Customer Reviews

Quebec 1759: The Battle That Won Canada (Praeger Illustrated Military History)

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Four years ago, the very capable historian Rene Chartrand wrote Osprey's Quebec 1759 in the Order of Battle series. Now, Osprey has decided to publish a campaign title on the same subject by author Stuart Reid. Chartrand's earlier volume was so comprehensive that it seems a waste of time to recover this same ground, and the only value added in this new volume are the 3-D maps and the battle scenes (which frankly, are not very good). Indeed, Reid's Quebec 1759 accomplishes much less in the same 96-page format than Chartrand.

Quebec 1759: The Battle that Won Canada begins with a short introduction, a campaign chronology, and a very brief section on opposing commanders. The section on opposing armies borrows heavily from Chartrand's earlier volume, although the author neglected to discuss the Royal Navy's participation. The section on opposing plans is also rather brief. There are a total of five 2-D maps (the Canadian theater of operations, the river war in June-August 1759, the proposed St Michel Operation, the landing at Montmorency on 31 July 1759, and the landing at Foulon) and three 3-D Bird's Eye View maps (two of the Battle on the Plains of Abraham and one of the Battle of St Foy in April 1760). The three battle scenes are: the landing at Montmorency, the storming of the Foulon and the Battle on the Plains); however, the battle scenes in this volume, by artist Gerry Embleton, are not as good as in most other Osprey volumes.

Reid is a British re-enactor with considerable insight into the 18th Century British Army, which he showed to good effect in his earlier books on Culloden. However, Reid has a tendency toward a jingoistic, pro-British bias that can be annoying. In the introduction, Reid takes the time to criticize George Washington's "inept leadership" on the Monongahela four years earlier, while noting that the British General Braddock was merely "unfortunate." This biased opinion does not square with the facts. Reid also infers several times that Wolfe was fortunate in having virtually no colonial troops in his command at Quebec (although he could have mentioned that many British units were brought up to strength by men recruited in America). Reid's recurrent dismissal of French General Montcalm's military talents also seems overtly jaded; wasn't this the same Montcalm who defeated the British at Fort Ticonderoga? The subtitle, "the battle that won Canada" also betrays a narrow interpretation of that event; the French would see it as "the battle that lost Canada." Reid is certainly knowledgeable about the kit and tactics of British infantry in this period, but his objectivity - or lack of - is a cause for concern.

The only other noticeable difference between Reid and Chartrand is that the former bases much of his narrative on the letters of General Wolfe and other official British correspondence. There are virtually no sources quoted from the French perspective. Reid's discussion of the development of Wolfe's final battle plan is a bit tortuous, as most other attempts at analyzing the young general's decision-making process tend to wallow through a sea of assumptions and guesses. No matter whom you read, it is clear the Wolfe arrived at Quebec with only a hazy plan of action (based on ridiculously bad intelligence) and then decided to play it by ear. The landing at Montmorency was a disaster that demonstrated how effective Montcalm's area defense was, as well as the paucity of British tactical options. Wolfe's decision to land below the city was anticipated by the French and most British writers fail to mention just how narrow a margin of error the landing at Foulon was conducted. Wolfe got very lucky and got ashore in strength, but had the French been a bit more alert, the landing at Foulon would have been a replay of Montmorency. While the capture of Quebec in 1759 was certainly a great British victory, it was based far more on luck than good operational planning.

While credible in basics, this work does little to fully explore the battle. It is sadly deficient in enumerating the activities and names of French regulars and militia. It does bless the reader with photographs of the fix-bayonet sequence of period British regulars (whatever that has to do with anything).

Not equal with other Osprey volumes (René Chartrand's Monongahela for example).

While I was reading the book, I was suprised at how little the French side was covered. It was as though the French didn`t even fight, and just let the British bow them over. I felt that a bit more balanced coverage of the campaign would have been better. Having only the colors of the French metropolitian regiments shown as a representation of the French forces was too little. Of all of the Osprey books that I have bought, this one is probobly the one that I am most disappointed in. It was a fair account of the British side, but even that, I found it annoying that the depection of a member of the 13th Regt as a stand in for other regiments in the campaign was a bit off. There are plenty of North American British reenactors of regiments in that campaign which could have been used. I`m currently a Masters student and if I had submitted something like this for a paper, I would probobly fail.