The Seven Years War was a global contest between the two superpowers of eighteenth century Europe, France and Britain. Winston Churchill called it the first World War. Neither side could afford to lose advantage in any part of the world, and the decisive battles of the war ranged from Fort Duquesne in what is now Pittsburgh to Minorca in the Mediterranean, from Bengal to Quèbec. By its end British power in North America and India had been consolidated and the foundations of Empire laid, yet