Dan Snow's History Hit - The Seven Years War

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

The Seven Years' War in the 18th century is often called the first world war - it was fought across Europe, North America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. It redrew the world map, setting the stage for the rise of the British Empire and the eventual American and French revolutions.Dan guest-presents this special episode of the Echoes of History podcast that we're sharing on this feed. He is joined by Dr Emma Hart to discuss this clash between the Old World and the New.Echoes of History is a Ubisoft podcast, brought to you by History Hit. Listen here.Edited by: Michael McDaidProduced by: Robin McConnellSenior Producer: Anne-Marie LuffProduction Manager: Beth DonaldsonExecutive Producers: Etienne Bouvier, Julien Fabre, Steve Lanham, Jen BennettMusic by Elitsa AlexandrovaIf you liked this podcast, please subscribe, share, rate & review. Take part in our listener survey here.

Hello folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. If you're a diligent History Hit fan, you may have heard me over on our sister podcast, Echoes of History, presenting a little mini-series that explores North America during the 18th century. We cover topics like the French-Indian War, the Seven Years' War in North America, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the voyages, the early voyages of the man who would become captain, James Cook. The reason I was doing all that is because that is the setting for the Assassin's Creed game, Rogue. And that podcast series gives you all the sort of historical background to that setting. Now, if you're not a gamer, don't worry. This

podcast is for gamers and history lovers alike. In fact, I was certain people over here might enjoy it. So I'm sharing an episode with you here on this podcast. This episode is about the Seven Years' War, the French-Indian War. For me, you can't get enough of this. It's the conflict that really, it's a turning point, it's an accelerant, it's a vital moment in the expansion of the European settlements,

particularly the British, English-speaking settlement into the Americas. So please enjoy this episode. Make sure you check out Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. I'm Dan Snow. Join me for the next three episodes as I take you on a journey from the old world to the new, to a time when the troubles of the royal houses of Europe

violently impacted the lives of people across the Atlantic Ocean. We'll look at the real events behind the game Assassin's Creed Rogue, an 18th century conflict between empires that was so huge it might truly claim the title of the First World War. When you first come to the New World, your mind was full of promises of lush pastures, quiet cabin and a hearty meal every night. A corner of paradise.

The tundra that lies before you now is not what you expected. You brace against the chill wind at your back. You would wish it away if you did not need it to stretch the sails their full capacity to carry your ship onwards through this frozen land. To be fair to this country, the landscapes are breathtaking. Evergreen firs cover the enormous snow-capped slopes. Crystal clear streams pour into rivers and reach the ocean in calm estuaries. Unspoiled by the squalid cities of the old world, or even the neat towns of the southern colonies. Here on the fringe of the Arctic, there's a refreshing stillness to

everything. On the land, you see a figure emerge from the treeline. From the bow in his hand and the dagger at his hip, you can tell that he's a hunter. At least, that's what he is today. Under different circumstances, he would be a warrior, one that your European training would struggle to overcome. His watchful presence is a reminder that although everyone you know calls it the New World, mankind's existence here is far from novel. The hunter steps back into the trees, vanishing into nature. With a twinge of envy, you wish you could learn from him. Learn how to survive in this

unforgiving terrain. Learn how to move swiftly through the forest, how to pursue your quarry over the rocky ground. These are the tricks of the trade that you can expertly employ in the urban surroundings of bricks and mortar. In this place, however, where the roofs are treetops and the cathedrals are mountains, you feel like a novice. Suddenly, over the cold water, you hear the distant sound of cannon fire. It's a blunt warning that this land is not at peace. A war rages across it. A war fought in brutal hand-to-hand skirmishes, freezing naval clashes or dreary sieges. A war where the normal rules of engagement do not apply. You thought you'd left this war behind you in the old world, yet here it is,

spoiling the bliss of the new. You did not bring this war with you. Some say it started here. You may never know exactly how it began. Your task is to end it by any means necessary. This land is not your home, but you're ready to fight for it. To secure that corner of paradise for everyone. You steel yourself as the cannons grow louder.

Soon your ship will join the fray. Time to achieve peace by going to war. To explain the whys and wherefores of this global conflict, I'm joined by Emma Hart. She's the Roy F. and Jeanette P. Nichols Professor of American History and the Richard S. Dunn Director of the McNeill Centre for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include a history of 18th century Charleston and Trading Spaces, a colonial marketplace

in the foundations of American capitalism. She's currently writing a biography of Scottish surgeon and celebrated author Tobias Smollett, whose fans, including Charles Dickens. Emma, good to see you. Well, it's great to be here. I'm excited to talk to you. Well, you're one of the leading

figures in this field, and it's one of my favourite bits of history, so I am thrilled to have you where you can't escape, and we can thrash this out. Looking forward to chewing over the Seven Years' War with you. There's a lot of war in a lot of different theatres, so it's a big episode. I mean, Assassin's Creed Rogue puts players right to the midst of the Seven Years' War, but in particular the North American theatre, right, where indigenous people and Europeans are fighting in North America, really for the destiny of the continent, I sometimes think. But then that fits into the fact this is a broader war fought by almost all the European powers at the time on many of the world's continents. But in the game, the main character

is an Irish immigrant who fights in North America alongside the British against the French. In Britain, we still tend to call it the Seven Years' War. What do you think they'd have called it? What do you think people like the main character and his American colonial allies and mates, what would they have called at the time? Well, of course, the Americans still call it the French and Indian War, which is a better descriptor of the aggressors, of the parties who were fighting in the actual war at the time. I'm not sure that the people who were participating in it at the time would have had one particular name for it.

They would have, although they would have seen it as an imperial war, they would have seen it as principally a fight between the French and the British for supremacy on this continent, but also for control of the very important indigenous powers who were really central players in this conflict. That's right. And also that in North America, they probably wouldn't have cared that much about what was going on in India at the time, or perhaps even Central Europe. But their immediate problem was they were fighting

the French and the Indians, as they'd have called them, in North America. And to pick up on your point, the Indian, the, you know, the indigenous American Indian powers in North America were real military players at that point. They were still very strong. Their alliances were sought after by both the French and the British. They were indeed. And in fact, some historians recently,

specifically Michael MacDonald, who's a professor in Australia and who's worked on this period, he has actually suggested that the Seven Years' War, or the French and Indian War, has its origins in indigenous choices about their relations with the French in the Ohio Valley as far back as the late 1740s and the 1750s. So he's identified important groups of indigenous people called the Anishinaabeg, who were determined to move their site of settlement in the Ohio Valley, closer to where the French were based in one of their forts in Detroit. And the French realized that their decision would have massive implications for the diplomatic relations between the British and the French in that region.

