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Home Foreign Affairs and the Empire, 1714-1763 Empire, 1714-1763; Part 10 |
Empire, 1714-1763; Part 10In 1758 the initial successes began. In America, three separate armies advanced; the first, it is true, failed to take Ticonderoga, but of the others, one, with the aid of the fleet, captured Louisburg, and the other Fort Duquesne. Two raids were made on the French coast. The first went to St. Malo and destroyed a great deal of French shipping; but the second, after doing much damage at Cherbourg, revisited St. Malo, and on this occasion had to make a disastrously precipitate retreat. In Germany, Ferdinand of Brunswick was able to reach the Rhine, though he had to retreat later on. And just before the end of the year an expedition which had been dispatched to West Africa captured the French settlement of Goree. With 1759 came a year more fruitful of successes than any other in our history. Upon Canada Pitt planned a twofold advance. Amherst was to take Ticonderoga, which he did, and to reach Quebec-which he was unable to accomplish. Wolfe, one of Pitt's favourite officers, was selected to command the soldiers and Saunders to command the sailors of another expedition which should go up the river St. Lawrence to attack Quebec. Saunders, in spite of fog and contrary winds, took the fleet and the transports up the St. Lawrence without mishap.Quebec stands upon a rocky promontory at the junction of the river St. Charles and the river St. Lawrence. Montcalm, the French commander, had fortified the bank of the river St. Lawrence from the point where the river St. Charles joins it to a point some eight miles down stream where another river, the Montmorency, flows into it. Wolfe had, with inferior forces, to fight an enemy who was strictly on the defensive. He at once seized the Isle of Orleans, which lay below Quebec. But he could not succeed in tempting Montcalm from his entrenchments, and an attack made upon the French from across the river Montmorency was a failure. The summer wore on and matters looked hopeless. Meantime, however, some of the British ships had succeeded in passing the Quebec batteries, and in getting above the city. It was this achievement which enabled Wolfe to make his masterstroke. The cliffs on the north bank of the St. Lawrence above Quebec are steep and precipitous, but about a mile and a half beyond that fortress Wolfe had discovered a. zigzag path which led to their summit. He determined to attempt a night attack at this place, and accordingly made arrangements, with great skill, to divert the enemy's attention from that quarter. Below Quebec, Montcalm's attention was occupied by a bombardment from the main body of the fleet under Saunders, whilst the garrison in the city itself had an energetic attack directed upon it from the opposite bank. Meanwhile Wolfe himself and a large part of his troops had embarked in the ships which were above Quebec. On the night of the attack the ships were some six miles above the intended landing-place so as to distract the attention of Bougainville, who with a large force was watching these ships, from Wolfe's real objective. Brilliantly conceived, the plan was no less brilliantly executed. About 2 a.m. on the morning of September 13, the ships boats, laden with soldiers, started on their journey. They deceived two sentinels on the bank by pretending to be some expected French provision boats, and then a small landing-party got on shore, climbed up the path, surprised the small guard at the top of the cliff, and covered the landing of the rest of Wolfe's forces. |
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