The Defeat of Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham
How Mistakes by the French Army Cost Them North America
Jun 2, 2009
The colonial struggles between France and England for new colonies to exploit grew over several centuries, culminating in North America during the Seven-Years’ War (1756-1763).
One of the most famous battles during this war was the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which took place on September 13, 1759 near the city of Quebec. The English army, led by James Wolfe, defeated the French army led by Louis-Joseph Montcalm by climbing up the steep slopes down-river from Quebec City just before dawn at a site called Anse au Foulon. They then overwhelmed the French army in a short, 30 minute battle later that morning. But what were the contributing factors to the French failure?
Poor Communication
For an army to be successful in battle, they must possess outstanding communication in order for them to fight their enemy in an organized and effective manner. The French had established a system of warning for if the British were to ever land near Quebec, but on the morning of September 13th, they paid no attention to these warnings; “At 4 a.m. Chevalier de Bernetz […] hoisted a red flag over the citadel. It was the prearranged signal that the British had landed. Unfortunately, no one in the governor’s camp paid the slightest attention.”
As well, patients at the nearby hospital saw the British red coats early that morning through their windows, but the patients were “dismissed as hallucinatory, and the confusion worked in favour of the British.” So while this lack of communication amongst the French allowed the English to establish a strong foothold on the Plains of Abraham, there was actually an even earlier communication blunder by the French commanders that night which allowed the English to reach the shore virtually unhindered in the first place.
Re-Supply Blunder
The French had pre-arranged for several re-supply boats carrying food and weapons to reach Quebec via the St. Lawrence River sometime during the late night and early morning of September 12th /13th. The British fleet had been blockading the city for months, and so the French were forced to carry out their plans under the cover of darkness to avoid detection.
Wolfe had learned of the French re-supply operation by interrogating French deserters several days earlier, and with a little luck he knew he could use this to his advantage. The operation had been cancelled several days earlier by the French, but the officers failed to inform the militia men guarding the bluffs, and they “[…] mistook the British boats for their own”.
Wolfe had cleverly placed French-speaking officers at the head of several of his landing ships that night, and the English troops were able to get by coastal artillery defenses under the guise of the French re-supply boats, “[…] a second voice urged the first one to let the convoy pass. Since the post [guards] had received no word of cancellation and were encouraged by the French-speaking officer, the questioners let it go at that.”
The French communication was indeed so bad, that “Montcalm himself had received no cancellation involving the supply boats, and hoped they would arrive that morning [September 13th].” If the French had done a better job of simply relaying their orders throughout the ranks, then the English assault boats would have been discovered and fired upon by the militia men guarding the cliffs. The English assault would have failed, and with winter so close the English would not have had time to organize a new plan of attack before the St. Lawrence froze up and forced their warships back to Louisburg, their main base of operations.
Montcalm's Underestimation of the British
Montcalm foolishly continued to underestimate the English, and he “scoffed at his cohorts’ fear that Wolfe might land on the beach [Anse au Foulon], climb to the plateau and threaten the town. ‘We need not suppose that the enemy has wings!’ he told Canada’s ruling council.” Montcalm then mocked the idea of the English successfully climbing the cliffs by stating that, “I swear to you that a hundred men posted there would stop their whole army.”
Montcalm proceeded to fortify the area of Beauport (a few kilometers up river from Quebec) with artillery batteries and over two-thousand regulars and several thousand militiamen, and only stationed 100 men on the Plains of Abraham.
To Montcalm’s shock and horror, after spending most of the night of September 12th preparing Beauport from what he thought was an imminent English attack, he returned to Quebec only to discover that “he had been outmaneuvered […] he could see the redcoats lined up outside the city. He expected to find a battalion [of British troops], but what he found was an army!”
Montcalm had not only underestimated the English troops and their commander, General Wolfe, he also neglected to post a strong militia presence to guard the Plains of Abraham, and so the English were able to successfully organize their army only a few hundred meters from the walls of Quebec and prepare for battle.
Defeat
The fall of Quebec City was a loss that the French were never able to fully recover from, and when they signed the Treaty of Paris in 1763 to end the war, they relinquished their colonial power in Canada. There is undeniable proof that the French lost that critical battle primarily because of their poor leadership and organization.
Sources:
Carroll, Joy. Wolfe & Montcalm; their lives, their times, and the fate of a continent. (Buffalo, New York: Firefly books. 2004).
Reid, Stuart. Quebec 1759: the battle that won Canada (Oxford, England: Osprey Publishing Ltd. 2005).
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