Hello and welcome to a history of the United States.

Episode 112, Good Things Coming Threes.

In our last episode, we got into Pitt's plans for a three-pronged assault in North America.

One against Lubyburg, one against Fort DeCain, and a third against Fort Carillion.

We then looked at the events at Fort Carillon, which saw Major General Apocrombie throw

away 2,000 lives before fleeing from a French army that wasn't pursuing him.

Today we turn to Louisburg, Duques and the unplanned attack on Ford Frontenac.

Firstly, we'll turn to Louisbourg.

Louisbourg sits on Cape Breton Island and was the key to guarding the Gulf of St. Lawrence,

commanding the passage between Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland.

Lowndon had tried to take it in 1757, and the British set about trying again in June 1758.

A force landed on June 8th at Gaboras Bay, about four miles away from Louisbourg.

Major General Amherst was in command, along with Brigadier General Wolfe.

The British met with initial resistance, but the French soon retreated to the safety of their fortifications,

preventing what could have easily been another British disaster.

The British gathered their forces around Louisbourg, just out of reach of the artillery.

Compared with the other fortifications were seen in North America during our series,

Louisbourg was rather formidable, but its fate was already sealed.

To explain why, I'd like to introduce a new name into the narrative. Valban.

Valban was a French military engineer who lived during the reign of Louis XIV. He specialised in siege

warfare and made numerous developments to the field.

His main long-term contributions concerned how to make a siege,

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