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Editor says, what if James Wolfe had survived the Battle of the Plains of Abraham? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1759, on this day Major-General James Wolfe issued his final orders to the nine thousand troops of the British Army garrisoned on the St Lawrence River some eleven miles from the fortified city of Quebec, urging them to remember "what their country expects from them, and what a determined body of soldiers, inured to war, is capable of doing against five weak French battalions mingled with disorderly peasantry".
Watch the Youtube Clip of Canada: A People's History - Plains of Abraham 
Suicide MissionIn fact the British were outnumbered by General Louis-Joseph Marquis de Montcalm's twelve thousand defenders who were entrenched behind sound defences in the city. Wolfe's plan was nothing less than a suicide mission, a nine-mile descent of the St Lawrence under cover of darkness, followed by an amphibious assault on the cliff-backed Foulon Cove.
"Are at all times to imitate them in that respect"Wolfe's no-nonsense "volley and bayonet" tactics had been adapted from military minds such as Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. And the stunning success of the thirty-two year Major-General would prefigure his rise to the highest ranks of the British Army; as Commander-in-Chief during the American Revolution Wolfe would decisively defeat an even more formidable foe by the name of George Washington.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Brumwell, Stephen, "Wolfe's men: two hundred and fifty years ago this month a British Army under General James Wolfe won a momentous battle at Quebec", History Today Magazine, September 2009Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Wolfes Manifesto Source: Wikipedia Labels: James Wolfe, Quebec, Siege of Quebec, British North American Union, George Washington. Editor says, our primary source is Brumwell, Stephen. "Wolfe's men: two hundred and fifty years ago this month a British Army under General James Wolfe won a momentous battle at Quebec. The outcome has been seen as a fortuitous springboard to Empire, the result of luck more than leadership. But, as Stephen Brumwell argues, a crucial--and neglected--ingredient in Wolfe's dramatic victory was the professionalism of the army he bad helped to create" Please note that substantial amounts of content have been repurposed for this post.
~ I wonder, though, would the American Revolution still go on even without Washington to lead it?
~ Absent Washington the counteroffensive across the Delaware never happens winter 76-77. The field army disperses over the winter and the rebellion devolves into a guerilla as most of the noteables outside New England take the British offer of pardon in 1777.
~ Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII, contemporary? WTF? By the time of the Plains of Abraham, one had been dead for over a century and the other for about half a century. Fixed, thanks - Ed.
~ Highly questionable scenerio since Wolfe won through European tactics rather than fronter ones. His successor , Amherst, actually declined an American appointment when the American War of Indepence errupted. To many, the American revolution was more the Second British Civil War. Still, he was a Marine but that does not overcome the obsticles of Geography and Logistics and bad bad politics that ultimately cost Britain that war.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
