Siege of Louisbourg (1745)

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Siege of Louisbourg
Part of the War of the Austrian Succession
The landing of troops from New England on the island of Cape Breton ton to attack Louisbourg, Unknown author
Date 12 May – 28 June 1745[1] Location Louisbourg, Île-Royale, French Canada 45°55′17″N 59°58′13″W / 45.92139°N 59.97028°W / 45.92139; -59.97028 Result British victory
Belligerents
Great Britain British America	France
Commanders and leaders
William Pepperrell Peter Warren John Bradstreet Edward Tyng	Louis Duchambon Pierre Morpain Joseph la Malgue
Strength
4,200 90 warships and transport ships	2,390[2]
Casualties and losses
100 killed and wounded 900 dead of disease	130 killed and wounded 300 dead of disease 1,400 captured[2]

The siege of Louisbourg took place in 1745 when a New England colonial force aided by a British fleet captured Louisbourg, the capital of the French province of Île-Royale (present-day Cape Breton Island) during the War of the Austrian Succession, known as King George's War in the British colonies.

The northern British colonies regarded Louisbourg as a menace, calling it the "American Dunkirk" due to its use as a base for privateers. There was regular, intermittent warfare between the French and the Wabanaki Confederacy on one side and the northern New England colonies on the other (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns of 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724). For the French, the Fortress of Louisbourg also protected the chief entrance to Canada, as well as the nearby French fisheries. The French government had spent 25 years in fortifying it, and the cost of its defenses was reckoned at thirty million livres.^[3] Although the fortress's construction and layout was acknowledged as having superior seaward defences, a series of low rises behind them made it vulnerable to a land attack. The low rises provided attackers places to erect siege batteries. The fort's garrison was poorly paid and supplied, and its inexperienced leaders mistrusted them. The colonial attackers were also lacking in experience, but ultimately succeeded in gaining control of the surrounding defences. The defenders surrendered in the face of an imminent assault.

Louisbourg was an important bargaining chip in the peace negotiations to end the war, since it represented a major British success. Factions within the British government were opposed to returning it to the French as part of any peace agreement, but these were eventually overruled, and Louisbourg was returned, over the objections of the victorious British North Americans, to French control after the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in return for French concessions elsewhere.