Battle of Carillon - Background

Background

Prior to 1758, the French and Indian War had gone very poorly for the British, whose military met few of its objectives. Following a string of French victories in 1757 in North America, coupled with military setbacks in Europe, William Pitt gained full control of the direction of British military efforts in the Seven Years' War. Embarking on a strategy that emphasized defense in Europe, where France was strong, and offense in North America, where France was weak, he resolved to attack New France (the colonial holdings of France in North America) in three strategic campaigns. Large-scale campaigns were planned to capture Fort Duquesne on the Pennsylvania frontier and the fortress at Louisbourg (on Île-Royale, now known as Cape Breton Island). The third campaign, assigned to General James Abercrombie, was to launch an attack against Canada through the Champlain Valley. Pitt probably would have preferred to have George Howe, a skilled tactician and a dynamic leader, lead this expedition, but seniority and political considerations led him to appoint the relatively undistinguished Abercrombie instead. Howe was appointed a brigadier general, and placed as Abercrombie's second in command.

The French, who had started construction on Fort Carillon in 1755, used it as a launching point for the successful siege of Fort William Henry in 1757. Despite that and other successes in North America in 1757, the situation did not look good for them in 1758. As early as March, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, the commanding general responsible of the French forces in North America, and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, New France's governor, were aware that the British were planning to send large numbers of troops against them, and that they would have relatively little support from King Louis XV of France. The lack of support from France was in large part due to an unwillingness of the French military to risk the movement of significant military forces across the Atlantic Ocean, which was dominated by Britain's Royal Navy. This situation was further exacerbated by Canada's poor harvest in 1757, which resulted in food shortages as the winter progressed.

Montcalm and Vaudreuil, who did not get along with each other, differed on how to deal with the British threat. They had fewer than 5,000 regular troops, an estimated six thousand militia men, and a limited number of Indian allies, to bring against British forces reported to number 50,000. Vaudreuil, who had limited combat experience, wanted to divide the French forces, with about 5,000 each at Carillon and Louisbourg, and then send a picked force of about 3,500 men against the British in the Mohawk River on the northwestern frontiers of the Province of New York. Montcalm believed this to be folly, as the plan would enable the British to easily divert some of their forces to fend off the French attack. Vaudreuil prevailed, and in June 1758 Montcalm left Quebec for Carillon.