hi i like history and i study it in college and it is my fave subject and this is a thread about history contains big overviews of wars and some other stuff because i like to write about these things and i also have no life feel free to read if you want to learn about cool wars and things i find interesting will probably mostly be about european stuff because i'm not knowledgeable enough about other continents and also i guess since europe controlled the world for most of the last millenia it'll encompass all of that too i'm also gonna use the word encompass a lot in this that word is cool its gonna be like shadow_dcord's guide to mythical beasts and monsters but with history i guess history is cool, kids read the stuff i've written please thanks (please please do it) discussion is also encouraged and appreciated pls don't let my thread be ded ask questions to me about stuff if you have questions thank you and no the posts will not be written like this thank god in fact I have literally no idea why i'm writing like this atm Contents A Very British Rise To Dominance The Seven Years War: https://empireminecraft.com/threads/a-history-thread.72536/#post-1343490 The American Revolution: https://empireminecraft.com/threads/a-history-thread.72536/#post-1343520 The Napoleonic Wars: The Crimean War: World War I:
The Seven Years War (1754 - 1763) The Seven Years war began in North America in the year 1754, after the British, lead by George Washington, attacked French positions where they had disputes with the British over who owned the land. They also seized hundreds of French merchant ships. The British, who didn't have a very strong land army and so relied on the tribes to do the ground work for them, were supported by the Iroquois, and the French were supported by most other Native American tribes - especially the Abenaki Confederacy. The French and Indian War was generally a failure for the British, as they failed to make any significant gains at this point. Over in India, the British East India Company was waging an economic war against the French and the Dutch Republic in an attempt to establish its dominant control of the valuables held within the subcontinent. The Mughal Empire - who were an ally of France - was a declining power in the region and frequently experienced infighting, making it ripe for European exploitation. They were attempting to stop a British attempt to conquer Bengal, which they failed to do, and the British annexed Bengal in 1757. Meanwhile in Europe, Austria desired to take the region of Silesia (located in modern day Poland, Germany and Czechia) back from Prussia. Despite the French hating the House of Habsburg, who ruled Austria, they saw an opportunity to cut Great Britain and Prussia down to size. After Prussia launched a preemptive strike on Saxony, the Kingdom of France and Austria formed a coalition, encompassing Saxony, Bavaria, and the Russian Empire. The Austrian-lead portion of the Holy Roman Empire also joined in, which included states such as the modern day nations of Hungary and Belgium. They all wished to beat and carve up Prussia to expand their own borders, or pacify the growing Prussian threat. They were the Treaty of Versailles. Threatened by this surprise alliance, the Kingdom of Great Britain aligned herself with Prussia and broke ties with Austria - who, up until this point, was a British ally - in an event called the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756. Great Britain was followed by her oldest ally, Portugal. A collection of small German states also joined in on the Anglo-Prussian side (the Westminster Convention). As a result of these two grand alliances, almost every great power of Europe had taken a side. Unlike in many previous wars, the middle powers of Europe didn't pick a side. The Dutch Republic, a traditional British ally, didn't come to her aid because the Dutch highly doubted that Britain and Prussia would be able to take on France, Austria and Russia and actually win. On the other hand, many of the Italian states - traditional allies of France - declined to join in as they actually feared the British would be able to overpower France's alliance. The Prussian invasion of Saxony was a success, however they failed to push into Bohemia as they had hoped they would be able to. The French moved into Hanover in 1757, and the Austrians moved into Saxony - Prussia defeated both armies. However, a Prussian offensive into Austria failed and the Russians moved into East Prussia (modern day Kalingrad). By 1759, Prussia was on her last legs and facing imminent defeat - Great Britain was nowhere to be seen, as she was focusing on North America, and doing quite well for herself. She was also all over the world, facing off France at sea - back then, it wasn't really established that Britain would be able to kick ocean ass. Austria and Russia made some really stupid mistakes that cost them their offensive in Prussia as they were about to capture Berlin, and France was torn between North America and Europe, and even India, and couldn't support any one of these. The Prussians could only sit and wait and defend themselves as they were much too weak to lead an attack, and would do so until 1762. Catherine II of Russia died in 1762 - being succeeded by her German nephew, Peter III. He pulled Russia out of the war. Spain, France's ally, also entered the fray in 1762, turning their attention upon Portugal - who was still covering from the devastating Lisbon earthquake, and had thus kept their input to