The World in Flames: A Global History of the Seven Years' War

"This book is a very important example of new ways that people are looking at the history of war. Christopher Duffy’s book is very much a traditional, narrative military history. Marian Füssel’s book helps us to understand things like the perspectives of ordinary soldiers, how the violence of these wars was experienced by those caught up in them, and how people thought about who had won a battle in cases where it was indecisive. The Seven Years’ War was the titanic struggle of Frederick’s reign. It was fought in central Europe as part of an attempt by Austria and its allies to recover Silesia from Prussia. At the same time, it was fought overseas, particularly between Britain and France over their lands in the Caribbean, America, and India. Marian Füssel’s book is one of the very rare works that combines all of these different parts of the Seven Years’ War together. It’s not a detailed narrative study in the way that Christopher Duffy’s book is, but for somebody who is interested in getting different perspectives on war in this period, and who is interested in connecting what Frederick is doing with what is also happening in America and India at this period, it’s the perfect choice. Frederick started out his reign allied with France against Austria. France and Austria were hereditary enemies, and both Frederick and Prussia suffered a series of humiliations at the hands of Austria during Frederick’s youth. Frederick himself was forced to marry someone acceptable to Austria, while his father wasn’t able to get Austrian support for acquiring various territories that Prussia wanted to add to its dominions. So Frederick came to the throne very much opposed to the house of Austria. He was also aware that Austria was weak and primed for him to take some of their territories. France was a natural ally at that point. Frederick had learned, by observing French practice, that it was not helpful to get involved in long wars. You should try to keep your wars short, which he did successfully with his opening wars. But that meant making peace and leaving your allies to keep on fighting without you, which irritated the French hugely, and they came to the conclusion that Prussia was untrustworthy. In the meantime, the world outside of Europe was becoming a much bigger game. The struggle with Britain for colonies and maritime trade became hugely more important for France, and so in 1756 you have the so-called reversal of alliances: France and Austria allied together. And Prussia ultimately ended up as the ally of Britain."