The French tried to persuade them not to move because they realised that it would open up that area for greater British access. They decided to push ahead anyway and settled a new settlement called Pickerwilliny. And so the establishment of settlement, and then an attack on it in 1752, in which the French repelled the British, was what gave the French really the confidence to state greater claims to that region. So Macdonald really sees, as I said, the decisions of the Anishinaabeg as being crucial to the power play between the British and the French in this region. Well, we'll come back to the Ohio Valley in a minute. Let's just quickly deal with the rest of the Seven Years' War for people.

We're obviously going to focus, like Assassin's Creed Rogue, on the North American theatre. But just quickly, and this is a question that has led many to lose their wits over the years, so I'm not going to press you too hard on this, Emma, but if we could just describe it in the rest of the world, broadly speaking, a giant imperialist competition between, well, between Britain and France,

but also between Britain's ally, Prussia. People have heard of Frederick the Great. He's fighting the French. He is fighting the Austrians. He's fighting the Russians most of the time as well. So there's a big struggle in Europe, big struggle in the Atlantic world, and that's down in West Africa. It's the Caribbean, it is North America, but it also extends to India as well.

Yes, yeah, of course, the French and British rivalry is key here. And so they are becoming rivals, becoming adversaries, wherever they're colonising in the world. And at this time, the French and the British, in the form of the East India Company, of course, are clamouring, both are clamouring for power and profits in India. And so this means that where the French have gained power over local politics in India, and where the British have, they're bound to sort of try and clash with each other because this is ultimately an imperial conflict. It's ultimately a conflict between European powers.

But the difference in this conflict, a battle that's played out in all of these different places in the world because France and Britain have these growing, and Spain, of course, have these enormous empires that are only growing during this period. That's right, and a bit of a shout out for Spain there. Spain joins a bit later on and Britain will end up fighting Spain in East Asia, in the Philippines as well. But then when you say that, it makes me think, although it's very, very complicated and there's various things around, Frederick the Great seizing Silesia and the

Austrians wanting it back and all this kind of stuff. On one level, of course, the Seven Years' War is actually really, really simple, which is two competitor neighbouring powers just go after it. They've been going after it before and they'll go after it again. And it's that almost that kind of Thucydidean sense of, well, that's what's going to happen in global politics. These two kind of aspiring hegemonic powers, they're just going to fight. They're going to go for it. Absolutely. And, you know, there's nothing that's going to make the French and the British lay this historic beef behind or lay down their swords, really. And in fact, the advent of colonialism, of imperial expansion, in that context context can only exacerbate this beef, you know, this historic conflict. And so then I think what's really fascinating about the 18th century, and it's

one of the reasons I study it, is you see opportunities for these two power players to square off against one another in new contexts. And what I have always found fascinating about the Seven Years' War is that it is one of the first conflicts to actually, I believe it does actually start with French and British conflict abroad in North America. I think, you know, you can trace the earliest roots of the friction to the North American continent and not to what's happening on the European continent. Though, of course, it's bound to then play out there because that's just the way it works. Distinguished academic, you will have to forgive me for oversimplification, but often these wars, these great colonial wars, the Nine Years' War or King William's War, as it was known

in North America, or Queen Anne's War, the War of Spanish Succession, they often begin with occasionally slightly obscure things going on in what is now Belgium. You know, forts changing hands or perhaps a Spanish king dying and a bit of a competition about who gets on the throne. What's so amazing about the Seven Years' War, French-Indian War, as you just said, is it begins on the colonial frontier of North America. It's actually the wider world now driving affairs in Europe and that's so fascinating. Can you tell us what in particular, you've mentioned one of the causes, some of the indigenous people and some of the shifting geography, the political geography of North America. But tell me now about the Ohio Valley and why it's so important. And first of all,

where is the Ohio Valley? Roughly, we're talking what is now Western Pennsylvania, right? And why does everyone care about it so much in the 1750s? So the Ohio Valley is Western Pennsylvania, but I think the important thing is it's actually part of a corridor of French control, which is to the west of the British settlements, the so-called original 13 colonies of North America. That settlement started at the coast and then has been gradually moving westwards

through the 17th and the 18th century. But what the French did is that they initially take control of what is present day Quebec and Ontario. So in other words, those areas to the north and the east of the Great Lakes. But then they also take control in Louisiana. And they gradually, in the course of the 17th and 18th century, they join up these two units of control that, you know,

really sort of trace the Ohio but also the Mississippi as well. And they form this enormous band, north-south sort of corridor, which of course is blocking the westward movement of the British. And so it's when those two groups of colonists, when the British colonists and the French sort of come into contact with one another, because the population of the British colonies is increasing really, really quickly at this time, exponentially. And so the crunch point happens at this moment when French and their indigenous allies

and the British and their indigenous allies kind of clash in this corridor that the French have claimed control of. And I love this. It's a continent where rivers are important. And the Ohio, you can basically get from the Great Lakes, very short portage, carry your canoe, you put it down on the tributaries, the Ohio River, and from there, you go all the way down to New Orleans without having to get out of your boat. So that's the kind of superhighway. In fact, you can see it in some of the gameplay. You have the British and their American colonists feeling like they can't expand. They can't expand into this rich interior of North

America because the French have got them surrounded. Absolutely. And I mean, of course, this is an illusion because indigenous people are also there. So the idea that it's only the French standing between the British and expansion is slightly sort of misconstrued. But that's how the British see it. Of course, because of this historic clash that they have with the French, they see the French and their indigenous allies. And they see them as being in their way as British colonists are creeping ever further westwards as more and more of them arrive in the 18th century. And so the sort of 1730s and the 1740s, this is the real crunch point when westward expansion starts to really take shape. And then we'll talk about the fighting

start there in a second, but let's just check back in on the World War. So once fighting starts in North America, suddenly you've got fighting in Central Europe, that I said, the Prussians and Austrians fighting each other. You have got fighting in India between France and Britain's proxies. Is that just the way it goes? You start fighting somewhere and the message goes out, okay, guys, we're now at war with France and wherever your satellites are around the world, your colonists, your agents, your ships sailing on the high seas, then it's just carte blanche to go after each other. Yeah, absolutely. And you can I mean, you can see this. Well, there's a battle at Menorca, of course, in 1756, which is is a result of, you know, the French and British clash taking shape in Europe.

