to talk about war. Ah! Explosions everywhere!

So, traditionally, historians are pretty keen on wars, because they feature clearly delineated

beginnings, and middles, and ends, and because they always have a fair bit of death and drama

and mortally wounded generals who have great last words like

"Let us cross the river and rest under the shade of those trees,"

whereas the last words of, plague victims are always, like, "Unggggg."

Sorry, plague victims. As if you don't have enough troubles. Now you've got me teasing

you about your uninspired death throes.

Wars have easy whens, wheres, whos, and whys: 1861-1865. The United States. The North vs.

the South. To end slavery and save the Union.

Mr. Green, Mr. Green. Are you gonna show us the hidden complexities behind something we

already think we understand again?

Sorry me from the past, but yes. However, to placate you, here are some more explosions.

The 17th and 18th centuries saw a bunch of top-notch wars, but today we're going to focus

on the 7 Years War, also called the French and Indian War, because it was the first truly

global war.

In fact, no less a historian than Winston Churchill called it "The first world war."

But we've been so Eurocentric here on Crash Course that all we are going to say about

the ENTIRE WAR IN EUROPE is that Prussia and Great Britain fought France and Austria, and

that the Austrian Hapsburgs wanted to win back Silesia, which they failed to do. THERE.

THAT'S ALL YOU GET, EUROPE.

So the Seven Years War lasted for...anyone...anyone...

Twenty three years.

I hate you, Me from the Past. But, as it happens, by sheer coincidence, you are not necessarily

wrong.

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So, the when: The Seven Years War began in 1756 and ended in 1763.

Unless you believe—as many historians do—that the 7 Years War lasted 23 years, because it

was really a continuation of the War for Austrian Succession.

Then you have the fact that much of the information in today's episode is taken from a book called,

"The Global Seven Years War: 1754-1763," a nine year period.

As for the who: It was mainly fought between the British and the French, seen here reenacting

the knife fight from either Beat It or West Side Story, depending on your age.

But some of the British were actually Americans, and both the British and the French were supported

by American Indians.

And there was fighting in India between Indian Indians, the British, the French.

And as previously noted the French were fighting the Prussians and the British were fighting

the Austrians.

The where: Europe, the continental U.S., the Caribbean Sea, off the cost of Africa, India.

Basically, the world.

And the why: Ostensibly, land. British colonists wanted to expand into land west of the original

13 colonies.

And that land was technically held by the French, who left it alone except for a bunch

of trading posts. And they were like, "Je de veux pens l'anglais."

Thank you, four years of high school French.

Anyway, the war wasn't really about land; it was really about our old friend trade.

The British wanted to expand into the American interior to allow for more colonists, because

the British benefited from both the export of raw materials from the Americas and the

import of British consumer goods to the Americas.

So, more colonists meant more trade, which meant more wealth, which meant ever-fancier

hats.

And the French realized that this British-Atlantic maritime trade was making Britain so rich

that British might come for France's actually valuable colonies—which were not in the

continental U.S. but those slave-based sugar plantations in the Caribbean.

So the fighting began around here. And while the British did send over actual British troops,

much of the early fighting was done by colonial militias.

Probably the most famous commander of British troops was a Virginia colonel named George

Washington.

In fact, he may have actually started the shooting at the battle of Fort Necessity in

May of 1754. Washington was captured in that battle and then he was immediately released

because 18th century war was super weird.

Anyway, the real North American action was in New York and Canada. At the battle at the

Plains of Abraham in 1759, for instance, the British defeated the French and captured the

city of Quebec. Both the British commander, General Wolfe and the French commander, General

Montcalm, were killed at this battle, with the death of the former being immortalized

in this famous painting, by Benjamin West:

As indicated by the picture, almost all the battles in North America featured significant

participation by Native Americans.

Different Native tribes sided with both the British and the French, but as a broad generalization,

Native Americans were more likely to support the French.

Up to this point, shrewd Indian tribes had been able to play the British and the French

off each other and maintain a degree of autonomy for themselves.

And as long as the French were present, the British were prevented from encroaching too

much on lands Native Americans were using for hunting and agriculture.

Now, we haven't talked much about American Indians, mostly because they were geographically

isolated and didn't have a written language. But let's at least give them a Thought Bubble.

Before the arrival of the Europeans, most Native Americans lived in tribal groups. And

they subsisted on a combination of small-scale agriculture and hunting and gathering, depending

on where they were situated.

There were too many tribes to generalize about specific social structures but it's probably

safe to say that in terms of gender they were much more egalitarian than the Europeans who

they met up with.

Which may explain why European women who were taken captive by Indians sometimes preferred

to stay with the tribe rather than be rescued, although that's somewhat controversial.

One thing we can say about the Indians: their notions of what it meant to hold property

were very different from those of the Europeans. Individual Indians did not "own" land in the

European sense; they used it, and not always particularly intensively.

Europeans, when they came to North America, had a hard time even recognizing that the

Indians were raising crops because their forms of farming were so different from European

agriculture, so the French and especially the English just assumed that the Indians

weren't improving the land, which meant that they didn't own the land, so that meant that

it was ok for Europeans to take it. As you might imagine, that was problematic for the

Indians.

