Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire

(#litres_trial_promo) He was a man of honour who genuinely desired to do good, but he lacked the charisma and the confidence to defend his policies when they came under criticism, and the gargantuan work ethic of his great-grandfather. He hated confrontation and attempted to rule by stealth, becoming ever more secretive and suspicious. He also found it difficult to apply himself to hard work, preferring the company of his many lovers or indulging his passion for hunting. A government that was designed to respond to a forceful central figure slowly became paralysed. Ministers competed to fill the void. There were constant changes of personnel. One dominant figure was Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, once the King’s favourite mistress; she now supplied women of low status for the King’s bed, who would satisfy his lust without challenging her political power. Beautiful and clever, cultured and astute, she played a much debated role in French government throughout the war. Although accused at the time, and subsequently by some historians of dominating the affairs of state, she was not a shadowy dictator. A weak and inconstant king ensured that no one figure was able to amass that much power in the dysfunctional hierarchy of the French government. Pompadour did, though, have a powerful voice in policymaking, in particular the appointment and dismissal of key officers in the army and the state. She kept up correspondences with many of the field commanders although the letters consisted mainly of encouragement and promises to look after any family members that wanted jobs.

Had Pompadour or any other strong figure emerged to usurp the power of the King, it may well have been better for France. Instead, half-hearted royal government staggered on. Louis’ great enemy, the energetic, commanding Frederick II, ‘Frederick the Great’, of Prussia wrote in his memoirs that his adversary’s ‘zeal was extinguished within a few days, and France was governed by four subaltern kings, each independent of the other’. France was ‘a vessel sailing without a compass on a stormy sea, simply following the impulsion of the wind’. A contemporary French historian famously commented that ministers changed ‘like scenery at the opera’. During the war France would get through four ministers of foreign affairs and five ministers of marine, who had responsibility for the colonies and the navy. Just before Bougainville’s visit in November 1758 Pompadour had secured the appointment of one of her favourites, Nicolas-René Berryer, as Minister of Marine; he was the fourth man to take the job. His qualifications for the position were dubious. He had been the Chief of Police of Paris and he treated his new job as an investigation into what would happen in Canada should it fall to the British rather than throwing himself into its defence.

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Bougainville quickly realized that Versailles was preparing itself for the worst in Canada. Attention was fixed on central Europe where Frederick II had inflicted a stunning series of defeats on the forces of Austria, Russia and France. The threat to the colonies could wait. The honour of France’s armies and the situation in Europe were more important. French policy for 1759 was to drive into western Germany to threaten King George II’s Electorate of Hanover and Frederick’s western front, while conserving its naval resources for an all-out invasion of Britain. King George’s government would be forced to negotiate. British subsidies which were the lifeblood of Frederick’s war effort would be cut off, and any losses overseas could be restored to Louis with the stroke of a pen. In the meantime Canada would have to look to her own defence. In the words of Berryer in his audience with Bougainville, ‘Sir, one does not try to save the stables when the house is on fire.’ Bougainville shot back bravely, ‘Well, sir, at least, they cannot say that you speak like a horse.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Meetings with Pompadour and other key figures proved just as fruitless. The pessimism seeping out of Montcalm’s and Bougainville’s own depositions only convinced government belief that the situation in Canada was hopeless. Montcalm’s one, rather odd request was that Canada could be saved by an amphibious assault on the Carolinas. The French fleet would meet no opposition since the British ships would be concentrating on northern waters. Montcalm informed Versailles that the Cherokee would join the French as would the German settlers throughout the central colonies. The Quakers of Pennsylvania would not fight and the huge slave populations would rise up and support the French, hoping for their freedom. Ministers praised the plan and shelved it.

A king in want of ships, guns, and men was generous with the one resource in which he was rich. Promotions, honours, and decorations flowed to the personnel in Canada. Bougainville was made a colonel, Montcalm, a lieutenant general, with a salary of 48,000 livres, and Vaudreuil received the Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Louis. The newly promoted Montcalm now outranked Vaudreuil. Rather than resolving the crisis of leadership, Versailles had exacerbated it. Over the winter the court seems to have wavered over a solution to this bitter quarrel. Ministerial minutes record that they were well aware of the problem, acknowledging that ‘the Marquis de Vaudreuil and the Marquis de Montcalm lived on such indifferent terms…This estrangement had exercised an influence over all minds.’

