ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA.
1706.
Outbreak of hostilities.—Braddock's defeat.
In spite of this disparity of numbers, the French governors were set on executing their venturous scheme. It was their active advance into the wilderness that lay between Canada and the English colonies, that brought about the first collisions with the English outposts. The three northern links of the chain that was to join Canada with Louisiana were Fort Ticonderoga, at the south end of Lake Champlain, Fort Niagara, near the Great Falls between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and Fort Duquesne, at the head-waters of the Ohio. The first and last of these were a very few miles from the English back-settlements, and their establishment in 1754-55 was looked upon as a direct challenge by the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and Virginia. In 1754 a party of Virginian militia, headed by Major George Washington, of whom we shall hear much later on, made a dash on Fort Duquesne. But they were beaten and forced to surrender after a fight at Great Meadows. This provoked the colonies, and at their request General Braddock repeated the attack in the next year with a force of 2200 men, part of whom were British regulars. But he was drawn into an ambuscade by a very inferior force of French and Indians, his force was disgracefully routed, and he himself was slain. The fighting at once began to spread, and both England and France sent out reinforcements to America. Yet the two nations were still nominally at peace, and the French, who were just about to engage in a great war in Germany, were not anxious to commence hostilities with England at this particular moment. Newcastle, however, precipitated the outbreak of the struggle by a characteristic half-measure. He sent out Admiral Boscawen with orders not to attack all French ships, but to intercept a particular squadron carrying troops to Canada. Boscawen met it, and took two vessels after a fight; this made war inevitable. It broke out in the spring of 1756, and opened with a series of disasters for England, a fact which causes no surprise when we remember that her forces were under the direction of the imbecile Newcastle.
European coalition against Prussia.
Just at the same moment another struggle was commencing on the Continent. The Empress Maria Theresa had never forgiven the King of Prussia for robbing her of Silesia in the hour of her distress, fourteen years before. She had devoted much time and trouble to forming a great coalition for the purpose of punishing the plunderer, and had secretly enlisted in her alliance France, Russia, Sweden, Saxony, and most of the smaller German states. For the unscrupulous and rapacious Frederic was not viewed with love by his neighbours, and it was easy to combine them against him. His venomous pen had made enemies of two vindictive women, Elizabeth Empress of Russia, and Madame de Pompadour, the all-powerful mistress of Lewis XV., and though political expediency did not prescribe war with Prussia to either Russia or France, yet personal resentment brought it about.
Frederic II. overruns Saxony.
The open war between England and France had broken out in the spring of 1756. In the autumn of the same year the continental struggle began. Getting secret intelligence of the plot that was maturing against him, Frederic resolved to strike before his numerous adversaries were ready, and invaded Saxony. He overran the whole electorate and annihilated the Saxon army in a fortnight. But Austria, Russia, Sweden, and France immediately fell upon him, and he had much ado to avoid being crushed by brute force of numbers; for Prussia was but a small state of 5,000,000 souls, while the confederacy ranged against her counted half Europe in its ranks.