Instinctively, I am pro Highlanders.j1mwallace wrote:Interesting looking at all the posts . instinctively are you pro or anti Jacobite?
I am a definite anti !
Mike, I couldn't agree more with your comments and so much is made of the 'siege' of Derry and there was very little chance of the Jacobites taking the town on their own because of the differential between defenders and attackers. If they had just blockaded the town, defended the river more strongly and shipped the rest of the army to Scotland then the result could have been very different but could he have persuaded the Irish to leave their own country is another story and I also doubt the French would have followed them. It's all these what ifs that makes this period so interesting.Rebel wrote: Dave - Will be honest, the main reason he lost the war is (and I hate to admit it, but then again we did win the All Ireland yesterday) because he had no other option to listen to Tyrconnel, who was pursuing his own agenda.
Militarily his plan for Scotland was potentially a war winner: Derry was simply to be blockaded and starved into submission (and please consider that the defenders outnumbered the attackers) whilst the cream of the army was to be shipped to Scotland, the crux being the availability of sufficient shipping. But consider this as a scenario - James gets the (I think it was 18,000 which still leaves 32,000 effectives in Ireland) army to Scotland, Killiekrankie isn't fought and potentially the highlands rise (again that was the plan). Large army sitting on Anglo Scots' border means that to meet his commitments William needs to deploy in England Ireland, Scotland and Flanders. From where does he get all the troops ? All it needs is a Walcourt or a Fleurus and the equation changes critically -