And yeah, so so absolutely. It is a carte blanche to attack everybody anywhere you have the opportunity, because really you're trying to get one over on your enemy in whatever context you possibly can. And the Brits send money, one of the oldest British tricks in the book. The British traditionally don't like to send soldiers, but they're happy to send gold. They'll send lots of money to this guy Frederick in Prussia, soon to be Frederick the Great. And for him to sort of launch attacks on the French, keep the French busy in Europe while the Brits attack the French colonial outpost.

So these things are all linked together, aren't they? Yes, and what's interesting to me is this is a new level of strategy and logistics that these massive military forces have to think about as well. So for example, I mean, I should think we're probably going to get at some point to talking about the successful British attack on Lewisburg, the 1758 when they successfully attacked Lewisburg. And you know, the British have managed to, they managed to do this successfully, because they've thought about this transatlantically

and they were actually holding you know the french fleet you know off the coast of france so that they could prevent reinforcements coming to louisbourg so so it's like the chess pieces are moving on an enormous scale you know fans of the history of the first and second war this we familiar stuff this is global strategy right enormous logistics and and production and move it as you say moving fleets ships individuals and and units of men across the widest possible canvas which is why Winston Churchill said the seven years war really ought to qualify as a world war is are you a you a believer in that I think yes I mean when you've when you've got action taking place all the way from sort of Manila to Bombay,

then I think, or Mumbai, of course, as it is now, then I think you have to accept that this is a global war. Well, I agree. And it is a global war, which the first shots are always said to be those fired in Western Pennsylvania by a young man who actually appears in the Assassin's Creed game. He's a young man who people appears in the Assassin's Creed game. He's a young man who people may have heard of. He went on to amount to quite a big deal.

The young man was called George Washington. He was indeed. This was George's first outing as a military man, as part of a Virginia militia. And he didn't exactly cover himself in glory, but he's definitely someone that learned from his mistakes. You mentioned this important point, which is the funny thing about the French Indy War in North America. The French, huge territory stretching through what is now Canada, down through the Ohio country, through the American Midwest, all the way down to Louisiana. So the whole Mississippi Valley. The Brits penned into their little 13 colonies that everyone will be familiar with on the coast. But weirdly, not many French people in that huge space, right? So just talk to me a little bit about the sort of the balance of power on the map. It looks like the French got the advantage, but actually in terms of

boots on the ground and money and commercial activity and all that kind of stuff, the Brits are much more dynamic and much, much richer in their colonies in North America. Both of these nations have very different colonial strategies in North America. So what the French do is, as you said, they don't have many boots on the ground. They have, you know, really just a handful of colonists in comparison to the British. But what they're really good at is communicating and settling with and working with the indigenous populations, who, of course, are very numerous in that area. So the French do things like setting up forts,

setting up Catholic missions, and they do things like converting indigenous people to Catholicism, intermarrying with indigenous people. So French men will marry indigenous women usually and forge kind of family bonds and really kind of bring their cultures together in what one historian described as a middle ground. So there was a middle ground in which both parties brought their own very different cultures and religions and trading practices, but in the end,

they managed to live in some sort of harmony. And so the French get a long way with this strategy. They're very successful at getting enough trade goods, you know, to send back to France, mostly beaver pelts and animal skins, and to make this colony profitable to the French, both as a strategic holding, but also economically. The British, on the other hand, take an extremely different strategy. They don't rely on forts populated with a handful of men and some missionaries, some Jesuits and a few indigenous

people visiting. They send across tens of thousands of both settlers from Britain, from across all of the British Isles, but also, of course, they also ship across many enslaved people from Africa who make up a large percentage of the population, particularly in the southern colonies. And so this is a much bigger scale operation. There are, as you said, many more boots on the ground and they're trying to establish what historians call sort of staple agriculture to produce profitable crops

that can't be grown in Europe. And at the start, really both sides, not many, if any, regular troops. So these are sort of troops from Britain and France, full-paid, full-time professionals, wearing their famous red coats in terms of Brits and their white when it comes to the French. They are not in North America. So it's the fighting previously has been done by local militias. Fighting has been conducted up till now in the various wars and insurgencies and

police actions of the 17th, 18th centuries by largely colonists, militia, we might want to call them. But that will change during this war. Yes, absolutely. So the colonists, I mean, they're living in a violent and dangerous society for multiple reasons, the British colonists as well as the French. And so they have plenty of weaponry, they have militia training, you know, which involves regular musters, they're ready to come out and fight because, you know, for the British, the threats are numerous. There's threats by indigenous people who are still living within, you know, under 100 miles of major population centres like Charleston, South Carolina, for example. And also they have an internal threat, which is the enslaved Africans, who are very numerous.

And so the colonial militias are quite a well-oiled machine, who are ready to spring into action, but they are very much not a professional army of the sort that the French and the British have. And that will lead to all sorts of friction, which will go through and beyond the Seven Years' War, no spoiler for the next little war in North America, which Emma and I don't like talking about, but there's a big anniversary this year. Okay, so, and also, we've mentioned indigenous people, so we've got

indigenous groups right the way inside those British and French-dominated spaces and also around them. Just briefly, different groups would make agreements with different sides and perhaps both sides at different times, right, Emma? What's there, roughly speaking, let's say early 1750s, are those indigenous groups friendlier to the British or French? They're mostly friendlier to the French because the French treat them better. The French treat them right. The French, as I said, they are willing to meet Indigenous people part of the way, where the British are much very good at instilling a culture of compromise amongst British colonists, who therefore can often be quite aggressive. And they engage in trade and they engage in diplomacy with indigenous people really in a much more sort of selfish way. And

