Episode 8 - In Which Montcalm Seizes the Initiative

In the aftermath of Braddock's defeat, the war in North America stalls. British authority fragments, colonial governments resist coordination, and Commander-in-Cheif John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun focuses on imposing order rather than taking the offensive. Along the frontier, raids multiply, forts stand isolated, and British power exists more on paper than inn practice.

France, however, chooses a different path. In 1756, it sends a professional European general- Louis-Joseph de Montcalm to Canada, marking a decisive escalation of the conflict. Moncalm arrives notion manage the war, but to fight it.  Seeing clearly the weakness caused bu British delay, he identifies a vulnerable target on the shores of Lake Ontario and moves before his enemy can react. 

The result is the siege and fall of Fort Oswego., a swift and methodical campaign that erases Britain's western position, confirms French domination of the Great Lakes, and shocked imperial confidence. Oswego is more than a lost fort- it is proof that momentum, not resources alone, will decide the war.

As Britain absorbs yet another "unthinkable" defeat, the contrast between caution and decisiveness hardens into a defining pattern for 1756. And while Montcalm reshapes the war in North America, events elsewhere are already spiraling towards catastrophe.  

Next time, the conflict explodes in the east, as imperial complacency and ambition ignite disaster in India.

Chapters

• 0:00 From Courtrooms To Frontiers
• 2:55 Braddock’s Defeat And The Vacuum
• 8:10 Colonial Paralysis And French Preparation
• 11:17 London Sends Loudoun To Stabilize
• 17:33 Authority Over Action: A Stalled Campaign
• 23:20 France Commits And Montcalm Arrives
• 28:36 Two Leaders, Two Doctrines
• 33:18 Why Oswego Was The Key Target
• 40:32 Building A Purpose-Built Strike Force
• 47:14 The Siege Begins With Speed
• 53:29 Fort Ontario Falls, Position Collapses
• 59:28 Strategic Shockwaves Across The Frontier
• 1:05:06 Loudoun’s Caution Meets Consequences
• 1:10:25 The Lesson Of Tempo

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:14

Hello, and welcome to the History of the Seven Years' War, Episode 8, Mont Calm and the Fall of Las Vega. And as always, I'm your host, Rob Hill. When we last left the story, we were standing in courtrooms and council chambers. We were watching admirals be judged, governments squirm, and reputations carefully sacrificed in order to preserve political order. There were speeches about honor, discipline, and responsibility. There were firing squads and moral lessons, delivered with all the confidence of a state convinced that punishment itself could substitute for strategy. Now we're leaving all that behind. We're stepping away from courts, admiralties, and carefully worded parliamentary blame. We're crossing the Atlantic again, not to where the war is discussed, but to where it is actually being fought. Because while London argued about who should pay for the failure, the American frontier was quietly coming apart. After all the noise, all the outrage, all the symbolic reckoning, the reality in North America was far less dramatic, and far more dangerous. There were no decisive victories, no sweeping recoveries, no sudden resurgence of British power. There was only absence. When we last stood on American soil, the story here ended in catastrophe. Edward Braddock was dead. His army, one of the largest Britain had ever assembled in the colonies, had been shattered along the Monongahila River, not defeated in some grand formal engagement, but broken, scattered, and sent fleeing back the way it had come. And what mattered most wasn't the spectacle of that defeat, it was what followed. Because Braddock's death did more than kill a general, it punctured an illusion. For years, British strategy in North America had rested on an unspoken assumption, that if Britain ever truly committed, if it ever sent regular troops in force, colonial resistance would simply collapse under the weight of professional arms. That inevitability, quiet, smug, and deeply comforting, died in the woods outside Fort Duquesne. In its place came uncertainty. Native nations who had been watching carefully took note. The British were not invincible. The French, who had gambled on asymmetric warfare and interior lines, saw their confidence vindicated, and the colonists, especially those living along the frontier, felt the consequences immediately. Raids increased, settlements emptied, rumors spread faster than troops ever could. The war, such as it was, did not advance forward. It seeped outward, irregular and frightening, carried by fear rather than orders. And at the center of all this was a vacuum. Braddock had been more than a battlefield commander. He had been, however imperfectly, a focal point, a single authority meant to coordinate imperial power, colonial resources, and strategic intent. With him gone, there was no clear replacement, no imminent plan, no shared understanding of what came next. From the wreckage of seventeen fifty five into the opening months of seventeen fifty six, Britain did not launch a grand offensive in North America, did not strike back decisively, it did not even meaningfully regroup. It waited. Colonial governors argue with assemblies. Assemblies argue with each other. London drafts instructions, revises them, and then drafts them again. Everyone knows something must be done, but no one quite agrees on who is supposed to do it or how much authority they're willing to surrender in the process. So the frontier holds its breath. This is the war we left behind when the camera followed John Bing to his death. Not a war of bold maneuvers and decisive battles, but one defined by drift, by hesitation, by the dangerous belief that time itself might somehow fix what had gone wrong. It won't. Because while Britain waits, someone else is about to arrive, someone who does not intend to wait at all, and when he does, the war in North America is finally going to start moving again. If Braddock's defeat shattered British confidence, what followed shattered British control? Because the months after the Monongahala are not defined by counteroffensive or recovery plans, they are defined by unraveling. Slow, uneven, and terrifyingly personal. Along the frontier, the war does not pause. It metastasizes. Raids begin to ripple outward across British interior. In Pennsylvania, isolated farmsteads vanish overnight. In Virginia, settlers abandon outlying holdings and crowd into towns that were never meant to hold them. Along New York's western edge, the thin line of British presence bends inward, fort by fort, mile by mile. This is not an invasion in the European sense. There are no banners on the horizon, no marching columns to rally against. There's only uncertainty. Small war parties striking where defenses are weakest, where warning comes too late, where the absence of troops is felt most keenly. And that absence is everywhere. British frontier forts, already underbuilt and underfunded, are revealed for what they truly are, symbols more than fortifications. Many are thinly garrisoned, stocked with too little food, too little powder, and almost no hope of timely reinforcement. Officers write desperate letters requesting supplies that never arrive. Garrisons quietly withdraw before they can be surrounded. In some cases, forts are abandoned not after an attack, but because everyone involved understands when is coming. The war reaches civilians first, and it does not ask permission. Families flee eastward, refugees overwhelm colonial governments that barely functioned in peacetime. The distance between imperial strategy and colonial reality, always wide, becomes impossible to ignore. And yet, at the very moment when decisive leadership is most desperately needed, the colonies find themselves paralyzed. Colonial governments, already fractious, descend into open