The Great Cat Massacre Page 6

  PREMATURE CELEBRATIONS – ALLOWING BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE TO ESCAPE, 1746

  Over-optimistic Italian chancer Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart was a pretty awful military commander. Not only was he terrible at deciding what his troops should do on the battlefield, but also, when he saw that he had severely messed things up on the field of Culloden, on 16 April 1746, and his men were being churned up by the English troops, he set a brave example by fleeing the scene at the earliest opportunity.

  He was aided in his escape by the fact that the English search parties sent after him had little or no idea what he looked like, although they knew vaguely where he had run away to: an area near the River Doe in Glen Moriston. Before long the area was full of soldiers after the £30,000 bounty placed on his head (most of them were English, but you wouldn’t put it past his own troops wanting a slice of the action).

  Proving the old adage that fortune favours the delusional, salvation appeared in the form of Roderick Mackenzie, a jeweller from Edinburgh who had fought for Stuart and was doing his best to disappear too. He happened to stumble through the search zone, looking ‘a bit Scottish’ and the soldiers got it into their heads that they had found their man. Mackenzie started to run for it and they opened fire, fatally wounding him. History records that he cried out: ‘You have killed your prince!’ in order to ‘confirm’ their mistake and save Charlie.

  Charlie was, in fact, displaying the military prowess and bravery that has always characterised the Italian army by cowering in a nearby cave.

  A poem of the time commemorates the confusion:

  Rod’rick Mackenzie, a merchant-man,

  At Ed’nburgh town had join’d the Clan,

  Had in the expedition been,

  And at this time durst not be seen.

  Being skulking in Glen-Morriston,

  Him the soldiers lighted on.

  Near about the Prince’s age and size,

  Genteely drest, in no disguise,

  In ev’ry feature, for’s very face

  Might well be taken in any case,

  And lest he’d like a dog be hang’d,

  He chose to die with sword in hand,

  And round him like a madman struck,

  Vowing alive he’d ne’er be took,

  Deep wounds he got, and wounds he gave;

  At last a shot he did receive,

  And as he fell, them to convince,

  Cry’d, Ah! Alas! You’ve killed your Prince;

  Ye murderers and bloody crew,

  You had no orders thus to do.

  Somewhat pleased with themselves and mentally listing how they would be blowing their cut of the reward money, the troops returned home to Fort Augustus with Mackenzie’s head – the rest of him they buried beside what is now the A887. When they got back to the fort, their commander, the Duke of Cumberland – popularly known as ‘the Butcher’ – took a look at the head. He was, however, uncertain if it was the Prince because he had generally only seen Charlie as a complete person. So he sent it to London to be identified. Soon it came back, with a note saying no one in London was sure either.

  The outcome of all this to-ing and fro-ing was that Charlie was given sufficient time to slip away to the Isle of Skye – giving us another literary work: ‘The Skye Boat Song’.

  Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

  Onward! the sailors cry;

  Carry the lad that’s born to be King

  Over the sea to Skye.

  Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,

  Thunderclaps rend the air;

  Baffled, our foes stand by the shore,

  Follow they will not dare.

  Strangely, the lyrics make no mention of the fact that during his princely scarpering, Charlie was dressed as a girl because he was so frightened.

  SACKVILLE FREEZES – THE BATTLE OF MINDEN, 1759

  At the Battle of Minden on 1 August 1759, which was part of the Seven Years War between Anglo-German forces and France, Lord George Sackville was one of the British cavalry commanders. He was also a noted coward.

  When ordered to charge the fleeing French and ensure a full rout of their forces, he simply refused and instead stood there doing nothing. He received the same order three times, on each occasion claiming he did not understand it. When his deputy attempted to follow the perfectly clear order, Sackville stopped him, allowing the French to escape. He was duly arrested and court-martialled.

  OH, IT’S TOO LATE TO READ – FAILING TO QUELL THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1776

  Those troublesome colonials! The United Kingdom had better things to do in the late 1770s than deal with their silly ideas about independence. But still, Britain had a duty to save them from themselves and, since, in July 1776, they had gone so far as to declare themselves independent, the only thing to do was send in the troops.

  The first 10,000 soldiers who arrived in New York from the mother country were no amateurs – they were veterans of campaigns in India, Africa and China and had proved successful in putting the British flag in the soil. They were commanded by the competent William Howe, who had previously captured Quebec from the French. Thus, it wasn’t long before they were inflicting stinging defeats on the rebels, driving the Americans’ leader, George Washington, and his forces out of New York and New Jersey. It seemed victory was assured for Britain; only the onset of winter forced Howe to halt the campaign and settle down in lodgings until the weather changed. Unluckily for him, this allowed the colonists to escape to a very basic camp they had established in Pennsylvania.

  As the winter grew colder, the rebels’ condition worsened. They were poorly supplied and demoralised. Many were deserting – there was nothing to stay for, and if they were defeated and taken prisoner things would be much worse than if they just drifted off. Even their financial backers were cutting off funds as the fight appeared hopeless and punishment by the royalists looked ever more likely.

