34 A Global War
21.4.3: A Global War
Although the question of whether the Seven Years’ War was the first world war remains ambiguous, it marked a shift in the European balance of power that shaped the world far beyond Europe.
Learning Objective
Assess the claim that the Seven Years’ War was the first world war
Key Points
- Because of its span and global impact, some historians have argued that the Seven Years’ War was the first world war, almost 160 years before World War I. However, this label has also been given to various earlier and later conflicts. Regardless, the war restructured not only the European political order, but also events all around the world.
- Although Frederick the Great’s preemptive invasion of Saxony in 1756 marks the conventional beginning of the Seven Years’ War, key developments in the colonial rivalry between Britain and France in North America preceded the outbreak of the war in Europe.
- The war preceded by events in North America and formally started in Europe soon turned into a war for colonies outside of North America: the British-French conflict over trading influences reignited in India and in West Africa and the British captured several French colonies. The triple Franco-Spanish invasion of Portugal in Europe was followed by a Spanish invasion of Portuguese territories in South America. Over the course of the war in colonies, Great Britain gained enormous areas of land and influence.
- While the question of whether the Seven Years’ War was indeed the first world war remains ambiguous, the conflict certainly had global impact and marked a shift in the European balance of power. And as European empires continued their efforts to colonize territories on other continents, the impact reached far beyond Europe.
- Although the war did not result in major territorial changes in Europe, a new political order emerged. With Britain becoming the main colonial power, Prussia confirming its position as a military, economic, and political European power, and Austria and Russia proving their growing military potential, France lost its influence in Europe.
- The war also ended the old system of alliances in Europe. In the years after the war, European states now saw Britain as a greater threat than France and thus did not rejoin old alliances.
Key Terms
- diplomatic revolution
- The reversal of longstanding alliances in Europe between the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War. Austria went from an ally of Britain to an ally of France. Prussia became an ally of Britain. It was part of efforts to preserve or upset the European balance of power and a prelude to the Seven Years’ War.
- Second Hundred Years’ War
- A periodization or historical era term used by some historians to describe the series of military conflicts between Great Britain and France that occurred from about 1689 (or some say 1714) to 1815. It is named after the Hundred Years’ War when the England-France rivalry began in the 14th century. The term