In general, Indian tribes initially got along better with the French than with the Dutch

or English because 1. The French did not settle in large numbers,

as they were mostly traders and fur trappers, and 2. French missionaries who made the journey

to the Americas were Catholic, often Jesuits, who were so intent on converting the Indians

that they took the time to learn Indian languages and try to make Catholicism more amenable

to Indian religion.

The end result of the war, a greatly reduced French presence on the American mainland,

meant that Indians could no longer easily play the British and French off each other,

which opened the floodgates of British settlers. In the end, the American Indians were perhaps

the biggest losers of the 7 Years War.

Thanks Thought Bubble. So, two thousand miles south, in the Caribbean, there was also quite

a lot of fighting between the French and the British over sugar colonies.

Most of these were naval battles, and by 1761, Spain got involved, because, you know, they

had some sugar colonies of their own.

While these battles get a lot of ink, it's interesting to note that by far, the greatest

threat to combatants, was disease.

By October of 1761 the British had lost about 1,000 men to war and 5,000 to disease.

Meanwhile in West Africa, the British and the French were fighting there too. Because,

you know, why not?

The British attacked the French at a trading post called Saint Louis. Aw, Stan, don't make

me say it right. Fine. Saint Louis.

And at a town called Goree, both in Senegal. Why? Well, trade, of course.

Senegal was the major source of gum Arabic, which is notable for many reasons but most

importantly, it is a key ingredient in the Diet Coke and Mentos phenomenon, so of course

the British wanted lots of it.

The French were also fighting the British in India.

In the 18th century India was nominally ruled by the Mughal empire. I bet I'm saying that

wrong, aren't I?

Computer: Mugal. John: Yeah, that sounds more plausible.

But as throughout most of its history, the real power in India lay with local kings and

princes, sometimes called nawabs.

And these princes, just like their European counterparts were constantly vying for power

and control over more territory.

And to get it, they often enlisted the help, especially the military help, of Europeans.

This is what happened in the most notorious event in the 7 Years War in India, the Black

Hole of Calcutta.

In June of 1756 the British governor of Calcutta, Roger Drake, made the mistake of insulting

the emissaries sent by the nawab Siraj-ud-daula, who duly besieged and captured the English

garrison of 500 with his own army of 30,000.

Drake escaped to nearby ships with the town's women and children—you know the old saying,

women, children, and governors first.

But the town's defenders remained, and the survivors were imprisoned in a small windowless

room that came to be known as the Black Hole.

And 40 of 63 prisoners suffocated overnight.

This story is mostly famous, in a war that killed a million people, because the British

press exaggerated the numbers in order to build support for the war in India.

Not the last time that exaggerations of enemy brutality would be used to gin up support

for a war.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the military campaigns in this part of the world

is that, at least initially, they were not undertaken by governments themselves, but

by corporations that had their own armies.

The British East India Company was the most successful of these corporations primarily

because of the military skill of its leader, Robert Clive.

Oh, it's time for the open letter? An Open Letter to Robert Clive.

But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today. Oh, bubbles. That makes

sense, Stan. The British East India Company was involved in several early market bubbles.

Mmm, bubbles.

Dear Robert Clive, You were a complicated man, and not entirely

likable, but you did win a very important battle at Plassey in 1757.

And the way you won it says a lot about the relationship between Europe and its colonies.

So, the key to your success was a conspiracy to overthrow the existing nawab orchestrated

by a Bengali banking family, called the Seths. No, Stan. The Seths. Yes. Come on.

And in thanks for your support of their conspiracy, the new nawab quickly signed a treaty with

your company, the East India Company.

And thereafter, the British had effective control over trade in Bengal and the French

were excluded from it.

This was an incredibly valuable region because it produced silk and inexpensive cotton cloth

for export. And it gave the British a decisive advantage over the French and eventually allowed

them to control all of India.

And you accomplished this, Robert Clive, primarily by fomenting revolution. Why does this work

for you and it never works for the CIA? Best wishes,

John Green

So, by now you have probably figured out that since the French kept losing battles they

eventually lost the war.

The main peace treaty, signed in Paris in 1763, limited French presence in the Caribbean,

in India, and in North America.

Although not completely, otherwise they couldn't have sold Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson in

1803.

So, France was obviously dramatically weakened. But overall, so was Britain.

One thing rarely mentioned is the actual human cost of war. As many as a million combatants

died in the Seven Years War, but even that doesn't tell the whole story.

In the 18th century armies usually fed themselves by foraging, which really meant just pillaging

the countryside.

In Europe, a single Prussian province lost a fifth of its population to pillaging. And

in North America settlers in frontier regions lived in constant fear of raids.

And, one of the perhaps lesser known outcomes of the war was the systematic deportation

of the French Acadians from Maine to Louisiana where they became Cajuns.

Meaning that the stars of the television shows Lobster Wars and Swamp Wars are basically

the same people. What's that? There's no television show called Swamp Wars? STAN, CANCEL EVERYTHING

AND GET ME ON THE PHONE WITH THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL.

One last thing about wars: they are expensive.

In 1756 the British national debt was £75million; in 1763 it was £133 million.

Someone had to pay for this, and the British felt it was only fair that American colonists

should foot the bill.

And those taxes, which helped fuel the American Revolution, were a direct result of the Seven

Years War.

So in one way, winning the Seven Years War cost Britain its first empire.

But, when we remember that it was a global war, and especially when we think about what

happened in India, then the Seven Years War also begins to look like the beginning of