France in the Seven Years' War

France was one of the leading participants in the Seven Years' War which lasted between 1754 and 1763. France entered the war with the hope of achieving a lasting victory against Prussia, Britain, and their German allies and with the hope of expanding its colonial possessions.

While the first few years of war proved successful for the French, in 1759 the situation reversed and they suffered defeats on several continents. In an effort to reverse their losses, France finished an alliance with their neighbor, Spain, in 1761. In spite of this the French continued to suffer defeats throughout 1762 eventually forcing them to sue for peace. The 1763 Treaty of Paris confirmed the loss of French possessions in North America and Asia to the British. France also finished the war with very heavy debts, which they struggled to repay for the remainder of the 18th century which later leads to the French Revolution in 1789 and the Haitian Revolution in 1791 led by the former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines to defeat the French army during the Battle of Vertières and the French colony of Saint-Domingue finally won independence from France on 1 January 1804 which was then renamed Ayiti. Haiti became the world's first and oldest black-led republic in the Western Hemisphere and the second oldest independent nation in New World after the United States that also won independence from Great Britain on 4 July 1776.