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Seven Years' War Featured at Canadian War Museum Exhibition

Gunner

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http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/futureexhibitions_e.html

Sounds like another outstanding exhibition by the Canadian War Museum.

Upcoming Exhibitions
Clash of Empires: The War That Made Canada 1754-1763
May 31, 2006 to November 12, 2006

Clash of Empires is the first major Canadian-American joint exhibition on the first global war. It tells the story of the Seven Years' War - a conflict that begins with Britain and France fighting for imperial predominance in North America and later spreads to Europe, the West Indies, Africa, and Asia. This war changes the world map, sets the stage for the American Revolution and is a decisive factor in the evolution of both Canada and United States.

The war begins in 1754 and ends nine years later in 1763, but is called the Seven Years' War because France and Britain did not actually declare war until 1756.

The Warrior

Many First Peoples joined the French in their expedition to the Ohio Valley.
Gerry Embleton’s Time Machine, 2005, Switzerlandpreviousnext
For Canadians, the best-known events of the Seven Years' War are the expulsion of the Acadians and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. For Americans, they are George Washington's defence of Fort Necessity and Braddock's defeat at the Battle of the Monongahela. Clash of Empires unites these perspectives as American and Canadian museums, the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center in partnership with the Canadian War Museum, work together to produce an exhibition that tells the story of this conflict.

This is the first time an exhibition of this size and scope on the Seven Years' War has been presented in Canada. About 200 artifacts from 55 collections, including from the Canadian War Museum and Canadian Museum of Civilization, highlight the clothing, weapons, art, maps, and documents of French, British, and First Peoples participants. These artifacts include:

A document signed by George Washington confessing to the assassination ("l'assassinat") of a French envoy;
A silver wine cup that belonged to Louis-Joseph de Montcalm;
A selection of Dominic Serres works;
Benjamin West’s The Death of General Wolfe — the most recognized image associated with the Seven Years’ War — on-loan from the National Gallery of Canada featured exclusively at the CWM venue.

The exhibition follows the course of the war in from its beginnings in the Ohio valley in 1754 when a force, led by George Washington, kills a French envoy. It continues through First Peoples and French attacks that roll back the British frontier, and the British victories, including the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, that bring the war to a close. A final section examines the consequences of the war for North America.

An exhibition organized by the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in partnership with the Canadian War Museum.

 
Did you guys know that France actually reconquered parts of Newfoundland in 1762? They had to give those territories up though I think. I'm not talking about Martinique or the other little island France still has.
 
Those little islands would be Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Martinique is in the Caribbean.
 
"and the British victories, including the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, that bring the war to a close"

- "Quebec 1759", is a battle honour still carried by some British Regiments.  It may have turned out to be a mere historical blip, had the first fleet into the St Lawrence in 1760 been French instead of English.
 
It may have turned out to be a mere historical blip, had the first fleet into the St Lawrence in 1760 been French instead of English.

The fact that it wasn't a French Fleet was a result of additional French defeats at Minden in Germany (where British regiments stuck roses in their hats during the advance), at Madras in India (following on from the 1757 defeat at Plassey in India by Clive) as well as the naval defeats of Lagos Bay and Quiberon Bay.  The blip was the result of the French being unable to sustain a global war for a variety of military, political, economic and societal reasons.

Also I would argue that the 7 years war was actually a continuation of the hostilities launched by Louis XV in 1740 (War of Austrian Succession)  Although it officially ended in 1748 in Europe it continued at sea and in India and North America until 1763 and beyond.  This period also included an attempted French invasion of Britain in 1744 and the French supported Jacobite rebellion of "Bonnie Prince Charlie - The Young Pretender" in 1745-1746. 

A pet peeve of mine wrt the French & Indian Wars, the Seven Years War and the Acadian Expulsion is how they are taught in isolation from a strictly Canadian perspective. 

