On the other hand, the pride of the court of France required that it should not submit to indignity; neither could France yield to the arrogant demands of the English, and surrender, at their dictation, territory which she had long considered as beyond all legitimate question her own. Thus the warfare became essentially one of attack on the part of England, one of defence on the part of France. England was to organize armies and send them across the mountains, to drive the French from the valley of the Ohio. France was to strengthen her fortresses in the valley so as to repel and drive back the invaders. Both nations did everything in their power to enlist the Indians warriors beneath their banners. In the spring of the year 1755, the British government sent two regiments of regular troops from England, to cross the wilderness of the Alleghanies, and wrest Fort Duquesne from the French. The highly disciplined troops were well instructed in the tactics of European battle-fields, but were entirely unacquainted with Indian strategy, and were quite unprepared to cope with the difficulties of Indian warfare. General Braddock, a proud, self-conceited Englishman, who despised all other nationalities, and who had a thorough contempt for the military ability of the Americans, was placed in command. “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty look before a fall.” He was too proud to learn from those who were abundantly able to teach him. He was too haughty to listen to any warnings of danger from those who were far wiser than himself, but whom he regarded as ignorant and cowardly. He, in command of well drilled British regulars, had nothing to fear and nothing to learn from colonists, Frenchmen, or Indians. General Braddock, at the head of his two highly disciplined and well uniformed regiments, commenced his march across the wide, rugged mountain ranges. From the eastern declivities, where the water commenced running into the Atlantic, to the western slopes where the gushing springs flowed into the Ohio, was a distance of more than one hundred miles. The path was narrow. In many places torrents were to be bridged, obstructions removed, and the trail widened through the vast masses of rock, by the corps of engineers. Thus there would be presented to the keen eyes of the Indians, who were sent by the French, to watch and report the progress of the foe, a straggling, broken line of men and wagons four miles in length. There was something exceedingly exasperating in the contemptuous manner in which the British court and cabinet treated the colonial officers. It seemed to be, with them, an established principle that an Englishman must, of necessity, be superior to an American. Governor Dinwiddie reduced Colonel Washington to the rank of a captain, and placed over him officers whom he had commanded. This degradation was, of course, not to be submitted to by a high-minded man. Washington at once resigned his commission, and retired from the army.