence from North America would reinforce the security of Britain’s Empire in the region.

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6. MUTUAL, RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ADAPTATION

The consequences of the change of imperial regime are best described by Donald Fyson’s
notion of mutual adaptations.[13]:190 His conception of the relationship between the conquered and
the conqueror implies that one must to do away with the idea that, as British identity and the
English language came to underpin the mode of governance, the legislative, administrative and
judicial branches of the old legal and social order collapsed and the Canadiens population was too
passive to actively participate in this transformation for better or for worse. Instead, everyday
practices and structures highlight the practical and utilitarian nature of the mutual adjustments that
occurred between colonial administrators, British civilian population and Canadien inhabitants.

A first example of mutual adaptation is the status of Catholics within the legal framework
of the colony. Official policy following the incorporation of the first civil government of Quebec
in 1763 mandated the imposition of all penal acts that formed the public law of Britain, including
the 1558 Act of Supremacy which barred Catholics from holding remunerated government
positions. This exclusionary sentiment is echoed in the Quebec grand jury presentment of October
1764, which objected to the presence of Catholic Jurors as an "open Violation of our most sacred
Laws and Libertys, and tending to the utter subversion of the protestant Religion and his Majesty’s
power authority, right, and possession of the province to which we belong." However, beyond this
seemingly rigid religious ideology, the judicial framework presented ambiguities that permitted
Governor Murray to make exceptions to accommodate practical realities. Nuanced language in the
framing of the October 1764 presentment, which only excluded "papist[s] or popish recusant
convict[s]" and not papists in general, provided colonial administrators the leeway to account for
the administrative necessities of running a country populated in majority by a foreign ethnic group.
Indeed, the limited number of Protestant males in the colony (they numbered 200 in 1763 and crept
to no more than 700 by 1775) meant that Carleton, and Murray before him, had to look elsewhere
to staff the state apparatus, and the only available pool was the Canadien population. The shifting
legal definition of Catholicism in the Province of Quebec represents not an instance of British
cultural domination and paternal enforcement, but rather a propensity for mutual adaptation in the
face of regional circumstances and challenges.

The political dimension of the colony under early British rule is also revelatory of a series
of intertwined adaptive processes. Indeed, not only did the Canadiens have to adapt to unfamiliar

30
power dynamics, but the British officials and civilian population were also forced to adjust in order
to acclimate to new constructs of governance. At the macro level, authoritarian political structures
were retained under both the military regime and civil government. Murray presided over a
"paternalistic, intrusive and controlling government," which was in many ways reminiscent of the
French regime. In this arrangement, it was incumbent upon the British civilian population to adapt
to an unusual lack of parliamentary institutions. So, for example, many conflicts erupted between
British merchants and colonial administrators, explaining in part why many of the former came to
support American revolutionaries in 1775-1776.

7. COLONIAL SPACE

The continued use of French structures ran deeper than this flavour of authoritarianism: it also
included a spatial and symbolic dimension. Rather than reorganize the division of property into
the traditional English township, the British made do with the existing organization of land. The
continued use of the French-Canadian parish as the basis of the administrative spatial conception
of the colony's territory illustrates British adaptation to existing modes of land-ownership instead
of imposing their own. Spatiality and political symbolism were also integral to the decision to
continue using previously French loci of power. So, for example, the Chateau St-Louis, the Jesuit
college and the Recollet church preserved their administrative functions under British rule. This
was particularly disconcerting for British civilians who found themselves being tried in Catholic
buildings.

8. ECONOMIC IMPACT AND EFFECT

The economic outcome of the Conquest of New-France is best understood within the larger
context of the imperial economic structures in which it participated and thus in relation to the
events and economic imperatives of the metropoles of France and Great-Britain. At the close of
the Seven Years' War, both belligerents faced widely divergent economic outcomes.

During the war, British territorial expansion and naval hegemony had proven a great boon for
maritime commerce as well as for internal production. Military expenditure – and in particular
spending on naval construction and armament – fuelled a burgeoning metal-working sector. There
was also an expansion of the British textile industry, with the purchase of uniforms serving as
catalyst. Overall, during the war, exports went up fourteen per cent and imports, eight per cent.
The return to peace brought two decades of quasi-depression. The government had contracted

31
important sums in debt in order to wage war, and annual spending rose from a peace-time low of
6-7 million pounds to a high of 21 million during the conflict. The economic irrelevance of the
war was compounded by the fact that the territory won in North America (i.e. Canada) was only
valuable in that it provided security for the other British colonies on the continent, its most
important trade –the fur-pelt – having crumbled due to the war and to Pontiac’s revolts. This fact,
combined with the failure of the Irish solution for populating Quebec left the British with few
options to alleviate their outstanding war debts except by raising taxes on its other colonies. The
series of taxation methods implemented in the wake of the Seven Years' War participated in the
mounting frustrations that climaxed in the American Revolution. Furthermore, it can also be
concluded that the absorption of Quebec directly contributed to the frustrations that boiled over in
the American Revolution because it removed the reason for blocking the westward expansion of
the thirteen colonies – i.e. the French threat. Indeed, without a rational basis for stopping western
settlement, the British decision to call western territories 'Indian land' frustrated colonial
expectations of expansionism and gave legitimacy to complaints of metropolitan despotism. In
brief, the war of Conquest and by extension the Seven Years' War proved unprofitable to the
British, bringing little economic reward and instead precipitating the dislocation of the most
profitable portion of the empire.

