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The Fox of France - Chapter 499
🕑 Added 2024-04-26 16:28:13 +0000 UTCChapter 499: Trapping the Allies
February 20, 1813, the American and French allied forces had already surrounded the British forces in Ottawa. General Arthur Wellesley organized several counterattacks at the beginning, and they were quite effective. He even captured some valuable munitions from the less vigilant German-speaking French.
Overall, although the counterattacks achieved a good exchange ratio, they still consumed a lot of materials, especially ammunition. Therefore, General Arthur Wellesley no longer attempted to counterattack; now, he could only hold out in Ottawa as much as possible, hoping for a change in the war situation.
However, everyone, including General Arthur Wellesley, knew that even if the war situation did change, it would be very difficult for the British forces in Ottawa to sustain themselves.
Firstly, even if the British achieved some victory in Europe, in the current situation, they could not send much force to North America anymore. Even if they could send forces, due to Quebec's betrayal, it wouldn’t be easy to get supplies over, and even if they managed to do that, the British forces in Ottawa would have starved before the precious supplies could arrive.
So, at this time, continuing the fight was really not feasible, and the British forces, led by General Arthur Wellesley, started to consider surrendering, as it wasn’t the first time the British troops would be surrendering to the American-French forces.
Originally at this time, people would discuss and then follow the old rules; the British would hand over their command sword, and that would be the end of it. But this time, two new problems that hadn’t been encountered before suddenly emerged.
The first problem, of course, was how to divide the spoils. During the American War of Independence, there wasn’t an issue of how to divide territories. It was unthinkable for the French to take one or two states from the independence-seeking Thirteen Colonies. But now it was different; Canada was a large piece of land.
The Americans felt that the French had already gotten a large chunk with Quebec, including Canada's best ports and coastal areas, which were already occupied by the French, so the rest should naturally belong to the U.S. Moreover, the Quebecois took advantage of the U.S. military's main forces attacking the British, and quietly expanded their territorial range, claiming more land that wasn’t originally theirs. It seems the French really made a profit.
But the French said that it wasn’t as simple as that. First, Quebec had only gained independence and was not part of France. So, Quebec is Quebec, and France is France; these are two different things that shouldn’t be mixed. As for whether Quebec would join France in the future? Future matters can be discussed in the future; for now, Quebec is an independent nation recognized by the U.S., so it shouldn’t be included in the division of Canada!
Well, even excluding Quebec, there were still plenty of areas left in Canada to be divided. The region near the Great Lakes was very desirable land, and everyone getting a share of it wasn’t too bad.
However, the French acted quickly because during the previous wars, the British and Canadians had committed many undesirable acts within U.S. territory, so they were very worried that if these areas were occupied by the Americans, something bad might happen. After all, Canadians and Americans were well-acquainted with each other's nature. Even if the Americans didn’t pursue them, they wouldn’t trust it. Moreover, the Americans really couldn’t promise to forgive them generously. If they dared to make such a promise, believe it or not, the southern states that had been devastated would revolt in minutes.
And now, the Canadians also knew that the war was definitely lost; they had no choice but to surrender. But to whom they surrendered became the decision that would determine their fate.
In the future, when **the gangsters were beaten back by the Russians, similar issues had arisen. Although the leader always hoped his troops could hold the lines on both the east and west fronts, the German troops wisely chose to resist fiercely in the east while surrendering in the west as much as possible.
Canadians were no dumber than the Germans; they understood such simple logic, so they adopted a similar approach. Except for Ottawa, other cities and strongholds basically surrendered immediately if the French appeared, but fought fiercely if it were the Americans.
This led to a consequence where the French rapidly occupied many important strongholds, such as “Mud York” (later Toronto. After losing New York in North America, the British built another York here, but this place’s development was nowhere near that of New York, so the Americans nicknamed it “Mud York”), which surrendered to the French without a single shot fired.
This brought about a problem where the French occupied far more places than the Americans. If it were simply a matter of who occupied which area, then the Americans really fought for nothing. And the main cost of
this war was borne by the Americans.
Therefore, although the British were still resisting in Ottawa, the Americans were already fighting with the French.
The Americans felt that the French should give up some of the areas they occupied to the U.S. But the French unhesitatingly said, “We took these places with our own skills, why should we give them up?”
The Americans also felt that since we are allies now, fighting against the evil British together, could we possibly reduce some of the debts we borrowed for the war? Back then, King Louis XVI fought alongside us very generously.
Today's France is naturally much richer than it was during King Louis XVI's time. If the U.S. were Ireland, Napoleon’s France would surely wave a big hand and say, “Let’s forgive these debts.” But this is the U.S.
According to Joseph’s classification, the U.S. and Ireland are not the same kind of animal. Ireland is a dog, and the U.S. is a wolf. Ireland is close to Britain geographically, lacking coal and iron, and essentially unable to become a strong nation independent of France. So, the French don’t need to guard against Ireland.
But the U.S. is different. The Americans are all cunning, famously aggressive and expansionist. Before the French returned to the Americas, they bullied the Spanish—of course, after the French return, they bullied the Spanish even worse.
So, Louis Bonaparte had already received instructions from his brother Napoleon: “One of the purposes of the war is of course to weaken Britain, seize their colonies, and expand our territory. But there is another goal that is at least as important, if not more so, and that is to weaken the U.S. If possible, it would be best to divide the U.S.”
