50 Fun Facts About Seven Years' War

Which vegetable did pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier champion after eating it as a Seven Years' War prisoner?

The potato was known to the French only as hog feed when Parmentier's Prussian captors served it to him. He later hosted dinners built around the crop to win over famous guests.

Which future US president led the 1754 ambush at Jumonville Glen that helped ignite the Seven Years' War?

George Washington later signed a surrender written in French, a language he could not read, which admitted that the French commander had been assassinated.

Which future Pacific explorer helped chart the St Lawrence River for the British assault on Quebec in 1759?

James Cook, then a ship's master, took soundings and marked shoals so that troops could be carried across the river for a stealthy night attack.

Which James Fenimore Cooper novel is set during the 1757 siege of Fort William Henry in the Seven Years' War?

The Last of the Mohicans turns the fort's real surrender, and the attack on the British column as it marched away, into the centre of its plot.

Which British admiral, shot in 1757 for failing to relieve Minorca, did Voltaire satirise in Candide?

John Byng faced a firing squad after a court martial ruled he had not done his utmost. Voltaire has a character explain that Britain finds it useful to shoot an admiral now and then as an example to the rest.

Which Prussian king, nicknamed Old Fritz, held off Austria, France and Russia during the Seven Years' War?

Frederick the Great cared more for music and philosophy than war as a young prince, which set him against his authoritarian father. He wrote all his works in French.

By what name do Americans usually know the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War, begun in 1754?

French and Indian War names the colonists' opponents. British America usually named its wars after the reigning monarch, but that name had been used up in the 1740s.

Which city gave its name to the 1763 treaty between Britain, France and Spain that ended the Seven Years' War overseas?

The Treaty of Paris left France with almost nothing on the North American mainland and opened an era of British dominance outside Europe.

Which disease did British officers try to spread with hospital blankets while besieged by Native warriors in 1763?

Smallpox had broken out inside the fort, so its officers handed visiting Native envoys two blankets and a handkerchief taken from the sick ward.

Which Odawa war leader gave his name to the 1763 uprising against British forts around the Great Lakes?

Pontiac opened the war by trying to take Fort Detroit by surprise with 300 followers. The plan was foiled and became a siege as the revolt spread far beyond Detroit.

Which mountain range marked the line beyond which the Royal Proclamation of 1763 barred new colonial settlement?

The Appalachians became the edge of a reserve set aside for Native nations, which angered the colonial land speculators and settlers who had expected to move west.

Which 1765 tax on colonial newspapers and legal papers was meant to fund British troops left in America after 1763?

The Stamp Act lasted barely a year: Parliament repealed it in March 1766, after colonists argued that they had already paid their share of the war's costs.

Which territory did Spain hand to Britain under the 1763 peace, only to win it back twenty years later?

Florida proved too large for British officials to run as one colony, so they split it in two, East and West, along the Apalachicola River.

Which vast French colony did Louis XV secretly hand to Spain in 1762 as the Seven Years' War was ending?

Louisiana changed hands in a deal kept secret even while France was negotiating peace with Britain, and Spain did not formally take possession until 1769.

Which Caribbean sugar island, captured in 1759, did Britain return to France in 1763 while keeping Canada?

Guadeloupe mattered more to France than Canada did: given the choice, it took back its sugar islands and wrote off the northern colony as costly and unproductive.

Which city, Spain's main port in the West Indies, fell to a British fleet and army in August 1762?

Havana fell after the British arrived from a direction nobody expected and trapped a Spanish fleet inside its own harbour. Spain got the city back at the peace.

Which Asian colonial capital did a British fleet sailing from Madras seize from Spain in 1762?

Manila stayed in British hands for 18 months, but mostly Filipino troops loyal to a Spanish lieutenant governor kept the occupiers from spreading beyond the city and nearby Cavite.

Which British monarch came to the throne aged 22 in 1760, midway through the Seven Years' War?

George III inherited the crown from his grandfather rather than his father, who had died nine years earlier. He went on to reign until 1820.

Which river became the western boundary of Britain's North American territory under the 1763 peace?

The Mississippi was split down the middle by the peace terms, though New Orleans on its east bank stayed out of British hands.

Which pair of islands off Newfoundland did France get back in 1763 as a base for its cod fishermen?

Saint Pierre and Miquelon gave French crews somewhere to dry their catch, and the islands are a self-governing territory of France to this day.

Which Habsburg ruler, mother of Marie Antoinette, fought the Seven Years' War to win back a province seized by Prussia?

Maria Theresa had signed the peace of 1748 only to buy time, using the years that followed to rebuild her army and line up new allies for a second attempt.

Which prosperous province, seized from Austria in the 1740s, did Prussia fight the Seven Years' War to keep?

Silesia stayed Prussian when the fighting ended without a single border moved, a result that confirmed Prussia as a great power and Austria's rival inside Germany.

Which neighbouring German electorate did Prussia invade in August 1756, opening the Seven Years' War in Europe?

Saxony saw its army besieged at Pirna and forced to surrender within weeks, after which the men were pressed into the Prussian ranks under Prussian officers.

What name is given to the 1756 reversal of alliances that paired Austria with its old enemy France?

Diplomatic Revolution describes a swap in which Austria left Britain for France and Prussia became Britain's ally. Even the Dutch, long tied to Britain, turned neutral.

Which influential mistress of Louis XV was asked by Austria's envoy to help broker the 1756 alliance with France?

Madame de Pompadour had stopped being the king's lover around 1750 but stayed on as his friend and confidante, which kept her influence at court intact.