a minimum over the past few years. Most Spanish troops died due to disease and they had incredibly low morale, causing them to lose the invasion by the end of the year. However, in South America, Spain made some gains by attacking Portuguese Brazil, but they had nowhere near the success they expected they would have. Losing the war, France had a genius plan to invade Great Britain by land and force her to capitulate. Their ships were sunk before they even got close to British shores. In 1763, the war was ended. The war went very, very well for Great Britain. She annexed a large portion of New France in North America, took Florida from the Spanish, a few islands in the West Indies, the African colony of Senegal, and established her supremacy over France in India. Britannia also secured her place as the dominant power in the world - a status we now know as a superpower, currently held in the modern day by the United States of America. She did suffer a small rebellion from the Native Americans, who were excluded from any kind of settlement, but put them down with relative ease. However, she was now bankrupt and needed time to recover - imposing a few taxes on the Thirteen Colonies to rebuild her treasury, which really annoyed them. Prussia awarded herself with the borders of Europe staying the same, and enjoyed its position as the latest great power of Europe. Prussia would eventually go on to form the German Empire in 1871. Portugal lived to see another day, but still failed to regain her status as a European great power. Austria failed to regain control of Silesia from Prussia, but its capacity for being pretty good at war was duly noted. Spain, weirdly, escaped being punished for being a loser - at least, in comparison to the other members of the Treaty of Versailles. The Spanish Empire, although they lost control of Florida, gained control over French Louisiana and was allowed to regain her colonies of Cuba and the Philippines. They failed to regain their status as a great power, and were still salty about losing the war - aiding France and the Thirteen Colonies against Great Britain in the American Revolution, hoping to destroy the concept of British supremacy over the world. The Kingdom of France lost many of her colonies and had burdened herself with a crippling debt that launched her on a downward spiral to the French Revolution. She lost her supremacy over the world. This didn't stop her from being the only reason the Patriots won the American Revolution a few years later (if you're interested, I'll happily explain why ), or having the world's largest land army. The Seven Years War changed the European Balance of Power, the idea that no country should maintain absolute hegemony over the continent, and worked through a system of intricate alliances - if you're wondering where this idea is now, it currently manifests itself in the European Union. It resulted in 1.4 million deaths, and laid the foundations for the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, Pax Britannica, and the Great War/World War I.
I wrote this up yesterday for independence day because I felt like it so here The American Revolution (1775 - 1783) The Thirteen Colonies were a British possession in the New World, alongside the British West Indies, British Florida, and British Canada. Unlike the other colonies, however, the Thirteen Colonies governed themselves, even having local elections, and didn't adhere to the British policy of Mercantilism (the idea that all colonies existed for the benefit of the mother country) - the reason being because the British Prime Minister of the time, Robert Walpole, believed this policy restricted economic growth. They rejected the British call for more control over them, and began to work more closely with one another, creating an American identity. After the Seven Years War, they were also tasked with defending themselves, making them more independent from London. Another result of the Seven Years War was that the British demanded more taxes from them as they were bankrupt, and imposed more and more laws (a lot of them were passed to not upset the natives - a big reason that the natives sided with the British) that the Thirteen Colonies deemed to be unfair. As a result of these increasingly free-minded people becoming more militant, they adopted the slogan 'No Taxation without Representation' and demanded the same rights as Englishmen - none of this actually made sense as not even the British people had representation in their own Parliament at that point. This escalated into the Sons of Liberty, an underground organisation of Patriots, dumping a tea shipment in the Boston Harbour in 1773 - causing the British to place restrictions upon the colony of Massachusetts. In response to these measures, Massachusetts colonists established a shadow government. Twelve of the thirteen colonies (the colony of Georgia refused to attend as they wanted the British to sort out their little Native American problem for them) established a Continental Congress in 1774 to coordinate their resistance to the British. This Congress, in its first meeting, asked for King George III to stop punishing Massachusetts and placed economic sanctions upon the Kingdom of Great Britain. Initially, the congress was divided upon actually becoming independent or staying with Britain - and only one third of the colonists actually supported independence. In their petition to the King, it is interesting to note that it showed Congress actually aligned themselves with the British Monarchy, rather than the British Parliament, and they wished to maintain their statuses as colonies of the British if their demands were met. In 1775, the British declared that Massachusetts was in a state of rebellion and attempted to forcefully disarm their militia in April, which erupted into the Battle of Lexington and Concord - officially starting the American Revolution. Outnumbered, the militia retreated from Lexington, where 400 of the militia fought against 100 British Army regulars - the British retreated. 