dysfunction. Assemblies argue over funding, how much for what purpose, and under whose authority? Militia obligations become political minefields, who can be compelled to serve, for how long and outside which borders? Governors demand compliance, assemblies demand concessions. Everyone insists they are acting in the defense of their rights. Underneath it all lies a structural contradiction that Britain has never resolved. The colonies fear standing armies. They see them as instruments of tyranny, threats to liberty, and expensive burdens best avoided whenever possible. Britain, meanwhile, distrusts colonial initiative. It sees independent colonial military action as disorganized, inefficient, and potentially disloyal. The result isn't a compromise. The result is inertia. Colonial leaders hesitate to act decisively without clear authorization from London. London, wary of empowering colonial governments too much, hesitates to grant it. Orders are issued, revised, delayed, and reissued. Responsibility diffuses outward until it effectively disappears. So everyone waits. And while Britain waits, France does something very different. From the French perspective, the months after Braddock are not a lull, they are an opportunity. French commanders and officials in New France understand exactly what has happened. Britain's for momentum has collapsed, its frontier positions are exposed, its political machinery is tangled in its own contradictions. So the French consolidated. Interior positions are strengthened, forts are reinforced, supplied, and linked together into something resembling a coherent system. Alliances with native nations, already strong, are renewed and expanded, not through grand gestures, but through consistency, presence, and shared success. Most importantly, France tightens its grip on movement. Control of the waterways, the arteries of North America become paramount. Through the Great Lakes, down into the Ohio Valley, French forces ensure that men, supplies, and intelligence flow far more smoothly than anything the British can manage inland. This is not dramatic. There are no headline grabbing victories, but it is deeply strategic. Because while Britain is trying to decide who has the authority to fight the war, France is quietly deciding where the war will be fought, and on what terms. From the outside, it might look like nothing is happening, no major battles, no sweeping campaigns, no climactic engagements to mark the passage of time. But this is not an activity, it is preparation. The French are shaping the battlefield while their opponent debates whether it should even step onto it. And this is what makes the pause after Braddock so dangerous. Wars do not reward patience equally. Time does not heal all strategic wounds. Sometimes it simply hardens the advantage of the side that understands how to use it. By early seventeen fifty six, the war in North America had reached a strategic and unstable equilibrium. Britain has more people, more money, and more theoretical power, but no clear direction. France has fewer resources, but a clearer sense of purpose and position. The frontier holds barely, and somewhere across the Atlantic, decisions are being made that will shatter this uneasy stillness entirely. Because the war is about to stop waiting. The months after Braddock were defined by drift, then the arrival of a new commander is meant to signal the end of it. Britain, at least on paper, recognizes that the situation in North America has become untenable. The frontier is unraveling. Colonial governments are paralyzed. The French are quietly consolidating their position. Something has to be done. Someone has to be put in charge. And so London makes a decision that tells us a great deal about how it understands the problem. It does not send a conqueror, it does not send another Braddock. It sends an administrator. The man they chose is John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun. Loudoun is a Scottish aristocrat, well connected at court, and trusted in the way that matters most in mid eighteenth century Britain. He is considered safe. He has served with competence, managed responsibilities without scandal, and navigated the political space without embarrassing the people above him. He understands hierarchy, he understands procedure, he understands how institutions are supposed to function. What Louden is not is a battlefield commander in the Braddock Mold. He is not reckless, he is not aggressive, he does not believe that boldness can substitute for preparation, and in fairness to him, that instinct has been earned. Braddock's failure is still fresh. Britain has just watched what happens when confidence outruns reality. So Louten is not sent to gamble, he is sent to stabilize. After seventeen fifty five, London's priorities in North America were not victory, at least not yet. They are control, order, and above all, the prevention of further embarrassment. Another catastrophic defeat, another public humiliation, another episode that exposes imperial weakness is politically unacceptable. Louden's mandate reflects this perfectly. He is appointed commander in chief of British forces in North America with instructions that are less about where to strike and more about how to govern. He is expected to impose structure on a chaotic system, centralize authority over fractious colonies, and bring some semblance of imperial discipline to a war effort that has slipped beyond easy supervision. Loudoun arrives believing that before Britain can fight effectively, it must first function effectively. Supplies must be standardized, command relationships clarified, colonial assemblies brought into line. Authority, long defused and contested, must be concentrated. In theory, this is not unreasonable. In practice, it places Louden directly in the path of every unresolved tension in the British Empire. Because Lauden commands a force that exists more on paper than in reality. The number of British regulars in North America is limited, scattered, and stretched thin across enormous distances. Reinforcements are promised, but slowly arrive. Supplies are requested, but unevenly delivered. Nothing moves at the speed the situation demands. At the same time he must deal with colonies that are deeply resistant to centralized authority. Colonial assemblies guard their rights fiercely, especially when it comes to taxation, militia service, and the quartering of troops. They do not see Louden as a neutral coordinator, they see him as a potential threat, an agent of imperial overreach. And Louden, for his part, does not trust them. He views colonial governments as unreliable partners, too slow, too political, too willing to place local interests above imperial necessity. He wants compliance first, cooperation second, and action only after both are secured. This creates a fatal mismatch between Louden's instincts and the war he has been sent to manage. Louden believes that delay is prudent. He wants time to prepare, to organize, to ensure that when Britain moves, it does so with overwhelming force and minimal risk. He believes that acting too soon, before authority is established and logistics are in place invites disaster. But the war does not wait. While Louden negotiates authority with colonial assemblies, the frontier continues to bleed. While he insists on proper channels and formal compliance, French influence expands throughout the interior. While he prepares for a future campaign season, the enemy uses the present one to reshape the battlefield. And here is the tragedy of Louden's position. Much of what he wants makes sense. Centralization would improve efficiency. Clear authority would reduce chaos. Proper preparation would prevent another braddock. But wars are not fought in ideal conditions. Loudoun has been sent to solve a political problem using administrative tools in the middle of a military crisis to reward speed, decisiveness, and adaptability. He is expected to