when it doesn't suit them, they're not willing to go as far as the French in smoothing over those conflicts. And both the French and the indigenous people know this. The British are just not as friendly to indigenous people, but they're willing to be friendly as far as it helps them in their own kind of economic goals, I would say. I'm Matt Lewis and I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga and in Gone Medieval we get into the greatest mysteries the gobsmacking details

and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history we're talking Vikings Normans Kings and Popes who were rarely the best of friends murder

rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Probably a bit of a sense, because there's many, many more british now american colonists they're land hungry they're farmers that as you say they're growing crops they're growing cash crops

they're chopping the woods down they're draining and they're there that that's not that consistent with allowing the indigenous people to you know continue their sort of customary habits of how they would use the landscape as well so So very different outlooks. Yes, absolutely. And so, for example, the British don't really have steady allies like the French do. The Iroquois, who are commonly now known as the Haudenosaunee, this is a very strong alliance. They are much more disposed towards the French. The chief exception to this actually is Pennsylvania, which of course was founded as a Quaker colony. And the Quaker dominated government had been much friendlier to indigenous people and much keener to meet them where they were, so to speak. But the Seven Years' War and the westward expansion

of settlement in Pennsylvania of Europeans is really kind of putting that approach by the Quakers under massive pressure at this time. And eventually they succumb to more violent, sort of opportunistic relations with indigenous people too. Well, speaking of which, Emma, you pro, you've brought us very neatly to young George Washington. Let's circle back to George Washington. He advances, he's a militiaman. So he's one of

these American, American born, but considered himself an Englishman, a loyal subject of King George. He speaks English, obviously, and part of that kind of Anglophone Atlantic world. And in terms of his media diet and his family and cultural relationships. He is ambitious. He's a surveyor. And he heads out into Western Pennsylvania to, well, what's he doing there? He's warning off the French, isn't he? Saying, look, this is an area that we wish to develop, we wish to take control of. You've got to get out of here. Yeah, so of course, the westward limits of these colonies are very vague at this time. Everything is up for grabs. So whilst, you know, we know now where Virginia ends, and where Maryland ends, and where Pennsylvania ends,

this was all kind of to be decided in the 18th century, which meant that any colonial government was free to sort of make claims about how far their colony should extend. And so Dinwiddie, the governor of Virginia, believed that this area in the Ohio Valley or in the west of Pennsylvania, well, which we know now to be in the west of Pennsylvania, he believed that this area actually belonged to Virginia, was open for claims to the colony of Virginia. And so he sends George Washington with a small party of troops and some with the support of indigenous people who are friendly to the British colonists to try and assert the claim of the British against the French. So Washington goes to Fort Leboeuf,

which is in roughly near what is currently Erie, Pennsylvania, which is Pennsylvania's only kind of Great Lakes frontage now. So that's really sort of in the northwest of the colony, of the colony, but also, sorry, now of the state. So Washington's sent to Fort Leboeuf to try and get Jacques Saint-Pierre, who is the commander of the fort, to agree to sort of step down, to step back, to cede French control. And you can imagine how that goes. It doesn't go very well. And it's slightly unclear exactly why it happens, but what certainly took place was a nasty little skirmish. Washington's troops, Washington's men,

appear to have ambushed a force of French troops. The French argued that they were killed in cold blood, effectively as an act of war, and the French retaliate. Washington is forced to surrender and sign a document of capitulation in which he takes the blame. And this is the beginning of fighting on that frontier. And that will spread. That's a shot heard around the world.

That will spread right across North America, but also, as we've said, Europe, India, and elsewhere. So, yes. I mean, so what happens is that George Washington returns to Dinwiddie and tells him, essentially, you know, no dice. The French are not playing. They won't. So then Washington goes out again,

and that's when this fatal skirmish happens. So I guess you could say this is the typical sort of downward spiral of French-British relations. Dinwiddie wants Washington now to avenge this slight. So Washington goes out with indigenous Mingo allies, led by Tana Grissom, who is a name that's very familiar to anyone who will know this period. And they end up in a bloody fatal skirmish with the French. And then the French reaction of this, of course, is that... So Washington also, I should say, he starts trying to build a fort at Pittsburgh to reassert this claim of the British.

It's not called Pittsburgh yet, but present-day Pittsburgh. The French, you know, see this for what it is, a bold English claim, and they then immediately close this off, eject the British, send George Washington back with his tail between his legs, and start building their own fort at present-day Pittsburgh. There's a wonderful site just east of Pittsburgh called Fort Necessity, which you can go and visit today, which just gives you a sense of poor George Washington's beleaguered little force

surrounded by the French, forced to surrender. And he heads back to the coast and the British are not happy with this. And so war has broken out immediately. As you mentioned, there's fighting in Menorca, the Mediterranean island. The reasons that we do not need to get into in this podcast, but that's where a particular touch point between the British and French were. Admiral Bing, the British commander at that battle was then shot on his own quarterdeck after a court-martial for being insufficiently aggressive, as Voltaire quipped pour encourager les autres, to give others more courage. And George Washington finds himself marching back into that same old bit of Pennsylvania

backcountry, this time though with British regulars, commanded by a man called General Braddock, a man who appears in the Assassin's Creed game lecturing young George Washington. And this goes down as one of those great epics of British imperial history, those great disasters up there with the loss of the unit in Zandelwana in South Africa or in Afghanistan in the 18th, 19th century. This unit, this entire column are destroyed by the French and their indigenous allies. Yes. And I have an interesting story for you on this dreadful defeat of Braddock. The letters that were sent from British military officials, including Braddock, back to Britain reporting what's going on, they're in a collection of papers at the Huntington Library in California that I was looking through for a research project. And I came across Braddock's letters that he was writing as he was advancing westward with Washington on this fatal expedition. And when you're reading them with hindsight,

it's so clear that this is going to be a terrible disaster for everyone involved and they should not have tried to do it because Braddock is writing in these letters that the American troops lack spirit, he doesn't have enough supplies, he's made a contract with the governor of Virginia for beef but they haven't got it so they're hungry. He says that everything is really, the troops are sick, nobody is ready for this and so I remember sort of sitting there reading these letters in the archive, shouting at Braddock across the centuries, no, don't do it. Stop. But of course, he marches like an idiot straight into his fate in the backcountry of Pennsylvania.

