PART I. ABHORS THE BOLD
ENCYCLOPEDIA MUNDI: SEVEN YEARS’ WAR
[1]
[…]
Despite its the name, this conflict, regarded by many historians are the true first Global War, actually lasted nine years, from the Jumonville Incident in 1754 to the Paris peace conference in 1763. The war was triggered by the clash of two colonial empires - Britain and France - competing for hegemony in North America. It was in many ways the culmination of one and a half century of rivalry in the new world between these two powers, as well as a continuation of their ongoing antagonism in Europe. For the third time in the 18th century, a war between American colonies mirrored one between their mother countries. Indeed, this time the New World preceded the Old: although there was no official declaration of war until the battle of Minorca in May 1756, the British and the French colonists had waged a war of skirmishes for the two previous years.
[…]
While France was still at that time arguably the first military power on the European continent, it was clear that its colony of New France was at a disadvantage in North America. The demographic edge of British North America
[2] was decisive: by the 1750s, it had a population of 1,5 million inhabitants, while New France had barely 70,000 souls. While the French colonists could rely on the military help of their many Native American allies, support from France was limited, because the government chose to focus its forces on the European theatre, sending only small forces to protect its possessions in the Americas, Africa and India. Consequently, the preferred strategy was to fight a defensive war in the colonies, and bargain for the return of lost territories at the end of the war in exchange for gains made in Europe. [...]
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DICTIONNAIRE BIOGRAPHIQUE DU CANADA EN LIGNE
[3] : JAMES WOLFE
[...]
In the North American theatre, the French army under General Montcalm, assisted by the Canadien militia and the war parties of many allied tribes, conducted a series of raids on British forts in the Ohio and Illinois Countries and into New England itself, in order to slow the advance of the enemy into Canada. In the absence of any functional road network, an invading force needed to cross woodland and mountainous areas, where it would be vulnerable to
pettywar [4]. Montcalm's efforts proved relatively successful, as Montcalm scored many important victories (notably at Fort Carillon) which manage to slow the British's advance. Nonetheless, the French were fighting a losing war: the fall of the Louisbourg fortress on Cape Breton Island allowed the Royal Navy to blockade the St. Lawrence River, preventing the arrival of any reinforcement from France. In 1759, a three-pronged invasion of Canada was launched, under the command of Lord Jeffrey Amherst. On June 27, Québec City was besieged by General Wolfe's army.
[...]
By late August, after weeks of bombardment, Wolfe's army had failed to make any breakthrough: alt ought most of the lower town had been levelled, and the French were running out of gunpowder, Montcalm would not to surrender. The British fleet controlled the river and the southern shore, but all attempts to land troops on the northern shore had failed. Furthermore, on 19 August, illness spread in the invader's camp, and Wolfe himself fell ill for many days, which dealt a severe blow on the morale of his troops. After his recovery, the general decided that the city had to fall by mid-September, or it would never fall. Thus, on 12 September, a last attempt was made to take Québec.
During the night, a force of 4, 800 regulars, led by Wolfe himself, embarked on barges, crossed the river and headed for the French outpost at the Anse-au-Foulon, a small cove a few miles upriver of Québec. However, he strong current pushed the barges in front of the Vergor outpost, at the bottom of the steepest part of the Diamond Cliff. A group of 24 volunteers climbed said cliff in the dead of night and captured the outpost, opening the way for the landing party, which quickly took the Anse-au-Foulon. At 6 am, Wolfe's force moved toward the plateau and the headed to the Plains of Abraham, a large field southwest of the city walls. The plan was to take the enemy by surprise: the scouts had reported that the bulk of the French army was deployed downriver, by the village of Beauport, the site of the previous landing attempt, and the most obvious point of attack. Wolfe gambled that Montcalm wouldn't have the time to redeploy his troops from the other of the city to intercept his, and that he could take the city without much resistance. [...]
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TIMELINE
1759.
13 September, 2am: A few hours after going to bed, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, lieutenant-general of the army of New France, suddenly wakes up from a nightmare. He tells his lieutenants that he had just dreamed of a British attack coming from the Plains of Abraham (
Point of divergence). Shaken by a vision that felt real, he immediately sends messages to governor Vaudreuil (positioned near Beauport, upriver) and his
aide-de-camp, the Count de Bougainville (stationed in the village of Cap-Rouge, west of the city), demanding reinforcements to defend the plains. Vaudreuil, a longtime rival of Montcalm, complied right away: the two men had had an argument over the defence of the city a few days ago, and the governor had insisted that the plateau were insufficiently protected. Thus Vaudreuil took Montcalm's request for an admission of his mistake, and the governor led his troops personally to the plains. As for Bougainville, he strongly doubted the wisdom of changing battle plans on account of a dream, but he followed his orders nonetheless.
