DBWI: The French lose the Seven Years War

samcster94

Banned
It is a well known fact the French just barely held onto their part of Canada in the 1760's and likely only due to British military blunders under very bad generals(one battle the British won was a Pyrrhic victory). What can be done to change it???
 

Maoistic

Banned
France is simply not going to win. It can't invade Britain to force it to concede because the English channel is perhaps the most perilous water in Europe, and the British navy had obtained supremacy by the end of the 17th century when it managed to defeat Holland on sea. Then there's the fact that France is fighting against Prussia and its allies at the same time on continental Europe. Britain, being an island, doesn't face this challenge. France can't send troops to defend its overseas colonies, and its navy is inferior to that of Britain, so any major sea battle will end in a British victory.
 
France is simply not going to win. It can't invade Britain to force it to concede because the English channel is perhaps the most perilous water in Europe, and the British navy had obtained supremacy by the end of the 17th century when it managed to defeat Holland on sea. Then there's the fact that France is fighting against Prussia and its allies at the same time on continental Europe. Britain, being an island, doesn't face this challenge. France can't send troops to defend its overseas colonies, and its navy is inferior to that of Britain, so any major sea battle will end in a British victory.
OCC: Well actually, despite the enormous manpower advantage of the British colonies in general, many of the battles which won New France for Britain were surprisingly close, and they could have gone in favour of the French allowing them to hold onto New France, leading to what in effect is a French "win" in North America.

France may not be able to invade Britain itself, but she certainly could have defeated British efforts in Hannover. Likewise, the French effort against Prussia in OTL was actually embarrassing enough that she did not attempt significant operations for quite some time after Rossbach. Change the outcome of this battle, and the French may keep sufficient enough pressure on the Prussians to cause their fall. And of course with the Prussians gone, it is unlikely that Britain can eke out anything resembling a victory in the war.
 
Very unlikely. Frederick II of Brandenburg (in history books at that time, also called Prussia - because yes, the area around the Polish city Królewiec once was a part of it, and they even were called kings of Prussia - three of them, that is) had to fight three great powers, not counting the lesser ones. He was competent as a general, but there is a superiority of numbers (which his enemies had) when strategery won't help you anymore. When his last army was trounced between Austrians and French, and he committed suicide, the "kingdom of Prussia" died as well.
 
Very unlikely. Frederick II of Brandenburg (in history books at that time, also called Prussia - because yes, the area around the Polish city Królewiec once was a part of it, and they even were called kings of Prussia - three of them, that is) had to fight three great powers, not counting the lesser ones. He was competent as a general, but there is a superiority of numbers (which his enemies had) when strategery won't help you anymore. When his last army was trounced between Austrians and French, and he committed suicide, the "kingdom of Prussia" died as well.

To be fair, the man managed to husband that tiny army of his for a full six years and achieve some notable (if Phyric) victories. I'd put Fredrick II a couple of notches above merely "competent" in terms of his tactical skills. If anything, though, he put TOO much faith in tactics and forgot that his glorified duchy of a country couldent sustain replacing the steady drain of manpower he incurred by continuing to give battle even when it wasn't nessicery. The campaign the retake Dresden alone cost him 40,000 of his precious drill-trained troops... if he'd kept a purely defensive approach and kept an army in being, Prussia may very well have lasted long enough for the weight of Britain's naval dominance to be felt on the French economy by blocking her trade and seizing the profitable output of her and Spain's colonies. The later, in particular, was on the verge of yet another bankruptcy by the time the war was over.
 

samcster94

Banned
OCC: Well actually, despite the enormous manpower advantage of the British colonies in general, many of the battles which won New France for Britain were surprisingly close, and they could have gone in favour of the French allowing them to hold onto New France, leading to what in effect is a French "win" in North America.

France may not be able to invade Britain itself, but she certainly could have defeated British efforts in Hannover. Likewise, the French effort against Prussia in OTL was actually embarrassing enough that she did not attempt significant operations for quite some time after Rossbach. Change the outcome of this battle, and the French may keep sufficient enough pressure on the Prussians to cause their fall. And of course with the Prussians gone, it is unlikely that Britain can eke out anything resembling a victory in the war.
Interesting. I always found this war interesting due to the impact of the Acadian expulsion, and later Quebec's role.
 
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