Death or Victory

by Dan Snow

  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’.31 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’.32 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.’33

  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. 34

  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’.35

  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.36

  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!’37

  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’.38 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.39

  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.40 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’.41

  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’.42 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’.43 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.’44 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.’45

  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’.46 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’.47 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!’48

  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’.49 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’50 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’.51 And that was in the summer. Between November and March or April all sizeable military operations of whatever kind had to be suspended. Troops fought hard merely to stay alive. During Bougainville’s first winter he wrote, ‘it is impossible to conceive of a viler sort of weather…one could not understand how frightful this country is if he has not been here’.52

  Montcalm enjoyed all the advantages of geography but he was also stronger than he had assumed, even though not every one of his men was available for the protection of Quebec. Montcalm was forced to send three of his eight French army battalions to protect the southern invasion route into the colony, which was threatened by General Amherst from Lake George. Joining them were eight companies of colonial regulars and 1,200 militiamen; about three thousand men in all. He also had to send troops to garrison Fort Niagara to protect the gateway to Canada’s vast western lands. For the defence of Quebec, one officer estimated that there were the five battalions of the French army, ‘about 1600 men’, ‘about 600 colonial’ regulars and ‘10,400 Canadians, and sailors distributed throughout the batteries’. New France could also call upon allied groups of Native Americans, from the Christianized Abenaki of St François to the more mercenary distant tribes from the west who joined for money, adventure, and booty. Estimates differ on the number of Native Americans present during the summer of 1759, and no doubt the number fluctuated as they came and went much as they pleased, but the same officer counted ‘918 Indians of different nations’. Last, there was ‘a troop of cavalry composed of 200 volunteers taken from different corps and to be posted promptly wherever the enemy should show themselves, to be attached to the general’s suite and to convey orders’. In all he gave the rather precise figure of 13,718 men. The journal comments that

  so strong an army was not anticipated, because it was not expected that there would be so large a number of Canadians…but such an emulation prevailed among the people, that old men of 80 and children of 12 and 13 were seen coming to the camp, who would never conse
nt to take advantage of the exemption granted to their age.53

  A witness comments that the habitants ‘assembled themselves with so much activity and zeal that, on the field, we make up a body of eleven to twelve thousand men’.54 The people of New France were flocking in unprecedented numbers to help with the defence of their capital.

  It was an empire dependent on its capital. Montcalm had told Versailles during the winter, that Canada would fall ‘without a doubt’ if Quebec did. ‘There is not’ he wrote, ‘a second line any place of strength, any spot having in depot any warlike stores or provisions’. Nor could Canada ‘sustain herself by herself and without succours from France’, and Quebec was Canada’s only port. Montcalm was as clear as Wolfe that it was in front of the walls of Quebec that the decisive clash for domination of the North American continent would take place.55

  Quebec was derived from Kebec, which in the local Native American dialect meant ‘narrows’. At Quebec the St Lawrence River rapidly shrinks from being more than ten miles wide to just two-thirds of a mile. Here also the St Charles River joins the St Lawrence and in between the two there is a promontory of land surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs and water and on the fourth by an open patch of scrub known as Les Plaines d’Abraham or the Plains of Abraham. On this natural bastion sat the Upper Town of Quebec. Below it a thin strip of land at the bottom of the cliff was, in some places, around a hundred yards wide and was the site of the Lower Town, a few crowded blocks of buildings. Downriver from the narrows the St Lawrence widens out into a basin, the edges of which are very shallow. Large ships were unable to get close in; Quebec was not a natural harbour.