Empires at War

by Jr. , William M. Fowler

  Boscawen was relentless. Two of the French fleet made good their escape, but La Clue, unwilling to suffer the humiliation of surrender, ran his flagship, Ocean, aground on the Portuguese shore. Redoubtable followed his example. Two other ships, Temereire and Modeste, sought shelter close to shore under Portuguese batteries. With their traditional disregard for neutrality, Boscawen's captains followed in hot pursuit, brazenly sailing into Portuguese waters, where they burned Ocean and Redoubtable, and took Temeraire and Modeste as prizes.

  Boscawen's rout of La Clue crippled the French navy. Two months later it suffered an even greater defeat.

  On November 16 Admiral Sir Edward Hawke received intelligence that a French fleet under Admiral the Marquis de Conflans had slipped the Brest blockade and was at sea with twenty-one ships of the line. According to the report, it was bound south toward Quiberon Bay, where Conflans intended to rendezvous with a fleet of troop transports and supply vessels. Their intention was clear: a cross-Channel invasion. The next morning Hawke signaled his fleet of twenty-three ships of the line to make sail for Quiberon. At the same time he dispatched a message to the Admiralty, announcing " [I am] in pursuit of the enemy, and make no doubt of coming up with them at sea or in Quiberon Bay."16

  By the nineteenth Conflans was seventy miles northwest of Belle Isle in Quiberon Bay. As is so often the case in those waters, winds sweeping down off the land collided with weather coming in from the ocean, stirring up a boisterous sea. Undaunted, Hawke held his course and pressed ahead to "court the prosperous gale."17 Sailing in the van was Magnanime, commanded by Captain Richard Howe. Magnanime was listing so severely that the lower tier of her lee gun ports were under water. At nine in the morning of the twentieth a lookout called out that there was a fleet ahead. Despite the continuing strong winds and heavy seas, Hawke set his topsails and signaled a full chase. "All the day," reported Hawke, "we had very fresh gales at northwest and west-north-west, with heavy squalls. M. Conflans kept going off under such sail as his squadron could carry and at the same time keep together; while we crowded after him with every sail our ships could bear."18

  Hawke bore down on the retreating French as they scurried through the narrow entry north of Belle Isle into the treacherous waters of Quiberon Bay. A cautious commander would have paused seaward of the bay to avoid the confined waters and the danger of being thrown up onto a lee shore, but Hawke charged into the bay. Conflan's fleet fell into complete confusion and disorder. "Had we but two hours more daylight" reported Hawke, "the whole" would have been "totally destroyed or taken."19 Even so, French losses were heavy, and once again the Royal Navy took the laurels.

  The battles at Lagos and Quiberon Bay broke the back of the French navy. "The glory of the . . . enemy is vanished into empty air," reported the Gentlemen's Magazine.20 So great was the rejoicing that in London, reported Horace Walpole, "our bells are worn threadbare with ringing of victories."21

  The good news from Lagos, Quebec, and Quiberon helped offset grim news in the dispatches from the Continent. For three years Frederick had been fighting on multiple fronts. Vastly outnumbered by his enemy, he had managed to survive by dint of his own military genius and the inability of his foes to coordinate their efforts. His success, however, had come at a high cost. In three years of tough campaigning Prussia had lost nearly seventy-five thousand men. These numbers were staggering to a nation whose entire population totaled less than three million, but even worse was the fact that these casualties took from the emperor a cadre of trained soldiers. Not only was his army growing smaller, but its ranks were increasingly filled with green recruits.

  Prince Ferdinand continued to command the allied army of British and German soldiers facing the French in the west, while Frederick held command over the Prussian army in the east against the superior forces of Russia and Austria. On Good Friday, April 13, 1759, Ferdinand had advanced against the French near the city of Frankfurt. The engagements around the city were indecisive, but in the following weeks the French recovered quickly and were able to take the offensive and threaten Hanover. The prince planned to fall back slowly toward his main supply base at Minden on the Weser River. The French, however, outmaneuvered Ferdinand and marched into the city before the allies could arrive to defend their base. Ferdinand had no choice but to attack, and on August 1 the two armies met on the outskirts of the city. Marshal Louis Georges Erasme de Contades, the French commander, had an army of fifty-four thousand supported by 160 cannon. Ferdinand marched out with forty-two thousand men and 170 guns.

