Key Facts
- Campaign start
- 1758 (British offensive begins)
- Military regime period
- 1760–1763
- Treaty ending conflict
- Treaty of Paris, 1763
- French settler population
- ~70,000 at time of conquest
- French colony established
- 1535
Strategic Narrative Overview
Britain launched a sustained military campaign in 1758 targeting French fortifications and settlements across New France. Key offensives reduced French strongholds progressively, culminating in the fall of major colonial centers. By 1760, British forces had established military control over the entirety of New France, imposing a military regime that governed the region for three years while diplomatic negotiations continued in Europe to settle the wider war's terms.
01 / The Origins
The Conquest of New France unfolded within the broader Seven Years' War, a global conflict between Great Britain and France. French Canada, established in 1535, was a strategically vital colony controlling the St. Lawrence River and vast interior trade networks. British imperial ambitions and ongoing Anglo-French rivalry over North American territory, trade, and Indigenous alliances made the French colony a primary target of British military strategy from the late 1750s onward.
03 / The Outcome
The 1763 Treaty of Paris formally transferred Canada from France to Great Britain, ending French imperial presence in mainland North America. Britain's military regime gave way to formal colonial administration. The roughly 70,000 French-speaking inhabitants remained under British rule, creating lasting tensions over language, religion, and legal rights that have shaped Canadian history. The conquest's treatment of French settlers and Indigenous nations remains a subject of ongoing historical and political debate.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Side B
1 belligerent