Which new Russian tsar, an admirer of Prussia's king, pulled Russia out of the Seven Years' War in 1762?

Peter III gave back every Russian conquest in Prussia and lent troops to his former enemy. His wife, the future Catherine the Great, overthrew him after 186 days.

Which Prussian city did Russian and Austrian troops briefly occupy in 1760 during the Seven Years' War?

Berlin had been raided once before: in 1757 a Hungarian general slipped 5,000 men, mostly hussars, around the Prussian army and held part of the city for a night.

Which German electorate, whose ruler was also Britain's king, did France invade during the Seven Years' War?

Hanover was knocked out of the war in 1757 when its beaten commander signed a convention with the French. Britain revoked the terms and sent the electorate back into the fight.

Which British statesman, later Earl of Chatham, directed his country's strategy for most of the Seven Years' War?

William Pitt tied down French troops in Germany while Britain used its naval supremacy to launch expeditions against French possessions around the globe.

At which 1757 battle did Prussia rout a French and Imperial army nearly twice its size in ninety minutes?

Rossbach so shook France that it refused to send troops against Prussia again, while an impressed Britain increased its financial support for the victors.

Which British general died at the moment of victory on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in 1759?

James Wolfe was struck by three musket balls at the height of the fighting, and a painting of his death went on to become famous around the world.

Which French marquis, successful at Fort Carillon in 1758, was mortally wounded defending Quebec the following year?

Montcalm died before dawn the day after the fighting and was buried in a shell hole under the choir of the Ursuline church.

Which city's surrender in September 1760 completed the British conquest of French Canada, a year after Quebec fell?

Montreal was ringed by about 18,000 British troops who had converged from three directions. The French governor overruled his general and gave the city up.

Control of which river valley, where France built Fort Duquesne, sparked the first shots of the Seven Years' War?

The Ohio had already been claimed by a French officer who buried engraved lead plates across the region, years before the chain of forts went up.

Which British general fell in 1755 when his march on Fort Duquesne was ambushed at the Monongahela River?

Edward Braddock insisted on cutting a supply road as he went, which slowed his column to as little as two miles a day. The road outlasted him and still bears his name.

Which East India Company officer's 1757 victory at Plassey opened the way to British rule in Bengal?

Robert Clive had bribed the enemy commander-in-chief, Mir Jafar, and promised to make him ruler, a betrayal that made the victory possible.

In which Indian city did the Nawab of Bengal's capture of Fort William in 1756 lead to the Black Hole incident?

Calcutta's notorious dungeon measured just 14 by 18 feet. One survivor claimed that 123 of the 146 prisoners held there overnight died of suffocation and heat.

Which northern kingdom joined the coalition against Prussia and fought the Pomeranian War from 1757 to 1762?

Sweden sent its army back and forth across the Prussian border for five years without a decisive victory, twice calling off campaigns for want of supplies.

Which long-standing ally of Britain did Spanish and French armies invade three times in 1762, failing each time?

Portugal was saved largely by its peasants, who stripped the land bare while guerrilla bands cut the supply lines, leaving the invaders to starve and retreat.

Before which 1759 battle in Germany did British infantry pick roses that their regiments still commemorate each August?

Minden was won when those infantry, acting on a misunderstood order, marched straight at the French cavalry and beat off its repeated charges.

Which 1759 battle against Russian and Austrian forces was arguably the worst defeat of the Prussian king's career?

Kunersdorf left the Prussian king sure that everything was lost, but the victors failed to follow up, a reprieve he called the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg.

At which castle did Prussia and Austria sign the 1763 peace that ended the Seven Years' War in central Europe?

Hubertusburg hosted a treaty that left the prewar borders in place after seven years of fighting. It was signed five days after Britain, France and Spain made their own peace.

In which bay did Admiral Edward Hawke chase a French fleet through a 1759 gale, ending the threat of invasion?

Quiberon Bay is a labyrinth of shoals and reefs, yet Hawke followed the French in under full sail and sank or ran aground six of their ships of the line.

Which official march of the Royal Navy was written in 1759, the year of victories that its words celebrate?

Heart of Oak was composed by William Boyce, with words by the actor David Garrick, for a pantomime first staged in London on New Year's Eve.

Which British cavalry commander, a hero of Warburg in 1760, has a great many English pubs named after him?

The Marquess of Granby is said to have set up old soldiers of his regiment as publicans once they were too old to serve. That, the story goes, is how his name reached so many inn signs.

Which capital of French India fell to a British siege in January 1761, effectively ending French power there?

Pondicherry gave in when its garrison ran low on supplies and ammunition after four months under siege, and Britain handed the city back once the war was over.

Which West African territory, prized for its gum arabic, did a British expedition take from France in 1758?

Senegal was targeted on the advice of an American merchant, Thomas Cumming, who had visited the coast and devised the plan to hurt French trade.

Which Austrian statesman, a former ambassador at Versailles, engineered his country's 1756 alliance with France?

Kaunitz argued that Austria could recover its lost province only with France and Russia on its side. He went on to serve as State Chancellor for about four decades.

Which Russian ruler, a fierce opponent of Prussia, died in January 1762 just as her armies were close to victory?

Empress Elizabeth is remembered for not executing a single person during her reign. Her death handed the throne to an heir who promptly made peace.

Which French fortress on Cape Breton Island fell to a British siege in 1758, opening the way to Quebec?

Louisbourg had been captured once before, in 1745, and handed back at the peace that followed. Its second fall left the St Lawrence open to a British fleet.