Here's one for the books:  The British Governor of Acadia from 1742 to 1751 was a Frenchman - Jean Paul Mascarene - a protestant Huguenot from Languedoc.  He along with many other french protestants fled France to find refuge in England and in places like Boston and New York.  They also served broadly in the British Army, often being identified as Swiss because they came from the border area. http://www.blupete.com/Hist/BiosNS/1700-63/Mascarene.htm

Additionally most of the troops in the garrison regiment in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland were locally found and married local girls, many of them French Canadians.  When the expulsion orders came many of the Brit officers found themselves having to resettle their in-laws and relatives.  http://www.militaryheritage.com/40th.htm

The opposition was organized by priests of the French Catholic Church which had separated itself from Roman authority in 1682 (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06351a.htm) thus making itself available to support the French monarchy.  These "priests" like Abbe Le Loutre had much in common with the Imams of the Saudi Madrassas scattered around the world today.
 
TCBF, when I was living in England last year I made a stop to the museum of the Gloucestershire Regiment, and saw first hand how they still take it seriously.  The 28th Foot (which with the 61st, became part of the Gloucs Reg't during WWI) was at Louisbourg and Quebec under Amherst, and they have a beautiful display showing some artifacts from the period.

I'm looking at the museum/regiment history now and their first expedition was actually being sent to Newfoundland (albeit too late to stop the French harrassing the colonists) in 1697.

It's great to see such 'blips' are still appreciated.  Had a great chat with one of the volunteers at the Royal Regiment of Wales' museum in Cardiff as well.  I must have been one of the few tourists to skip all the 'must see' things like Stonehenge, etc. and go for the sites with military significance.    :)
 
" I must have been one of the few tourists to skip all the 'must see' things like Stonehenge, etc. and go for the sites with military significance."

- Having dragged my wife through the military museum in Prague in 1992 (not to mention the IWM, Dieppe, Verdun,Juno Beach, s'Hertogenbosch, etc) , and spent ba lot of my '48' in Budapest in their military museum, I undersyand fully.

"When the expulsion orders came many of the Brit officers found themselves having to resettle their in-laws and relatives. "

- Amazing.  Truth is indead stranger than fiction.  Thanks.

 
Further to the truth is stranger than fiction there is this - The Champion of Protestantism and Winner of the Battle of the Boyne over the "Papists" was funded by the Pope.
Frenchmen fought at the Boyne on both sides. 

The common enemy was Louis XIV and James VII & II.

The Boyne (1690) was fought 5 years after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) allowed protestants in France to be persecuted by the French state, 8 years after the french church separated from Rome (1682)about the same length of time since Bonnie Dundee (Bloody Clavers) started slaughtering Covenanters in Scotland and Louis imposed the Dragonnades in France.

The whole period from 1685 to 1763, dominated by Louis XIV and Louis XV, was seen at the time as a struggle against autocracy with Britain taking on the role of defender of protestantism and opponent of "divine right".

William of Orange ‘funded by the Pope’
Author: John Follain
Publication: The Sunday Times
Date: September 23, 2001
Documents discovered in Vatican archives suggest that William of Orange, the Protestant hero who ascended the English throne in 1689, was in the pay of the Pope.

William, known as "King Billy", has been revered by generations of Ulstermen for his part in driving James II from power and ending Roman Catholic rule in England. Three centuries later, his role is still celebrated in the name of Northern Ireland's loyalist Orange Order.

In a new book, two Italian historians claim Innocent XI, who became pope in 1676, gave substantial amounts of money to William in the hope of securing himself a secret and powerful ally within the Protestant camp. The pontiff was apparently keen to see the end of James II, whom he regarded as being too close to Louis XIV of France, whose relations with the Vatican had long been poor.

The book, Imprimatur, says the Vatican sent an estimated 150,000 scudi to William in the 1660s via intermediaries close to the wealthy family of Benedetto Odescalchi, as Innocent was known before he became pope. The amount was equal to the Vatican's annual budget deficit and equivalent to more than £3.5m today.

The transfers are detailed in volumes kept for centuries in the cellar of a palace belonging to the Odescalchi family. They have recently been made available to scholars.

"It's very likely the Pope went on supporting William because Rome disapproved of James's aggressively Catholic policies, and saw him as too close to Louis XIV of France, who clashed with Rome," said Francesco Sorti, co-author of the book. "The Vatican managed to keep the secret for so long by destroying many of the documents. It was simply impossible for the Roman Catholic church to admit that a pope had played an important role in the Glorious Revolution."

http://www.hvk.org/articles/0901/164.html

Canada's history is a lot more convoluted than the usual tale that is told.





 
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