Following pressure by his British ministers, George II of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover, renounced the Convention and the German troops in his pay returned to active operations.

By spring 1758 under a new commander, Ferdinand of Brunswick, the Allied forces had driven the French out of Hanover and pushed them back across the River Rhine.

Germany remained a major battleground for the remainder of the war, with Ferdinand successfully repulsing further attacks on Hanover and its allies.

George II was ruler of both states – and the French believed they could exert pressure on him as King of Great Britain by occupying Hanover.

In early 1756, when a French invasion of the British Isles seemed imminent, many of the Hanoverian and Hessian troops were shipped to southern England to boost its defences.

[citation needed] In early June 1757, the French army began to advance towards Hanover once it became clear that there was to be no negotiated agreement.

In the face of this advance, the smaller German Army of Observation retreated back across the River Weser into the territory of the Electorate of Hanover itself, while Cumberland tried to ready his troops.

Richelieu's orders followed the original strategy of taking total control of Hanover, and then turning west to offer assistance to the Austrians attacking Prussia.

The Hanoverian government retreated with Cumberland via Verden to Stade, Bremen-Verden's capital and a port town connected to the North Sea by the River Elbe.

[8] Orders were sent to Captain Hyde Parker to use his Royal Navy squadron to keep open the supply route down the Elbe to Cumberland until the onset of ice prevented him.

The deployment of this squadron left Richelieu to believe that Cumberland's position in Stade was secure, as he could not be defeated through lack of food and supplies.

[9] Frederick V King of Denmark was obligated by treaty to send troops to defend the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, both ruled in personal union with Britain and Hanover, if they were threatened by a foreign power.

This marked a sudden reversal in the policies of William Pitt, as he had previously been opposed to further British financial commitments to a continental war.

[20] Ferdinand's counterattack saw the Allied forces re-capture the port of Emden and drive the French back across the River Rhine so that by the spring Hanover had been liberated.

The French committed increasingly large forces in their attempt to defeat Ferdinand's army and occupy Hanover, but despite repeated efforts they were unable to break through and capture it again.

Following the defeat of the final French attempt at the Battle of Wilhelmsthal in 1762, an armistice was agreed and the later Treaty of Paris compelled France to evacuate all their forces from Germany and the Austrian Netherlands.

[citation needed] In the later American War of Independence France signed a neutrality convention with Hanover, ruling out a French attack on Hanoverian soil.