It seemed as though affairs in America were momentarily paralyzed by the shock of the tremendous conflict now opened on the continent. On the eighteenth of May England had declared war on France and twenty-two days later France responded, and the most terrible conflict of the eighteenth century opened, in which the great Frederick eventually humbled, with England's help, the three empresses whose hatred he had drawn upon himself. But while Louis sent an army of one hundred thousand against Frederick, he had yet twelve thousand to hurry over to New France to make good the successes of 1755. These sailed under that best and bravest of Frenchmen since the days of Champlain, Montcalm, on the third of April. In three months Montcalm had swept down Lake Champlain to Fort Ticonderoga. Then, as if to make sport of his antagonist--Loudoun, who had abandoned Shirley's Oswego scheme--Montcalm returned to Montreal, hurried with three thousand soldiers down the St. Lawrence and across to Oswego, which surrendered at once with its twelve hundred defenders. The outwitted Loudoun crawled slowly up to Lake George; the winter of 1756-57 came on, and the two commanders glared at each other across the narrow space of snow and ice that separated them. The two important campaigns planned by Shirley were utter failures, and the westward campaign against Fort Duquesne was not even attempted. The French were strengthening everywhere. "Whoever is in or whoever is out," exclaimed Chesterfield, "I am sure we are undone both at home and abroad.... We are no longer a nation." But one of Shirley's _coups_ had succeeded; Winslow captured Beausejour. In the west Armstrong had razed the Indian town of Kittanning on the Allegheny. On the other hand these minor successes were far overbalanced by the destruction of Oswego and Fort Bull, between the Mohawk and Lake Oneida, and the menacing position Montcalm had assumed with the strengthening of Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Frontenac.