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to build Fort Necessity. However, in July 1754 the French attack this fort and forced Washington to surrender. He and his men were then paroled to return to Virginia.

The Virginia Governor, Robert Dinwiddie, then asked London for help. Although London and Paris were not at war, the British sent two regiments under Gen. Edward Braddock.

Braddock needed to recruit Indian fighters, but Virginia could not supply them. South Carolina could have, but the Virginians were not prepared to allow another colony to get a toe-hold in territory that they claimed for themselves. Eventually Braddock set off in spring 1755 with just 8 Indians and 1,200 Virginia militia to add to his 1,500 regulars.

Such a small force was a tasty morsel for the French. In July 1755 they gobbled it up, killing Braddock and roughly a third of his men.

These events led the Indians to conclude that the French were the superior force and they began to side with them. England was not prepared to start a full scale war, so left military matters to the colonies. The most that London was prepared to sanction was the deportation of the entire French population from Nova Scotia, and their dispersal to the other colonies.

All the colonies managed to do was appoint Massachusetts Governor William Shirley as overall military commander, but they sent him no help. For his part all Shirley was able to do was build Fort William Henry on Lake George. The assemblies refused to vote him the money to raise the troops that he needed, and the colonial governors were jealous of his seeming power.

War broke out in Europe in 1756 over matters that were unrelated to America. At first it looked as if the French would be able to recover some of the territory that they had lost in previous wars, especially when they took Fort William Henry. To make matters worse, the newly appointed British military commander, Lord Loudoun, faced them same problem as William Shirley - the colonies just refused to vote the money needed to prosecute the war. It was at that point, and again unconnected to America, that William Pitt took over a Prime Minister in London, and he decided to change the rules of the game.

War in America had always been regarded as secondary to war in Europe. Pitt changed that and developed a three-pronged strategy that would destroy the French North American empire.

Firstly, the British financed the Prussian military effort. This meant that the French were tied down in Europe by the Prussians, and British forces were freed

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