The First World War
The importance of the Seven Years War (1754-1763) in our strategic memory bank
“Develop deep memory - Historical amnesia equals bad strategy.”
In the summer of 1757, Britain sat on the precipice of defeat against France in what is widely considered by historians as the first truly global military conflict.
The combatants were Britain, whose European allies included Prussia and Portugal, and whose Native American allies included the Iroquois, and the Cherokee; and France, whose European allies included Austria, Russia, Spain, and Sweden, and whose Native American allies, included the Delawares, Algonquins, Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Shawnees.
The conflict raged from Austria, to the Indian subcontinent, to the mediterranean, to the West Indies, to the deep forests of the North American frontier — a series of cabins, trading posts, and forts, which stretched in a broad arc from modern day East Tennessee, to the Ohio Valley & Great Lakes, to the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, to the Nova Scotian isthmus.
My fascination with this war ignited as a little kid, when I first watched Michael Mann’s brilliant period piece Last of the Mohicans. It is worth noting that the film was produced with an impressive eye for historical accuracy and that from its final 8 minutes emerges the greatest musical score and most memorable scene in cinematic history :-).
My fascination with this war has grown significantly over the years, and I’ve come to view it as important for three reasons:
Its position in history, the 1750s, is analogous to the 2020s — both decades sit on the cusps of profound technological transformations.
Its result. A signifiant share of modern human experience traces its origins to this first world war and the world order it precipitated.
Its strategic lessons are multi-fold for company builders and policy makers.
Position in History
The 7-years war occurred at the fascinating intersection of eras — a true temporal estuary that saw the last vestiges of the agrarian era flow into the early early innings of the industrial era.
Analogous to the cusp era we inhabit today — the end of the industrial era and the beginning of the knowledge era — the global inflections that were carrying the world of 1757 away from agrarianism and toward machine-driven urbanism offer entertaining mental exercise.
There were the major technological innovations of the day, notable among others for advances in energy capture (e.g. Benjamin Franklin & electricity) and in naval & navigational technology that sped up transportation and proliferated global trade.
There were legal innovations that accelerated the formation of pseudo-private, state-sponsored enterprises (e.g. the British & Dutch East India Companies), leading to the advent of capital outflows from the church and the state to a growing number of entrepreneurs, privateers, and private investors. These innovations produced the first multi-national corporations, and were essential in the expansion of European empires at the extraordinary expense of peoples in West Africa, India, and the Americas.
And there were the financial innovations. For example Great Britain’s creation of the Bank of England in 1694, designed to enable the crown to raise money to finance imperial conflicts by selling war bonds, as well as the parallel innovations by the exiled Scotsman John Law, who introduced fiat money & central banking to France in the early 1700’s. The Bank of England and Law’s Banque Generale, enabled London and Versailles to stimulate their national economies by replacing gold with paper credit and increasing the supply of paper money. These innovations, again stemming largely from imperial ambitions, resulted in enormous flows of capital, not only into maintaining the balance of power in Europe, but also into high risk, high reward ventures around the globe.
The foundations of modern experience
A new idea I’ve been grappling with (new for me) is to consider human experience through the lens of both back and front-end stacks. In other words, the layers that comprise the human experience, both internal, or back-end (e.g. genetics or memories), and external, or front-end (e.g. politics or economics).
Through this lens, the 7 Year’s War serves as foundational source material for the modern world order, contributing deeply to several layers within the stack.
The first layer is narrative ownership, which can be wrapped as mythological. The 7 Year’s War’s formative contribution to our collective understanding of history has been a 250-year period in which the British Empire, eventually merging with its American cousin, would monopolize the production and preservation of the dominant mythologies used to explain history and incentivize the future (e.g. the utility of progress & democratic capitalism).
The second layer is geopolitical, technological, and financial, which can be wrapped as economic. The 7 Year’s War’s formative contribution to the economic scaffolding of the last quarter millennia has been the globalization of goods and information, endless imperial security dilemmas & alliances, military industrial complexes as catalysts of technology advancements, and the expansion of global industrialization and financialization via central banks, paper currencies, and state-sponsored multi-national corporations as agents of both empire and technological innovation.
The third layer is social & psychological, which can be wrapped as political. The 7 Year’s War’s formative contribution to modern social dynamics is difficult to over-state and includes:
the ascent of Anglo-American Empire
the elimination of French power from the majority of North America
the fall of the Indian subcontinent to British colonial rule
the perpetuation, for another century, of slavery in North America
the death blow to the Iroquois Confederation, which up until the 1740s had managed to preserve real power from New England to Virginia
the beginning of the end of the Chinese Ming Dynasty, again within a century, in the lead up to the 19th century opium wars with Britain
the beginnings of Prussian power consolidation in central Europe
the beginning of the end of British rule over the American colonies, resulting in the independence Britain’s imperial cousin, the United States
Strategic Memory Banks
In effect, the result of this war, which was by no means a foregone conclusion in late 1757, has been the 250-year reign of Anglo-American interests across the globe, with only brief periods of interlude or direct competition: the Napoleonic Wars, WWI, WWII, and the Cold War.
The war is a repository of strategic do’s and dont’s, and presents a series of British mistakes, followed by a strategic reversal that culminated in British victory.
The simple story of this turn of events is three-fold:
Control supply chains - The British ministers of war shifted the strategy to emphasize North America, rather than Europe, as the source of French wealth, and therefore the strategic focal point. If the Royal navy could eliminate France’s ability to both supply her armies in Canada, as well as prevent the importation of Canadian furs, France’s most valuable source of imperial wealth would be eliminated.
Avoid being spread thin, so as to double-down on strength - Simultaneously, the British stopped sending troops to Hanover (in modern Germany), and instead subsidized Prussia’s Frederick the Great to fight France in central Europe. This allowed Britain to re-allocate the majority of its manpower to its naval strategy, while financing from afar the Prussian effort to deplete French power on the continent.
Persuade, rather than coerce - Thirdly, and most significantly, in late 1757, the British changed policy with regard to American colonials. For 3 years, the British commanders in North America had coerced colonial militias. These tactics had produced colonial resentment and a losing record. To ignite the manpower advantages the British Colonies had over French Canada, the colonies would need to be persuaded and incentivized rather than conscripted.
The lessons available for company builders & policy makers are multi-fold:
Force, as a means of incentivizing cooperation, is short-termist and will always jeopardize long-term success by igniting more powerful reactionary forces
Supply chains are the greatest source of both competitive advantage & weakness, and the durability of supply chains are effective predictors of success
Even in a globalizing world, deep respect for local culture & geography is paramount for enduring success
References
The following books informed much of my understanding of this period. All of them are fantastic.
Crucible of War by Fred Anderson
The Anarchy by William Dalyrimple
Imperial Twilight by Stephen Platt
John Law by James Buchan
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson