Writing the Battle of Jumonville Glen was very difficult. I had conflicting sources. For instance, I could not determine whether Coulon de Jumonville was killed as the skirmish ended, or later, at Fort Duquesne.
Moreover, my text kept being revised (dialogs). So, I nearly destroyed the post. It seems that Coulon de Jumonville was killed by Tanacharison.
Our only certainties are that Jumonville was killed. Was it immediately after the skirmish or later, at Fort Duquesne. Moreover did Tanacharison kill Jumonville, and where.
I should have mentioned that George Washington (February 1723-December 1799) was only 22 at the Battle of Jumonville Glen. Tanacharison was 54. He died soon after Jumonville Glen, an ambush and skirmish. It is now called a skirmish.
My conclusion is that wars are absurd. The people of New France are still fighting to retain their identity. As well, France lost the Seven Years’ War. Yet, the starting-point was an ambush.
Moreover, my memory is deteriorating. I am perfectly lucid, but it may take me a few minutes to indicate the page or segment I am quoting and I may repeat a word or a sentence. I make spelling errors. So, I will be closing my weblog in the not-too-distant future or discuss fables, or write shorter posts. However, that an ambush should lead to wars, including a world war, is disorienting. So is an entry stating that Washington started the wars. As noted above, Washington was 22 or 23 years old, probably 22, in 1754.
I inserted a source, but I could not separate the source and videos it shows. It is a learned source and the gentleman we hear does not throw stones. The link is the Jumonville Skirmish, but I am now shown Error 404 and information given readers is in French. If one speaks French, the site is available. I’ll search again. The following link may take a reader to information. One mut pay.
Washington was ordered to remove the French from the Ohio Country, which may have given him latitude.
Aubert de Gaspé is not a Malraux. Nor is he a Camus. But Aubert de Gaspé is pointing out the absurdity of war. France lost New France and New France lost its motherland. These consequences are not glitches. The Battle of Quebec 1775 was an early battle during the American Revolutionary War.
Many seigneurs were sent back to France, but Aubert de Gaspé was not. He had descendants.
Through his novel Aubert de Gaspé suggests that one can adjust to changes. Jules did. Aubert de Gaspé also suggests that the enemy may be one’s adopted brother. Jules and Arché are reunited. It is as though, the seigneurs of New France had been in the military. Jules’s father looked old because he had fought battles.
George Washington travels with Tanacharison, the Half King
It is difficult to tell what happened at the Battle of Jumonville Glen. First, it was not a battle; it was an ambush. Yet, it started the French and Indian War (1754-1763), which in turn, started the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), a global conflict and a defeat for France. Tanacharison (1718-1754), an angry Mingo (Iroquoian Amerindian), also called the Half King pressed George Washington (1732-1799) into joining him and attacking a French encampment Amerindians had spotted. When they reached the encampment, Tanacharison brutally murdered an innocent French captain, Coulon de Jumonville, standing next to George Washington, thus starting the French and Indian War (1754-1763) which led to the arbitrarily considered last and lost Battle of the Plains of Abraham, and which also led to the Seven Year’s War (1756-1763), or the defeat of France.
Aubert de Gaspé keeps repeating that the defeated are forever defeated and then says, in full, that at the Treaty of Paris 1763 (“trois ans après”) Louis XV abandoned France’s colony in North America. The Battle of Sainte-Foy was a French victory, but the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, a short confrontation, was deemed the last and lost battle of the French and Indian War (1754-1763) when in fact the last battle, the Battle of Saint-Foy, fought on 28 April 1760, was a French victory. “Nonchalant” Louis XV tossed the Battle of Sainte-Foy aside, turning a victory into a defeat. Not necessarily. Coulon de Villiers could avenge his half-brother’s assassination, However, by 1759, could France reinforce its troops in New France. France was losing the Seven Years’ War.
La Nouvelle-France, abandonnée de la mère patrie, fut cédée à l’Angleterre par le nonchalant Louis XV, trois ans après cette glorieuse bataille qui aurait pu sauver la colonie. Les Anciens Canadiens(XIV: page 321)
[New France, abandoned by the mother country, was ceded to England by the careless Louis three years after the battle.] Cameron of Lochiel(XIII: 202-203)
Tanacharison tries to return his wampun & the ambush
I have not been able to determine whether Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie authorized the “ambush” that took place on 28 Mary 1754. But in 1753, George Washington was asked to tell the French to leave the Ohio Country.
