The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) pitted Austria, Great Britain, and the Dutch Republic against France and Prussia. According to McKay, Hill, Buckler, Crowston, and Weisner-Hanks (686), the war began under the pretext that the future Empress Maria Theresa of Austria should not have been allowed to succeed to the Habsburg Empire's throne because of her gender. Perhaps more significantly, this conflict, like that of the Seven Years War, reflected ongoing antagonisms between some European great powers such as Great Britain and France.
As noted by McKay, et al (686), the Seven Years War officially began in 1756, but hostilities between the British and the French in North America had begun two years earlier. For France, the European war was primary, but for Great Britain, the French colonial empire was seen as a major threat that needed to be destroyed. The French ceded New France in a 1763 treaty to Great Britain in return for retaining control over the West Indies. As was the case earlier in the War of the Austrian Succession, the Prussian interests were keenly concerned with the outcome of the war because of its own territorial ambitions and its longstanding antagonism toward the British. The key differences between the two wars, both of which were resolved in the 1763 Peace of Paris, was the greater interest of Prussia in the European situation and that of Britain in its overseas possessions (McKay, et al, 750).
McKay, John P., Hill, Bennett D., Buckler, John, Crowston,
Clare H., and Weisner-Hanks, Merry E. A History of
Western Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
...