The Seven Years War in Europe

Franz Szabo: the Seven Years War

In this groundbreaking new work, based on a thorough re-reading of primary sources and new research of the Austrian State Archives, Franz A. J. Szabo presents a scholarly but eminently readable and stimulating reassessment of the continental war - the first in nearly a century.

Professor Szabo challenges the well-established myth that the Seven Years War was won through the military skill and tenacity of the King of Prussia, often styled 'Frederick the Great'. Instead he argues that Prussia did not win but merely survived the Seven Years War, and did so despite and not because of the actions and decisions of its king. The Seven Years War was not the cabinet war that history has written it to be but a war that drove all participants to near collapse and, in doing so, changed the face of Europe.

With balanced attention to all the major participants and to all conflict zones on the European continent, this volume describes the strategies and tactics of the military leaders on all sides, analyses all the major battles of the war, and illuminates the diplomatic, political and financial aspects of the conflict.  By providing a clear analysis of English, French and Prussian, as well as Austrian, Russian and Swedish policies and actions, the book offers a new perspective on the war as a whole.

Franz A.J. Szabo is Professor of History and Director of the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.  Among his publications are Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism, 1753-1780, which won both the Barbara Jelavich Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and the Austrian Cultural Institute Prize for best book in Austrian Studies. He has been awarded the Austrian Order of Merit for the Arts and Sciences for his contributions to Central European scholarship.