Questions: the Jumonville Affair
Who started the Jumonville affair?
Who killed Jumonville?
a battle, a skirmish or an ambush …
In the Wikipedia entry on Tanacharison, one can read that Tanacharison, the Half King, started the French and Indian War (1754-1763) which would develop into the Seven Years’ War, an international conflict. (See Tanacharison, Wikipedia.)
Questions do arise? For instance, who initiated the offensive, an ambush, that took place on 28 May 1754? Was it George Washington or Tanacharison, or was it a joint decision by George Washington and Tanacharison? More importantly, as noted above, had Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie authorized the ambush of an encampment of 35 Frenchmen? In Wikipedia’s entry on Robert Dinwiddie, it is stated that Virginia lieutenant governor Robert Dinwiddie started Washington’s military career. In one of the videos embedded in my last post, George Washington opened fire. This could be the case. In fact, if Jumonville did not have a gun, or, if a gun was not at hand, should Washington have shot at Jumonville? Robert Dinwiddie is credited with having started George Washington’s military career. Not quite.
“Washington was heavily criticized in Britain for the incident. British statesman Horace Walpole referred to the controversy surrounding Jumonville’s death as the “Jumonville Affair” and described it as ‘a volley fired by a young Virginian in the backwoods of America that set the world on fire.'” (See Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, Wikipedia.)
Jumonville Glen has been called a battle and the Jumonville Skirmish, but it was an ambush, and Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville was murdered. George Washington took Tanacharison to the Ohio Country. However, it seems, that Tanacharison took George Washington to ambush Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville. Whether Virginia Royal Governor Robert Dinwiddie authorized this second event cannot be ascertained. It also seems that Jumonville and a few Frenchmen were killed or wounded and that all of them, but one, were captured. Moreover, Jumonville may have been killed at Fort Duquesne. When Washington surrendered, if he surrendered, he admitted that Jumonville was assassinated. But, as mentioned above, this may not be true.
In fact, “[t]he exact circumstances of Jumonville’s death are a subject of historical controversy and debate.” (See Battle of Jumonville Glen, Wikipedia.)
It seems that Canadiens seigneurs were the military in New France. Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville was a seigneur. Seigneuries had been given to members of the Régiment de Carignan-Salières who wanted to remain in Canada. They arrived in 1665. Nouvelle-France was often attacked by Iroquois, who were allies of the British in North America. Canada had its French and Indian War 1754-1763), its French and Indian Wars (1688-1763), inter-colonial wars, and it also had its Beaver Wars or Guerres franco-iroquoises. In the early 1750s, the French were building forts in the Ohio country. Forts were trading-posts and fortresses.
So Aubert de Gaspé comments on the inanity of wars. But in North American, a war was waged that was a tinier war than the Seven Years’ War, but it was absurdism at its peak. Nouvelle-France fell. Jumonville was not a battle, whether it took place at an encampment or in Fort Duquesne, and the French won the Battle of Saint-Foy. I feel as though I were reading an early draft of Malraux‘s Condition Humaine (Man’s Fate, 1933), or Camus, all of Camus.
Militarily, Jumonville’s brother, Captain Coulon de Villiers, “marched on Fort Necessity on the 3rd of July [1754] and forced Washington to surrender.” (See Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, Wikipedia.) The lex talioniswas at work: an eye for an eye. Humanity has been avenging itself for milennia at a huge cost. Historically, the people of New France change masters overnight. I suspect that Sir Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, who passed the Quebec Act of 1774, could tell that the French, the people, did not have to be punished. It is also very refreshing to read Aubert de Gaspé who writes that:
Des deux côtés la bravoure était égale, et quinze mille hommes des meilleures troupes du monde n’attendaient que l’ordre de leurs chefs pour ensanglanter de nouveau les mêmes plaines qui avaient déjà bu le sang de tant de valeureux soldats. Les Anciens Canadiens(XIV: p. 318)
[The courage of both was beyond question, and fifteen thousand of the best troops in the world only awaited the word of their commanders to spring at each other’s throats.] Cameron of Lochiel(XIII: 201-202).
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