  Contades arranged his men on the field in an unconventional manner. Instead of placing his cavalry on the flanks, where they might be used to harass and pursue, he put them in the center. As the battle got underway, Fer­dinand ordered his infantry battalions forward to a position opposite the French cavalry. With bayonets fixed, the battalions formed ranks and held their fire as the French horse charged their line. Although the charging French made a fiercesome sight, it was more bluster than power. Their drawn sabers were a poor match for the wall of lead let loose by Ferdinand's infantry when they were less than one hundred feet away. Troops and horses fell in a tangled, bloody mess. A second charge met with the same result. With their center crumbling, the French had no choice but to retreat.

  Watching the French withdraw, Ferdinand ordered his cavalry, under their English commander, Lord George Germain, to pursue. For uncertain reasons Germain failed to follow orders, and the French managed to fall back in good order. Contades lost seven thousand men. The allies lost barely half that number, but nearly all their casualties were in the British regiments. Lieutenant Hugh Montgomery of the Twelfth Regiment of foot reported to his mother that this "astonishing victory" had cost his regiment dearly. "We fought that day not more than 480 private and 27 officers, of the first 302 were killed or wounded, and of the later 18. "22

  Ferdinand's victory at Minden was one of the few bright spots in the German campaign. With their superior numbers the Austrians and Russians were hammering the Prussians in the east. In June, while Wolfe was preparing to lay siege to Quebec, an army of seventy thousand advanced, hoping to trap the emperor in one final climactic campaign. To divert them, Frederick ordered General Johann Von Wedel to attack the Russians at Paltzig. They mauled him, forcing Frederick to rush to save his army. But instead of advancing, the Russian commander, General Peter Semenovich Soltykov, opted to retire to a fortified position at Kunersdorf on the eastern side of the Oder River. Frederick, the master of march and maneuver, was out of his element. He probed for a hole in the Russian line, but finding none he ordered a full attack. It was hopeless. On August 12 Russian artillery tore through the Prussian ranks, and by the end of the day Frederick's army was battered and beaten. He lost nineteen thousand men killed and wounded. Soltykov crossed the river and began to drive toward Berlin. He might well have taken the city and forced Frederick to sue for peace had he not been unexpectedly forced to march south to relieve his beleaguered Austrian allies, whose supply lines were being threatened by a small Prussian force.

  While Frederick struggled to rally his army, a few weeks after the disaster at Kunersdorf the French took Dresden, and in November he was beaten again at Maxen. That Frederick survived the horrible year of 1759 was due less to his tactical genius than to the ineptness of his Austrian and Russian foes, who preferred to squabble among themselves rather than coordinate against the Prussians.

  Elsewhere around the world, in India, Africa, and the West Indies the British undertook smaller "eccentric" attacks. More commercial than strategic in their goals, these operations, particularly those in India and Africa, were designed to divert enemy forces while seizing important trading opportunities.

  In distant India the war was carried on by a combination of forces both public and private, the latter in the guise of trading companies, namely the British East India Company and the French Compagnie des Indies. British affairs there were largely in the hands of one of the most enigmatic figures in imperial history: Rober
t Clive. Born into a middling Shropshire family in 1725, Clive was a bright and combative child who developed a lifelong love for fighting. Although he never attended university, his family provided a solid education, and in 1743 he joined the British East India Company as a clerk. The following year the company posted him as chief clerk in Madras. Two years later, during the War of the Austrian Succession, the French took him prisoner when they swept into the city from nearby Pondicherry. Clive managed to escape, and eager to exchange the pen for the sword, he applied for an ensign's commission and served with distinction during the British siege of Pondicherry. In 1748, the Treaty of Aix la Chapelle returned Madras to England and Clive to his clerkship.