With such goals, the behavior of the French can be imagined. The strongholds they had already occupied would certainly not be handed over for nothing. Some of these could indeed be negotiated, but it would require extra money.
Some strongholds ensure a land border between France and the Republic of Quebec. Well, extra money won’t do, unless it’s the square of the extra money—oh, no, it should be the cube of the extra money.
As for the debt issue, well, we are allies, we don’t talk about money, does talking about money hurt feelings? How about this, the money we lent to you Americans in the name of the nation, we won’t take interest on it. What? You say you mainly borrowed from the Louisiana Development Bank. Ah, that’s tricky, really tricky.
You see, this Louisiana Development Bank, it's a private bank, private property, you understand? This isn’t money you borrowed from France; this is money you borrowed from French citizens. Private property is sacred and inviolable, that’s the most sacred rule of our First Earth, ah, I mean our First Republic. Even the French government has no right to forgive your debts.
So there’s no discussion about the debt, and not much to talk about the land either. In this war, the Americans shed the most blood, took the biggest losses, but when it came time to reap the benefits, they found they almost got nothing.
Actually, it’s not entirely nothing; some northern states did gain some land. But the South really didn’t get anything, apart from burned cities and massacred people.
This led to two consequences; first, the South needed a lot of money to rebuild. The South hoped that the northern states would support them, just like the troops they sent out during the war supported the North. But the problem is, the North also has no money; they can only hope for two things: first, to capture Ottawa, grab whatever money they can find in the warehouses of Ottawa. Second, after defeating Britain, to make the British government pay reparations.
According to the Americans' estimate, there probably wasn’t much money left in the warehouses of Ottawa. So that’s just a drop in the bucket, completely useless. As for the British reparations, that’s too remote to help the urgent need.
Another consequence is, how to deal with the British forces in Ottawa. General Arthur Wellesley had already sent out envoys to test the waters for surrender conditions. The French, according to the joint declaration of France and the Holy See, believed that as long as the British surrendered, their personal safety and private property should be protected. But the Americans, especially the southern Americans, regarded these people as criminals who should pay for their wartime atrocities. According to those guys in Georgia, these people should be sent to Georgia after surrendering, to face trial in court and be justly punished according to their crimes.
The British, of course, would not accept such surrender conditions. Even the French felt that this was not really intending to accept a surrender. What “just punishment”? Who are you fooling? Have we not seen how you "justly punish" the Indians? Even if we haven’t seen how
your courts judged the Indians, don’t we know how the “Revolutionary Tribunals” operated? Speaking of which, your courts were even more efficient than our “Revolutionary Tribunals” when it came to hanging Indians. The British aren’t fools to accept such conditions.
But the Americans couldn’t compromise on this issue, because whoever compromised on this issue would immediately be seen as a “traitor” by the entire South. Given the habits of the southern barbarians, it’s very normal for them to shout “Heavenly punishment on the national traitors,” and then fire off two revolvers.
Since they couldn’t agree, they could only continue fighting.
However, the French lacked interest in continuing the attack. Their reason was also sufficient: at this stage of the war, it wasn’t necessary to continue sacrificing soldiers. They even advised the Americans not to rush, to just keep surrounding them for a longer time, wait until they were starving, and then attack.
The Americans initially thought this suggestion from the French wasn’t bad. The British defense was still quite strong; if they attacked head-on, who knows how many would die. It was better to wait and let them starve to death.
However, the Americans soon realized that this idea might not be reliable. Because the British launched a counterattack towards the French side, and then... then they captured quite a bit from the French side and retreated.
The Americans, of course, were very unhappy and complained about how the French managed things. And the French said, that area was manned by Native Americans loyal to France, you can’t expect too much from the Native Americans.
“What? You actually used Native Americans to guard positions? How could Native Americans hold it?”
“But hiring them is cheap. And it’s almost time for spring plowing. The soldiers are eager to go home to farm. If we delay farming, we will have to spend a lot more money to subsidize them. Damn, that’s not a small amount of money. Anyway, the British didn’t break through. What’s there to worry about?”
Then, in the French army, Native Americans became increasingly numerous, and the French troops became fewer. The reason, of course, was that it was almost time for spring plowing, the French troops in Louisiana were mainly militia, and the militia were primarily farmers, and the Louisiana government had limited finances, so...
So they could only hand over the position to friendly Native Americans, of course, if the Americans wanted to take over, the French wouldn’t object. Of course, taking over this position meant the Americans needed to increase their troops, and increasing troops costs money, right? Where would the American government get the money?
The Americans protested against the irresponsible behavior of the French. But the French retorted, “If it wasn’t for your insistence on trying the British, the British would have surrendered long ago, and we could have gone back already.”
So, the siege by the American and French allied forces gradually became an American-Indian (Native) allied force, and then gradually turned into purely American forces.
Solving the problem through a long siege could indeed greatly reduce casualties, but maintaining a long siege required a lot of money, and now, the Americans just didn’t have the money. Or the Americans could also get the British to surrender by promising not to pursue their wartime atrocities, but this was very politically incorrect in America. So now, the only option for the Americans was to storm Ottawa.
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