impose order on a system that resists it by design, while facing an enemy that is already acting with clarity and with purpose. By early seventeen fifty six, Britain had its man in North America. He is intelligent, he is diligent, he is methodical, and he is catastrophically out of sync with war unfolding around him. Because while London is trying to make the Empire function, France is preparing to make it bleed. And that contrast between management and momentum, between caution and action, is about to define everything that follows. So if Loudon's appointment is meant to restore order, this is where the plan collides with reality. Because once he is in place, once the titles are settled and the authority formally declared, Loudoun does not discover a grateful empire eager to be organized, he discovers resistance. From the beginning, Lord Louden governs as if the fundamental problem in North America is his administrative looseness, too many governors acting independently, too many assemblies controlling the purse strings, and too many local exceptions layered on top of imperial directives. So he tries to tighten the system. Loudoun moves to override colonial governors where possible, insisting that military authority must supersede provincial prerogatives in wartime. He pushes for standardized supply procedures, uniform recruitment requirements, and a clearer chain of command. He demands that colonies contribute men, money, and provisions according to imperial need, not local convenience. On paper, this is exactly what London wants. On the ground, it detonates every latent fear the colonies have been carrying for decades. And when neither law nor money can be used openly, the colonies deploy their most effective weapon, passive noncompliance. Orders are acknowledged, then quietly sidelined, requests are met with procedural delays, militia quotas are technically fulfilled, but in ways that minimize their actual usefulness. No one openly rebels, no one openly defies the crown. They simply slow everything down. The result is a kind of administrative trench warfare. Louden pushes, the colonies absorb the pressure. Nothing breaks, but nothing moves. This is where Louden's deepest flaws become impossible to ignore. He sees risk everywhere. He fears another Braddock, another overconfident advance ending in humiliation. He fears acting without full colonial support. He fears launching an operation before supplies, authority, and command structures are firmly in place. And so he waits. The seventeen fifty six campaign season arrives not with a plan, but with prerequisites. More negotiations, more correspondence, more insistence that things must be set right before action can begin. But war does not respect administrative readiness. As weeks turn into months, opportunities slip away. The British do not seize the initiative. They do not strike preemptively. They do not even mount credible demonstrations of force. The season drifts, then frays, and then finally collapses under its own weight. By default, British forces remain on the defensive. Not because this was a conscious strategic choice, but because no alternative ever survives the approval process. Force are reinforced just enough to avoid immediate disaster. Patrols are maintained just enough to suggest presence. Everything is provisional, temporary, waiting on something else to happen first. And while Loudoun hesitates, the French do not. They do not need Louden's permission to act. They do not need Colonial assemblies to agree on funding. They do not need to resolve jurisdictional disputes before moving men and guns. They already know what they intend to do. The problem wasn't that Loudoun was wrong, it was that the war didn't care. This is not a war that rewards rational delay. Loudoun is catastrophically mismatched to colonial warfare. He underestimates how quickly the frontier shifts, how decisively small movements can alter the alliances, how time itself becomes a weapon in North America. He believes authority must precede action, when in reality, action is already reshaping authority around him. By mid seventeen fifty six, Loudoun has done what he was sent to do, at least partially. He has asserted imperial presence. He has made clear that Britain intends to govern its war effort more tightly. But he has not stopped the war from slipping away. And that is the cruel irony of his command. Loudoun does not fail because he does nothing, he fails because he does the wrong things first. While Britain organizes, the frontier continues to burn. While Louden prepares for a war he believes is coming, the real war is already underway, being fought by an enemy who has no intention of waiting for permission. And it is in that widening gap between British caution and French momentum that the next phase of this conflict is about to explode. This is the opening France needs, not because it is cleverly engineered, but because it simply is allowed to exist. The British position has frozen in place. Forts are garrisoned, not reinforced. Armies exist, but do not maneuver. The frontier holds, barely, but it does not advance. Louden's caution, compounded by colonial resistance, has produced something dangerously close to strategic stillness. And stillness in war is an invitation. The board, by early summer, is already set. But Britain isn't moving. British forces are static, tied to defensive positions and with administrative constraints. There is no coordinated push inland, no credible threat to French communications, no sense that the British intend to contest the control of the interior in the near term. The French, by contrast, enjoy something Britain lacks entirely unity of purpose. Their command structure is clear, their objectives are limited, achievable, and tied directly to geography, and most critically of all, the lake routes, the true highways of this war, remain open. Men, artillery, supplies, and intelligence can move through French interior networks far more smoothly than anything Britain can manage over land. Control of water means control of tempo, and right now the tempo belongs to France. This is the moment where the contrast hardens into something decisive. And then France is something Britain has not yet managed to do. It commits. While Britain searches for control, France sends a general. And that changed everything. They sent General Louis Joseph de Montcalm. Not an observer, not an administrator, not a man tasked with smoothing over political friction. This is not reinforcement. This is escalation. And almost immediately Montcalm's attention is fixed on a single British position that could not survive the change in tempo. And that position was Oswego, on the southern shores of Lake Ontario. Montcalm does not arrive in Canada to assess the situation. He does not write long letters asking whether colonial assemblies might, in theory, consider supporting operations at some future date. He does not treat North America as an administrative puzzle to be solved. He arrives with an assumption. This is a war, and wars are meant to be fought. Montcalm is in almost every meaningful way a product of European warfare. He is aristocratic, intensely professional, and trained in the hard school of eighteenth century continental conflict, sieges, maneuvers, logistics, discipline. He has fought in the war of Austrian succession, commanded troops under fire, and remembers what it feels like when plans collapse and men die because of hesitation. Which is precisely why France sends him now. By seventeen fifty six, Versailles understood and something London still hasn't fully accepted. The North American war has passed the point where improvisation will work. The era of frontier raids and proxy skirmishes is ending. What is coming next will be decided by generals who can move armies, supply artillery, and force outcomes. Montcalm is not sent to hold New France. He is sent to change the tempo of the war. And this is where I should probably