The Road to Revolution: George Washington and the First ‘World War’
In the portion of our brains we keep reserved for history, the one that provides our shared understanding of who we are and how we got here, we are all in agreement that there have been two world wars: The Great War, between 1914 and 1918, and the Second World War, raging between 1939 and 1945. They are known today as ‘world wars’ due to the “scale of fear the conflicts unleashed” (Jones, 2014). As such, by this understanding, should more than two world wars not have stained the pages of history?
The Great War has now fallen from living memory, with the Second World War approaching a similar state of confinement to history books and generational story-telling. Despite their position,etched into the hearts and minds of grateful generations since, with a consensus that we are living in the aftermath of the two greatest and most destructive wars that have ever scorched the earth, this sentiment was echoed by men and women across Europe Long before the 20th century. .
In 1759 Franco-British conflict engulfed North America, Europe, the Caribbean, and India, sending the great colonial powers of the day into what could be considered the first world war: The Seven Years’ War (Scott, 2011). Recent scholarship shows a renewed interest in the first ‘world war’, specifically the impact on government policy and reform and instigation of a rejection of “established political authority” (Scott, 2011). A superficial look at the Seven Years’ War provides a perspective that has undervalued the war’s role as an agent for historical change, producing two separate conflicts: one European, and one global (Scott, 2011). The former pitted Prussia against a coalition of Austria, France and Russia, and on the North American front, Britain against France and later Spain. As such, for the first time, the world lay witness to a ‘universal war’ (Rothschild 2006).
To fully appreciate the Seven Years’ War and its impact beyond the battlefields, it is important to pay great attention to the North American front, and the fighting which has too often been labelled the ‘French and Indian War’. This is chiefly because the war as a whole was neither solely a European affair, nor a war between Great Britain and France over their colonial interests in North America. The alliances of England and France, and the King of England’s position as Elector of Hanover, made it so that what ought to have been one of the two great powers’ many quarrels, became instead a war that would decide the future of Europe, and, by extension, the world (Ropes, 1889).
Responsibility can be attributed to England, after poking at the relative weakness of France’s colonies in ‘New France’ during the War of the Spanish Succession, England - armed with the far greater strength of the New England colonies - had “everything to hope, France everything to fear, from a renewal of the colonial conflict” (Ropes, 1889). Recognising their own weakness, France sought to piece together their scattered dominions by occupying a chain of forts down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. This was a challenge that the British government in London could not ignore, and one that meant the armed truce with France could not be maintained (Rhodehamel, 2017).
John Rhodehamel’s biography of George Washington paints the first president’s rise to power and fame as a military commander as a picture of North American colonies teetering on the brink of war with France – a picture not altogether difficult to paint given Washington’s central involvement during the beginning of the war. The young planter from Virginia, who would eventually become the first President of the United States of America, was tasked with delivering King George II’s ultimatum to the French at Fort La Boeuf, stating that if they did not peaceably depart, then the colonists must “drive them off by force of arms”.
Major Washington rode into Williamsburg on the 16th December 1753 to bring the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, Robert Dinwiddie, news of the French defiance and the need to take up arms. Even before young Washington’s return, Dinwiddie had ordered a party of 40 men under Captain Trent of the Virginia Regiment only to have them retreat in the face of much larger French reinforcements sent by the Governor General of New France, Marquis Duquesne. Promoted to Lieutenant Colonel aged just twenty-two, Washington was ordered to follow Captain Trent’s path despite hearing of his retreat. with “orders to fight should the French oppose him” (Rhodehamel, 2017). Forty miles south of Fort Duquesne, which the French had built using Ohio Company timber and manned with one thousand soldiers, Washington made camp at Great Meadows.
Joined by some of the Half-King Tanaghrisson’s formidable native warriors, Washington led a handful of men under the darkness of night against an awaiting French ambush and subsequent fifteen-minute skirmish. Firing his weapon first, Washington literally and figuratively fired the first shots of the Seven Years’ War (Rhodehamel, 2017). The most notable of the casualties was French Commander Joseph Coulon de Villiers, sieur de Jumonville, who had the full brutality of Native American warfare brought down upon him, as did the former owner of the eyeless head mounted on a spike - brutality that was witnessed by Commander de Villiers’ own brother just months later (Rhodehamel, 2017).
