Battle of the Monongahela

Battle of the Monongahela

Part of: Seven Years War in North America
( Seven Years War )

Braddock's death at the Battle of Monongahela on July 9, 1755

date	July 9, 1755
place	on the Monongahela River at Fort Duquesne
output	French victory

Parties to the conflict
Great Britain	France various Indian tribes
Commander
Edward Braddock †	Daniel Beaujeu †
Troop strength
1460 men	891 men
losses
877 fallen	unknown, about 50 to 60 dead

The Battle of the Monongahela ( English Battle of the Monongahela , also Battle of the Wilderness , not to be confused with the equally named Battle in the Wilderness during the Civil War) between the British and French took place on July 9, 1755 as a prelude to the Seven Years War (1756– 1763) instead of in America as the French and Indian war ( was French and Indian is called). It took place on the Monongahela River in what is now the city of Pittsburgh ( Pennsylvania ) and ended in a heavy defeat for the British.

Background and history

As early as April 1754, two years before the official start of the war in Europe, the French had occupied the British Fort Prince George , which was under construction at the point where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers flow together to form the Ohio River . They finished building the British facility and named it Fort Duquesne . After a small force of British-American militiamen from Virginia under the command of Major George Washington was forced to surrender during an advance on Fort Duquesne by the French, a larger expedition was under the command of the Governor General Robert Dinwiddie in the summer of 1755 Major General Edward Braddock sent against the fort.

The expedition suffered from numerous shortcomings. Braddock himself was a soldier of great personal courage, but without military experience in the colonies, where warfare was very different from that in Europe, and without the necessary flexibility to adapt to it. Although he had led troops in Europe several times, he had never been involved in major skirmishes or battles with them. He despised the colonists and their militiamen and ignored their advice. In addition, quarrels and organizational deficiencies in the preparations caused major problems, especially since Virginia lacked the necessary resources. In addition, there was deliberate sabotage and obstruction that led Washington to say that the settlers were villains deserving of punishment.

The mere difficulties of getting a sufficient number of wagons were so great that Braddock, furious at the endless delays and difficulties, planned to cancel the expedition. Benjamin Franklin managed to get the necessary vehicles from Pennsylvania .

It would have made far more sense to march on Fort Duquesne through Pennsylvania , which had the necessary supplies and better routes. Instead, the planned route led through Virginia, where a road had to be built for the advance. Allegedly, this decision was made because of the influence of certain Virginia personalities who were hoping for economic benefits from the new road.

The two regiments (44th and 48th Infantry Regiment) relocated from Ireland to North America, which had to be increased by inexperienced recruits , caused further problems . The colonels of the two regiments, Sir Peter Halkett and Robert Dunbar , had a correspondingly skeptical view of the company. Characteristic of the poor condition of the units were the excesses and excesses that the troops were guilty of after disembarkation in March 1755.

The British approach

In April, the various parts of the expeditionary force met in Winchester, Virginia, to march towards Fort Duquesne. Braddock's contingent comprised about 2200 men and consisted of the two infantry regiments, artillerymen, some seamen from the Royal Navy and about 250 British-American militiamen. George Washington accompanied Braddock as an adjutant. For the purpose of the advance, especially for the guns, Braddock's soldiers, but mostly forcibly recruited settlers, built their own four-meter-wide road, which became known as Wilderness Road. Because of the rough terrain, the British made slow progress, sometimes only two miles a day. In June, the soldiers suffered from a shortage of supplies, starved themselves and also fell ill with scurvy , as they essentially ate salt meat . Since there was also no horse feed, the draft horses began to die. Water shortage was another problem, with many soldiers suffering from infections from polluted water.

On June 18, the British reached a place called Great Meadows near what is now Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where, on Washington's advice, it was decided to leave most of the heavy luggage behind with a fuse under the command of Colonel Dunbar and with a total of about 1,400 men quickly to advance to Fort Duquesne. Nevertheless, the advance was not much faster because the soldiers - so Washington in a letter - “stopped to level every molehill and build a bridge over every stream”. It was not until July 7 that the expedition came within eight miles of the fort.

Under Commander Capitaine Claude-Pierre Pécaudy de Contrecœur there were only about 200 men in Fort Duquesne: regular soldiers and Canadian militias. There were also about 900 Indians from the tribes of the Odawas , Miamis , Hurons , Delawars , Shawnees and Iroquois . Contrecœur had learned of the British approach three days before the battle. After some negotiations with the Indians, who were reluctant to attack the seemingly overwhelming enemy, 637 Indians, 72 regular soldiers, 146 Canadians and 36 officers, under the command of Capitaine Daniel Liénard de Beaujeu , marched off to attack Braddock as they crossed the Monongahela.

Course of the battle

The maps by Patrick Mackellar, the British second engineer, illustrate the breakup of the British marching order after the attack.

On July 9, 1755, the British vanguard under Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage crossed the Monongahela about nine miles south of Fort Duquesne. As the vanguard marched up the hills beyond the ford, they met a man dressed like an Indian but wearing the badge of a French officer. It was probably Capitaine de Beaujeu. When he spotted the British, he turned around and made a sign with his hat to his soldiers and Indians. The Indians immediately swarmed around the British formation in a horseshoe shape and took the soldiers under fire from three sides.

