A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Conflicts between the Great Powers 397

Map 11.1 The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748 Major battles

and territorial changes at the end of the war.

and had been at war since 1754), the Caribbean, and India (see Map 11.2).
Second, for the first time we can speak of a war not just of kings but self­
consciously of nations, at least in the cases of Britain and France. Both
states underwent a surge of patriotic enthusiasm, marked, for example, in
the case of France by calls for “patriotic gifts” to support the war. In
Britain, the sense of being “Briton” developed among all classes, accentu­

ated by an overwhelmingly popular war against Catholic France. In both
countries there were calls for the more efficient management of the war,
seen as part of pursuing national interests, arguably for the first time.
Prussia’s gains in the War of the Austrian Succession engendered the
Diplomatic Revolution of 1756. France had previously undertaken alliances
with Prussia and the Ottoman Empire to counter the threat of Austrian