(#litres_trial_promo) They recognized that Montcalm wished to be brought home, especially now that it would be beneath the dignity of a lieutenant general to answer to a governor.

Montcalm’s second in command, who had also received a promotion, was the very able Maréchal de camp, François-Gaston de Lévis, who was on good terms with Vaudreuil and had in the past praised Canadian military commanders for their skill. He would have been an ideal candidate to succeed Montcalm in an attempt to reconcile the French army with the Canadian colonial soldiers and militiamen. Having discussed this plan the document ends with an entry on 28 December 1758 saying simply, ‘on mature reflection, this arrangement cannot take place, as M de Montcalm is necessary at this present conjuncture’. Montcalm would stay on; Vaudreuil would defer to him in decisions relating to the defence of the colony, although he would continue to command the colony’s militia.

(#litres_trial_promo) It was a disastrous compromise. Instead of a firm decision, the bickering over precedence was to continue. Montcalm was instructed to get along with Vaudreuil; meanwhile, ‘M. Berryer writes to the same effect to M. Vaudreuil and directs him to conduct himself with the greatest harmony towards you; you must both feel all its necessity and all its importance.’ Strategically at least the French court had sided unambiguously with Montcalm; the focus of operations was to defend the core of the colony, forces should be stationed so as to be ‘always enabled mutually to help one another, to communicate with and to support each other. However trifling the space you can preserve, it is of utmost importance to possess always a foothold in Canada, for should we once wholly lose that country, it would be quite impossible to enter it again.’ In conclusion Montcalm was told that, ‘the recollection of what you have achieved last year makes His Majesty hope that you will still find means to disconcert their projects. M Berryer will cause to be conveyed to you as much provisions and ammunition as possible; the rest depends on your wisdom and courage, and on the bravery of the troops.’

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Ships of the line would be hoarded in France to prepare to knock Britain out of the war by direct invasion. Instead, frigates were sent and fast private ships paid for at exorbitant rates to take supplies out to Canada. Bougainville travelled to Bordeaux where a flotilla of ships was being assembled. Even though France’s army was at least twice the size of that of Britain, no new units of regulars were sent out. There was a fear, partly thanks to Montcalm’s gloomy predictions, that they would be intercepted by the British. There was also the consideration that if they did arrive in Canada they would place too much strain on the colony’s limited food supply. Montcalm was informed that, ‘you must not expect to receive any military reinforcements’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Altogether around four hundred recruits, of mixed quality, were sent to bring the regular units up to strength together with sixty specialists such as engineers and sappers. Apart from the men, the ships carried food, gunpowder, and other provisions to Quebec. Bougainville boarded the frigate, La Chézine, and set sail on 20 March. A few ships crept out from other ports; in mid-March the Atalante, thirty-four guns, and the Pomone, thirty, left the Channel. All the captains hoped they would enter the gulf before the blockading squadron.

La Chézine sailed into the basin of Quebec on 10 May, the first of twenty-three supply ships from France to do so. Its arrival provoked a blizzard of rumours in a town cut off from supplies and news for months. Nearly all of the rest of the fleet trickled in over the next week. The vast majority of ships sent had beaten Durell’s British blockade. Montcalm’s pessimism had been misplaced. There was huge rejoicing by the townspeople who had been haunted by the prospect of starvation. One diarist, Jean-Claude Panet, who had arrived in New France as a 20-year-old soldier and was now approaching his fortieth birthday as a notary in a Quebec court, wrote that, ‘you cannot doubt the joy that this news gave to us’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Canada had been jolted by a series of poor harvests, partly caused by the inclement weather and partly by the absence of the farmers who had been called into the colony’s militia and sent to distant frontiers. To add to the discomfort of the Canadians, the winter had been awful. The same low temperatures suffered by the men at Halifax and Louisbourg had been felt right across Canada as well. ‘The winter has been one of the coldest…the ice has backed up to such an extraordinary degree and with such violence, as to throw down a house,’ wrote one officer.

(#litres_trial_promo) Now the arrival of the supplies ensured that Canada could fight another campaign. Vaudreuil had told Versailles that ‘of all enemies the most redoubtable is the famine to which we are exposed’. This had been averted although the man responsible for feeding the army and the colony, François Bigot, the short, red-haired, ugly Intendant, calculated that he had received about eighty days’ rations for the regular army, ‘at the rate of half a pound of flour and half a pound of pork per head’, which was less than ‘the proper ration’. Canada received about a third of the food that the colonial authorities had asked for.

