Customer Reviews

The Forts of New France in Northeast America 1600-1763 (Fortress)

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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Rene Chartrand's THE FORTS OF NEW FRANCE IN NORTHEAST AMERICAN 1600-1763 is for any library strong in early military technology. It covers the area ruled by France in North America from the 16th to the 18th centuries, discussing fort design, technology and defensive strategies and providing full-color illustrations: maps, charts, and photos.

I really liked this booklet. Like all the books in the Fortress series, the subject is too broad to be well covered in 63-64 pages, but this is an excellent introduction. The information is well presented, and the illustrations are outstanding, easily worth the price of the book. They really bring the forts to life.

I have to respectfully quibble with Colonel Lynn's corrections in his review, as a few are incorrect themselves. Most glaringly, the walls of Fort Chambly are NOT 111 feet high, rather, they are approximately the height given by Rene Chartrand, 32 feet.

Rene Chartrand's effort in Forts of New France is a considerable improvement over his effort regarding the Forts of Colonial North America of British, Dutch and Swedish. I think the difference was that in this book, the subject matter is more localized and the author can take good summary samples of different types for forts that France built during their time as colonial power in North America. It probably help that the author is a Canadian so he got a nice inside track to the subject matter. I found this book to be more readable and more informative. I found the layout drawings of some of these forts to be quite interesting and the author's information more easier to digest. It pretty obvious that the author do have some understanding of the forts of his own homeland. For a book of 63 pages, this work does do justice.

And yes I know,,,the book on New France came out before the book on British/Dutch/Swedish forts. But I read the latter first.

I read the previous review written by Lt. Col Lynn that informed me of host of errors made by the author on this book. I am not sure if the good colonel was being slightly bit on the anal side or not but it would really help if we the readers knew of his sources. Lt Col.Lynn also forget that Mr. Chartrand only have less then 63 pages to stuff all his information. Less thanks to many diagrams, drawing and photos that adds to the book's quality. Not everyone can write like Dr. Robert Forcyzk who is superb in this sort of writing. Lt Col. Lynn gave only three stars while I gave four since I gave the book a bit more credit even if there may be some minor errors here and there. But for overall introductory book, I found this book to be quite informative and educational. It nice to visualized places like Fort Duquesne that read so often in George Washington's biographies or on books on French and Indian War. In some way, that is the reason why I brought this book, to help with the visualization of places made famous by events but long disappeared.

Rene Chartrand has packed a lot of information in this book. I never realized that the French had constructed so many fortifications in North America by 1760.

The first book on this interesting aspect of N. American history I've ever read. Contains lots of new (to me) info that I'm sure was not easy to research. I was rather disappointed that the color illustrations of various forts seem to have been cropped to fit the pages and in doing so corners of the forts etc... were cut off.

THE FORTS OF NEW FRANCE IN NORTHEAST AMERICA, 1600-1763
RENE CHARTRAND AND BRIAN DELF
OSPREY PUBLISHING, 2010
QUALITY SOFTCOVER, $18.95, 64 PAGES, PHOTOGRAPHS, MAPS, ILLUSTRATIONS, GLOSSARY, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX


Author Rene Chartrand's expertise on the French fortifications in regard to the French and Indian Wars is excellant and his books on the subject go a long way in giving the reader a better understanding of the French way of conducting war during the 17th and 18th Centuries. This new book by him though has some mistakes as well as needing clarifications to it. They are listed below by page:

*Page 8-Fort Caroline actually founded as La Caroline and named after King Charles IX. In its settlement, there were also a number of Catholics among the French Hugenots involved in its construction.

*Page 9-The Spanish using what would later be called the Matanzas River, Pedro Menendez de Aviles crossed overland to the lower St. John's River, thereby approaching Fort Caroline from its poorly defended rear. Records indicate 132 Frenchmen were killed or executed while 45 escaped. Aviles spared the French who were Catholics though while the women and children who were captured were eventually returned to France. As the remainder of the French straggled back, they were captured by the Spanish and put to the sword, thus giving the Matanzas (Slaughter) River its name.

*Page 10-It was starvation, desertion, and disease that took its toll and on the expedition to the area sent from Havana in 1564, led by Hernando Manrique de Rojas found only an abandoned blockhouse and one 17-year-old survivor.

*Page 11-Fort Caroline was burned and Fort San Mateo was built on its remains. It would serve as an important auxiliary to the fortress at St. Augustine. It was in 1567 not 1568 that a force of Protestant corsairs and Native Americans under the command of Dominique de Gourgues, attacked and burned it.

*Page 13-Samuel Argall was acting as an admiral from the colony of Virginia on the orders of Governor Thomas Dale (not King James I of England) to destroy all French settlements as far north as 45 degrees latitude which included Port Royal and Saint-Sauveur.

*Page 16-The French occupied Fort Pentagoet, Maine in 1634 not 1635 and it was a fortified stronghold with a 60-foot-square parade ground with four 16-foot-square bastions of stone and earth.

*Page 17-There were further attacks on Fort Pentagoet in 1686 and again in 1687 by privateers not two years later as written by the author. Also, after the outbreak of Native American trouble in the fall of 1688, it was raided by the English under the direction of Governor Edmund Andros of Maryland. During Queen Anne's War, it was raided in 1704 by a force under the command of Colonel Benjamin Church. The English finally destroyed the fort in 1722 during Drummer's War and subsequently occupied the Penobscot peninsula. The author is wrong in stating 1688 that the fort was razed and Anglo-Americans permanently occupying the area.