  But Clive was too ambitious and restless to spend his days keeping accounts. In the turbulent world of Indian politics, where the British and French trading companies were constantly inciting local princes against one another, Clive found ample opportunity to advance his military career as a company mercenary. A Kipling-like character who earned a reputation for swashbuckling derring-do and rashness, in 1753 he returned briefly to England, where news of his exploits made him a popular figure. Much impressed by his military service, the company appointed him lieutenant governor of St. David and also secured him a king's commission as a lieutenant colonel. By the time Clive returned to his post in June 1756, war had already been declared, but the official news did not reach him until months later. In the meantime, however, he had a more immediate crisis on his hands.

  Suraj ud Dowlah was the nabob of Bengal. An ambitious and impetuous young man, he had recently inherited the throne from his grandfather. In the kaleidoscopic mix of Indian and European politics Suraj used bribery and assassination to consolidate his authority. One of his kinsman challenged the new nabob but then, having second thoughts, fled for his life and found sanctuary in the British-held city of Calcutta. Furious at the British for harboring the "traitor," Suraj stormed the city on June 20. Most of the Europeans fled, but at least 150 were taken prisoner. What happened next remains a matter of controversy. The only documentary source is a memoir written by John Zephaniah Holwell, an Englishman who claimed that the nabob's guards threw everyone into a small room, barely eighteen by fourteen feet, with only two tiny windows for ventilation. Holwell wrote that the intense summer heat turned the room into a death chamber, and that by morning only twenty-three people were left alive. Whether true or not, the story of the "Black Hole of Calcutta" gained wide currency.23

  Robert Clive

  When news of the disaster reached Madras, the company ordered Clive to advance north and retake the city. His force approached by sea, escorted by a naval squadron under Admiral Charles Watson. Clive and Watson retook the city in December with little difficulty and then repulsed a coun1 terattack by the nabob. A few weeks after the retaking of Calcutta, official word reached India that Britain and France were at war. Clive thus had a free hand to attack the French. In order to concentrate his forces, Clive, against the advice of his officers, negotiated a peace with the nabob. Then he urged a reluctant Watson to help him seize the French post at Chander-nagor, fifty miles up the Hooghly River. By the end of March 1757, Chan-dernagor was in British hands. In the meantime the wily Suraj ud Dowlah was secretly talking with the French. Clive decided to rid himself of the unreliable nabob. By promising the nabob's uncle, Mir Jaffer, that he could have the throne once his nephew was disposed of, he was able to secure local support.

  On June 13, 1757, while Loudoun was marshaling his forces for the attack on Louisbourg, Clive marched north from Chandernagor with a small army of one thousand Europeans, two thousand native troops (Sepoys), and ten cannon. They reached Cutwa Fort on the eighteenth, and by the twenty-second they had crossed the river and made camp at Plassey Grove. The next morning the nabob's army—estimated by Clive to be fifteen thousand cavalry and thirty-five thousand infantry supported by fifty cannon, many of them manned by French artillerymen—made their approach. The heavy guns played on the British. Clive had chosen his position wisely, and indeed, his preparations went beyond the military. Over the previous weeks his agents, aided by Mir Jaffer, had distributed hefty bribes among the nabob's army, greatly reducing their enthusiasm for the upcoming battle.

  High mud banks provided cover for Clive and his men. When the enemy cavalry advanced, Clive's cannon delivered withering close-in fire that made mincemeat of their formation. After several hours of bombarding the English with little effect, the nabob's army withdrew. Clive ordered his men forward, and within minutes they had the enemy in flight. Clive estimated five hundred enemy dead; his own losses were twenty-two killed and fifty wounded.

