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Conclusion: Braddock's Defeat and Its Legacy

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Conclusion: Braddock's Defeat and Its Legacy CONCLUSION: BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT AND ITS LEGACY Refl ecting the core themes and factors outlined hitherto in this book, the other prongs of the grand Braddock Plan of 1755, with the exception of the Acadian mission of Robert Monkton, were failures in their own right; despite William Johnson’s pyrrhic tactical victory at the so-called Battle of Lake George. Indeed, the missions of William Johnson and William Shirley are noteworthy principally for the fact that they were American campaigns that relied almost exclusively on provincial soldiers raised in the colonies; and were dominated by two central fi gures of regional politics, Shirley and Johnson. Shirley’s own campaign had been belatedly adopted by Braddock when he arrived in America, though this mission was not, at least initially, a priority for the ministry in London. Johnson’s task was one that would, it was felt, secure the New York frontier and, perhaps more signifi cantly, Britain’s increasingly tentative alliance with the Iroquois. It was the lob- bying of Massachusetts’s governor, who had been convinced, ironically, by William Johnson, of the merits of a campaign against Fort Niagara, that had seen that vital French post become an objective of the campaign. Unfortunately, the folly of creating a split command in New York—one that was magnifi ed by the intensively ambitious nature of these soon-to-be jostling rivals—was not a factor that ever seemed to have been considered by Braddock when he was presented with this plan at Alexandria. 1 Ultimately, both missions witnessed the age-old colonial bane of weak executive authority—transcolonial jealousies and individual vested political and economic interests hamstringing key strategic objectives. Indeed, an © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 227 R. Hall, Atlantic Politics, Military Strategy and the French and Indian War, War, Culture and Society, 1750-1850, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30665-0 228 CONCLUSION: BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT AND ITS LEGACY in-depth analysis of the Shirley and Johnson campaigns would exemplify poor British planning (at the governmental and indeed colonial levels); transcolony and personal rivalries and the martial shortcomings of colonial soldiers operating virtually independently of British command and sup- port (despite the aforementioned Lake George success of Johnson). When combined, these led to logistical and political deadlocks, enormous expen- diture outlays and two painstakingly slow campaigns. 2 Indeed, William Shirley’s military career was destroyed by the recriminations that followed from the 1755 campaigns in New York. As for Robert Monkton’s Acadia campaign, the reason why this was successful was because the British descent upon the peninsula maximized the localized seaborne advantages the Royal Navy could bring to bear (even in 1755), while the army would fi ght a conventional, as opposed to backcountry, campaign. In addition, the crown promised to defray the costs of the mission, negating the constitutional deadlocks and quarrels associated with the expeditions of Johnson, Shirley and Braddock. 3 In short, it was organized in the way the wider Braddock Plan should have been, and in many regards bears parallels the objectives, priorities and strategic acumen of the Pitt ministry from 1756. Edward Braddock’s own mission to Fort Duquesne, by comparison, with all of its political, diplomatic, economic and martial travails perhaps demonstrates the latent divergence of empire that, in the longer term, would see the Thirteen Colonies split from Great Britain. These fractures, of course, had existed before 1755 and it would be quite wrong to suggest that the Braddock campaign (and wider Braddock Plan) was the defi nitive point at which the road to American Revolution began. Other underlying factors associated with imperial administration in the late 1740s and 1750s had portended a schism of empire too (at least in hindsight), not the least of which was the rise of one of the great advocates of legislative and territorial expansionism, the Earl of Halifax, to the position of President of the Board of Trade in 1748. Braddock’s defeat provided an indicator of future imperial divergences, however. In Braddock we see a commander in chief who had been sent to North America as a de facto viceroy; his orders, superfi cially, allowed him to demand appropriations from assemblies that he anticipated would meet his requests with little objection or resistance. Failing to compre- hend how passionately the colonists would cling to the idea of diffused sovereignty—one in which representative local assemblies were seen as the equivalents of parliament in their own jurisdictions—it was inevitable CONCLUSION: BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT AND ITS LEGACY 229 that abrasions and confl icts of interest would emerge. In the 1760s British offi cials would again evoke the kind of resistance to imperial authority that Braddock’s tenure as commander in chief unleashed in 1755 (this was also true of John Campbell, Fourth Earl of Loudon’s tenure in this position from 1756 to 1758); and here again an overarching theme can be drawn. Britain, to pay for a war (as opposed to a campaign) fought, from its perspective, to defend the colonists, demanded, in return for its man- power and treasure, contributions from colonial authorities. Little scope was given for negotiation in obtaining these requisitions and, in an empire in which negotiation was, and always had been (particularly in view of Britain’s largely laissez faire attitude towards its American possessions) a modus operandi , such intransigence could only spell trouble. Yet, whereas the turmoil of the 1760s would lead to cries of tyranny and theft of lib- erty (resulting in resistance and revolution in the 1770s), in the aftermath of the Braddock campaign such profound differences, though indeed a source of great tension and resentment, were offset by the necessity of defending the backcountry, defeating the French and securing national and local interests in coveted, contested regions. 4 As for Edward Braddock the man and general, he came, in the wider scope of nineteenth and twentieth-century historiography (most notably in its “Whig” and neoprogressive manifestations) to represent the very worst failings of Britain as a “mother country”—one increasingly inclined towards oppression of traditional liberties as its power and empire grew on the back of its colonial expansion. Braddock’s apparent haughtiness, con- tempt for American traditions and customs (indeed his supposed disdain for the colonists per se), when coupled with his demands and attempts to enforce imperial legislation (for that is what many of his orders amounted to) came to exemplify Britain’s heavy-handed and oppressive approach to its colonies; and hence, ultimately, its violation of colonists’ rights as freeborn Englishmen. The contempt we see for Britain’s conduct in “Whiggish” histories of the American Revolution is evident in their interpretive line of Edward Braddock and his defeat at the Monongahela. Braddock, and to an extent his subordinates, through their haughty, supercilious, conde- scending and downright aggressive attitudes and actions mirrored in many ways those policies which would force Americans to unite in the defense of their liberties 20 years later. 5 This somewhat denigratory caricature of Braddock did emerge rather swiftly after the Monongahela debacle and was not limited to the American side of the Atlantic. In an age where military commanders were 230 CONCLUSION: BRADDOCK’S DEFEAT AND ITS LEGACY frequently lauded or condemned on the strength of their virtues as offi cers and gentlemen, Braddock’s diffi culties in leading a campaign in the midst of what was a pseudo-autonomous segment of the British Atlantic World ensured that his memory would be tarnished by the slurs—and indeed lies—that were spread after his demise in battle. Certainly, in comparison to subsequent “victorious” British commanders such as John Forbes and James Wolfe, Braddock emerges in many works as one of history’s greatest blunderers; something profoundly unfair. Indeed, to compare Edward Braddock to General John Forbes, who led a successful assault against Fort Duquesne in 1758, is to overlook the fact that Forbes had benefi ted from three years of British lesson-learning in American warfare and American politics and Indian diplomacy. In the latter case, he enjoyed considerable autonomy in forging alliances with the Ohio’s indigenous groups and was able to streamline the archaic pro- cesses that had epitomized British Indian diplomacy in previous years. Furthermore, French policy towards Native Americans, hampered by the growing hostility of the Marquis de Montcalm towards Indian warfare (particularly after the capture and “massacre” of Fort William-Henry in 1757) had alienated many of that nation’s traditional American-Indian allies. Hyperinfl ation, caused by monopoly, corrupt practices within Canada’s body politic and thus the increasing diffi culties that the French faced in supplying their frontier posts (and hence native allies) with trade goods and presents also impacted upon indigenous diplomacy at this time; meaning that many of the Ohio’s native groups were better- disposed towards a British alliance. This was something that, despite the signifi cant defeat of Major James Grant in September 1758 outside the very walls of Fort Duquesne, was cleverly exploited by Forbes at the cru- cial Treaty of Easton. General Forbes’ campaign also demonstrated that the logistical tribu- lations that Edward Braddock had faced had, to a great extent, been learned from. Quickly realizing that Braddock’s old road to the Ohio was a perilous one to say the least, Forbes, despite intense protestations from Virginians such as George Washington, signifi cantly shortened his march by taking an alternative route through Pennsylvania. By proceed- ing in measured stages, and by fortifying his advance with a series of storage posts and blockhouses, he also ensured that the perils associ- ated with long, winding logistical trains and over-extended supply lines were reduced (even though the establishment of his posts was a time- consuming process).
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