Seven Years' War

[The Wizard]

"Anglosaxon" refers to the nations spawned by colonial enterprises originating on the British Isles, nearly all of them exclusively English in their origin, and all of them English in the end. Another term for this is the "Anglosphere". This includes America and Canada. Since the Anglosphere is where the huge majority of work on this subject in the language of English comes from, it is understandable, but frustrating, that almost all of it concentrates on fronts and battles which played, or in which the English played, either a minor, peripheral role, or a role as one (usually lesser) part of an alliance (mostly the former, adding to the frustration).

The British dominated the sea, America, and India. On the Continent, they were mostly important as financiers. The Habsburgs (thusly Austrians), Prussians, French and Russians are the ones that bore the brunt of the fighting there, friend. Britain's army was small for a reason. The same goes for the Napoleonic Wars, in even greater amount. Waterloo was nothing but a foregone conclusion, something that was never in doubt, even if Bonaparte had won that engagement. The Spanish theater siphoned off French strength from their main engagements, but no more than that. I might also point out that major British (not to forget Portuguese and Spanish!) gains there were only made after the folly of 1812, and then again the British were but a part of an alliance, while the Continental powers logically and obviously shed the most blood in the theaters, campaigns, and battles that mattered the most.

It is an understandable development in English-language literature on the subject that the conflicts in the Anglosphere during the Seven Years' War, or the British contribution to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, is put in the limelight alot. A sad effect of that is that both of these things are overblown and given too much importance. Maria Theresa, Elizabeth of Russia, and Frederick the Great were far more important figures in the world's first global conflict than were the Whigs and the British king, and the same goes for Bonaparte and his Continental foes half a century later.

P.S. The fact that Britain became an important nation in the world following the Seven Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars (more importantly the former) has little to do with the conflict itself. Larger American colonies were important, but only in that they provided a larger consumer base and a larger resource pool for British industry. Britain's might in the 19th century was based on its economic advantage, which in turn was based on its economic system of householding and its industrial prowess.