  So the British forces were happy to sit it out and watch, planning a final decisive push in the spring. This might well have come to pass had one of the King’s most experienced officers not handed the colonists a stunning victory wrapped up like a Christmas present. It turned the war around and led the revolutionaries to ultimate victory.

  Among the most efficient sections of the British Army were the Hessian regiments from Germany. These weren’t mercenaries as the Yanks often portrayed them, but troops loyal to their ruler, the equally Germanic King of Britain, George III (of Hanover). Not only were they excellent fighting forces, but they were also used to foraging for their supplies – i.e. taking them wherever they could find them, which didn’t endear them to the local farmers. They also spoke little English so would shoot first and ask questions never, because there was little point in asking the American colonists questions in German.

  Eyeing the Hessian troops on the other side of the icy River Delaware, Washington came up with a plan. He would give morale a huge boost if he inflicted a defeat on the hated Germans. And it was winter, when no one ever fought, so they wouldn’t be expecting an attack. His tenacious plan was to have two large rebel regiments cross the ice floes on the river; they would surprise the Hessians and possibly inflict some sort of defeat.

  So it was that on the night of 25 December 1776 Washington personally led one of the two regiments, comprising 2,400 men, across the ice. They managed the difficult crossing, but the other force failed to make it. And, although the Hessians numbered only 1,500, they were better-armed, better-trained, better-disciplined troops than the ragtag Americans. It would be a very balanced affair.

  At least the colonists had the element of surprise in their favour, which they made sure of by approaching in darkness, even though this made their crossing more dangerous and much slower – so slow, in fact, that they were seriously behind schedule. Instead of attacking at sunrise on Boxing Day, they were still marching towards the Hessians as the sun came up.

  This meant that they were spotted on the
road by a farmer loyal to the Crown (many colonists were very much opposed to independence) and said farmer, realising what was about to happen, rushed to warn the German troops. Huffing and puffing, he made it to the door of Colonel Johann Rall, their commander. At this point, one would presume the seasoned soldiers would realise vital information was coming their way and make all haste to prepare defences. Instead, the guard on the door refused to allow the farmer entry, explaining the colonel was halfway through a very interesting game of chess and had left strict instructions not to be disturbed. The farmer, a little distraught, therefore wrote out a note explaining that the gentleman’s troops were all about to be massacred, and asked for it to be passed to the officer. The guard passed it along and it found its way to Rall. But it was in English and Rall spoke only German. He could have sent for a translator, who would have told him what was afoot, but he was enjoying his game of chess too much to start sending for interpreters willy-nilly. Instead, he folded up the note and put it in his pocket.

  Washington, unaware of how close he had come to being discovered, led his troops, with the element of surprise intact. They were aided by the fact that, because it was Boxing Day many of the Hessians were asleep, hungover or still drunk from the previous day’s carousing. The colonists captured or killed two-thirds of them, with the remainder scattering into the countryside. Not only was it a vital propaganda victory, the captured supplies were hugely important to the survival of the American forces as fighting men.

  The battle was the turning point in the secession of the American colonies.

  THE LUCKY HAT – WASHINGTON RIDES AWAY, 1777

  In the 1940s, a document was discovered in the Public Record Office in London. It was written by one Major Patrick Ferguson, a renowned shot in the British Army who had fought the revolutionary forces in the American colonies. He described how, one day, he encountered an American patrol. One officer was wearing a ‘remarkably large cocked hat’ and he considered shooting the man but, since the American had his back to Ferguson, it would have been ungentlemanly and so the Briton let him ride off, unmolested. It was later revealed that the man was Washington.

  Ferguson was later killed in battle, after which his killers urinated on his corpse and then ‘ill used’ it – although the records do not specify how. He was, however, buried next to his mistress, Virginia Sal.

  TOO MUCH AIR – FAILING TO DISPOSE OF THE SECRET TREATY, 1780

  Henry Laurens was the first president of the Continental Congress – in effect making him the first president of America. In September 1780, two years after his term in office ended, he was on board the packet ship Mercury, sailing from the Netherlands to America. It was the middle of the American War of Independence and when a British frigate spotted his vessel off the coast of Newfoundland it was ordered to stop. As it did so, a British sailor, Michael Fitton, saw a man fall into the water from the American ship. He cried, ‘Man overboard!’ and the British made to save the man. But when they pulled him out of the water, they found that he was actually a large bag full of papers and weighed down with lead shot but, because the bag was also full of air, it had not sunk.

  When the British read the papers, they found a secret treaty between the Dutch and the Americans, which Laurens had negotiated; the Dutch were offering commercial support for the Americans. Had Laurens simply thrown the papers over the side without the bag, they would have been at the bottom of the ocean before the British could do anything about it.

  Discovery of the treaty led to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, a four-year conflict, which largely consisted of Britain pummelling the Dutch forces. Laurens was duly arrested, taken back to London and imprisoned in the Tower – the only American ever to have that honour. He was later released in a prisoner swap for a British general, Lord Cornwallis.

  Shortly before Laurens began crying out for freedom for the American colonists from the wicked shackles of British rule, he was the greatest slave-trader in North America; in the 1750s alone, he had sold 8,000 enslaved Africans.

