Guest Post: Jan 13, 1760 - William Pitt the Elder Resigns

This article first appeared on Today in Alternate History co-written by Jeff Provine, Philip Ebbrell and Thomas Wm. Hamilton from a "Six Years' War" variant.

The final straw of the Annus Pestis was the ravaging of the Royal Navy at the Battle of Quiberon Bay as Great Britain's Wooden Wall had been unexpectedly swept away. In pursuing her ambition for global expansion, she had placed the home islands in jeopardy. On the European continent, French troops formed a siege of Minden, taking large swaths of German land west of the Weser River. Unwilling to negotiate peace, and unable to raise a militia to fight a French invasion force, Leader of the House of Commons William Pitt the Elder resigned with the country in crisis.

There would never be time to renew the Royal Navy as France hurried to repair their fleet to protect a launched invasion of Britain as soon as weather permitted. With England frantic, it was rather fortunate that Great Britain had a Hanoverian monarch. Pitt's successor Henry Fox had no alternative other than to throw-in with the Prussians and the other Baltic Powers.

The French did manage to land a small army; however after a threatening march on London, their forces were defeated at Haywards Heath. Despite this brief reprieve, only a thrust from German allies of Hannover could save the war. Fortunately for Fox's government, the Prussians inflicted a heavy military defeat upon the distracted French at Verdun. As allied Germans marched toward Paris, this would lead to catastrophe and revolution across the Bourbon realms.

Although Great Britain had dreamt of global supremacy, it was impossible to absorb the entirety of the French Colonial Empire. Strapped for funds and eager to cut expenses where possible, Fox made the crucial decision to grant a parliament to the American colonies, which would raise funds for a coordinated militia following the idea put forth by Philadelphia newspaperman Benjamin Franklin in his famed cartoon. This strategy would stand the test of time, as expansion into the Ohio Valley and west of the Appalachian continued well into the eighteenth century.

Matters were far less satisfactory on the European continent where the French threat had been replaced by the nightmare of Prussian-led German chauvinism. Pitt would famously remark that Fox had led Britain "Out Of The Frying Pan And Into The Fire."

Provine's Note

In reality, the Battle of Quiberon Bay was be the last great British victory in 1759, which came to be known as the Annus Mirabilis (Year of Miracles). They had driven the French nearly out of Canada, captured Guadeloupe, held Madras in India, and aided their German allies in victories on the Continent. Perhaps most significant were the victories at sea, particularly Quiberon Bay, where Britain would establish itself as unquestioned master of the seas for the next 150 years.

Provine's Addendum

With France broken, Prussia eagerly stepped into the western power vacuum. Wars raged north and south across the middle of the continent as they had a century before with the Austrians gradually losing ground as Prussia gained more German allies to complement their "navy" of Britain and Portugal. Spain and France lost much of their colonial holdings as Portugal came into a second golden age at sea. The "American Model" of moderate self-rule with the mother-country pulling strings from a distance proved effective, especially as a growing middle class emerged from the early days of the Industrial Revolution. For the most part, Britain tried to stay away from European land wars, instead swinging in to gobble up ports wherever left unguarded by nations maintaining their armies at home.

True to Pitt's words, however, it was only a matter of decades before Prussia became dominant among the German nations, absorbing Austria and supporting the Hungarians and Poles as frontiers against the Ottomans and Russians, respectively. German interests then turned to their own overseas empire, which would have to be carved out by naval war among the lands formerly dominated by France and Spain and now held by the British, Dutch, and Portuguese.