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===Seven Years' War===
{{Main|Seven Years' War}}
In 1754, the Seven Years' War began in North America, where it is sometimes called the [[French and Indian War]]. The French had begun to challenge the claims of Anglo-American [[fur trade|traders]] and [[Ohio Company|land speculators]] for supremacy in the [[Ohio Country]] to the west of the [[Appalachian Mountains]]—land that was claimed by some of the British colonies in their royal charters. In 1753, the French started the military occupation of the Ohio Country by building a series of forts. In 1755, the British sent two regiments of the line to North America to drive the French from these forts, but these were [[Braddock Expedition|destroyed]] by French Canadians and American Indians as they approached [[Fort Duquesne]]. War was formally declared in 1756, and in Quebec, six French regiments of [[troupes de terre]], or line infantry, came under the command of the newly arrived general, the 44-year-old [[Marquis de Montcalm]]. Accompanying him were another two battalions of 'troupes de terre', bringing the total number of French professional soldiers in the colony to about 4000.''Eat Dick The Vestibule Was Here'' This was the first significant aggregation of trained professional soldiers on what was to be Canadian soil.
[[Image:Death-wolfe.jpg|thumb|right|300px|''[[The Death of General Wolfe]]'', painted by [[Benjamin West]], [[apocrypha]]lly depicts [[James Wolfe|General Wolfe]]'s final moments during the [[Battle of the Plains of Abraham]] in 1759.]]
Under their new commander, the French at first achieved a number of startling victories over the British, first at [[Battle of Fort William Henry|Fort William Henry]] to the south of Lake Champlain, where, in 1757, over 2400 men, mostly British regulars, surrendered. In the following year, an even greater victory followed when the British army—numbering about 15,000 under Major General [[James Abercrombie]]—was roundly defeated in its attack on a French fortification at [[Battle of Carillon|Carillon]] (later renamed [[Fort Ticonderoga]] by the British) at the southern tip of Lake Champlain. The French numbered no more than 3500, but before the British withdrew, the French had inflicted a loss of about 2000 men, mostly regulars, for a total French loss of about 350. In the meantime, the British war effort had been galvanized by the appointment of [[William Pitt]] as [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]], who was determined to win battles, and who decided that North America would be the crux of the British war effort. In June 1758, a British force of 13,000 regulars under Major General [[Geoffrey Amherst]], with [[James Wolfe]] as one of his brigadiers, landed and permanently captured the Fortress of Louisbourg.
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