(#litres_trial_promo) She would have to find the rest herself: cows were requisitioned; two families would have to share one beast to pull their ploughs. Montcalm dramatically announced to Vaudreuil that despite the disappointing supplies from France, ‘trifles are precious to those who have nothing…I shall entirely devote myself towards saving this unfortunate country and if necessary, die in the attempt.’

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The many threats to Canada had meant that Montcalm had spent the winter in Montreal near the centre of the colony and best placed to react to whichever proved to be the most pressing. He had informed the aged Duc de Belle Isle, the Minister for War, that ‘the rest of the troops remain in their quarters; they hold themselves in readiness to march on the first notice’. He would stay in Montreal until it became clear ‘to what point it will be necessary to proceed; that will depend on the enemy’s movements; their superiority forces us to receive the law from them in regard to our movements’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Early rumours brought to him at the beginning of May by ‘several English prisoners…unanimously concurred in reporting, that great preparations were in making in the British colonies for the invasion of the whole of Canada; and that the intention of making three simultaneous attacks was spoken of, in which more than 60,000 men were to be employed’.

(#litres_trial_promo) These wildly inflated reports were swallowed whole by Montcalm and did nothing to lighten his sense of doom.

The arrival of the intelligence which was brought by the flotilla from France had left him in no doubt that Quebec was where his duty now lay. Within hours of arriving in Quebec, Montcalm, in his own words had ‘already given activity to many necessary arrangements’. He went to bed on 24 May but was awoken at midnight with the first reliable intelligence of the British movements. The couriers informed him ‘of the arrival of 15 large ships of the line’, an exaggerated account of Durell, and Montcalm rightly assumed that ‘it’s assuredly the vanguard of the English army destined to attack Quebec’. He finished his letter in typical style, half bellicose, half defeatist, ‘I fear not tell you, My Lord, that our arrangements here are somewhat tardy…whether strong or weak, we shall fight somewhere or other, and perhaps be fortunate.’

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The news was corroborated by beacons which burnt brightly on the southern bank across the narrows from the city of Quebec. The chain of beacons ended with the ‘fires on Point Lévis’, which pierced the darkness. The guns of the town fired as if in receipt of the signal. Their deep booms rolled across the basin of Quebec; it was a grim augury.

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There was consternation. It was a universally embraced axiom of Canadian life that the St Lawrence was an impenetrable obstacle. Vaudreuil had airily assured Versailles that ‘I do not presume that the enemy will undertake coming to Quebec.’ One journal records flatly that, ‘the rumour in regard to [an attack on] Quebec was not generally credited; because the river, from the difficulty of its navigation, was considered an impenetrable barrier’. Yet here were the British little more than fifty miles from the town. It was ‘astounding’ to launch ‘an enterprise apparently so daring, and at a time when the season was so little advanced’. The diarist blamed the ‘North East wind, which had constantly blown for several days’. With a ‘favourable wind’ the ‘whole of the enemy’s fleet…might be before Quebec, in less than three days’. He describes the sense of helplessness: ‘the alarm was general throughout the country—there was no troops in Quebec—the town was open on every side—no plan of operation, or of defence had been formed;—every body hastened to pack up, and to place their effects in securityby sending them to Trois Rivières, or to Montréal’.

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Montcalm threw himself into preparing Quebec for a siege. The winter before Governor General Vaudreuil had rather pompously informed Versailles of his plans: ‘on the first news I shall receive of the enemy being in the river, I shall provide for the security of the frontiers of this government. I shall go down, in person, to Quebec.’ He would take with him the militias of Montreal and Trois Rivières to get them building defences. He assured Versailles that ‘I shall always feel great pleasure in communicating to them [Montcalm and Lévis] all the movements I have ordered, and even in making use of such reflections as place and circumstances will suggest to them.’ This does not suggest that Vaudreuil was preparing himself for a campaign season of constructive cooperation. News from France of Montcalm’s promotion and orders to defer to him in military matters cannot have improved his attitude.