At 4 am, the forces of Montcalm, Vaudreuil and Bougainville converge to the Gate St-Louis, in front of the Plains. A scouting party of militiamen is sent forward, and report the presence of Wolfe's men at the Anse-au-Foulon, to the French's astonishment. Montcalm quickly deploys his troops on top of the plateau to form a line. At 6 am, an force of 3, 600 soldiers and 3, 000 militiamen and Native American auxiliaries
[5] was waiting for the British.
When Wolfe reaches the Plains of Abraham, he realizes that he won't have the element of surprise. He faces a difficult choice: his army is outnumbered but his professional soldiers are better trained than the Canadien militia. Since winter is coming in a few weeks, he cannot afford to continue the siege for long, and he may never get another chance to attack the city. Furthermore, he realizes that attempting a retreat could be disastrous: his men would have to climb down a cliff, chased by the French, and his barges would be exposed to French canon-fire, in broad daylight. So Wolfe takes a gamble, and order his men to march forward.
At 7 am, the two armies meet. The battle lasts no more than thirty minutes.
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DICTIONNAIRE BIOGRAPHIQUE DU CANADA EN LIGNE: JAMES WOLFE (continued)
[...]
In older history textbooks, the disaster of the Plains of Abraham if often laid solely at Wolfe's feet, who is blamed for singlehandedly wasting Britain's last chance of defeating its last rival in North America and ruling the whole continent. This harsh judgement, however, as been revised in recent works. James Wolfe certainly made for a convenient scapegoat, as he died on the battlefield and could not defend his decisions to his superiors, and his subordinates, who had been critical of his strategic skills since the beginning of the campaign, could easily paint him as the man responsible for the defeat. Some uncharitable writers even claimed that Wolfe hadn't quite recovered from his illness, and that his attack plan was the product of a feverish mind! Conversely, Montcalm, who died of his wounds the day following his victory, went down in French textbooks as a hero and a military genius.
It should be said, in fairness, that while Wolfe's plan was extremely risky, it was by no mean doom to fail. It was based on what was at the time accurate knowledge of the French's troop deployment, and it made good use the assets at Wolfe"s disposal, as well as the solid cooperation between the army and the navy during the entire operation. It should also be said that the riskier parts of the plan (landing on the shore, climbing of the cliff at night and taking the French battery) were executed flawlessly. If anything, Wolfe was a pioneer of the kind of amphibious attacks that would be commonly used two centuries after his death. It was only upon reaching the battlefield that the British lost their advantage.
Even after the defeat on the Plains, the siege was necessarily lost. Wolfe's soldiers lost their morale when their general was mortally wounded, but his officers led an orderly withdrawal back to the ships, and while the British losses were important, they were not crippling. In fact, the French had sustained greater losses: the Redcoats' precise volleys had decimated the untrained Canadien militia. Furthermore, Québec's food supplies were running low at the time, so it is quite possible that, had the British continued the siege for a few more weeks, Vaudreuil would have been forced to surrender despite Montcalm's victory.
But such speculations belong to the works of Divergent History writers. What did happened is that, three days after the defeat, the demoralized British army lifted the siege of Québec and sailed back to New England. Thus the British invasion of Canada had failed, and the French dream of a colonial empire in North America had survived... for a time.
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Notes:
[1] All quotations from the Encyclopaedia Mundi here reproduced are taken from the 16th edition, published in 2011 by the Encyclopedia Mundi C., Halifax, with permission of the publishers.
[2] A slight anachronism here from the author: the phrase "British North America" wasn't used before the 19th century. In this context, it should read "the Thirteen Colonies (and Nova Scotia)".
[3] Not an actual passage from the real article of the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, for obvious reasons. Said article was a very useful source, however.
[4] TTL's word for guerrilla warfare. The word is mostly associated with the tactics of Native American warriors during intercolonial conflicts, but the word was actually coined by Charles Cornwallis to describe the way Irish rebels fought the British army during the Great Rising, a few decades later. ("We shall teach these
petty warriors to fight like gentlemen!")
[5) The exact strength of the French army in Québec at the time isn't known precisely; based on my research, the number of men varies depending on the sources. I'm going here with the numbers from a textbook made by the Canadian military. If anyone's interested, it says there was roughly 2, 420 trained soldiers and 1, 200 marines during the sieges. The number of militiamen apparently varied from week to week, between 3, 000 and 5, 000. While in doubt, in preferred to be conservative.
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