It was but early in July, and he had already accomplished half his route, and could boast the capture of over a hundred cannon—mainly of French casting.
All had gone well. The news reaching London, reached Paris and Madrid by the mouths of English Ministers and Envoys, whose tone was now of an increasing firmness, and who, in the immediate prospect of success, began to ask in plain terms how matters stood between France and Spain, and whether these two Bourbon Crowns were prepared for open war.
Vergennes was in an agony of writing, of secrecy and of defence, urging Spain to draw secretly close to France that both might stand ready for the inevitable blow which England would deliver when the colonies were once subdued.
What followed was Burgoyne’s woodland march of a few miles across the portage from the lakes to the Hudson.
The cause of that march’s amazing delay, and of the disaster consequent upon such delay, will never be fully explained; because, although not a few acquainted with European roads and European discipline and arms are also acquainted (as is the present writer) with the un-made country traversed by that force, yet there was no contemporary who, by a full double experience of American and European conditions, could present in his account the American advantage in such a country at that time and the corresponding difficulties of European troops. From Fort Anne, where the last American force had been scattered, to Fort Edward, where the Hudson is reached, is one day’s easy walking. It took Burgoyne’s army twenty-one. I have neither space nor knowledge to say why: German slowness (half the army was German), the painful construction of causeways, officers (one may suppose) drinking in their tents, a vast train, an excess of guns, a fancied leisure—all combined to protract the delay. The month of July was at an end when the British reached the river, and, having reached it, the men were on fatigue duty day after day bringing in the guns and supplies that had come by water to the extremity of Lake George.
In this way August was wasted, and an attempt to raid draught cattle a few miles to the south-east at Bennington in Vermont was, in spite of the active loyalty or treason of many colonists, defeated and destroyed—a disaster due to the foreign character, the small number employed, and the dilatory marching of the troops so detached. It was mid-September before the army crossed the Hudson to its western bank, where a small auxiliary force approaching from the Mohawk valley was to have joined it. That force failed to effect a junction. All were bewildered, and now a heavy rain began to soften the green ways and to swallow the wheels of the guns. Burgoyne reached no further south than to the site of a drawn struggle before the mouth of the Mohawk. And already the American irregulars, on hearing of the British difficulties, had gathered and grown in number; they were at last near double the invading force, and September was ending. The woods were full of colour as Burgoyne’s little army fell back—but a few miles, yet back; an irresolution was upon it, because advance was no longer possible, and yet a full retreat would mean the failure of all the large plan of England. There was a rally, a success, a failure, and the loss of guns. With October they were beneath the heights of Saratoga. Certain supplies attempted to reach them by crossing the river; the far bank was found to be held by the increasing forces of the rebellion.
It was determined to abandon the effort and to retire—at last, but too late. The road to the lakes was blocked; more guns were lost; the enemy were gathering and still gathering, a random farmer militia whom such an entanglement tempted: they were soon four to one. An attempt at relief by the force down river from New York had failed. On the 12th of October, a Sabbath, the harassed army reposed. On the 13th, a Monday, Burgoyne ordered an exact return of forces, forage, and supply; some five thousand were to be found, but not four thousand men could stand to roll-call armed; not two thousand of these were British; perhaps a week’s supply remained; of all his park, thirty-five pieces alone were left to him. He called a council, to which every officer above the rank of lieutenant was summoned, and that afternoon the proposals to treat were drawn up and despatched; by ten, Gates, in command of the American force, had sent in his reply. Tuesday and Wednesday were taken up in the terms of an honourable surrender—not exactly observed. On Thursday the 16th these terms were signed, and on that day, that repeated day the 16th of October, the keystone of the British plan in North America had crumbled, and the strong arch of a wise strategy was ruined.
It was but a small force that surrendered in those lonely hills to a herd of irregulars. The causes of the failure were many, tedious, gradual, and therefore obscure; but the effect was solemn and of swelling volume. It roused the colonies; it slowly echoed across the Atlantic; it changed the face of Europe.
The French Court, at the moment of that surrender in the woods three thousand miles away, sat at Fontainebleau decided upon pleasure.
Goltz, watching all things there for the King of Prussia his master, wrote (on that very day, the 16th of October!) that the French had let their moment slip: England was now secure, he thought—for one of the great weaknesses of Prussia is that, like self-made men, she has no instinct for fate.