Quebec: The Story of Three Sieges
by Stephen Manning
Continuum, £25
When the French President, General Charles de Gaulle, committed a deliberate diplomatic faux pas by proclaiming “Vive le Québec libre” to an adoring crowd in Montreal more than 40 years ago, he summed up the tortured history of this much besieged city.
Because 200 years earlier, in 1759, the British, under the celebrated general James Wolfe, had laid siege to Quebec, eventually wresting control from the French under General Montcalm. But that wasn’t the end of it; nations continued to fight over Quebec for years to come.
This is the story of the three sieges of the city during which the French, the British and, later, the Americans, during the War of Independence, tussled over the key to the St Lawrence river, so vital to the military and political dominance of the ports and waterways of Canada.
It is written by Professor Stephen Manning in a very readable style, thankfully devoid of those infernal footnotes with which most academics like to scatter their work.
It relates how Quebec was battered by man and cannon from land and sea. It details the alliances and terrain as well as the bloody battles, analysing the success and failure of famous generals in their attempts to dominate North America.
One paragraph is devoted to a battle in the run up to the first siege which was the subject of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which became one of the most popular American novels of the 19th century. It reveals how British soldiers were drilled to within an inch of their lives so the instinct to stay in ranks outdid the instinct to run and save their skins. That style of fighting was no match for the French and their native allies who were more used to skirmishing in the heavily wooded countryside.
The first siege immortalised General Wolfe, whose statue now looks wistfully down from the Greenwich Observatory to the naval college. Pretty apt, really, since the author says it was the Royal Navy that ensured victory in Quebec, bringing relief, gun-fire and provisions at the right time to the besieged British garrison.
When Wolfe died, the British soon became the besieged and had to hold out in the most harsh conditions. It is impossible to envisage those unless you have felt the Canadian cold freeze the breath in your nostrils and deprive you of the power of speech. It was so cold that sentries were left on duty for just half an hour, because they soon could not speak. The poor Highlanders suffered so much from frost bite that the nuns took pity on them and knitted them leggings.
Lack of food and fuel took a dreadful toll on health. Scurvy weakened and starvation was just a mouthful away. The French besiegers were similarly affected and we learn how their generals made many fatal mistakes, allowing the British to hold out despite their “wretched and pitiable state”. The Royal Navy arrived in the nick of time.
The third and final siege was 15 years after the second. The American War of Independence was in full swing and Washington wanted to make Quebec the 14th state of the union. How different would be the map of North America if Benedict Arnold had succeeded. But his mission was doomed.
He set off on the most risky route, hoping for the element of surprise, with hastily built boats that started to fall apart en route. He had provisions for 20 days but he misjudged the time it would take. Frequently, his army had to unload 200 boats, manhandle the contents across rapids and reload the boats. The trek took 40 days. His men were exhausted and emaciated by the time they reached the outskirts of Quebec.
I found the book fascinating. Not necessarily the military strategy, the number of guns and the colour of the uniforms, but the human story of the city that unfolds.
Mary Maguire
