The Seven Years War: Crash Course World History #26 Video Lecture | A Complete Guide to World History : 1 - World Knowledge

Hi, my name is John Green, This is Crash Course
World History. Oh my gosh! Today we're going
to talk about war. Ah! Explosions everywhere!
So, traditionally, historians are pretty keen
on wars, because they feature clearly delineated
beginnings, and middles, and ends, and because
they always have a fair bit of death and drama
and mortally wounded generals who have great
last words like
"Let us cross the river and rest under the
shade of those trees,"
whereas the last words of, plague victims
are always, like, "Unggggg."
Sorry, plague victims. As if you don't have
enough troubles. Now you've got me teasing
you about your uninspired death throes.
Wars have easy whens, wheres, whos, and whys:
1861-1865. The United States. The North vs.
the South. To end slavery and save the Union.
Mr. Green, Mr. Green. Are you gonna show us
the hidden complexities behind something we
already think we understand again?
Sorry me from the past, but yes. However,
to placate you, here are some more explosions.
The 17th and 18th centuries saw a bunch of
top-notch wars, but today we're going to focus
on the 7 Years War, also called the French
and Indian War, because it was the first truly global war.
In fact, no less a historian than Winston
Churchill called it "The first world war."
But we've been so Eurocentric here on Crash
Course that all we are going to say about
the ENTIRE WAR IN EUROPE is that Prussia and
Great Britain fought France and Austria, and
that the Austrian Hapsburgs wanted to win
back Silesia, which they failed to do. THERE.
THAT'S ALL YOU GET, EUROPE.
So the Seven Years War lasted for...anyone...anyone...
Twenty three years.
I hate you, Me from the Past. But, as it happens,
by sheer coincidence, you are not necessarily wrong.
[theme music]
So, the when: The Seven Years War began in
1756 and ended in 1763.
Unless you believe—as many historians do—that
the 7 Years War lasted 23 years, because it
was really a continuation of the War for Austrian
Succession.
Then you have the fact that much of the information
in today's episode is taken from a book called,
"The Global Seven Years War: 1754-1763," a
nine year period.
As for the who: It was mainly fought between
the British and the French, seen here reenacting
the knife fight from either Beat It or West
Side Story, depending on your age.
But some of the British were actually Americans,
and both the British and the French were supported
by American Indians. And there was fighting in India
between Indian Indians, the British, the French.
And as previously noted the French were fighting the
Prussians and the British were fighting the Austrians.
The where: Europe, the continental U.S., the
Caribbean Sea, off the cost of Africa, India.
Basically, the world.
And the why: Ostensibly, land. British colonists wanted
to expand into land west of the original 13 colonies.
And that land was technically held by the
French, who left it alone except for a bunch
of trading posts. And they were like, "Je
de veux pens l'anglais."
Thank you, four years of high school French.
Anyway, the war wasn't really about land;
it was really about our old friend trade.
The British wanted to expand into the American
interior to allow for more colonists, because
the British benefited from both the export
of raw materials from the Americas and the
import of British consumer goods to the Americas.
So, more colonists meant more trade, which
meant more wealth, which meant ever-fancier hats.
And the French realized that this British-Atlantic
maritime trade was making Britain so rich
that British might come for France's actually
valuable colonies—which were not in the
continental U.S. but those slave-based sugar
plantations in the Caribbean.
So the fighting began around here. And while
the British did send over actual British troops,
much of the early fighting was done by colonial
militias.
Probably the most famous commander of British
troops was a Virginia colonel named George Washington.
In fact, he may have actually started the
shooting at the battle of Fort Necessity in
May of 1754. Washington was captured in that
battle and then he was immediately released
because 18th century war was super weird.
Anyway, the real North American action was
in New York and Canada. At the battle at the
Plains of Abraham in 1759, for instance, the
British defeated the French and captured the
city of Quebec. Both the British commander,
General Wolfe and the French commander, General
Montcalm, were killed at this battle, with
the death of the former being immortalized
in this famous painting, by Benjamin West:
As indicated by the picture, almost all the
battles in North America featured significant
participation by Native Americans.
Different Native tribes sided with both the
British and the French, but as a broad generalization,
Native Americans were more likely to support
the French.
Up to this point, shrewd Indian tribes had
been able to play the British and the French
off each other and maintain a degree of autonomy
for themselves.
And as long as the French were present, the
British were prevented from encroaching too
much on lands Native Americans were using
for hunting and agriculture.
Now, we haven't talked much about American
Indians, mostly because they were geographically
isolated and didn't have a written language.
But let's at least give them a Thought Bubble.
Before the arrival of the Europeans, most
Native Americans lived in tribal groups. And
they subsisted on a combination of small-scale
agriculture and hunting and gathering, depending
on where they were situated.
There were too many tribes to generalize about
specific social structures but it's probably safe
to say that in terms of gender they were much more
egalitarian than the Europeans who they met up with.
Which may explain why European women who were
taken captive by Indians sometimes preferred
to stay with the tribe rather than be rescued,
although that's somewhat controversial.
One thing we can say about the Indians: their
notions of what it meant to hold property
were very different from those of the Europeans.
Individual Indians did not "own" land in the
European sense; they used it, and not always
particularly intensively.
Europeans, when they came to North America,
had a hard time even recognizing that the
Indians were raising crops because their forms
of farming were so different from European
agriculture, so the French and especially
the English just assumed that the Indians
weren't improving the land, which meant that
they didn't own the land, so that meant that
it was ok for Europeans to take it. As you
might imagine, that was problematic for the Indians.
In general, Indian tribes initially got along
better with the French than with the Dutch
or English because
1. The French did not settle in large numbers,
as they were mostly traders and fur trappers,
and 2. French missionaries who made the journey
to the Americas were Catholic, often Jesuits,
who were so intent on converting the Indians
that they took the time to learn Indian languages
and try to make Catholicism more amenable
to Indian religion.