As you say, insufficient troops and logistics and not enough food, wagons and things, but also the hardest country. They're hacking out a road as they march. You can be doing a mile a day. Can you imagine mosquitoes, all the enormous problems associated, move through that landscape. British officers would write home saying it's inconceivable how you could make war in this land. They're used to the fields and the canals of Northwest Europe. And they are now in this incredibly rugged wilderness, this, you know, with ancient forest and all this kind of thing.

And they end up getting ambushed and destroyed by people who know that landscape very well. So not only the indigenous allies, the French, but the French themselves, who are, many of whom are back countrymen. They've trapped and hunted. They are, they're open to the American Indian way of doing things. That's some of their equipment, their lifestyle, their ability to survive in that landscape.

And they just give Braddock and Washington and that whole force, well, they inflict a shattering defeat. So the whole of this area, which thanks to the fact that I now live in the United States, in Pennsylvania, I have been able to visit. And I think you can't actually grasp the magnitude of this landscape unless you've walked through it. And it is. I mean, even if you cut a path through these woods, it's so rocky. You've got no hope of moving all of these rocks, these huge boulders that will be in your way. But of course, the French and their indigenous allies had a very well established network of paths. And this is how these trading paths that people moved up and down through the landscape, apart from rivers, this was the main way that they got around. And the French and the indigenous people will be very familiar with this network of paths, but Braddock would not probably even see these paths so he was was literally sort of

attempting to crash his way through these thick ancient forests across rocky ground and it's it's actually to give him some credit it's actually a marvel that he made it that far west with with his troops in the first place it was also june when it would be sweltering hot. And as you say, the insect life is intense in those areas. Yes, and I think parts of that road you can still see on the US Route 40 if you are driving towards Pittsburgh. And I encourage you to do so because you can also go and visit the monument of Braddock himself because he would not survive this defeat at the hands of the French and their indigenous allies. George Washington, very lucky. As I remember, he got a few bullets through bits

of clothing and stuff. So he extraordinarily lucky to survive. History may have been very different. This entire British force utterly, utterly destroyed. What comes next? What do the Brits decide to do about this? So the British realise that this is a terrible defeat for them, obviously. And obviously, because the British and the French, they're not going to let this rivalry lie just because of one defeat. So the British decide that they're going to come at things from a different direction. This is when they start attacking through Canada. So the British start to send men and troops pretty quickly to build Fort William Henry on what is now Lake George, which is in present-day New York State.

Well, they make war official as well. So in 1756, that's when the war officially starts. So that's why it's called the Seven Years' War. Yes, Emma, we should talk about this. But up until now, we've actually been talking about a period that's before the official beginning. Like many of those names derived from the longevity of war, this too is a bit misleading, isn't it? Because, in fact, the fighting began since the, as we just discussed, since the early 1750s, and they would go on till the early 1760s.

So it lasted a lot more than seven years. It did, yes. This is when things really start to get intense as i said the the british start trying to build forts in new york the french though capture the fort oswego also in in this kind of northern present-day new york theatre things continue to go really badly for the british 1758. The English do manage to kind of repel one attack on their forts in this Lake George region, but it's a very small victory.

In 1757, the British suffer a horrible massacre at Fort William Henry that they built on Lake George, which is actually the basis for one of the main episodes in The Last of the Mohicans, a book that I'm sure that many people are familiar with, or even if they haven't read the book, they've watched the movie. So really things until 1758, early 1758, things are going really badly. Lord Howe is killed at a battle at Fort Carillion, which is at Ticonderoga, which is also in present-day upstate New York. So really, the British are looking at a continued disaster for a couple of years, at least.

Well, it's in the great tradition of British wars. They start slow. They start slow because there isn't a big standing army. The British famously rely on their navy for their security in this period. So whilst they're tooling up, whilst they're creating more units of regiments, units of redcoats, and finding muskets for them and all that kind of stuff, things go pretty badly. You can see that in several wars in British history. But let's come on to that 1758 period, because we get, after lots of chops and changes in London, actually, the government's coming and going. You've got a pretty good, solid government.

You've got the Duke of Newcastle as Prime Minister, and you've got the mercurial, talented, divisive William Pitt as, we can sort of call him, roughly speaking, the man responsible for sort of strategically waging the war outside Europe, certainly perhaps particularly North America. He was obsessed with North America and he just decides they're going to crack this by spending a lot of money and they're going to send expeditions to North America. One is going to complete the job begun by, or attempted to be begun by George Washington, so it's going to head out to the Ohio country, seize what is now Pittsburgh. Others are going to advance, as you point out, up through that traditional invasion corridor, Lake George, Lake Champlain, up just north-south Albany towards Montreal and Quebec. And then another force is going to thrust its way from

the Atlantic to the Canadian maritime provinces, and then maybe ultimately to Quebec. So you've mentioned the Louisbourg right at the beginning, but in 1758, you get a bit of an initial British success and it's a sort of vision of things to come in North America. Big fleet, lots of troops, and a big siege of France's linchpin fortress on the Atlantic coast of Canada. You're right, it's Pitt throwing money at it that really fixes the problem.

And of course, it's throwing money at it, but also, as you said, on multiple fronts. And that takes real commitment in the 18th century, because one thing that I really wanted to mention is, it's just how long everything takes in this period to, you know, if you can send out an order from the Board of Trade from London, nothing is going to happen anytime soon, because it just takes so long to assemble the people to get them across the Atlantic. You know, and I think this is partly what's been holding the British back. It's not like they can recruit mercenaries and send them to Europe in a matter of, you know, a couple of weeks, a few weeks. They've got to work out

logistically how to get everybody across the Atlantic. And so, you know, what's really amazing about what Pitt's doing is that he's willing to go all in to this extremely expensive but also logistically unprecedented operation of sending all these troops across the Atlantic. And that will cost a lot of money, and that money is going to be borrowed. So after the war, there's going to be lots of debt. And again, this is something that will have profound consequences in the british and american world all that money that needs paying off will it be taxes on things like tea that will do it we'll see stay tuned folks so

