Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
in Europe itself. In fact, it was in North America (where swathes of territory were disputed
between French and British colonists) that its first blows were struck in 1754. Fighting would
not begin in Europe until 1756, when a new set of alliances - Austria, France and Russia
ranged against Great Britain and Prussia - was established. The North American theatre is
often known by the separate name of the French and Indian War, a designation that recog-
nises the role played in the conflict by Native Americans, many of whom fought alongside
either the British or the French.
1759 was a year of military success for Great Britain, and the Battle of La Belle-Famille on
24 July (shown here at lower right) was a particularly well-executed operation. A British con-
tingent under Lieutenant-Colonel Eyre Massey (positions coloured gold) ambushed French
troops (coloured mauve), to prevent them from joining their compatriots at Fort Niagara
(point A). In a letter to William Pitt the Elder, who was the British government minister re-
sponsible for the American colonies, Massey claimed that his men had chased the French for
seven miles through the woods. Many French officers were captured, including their com-
mander, François-Marie Le Marchand de Ligney, who subsequently died of his wounds.
Massey's motive for writing directly to Pitt was to ensure that he would be credited for his
contribution to the capture of Fort Niagara, which surrendered to the British two days later.
He was careful to explain that the French had lost 'the best fort in America' as a direct con-
sequence of his actions, and he enclosed this map in his letter to illustrate the point. Drawn
with military precision, although the scale is unspecified, it clearly lays out the geography of
the area. The flow of the Niagara River northward to Lake Ontario is marked, as is the road
leading south to the famous waterfalls. Point C, at the northern end of this road, was a burial
ground, presumably used to inter the casualties of this skirmish. The garden plot depicted on
the western (now Canadian) side of the river provides an uncharacteristically bucolic touch,
as it seems unlikely to have held any strategic significance.
The eventual outcome of the Seven Years War mirrored that of this battle: defeat for the
French and their allies. Under the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France lost all of her former territ-
ories on the North American mainland to Great Britain, with the exception of western Louisi-
ana, which she had already secretly ceded to Spain. The British maintained control of Fort
Niagara throughout the American Revolutionary War of 1775-1783, and for some time after-
wards. Although the boundaries agreed in 1783 gave the fort to the newly-independent Un-
ited States, only in 1796 did it actually pass into American hands.
