The greatest story in the world, period 3 (of 3)

by Horace G. Hutchinson

But let us regard it also in its effects on the far larger stage upon which the story is being enacted, now that the Old East and the New West have begun to form part of it.

The War overseas

In the very same year, 1757, that Frederick gained two of his most effective victories, those of Rosbach and of Leuthen, in the first of which he broke up the French armies and in the second the armies of Austria, England was gaining success no less important against France far overseas. We have spoken of the East India Company of merchants settled as traders in various places along the coasts of India. It was thus, establishing stations on the coast, that the Portuguese, first, had come; and so too the French and English after them. Already, before the Seven Years' War, we have also noticed sundry clashes of arms between the English and the French, in which the advantage had gone heavily against the former. Both nations were obliged to keep a certain force of troops under arms for their protection in a country where the friendship of the natives was uncertain. The natives were of various races; the land was divided between many rulers of different States; and there was the one outstanding division of religion between Hindus and Mahommedans.

It may seem a strange thing to say, but really it was the French ambition to found a French Empire in India which led to the foundation of the British Empire. Under their able and ambitious leader, Dupleix, the French began to push inland from their coastal stations and forcibly to claim authority in some of the native States. It was, of course, an authority which they exercised in favour of their own people and against the English traders. When the Seven Years' War broke out, English and French in India as elsewhere were declared and open enemies. It was at this very moment that the Nawab, the native ruler, of Bengal, began to quarrel with the English. Naturally he was supported by the French. At first things went badly for the English in some fighting which led to no decisive result, but in the following year—the year of Rosbach and of Leuthen—the British, under Clive, gained a victory of the greatest importance over the troops of the Nawab, supported by the French, at Plassey.

It seems to have been quite a revelation to the natives that the British were able to fight at all, and from this time forward their prestige was established in the East, The battle which mainly decided the issue, as between English and French, was not fought until three years later, for at Plassey there had been only a few French supporting the native forces. But at Wandewash, in 1760, the battle was between British and French almost wholly, and its result was a decisive British victory. From that time forward Britain was always regarded as the principal European power in India and on all the eastern sea-coasts.

That was the mark made in the East on this greatest of all stories by the Seven Years' War.

Its mark was planted no less deeply on the western side. Montreal and Quebec were French towns at the beginning of the war. Moreover, Montcalm, the French governor, had established the authority of the French, supported by a chain of forts, right away west as far as the Mississippi. Take out the atlas, and, remembering that the French possession of Louisiana at that time stretched right up from New Orleans at the Mississippi's mouth to the Great Lakes, you will realise what this meant to the British people in America. It meant that they were completely hemmed in and shut off from all access to the West.

Canada gained by England

Pitt seems to have realised it. He sent out a strong force, which was ably helped by the militia called up from the British who were settled in America. Montcalm appears to have shown much genius for friendship with the Indians, and he had many of their tribes to aid his French forces. But the British gained post after post, and the crowning victory was won by Wolfe in 1759 on the Plains of Abraham, which dominate Quebec. Canada was won for Great Britain. The way to the almost boundless West was opened to men of British race. France's dream of Western empire was broken as completely as her dream of empire in the East. Florida, moreover, became British under the terms of the Peace of Paris, being assigned to Great Britain in return for Cuba and the Philippine Islands which had been taken from the Spaniards during the war.

1760, the year of the Wandewash battle in India, saw two great battles in Europe, one on land, at Minden, and one on sea, in Quiberon Bay, in both of which the French were heavily beaten. They happened at a moment when Frederick's fortunes were at low ebb, and were sorely needed. In the land battles the French were broken by a charge of the English line which seems to have been delivered contrary to all then recognised rules of war. At sea the French fleet was practically destroyed by the English under Admiral Hawke just when it was actually preparing for an invasion of England.