Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York: Vintage, 2001)
In Crucible of War, Fred Anderson describes the totality of the Seven Years’ War and positions it as a monumental moment that set the conditions for creating the North America that we know today. Anderson, emeritus professor of history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, is an expert on Colonial American history, mainly colonial militia warfare. Throughout Crucible of War, Anderson reminds readers of the importance of individuals in war, while demonstrating how and why what started as a fight in a colonial backwater over land claims erupted into one of the world’s first global conflagrations. He also extends the reach of the Seven Years’ War to Pontiac’s rebellion and the influence of the Seven Years’ War on the American Revolution, placing this mid-18th Century conflict as vital precursor to American independence.
Unlike previous wars in the 18th Century, hostilities began in the Western Hemisphere first, before spreading to Europe thanks to increasing tensions over the Ohio Country, with both New France and the Virginia colony making claims to the forks of the Ohio River. Both imperial powers converged in this region, putting increased pressure on the Iroquois Confederacy that for decades had negotiated from a position of strategic neutrality that allowed it to play the two empire’s interests off one another. After a young George Washington attacked a French delegation at Jumonville’s Glen, a French counterattack forced his surrender and prompted a force of British regulars under the command of General Edward Braddock to enforce British claims to the region. Their defeat in a brutal ambush precipitated the spread of the conflict from the North American continent to the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, the West African coast, Southeast Asia, and the European mainland.
According to Anderson, early setbacks for the British ushered in strategic recalculation of preexisting assumptions about the French and Indians in North America. British leaders were initially unable to respond effectively to the dual threat of French raids on the frontier and Marquis de Montcalm’s attacks with troops from Canada. The ongoing rivalry between New France Governor Vaudreuil and Montcalm, however, frustrated French strategy as Vaudreuil wanted to focus on the Ohio Valley, whereas Montcalm believed in focusing on Quebec. After Sir William Pitt took control of the British war effort, he focused resources to cut off French access to their colonies, used British regulars and well-paid colonial troops in the colonies, and subsidized an army under Frederick of Brunswick to fight on the continent. By 1759 the British were victorious in North America and focused their attention on Europe, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. The war finally came to a close in 1763 with British domination over the majority of the North American continent and having relegated France and Spain there to secondary powers.
Ultimately, Anderson argues that the British triumph in North America resulted from two factors. First, Royal Navy supremacy allowed the British to control supplies and supply lines, effectively choking New France from support. The second and perhaps more crucial cultural factor was the striking dissimilar manners in which France and Britain adapted to Native American allies. The British, Anderson shows, made more effective use of colonial and Native allies than the French once they overcame their initial cultural aversion to allying with them. Montcalm’s idealized version of European professional warfare led him to treat his Indians as axillaries rather than independent allies and become disgusted at Indian-style warfare. Once trade goods stopped flowing after the fall of Fort William Henry in 1757, relationships fractured. On the other hand, the British reversed their attitudes under the leadership of William Pitt and treated colonists as allies, which led to military victories that eventually secured the support of Ohio Indians and the Iroquois.
Crucible of War is a lengthy albeit readable overview of the entire Seven Years’ War that places the North American action front and center but deftly moves between strategic calculation and tactical action. Anderson ties the political realities of war in London to the conduct of the war in the two major theaters, Europe and America. As Anderson shows, the war galvanized American colonial troops to develop a shared sense of American identity at odds with that of the British regulars they were fighting. This budding American identity, combined with a negative response toward post-war taxation by the Crown, set the conditions for the American Revolution a decade and a half later. Because of its readability, this book is ideal for anyone interested in warfare in the mid-eighteenth century and should be required reading for any student of the American experiment.