Product Description

‘What a scene!’ wrote Horace Walpole. ‘An army in the night dragging itself up a precipice by stumps of trees to assault a town and attack an enemy strongly entrenched and double in numbers!’ In one short sharp exchange of fire Major-General James Wolfe’s men tumbled the Marquis de Montcalm’s French army into bloody ruin. Sir John Fortescue famously described it as the ‘most perfect volley ever fired on a battlefield’. In this book Stuart Reid details how one of the British Army’s consummate professionals literally beat the King’s enemies before breakfast and in so doing decided the fate of a continent.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71638 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-20
• Released on: 2003-04-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Stuart Reid was born in Aberdeen in1954. His life long interest in military history has led to a longstanding involvement in historial re-enactment, which has broadened into work as a military advisor for film companies. Stuart has written numerous titles for the Osprey military list including a three volume set on King George's Army 1740-93 (Men-at-Arms 285, 289 and 292) and Warrior 19 and 20 on the British Redcoat 1740-93 and 1793-1815 respectively. His most recent title is Warrior 42: Redcoat Officer 1740-1815.

Customer Reviews

The title should have been...
... As a biased author, I'm patriotic (read pro-British), and Canada is mine since French were destroyed in the battlefield.

I know it is a rough introduction but I was very frustrated to see the title, frustrated when I started to read the book and totally disappointed when I finished it. My copy is for sale now on a popular auction site for 99 cents, no reserve price. I never sold a book before. That gives you a good idea regarding the rating I give to this book.

I could explain in details why I'm so disappointed, but a previous review says it all. Complete lack of objectivity by the author. I agree, Mr. Chartrand's book is very well done and in now way comparable to this, hum, book. Don't bother reading this British propaganda.

Don't Reid it!
Dr. Robert A. Forczyk's review is very close to the bone. While Reid is certainly an expert on the 18th century British Army tactics and gear, he is strongly biased. His prejudices, rather than his knowledge, are the motivation for his works.

Warfare in the so-called "French and Indian War" was a very close-run thing. Victory was never assured for the British, and indeed many times it looked as if French arms would win the day.

While I lived in Britain I had the (mis)fortune of meeting some of Reid's friends, and their racism, notably against Blacks, Irish and East Indians, is appalling. I strongly advise people to understand this when looking at Reid's books on the Highlanders, particularly.

Not as Good as Chartrand's Volume
Four years ago, the very capable historian Rene Chartrand wrote Osprey's Quebec 1759 in the Order of Battle series. Now, Osprey has decided to publish a campaign title on the same subject by author Stuart Reid. Chartrand's earlier volume was so comprehensive that it seems a waste of time to recover this same ground, and the only value added in this new volume are the 3-D maps and the battle scenes (which frankly, are not very good). Indeed, Reid's Quebec 1759 accomplishes much less in the same 96-page format than Chartrand.

Quebec 1759: The Battle that Won Canada begins with a short introduction, a campaign chronology, and a very brief section on opposing commanders. The section on opposing armies borrows heavily from Chartrand's earlier volume, although the author neglected to discuss the Royal Navy's participation. The section on opposing plans is also rather brief. There are a total of five 2-D maps (the Canadian theater of operations, the river war in June-August 1759, the proposed St Michel Operation, the landing at Montmorency on 31 July 1759, and the landing at Foulon) and three 3-D Bird's Eye View maps (two of the Battle on the Plains of Abraham and one of the Battle of St Foy in April 1760). The three battle scenes are: the landing at Montmorency, the storming of the Foulon and the Battle on the Plains); however, the battle scenes in this volume, by artist Gerry Embleton, are not as good as in most other Osprey volumes.

Reid is a British re-enactor with considerable insight into the 18th Century British Army, which he showed to good effect in his earlier books on Culloden. However, Reid has a tendency toward a jingoistic, pro-British bias that can be annoying. In the introduction, Reid takes the time to criticize George Washington's "inept leadership" on the Monongahela four years earlier, while noting that the British General Braddock was merely "unfortunate." This biased opinion does not square with the facts. Reid also infers several times that Wolfe was fortunate in having virtually no colonial troops in his command at Quebec (although he could have mentioned that many British units were brought up to strength by men recruited in America). Reid's recurrent dismissal of French General Montcalm's military talents also seems overtly jaded; wasn't this the same Montcalm who defeated the British at Fort Ticonderoga? The subtitle, "the battle that won Canada" also betrays a narrow interpretation of that event; the French would see it as "the battle that lost Canada." Reid is certainly knowledgeable about the kit and tactics of British infantry in this period, but his objectivity - or lack of - is a cause for concern.

The only other noticeable difference between Reid and Chartrand is that the former bases much of his narrative on the letters of General Wolfe and other official British correspondence. There are virtually no sources quoted from the French perspective. Reid's discussion of the development of Wolfe's final battle plan is a bit tortuous, as most other attempts at analyzing the young general's decision-making process tend to wallow through a sea of assumptions and guesses. No matter whom you read, it is clear the Wolfe arrived at Quebec with only a hazy plan of action (based on ridiculously bad intelligence) and then decided to play it by ear. The landing at Montmorency was a disaster that demonstrated how effective Montcalm's area defense was, as well as the paucity of British tactical options. Wolfe's decision to land below the city was anticipated by the French and most British writers fail to mention just how narrow a margin of error the landing at Foulon was conducted. Wolfe got very lucky and got ashore in strength, but had the French been a bit more alert, the landing at Foulon would have been a replay of Montmorency. While the capture of Quebec in 1759 was certainly a great British victory, it was based far more on luck than good operational planning.