Making Sense of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham

I assume it is the anniversary of the defeat of the French in Canada, from the piece in the National Post today. Here is a section taken from that article:

"The Battle of Quebec may be the most important event in Canadian history. But the official position is to pretend it never happened.
....
Among those who still bother with the events of 250 years ago, the modern perspective has become blurred by revisionism and myth-making. The battle itself is generally considered to have been an entirely haphazard affair between two incompetent generals. But for a few lucky breaks on the part of British, victory could just as easily have gone to the French. And then, who knows, Canada might today be a French-speaking paradise.

But such a retelling of Canada's founding moment is disingenuous and bad history besides. In a two-part series, the National Post clears away the myths obscuring the real story of the Battle of Quebec. Today, why the French were never going to win the Seven Years War in North America. Tomorrow, the true military genius of Major-General James Wolfe, "the dauntless hero" of Quebec."

Some Canadian Anglophones have been in despair ever since it was announced that there would not be a re-enactment of this battle to mark the 250th anniversary of the defeat of the French in North America. The logic behind their complaints is that people need to learn the truth of history, and not deny the facts. The facts apparently, being that Wolfe was a genius, and that this battle was the most significant in Canadian history.

Well, not according to my research, which shows that the surrender of the French did not take place until about a year later, and was not based on this battle. In fact, the same French forces that lost this battle, returned the next year to defeat the British forces holding Quebec. No, there was another battle, far more important in deciding that the British would keep Quebec. There were other factors that led to the eventual reorganization of power in North America, where the British lost their 13 colonies, but retained Quebec and the other previously French colonies.

Let me just put the history in a bit larger perspective than the mythical focus usually attributed to the battle of Quebec at the Plains of Abraham on Sept. 13, 1759.

For years the British and American strategy in North America had been to try to cut off Quebec from France. Quebec was a problem to the American colonies because the French held much of the interior of North America, from Quebec City all the way down to New Orleans. In spite of the much larger population of British Americans, they had not been able to take this large territory from the French by military force.

The strategy was to rely on a British Navy blockade to stop French supplies and arms from reaching Quebec. The first step was to take the French Colonies known as Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick), including the supposedly impregnable French fortress of Louisburg, guarding the Gulf of St Lawrence. While they succeeded in this, they were still unable to cut off the French supply ships, which somehow managed to get past the blockade and to Quebec city down the long open waters of the estuary of the St Lawrence river.

The decision was made that Quebec city itself had to be taken or destroyed, and consequently a large force was assembled and laid siege to Quebec in the summer of 1759, causing a lot of damage to the city itself and razing the villages and food supplies along the St Lawrence outside of the reach of the Quebec defenders. Finally, they took the city in September while most of the French forces retreated back to Montreal and prepared to retake Quebec city the next year.

But unknown to both sides, another battle took place two months later in Europe, on November 20, 1759. I will confess that I do not remember learning about this battle when I was in school. Perhaps it was not mentioned, perhaps I was asleep at the time. So I am not going to try to blame anyone for this little point of ignorance, although I should mention that I was attending an English school in the province of Quebec. But here it is thanks to Wikipedia. I will insert this quote indirectly from Wikipedia

Alfred Thayer Mahan (The Influence of Sea Power upon History), "The battle of 20 November 1759 was the Trafalgar of this war, and [...] the English fleets were now free to act against the colonies of France, and later of Spain, on a grander scale than ever before". For instance, the French could not follow up their victory at the Battle of Sainte-Foy in 1760 for want of reinforcements and supplies from France and so Quiberon Bay may be regarded as the battle that determined the fate of New France and hence Canada.

France experienced a credit crunch as financiers recognised that Britain could now strike at will against French trade.[11] The French government was forced to default on its debt.[11]"

After the Battle of Quiberon Bay, the Royal Navy was able to blockade the entire coastline of France, which finally succeeded in isolating Quebec. The result was that the French in Quebec finally surrendered, but not because of the temporary loss of the city of Quebec.

If the British had lost the battle of the Plains of Abraham, it might have actually served their long term interests better, meaning they might have retained the 13 colonies, and the interior of the continent. The 13 colonies were subsequently lost partly through the debt accumulated in the longer war, and partly through the removal of the French threat in North America.

But in a final irony, who could guess that after losing the 13 colonies, that the British would then enter an age of science, reason and invention, leading to the industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the greatest empire the world has ever known? It almost seemed like trading the English speaking, slave owning, American colonies for French speaking Quebec provoked a revolution in thought in England.

Maybe that's what we should focus on instead of a one-day land battle that the English won and the French lost.

Anyhow, that's another version of the "real" history of Canada and Britain to ponder. Tomorrow, I can't wait to find out why Wolfe was a true military genius, in the next article from the National Post.