Siege of Louisbourg (1745) 1745
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate. Wikidata lists more than one location for this battle; the first is shown.
Key facts
| Date | 11 May 1745 – 28 June 1745 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1745 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
| Era | Early modern (1500–1799) | derived from year |
| Location | Canada | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | North America | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | War of the Austrian Succession | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 45.9199, -59.9728 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Louisbourg was the 1745 capture of the French settlement of Louisbourg on present-day Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, by British North American forces during the War of the Austrian Succession, known as King George's War in the British colonies. The Fortress of Louisbourg was taken with the aid of a British fleet. The northern British colonies regarded Louisbourg, the capital of the French province of Île-Royale, as a menace, calling it the "American Dunkirk" due to its use as a base for privateers. There was regular, intermittent warfare between the French and the Wabanaki Confederacy on one side and the northern New England colonies on the other (See the Northeast Coast Campaigns of 1688, 1703, 1723, 1724).
For the French, the Fortress of Louisbourg also protected the chief entrance to Canada, as well as the nearby French fisheries. The French government had spent 25 years in fortifying it, and the cost of its defenses was reckoned at thirty million livres. Although the fortress's construction and layout was acknowledged as having superior seaward defences, a series of low rises behind them made it vulnerable to a land attack. The low rises provided attackers places to erect siege batteries.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Louisbourg (1745) (revision 1375096903), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
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- Battle at Port-la-Joye 1746 · 200 km
- Naval battle off Tatamagouche 1745 · 258 km
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Other battles of the War of the Austrian Succession
- Siege of Prague (1742) 1742
- Battle of Campo Santo 1743
- Battle of Dettingen 1743
- Battle of Toulon (1744) 1744
- Battle of Velletri 1744
- Battle of Anguilla 1745
- Battle of Fontenoy 1745
- Battle of Hennersdorf 1745
- Battle of Melle 1745
- Battle of Soor 1745
All 32 battles of the War of the Austrian Succession →
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