The French meanwhile were always a little ahead of the English in their planning.Early in April, 1754, a French force of five or six hundred men from Canada, which had set out while Quebec was still in the icy grip of winter, reached the upper waters of the Ohio.They attacked and destroyed a fort which the English had begun at the forks where now stands Pittsburgh, and, in its place, began a formidable one, called Fort Duquesne after the Governor of Canada.In vain was Washington sent with a few hundred men to take possession of this fort and to assert the claim of the English to the land.He fell in with a French scouting party under young Coulon de Jumonville, killed its leader and nine others, and took more than a score of prisoners--warfare bloody enough in a time of supposed peace.But the French were now on the Ohio in greater numbers than the English.At a spot known as the Great Meadows, where Washington had hastily thrown up defenses, which he called Fort Necessity, he was forced to surrender, but was allowed to lead his force back to Virginia, defeated in the first military adventure of his career.The French took the view that his killing of the young officer Jumonville was assassination, since no state of war existed, and raised a fierce clamor that Washington was a murderer--a strange contrast to his relations with France in the years to come.
What astonishes us in regard to these events is that Britain and France long remained nominally at peace while they were carrying on active hostilities in America and sending from Europe armies to fight.There were various reasons for this hesitation about plunging formally into war.Each side wished to delay until sure of its alliances in Europe.During the war ending in 1748 France had fought with Frederick of Prussia against Austria, and Britain had been Austria's ally.The war had been chiefly a land war, but France had been beaten on the sea.Now Britain and Prussia were drawing together and, if France fought them, it must be with Austria as an ally.Such an alliance offered France but slight advantage.Austria, an inland power, could not help France against an adversary whose strength was on the sea; she could not aid the designs of France in America or in India, where the capable French leader Dupleix was in a fair way to build up a mighty oriental empire.Nor had France anything to gain in Europe from an Austrian alliance.The shoe was on the other foot.The supreme passion of Maria Theresa who ruled Austria was to recover the province of Silesia which had been seized in 1740 by Prussia and held--held to this day.Austria could do little for France but France could do much for Austria.So Austria worked for this alliance.It is a story of intrigue.Usually in France the King carried on negotiations with foreign countries only through his ministers, who knew the real interests of France.Now the astute Austrian statesman, Kaunitz, went past the ministers of Louis XVto Louis himself.This was the heyday of Madame de Pompadour, the King's mistress.Maria Theresa condescended to intrigue with this woman whom in her heart she despised.There is still much mystery in the affair.The King was flattered into thinking that personally he was swaying the affairs of Europe and took delight in deceiving his ministers and working behind their backs.While events in America were making war between France and Britain inevitable, France was being tied to an ally who could give her little aid.She must spend herself to fight Austria's battles on the land, while her real interests required that she should build up her fleet to fight on the sea the great adversary across the English Channel.
The destiny of North America might, indeed; well have been other than it is.A France strong on the sea, able to bring across to America great forces, might have held, at any rate, her place on the St.Lawrence and occupied the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi.We can hardly doubt that the English colonies, united by a common deadly peril, could have held against France most of the Atlantic coast.But she might well have divided with them North America; and today the lands north of the Ohio and westward beyond the Ohio to the Pacific Ocean might have been French.The two nations on the brink of war in 1754 were playing for mighty stakes; and victory was to the power which had control of the sea.France had a great army, Britain a great fleet.In this contrast lay wrapped the secret of the future of North America.
As the crisis drew near the vital thought about the future of America was found, not in America, but in Europe.The English colonies were so accustomed to distrust each other that, when Virginia grew excited about French designs on the Ohio, Pennsylvania or North Carolina was as likely as not to say that it was the French who were in the right and a stupid, or excitable, or conceited, colonial governor who was in the wrong.