admit something up front. Montcalm is kind of my guy. Not because he's perfect, he very much isn't, but because he acts, because he leads. He's routinely seen at the front lines leading his men in a fierce charge, a rare trait in commanders of the era. He saw opportunities and he moved toward them. He understood that delay is a choice and usually the wrong one. In a war defined so far by British caution and administrative paralysis, Montcalm feels like someone finally grabbing the steering wheel. But because this is the Seven Years War, nothing is ever quite that simple. Because Montcalm does not arrive in a vacuum. He arrives in a colony that already has a ruler. That ruler is Pierre de Ragaux de Vaudreuil, the governor general of New France. Vaudreuil is not a soldier in the European sense. He is a colonial administrator, born in Canada, steeped in realities of frontier warfare. He understands alliances with native nations, he understands irregular fighting, raids, and the delicate balancing act that has kept New France alive despite being outnumbered for decades. And crucially, Vaudreuil does not see Montcalm as a savior. He sees him as competition. From the moment Montcalm sets foot in Canada, New France has two centers of gravity. Montcalm commands the French regular army, and Vaudreuil commands the colony. They are supposed to cooperate. They do not always agree on how. Montcalm believes wars are won by decisive action, by smashing enemy positions, by forcing strategic collapse. Vaudreuil believes wars in North America are won by patience, by alliance, by bleeding the enemy slowly and avoiding unnecessary risk. Neither man is wrong, and that is exactly the problem. For now, though, for just a brief, dangerous moment, their interests align. Swab Britain is still organizing, still consolidating, still arguing over who has the authority to act. Montcalm acts. And with that decision, the Seven Years War in North America enters a new phase. Montcalm's arrival signals that France has moved past containment and into decision. The war in North America is no longer a holding action designed to buy time or preserve territory. It is now a contest of momentum, of who can impose their will before the other side finishes organizing itself. And Montcalm understands exactly what that moment offers. He does not inherit a chaotic battlefield. He inherits a paused one. A British position frozen by caution, an enemy whose strength exists largely on paper, whose authority is still being negotiated, whose forces are present but inert. This is the opening every aggressive commander looks for and almost never gets. An enemy visible, exposed, and not yet moving. Malcolm does not intend to let it close, because once he steps ashore in New France, the war stops waiting. The questions Britain is still debating about authority, preparation and risk are answered not with correspondence, but with action. And with that decision, the Seven Years War in North America enters its next phase. This is where it truly begins. If Lord Louden represents Britain's instinct to manage the war, Louis Joseph de Montcalm represents France's decision to fight it. And the difference is immediately obvious. Montcalm is not a colonial improviser. He is not someone who learned war on the frontier, adapting European habits piecemeal to unfamiliar terrain, nor is he a governor general balancing military necessity against political survival. He does not arrive burdened with civil authority, trade concerns, or the delicate diplomacy of managing a settler colony. Montcalm arrives as one thing and one thing only, a battlefield commander. He has spent his career in the wars of Europe, conflicts divined by discipline, coordination, and the ruthless logic of siegecraft. He understands how to move formations, how to concentrate force, how to turn time itself into a weapon. He is comfortable commanding men who expect orders to be obeyed and plans to be executed, not debated. Which is precisely why his arrival marks a fundamental shift in French strategy. Up to this point, France and North America has largely fought a defensive war, has relied on interior lines, alliances with native nations, and small scale operations designed to harass, delay, and bleed a numerically superior enemy. The goal has been survival, holding territory long enough for events elsewhere to decide the outcome. That phase is over. Montcalm was not sent to preserve French positions. He was sent to break British ones. This is not escalation by accident, it is escalation by design. And the clearest evidence of that intent is the army Montcalm brings with him. Unlike earlier French forces in New France, Montcalm's command includes a significant corps of regular French line infantry, professional soldiers, trained to fight together, maneuver under fire, and hold formation under pressure. These are not militia called up seasonally. These are not ad hoc detachments scraped together from garrisons. They are an army. Alongside them come artillery specialists and engineers, the quiet professionals who are rarely dominant in narratives such as this, but often decide the outcomes. These men know how to place guns, dig trenches, build batteries, and methodically dismantle fortifications. They understand the mathematics of range, angle, and supply. They turn fortresses from symbols into liabilities. And this matters far more than raw numbers. British observers often fixate on headcounts, how many men one side has versus the other. Montcalm understands something deeper. In eighteenth century warfare, especially in North America, capability matters more than quality. A smaller force with artillery, engineers, and clear command can accomplish what a larger, disorganized one cannot. This is the true novelty of Montcalm's arrival. For the first time, Europe's wars have crossed the Atlantic in full. Not just uniforms, flags, but methods, siege lines, coordinated assaults, operational planning that assumes forts will fall if properly attacked, not merely endured. The wilderness is no longer a barrier, it is simply another theater. One of the most important and most overlooked reasons Montcalm's command functions so differently from Britain's is that he does not arrive alone. He brings with him not just troops, but relationships, a small, capable inner circle built on trust, competence, and clearly defined roles. Where British command in North America is fragmented and personality driven, Montcalms is deliberately collaborative without being diffuse. He knows what he's good at, he knows what he needs help with, and crucially he listens to the men he trusts. At the center of this working relationship is his second in command, Chevalier de Levis. Le Vise is everything Montcalm values in a subordinate, disciplined, methodical, calm under pressure, and deeply professional. If Montcalm provides energy and decisiveness, Levise provides balance and execution. He is a planner, an organizer, and, when necessary, a stabilizing presence. Where Montcalm is willing to take calculated risks, Le Vise ensures that those risks are supported by preparation and follow through. This is not a rivalry, it's a partnership. Montcalm trusts Levise with real responsibility, not ceremonial authority. He delegates meaningful command, relies on Levise to manage complex operations, and treats him as a sounding board rather than a mere executor of orders. In an army where clarity matters, La Vise becomes the quiet engine that keeps Montcalm's aggressive vision from tipping into recklessness. And then there's Louis Antoine de Bougonville, younger, brilliant, ambitious, and serving as Montcalm's aide de camp. Bugonville is not yet famous for the things history will later remember him for. Here he is something else entirely Montcalm's eyes, ears, and pen. He carries messages, gathers intelligence, drafts correspondence, and observes everything. Intelligent and perceptive, Bougainville absorbs the war as