EMPIRE AND WARS IN THE
18TH CENTURY
The Maritime Powers
 The Netherlands
 France
 Great Britain
The Dutch Golden Age
 REPUBLIC – States General negotiated with
the provinces
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION
 Dutch Reformed Church was the official
religion
ECONOMIC PROSPERITY –
 agricultural advancements
 good trade
 colonies in the
East Indies
 strong banking
system
The Dutch Decline
 After William of Orange’s death in 1702, there
was no strong leader
 The British became the dominant naval
power
 Fishing, ship building, and trade dominance
declined
FRANCE after Louis XIV
 Louis XV – 5 yrs old, Duke of Orleans made
regent
 John Law – finance minister
 Mississippi Bubble
Cardinal Fleury
 last priest/chief minister of France
 failed to bring peace and financial stability to
France
 failed to train Louis XV
ENGLAND: The Age of Walpole
King George I (r. 1714-1727)
Robert Walpole
 First Prime Minister
(from 1721-1742)
 Dealt with the
South Sea Bubble
 Said “Let sleeping
dogs lie.”
England – King George II
(r. 1727-1760)
WAR OF JENKINS’ EAR
 Begins 1739
 Merges into the larger War of Austrian
Succession/King George’s War
War of Austrian Succession
1740-1748
EMPRESS
MARIA
THERESA
Given the throne
by the
PRAGMATIC
SANCTION
Frederick the Great
INVADES
SILESIA
December
1740
The Alliances
 AUSTRIA
 PRUSSIA
 Russia
 FRANCE
 Sweden
 Bavaria
 Denmark
 Spain
 GREAT BRITAIN
 Sardinia*
 The Netherlands
 Saxony*
* = switched sides
Battle of Fontenoy 1745
 The last battle fought by the British Army
during the War of the Austrian Succession. It
was a decisive French victory, which opened
the way for French conquest of most of
Flanders before the war ended.
 British w/Dutch and Hanoverian allies were
lead by the Duke of Cumberland, the son of
King George II
Fontenoy
King George’s War 1744-48
 French with Micmac and Abnaki allies vs.




British with Mohawk allies
Mostly raids and counterraids
1745- British capture Louisburg in Nova Scotia
1747-failed British attack on Montreal
English and Spanish colonists also fought
 James Oglethorpe, proprietor of Georgia, invaded
Florida but was ultimately unsuccessful
King George’s War
TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE
 Ends the war
 Maria-Theresa keeps Austria, Hungary,
Bohemia
 Frederick II gets Silesia
 Little is resolved between Britain and France
in North America
MEANWHILE IN ENGLAND . . .
Charles Edward Stuart
a.k.a. Bonnie Prince Charlie
a.k.a. The Young Pretender
-
-Son of James III
a.k.a. The Old
Pretender
-Lead a Jacobite
uprising in 1745
The Forty-Five
 Bonnie Prince Charlie rallied support among
the Highland clans of Scotland
 Defeated the British at the Battle of
Prestonpans and threatened England
 The Duke of Cumberland was given
command to stop the uprising
 British defeated them for good at the Battle
of Culloden in 1746
Culloden
 Cumberland had nearly 10,000 men against
5,000 for Stuart
 The disciplined musketry of the English soldiers
killed hundreds.
 The rebels were swept off the field, and Stuart
barely escaped with his life.
 Casualties among the Scots numbered 2,000,
while Cumberland lost only 300.
 Cumberland unleashed a reign of terror on
Scotland that earned him the nickname of
"Butcher."
THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION of
1756
 France allies with Austria
 Britain allies with Prussia
THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
a.k.a. THE SEVEN YEARS’WAR
 1754 (1756)-1763
 Begins in the colonies
 Starts in Europe when Frederick II invades
Saxony
 Prussia, Britain vs. Austria, France, Russia,
Sweden, Saxony
William Pitt the Elder
England vs. France in the
colonies
 INDIA
 1757 – The Black Hole of Calcutta
 1757 – Robert Clive leads English to victory at
Plassey
 NORTH AMERICA
 1759 – General Wolfe leads successful attack on
Quebec
Treaty of Paris (1763)
 France ceded to England the territories of Canada, Nova Scotia,
the Ohio Valley, and the lands east of the Mississippi River except
the city of New Orleans.
 Spain traded Florida to England in exchange for Havana, Cuba
(which England had captured during the war), but Spain had
already received the territories west of the Mississippi.
 In the Caribbean, France regained Martinique and Guadeloupe,
but most of the rest of the non-Spanish Antilles went to Britain.
 In India, the British East India Company assumed total control of
Bengal, and limits were set on French military power in its
remaining territory on the Coromandel Coast and in Pondicherry.
SIGNIFICANCE:
 Growth of national identities for Britain and
France
 Prussian army showed its strength, survived
threats from Russia
 England demonstrated the dominance of its
navy
 British and French economies weakened
MEANWHILE IN ENGLAND . . .
JOHN WILKES
Pamphlet supporting Wilkes