1,700 British soldiers marched on the city of Boston and began the Siege of Boston - it would last until March 1776, ending in the British retreating to Nova Scotia. The Continental Congress of the twelve colonies met once again in May 1775, and this session would see them adopt radical change. It was here the US Declaration of Independence was created, the Continental Army was created - led by George Washington (that one guy who started the Seven Years War), and a new form of currency was issued in the colonies backed by European loans (mostly French) - it was easily exploited by the British, who spread counterfeit continentals, and was not a stable form of currency at all. The first act by the Continental Army was the Invasion of Quebec. They wished to gain control of the region and convince the French-speaking Canadians to join them. Though it was difficult, they managed to make some gains and made it to the city of Quebec. 1,200 colonists fought in the Battle of Quebec against 1,800 British - over 50 colonists were killed, 34 were wounded, and 341 were captured. In comparison, only 5 British were killed, with only 15 wounded. The Continental Army was forced to retreat, and it was their first defeat of the war. Sometime in 1776, the French began supplying the colonists with arms, ammunition, uniforms and more. They supplied over 90% of the colonist's gunpowder - without this help, the colonies would have been reduced to swords and fists before long, as they couldn't produce these items by themselves. The Continental Congress declared America's independence on June 4th, 1776. After this, the British launched a counter-offensive, capturing the city of New York, and the Americans - now losing the war - lost morale. In 1777, the British launched the Saratoga campaign, intending to isolate New England and make them ripe for invasion. Instead of assisting in the Saratoga campaign like he was SUPPOSED TO DO, Mr. Howe (British military general), decided to go capture Philadelphia instead. This was good, as it was America's capital. It was immensely bad, however, as the British lost at the Battle of Saratoga - losing thousands of men and giving the Americans the confidence of a certain few salty foreign powers. The Kingdom of France, who was already helping the Americans, formally allied with the Thirteen Colonies in 1778 - sending them 300,000 French soldiers. Keep in mind that the Kingdom of Great Britain, at this point, only had 95,000 men defending them worldwide and only 45,000 of them were stationed in North America. Spain joined the war in 1779 - causing the British to have to battle even more ships as they travelled across the Atlantic Ocean. After the French and Spanish joined, British ships were absolutely beaten and broken and in no suitable shape for fighting the colonists. In 1780, the British were attacked by Mysore in Asia and were forced to go fight another war (ended in 1784 as a stalemate), and the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war (ended in 1784, Dutch got their asses kicked, leading to their collapse in 1795) opened up against the Dutch Republic at the same time. The British plotted a Loyalist uprising within the Thirteen Colonies, but not enough colonists volunteered. The British suffered some defeats in battle that forced them to retreat to Yorktown, where they intended to evacuate - French ships destroyed the British ships there, leading to the surrender of the British Army in North America. The British Parliament voted to end the war in 1782. The war still raged on in Europe, however. While the Spanish lay siege to Gibraltar, the British scored a naval victory over the French at Saintes, forcing the French and Spanish to abandon their plans to invade Jamaica. The British signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783, recognising the independence of the United States of America (making them the third country to do so) and bringing an end to the war. The First British Empire collapsed, although they managed to gain a colony from the Dutch Republic. They also retained control of Canada. The Kingdom of France regained their colony of Senegal that the British had taken in 1763 and also gained control of Tobago. However, they massively added to their already crippling debt and the colonies they gained weren't really that important to them. Spain regained their colony of Florida and took back control of Minorca from the British. However, they failed to take back Gibraltar - something they still wish to do today. The American Revolution was pretty profound. It was the second world war, and over 159,000 men were killed. The Iroquois tribe descended into civil war, the British were forced to start a second British Empire after losing their most valuable colonies (turning their attention onto India and going on their path to having the largest empire ever), America became independent, and France shot itself in the foot and accelerated their already rapid descent into VIVA LA REVOLUTION.