it unfolds, learning how decisions are made and how campaigns are shaped. Montcalm values Bougainville not just for his efficiency, but for his judgment. He allows him proximity to decision making, exposure to strategy, and room to think. In doing so, Montcalm creates a command environment where information moves quickly and accurately, where the commander is not insulated from reality by layers of bureaucracy. Taken together, this trio matters enormously. Montcalm provides direction and urgency. Levise provides structure and reliability, and Bougonville provides intelligence, communication, and adaptability. This is what a functional command looks like. Orders are not endlessly debated, subordinates are not kept in the dark, capable men are trusted to do their jobs, and held to account when they do not. Decisions move through people who understand both intent and execution. And this, again, is where the contrast with British leadership becomes unavoidable. While Louden struggles to impose authority downward through resistant institutions, Montcalm built authority upward through competence and trust. His subordinates do not question whether they act, they question on how best to act. The result is not chaos but speed. This is why Montcalm's army feels dangerous in a way British forces do not. It's not just better supplied or better trained, it's better aligned. Commanders know their roles, subordinates know their expectations, information flows without obstruction, and when opportunity appears, the system is already primed to move. This cohesion, this quiet, professional harmony at the top, allows Montcalm to do something Britain cannot yet manage in North America. He can turn decisions into actions almost immediately, and in a war where hesitation has already proven fatal, that may be the most decisive advantage of all. The contrast with British diffusion could not be sharper. Where Louden must persuade, Montcalm commands. Where British plans stall in committee and correspondence, French plans move directly to execution. Where Britain treats time as something to be managed cautiously, Montcalm treats it as a finite resource to be exploited. Every delay on the British side strengthens the French position. Every day without movement hardens French advantages in geography, alliance, and preparation. Montcalm see this clearly, and he intends to press it. This is why his arrival feels so decisive. It is not that Montcalm is more brilliant than every other officer involved, it is that he arrives with the authority, tools, and mindset to impose coherence on the war at exactly the right moment when his enemy cannot. Britain is still organizing. France is already choosing its targets, and Montcalm knows precisely where to begin. Because once you stop defending positions and start breaking them, the war changes character entirely, and the first British position to feel that change is sitting, exposed and waiting on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. What Montcalm brings to North America is not just energy or aggression, it's perspective. He sees the war the way a professional commander is trained to see it, not as a collection of isolated problems, but as a connected system of movement, supply, and pressure. And when he looks at the map of Northeastern North America in seventeen fifty six, one thing stands out immediately. France controls movement. The French dominate Lake Ontario. They dominate the river corridors that feed into it. They dominate the interior supply routes that actually make armies possible. This matters more than any single fort or garrison. In North America, roads are suggestions. Rivers and lakes are infrastructure. Whoever controls the water controls where men, guns, and food can go, and how fast they can get there. The French interior network, built patiently over decades, allows them to shift forces effectively across enormous distances. Supplies move forward, intelligence moves backward, command decisions are informed and timely. The British, by contrast, do not possess a system. They possess positions. British forts are isolated nodes, distant outposts connected tenuously on the coast and barely. To each other. They are dependent on long, vulnerable supply lines that run through hostile and contested territory. Reinforcement is slow, communication is even slower. Each fort assumes the others will somehow support it, but there is no mechanism to make that assumption true. Montcalm sees this immediately, and one position, in particular, all but announces itself. Fort Oswego sits on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, projecting British ambition deep into the French controlled interior. On paper, it's impressive. It threatens French supply lines, it signals British intent to contest the Great Lakes, it reassures allies and alarms enemies. In reality, though, it is exposed. Oswego is overextended, far from reliable support, dependent on fragile supply routes, and divided across multiple poorly integrated fortifications. Its defenses are awkwardly arranged, its artillery is limited, its garrison is isolated not just geographically, but strategically. And yet, politically, a swago matters enormously. It is a symbol of British resolve, a statement that Britain belongs in the Great Lakes. Abandoning it would be humiliating. Losing it would be catastrophic. So it remains in place, under resourced, undersupported, and quietly indefensible. It is important to stress this point. None of this is hindsight. Montcalm does not identify Oswego as a target because it will later fall. He identifies it because it violates every principle of sound military positioning that he understands. It is too far forward, too weakly supported, and too dependent on an enemy controlled environment to survive sustained pressure. From Montcalm's perspective, Aswago is not brave, it is vulnerable, and vulnerability in siege warfare is an invitation. This is where Montcalm's decisiveness becomes decisive. There is no prolonged debate, no extended grand council weighing abstract alternatives, no seasonal hesitation waiting for some perfect alignment of conditions. Montcalm understands that siege warfare rewards three things above all else preparation, precision, and speed. Preparation because artillery and engineers turn fortresses into problems to be solved. Precision because pressure applied at the right point collapses resistance far faster than brute force. Speed because every day the enemy is allowed to react is a day vantage bleeds away. Montcalm does not wait for Britain to finish organizing. He does not wait for Louden to resolve his authority disputes. He does not wait for Oswego to be reinforced or abandoned. He understands that the window is open now. The British are static. The colonies are still arguing, the lake routes are still open, and so the decision is made, not to raid, not to threaten, but to strike decisively, to remove Oswego from the board entirely, and in doing so, collapse Britain's western strategy in a single blow. This is what it means to see the board clearly. Montcalm does not chase every opportunity. He selects the one that changes everything. And once that choice is made, there's no hesitation, only movement. Because the war is no longer waiting. Now, to understand why Montcalm chooses Oswego, you first have to understand why Britain built it in the first place. Because Oswego is not an accident, it is ambition, made of timber and earth. From London's perspective, the post on the southern shore of Lake Ontario represents Britain's claim to the interior. It is meant to anchor British influence on the Great Lakes, to serve as a forward supply hub, feeding operations westward, and to reassure native allies that Britain intends to stay. Just as importantly, it is meant to threaten French communications, an exposed knife pointed at the arteries that connect Canada to the Ohio Valley. Oswego exists to say something. It says