Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory, and the Despair of Louisbourg’s Last Decade (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory, and the Despair of Louisbourg’s Last Decade William Nester Endgame 1758: The Promise, the Glory, and the Despair of Louisbourg’s Last Decade. By A.J.B. Johnston. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8032-6009-2. Maps. Photographs. Tables. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvi, 368. $19.95. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the British capture of Louisbourg during the French and Indian War in North America (1754–60). That campaign was the war’s turning point. Until then the British had mostly suffered defeats; thereafter they would win every campaign, culminating with the French surrender of Canada at Montreal in September 1760. Until the recent publication of A. J. B. Johnston’s Endgame 1758, the only good book on the subject was J. S. McLennan’s Louisbourg From Its Foundation to Its Fall. Although McLennan’s book was a solid work ofscholarship when it appeared in 1918, the stream of documents and studies that have emerged over the subsequent ninety years have rendered it dated. [End Page 1280] Johnston makes full use of the array of new and older resources alike in his Endgame 1758. In a well written, balanced, and researched analysis, he puts that campaign in a historic, cultural, and strategic context. He begins his study with Louisbourg’s founding on Ile Royale (Cape Breton) in 1713 at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession; the French established that citadel largely to offset the British conquest of neighboring Nova Scotia. For the next forty-five years, the British and French would compete for the loyalty and furs of regional tribes like the Mi’kmaq and Abenaki. During that time the British would capture Louisbourg not once but twice. The British siege of 1758 was in many ways a replay of a successful British campaign in 1745 during King George’s War (1744–48). That citadel along with the rest of Ile Royale was returned to France at the end of the war. Both sides carefully studied the 1745 campaign to learn and apply lessons for what would be the 1758 campaign. Johnston uses the analogy of a chess game to explain the moves by each side in 1758 which eventually culminated in a British checkmate. He argues that while the comparison might be clichéd, it is appropriate since that was how generals of that era thought and acted on campaign. His book very carefully explores how each side examined and chose the best of its options at each stage of the campaign. The chess analogy works only to a point. Rather than the equal number and type of pieces on each side, the French suffered enormous strategic and tactical disadvantages. The population of Britain’s North American colonies was ten times greater than that of Canada; the Americans were self-sufficient in food and economically dynamic. In contrast, Canada was a perennial drain on the French treasury. The earnings from its exports of furs and fish could not pay for the yearly infusions of food and other vital resources from France. With three times more warships than France, the British also enjoyed a vast military advantage. In wartime, an effective British blockade could starve Canada into submission. The opposing sides at Louisbourg in 1758 were just as lopsided. Augustin de Boschenry, chevalier de Drucour, the French governor and general, commanded about 4,000 soldiers, marines, and militia compared to General Jeffrey Amherst’s 13,500 troops packed in 127 transport ships. The four ships of the line and nine smaller warships in French Admiral Jeanne Antoine Charry des Gouttes’s flotilla faced the 23 ships of the line and 18 frigates of British Admiral Edward Boscawen’s fleet. Given those disparities, each side’s strategy was straightforward enough. The French had to stop a British assault at the water’s edge while the British had to carry that assault. If the British army was able to establish itself ashore, it would only be a matter of time before the British blockade and land siege would force the French to capitulate. Although the British did capture a beach and rout...