Seven Years' War · War Crimes & Atrocities
The Seven Years' War's global scale produced atrocities on multiple continents — some committed in the heat of battle, others as deliberate policy. Prussian requisitioning devastated Saxony for years. The East India Company's conquest of Bengal combined military victory with systematic financial exploitation that may have caused the famines that killed millions in subsequent decades. The war's conduct established patterns of colonial extraction and indiscriminate warfare that would characterize European imperialism for the following two centuries.
100,000+
deaths
Victims: Saxon civilian population(estimated deaths from famine, disease, and displacement caused by systematic Prussian requisitioning; military casualties additional)
43+
deaths
Victims: British and European prisoners in Calcutta(British survivor accounts claimed 123 deaths; modern historians estimate 43-64; the event was extensively used as war propaganda)
1,000,000+
deaths
Victims: Bengali population(deaths from the 1769-70 Bengal famine — caused in part by East India Company tax policies established under Clive; direct deaths from conquest significantly smaller)
20,000+
deaths
Victims: Saxon military prisoners and civilians(estimated deaths from forced service in Prussian regiments among Saxon conscripts; many deserted, many were executed for desertion)