Thus harassed, blockaded, and weakened on every coast, France could do nothing to save Louisbourg, the first link in the long, thin chain of French posts in America, where the fortunes of war were bound to follow the side that had the greater sea-power. No army could fight in America if cut off from Europe; because the powder and shot, muskets and bayonets, cannons and cannon-balls, swords and pistols, all came out from France and England. More than this, the backbone of both armies were the French and British regulars, who also came from France and England. Most of all, fleets were quite as important at Quebec and Montreal as at Louisbourg, for ocean navigation went all those hundreds of miles inland. Beyond these three great points, again, sea-power, of a wholly inland kind, was all-important; for the French lived along another line of waterways--from Montreal, across the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. You might as well expect an army to march without legs as to carry on a war in America without fleets of sea-going ships and flotillas of inland small craft, even down to the birchbark canoe. Pitt's plan for 1758 was to attack Canada on both flanks and work into place for attacking her centre the following year. Louisbourg on the coast of Cape Breton guarded her sea flank. Fort Duquesne (now Pittsburg) at the forks of the Ohio guarded her land flank and her door to the Golden West. Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain guarded her gateway into the St. Lawrence from the south. Here the British attack, though made with vastly superior numbers, was beaten back by the heroic and skilful Montcalm. But Fort Duquesne, where Washington and Braddock had been defeated, was taken by Forbes and re-named Pittshurg in honour of the mighty Minister of War. Louisbourg likewise fell. So Canada was beaten on both wings, though saved, for the moment, in the centre. Louisbourg never had the slightest chance; for Boscawen's great fleet cut it off from the sea so completely that no help the French could spare could have forced its way in, even if it had been able to dodge past the British off the coast of France. The British army, being well supplied from the sea, not only cut Louisbourg off by land as well as the fleet had cut it off by sea but was able to press the siege home with such vigour that the French had to surrender after a brave defence of no more than eight weeks. The hero of the British army at Louisbourg was a young general of whom we shall soon hear more--Wolfe.