Gage's soldiers formed a combat formation and fired several volleys at the largely invisible enemy. De Beaujeu was killed and most of the Canadians fled. However, the remaining officers succeeded in regrouping the remaining soldiers and taking Gage's soldiers together with the Indians into a heavy crossfire. Faced with mounting casualties from a largely invisible enemy, Gage ordered retreat.

On the narrow path, his soldiers collided with the main part of the troops, who rushed up to help the attacked. Braddock had only left 400 men under Colonel Halkett to guard the baggage.

When the soldiers collided, chaos broke out, and the Indians fired into the helpless crowd that was crowding the street. The soldiers' lack of discipline and experience had a disastrous effect; many panicked and even shot their own comrades. Most of the dead and wounded were likely caused by this and not by the Indians. In addition, many were terrified of the Indians, of whose cruelty they had heard numerous stories. Hundreds of soldiers were killed or wounded on the street.

The militias experienced in the colonial war fanned out, took cover and returned fire, but were forced by Braddock to line up again. A detachment of Virgins that attempted a counterattack was even caught under fire from their own side and forced to return. Meanwhile, the officers of the regular regiments tried to regiment their soldiers into closed units on the streets. As a result, soldiers and officers became helpless, hard-to-miss targets, while the Indians hidden in the undergrowth remained almost invisible. Soldiers who took cover and tried to take out the opposing riflemen with targeted single fire were beaten back into their units by their officers. Lt. Col. Burton attempted a counterattack, but after being wounded in the process, his soldiers refused to proceed.

Eventually Braddock saw the battle was lost and ordered the retreat, but was fatally wounded in the lung after four horses had been shot beneath him. A panic escape followed, leaving behind guns, weapons, baggage, secret papers and most of the wounded who were killed and scalped by the Indians. Efforts by the surviving officers to restore order were unsuccessful. Fortunately for the British, the victors decided not to pursue them beyond the Monongahela, which otherwise would have led to the complete destruction of the expeditionary force. The next day the remnants of the army reached the camp of Colonel Dunbar, who ordered the destruction of the guns, stores of ammunition and wagons and withdrew to Philadelphia .

The French had only lost three dead and four wounded officers, four soldiers and five Canadians, of the Indians only the losses of the Canadian Indians are known, who lost 27 men. The total losses of the British, however, amounted to 456 dead and 421 wounded, including 63 of the 87 officers. George Washington, whose advice - had he been listened to - would have prevented the debacle, was one of the few unwounded officers. Two horses had been shot under him, and his uniform had been riddled with five bullets.

Washington blamed the disaster on the cowardice and panic of the regular soldiers and mourned the Virginia militiamen who fought disciplined and valiantly and suffered heavy losses. Among the fallen were Colonel Sir Peter Halkett (44th Infantry Regiment) and his son, six captains and 15 lieutenants. Some women and children were also killed and scalped by soldiers who had accompanied the column. According to an eyewitness account, twelve British people who fell alive into the hands of the Indians were tortured to death by them the night after the battle on the banks of the river near Fort Duquesne.

General Braddock died of his wound on July 13, 1755 and was buried in an unmarked grave at Great Meadows. Shortly before his death, he apologized to Washington for his attitude towards the militiamen and expressed the hope that they now knew better how to beat the French.

Evaluation and consequences

The Battle of Monongahela is considered a classic example of leadership failure. The main reason for the heavy defeat of the British was the amateurish preparation and execution of the expedition, the use of inexperienced soldiers and the stubborn adherence to the linear combat order prescribed by the regulations, but completely unsuitable for the colonial war. This allowed the attackers with closed formations and volley fire to almost destroy the British unit with little losses of their own.

With their victory, the French put an end to the British attempts to occupy the Ohio Valley . The consequences were serious because the construction of the road and the heavily criticized withdrawal of Dunbars from the border area opened Virginia and the neighboring colonies to the incursions of the Indians, who subsequently wreaked havoc among the largely defenseless settlers, as it was after the withdrawal of Dunbars Troops had neither fortifications nor enough soldiers to protect them. The defeat was moderated somewhat by the fact that the parallel advance under Sir William Johnson in the north was more successful. Johnson succeeded in building important forts and a victory over the French under General Ludwig August von Dieskau in the Battle of Lake George on September 8, 1755. In a second attempt, the British succeeded in conquering Fort Duquesne in 1758, which was renamed Fort Pitt - became the nucleus of the city of Pittsburgh .

For US historiography, the battle is of particular importance through the participation of the young George Washington.

literature

• David L. Preston: Braddock's Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution. Oxford University Press, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-1998-4532-3 .
• Rene Chartrand: Monongahela, 1754–1755: Washington's Defeat, Braddock's Disaster . Osprey Publishing, 2004. ISBN 1-84176-683-6 .
• Paul E. Kopperman: Braddock at the Monongahela . University of Pittsburgh Press, 1977. [Reprints 1992, 2003]. ISBN 0-8229-5819-8 ( digitized from University of Pittsburgh Press website)
• Stanley M. Pargellis : Braddock's Defeat . In: American Historical Review 41: 2, 1936. pp. 253-269.

Web links

Commons : Battle of Monongahela  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• britishbattles.com: The Battle on the Monongahela (engl.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Battle of the Monongahela . 1755. Retrieved August 3, 2013.