we've got the siege of louisbourg um another thing that happens in wars is that you get rid of a bit of the dead wood and high command you get young thrusting people that have perhaps demonstrated their ability in in the years or the months of war that have perhaps demonstrated their ability in the years or the months of war that have gone before. So you get young men like Wolfe. Wolfe becomes a brigadier, I think, at Louisbourg. James Wolfe, alongside some other pretty impressive younger commanders. They do successfully besiege this beautiful French fortress that you can go and visit today in Atlantic Canada. And with the fall of Louisbourg, it means the Gulf of the St. Lawrence is open, open to British naval penetration. So

the following year, 1759, they decide they're going to send a massive amphibious expedition down the St. Lawrence River, right into the heart of New France. They're going to chop the snake off at its head, if that's the... They're going to kill the snake by chopping its head off or something. There's a metaphor there, I think. And they are going to attack the capital of New France, which is the city of Quebec. And that involves sailing a huge fleet up this very, very treacherous river, which is largely unknown to British skippers and navigators. In fact, we see in Assassin's Creed Rogue, we see one of the key men who made that possible, Cook, James Cook, who was a brilliant navigator, a brilliant sailor. And he took it upon himself over the winter of

1758, 1759 to create the first ever chart of the St. Lawrence River, which meant that the British ships could get up the following year. And indeed, he went with that fleet and he would carry out depth soundings and he would help to guide that fleet up. So that it got right in front of the walls of Quebec to the consternation of the French who believed that that river might be their salvation because no fleet would be able to work their way up. Yes, actually, I was really pleased that you mentioned James Cook's map making because one of the, apart from, of course, success at Quebec, a success that's so glorious for the British is memorialised in this incredible painting by Benjamin West, which shows the death of General Wolfe, who of course dies as a martyr and a hero for British power and British domination of the North American continent. I guess, impressive, glamorous level. Cook's map making is also really important for the British,

because the Seven Years' War is the point at which the British produce more maps of North America than they've ever managed before. They're surveying a lot of this North American continent. And so for the first time, they're really coming to know what it is that they have in North America. Because this is another problem of communication, right, is that you don't actually know what it is that they have in North America, because this is another problem of communication, right, is that you don't actually know what conditions are like on the ground or what even the ground looks like. But the British end this conflict, thanks to people like Cook, with a really detailed, meticulous knowledge of their North American colonies on paper that they have, you know, in a stash back at the Board of Trade in London, which enables them to imagine this place and to govern this place much more efficiently than they ever have done before.

Yes, Cook's contribution is essential. General Wolfe dies in a battle on the Plains of Abraham, just outside the walls of Quebec, having used the navy to land his troops at a place where the French haven't protected, just the north shore of the St. Lawrence, and they climb up the heights of Abraham through very rough country, very difficult terrain. And they surprise the French. They fight a battle and they win that battle. French commander also killed Montcalm and shortly after the British take possession of Quebec.

So that is, as you say though, a campaign. Yes, the plaudits all go to General Wolfe and he gets the fancy painting. But I look at this and I think it really feels like a very modern campaign. This is about spending money, providing enough supplies, providing the expertise, people like James Cook, making maps. You're starting to see soon British ships will get just qualitatively better than the French ships, things like copper plating will be fastened to the bottom.

So Britain's industrial economy is able to start doing these kinds of things, producing guns that are just slightly better than those of the enemy, and soon as well navigation. You've got Harrison, the clockmaker, working on devices that will allow the Brits to keep time more efficiently and therefore help to work out their longitude. So all of these perhaps less glamorous but really more important aspects to making war in the modern world really coming in here and helping to score an enormous victory for the Brits in North America. And the funny thing, Emma, is it doesn't stop with Quebec, does it? Because other British expeditions, they do capture what is now Pittsburgh.

So that's success out there, the success in the Great Lakes region. The whole of this French empire starts to fall into British hands. And it's not just North America, because expeditions sent to the Caribbean as well, and French-owned islands are captured as well, aren't they? Yeah, by 1760, the Union Jack is flying over Detroit, which may seem to be very small fry to us because, of course, they're really quite small holiday islands now. But in this period, they were the powerhouses of the Atlantic economy because they were producing sugar and coffee, crops that were

grown with large amounts of slave labor, but were incredibly lucrative in terms of the income that they generated for these planters. So when the British seize Martinique and St Lucia, they're getting a whole kind of ready-made sugar production machine when they take them. The British then actually take Manila and Havana from the Spanish as well, when the Spanish join the conflict. And Havana is the chief town in Spanish Cuba, is a prize that the British have been after for decades, if not a century. This is a super valuable town that the British are still willing to commit many, many men to in 1762 when they are victorious in the siege of Havana. they are victorious in the siege of Havana. I'm Matt Lewis.

And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends.

Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. It's the most successful war in british history by a country mile vast sways of the world fall into british hands there's also victories in india particularly in 1760 i think so so india north america parts of other parts of asia west africa the caribbean you see disastrous loss of

french and let's come back to europe because French have, they've suffered in the past occasionally in North America, for example, but they've always been able to negotiate their possessions back because of their strength in Europe. The key thing about the Seven Years' War is that Frederick the Great is Britain's ally in Europe. So just handily, you get one of the great military commanders of all time, making life miserable for the French and the Austrians and so the war in Europe, Frederick manages to inflict enough a cost on the French in Europe they are willing to make peace and perhaps leave Britain with more of this this global empire than they otherwise might have done. Let's come back to that war in Europe because something really weird happens doesn't it?