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True to his word Vaudreuil hurried to the capital where he and Montcalm would spend the rest of the summer bickering over who was responsible for what. Montcalm wrote to his second in command, Chevalier de Lévis, that ‘I have still less time, my dear Chevalier, for writing since the arrival of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, for I have to allow him to play the role of general. I act as secretary and major for him, and greatly long to have you with us.’ At least one journal agreed, ‘in the midst of this chaos, M le Marquis de Vaudreuil arrived, council upon council was held, at which every person who chose to assume airs of importance was invited to assist—but at these councils no decisive measures were resolved upon’. They were unruly affairs, people crushed in ‘pell mell…whatever may be their stations’. Whatever Vaudreuil’s strengths or weaknesses as a strategist he was certainly no chairman. The councils were chaotic with people ‘squeezing [and] elbowing—and where persons of low stature, slip under the arms of taller ones to gain the front row;—where they all scream and interrupt each other’s speeches; and talk loudly all at the same time, and upon matters, totally irrelevant to the subject of the debate—such is the council chamber—such the form of the council!’

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One of Vaudreuil’s priorities was the well-being of the civilian subjects of Louis XV. With the British fleet already at Bic he needed to decide quickly how he would respond to the calls for assistance from the Canadian settlers along the banks of the river. Everyone had a plan; many of them involved aggressive counter-attacks aimed at the British ships. However, as Vaudreuil made clear right away, ‘owing to the position of the enemy and lack of provisions’, it was impossible to move a serious body of troops down the river. Instead of waiting for succour the habitants must evacuate. Vaudreuil’s commands raced down the extensive postal network, carried by horse and carriage, typically nine miles between each post. They ordered old men, women and children to retreat as far as Quebec. Forage was to be destroyed in the evacuated areas and valuables left behind in caches. Cattle were to be brought with them, to feed the hungry mouths of Quebec. An officer, de Léry, was sent to instil the necessary urgency and to arrest those who refused to cooperate. Two scouts each with three fast horses would stay behind from every deserted parish to report on British movements. The young men would form militia units and oppose enemy attempts to land; anyone capable of bearing arms was to be included, ‘none must be left from 15 years upwards’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Unsurprisingly many of the habitants proved unwilling to abandon their land, cattle, and crops to the British. It took a lifetime of toil to clear the strip of land on which families depended for their survival. For generations Canadians had defended it tenaciously against all comers. Abandonment was a grave decision. Vaudreuil was forced to compromise. On 31 May he acknowledged that ‘the difficulties made by the inhabitants have multiplied to that degree that he has been obliged’ to allow them to take to the woods, staying with their possessions and cattle and lying low. Despite this concession he told de Léry to impress upon the habitants the gravity of the situation and the importance of denying the British anything that could be of use to them. By early June Vaudreuil was recommending exemplary punishment to those habitants who resisted his orders.

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De Léry’s journal hints at the struggle involved in prising Canadians from their farms. They ‘refused to believe’ him at first, then told him that they had not started ‘seeding the oats’ yet and they declined to leave. By 6 June he records that large numbers of Canadians were deserting the ranks of the militia.

(#litres_trial_promo) Back in Quebec, Vaudreuil’s letters grew more hysterical. While cursing the unseasonable regularity of the north-east wind that was pushing the British ships closer to the city, he threatened everyone with disciplinary action. He apologized for having to use such language but men and food were required to save Quebec. De Léry had to make it clear to the foot-dragging habitants that ‘the enemy are out to destroy everything that calls itself Canada’.

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The author of one journal was scathing about the evacuation: ‘these hurried and ill-judged orders…caused much greater injury to thousands of the inhabitants, than even the enemy could have inflicted upon them—numbers of families were ruined by these precipitate measures—three fourths of the cattle died’.

(#litres_trial_promo) The whole operation was far too hurried; the British ships, of course, had been only the advance guard and had not pushed on towards Quebec. But in the rushed flight supplies of grain and herds of cattle were abandoned. Panet commented that the operation was conducted ‘with such a haste that no honour can be given to those who were charged with its execution’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Marguerite Gosselin lived on the tip of the Île d’Orléans on a prosperous farm and had a horde of children. She obeyed orders to evacuate, which turned out to be a ‘real nightmare’. ‘If it had been more carefully planned,’ she wrote, ‘we would never have lost our cattle.’

(#litres_trial_promo) Another journalist wrote that ‘several of the inhabitants, women and children unhappily perished…Without any means having been previously taken of providing food for their sustenance, boats for their conveyance or places to which they could retire.’

