Louis XV Assassination Attempt Suceeds (sort of), plus a longer Seven Years War

This is not necessarily the defining POD, but one of the first butterflies.

Robert-François Damiens alters his strike slightly resulting in a deeper gash. The wound does not kill Louis but a resulting infection does less than a week later.

A rumor (whether it is true or false) spreads that he was backed by English spies due to the current war. This infuriates the french people.

Subsequent butterflies (or desired butterflies):
A longer seven years war (not sure by how much a few years a the minimum)
France still loses in North America and India at about the same time as in OTL.
General Wolfe Survives the battle of Quebec, but is still injured. He eventually marries an American at the war's end.
France makes gains on the European continent.
Empress Elizabeth managed to live for another 6 months or so, and Prussia loses.

France's attempted/desired sea invasion of England fails or is not possible due to losing the sea battles. but in TTL both fleets are badly damaged.
By the end of the war, the other parties have dropped out made their peace, and England and France are in a stalemate, looking for peace mainly because of wartime exhaustion and expenses.

Unrest in Quebec, yet no Quebec Act:
Slightly Earlier Revolutionary war, (heavier taxes due to war expense, reduced British naval strength due to losses, and they want to rebuild it)
Cook's voyages are butterflied away. (via his death in the war or relocation or lack of ships for it)
No French Guiana 1763 settlement attempt. (Guiana is in fact lost in the war or given up in the treaty)
France still keeps a few Caribbean possessions.

1. What suggestions do you have for causing the above things to occur given the approximate POD?

2. What other butterflies do you foresee?
 
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You seem to have a lot of goals - perhaps you could clarify your objective for us? Are you trying to make a stronger France by removing L15? You certainly seem to have a desired outcome in mind.

For myself, the idea that the assassination of the King being pinned on a foreign power leads to a longer, fiercer war seems anachronistic; no one at Versailles would believe it even if the man on the streets of Paris did for some reason, since murdering a crowned head that has an adult, sane, uncontested heir is about as pointless and futile as you can get (never mind that it was literally unthinkable, the French nobility know the English nobility would never sanction such a move). The people may want revenge, but the financial sector goes to pieces, since their confidence in the crown is almost entirely Mme. Pompadour's doing, and with a new monarch it's gone. I would think what you'd actually get from Damiens succeeding and being connected with Britain is an earlier peace and a stab in the back myth sort of situation.

If I'm wrong and a bizarre wave of patriotism sweeps Paris' bankers, the other immediate changes you want seem reasonable and attributable to random chance to me.
 
I just had an idea in my head I wanted to get out. I'm unlikely to develop it into anything because I have other TLs I am actively working on.

I've read lots of TL about various America-wanks trying to get Canada and (w/ Quebec support) and the Caribbean. They never seemed to go back far enough. The most common (and rightly so) argument against it is often strength of the English navy.

I wondered if a longer more costly seven-years war, which ended early in North America or at the same time in OTL, that unexpectedly weakened the English Navy could bring that about more realistically (but not too far back in time to ensure the existence of the main American founding fathers.)

L15 may not need to die, or maybe its falsely blamed on Prussia instead, but it was an interesting POD if it might have led to anger derived morale boosts among fighting forces on land and sea, and a surge in recruitment. Though as you said maybe there is an earlier end to the seven years war as a result of that, but it could have set the stage for a worse one not long afterwards?

Most other wank like this go with a screw to Britain and/or France, so I also wondered if there could be one which both countries (in the longer run) have gains. France in continental Europe and England in non new world colonies. Of course someone has to get the shaft though.....Prussia seemed most likely since it almost lost out in OTL anyway.

As for cook's voyage going away that was just to play with an idea of longer period of discovery of NZ but, possibly still encountered via shipwreck or Mutiny on the Bounty / Pitcairn Substitute just to see what happens. Though that could be a TL entirely on it's own.
 
