The campaign season for 1757 had been a successful one for authorities in New France. The British had failed in an expedition against Louisbourg, and defeated at Fort William Henry by the French and their Indian allies. New France's governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, had attempted to convince German settlers in the Mohawk River valley to support the French cause. When the Germans failed to support the French in the assault on Fort William Henry in August, Vaudreuil decided to send a punitive expedition against them. He attacked the settlement called German Flatts, on the north side of the Mohawk River west of Little Falls. (This settlement is where present-day Herkimer, New York, is located, and not the modern German Flatts on the south side of the Mohawk River.)