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Around Quebec huge preparations were underway to prepare the city for a siege. Montcalm hoped that ‘the navigation of the River St Lawrence, often difficult, may afford him time to take those precautions which have been neglected, and might, in my opinion, have been taken beforehand’.

(#litres_trial_promo) He had a large body of soldiers of many different varieties available for its defence. Every kind from the grenadiers of his regular army battalions, who had stood motionless on battlefields in Europe as muskets and cannon tore down their comrades beside them, to young boys with no training, scarcely strong enough to carry a firearm. He had eight battalions of French regular troops, troupes de terre, which roughly translates as ‘soldiers of the land’; so named because French battalions were raised from certain geographical parts of France. They had been shipped over since the outbreak of hostilities and now numbered in all 3,200 men. There were also full-time colonial soldiers or ‘regulars’, the Compagnies franches de la marine, so called because they were provided by the Ministry of Marine which oversaw the colonies. They were largely recruited in France and answered to Canadian-born officers. They served in Canada for their whole careers and usually settled in the colony when they were discharged. Montcalm calculated that they could put ‘at most, fifteen hundred men in the field’. As well as these full-time, professional regulars, every Canadian man was made to serve in the militia. Many nations had some kind of arrangement for raising amateur soldiers in times of crisis. These part-time warriors were generally despised by professional officers all around the world for their inexpert fumbling. But in Canada, despite Montcalm’s sneering, things were different. Wolfe himself, the arch professional snob, wrote that ‘every man in Canada is a soldier’.

(#litres_trial_promo) Generations of warfare, combined with the tough life of a trapper or hunter, had produced a strong military ethos among all Canadians that was unique.

Canada was vast but empty. Although the European population was doubling every generation, in 1759 it numbered just over seventy thousand people. The prospect of a dangerous North Atlantic crossing, cold winters, isolated settlements, and almost continual war had discouraged mass migration. Nor were conditions suitable for growing a cash crop like tobacco which had financed the population explosions in British colonies like Virginia and Pennsylvania. Montcalm estimated at the beginning of the campaign that 12,000 Canadians were capable of bearing arms. He deducted from this figure those away trapping furs on the frontier and those involved in the movement of supplies by road and boat and estimated that he could muster around five thousand militia. But even if he was able to, it would take too many people away from the land, nothing would get planted and ‘famine would follow’. In all he expected to face the enemy with just over ten thousand troops. ‘What is that,’ he wailed, ‘against at least fifty thousand men which the English have!’

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Typically Montcalm underestimated his own strength and exaggerated that of his enemy. The British had 20,000 regular soldiers in North America but they were parcelled out in different groups. Wolfe’s army was one of these but it was badly understrength; most of his battalions numbering between five hundred and eight hundred men. Colonial levies would be mobilized but the British colonies showed little enthusiasm, especially if the men were to be used outside their native colony. Virginia raised one rather than two battalions, and the other southern colonies did not come close to recruiting their quota of men. In all less than twenty thousand British Americans signed up for the campaign of 1759.

Montcalm would face less than forty thousand men, and these were divided into three major thrusts. The French force was outnumbered but not overwhelmingly so. They had many other advantages too. Warfare in the vast, inhospitable spaces of North America was quite unlike anything that the British had encountered in their campaigns at home or in the Low Countries. Every European soldier was struck by the scale and majesty of the terrain. Bougainville wrote while travelling through the lands above Montreal that ‘the navigation is very difficult, but there is the most beautiful scenery in the world’.

(#litres_trial_promo) It was a glorious spectacle indeed, but a logistical nightmare, especially for anyone seeking to invade Canada. Separated by hundreds of miles of virtually impenetrable forest and lakes, each thrust was unsupported and each risked being defeated in detail by French forces operating over internal lines of communications, using familiar routes along rivers that could see huge numbers of men transferred from front to front with great speed. Vaudreuil had summed it up during the winter by saying that if the enemy attempted to attack Quebec they must be defeated quickly, ‘a single battle gained saves the colony; the fleet departs, and we return to oppose the enemy’s progress’

(#litres_trial_promo) up through Lake George. One British marine officer pondered the challenges of attacking ‘so remote, uncultivated, inhospitable a country as that of Canada; where rivers, woods, and mountains break off all communication’. It was a land ‘where the very face of nature is set against the invader, and is strong as the strongest barrier; where uncommon heats and cold are in alliance with and fight for the adversary’.