Taking Louisbourg with the wave of a hat

 

 Fun Fact:

1757 had not been a good year for British arms in North America. William Pitt, convinced that Canada could be taken, devised a three-pronged assault for implementing his strategy of attacking Canada from all sides.  First he would take another stab at Louisbourg. Second, a strike north from Fort Edward to Forts Carillon (Ticonderoga) and Frederic would open the way from Lake Champlain through the Richelieu River to Montreal.The third prong would drive to Fort Duquesne and up to Fort Niagra to cut Canada's connection with the Louisiana.

France's victories in Canada concealed a fatal secret: Canada was starving. Provisions from France were required to feed the colony, and the Royal Navy had the mouth of the St. Lawrence nearly corked. Pitt dispatched William Amherst as Commander-in-Chief to realize his vision of conquering Canada with the attack on Louisbourg.

Louisbourg was a fortified town with stone walls, glacis, earthen ramparts for artillery and soldiers, anchored by multi-sided bastions. Four artillery batteries protected the harbor. Governor Augustin de Drucour and his soldiers and militia waited for the coming British onslaught. The French fleet at Canada was nearly non-existent with only a few ships lying in Louisbourg's harbor.

Jeffery Amherst

 Admiral Boscawen with troops under Brigadier General James Wolfe sailed from England in February, but Amherst couldn't get away until March. Boscawen and company didn't reach Halifax until May and by the time they made for Louisbourg, Amherst had arrived. 

Wolfe led a division ashore at Kennington Cove. Pounding surf capsized some boats and smashed others against the rocks. When Wolfe's soldiers hit the shore, they waded into a maelstrom of artillery and musket fire. Witnessing the terrible beating his troops were taking, Wolfe stood in the bow of his rocking boat and waved his hat for all to see, perhaps to call off the attack. At the same instant, a boatload of Highlander's found a sandy haven on the rocky shore and rowed furiously for it. Other boats followed--including Wolfe.

Wolfe formed up the troops under terrible fire from the French and, after returning volley fire, began to move inland. The other two divisions in the attack also came ashore at Kennington Cove, but the French defenders who were spread along the mile-long shore failed to concentrate against the landing force--and instead retreated to Louisbourg. Wolfe later said of the matter, "We made an ill-advised attempt to land, and by the greatest good fortune imaginable we succeeded."

Amherst had the town surrounded. Des Gouttes, commanding the small French fleet, asked permission to escape back to France, but Governor Drucour denied the request as he wanted to delay Amherst as long as possible from proceeding against Quebec. The British tightened the noose, taking the harbor batteries, and the French sank four ships at the harbor entrance and fled the ships for the shelter of the town--which the British began to pound with heavy artillery.

After burning the ships, on July 26, 1758, Drucour asked for surrender terms--which Amherst and Boscawen insisted be unconditional. The next morning the gates to the ruined and starving city were thrown open to the British. 

--Once again I've consulted my highlights from The French and Indian Wars: Deciding the Fate of North America by Walter R. Borneman for this fun fact episode. 

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Movie Review - Quest for the Mighty Sword.

Good sword and sorcery movies are few and far between, and Quest for the Mighty Sword is in a void of its own. The story, such as it is, finds the hero struggling to comprehend the concept of acting, and going down in defeat--but he is not alone. He goes through the motions and, although the effort is minimal, it is apparent that he's making an effort. Some others in the show don't even bother. Some lines sound like they're being read, and read for the very first time. There was an actress or two who demonstrated an ability to act, but even their valiant efforts were hindered by a script that was inferior to the blank page. The budget had to be huge for this thing, by which I mean someone must have absconded with what budget there was and the actors had to steal their own costumes and props from unrelated sets. The movie is so bad that it could very well be a humorless parody of the genre. If that's the case, it's almost brilliant--except parody should be funny, or at least entertaining, and this one is neither. It's not a movie that's so bad it's good--it's just bad. It's bad in the train wreck sort of way. It's a terrible, awful tragedy, but throughout, the viewer is held transfixed by the question: How bad can this get? I'll give you the answer: This is a dumpster fire after the smoke has cleared. It's a smoking ruin of what might have been that never rises to the point of actually giving the viewer the slightest hope that it could become something more. From beginning to end, it is a vast, empty, barren, dry desert of dull brown sand. It never gets better. It never gets worse.