  Clive's astounding successes gave the British control of Bengal, albeit through his puppet, Mir Jaffer. Shortly after the victory at Plassey Grove, Watson died of fever and was replaced by his second in command, Admiral George Pocock. Both Clive and Pocock realized that, while they held the upper hand, their theater of operations was so distant and isolated that they were on their own. Little help was likely to come from England, and the French remained in control at Pondicherry. The slightest alteration in strength on either side might quickly upset the balance of power. This was particularly the case at sea, where the presence or absence of a single ship could make the difference between victory and defeat.

  Pocock's main objective was to secure communication between Madras in the south and Calcutta in the north. In the spring of 1758, following Clive's triumphs on land, communications between the cities was threatened by the arrival of a French naval squadron and troop reinforcements under the command of Admiral the Comte d'Ache and Comte Lally de Tollendal. Their orders were to reinforce the French garrison at Pondicherry and take the English fort at St. David. As soon as he heard of their arrival, Pocock beat southward from Madras, hoping to intercept them before they reached Pondicherry, but he missed them. The French moved overland against St. David with one thousand regulars and as many native troops while d'Ache tacked along the shore. On April 2:9 Pocock and d'Ache fought an indecisive battle. At the same time French land forces captured Cuddalore near St. David. Unable to reinforce the garrison, the British surrendered St. David on June 2- For several months the French did all they could to take Madras, but they failed. By the end of the year the French held firmly to Pondicherry, while the British remained steadfast at Madras and Calcutta. The stalemate held, neither side having sufficient force to overwhelm the other. Clive received orders in late 1759 to return home. In his place Sir Eyre Coote, a veteran of the battle at Plassey Grove, took charge.

  India was not the only exotic place where commercial competition fueled Anglo-French rivalry. In West Africa, for example, on the island of Goree (Dakar) and the nearby coast of Senegal, British and French slave traders battled for profits.

  For nearly two centuries Goree Island had been an important center for the slave trade. Barely three miles off shore, the island was a low, uninviting piece of rock less than one hundred acres in area. Refreshed by constant sea breezes, however, its climate was far more salubrious than the pestilential mainland, where "the hottest summers in Europe would be winters in Senegal."24 Traders shipped slaves to the island from the mainland, where dealers shackled them in stone dungeons to await sale and shipment. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to set up shop on the island. The Dutch took it from them in 1621 and then lost it to the French in 1677.

  Slave trading was brutish, violent, and despicable, and Thomas Cum-ming was one of its chief practitioners. Despite his horrid credentials, Cumming was a Quaker, known in London circles by the oxymoronic nickname the "Fighting Quaker." Greedy to control the lucrative West African trade, Cumming pestered Pitt and Anson to launch an expedition against Goree and Fort St. Louis. The fort, 120 miles north of the island, controlled the entrance to the Senegal River, a major sluiceway for slave traffic, which reached hundreds of miles into the interior.25

  Cumming's hectoring paid off. On March 9, 1758, Pitt sent six ships and two hundred marines, along with a detachment of a
rtillery, to seize the island and the river fort. Commodore Henry Marsh commanded the whole, while Cumming went along as a political adviser; in reality Cumming managed the affair.26 They arrived off the Senegal River on April 24. After bumping over the bar at the mouth, the commodore made his way twelve miles upstream to Fort St. Louis. Built on a low sandy spit, the post was decidedly unimpressive. As soon as the French defenders saw Marsh's ships, they sued for peace. Within a few days Marsh fell down the river and sailed south toward Goree. Resistance was much stronger on the island than at Fort St. Louis, and he was forced to withdraw.27 Despite the repulse at Goree, for a small military and naval investment the English, Cumming in particular, reaped a huge profit.

  Although the West Indies might be lumped in with India and Africa, the islands were in fact far more central to the conduct of the war. Sugar, and its waste product molasses (the raw material for rum), were the most valuable commodities in the Atlantic trade. The Caribbean islands that produced these products were prime targets for competing empires.28 In addition, their geographic proximity to North America made them key strategic and diplomatic assets.