Chapter 21: Hell or High Water
Ireland, 1741
Maurice of Saxe gazed upon his shambolic collection of soldiers and shuttered. This is what I’m to use to conquer Ireland?
Though France maintained a large army, befitting the greatest nation in Europe (and the world, though china may dispute that claim), the quality of the soldiers often left something to be desired. Six thousand French soldiers and two thousand German, mainly Swiss, mercenaries had landed upon the shores of western Ireland two months prior.
A week later, four thousand Spanish made their belated arrival. A mild squall had threatened to scatter the Spanish fleet but most eventually made it to the small western ports in groups of two or three. It would turn out that several supply ships had chosen to turn around and return to Spain, cargoes intact, when they lost sight of their Spanish Navy escorts. They carried much of the Spanish artillery and powder.
Still, Maurice was grateful that so many of his troops were present on Irish soil. Indeed, the same squall that so troubled the Spanish indirectly aided his own cause. The easterly winds ensured that the British Home Fleet, or Channel Fleet, or whatever the British called it, was unable to tack against the wind upon learning the invasion.
Not a sailing man, the bastard son of the Saxon Elector estimated, assuming surprise was complete, that the English King in London (George II was actually still in Hanover, he had left his wife Caroline as his Viceroy) and his government would not learn of the invasion for seven days after the first French ship appeared off the coast of Ireland: two days for a rider to ride across the country, two days to board a ship and cross the Irish Sea and three days to ride from some western England port to London.
In reality, Maurice knew the timing could be both longer or shorter than this based upon weather or bureaucratic dithering. He wasn’t entirely sure, once the Admiral of the Channel fleet was alerted, he could get permission to sail for Ireland. Honestly, Maurice suspected that political delays would matter more than the actual sailing time.
As it was, the same squall that hindered the Spanish also slowed the English. Three weeks after the French alighted upon Irish soil and two week after the Spanish, the first British ship of the Royal Navy arrived to discover their quarry gone, the French and Spanish ships having disgorged their contents of flesh and steel and powder…and retreated out to open sea. Only a handful of French or Spanish ships even spied an English vessel and a total of three empty cargo ships/tranports were lost to the Royal Navy while a fourth merchant ship and a fifth-rate ship of the line were lost to the storm.
On the whole, this was as good a start to the invasion as Maurice of Saxe could expect, though he did not know or care much about what happened to the fleet after his army was deposited upon Irish shores.
Naturally, there was much confusion when the hodge-podge collection of allies landed. Maurice knew he’d have to spent a few days reestablishing order despite a deep knowledge that he was racing the clock. It was vital to move quickly before the English could respond by shipping an army from England to Ireland. He needed to rally the Irish Catholics quickly, form some semblance of a fighting force out of them and prepare to fight the English as far east as possible, preferably in Dublin, Belfast and Cork.
The English had ruthlessly oppressed the Irish Catholics for over a century, particularly harshly since the expulsion of the House of Stuart. The repressions under William and Mary had been brutal. Under the House of Hanover, with the weak dynastic claim, political rights had been systematically and legally dampened even further to ensure “loyalty”.
By now, the Irish peasants had been crushed under the English boot for so many years, Maurice was uncertain how they’d fight. He supposed he’d find out soon.
It would help if he had a better symbol for the Irish to rally around than Prince Charles. The youth was neither stupid nor weak, unlike his predecessors. James II had so irritated his subjects that he was forced to flee. The claimant James III was little better. After an inept attempt to invade Scotland in 1715, he’d retreated at the first opportunity, leaving his allies in the lurch. Charles was of better stock than his father and grandfather but the man was still arrogant and abrasive.
For some reason, the exiled Royal thought that HE commanded the army, no matter how many times he’d been told differently by the allies.
Stupidly, he also continued to prattle on about how he was going to reconquer Scotland and England. Exactly how this was going to happen, Maurice had no idea. As best he could tell, there was barely a Catholic left in Britain. Unless Charles promised to convert to the English Church (which Maurice suspected he might if he thought it would regain his family the throne), this was not going to happen.
The man even had the nerve to ask Maurice, should he convert to Protestantism, if the Saxon thought England might accept him. He could leave Ireland to his father and younger brother.
Maurice merely pointed out that there were no, for the moment, French plans to invade England or Scotland, so the point was moot. Perhaps Charles should concentrate on Ireland and inspiring the Irish with his Catholicism. Though the Plantation of Ireland by English and Scottish, along with conversion, had greatly increased the percentage of Protestants, there was still a heavy Catholic majority, many estimated from 85-90%, all resentful that their own nobility had been expunged and all hope of government advancement lost.
If there was ever fertile ground from which to recruit, this had to be it.
As it was, the Saxon had plenty of time to organize as the English government was in chaos. Robert Walpole begged his King to return, which George II only did reluctantly. While the summer wore on with few English reinforcements arriving, Parliament spent less time recruiting Englishmen or Scots to fight than they did demanding that George II summon the Army of Hanover to fight in Ireland. This the King refused. He would not endanger Hanover by stripping it of its defenses because the English don’t like fighting their own battles.
Finally, two months after the commencement of the invasion, Parliament authorized that the majority of their regular forces be transferred to Ireland. As this constituted only about 12,000 men throughout the Isles, this would not prove an overwhelming force.
Perhaps more important than the less than intimidating English response was the time wasted while Robert Walpole and Parliament dithered between a strong response or holding their army in reserve for fear of an invasion of Britain (as many Parliamentarians feared). Finally, the Admiralty managed to point out that the Channel Fleet was the true defender of Britain. As long as it existed, no army would set foot upon her shores in any numbers.
Meanwhile Maurice of Saxe’s army grew by the thousands as he marched steadily east towards the great Irish towns along the Irish Sea, Prince Charles grudgingly holding the banner of the Stuart Kings to rapturous Irish volunteers.
West Indies
After their victory in Antigua, the French West Indies squadron would deposit sizeable forces on the England possession of St. Christopher and Anguilla, two local, less important British colonies. Though not technically at war, the major Dutch possessions (largely rocky or arid or generally less desirable than the other Dutch possessions in the Lesser Antilles). By the end of 1741, the whole of the Lesser Antilles would be in French (or Spanish) hands save Barbados, which some did not consider part of the archipelago anyway.
Charles Town, South Carolina
The citizens of South Carolina decided to partake of the war effort too. An unruly mob of Charles Town citizens sought to invade Spanish Florida with the hopes they would be offered land grants. The problem was that the colony of Georgia was in the way.
Founded as a “free colony” by Governor Oglethorpe (oddly, it was also a prison colony), Georgia was considering allowing slavery upon her soil when the South Carolinians stumbled across the border. They Charles Town men were so rapacious in “acquiring supplies” that they ended up pillaging two towns and burning (largely by accident) a third. Outraged, the locals would form a militia and attacked their northern neighbors, sending the survivors running for home.
The debate over the expansion of slavery was momentarily over as the Government protested to the Mother Country and demanded action against South Carolina.
For the most part, the Mother Country ignored them as they had bigger issues to deal with than some colonial spat.
In the meantime, the governor of another British colony, Jamaica, determined not to sit out the war and started plotting his own scheme.