*Page 19-Fort La Tour was also called Fort Sainte Marie and was captured by D'Aulnay de Charnisay through bribery. While on Easter Sunday and the garrison praying, a soldier from within the garrison let Charnisay's force in. Madame Francoise Marie de LaTouris (the first heroine of Canada) would only surrender on the condition that her men's lives be spared. Upon seeing the small force that had held his men at bay, Charnisay broke his word and killed all of the garrison while LaTouris was forced to look on.

*Page 20-The force consisted of 2,000 Provincials and 250 British Regulars not 2,000 British Regulars and Provincials as written by the author. It was a combined expedition of New England and Nova Scotian troops led by John Winslow and Robert Mockton. The reason for the sudden collapse of Fort Beausejour wasn't due to the garrison consisting of only 150 French Regulars and no relief force being able to come to the garrison's assistance but its commander, Captain Louis Du Pont Duchambon de Vergor, hadn't expected a major attack against Acadia in 1755. When the British and Provincials appeared, he sent out a call for the Acadians, and they came to the fort and asked for-and received-a written order requiring them to bear arms under pain of death; if captured, they could then claim coercion. Finally, Vergor failed to receive assistance from Louisbourg. Under such circumstances, the fort's garrison quickly became demoralized and surrender became inevitable when on 16 June 1755, a British bomb demolished a casemate and killed all its occupants. The garrison then lost their will to fight while most Acadians had disappeared back into the countryside before the surrender. The British and Provincials took 450 prisoners not 1/3 or 150 as written by the author. Ironically, the surrender articles stipulated that Acadians who had taken up arms under pain of death would be pardoned, but Governor Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia meant only they wouldn't be put to death. Monckton, knowing this, deliberately duped them, intending to use their labor before removing them from the peninsula in the famed "Great Displacement" of Acadia.

*Page 29-The curtain walls of Fort Chambly were 111 feet in height not 32.8 as stated by the author.

*Page 32-Jean-Frederic Count de Maurepas was Minister of Marine not Navy and incentives offered by the French government to civilians for settlement didn't attract many settlers.

*Page 36-Helping in the construction of Fort Ticonderoga, the French regiments of La Reine (the Queen's), distinguished by the royal crowns on its regimental flag and of Languedoc, which was first raised in 1672, the year of Louis XIV's Dutch War as well as members of the French Independent Company of Marines or of the Quebec militia. Michael Chartier de Lotbinieve had never built a fort before and it became one of the most important fortresses in U.S. history. The strength of Abercrombie's force was estimated at 6,000 British Regulars and 12,000 Militia, Rangers, and Native Americans while Montcalm's estimated strength at 3,600 French Regulars, Native Americans, and Militia.

*Page 37-The west channel of Isle-aux-Noix is less than 300 meters wide not 350 meters while the east channel is less than 200 meters wide not 230 meters. The island itself is approximately 1,475 meters not 1,350 meters long and is 290 meters in width not 400 meters.

*Page 40-Bougainville saw that further resistance was futile and he and 1,300 of his men quietly slipped away through the swamps on the night of 27 August 1760 and returnd to Montreal. Left behind was a contingent of 40 men, mostly wounded, who kept up sporadic fire until they surrendered according to Bougainville's orders.

*Page 43-Fort La Presentation wasn't dismantled just abandoned. The British found it deserted and used it as a base for attacks on Fort Levis, which fell to the British three weeks later. The garrison of Fort Lewis consisted of 6 French Colonial Regular officers and 330 Canadian militia, sailors, and French Colonial Regulars. Captain Pierre Pouchot was of the Regiment de Bearn and the sailors were commanded by a Canadian militia officer, Captain Rene-Hypolite Pepin, dit Laforce. Lt. General Amherst's army consisted of 11,000 Regulars, Provincials, and Native Americans with 100 siege guns. The Canadian sloop was commanded by Captain Labroquerie but with no wind, the three British row galleys battered the sloop. Amherst deployed 75 guns on the islands and mainland. On 23 August, when his guns were ready, he ordered his three row galleys and artillery to silence Pouchot's guns, clearing the way for his grenadiers and light infantry that were waiting in their bateaux below the closest island to storm the fort. The French, however, disabled all the attacking vessels, thus forcing Amherst to call of the assault. The British bombarded Fort Levis for three days and demolished the fort and outlying bastions, setting the debris on fire with red-hot shot and fire bombs, and put 48 men, including all the officers, out of action. On 25 August, when the French gunners ran out of shot and fires threatened to blow up a primary magazine, did Pouchot ask for terms. There was no week-long bombardment and Amherst's force didn't breach the walls.

*Page 45-Fort Machault was named after Jean-Baptiste Machault d'Arnouville, French Minister of the Marine not French Navy.

*Page 47-Fort Machault's garrison's size fluctuated from as few as 15 to as many as 300 men, but rarely numbered more then 40 for any length of time and seldom had more than a single swivel gun (not six as written by the author) in place.

*Page 50-Fort Duquesne mounted 15 guns, six of which were six-pounders and the remainder two-or three-pounders not six to eight small four pounders as written by the author.

*Page 55-Fort Ville-Marie was an old Algonquin fort along the Ottawa made up of trees planted in a circle and cut down to trunks. The French were reinforcing this fortification by building a palisade around the wall of tree trunks but preparations weren't completed due to the Iroquois arriving early.


Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn, Florida Guard
Orlando, Florida