Flight of the Eagle: The Grand Strategies That Brought America From Colonial Dependence to World Leadership by Conrad Black Read Free Book Online

accordingly for the four missions that had been the ambitions of succeeding British commanders since before the war officially began. Jeffery Amherst, a 40-year-old colonel and regimental commander, was promoted to “Major General in America” to command the expedition against Louisbourg, assisted by the 31-year-old Lieutenant Colonel James Wolfe. The attack on Fort Duquesne was to be conducted by a 50-year-old Scottish doctor, Brigadier John Forbes; Ticonderoga (Fort Carillon) and Fort Frontenac were to be taken by the 33-year-old acting brigadier, Viscount Howe (though Abercromby himself was the nominal commander). Pitt had strengthened the forces in accord with his plan: 14,000 men under Amherst in the attack on Louisbourg; 25,000 men for the attacks on Ticonderoga and Frontenac and the “Irruption into Canada”; and Forbes had 7,000 men for the attack on Fort Duquesne.
    Counting the militia of every able-bodied male between the ages of 16 and 60 (except for the numerous priesthood), Montcalm had 25,000 men in total, though the real total at any time was less than that, or all secular civilian occupations would have been denuded. The Indians, traditionally a powerful French ally, had vanished, either from smallpox, detection of the shifting balance of power, or anger at the debacle following the fall of Fort William Henry. Montcalm thus reaped the worst of two harvests: the spirit of vengeance of both the outraged English and the, as they considered themselves, betrayed Indians. He was also suffering from acute shortages of food, due to a poor harvest, and a shortage of some munitions. Montcalm’s problems were further aggravated by the divisions of the civil administration, led by the governor, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, and the financial director, or Intendant, François Bigot, and particularly the corrupt practices of Bigot, who held that office from 1744 on and had embezzled an immense fortune.
    Gravely compounding French disadvantages, Louis XV had lost interest in colonial matters and was particularly tired of the military costs of Canada, which did not return him much. The fur trade was no possible justification for such a vast effort, and the French had much less natural disposition for overseas adventure than Britain, a relatively poor island nation with seafaring conducted along its entire perimeter. Pitt was able to blockade the French Mediterranean fleet at Gibraltar, and many of the Atlantic ports, and Boscawen had raised appreciably his interdiction of arriving French ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There were only two avenues for breaking into Canada and strangling the French presence up the St. Lawrence to Quebec, which required disposing of Louisbourg first, or from New York past Ticonderoga-Carillon and Lake Champlain toward Montreal. Pitt and Ligonier had prepared a heavy blow at each door.
    The first test was Abercromby and Howe’s move on Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga). They set up their headquarters on the recently smoldering ruins of Fort William Henry and amassed 16,000 men for the assault. They arrived by water, in a thousand small craft, and landed four miles from the French fort on July 5. Unfortunately, Howe was killed by a retreating French reconnaissance sniper, and Abercromby lacked the energy for what followed. Montcalm had arrived at Carillon and found it desperately under-prepared, in men and supplies and the state of the fortifications, to cope with an attack. He built concealed trenches and elevated gun emplacements, and moved some of his 3,600 men forward. Abercromby did not trouble to train his artillery on the fort, and ordered a charge uphill at the French on July 8, a thousand light troops followed by 7,000 Redcoats in parade precision, to the roll of drums and the skirl of bagpipes. The French held their fire until the British became disorganized in the forward trenches and impediments Montcalm had just had crafted from felled trees, and then cut the British down in