The Bells of Victory

'Our Bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victory', wrote Horace Walpole after receiving news of Wolfe's victory at Quebec in October 1759. Traditional accounts of the Seven Years' War have emphasized the contribution of the Elder Pitt to the success of Britain in Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, India and the Far East. The Bells of Victory argues that such a view is misguided and that, far from exercising single-handed control, Pitt's influence was necessarily circumscribed. The margin between military success and failure was extremely small, and the British authorities worked within constraints imposed by constitutional propriety and political expediency. Effective government action was the result of teamwork by many individuals in the diverse fields of diplomacy, politics, finance, the army, navy, ordnance and commissariat.