The end result of the war, a greatly reduced
French presence on the American mainland,
meant that Indians could no longer easily
play the British and French off each other,
which opened the floodgates of British settlers.
In the end, the American Indians were perhaps
the biggest losers of the 7 Years War.
Thanks Thought Bubble. So, two thousand miles
south, in the Caribbean, there was also quite
a lot of fighting between the French and the
British over sugar colonies.
Most of these were naval battles, and by 1761,
Spain got involved, because, you know, they
had some sugar colonies of their own.
While these battles get a lot of ink, it's
interesting to note that by far, the greatest
threat to combatants, was disease.
By October of 1761 the British had lost about
1,000 men to war and 5,000 to disease.
Meanwhile in West Africa, the British and the French
were fighting there too. Because, you know, why not?
The British attacked the French at a trading
post called Saint Louis. Aw, Stan, don't make
me say it right. Fine. Saint Louis.
And at a town called Goree, both in Senegal.
Why? Well, trade, of course.
Senegal was the major source of gum Arabic,
which is notable for many reasons but most
importantly, it is a key ingredient in the
Diet Coke and Mentos phenomenon, so of course
the British wanted lots of it.
The French were also fighting the British
in India.
In the 18th century India was nominally ruled by the
Mughal empire. I bet I'm saying that wrong, aren't I?
HowJSay: Mugal.
John: Yeah, that sounds more plausible.
But as throughout most of its history, the
real power in India lay with local kings and
princes, sometimes called nawabs.
And these princes, just like their European
counterparts were constantly vying for power
and control over more territory.
And to get it, they often enlisted the help,
especially the military help, of Europeans.
This is what happened in the most notorious event
in the 7 Years War in India, the Black Hole of Calcutta.
In June of 1756 the British governor of Calcutta,
Roger Drake, made the mistake of insulting
the emissaries sent by the nawab Siraj-ud-daula,
who duly besieged and captured the English
garrison of 500 with his own army of 30,000.
Drake escaped to nearby ships with the town's
women and children—you know the old saying,
women, children, and governors first.
But the town's defenders remained, and the
survivors were imprisoned in a small windowless
room that came to be known as the Black Hole.
And 40 of 63 prisoners suffocated overnight.
This story is mostly famous, in a war that
killed a million people, because the British
press exaggerated the numbers in order to
build support for the war in India.
Not the last time that exaggerations of enemy
brutality would be used to gin up support for a war.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about the
military campaigns in this part of the world
is that, at least initially, they were not
undertaken by governments themselves, but
by corporations that had their own armies.
The British East India Company was the most
successful of these corporations primarily
because of the military skill of its leader,
Robert Clive.
Oh, it's time for the open letter? An Open
Letter to Robert Clive.
But first, let's see what's in the secret
compartment today. Oh, bubbles. That makes
sense, Stan. The British East India Company
was involved in several early market bubbles.
Mmm, bubbles.
Dear Robert Clive,
You were a complicated man, and not entirely
likable, but you did win a very important
battle at Plassey in 1757.
And the way you won it says a lot about the
relationship between Europe and its colonies.
So, the key to your success was a conspiracy
to overthrow the existing nawab orchestrated
by a Bengali banking family, called the Seths.
No, Stan. The Seths. Yes. Come on.
And in thanks for your support of their conspiracy,
the new nawab quickly signed a treaty with
your company, the East India Company.
And thereafter, the British had effective control over
trade in Bengal and the French were excluded from it.
This was an incredibly valuable region because it
produced silk and inexpensive cotton cloth for export.
And it gave the British a decisive advantage over the
French and eventually allowed them to control all of
India. And you accomplished this, Robert Clive, primarily
by fomenting revolution. Why does this work
for you and it never works for the CIA?
Best wishes, John Green
So, by now you have probably figured out that since the
French kept losing battles they eventually lost the war.
The main peace treaty, signed in Paris in
1763, limited French presence in the Caribbean,
in India, and in North America.
Although not completely, otherwise they couldn't
have sold Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson in 1803.
So, France was obviously dramatically weakened.
But overall, so was Britain.
One thing rarely mentioned is the actual human
cost of war. As many as a million combatants
died in the Seven Years War, but even that
doesn't tell the whole story.
In the 18th century armies usually fed themselves
by foraging, which really meant just pillaging
the countryside. In Europe, a single Prussian province
lost a fifth of its population to pillaging. And
in North America settlers in frontier regions
lived in constant fear of raids.
And, one of the perhaps lesser known outcomes
of the war was the systematic deportation
of the French Acadians from Maine to Louisiana
where they became Cajuns.
Meaning that the stars of the television shows
Lobster Wars and Swamp Wars are basically
the same people. What's that? There's no television
show called Swamp Wars? STAN, CANCEL EVERYTHING
AND GET ME ON THE PHONE WITH THE DISCOVERY
CHANNEL.
One last thing about wars: they are expensive.
In 1756 the British national debt was £75million;
in 1763 it was £133 million.
Someone had to pay for this, and the British felt it was
only fair that American colonists should foot the bill.
And those taxes, which helped fuel the American
Revolution, were a direct result of the Seven Years War.
So in one way, winning the Seven Years War
cost Britain its first empire.
But, when we remember that it was a global
war, and especially when we think about what
happened in India, then the Seven Years War
also begins to look like the beginning of
Britain's second, and much greater empire.
Winning is losing is winning is losing. Such
is life, and such is history.
Thanks for watching. See you next week.
Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. The show is
written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself and the graphics team is Though Bubble.
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say in my home town: Don't Forget To Be Awesome.