The French situation was quite the opposite. During the war, the French Atlantic commerce
suffered due to reduced trade with its Caribbean colonies: exports dropped by 75 per cent and
imports dropped by 83 per cent. French industry did not profit so radically from wartime
expenditure, in part because its members failed to impose themselves as contenders on the high
seas, but also because they did not have the same level of economic infrastructure as the British to
begin with. The 1763 Traité de Paris confirmed the British possession of the province of Quebec
and the French retention of Caribbean colonies and Newfoundland fisheries. This arrangement
explains why defeat was of little to no economic consequence to the French state: it had managed
to rid itself of territory it had long considered excess weight, while holding on to the parts of the
empire that were central to its commercial prosperity. Furthermore, given the lull in French
economic activity that took place during the war, the return to peace meant a revival of French
trade. The year following the peace agreement saw sugar production from the Caribbean surpass
the 1753 high of 46 million livres, to 63 million livres. By 1770, the sugar trade was yielding 89
million livres; by 1777, it accounted for 155 million livres.

32
 As for the local economic consequences, it was established by Fernand Ouellet that once
the direct damage of warfare was addressed, economic fallout was minimal. In fact, the outcome
of British conquest was manifestly positive on the economic front. For example, the conquest of
Quebec formed the genesis of a logging trade that was inexistent during the French regime. From
6000 barrels of pine per year, the Colony under English dominion increased production to 64 000
barrels by 1809. Furthermore, the British encouraged the immigration prerequisite to the economic
expansion of Canada during the 19th century. Indeed, in 1769, Canadian exportations were valued
at 127,000 pounds sterling, and by 1850 they had grown to 2,800,000 pounds sterling.

9. HISTORIOGRAPHY AND MEMORY

The Conquest is a central and contested theme of Canadian memory. Historical opinion
remains divided over the ultimate legacy of the Conquest, particularly in Quebec. Much of the
contention is between those that see it as having negative economic and political consequences for
Quebec and French-Canadians and those that see the Conquest as positive and integral to the
survival of Quebec in North America. Much of the historiographical debate surrounding the
Conquest is linked to the rise of Quebec nationalism and new schools of thought developed at the
time of the Quiet Revolution.

The Quebec school of history, originated from Laval University in Quebec City, posits that
the Conquest was ultimately essential to the survival and growth of Quebec. The Laval school
includes those Francophone historians such as Fernand Oullet and Jean Hamelin who see the
positive benefit of the Conquest as enabling the preservation of language, and religion and
traditional customs under British rule in a hostile North America. They argue that the Conquest
exposed French Canadians to constitutional government and parliamentary democracy and with
the Quebec Act, guaranteed the survival of French customs in an otherwise Anglo-Protestant
continent. Scholars such as Donald Fyson have pointed to the Quebec legal system as a particular
success, with the continuation of French civil law and the introduction of liberal modernity.

The Montreal school, originating at the University of Montreal and including historians
such as Michel Brunet, Maurice Seguin, and Guy Fregault, posits that the Conquest is responsible
for the economic and political retardation of Quebec. These historians tried to explain the
economic inferiority of the French-Canadians by arguing that the Conquest "destroyed an integral

33
society and decapitated the commercial class; leadership of the conquered people fell to the
Church; and, because commercial activity came to be monopolized by British merchants, national
survival concentrated on agriculture."

A major figure of the Montreal school was the nationalist priest and historian Lionel
Groulx. Groulx promoted the view that the Conquest began a long legacy of underdevelopment
and discrimination. It was only the tenacity of French Canadians in opposition to the alien rule of
the British, Groulx argued, that had helped the French Canadians survive in a hostile North
America.

Before the growth of Quebec nationalism, much of elite opinion saw the Conquest as
positive, with one provincial politician claiming, "the last shot fired to defend the British Empire
in North America would be fired by a French-Canadian." French Canadian debates have escalated
since the 1960s, as the Conquest is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of Québec's nationalism.
It should be noted that even the "pro-Conquest" Laval school is part of the larger trend of renewed
Quebec scholarship during the Quiet Revolution.

University of Ottawa – small conflict map

34
 Bibliography

1. slmc.uottawa.ca - University of Ottawa

2. www.history.com/topics/french-and-indian-war
3. history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/french-indian-war
4. Encyclopædia Britannica
5. www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca

35