Originally published in the Meliorist. Pretty picture snagged from Wikipedia, bless their hearts.
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The thing you must remember about James Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, aside from being the two generals who were involved in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which ended in French-owned Canada being taken over by those dastardly Brits, is that they both kind of sucked. The truth is that the destiny of our nation was decided in a race to prove which of these dudes was more incompetent than the other.
First, let’s look at the broader conflict here. This battle in question took place during the French and Indian War, which was in itself a sideshow to the Seven Years’ War. Basically, the latter came because it been a full eight years since the last European war and everyone was bored. The former actually broke out before it, because, you know, colonials, and lasted from 1754 to 1763. Effectively, it was World War Beta.
Enter Montcalm and Wolfe.
Montcalm, commander of the French forces in North America since 1756, was a major general of the noble class and thus would’ve been one of those up against the wall when the Revolution came. He had a pretty miserable time in New France. Sure, he wasn’t a complete dud militarily speaking, but he missed his family, no one would give him any of the crap he needed to actually do his job, and he and the governor hated each other’s guts.
This had something to do with the fact that Governor de Vaudreuil kept pointing out that guerrilla tactics had been working out pretty well so far for both the French and Native troops. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to keep doing something that works, rather than that European stuff?
Montcalm thought this was a stupid thing to think and Governor de Vaudreuil was a stupid person for thinking it. Also, that every Canadian official sucked and was corrupt and ugly. Probably smelled, too. All in all, though, Montcalm would have probably been a better guy to hang out with that Wolfe.
The thirty-two year old, who’d been in the military since he was a pup, was a very fastidious sort of man who would inspect the lavatories to ensure that those laggardly troops had been cleaning them to a sparkly finish. He suffered from rheumatism and dysentery and all sorts of fun things, making him such an irritable prick that his subordinates wanted nothing to do with.
1759. September. The month of reckoning.
Why then? Because afterwards, the St. Lawrence would freeze up and Montcalm would have shit all to worry about until spring, aside from living through a Quebec winter. Wolfe decides that the best option was to be all sneaky-like.
This was the plot: the 4800-strong British forces would take a lovely night-time boating trip, climb up a cliff, knock out the teeny tiny garrison that was up there, and get ready to kick some ass. Sounds clever, right? It was. It also had some great, glaring flaws in it.
Such as, how did Wolfe propose to retreat if the plot went pear-shaped, given that there was a cliff and a river behind and below them? This would be a very likely conundrum to be faced with if Montcalm and his officers been on the ball with keeping a proper watch, which would have allowed them to put a kibosh on the landing party well before the entire lot of British soldiers could clamber up the hill and make ready.
Or maybe get the guy who was supposed to patrol in those parts another horse after his got nicked. Or not shift a regiment over from the north side (where our action occurs) to the east side. Or not dismiss an escapee from the attacked garrison as a crazy person. You know, stuff like that. Thus, you understand me when I say that Wolfe’s plan was ludicrous and Montcalm was just sloppy enough to make it work.
After that, given that they had the better ground and better unit cohesion – Montcalm’s tactics didn’t mesh well with the militiamen, you see – the 4,800-strong British defeated the 4,400-strong French defenders. Wolfe still got that romantic death on the battlefield he was gunning for, although probably his troops weren’t all that distressed about it. Montcalm was also wounded and died later that day, probably wishing he had never come to the stupid country to begin with.
It was all over for a French-owned Canada after the battle, even though the war technically sputtered on for another few years. Since then, the Plains of Abraham have morphed from simple farmer’s field to battlefield to political powder keg. This has included Francophones painting this as the end of the entire frickin’ world and Anglophones bestowing upon Wolfe the Custer treatment (i.e., he was the best ever guys, really). His inadequacies as a leader? Never happened!
This became especially obvious just this past year during the 250th anniversary commemoration. A re-enactment was proposed, then cancelled because of threats of violence from radical separatist groups who didn’t learn a dratted thing from the FLQ Crisis. Then there was the controversial decision to read out the FLQ Manifesto during the festivities, along with 149 other relevant documents from Quebec’s history. In both instances, the unwashed masses on both sides went wild, sending frothing letters to the editor and what have you.
I, for one, am proud to have as part of my country a province from which sprung Unibroue. Try their beers! They are very nice.
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