This excerpt from C. P. Stacey’s essay notes the extent of the deployment of British forces in North America at a critical time during the Seven Years’ War:

“The Seven Years’ War inaugurated a new phase in the history of warfare in North America. It was characterized by the large-scale intervention of regular military forces from Europe. On the British side particularly there was a great deployment of military power in America, which for the first time was Britain’s main theatre of operations. In the crucial year 1759 no fewer than 23 British regular infantry battalions were employed in continental North America, as compared with only six in Germany. In the course of the war a large and complex British military machine was created in the American theatre.”