Quebec 1759

What a scene!'' wrote Horace Walpole. ''An army in the night dragging itself up a precipice by stumps of trees to assault a town and attack an enemy strongly entrenched and double in numbers!''

In one short sharp exchange of fire Major-General James Wolfe''s men tumbled the Marquis de Montcalm''s French army into bloody ruin. Sir John Fortescue famously described it as the ''most perfect volley ever fired on a battlefield''.

In this compact, illustrated guide, Stuart Reid details how one of the British Army''s consummate professionals literally beat the King''s enemies before breakfast and in so doing decided the fate of a continent.