The prisoners taken, or rather saved from the brutality of Tanaghrisson, insisted that theirs was a peaceful diplomatic mission to deliver an ultimatum demanding British withdrawal from France’s territorial claims - with papers recovered from Jumonville’s body confirming this notion. Thus, Washington was accused of murdering an ambassador.Colonel Washington’s camp at Great Meadows lacked the provisions to take on the French, which, with the French looking like the clear victors, prompted Tanaghrisson and his other native allies to abandon Washington. Despite conjuring up just 181 untrained Virginian militiamen, the young Colonel pushed on, only to hurry back with reports of a thousand French troops marching against Great Meadows.
French volley fire poured from well-covered positions into Washington’s stockade on July 3rd 1754, and by the next day, the Virginians surrendered. It was only after receiving an accurately translated copy of the surrender articles that Washington learned he had admitted to “assassinating” Jumonville, handing the French a tremendous PR victory that earned Washington condemnation from Boston to London (Rhodehamel, 2017).
Peace officially remained between Britain and France until 1756, and news of Washington’s defeat only fuelled the government in London’s desire to declare war, sending two regiments of British regulars, under Major General Edward Braddock, to Virginia - whomWashington would find himself on the personal staff of (Rhodehamel, 2017). It was during this time on Braddock’s personal staff that Washington would continue to seek a commission into the British Army - something that would grant him further respect and renown in the company of Virginia’s societal elite. With another defeat at the hands of the French, this time reinforced by the native Americans, a few hours of gunfire left not only Braddock dead, but 120 of the 150 Virginians who fought n on the Monongahela ford dotted around “Braddock’s field”. Their bodies would remain visible even twenty years later in 1775 (Rhodehamel, 2017).
During the early engagements of the war, Washington began developing ‘American’ sentiments, stemming from his lack of success in securing a British army commission at the hands of, what he felt was, British ignorance towards merit, forming what has later been dubbed Washington’s “American identity”.
In addition to being the first conflict which ignited musket fire across Europe and North America, the Seven Years’ War served as a catalyst for the War for American Independence. The war’s immediate impact, and the one appreciated most by its renewed scholarly interest, was the £70m cost to the British government, owing in no small part to Prime Minister Pitt’s devotion to victory and willingness to spare no expense in sending fresh regiments and fleets across the Atlantic (Rhodehamel, 2017). This huge cost, which doubled the British national debt, left the colonists in America in a far better position than the taxpayer in the motherland, and, seeing that the New England colonies were the ones who benefitted from the war, the British government sought to impose tax levies to recoup some of the funds spent on the effort (Rhodehamel, 2017).
It was this mission by both Crown and Parliament that led to the constitutional crisis that united the colonies and birthed the Revolutionary War (Gipson, 1950) - the same story told to every student in the United States and embedded in the minds of most students of history in the UK today. Yet, it is the work of historians like Rhodehamel that highlights the impact that the first ‘world war’ had on igniting the flames of revolution in individual Americans. George Washington’s experience, and the low regard in which British regulars and commanders held him and his fellow colonists, helped ignite the colonies’ sense of identity as Americans and not Britons. The continuous pursuit of dominance over the colonies by Crown and Parliament, a pursuit that was approached with renewed energy by King George III following his ascension to the throne in 1760, provided American colonists with a choice: complete subordination to, or independence from, Parliament (Rhodehamel, 2017). American patriotism now looked on itself as enjoying commonwealth status, pledging loyalty to the King but showing no obedience to parliament.
The war initially fought to safeguard British interests in North America ultimately set the colonies on a path to revolution, sparking unrest that could not be quelled (Gipson, 1950). Few conflicts truly merit the label "global," yet the Seven Years' War spanned four continents, elevated Britain to global supremacy, and pushed both France and the American colonies toward rejecting the ancien régime and monarchy. Its profound impact on the course of history is undeniable, leaving a legacy that reshaped the modern world.
By Archie Rankin
Bibliography
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