Mike Partridge

I always enjoy the Journal when it comes out, but I should like to make a few observations on a couple of items raised in the Journal. In general, I thought the articles on the Jacobite Rebellions were clear and fair. However, I have some comments to make on the brief description you give of Killiecrankie. I am aware that this was just background to the 18th century, but it illustrates how myths spread. An excellent account of the battle is in Stuart Reid's book, Killiecrankie 1689 published by Partizan Press in 1989. I'm afraid his reconstruction of the battle contradicts many of the statements in your description. I'll pick two in particular to show this. So far from the Williamite army being overwhelmed after one volley, Mackay found himself with the only formed units on the battlefield at the end of the fighting--Leven's and Hasting's regiments--who had driven off the highlanders by their determined volley firing. (Don't forget half the Jacobite army was killed, 700 men, and wounded--almost all by musketry, I suggest).

The Highlanders were off slaughtering the fugitives of the other Williamite regiments and looting the baggage train. Mackay and his two regiments marched off the battlefield and cautiously made off to the west. Before departing, Leven's had fired a volley that had wounded Dundee and knocked him off his horse and a second volley drove off his would-be rescuers. However, Dundee was actually killed, although already mortally wounded, by a pistol shot between the eyes almost certainly fired by one of his own men looting the dead and wounded that night. These two images of the battle--2 regiments--one Scots and the other English, standing firm on the battlefield abandoned both by their own side and their opponents; and of Bonny Dundee lying robbed and naked on the field, murdered by his own men, are not the usual ones portrayed of Killiecrankie.

Stuart Reid has also written a recent Osprey Men At Arms book 18th Century Highlanders (No. 261) which is of great use to anyone interested in the Jacobite wars and Highland troops in general. Among the illustrations is one of a grenadier of the French "Royal Eccossais" (sic) in Highland dress--a must for any Jacobite army of the '45 and easily painted up from Hanoverian Highlanders.

Incidentally, I would recommend another reconstruction of a battle that is before our period, but which sheds considerable light on 18th Century warfare. This is Poltava by Peter England--a gripping and horrifying analysis of that battle between Swedes and Russians in 1709.

My other observations concern the fighting qualities of the French army in the SYW. In his remarks on Emsdorf 1760, Savory says that this minor battle showed the superiority, man for man, of theAllies over the French. Perhaps Savory is not impartial, but he was certainly knowledgable. However, I find interesting the all too brief pages that Christopher Duffy devotes to the Western Germany campaign in his book The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great. His point is that the technical superiority of the French engineer corps caused Ferdinand much trouble. Essentially he says that the French were able to fortify and defend so many strongpoints in West Germany, especially at the end of the war, that Ferdinand was constantly obliged to divert resources and men that he could not spare to besiege fortresses as he advanced against the French. His ability to outmanoever the French was negated by this. Duffy's thesis is that the French were able to institutionalize the advantage given them by Vauban. Ferdinand however was hampered by the lack of technical expertise in fortress warfare. This provides another viewpoint from which to see the war and I think that it deserves consideration.

[ Editor: Mike's letter illustrates the trouble that editors get into when they make broad generalizations about historical events. His points are well taken and I stand corrected. Perhaps, though, it is merely a matter of semantics as the end result was still the same: seven of nine Government units were "overwhelmed" by the Highlanders' charge, albeit after more than one Govt. volley.

According to Stuart Reid, the 3 regiments on the Govt left (Lauder, Balfour and Ramsay)began the battle with 1000 men, but could only muster some 200 after withdrawing from the field. In the center, Kenmore's regt. was holding its own until the Govt. cavalry panicked and routed through Kenmore, leaving them broken and at the mercy of three Jacobite clans. This attack even swept away part of the next regiment to the right of Kenmore, i.e. Leven, but most of these seemed to have rallied with their steadier bretheren. The next regt., Mackay's offered little resistance and the last unit on the right, Hasting's, were hardly threatened in battle. In general then, the majority of Govt. forces offered little resistance and I guess that this was my intended point. As for Dundee's final demise, Mr. Reid's theory that Dundee was 'finished off' by his own men sounds plausable, but let's not jump to conclusions. Mr. Reid offers as evidence a letter from an officer writing from Perth, who claims to have seen Dundee's body. The officer is not identified as being either Govt. or Jacobite. Let's assume that the story is true, but is it not possible that a pro-Govt officer might spread some propaganda about the barbarous rebels shooting their own leader? I am not an expert on this period or of these matters, but I am suggesting that there are other possibilities.

As for the French, Mike makes an interesting observation about the advantages of their expertise in fortress defense and siege warfare. Sounds like a good topic for an article if anyone would like to give it a try. 

Jeff Leach

I would like to say how much I enjoy your journal. I originally became interested in the SYW after I discover that Sweden took part in it, even if it was a fairly incompetent effort. After reading some English accounts of the war, I was really surprised by how much of this conflict isn't covered or is misrepresented in these accounts. Would your Journal be interested in a brief(but still quite long) account of operations in Swedish Pommerania? (Editor: yes yes yes! )

Right now I am writing some articles about Swedish forces that took part in the war because the Pengel & Hurt booklet contains a lot of mistakes. If there is an interest, I could try and find the time to write about the campaigns.

[ Editor: Jeff, please contact Phil Mackie ASAP about your data on Sweden, and yes, I think the members would love to see what you have discovered in your research. Please write an article.

