Charles E. Clark

Arms for Empire: A Military History of the British Colonies in North America 1607-1763

As much as we might wish it otherwise, battles have played a major role in determining the course of history. Professor Leach of Vanderbilt University has given us a lucid summary of military campaigns in the British North American colonies from the landing at Jamestown to Pontiacs uprising. The most valuable portions of the book are the descriptions of battles and the analyses of British strategy. Fortunately, Leach has avoided the stylistic imbalance of many of todays military historians who insist that warfare must be closely tied to international diplomacy. This volume is both a handy reference source for military events and a study that gives perspective to a myriad of combat engagements. Although, for example, everyone has heard of Braddocks defeat-and historians recognize that it led the British to reevaluate their methods-the bloody encounter on Lake George sixty-three days later is worth recollecting because it placed limits on the success of French arms in 1755. The author has drawn wisely from contemporary accounts and from some of the best twentieth-century scholarship. Placing a heavy emphasis on strategy, Leach summarizes most of the British campaign plans and some of those of the French and Spanish for the years in which heaviest fighting occurred. For seventy years the British fostered plans to conquer New France. Despite repeated failures, succeeding commanders always returned to roughly the same master plan, a twoor three-pronged campaign aimed at the heart of Canada. One might conclude from Leach that the years 1753 and 1754 were not the turning point beyond which an Anglo-French detente became impossible; the lifeand-death struggle began in 1689. Apparently that is what he means, but it is not a view shared by all historians. Most of the strategic decisions recounted in Arms For Empire are those made by the commanders on duty in North America. But were the strategists in London able to assert any control over the situation after the years campaign had begun? It would be interesting to have this point answered, especially in the case of Pitt whose name is traditionally synonymous with the conquest of New France. In general, when evaluating strategy in America, Leach has emphasized the interdependence of events that occurred at widely separated locations. In more than a few cases one could rebut his assumptions by arguing that military strength could not be shifted quickly from one American theater to another, or that the capture of specific fortifications did not necessarily mean that surrounding areas came under the victors control. In other words, localization may have been more important than the reader is led to believe.