  SCAREDY CATS – THE LAST INVASION OF BRITAIN, 1797

  Across Britain, history teachers are lying to children, telling them the nation was last invaded by a foreign force in 1066. In fact, the French landed a full regiment of men in 1797 in an attempt to take over the country. Of all the places to try it, just outside Fishguard in southwest Wales seems unlikely, but then the whole thing was pretty strange.

  The Napoleonic Wars at the end of the eighteenth century saw Britain and France at each other’s throats on land and sea. Getting carried away, the French government decided to invade Britain – at the very least it would be a surprising distraction from the main war effort – and the landing in Wales was due to be part of a three-pronged invasion, with the other assaults coming in Ireland and Newcastle upon Tyne. Unluckily for the French, bad weather forced the other legions to turn back, leaving a one-pronged invasion doomed to failure.

  The French commander of choice for the mission was also a somewhat surprising – and poor – choice. Colonel William Tate was an Irish American in his seventies, who was utterly unable to communicate with his 1,200 French troops, half of whom had been recruited or dragged from French prisons. Some were actually English, and yet were expected to fight against their fellow countrymen for no reason. The company didn’t even have proper uniforms; they were wearing British uniforms that they had captured and attempted to dye, leaving them a dark brown – hence their nickname: the Black Legion.

  Tate was happy to go along with the plan, however, because he hated Britain. During the American War of Independence, the American Indians had fought with the British against the colonists, who were taking over Indian land wherever they felt like it, and an Indian unit had killed Tate’s parents. So, on 18 February 1797, his four ships were due to dock in Bristol and he was then to march across the land cutting a swathe; but the boats were blown off course and headed towards Wales. The British watched them pass by, wondering what on earth they were planning to do. And, as they approached land, the French met fierce resistance from the brave burghers of Fishguard, who fired a single shot at the ships – one shot only because it was the only shot that the town had in its possession.

  The less-than-steely-brave Tate, however, presumed it was just the first shot of many and ordered his ships to sail on, before finally landing on an unprotected beach. They disembarked and scaled the cliffs in the dark of night to make their one territorial gain in Britain – a remote farmhouse, Trehowel Farm.

  From there, the Black Legion went on to plunder a few local houses – all of which also happened to contain a large amount of port and brandy, recently rescued from a Portuguese wreck. The effect of this booty was to somewhat incapacitate the soldiers, and the local militia was soon bearing down on them, having stripped the lead off the roof of St David’s Cathedral to make bullets.

  It didn’t come to fighting, however, because the pickled French troops had already begun destroying their own HQ, the farmhouse, burning anything to keep warm. Outside, 12 of Tate’s legless men had meanwhile been captured as prisoners of war by Jemima Nicholas, a local woman armed with a pitchfork (there is now a local brand of tea named after her).

  Feeling the jig might be up before it had even started, Tate ordered his men down to the beach, Goodwin Sands, in order to open surrender negotiations but to be ready to fight, if needs be. When they reached the beach, they looked up and saw a regiment of regular British redcoat troops standing on the cliff top. The French realised they didn’t have a hope and immediately surrendered. It was only later that they discovered that the British soldiers were actually local women in their traditional dress, including red flannel shawls and tall black hats, which had a vaguely military look to them. Tate signed his surrender in the local pub and the last invasion of Britain was cancelled.

  FRANCE’S SECRET WEAPON – WILLIAM ERSKINE, 1811

  During the Peninsular War between Britain and the Napoleonic forces in Portugal, France had one ace up her sleeve: William E
rskine, one of the most incompetent British officers in history.

  During the 1811 Siege of Almeida, Wellington, who was in command, had tried for some time to sideline Major-General Erskine, who had a history of getting lost during battles or leading his men in charges in the wrong direction. On 10 May 1811 he issued Erskine with an apparently simple order to guard a bridge and thus prevent the French from escaping. Erskine cleverly wrote the order down, put it in his pocket and forgot about it. The French, who could not believe their luck, simply walked out of the siege. In a letter to his chum W.W. Pole, Wellington later wrote: ‘They had about 13,000 to watch 1,400. I begin to be of the opinion that there is nothing on earth so stupid as a gallant officer.’

  Soon after that, Erskine was declared insane and cashiered. He did manage one thing, though: he killed himself by jumping out of a window. His last words before dying on the ground were: ‘Now, why did I do that?’ – which makes one wonder if it was, indeed, his plan.

  JUMPING THE GUN – THE WAR OF 1812

  The War of 1812 between Britain and the United States erupted over a few issues, mostly to do with shipping. The Yanks didn’t like the fact that they were occasionally impressed into the Royal Navy, or that Britain was restricting America’s seaborne trade with other nations. America therefore declared war on 18 June 1812. If they had just waited a few weeks – the average length of a baseball game – they would have known that the war was completely unnecessary because Lord Liverpool had just become Prime Minister and had moved to end the conscription of Americans into the Navy. In fact, he ordered the policy to end the very day before the Americans declared war, but news of it only reached America a few weeks later, by which time hostilities had begun, not to end for years.*