John Boadle

Congratulations for picking up the torch after Bill Protz. The Journal is too much of a one man effort though-- everything written by Jim Purky, Jim Purky or Angus MacPurky! Whilst all this effort is very laudable, it does mean that the content is pitched at a level best suited to the reader who hasn't done much research. Material drawn from fairly widely available English language sources is no doubt valuable for many, but it isn't what I subscribe to a specialist publication like this for. There must be plenty of readers out there with access to the real nitty-gritty source material in German, French and other languages; so come on guys, send us something. To put myself in a better position to complain, enclosed is an article on Hastenbeck. Also, if anyone's got anything useful for publication in French or German, I would be happy to translate it. So Jim, get your hussars to round up the likes of Peter Wilson and lock them in a fortress until they disgorge the contents of their libraries!

[ Editor: now you've done it John, you have riled up old Angus. Lookout! I hope that you and the rest of the readers enjoy Peter Wilson's article on Hennersdorf in this issue. Peter has given me a nice backlog of articles that will appear in future issues. I too hope for a greater balance in authorship of articles because I think that the Journal is more interesting if we have different points of view. When I'm short of articles, I have to write them myself, which I don't mind doing. When I first started publishing the Journal, I felt that a significant number of readers did not have access to many of the English-text histories or were relatively new to the period, hence the decision to start coverage in chronological order. My hope is to balance articles based on readily available source material with those that derive from translations or primary source material. The latter types rely on a knowledge of German or French, which limits the field to people such as Peter Wilson or yourself and I don't want to wear out these valuable sources of articles. Along these lines, though, I'll make this offer, I will foot the bill for purchasing foreign language source material from groups such as Juan Sanchez Martin's SYW Study Group as long as you or other members are willing to translate the material into English. Let us put a $50.00 limit on such purchases (per article) with the proviso that individuals seek my approval before making the purchase. Perhaps in this way we can liberate the vast amounts of foreignlanguage material on the SYW for the benefit of the membership.

Andrew Paolini

Although I have 25mm Prussians and appreciate the training of Britain's small army I believe that British gamers tend to look at things through the rose-colored glasses of national myths. (Hardly a fault limited to the British). We should recognise that the outcome of battles and of campaigns are more often decided by a commander's (lack of) brilliance, which we as gamers are roleplaying, than troops of one nation having any innate superiority over opponents. In the same vein as Bill Amick saying the French beat Cumberland, not his army, in referring to the Allied defeat at Fontenoy, surely the same principal is true for French defeats? That is, the French higher command beat themselves more often than not, especially through in-fighting.

Because of Jim Purky's recent, even-handed article let's take Dettingen as an example. Although only one battle from the War of Austrian Succession, I think it parallels British views about the SYW and many other eras as well. The usual British account runs that a "doomed army" of British infantry beat the French through dogged determination, superior fire discipline and French faint-heartedness. While not ignored, French tactical errors are downplayed. Thus British victory is attributed to British national characteristics and not to enemy errors. Jim related examples of bravery and disorder for both sides-- it was especially nice, for a change, to read about British fire in practice instead of in theory. But how the Allies, without enemy interruption, taking four hours to form lines show discipline while the French, beaten while trying to form up on a swamp, show a lack of it is beyond me.

Jim doesn't ignore Grammont's glory-seeking, premature attack across bad terrain (abandoning a defensible position prior to the arrival of the main French army under Noailles) but this must be taken as the major cause of the French defeat. It wasn't because French troops were poorly-trained and 75% raw compared to Anglo-Hanoverians who were elite with training bonuses (the British never mention the Austrians so I won't either). It was a result of Grammont's ill-timed attack, one that should never have been made. For the routed French to have suffered only twice the casualties of the Allies indicates that the close combat casualties were probably evenly inflicted until the Austrian Neipperg turned the French flank with cavalry and the rout began.

And why take Noailles' description of British super-human discipline and a corresponding lack of it by his own troops, at face value? An alternate explanation is Noailles shifting the blame for his (and his nephew's) errors by over praising the enemy and denigrating his own troops and non-staff officers. Although I have not read Kennet's The French Armies in the SYW to comment on the deficiencies of French battalion officers remember that we're not wargaming an era of staff colleges. For every per capita incompetent or political appointee in the French army there were probably as many in Allied armies. Britain, especially with its cult of the amateur, would be no exception.

Assuming that you agree with my contention that generals had more to do with winning or losing campaigns than troop quality, what does this mean to us as wargamers? I think that we should consciously judge rules keeping in mind the possible biases of the writer and modify them to fit what we believe to be thetruth based on personal research. I find national characteristics that reflect quantifiable benefits of training or military theory, like Prussian aggressiveness or Austrian caution, acceptable. What I find unacceptable is classifying victors as veteran using the circular argument "for the winners to have won they must have had braver, better troops(or they would have lost) so rules should reflect this".

I like WRG's linear warfare amendments, but having a British-only army list to placate anglophiles who use only British troops - something I'm sure that 'German George' would not have appreciated - is unjustifiable. A "+1 British firing" or "Prussian +3 inches to movement" to show an advantage of training is one thing, but classifying whole armies as dross because they lost historically, all under different circumstances, is quite another matter.Special scenario rules for historical refights that are weighted in favor of a specific battle's outcome are fine (such as dice rolls forcing Grammont to attack or making Bland's Dragons elite for the game). But non-historical battles or fictional campaigns that use historical armies should be decided by the skill of the player and not by the rules that give favored armies special treatment. Why not have all nationalities at basically the same level? Have some training and national characteristic modifiers, as in AOR, but let's leave winning to the player's skill and not to the suspect view of history as written by the winners.

[ Editor: methinks you have stirred up a hornets nest, Andrew., although your general premise that generals, not troops, win battles is on the right track. Don't take army lists too literally because they are often provided as a suggestion for new players. As for national bias in rules, you ought to check out certain Napoleonic rules and see how invincible the French are! Finally, it's a historical fact that Britain had an incredibly long winning streak in its various wars with France.]