Britain belongs here. But wars are not won by statements. In practice, Oswego is chronically underfunded. It is built cheaply, expanded piecemeal, and maintained inconsistently. Supplies must be hauled over long, vulnerable routes that are difficult to secure even in peacetime. Every barrel of powder, every ration of food, every gun that reaches the post represents a triumph of effort rather than a routine operation. Logistically, Oswego is fragile. Strategically, it is isolated, and structurally, it's a mess. Oswego is not a single fortress, it's three. There is Fort Oswego itself, sitting near the harbor and serving as the administrative and symbolic heart of the position. Across the river stands Fort Ontario, occupying higher ground but separated by water that complicates coordination. Nearby is Fort George, intended to strengthen the system, but ultimately adding another layer of division. On paper, this arrangement is meant to provide overlapping defense. In reality, it does the opposite. The three forts are poorly integrated. Fields of fire do not align clearly. Communication between positions is slow and uncertain, especially when under pressure. Command responsibility is divided rather than unified, with no single fort able to decisively support the others in a crisis. Each fort must assume the others will hold, and that assumption is fatal. Montcalm, trained in siege warfare, sees immediately what this means. A divided defense invites defeat in detail. One position can be isolated, overwhelmed, and neutralized, rendering the rest untenable almost instantly. The British garrison knows this too. Oswego is held by a mixed force of regular British troops and provincial soldiers, men with different training, expectations, and levels of commitment. Supplies are short, pay is irregular, rations are limited, artillery ammunition is carefully counted because replacement is uncertain. Morale is low, not because the men are cowards, but because they understand their situation. They know how far they are from meaningful support. They know how slowly relief will move even if it's dispatched immediately. They know that Lake Ontario, which is supposed to be their lifeline, is effectively controlled by the enemy. Oswego's defenders are not ignorant of the danger. They are simply trapped by it. This is what makes Oswego so tragic and so tempting. It is politically important enough that Britain cannot easily abandon it, militarily weak enough that it cannot reliably defend itself, and logistically fragile enough that any sustained pressure is likely to snap it in half. To Louden and the colonial governments, Oswego is a problem to be managed later, once authority is settled and preparations are complete. To Montcalm, it is something else entirely. It is a forward position without depth, a symbol without substance, a threat that assumes the enemy will not act decisively. And in war, assumptions like that rarely survive first contact. Oswego does not fall because Britain lacks courage or numbers, it falls because it is built to intimidate, not to endure. And Montcalm knows exactly how to test that difference. So if Oswego is vulnerable by design, Montcalm's answer is not to test that vulnerability cautiously, but to exploit it quickly. Because speed in this campaign is not an accessory to strategy. It is the strategy. Montcalm's forces are assembled with a clarity the British never manage to match. It is not large by European standards, but it is purpose built for what he intends to do. At its core are French regulars, disciplined, drilled, and accustomed to operating as a unit. They are supported by Canadian militia who know the terrain, understand movement through the forest and water, and can extend the army's reach without breaking its cohesion. Alongside them are native allies, not treated as an afterthought or a separate arm, but integrated into the campaign plan from the beginning. This matters. Too often British observers describe French forces in North America as an unruly mix of regulars, militia, and allies, implying chaos where there is, in fact, coordination. Montcalm does not allow his army to fragment along cultural or tactical lines. Each component is assigned roles it is best suited to perform. Reconnaissance, screening, movement, and pressure are distributed deliberately. This is not improvisation, this is integration. And because the force is assembled with purpose, it can move with purpose. Speed only works if it is paired with surprise. Here again the French benefit from structural advantages the British lack. Movement along water routes allows troops and artillery to travel faster and with less visibility than overland marches ever could. Forested shorelines, familiar portages and interior routes shield the army's approach. British intelligence, such as it is, fails to connect the dots. Warnings do not reach Oswego, rumors of French movements, reports of activity on the lakes, but they arrive fragmented, delayed, and ambiguous. There is no clear picture of scale or intent, no sense of urgency that might prompt immediate reinforcements or evacuation. And even if such warnings were taken seriously, the British lack the ability to respond quickly. Relief would take time, orders would need approval, supplies would have to move through contested territory. Time Montcalm does not intend to give them. By the time Oswego's commanders begin to understand what is happening, the window to do anything about it has already closed. And then the war arrives. French boats appear on Lake Ontario, bateau moving with purpose, artillery secured, troops disciplined and ready. There's no tentative probing, no half measures. This is not a raid meant to harass or frighten. This is an army coming ashore. Guns are landed, positions are taken, engineers begin their work almost immediately. The landing is orderly, methodical, and unmistakably professional. The message is clear before a shot is fired. This is not an experiment. For the defenders at Oswego, the effect is electric. One moment they are isolated but intact, hoping that delay might still work in their favor. The next, they are confronted with a fully assembled enemy force, complete with artillery and the intent to use it. The transition is so abrupt it feels unreal. The war does not creep towards Oswego. It arrives all at once. This is what Montcalm understands better than his opponents. Momentum is psychological as much as physical. When pressure is applied suddenly and decisively, defenders do not merely lose ground, they lose confidence. Options narrow, time compresses, decisions that might have been debated for weeks are forced into hours. By choosing speed, Montcalm denies the British their greatest advantage delay. There will be no extended warning period, no chance to negotiate authority, no opportunity for Louden to organize a response. The die is cast the moment the French forces land. From this point forward, Oswego is no longer a problem to be managed, it is a position under siege. The next phase of the campaign will prove, in brutal clarity, just how fragile Britain's western anchor truly is. If everything up to this point has been about momentum, this is where the momentum is converted into outcome. What unfolds at Oswego in the summer of seventeen fifty six is not a desperate frontier fight or a chaotic woodland clash. It is something far rarer in North America at this stage of the war. It is a professional siege, executed with speed, method, and lethal clarity. From the moment the French land, the logic of Montcalm's plan becomes visible. Artillery is brought ashore quickly and placed with purpose. French engineers identify the critical terrain almost immediately, focusing their attention on Fort Ontario, which sits on higher ground across the river from the main British position. Whoever controls Fort Ontario controls the battlefield. French guns are in place to dominate the fort's defenses, exploiting weak