Frederick the Great is suffering, he's being invaded by the Austrians, the Russians and the French or pushed by all three of those countries and more besides. But then this extraordinary miracle happens, which is the Russian ruler, Elizabeth, the Tsarina, dies. And you get the Tsar Peter III, who is a huge fanboy of Frederick the Great. He used to dress up, didn't he? He also played soldiers and wanted to be a bit of a Frederick growing up. And he reversed, he completely switched Russia's position in the Seven Years' War. So Frederick got a bit of breathing space. reversed he he completely switched russia's position in the seven years war so frederick got a bit of breathing space um that's before of course peter the third piece that peter was

mysteriously removed in a coup by his wife catherine the great and uh his his his death is a bit of a mystery after that but so all sorts of shenanigans century but roughly speaking after so much bloodshed so much violence sort of status quo returns to Central Europe, doesn't it? The Prussians cling on to their earlier gains, and there is a peace treaty that just about restores the peace in that part of the world. Yes, and it's come at huge costs. I think one of the most interesting essays is by Peter Wilson, who's a professor of war studies at Oxford University. And he

has done some serious calculating about how damaging this European war was. I mean, and he estimates in the most fatal battle, Kunisdorf, of the Seven Years' War in Europe, 147,000 troops were committed and 23% of a quarter of them almost died. Whereas, you know, if you compare this to North America, which of course is important because that's where the war started, but the largest battle there was Ticonderoga with about almost 22,000 people committed and only 14% of them died. So I think you're absolutely right to emphasise how important things are in Europe. This is a place where not only France, but other nations are losing exponentially more people in battle. It's having a deep effect on the non-military population as

well. And so, you know, this kind of miraculous change of heart by the Russians, I'm sure, is a massive relief for everybody after really just some brutal years of war. So the fighting in Europe comes to an end. Tell me about the Treaty of Paris in 1763 between Britain that strikes me, deals more with the kind of global consequences of the Seven Years' War, because that's a real turning point in British and world history. Yes, it is. And there's quite a few people in Britain, actually, who are very upset with this treaty. They think that Britain has not turned the screws sufficiently. So by this point, the government has changed in Britain and you have Lord Bute,

the Scot, is the first minister of George III. Bute is incredibly unpopular. There's still quite a lot of, even though, you know, Britain is a country at this time, there's still quite a lot of tension though you know britain is a country at this time there's still quite a lot of tension between the scots and the english because of course that union only took place in 1707 and so butte is really seen as the as the culprit the bad advisor to george iii who didn't go for broke in this peace treaty in 1763 so the british get to keep french canada of course which means that they have pushed the French completely out of mainland North America. They also get Martinique, St. Lucia and some other small islands. But people in Britain, a lot of opposition politicians in Britain are mad that,

you know, that they gave, for example, the Louisiana to the Spanish. And they was like, you should have gone for broke you didn't take everything you could but Butte and others are sort of less bombastic about it and think that Britain should not have you know really gone for the jugular so to speak that should settle for what they had yes because there's a there's a theory isn't it if you kind of try and cling on to everything you've conquered Man Manila, Cuba, all these whole of North America, that all you're doing is just driving your enemies bananas, and they will redouble their efforts next time to tear you down. So there's this kind of debate raging in Britain,

in Britain, or the British political elite at the time, isn't there? Yes, yes, there is. And after all, you know, this is, as you've mentioned already, this war was not free. It came at great cost to the British. And if you're going to aggravate your historic aggressors even further, then you're just going to be throwing more money at the war, which is not something that anyone wanted to do with this massive debt that Britain had accumulated. And after all, you know, they had now pushed the French out of North America. And for American, British American colonists, this is huge.

They no longer have anybody to their west, stopping them from moving westwards at will. This is what they believe. Of course, they still have all of these indigenous populations there. But the French aggressors have gone. And so they now see sunny uplands and open vistas, you know, that they can just now move westwards at will to extend that agricultural economy that's so profitable. And in return, the Brits give back little bits and bobs around the world, including Little Ireland off the coast of France, they've nicked as well. So there's all sorts of shuffling around the chessboard, isn't there? What do you think the main consequences of this, even with a peace treaty in which the Brits don't hold on to quite

as much as they'd hoped, or some of them had hoped, and they'd conquered? It's an enormous, on paper, it looks like, at this point, it looks like an enormous success for the British, doesn't it? It does. But, you know, if there was ever a time for the phrase Pyrrhic victory, I think this might be it because it was a huge success. I mean, Britain was on top of the world. The levels of patriotism in Britain at this time were unsurpassed. You could go in 1763 or 64, you go to Vauxhall Gardens in London, which was like one of the sort of chief places where wealthy and middle class people would go for their leisure time. And they had a display of paintings by the artist Francis Heyman, celebrating these victories all around, these great victories all

around the world. And so really, Britain is feeling patriotically on top of the world, but it's been left with this massive debt. And it's also been left with this other great problem in North America, which is if the colonists move westwards as they want to do, they're going to clash with indigenous people who are still, as we've said, very populous in the Ohio Valley, in that band where the French were. And as we've already said, also,

the British are just not that good at doing relations with indigenous people. And so now the British are in this situation where they don't have the diplomatic skill necessarily, or the people on the ground to deal with these indigenous nations, but they have a group of eager colonists who want to aggravate those indigenous people by moving westwards and so they have to try and stop that from happening and the answer to that is the proclamation line of 1763 which is an imaginary line to stop colonists moving westwards and the colonists like hang on i thought the reason we fought this entire war that we sort of you know we paid up and we we went and marched alongside you and bled alongside you.

The whole point was we're going to take possession of this continent and exploit it. And there are the Brits saying, by the way, you can't advance any further west than this line. So the victors already starting to fall out between themselves. And by victors, I mean the British government, but also then it's American colonists. And they start to slightly, and we can start in the 1760s, we really see that they are two separate entities. They've been bound together by their hatred and fear of the French that surround them in North America. But with the one of the greatest, most sweeping victories in military history, I think, modern history, you get the Americans and the British at each other's throats, falling out with each other, the American Revolutionary War. It's a huge, big debate over the aftermath of the Seven Years' War, the French-Indian War, both in terms of who gets

to exploit that victory, who gets to enjoy the new lands that have been conquered, who gets to settle them, who gets to... And also, who has to pay for it all? Who pays for those forts? Who gets to enjoy the new lands that have been conquered? Who gets to settle them? And also, who has to pay for it all? Who pays for those forts? Who pays for that policing of this new land, this vast western frontier? Who's going to pay for all these new forts that Britain's taken possession of? Florida, for example, from Spain. So it's a huge swathe of territory. Who's going to pay for all that? The British? And in fact, before we even get to who's paying in the future, who's paying for the past? Who's paying for all those enormous debts that have been incurred in carving out this huge empire? So it's an argument about land and cash, and then a bit of religion thrown in there that we won't get into now. It's, as you say, it can be seen as a very pyrrhic victory. What about the French?

