ABSTRACT
When the Seven Years War began France was the strongest power in Europe. Her economy was advanced and diverse, her population three times that of Great Britain and Ireland. With a large peacetime army, readily expandable, her military power was vastly greater than Britain’s, whose peacetime army was small and means of military recruiting constricted. Without doubt Britain had the superior navy, but the war began badly for the British even in the maritime and colonial sphere. In 1757 it seemed obvious that France would win the war.