angles and poor sighting. The British artillery, limited in number and badly positioned, is quickly outmatched. Their guns cannot respond effectively and in some cases cannot even be brought to bear on the French batteries at all. The bombardment begins, not as a probing gesture, but a sustained, deliberate pressure. This is the first shock to the British defenders. They are used to raids and harassment, not methodical destruction. The realization sets in quickly. This is not an attack meant to frighten them into withdrawal. It is meant to dismantle them. And what follows confirms that impression. French engineers go to work immediately, digging trenches, advancing siege lines, and constructing batteries with practiced efficiency. Each movement is calculated to reduce exposure while increasing pressure. Earthworks rise steadily closer to the British positions. Guns are repositioned to improve angles. Fire is adjusted and corrected. There is no pause. This is continuous pressure, day and night, methodical and relentless. The French do not rush, they don't waste lives on impulsive assaults. They let artillery and engineering do the killing. This is not a frontier skirmish. It is a textbook European siege, transplanted almost intact onto the shores of Lake Ontario. For the British, this kind of warfare is deeply disorienting. Their defenses were not designed to withstand sustained professional siege operations, their fortifications are shallow, their magazines are vulnerable. Their expectations, shaped by years of irregular fighting, are completely wrong for what they are now facing. As pressure mounts, the structural weaknesses of the Oswego position become fatal. Communication between the three forts deteriorates rapidly. Signals are missed or misunderstood. Orders arrive late or not at all. The river that separates Fort Oswego from Fort Ontario becomes a barrier rather than a link, complicating coordination at the exact moment when unity is most needed. Command authority fragments. Officers argue over priorities, whether to reinforce, withdraw, or hold. No clear unified response emerges, not because the men are incapable, but because the system that they are operating within was never designed for this kind of pressure. Each fort waits for the others to act. None can afford to. The French, meanwhile, do not suffer from this confusion. Their lines of command are clear, their objectives are fixed, their pressure is unrelenting. The decisive moment comes with the fall of Fort Ontario. Under sustained bombardment, the fort's defenses are shattered, guns are disabled, positions become untenable, casualties mount, and the prospect of holding the fort any longer evaporates. The British abandon the position, withdrawing across the river. The single event seals Oswego's fate. With the Fort Ontario gone, French artillery now dominates the remaining British defenses completely. The main fort is exposed to plunging fire it cannot effectively answer. What had been a precarious position becomes indefensible almost overnight. Morale collapses, not because the defenders lack courage, but because the reality is now unmistakable. There is no relief coming. There is no counterstroke available. There is no scenario in which this ends well. The surrender that follows is brief, shocking, and final. After days of methodical pressure, the British position simply breaks. Negotiations are short. There is no dramatic last stand, no prolonged bargaining. The logic of the situation is overwhelming, and everyone involved understands it. Britain loses Oswego entirely. Men are captured, artillery, much of it intact, falls into French hands. Supplies accumulated at an enormous cost are seized, and with them goes something far more important than materiel. Britain loses its entire western position. In one swift campaign, Montcalm has erased years of British effort on the Great Lakes. The forts are gone, the supply hub is gone, the political symbol of British presence in the interior is gone. This is not a narrow tactical victory. It is a strategic collapse. And it happens not because Britain was unaware of the dangers, but because it was unable or unwilling, to act before the moment of decision arrived. Montcalm has done exactly what he set out to do. He did not raid Oswego, he did not threaten it. He removed it from the board. And in doing so, he announces something unmistakable to both sides. The war in North America has changed. From here on out, Britain is no longer defending ambition. It is defending against momentum. It is tempting, especially in a war filled with sieges, raids, and reversals, to treat Oswego as just another fallen fort. One more name crossed off the long list of contested places. That would be a mistake. Because Oswego does not merely fall, it reorders the war. With Oswego gone, French dominance of the Great Lakes is no longer contested, it is confirmed. The British Western strategy, fragile as it already was, collapses almost instantly. Oswego has been the keystone holding together Britain's inland posture, a supply hub, a diplomatic symbol, and a forward base all rolled into one. Without it, British forces are pushed back toward the coast, their interior presence reduced to scattered, defensive outposts with no realistic ability to support one another. The French Interior system, already efficient, now operates without serious interference. Men and supplies are moved freely across Lake Ontario and through the river corridors feeding the Ohio Valley. British interference is no longer a threat to be managed, it is a problem that has been removed. And the efforts ripple outwards. Native nations, watching carefully as they always do, reassess their alliances yet again. The fall of Oswego reinforces a lesson learned repeatedly since Braddock. Britain's promises of protection and support are uncertain, slow, and often unfulfilled. France, by contrast, has demonstrated something far more persuasive than words. It can act decisively and win. This does not mean every nation immediately aligns with France. Alliances in North America are complex, local, and contingent. But credibility matters, and Oswego is a devastating blow to Britons. The balance of influence tilts, subtly, but unmistakably, towards the French. Beyond the map, Oswego lands like a psychological hammer. This is another defeat that should not have happened. Another position assumed to be safe, if not strong, lost with alarming speed. Another reminder that British power in North America is more theoretical than real. And coming oh soon after Minorca and Braddock, the pattern is impossible to ignore. Britain is not shaping events, it is responding to them. Again and again the British find themselves reacting to crises rather than creating opportunities. They rush to explain losses after the fact, to assign responsibility, to promise reforms that arrive too late to matter. Oswego reinforces a growing sense of unease that Britain is always one step behind a war that refuses to slow down. For soldiers, administrators, and politicians alike, the message is corrosive. If Oswego can fall this quickly, despite its importance, what else is vulnerable? What other assumptions are quietly wrong? Confidence erodes, caution deepens, and that caution in turn invites further pressure. For Montcalm, Oswego does something else entirely. It creates a reputation. This is not a messy victory or a lucky break, it is not an ambiguous outcome that requires explanation or embellishment. Oswego falls quickly, cleanly, and for reasons that are obvious even to its defenders. Montcalm planned carefully, he moved quickly. He applied pressure where it mattered most. The results feel inevitable in retrospect, which is the hallmark of a truly effective command. Within New France, Montcalm's standing rises immediately. He is seen as a commander who delivers results, who understands both European warfare and the North American theater, and who can translate