How did they stagger? How did they, did they rebuild? Did they rebuild? Had they suffered a death blow from this pretty decisive defeat? No, they did not really regroup very successfully. I think the fatal blow to the French, of course, they did manage to hang on to some very lucrative Caribbean possessions. So San Dominguez was still a very profitable island for them as a sugar-growing, slave-based economy. But the main difference here is that even though Britain has a massive debt at the end of the Seven Years' War, they do actually have the financial structures in place. The so-called fiscal military state is functional enough to actually service this debt. The French, on the other hand,

lack a real secure central banking mechanism to be able to service the debts that they've accumulated. And so I think, you know, I'm not a historian of the French Revolution, and I wouldn't want to tread on their toes, so to speak. But I do think that it's possible to see that the amount of debt that the French were left with and the lack of territories after the Seven Years' War is the beginning of the end for the functionality of the French state. And like any gambler, they decide they're going to get double or quits. They spend even more money to try and get it all back. They double down and their participation in the American Revolutionary War, when they send ships and men and gold and weapons to North America and elsewhere, will prove even more catastrophic and will, as you say, I think will lead them on the road to national bankruptcy and political upheaval. What about the indigenous Americans? Do they emerge better off or worse off? Really? No, because they're now having, of course, to deal with the British who, you know, are not

as disposed to treating them as equals or as partners. The British, they start the relationship with Native Americans really disastrously with Pontiac's war. The British are almost immediately at war with the Native Americans because they are refusing to engage in the type of trade and gift-giving and diplomacy that Native Americans are used to. The British have made a treaty at Easton in Pennsylvania in 1758 with the Delaware and the Lenape and other powerful groups, but this treaty really counts for very little by the 1760s. As indigenous people begin to realize that they're

dealing with a new type of colonist who really is not willing to deal with them on equal terms like the french and indigenous people will remain very powerful right through the american revolution but it's clear that i don't want to say this is the beginning of the end for them because because that's to kind of hasten their erasure as an important power but they're really in a new world themselves at this point and it's not a good one so the brits are left with all the territory for the moment but also big debts and problems to solve they've got the very thorny issue of how to deal with the indigenous people of america how how to deal with their own colonists in North America. The French want revenge.

The Spanish want revenge. The scene is set and there will be more fighting. There's a reason people call the 18th century the second Hundred Years' War. There's a huge amount of fighting in what was slightly longer than a century. There are more wars to come. Those wars to come are a very different story. Let's stay in the Seven Years' War for a moment. We've been drawing the animus technology from the game, and it's made me think if we could

have witnessed some of those events that you and I have read so much about and looked in the archives at, and suddenly if we could witness them in 3D, what moment from the Seven Years' War in North America would you want to watch unfold before you? I think, you know, I would love to be with Braddock's army, you know? I would love to be with Braddock's army. You know, I would love to be walking alongside Braddock and Washington and just to see, you know, how people behave when things are going really wrong. I think as a historian, that would be really fascinating because as a historian, right, you look back on these tragic events

and with hindsight and and you really think how could they not see that coming but we we know you know we're living through moments right now where terrible things are brewing and we don't even recognize it and i think it would just be so fascinating to be alongside braddock and washington as they the march towards their fates to to see their reactions and to see you know what their thoughts were and you know why why was it they doubled down on this expedition when it was so clearly going to be disastrous well I hope you you need to take your bulletproof vest for that one and take a hard hat as well because I'm worried about you

weren't many people made it out of that British column, I'll tell you. So I would love to have been there when, led by James Cook, who I think was master of HMS Pembroke, I think at the time. And he is in one of the small boats. He's doing his depth sound. He's dropping his lead on the end of a bit of string down to the bottom of the river and making notes about the depth.

And seeing that fleet of over a hundred ships, both big men-of-war with the cannons sticking out of their broadsides, but also lots of merchant ships, victualling ships carrying the food and the supplies needed to maintain that army in the heart of New France. I'd love to be there in the early summer of 1759 as that mighty fleet is sailing down and arrives before the walls of Quebec, which is one of the most historic and beautiful cities in North America. And just having the scene set for what's probably the decisive clash of this war, which in turn, I think, is one of the more important wars of the last couple of centuries, because it's the war that will ensure that it's the English language and English customs of law and colonization and settlement and politics.

It's those English customs that will spread across North America and not the French, and not their French alternatives. And I think given what happens in the 20th century and what happens in subsequent history, the fact that North America is largely an English-speaking place with a constitution and with politics and economics and a culture that's rooted in Englishness, I think turns out to be pretty important. So it's a war that is certainly exciting to enjoy in the gameplay, but also it's

a war that really matters. It's a war that I think just really matters. I'm asking the wrong person because you've made a lifetime of it study, but don't you think it's one that perhaps isn't as well known as it should be, but is so important? Yeah, it's absolutely critical. The fact that, you know, people in Britain today are still talking about the so-called special relationship between Britain and North America. I mean, even Britain's position, you know, as a kind of mediator between continental Europe and North America would be completely different. It would be non-existent if the French had won and had taken North America. I think the Seven Years' War really is a sort of history game changer. It's a critical moment in the 18th century.

And of course, I think it's super important because I study it. But I think that there's still many ways in which we can dig down into that importance and it's great for me to hear you say that because if an illustrious academic like you're saying i'm allowed to just i'm allowed to get as enthusiastic as i can about the seven years war so thank you yes you can you can spend many many fruitful years geeking out about it yeah yeah emma hart thank you so much for coming on you're welcome it was a pleasure. Thanks. So I hope you enjoyed this episode of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History It.

Next time, we'll jump aboard with one of the world's greatest voyagers, Captain James Cook. What role did the famous explorer play in the Seven Years' War? Don't forget to subscribe and follow Echoes of History wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're enjoying it, you can leave us a review too. See you next time, among the Echoes of History. Thanks very much for listening, everyone. Before you go, I'll tell you that ever at the cutting edge, the bleeding edge of what's new and exciting, after 10 years of the podcast,

you can finally watch it on YouTube. We are moving fast and breaking things here, folks. Our Friday episodes each week will be available to watch on YouTube, and you can see me. You can see what we're talking about. I'd love it if you could subscribe to that channel over there. Just click the link in the show notes below, and you can watch it on your phone, your tablet, or even a TV, or even a giant cinema movie screen if you have one in your underground lair. See you next time, folks. you