Why would the Seven Years' War be longer? France had already been hammered by 1763 and wanted peace, and the British had achieved naval supremacy. The new King in Britain also wanted peace for domestic political reasons, and offered it on generous terms. France staying in the war longer just means they lose more territory.
 
Why would the Seven Years' War be longer? France had already been hammered by 1763 and wanted peace, and the British had achieved naval supremacy. The new King in Britain also wanted peace for domestic political reasons, and offered it on generous terms. France staying in the war longer just means they lose more territory.
Indeed. It might lead to a scenario where Britain, instead of debating over taking a French Caribbean island or Quebec, would simply take both, and possibly more.
 
What suggestions do you have then for creating a situation in which there is a costly European war that Britain is involved in sometime between 1763 and 1774. One which this war is very unpopular in The colonies due to the increased level of taxes and other demands to support, yet is not actually taking place on the North American continent. (I know there is the wars in India but I am thinking of something larger)

This could be either a longer seven years war or a second war that follows it.

Alternatively, on the possibility of France staying in the sevens years war longer, is it plausible that this could occur if they were making successful gains in continental Europe, even at the risk of losing colonial territories? (Ex: no third treaty of Versailles and a French gain of Spanish Netherlands and other continental areas)
 
What suggestions do you have then for creating a situation in which there is a costly European war that Britain is involved in sometime between 1763 and 1774. One which this war is very unpopular in The colonies due to the increased level of taxes and other demands to support, yet is not actually taking place on the North American continent. (I know there is the wars in India but I am thinking of something larger)

This could be either a longer seven years war or a second war that follows it.

Alternatively, on the possibility of France staying in the sevens years war longer, is it plausible that this could occur if they were making successful gains in continental Europe, even at the risk of losing colonial territories? (Ex: no third treaty of Versailles and a French gain of Spanish Netherlands and other continental areas)

French success on the continent just means Britain (possibly) gives back some of the territories she gained from France during the war. And I say possibly, because the King's party got hammered for imagined preference for Hannoverian interests of British ones - I can't imagine the rage in parliament if they actually did it for real in a big way.

1763 is just too late to get what you want, as you need the French to at least maintain parity with the British at sea. And if you have an earlier war, that inevitably means war in America, between Canada and the thirteen colonies.
 
French success on the continent just means Britain (possibly) gives back some of the territories she gained from France during the war. And I say possibly, because the King's party got hammered for imagined preference for Hannoverian interests of British ones - I can't imagine the rage in parliament if they actually did it for real in a big way.

1763 is just too late to get what you want, as you need the French to at least maintain parity with the British at sea. And if you have an earlier war, that inevitably means war in America, between Canada and the thirteen colonies.

That why I consider a 2nd war after the seven years one, and in the opposite of what I first though of, the seven years way could have ended earlier as others suggested. When I say no fighting on North America it is in reference to French Canada already having been defeated and taken by the British either from seven years war that ended on time or earlier. Now I guess that doesn't mean French revolt could not still be occurring, but the point was making that timed at the same time as an American revolt to make them have something in common.

Earlier POD is fine to help give the French a better chance at sea. That is one of the ways the English Navy could have been weakened relative to OTL prior to the revolutionary war having started.
 
Why would the Seven Years' War be longer? France had already been hammered by 1763 and wanted peace, and the British had achieved naval supremacy. The new King in Britain also wanted peace for domestic political reasons, and offered it on generous terms. France staying in the war longer just means they lose more territory.

I don't think I'd call the terms generous to France. A ton of territory (all of North America east of the Mississippi, most of India, Senegal, some Caribbean islands) changed hands in the negotiations, more than was typical for peace negotiations back then. France got back Guadeloupe but that was in a swap for Minorca, which they had captured. France's right to fortify Dunkirk was also greatly reduced. The rights and properties of the deported Acadians were not restored. And so on. This came 15 years after France had given back everything it had conquered in the War of the Austrian Succession.

The British were, however, quite generous to Spain for whatever reason, returning the Philippines and Cuba.
 
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