preparation into decisive action. Among his troops, confidence hardens into trust. Among his enemies, respect mixes with apprehension. And beyond North America, the implications are just as important. Oswego signals to Versailles and to London that the war has entered a new phase. France is no longer merely holding its ground overseas, it is seizing the initiative. It has found a commander willing and able to exploit the British hesitation, and it intends to press that advantage. This is how legends begin in the eighteenth century, not with grand speeches, but with results that speak for themselves. Montcalm has not won the war. He has not even secured Canada. But he has done something just as critical. He has shown that Britain can be beaten decisively in North America, not by improvisation, not by attrition, but by professional force applied at the right moment. Asuego is not the end of the story. It is the proof of concept. And from this point forward, every British commander, every colonial governor, and every native nation must reckon with a new reality. The French are no longer waiting, and the man leading them knows exactly how to turn opportunity into collapse. The fall of Oswego lands not as a surprise in North America, but as a verdict, because while the guns are still cooling on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, Lord Louden is still doing what he has been doing since his arrival, consolidating authority, negotiating compliance, and trying to impose order on a system that resists it at every turn. Oswego collapses while Loudoun is still organizing. That timing matters. This defeat is not Louden's fault in the narrow sense. He did not design Oswego, he did not starve it of supplies, he did not choose its fractured defensive layout or its vulnerable position. The seeds of its destruction were planted long before he ever crossed the Atlantic. But Oswego falls on his watch. And in war, that distinction rarely survives the first contact with reality. For Louden, the loss exposes the central flaw of his approach. He believed that authority had to be settled before action could be taken, that the Empire needed to function smoothly before it could fight effectively. Oswego proves the opposite. While Britain argues about control, France exploits momentum. While Lauden prepares for a future campaign, Montcalm wins the present one. The cost of delay is no longer theoretical, it's visible on a map. In the wake of Oswego, British commanders are forced into an increasingly defensive posture. The frontier contracts, strategic options narrow. Every decision Louden makes now is shaped not by opportunity, but by damage control. The initiative, always precious in war, is gone. And the political consequences are just as severe. In London, Oswego joins a growing list of embarrassments that cannot be explained away as accidents or colonial incompetence. Minorca, Braddock, now Oswego, different theaters, different commanders, same result. The pattern is becoming impossible to ignore. Britain does not lack resources, it lacks direction. Loudoun's careful administrative style, once seen as a corrective to recklessness, now looks inadequate to the scale and speed of the crisis. His caution, understandable after Braddock, begins to feel like paralysis in the face of Montcalm's decisiveness. This does not immediately doom Lauden. He remains in command, he continues to work, to plan, to correspond, but Oswego changes how his leadership is perceived. Confidence erodes, patience thins. The sense grows quietly, but insistently, that Britain needs something different, not just better organization, not just clearer authority, but a different kind of leadership, one willing to accept risk, to act before conditions are perfect, and to seize initiative rather than wait for it. Oswego crystallizes that realization. It proves that the war will not be won by administration alone, that systems cannot be perfected faster than the enemy can move. That delay, however rational it may seem at the abstract, carries a cost measured in lost positions and lost credibility. Loudoun has been sent to prevent further embarrassment. Instead, he finds himself presiding over one of the most consequential defeats Britain has yet suffered in North America. And as the smoke clears, one thing becomes increasingly clear to everyone watching, from colonial assemblies to the halls of parliament. The Empire is fighting the right war with the wrong instincts, and that realization is about to drive Britain toward a reckoning of its own. If there is a single lesson to take from Eswago, it is not about fort design or artillery placement. Important as those things are, it is about tempo. In seventeen fifty six, Britain and France are fighting the same war in two very different ways. On the British side stands Lord Louden, careful, methodical, diligent. He manages, he organizes, he consolidates. He believes, sincerely, that if authority can be properly aligned and systems brought under control, success will follow. On the French side stands Montcalm, decisive, aggressive, and intolerant of delays. He acts, he identifies weaknesses, and moves toward it. He understands that in war, control is often the result of action, not the prerequisite for it. And in seventeen fifty six, that difference is decisive. France has seized the initiative. Britain is absorbing the consequences. Oswego does not fall because Britain lacks courage, manpower, or resources. It falls because Britain is preparing for a war that has already begun, because its leaders are still negotiating authority while the enemy is applying pressure. Because delay, however reasonable it may appear in London or New York, looks very different in the southern shores of Lake Ontario. Montcalm's victory is not just a tactical success, it is a proof of concept. It demonstrates that the French can dictate the pace of the war in North America, that British positions can be dismantled methodically, and that momentum belongs to the side willing to move first and hardest. And this pattern, France acting, Britain reacting, will define much of seventeen fifty six. But North America has only one theater. As the Swago falls, events elsewhere are already racing ahead. In Europe, alliances are hardening and armies are mobilizing on a scale that will soon dwarf colonial campaigns. In London, political patience is thinning, and the search for someone, anyone, who can impose clarity on the war is becoming more desperate by the day. And far from the forests of Canada and the lakes of the interior, the war is about to explode somewhere few in Britain have been paying enough attention to. Because while Montcalm reshapes the war in North America, the struggle for empire is about to turn east, toward trade, wealth, and power on a staggering scale. And that's where we'll leave things for today. Next time, though, we're not heading back to London, and we're not staying in the forests of Canada either. Because while Montcalm was dismantling Britain's western position piece by piece, events elsewhere were spiraling towards catastrophe on a scale that would shock even seasoned imperial administrators. In our next episode, we'll follow the war to India, where complacency, corporate power, and imperial overreach collide in one of the most infamous disasters of the entire conflict. It's a story about trade turning into conquest, merchants becoming rulers, and how the war that began in the Ohio Valley ends up engulfing the richest province in South Asia. As always, if you're enjoying the show, the best way to support it is to leave a rating or a review wherever you're listening, especially on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really does help new listeners find the series. You can also share episodes with a friend who enjoys history, empire, or watching great powers learn things the hard way. And once again, thank you all so much for listening. I'll see you next time.