No Culloden

I'm reading Simon Schama's "A History of Britain, Volume 2" now and it states that Bonnie Prince Charlie's generals begged him not to make his stand at Culloden. He decided to do so anyway, his Scotsmen charged uphill into the Hanoverian guns, and they lost.

What if the Jacobites didn't engage at Culloden but somewhere else? Where could they have done this and how would this affect the '45?
 
I'm reading Simon Schama's "A History of Britain, Volume 2" now and it states that Bonnie Prince Charlie's generals begged him not to make his stand at Culloden. He decided to do so anyway, his Scotsmen charged uphill into the Hanoverian guns, and they lost.

What if the Jacobites didn't engage at Culloden but somewhere else? Where could they have done this and how would this affect the '45?

Sooner or later Cumberland is going to bring him to battle. Charlie isn't any sort of military genius, and a similar result probably ensues.
 
Sooner or later Cumberland is going to bring him to battle. Charlie isn't any sort of military genius, and a similar result probably ensues.

I agree. The fact was, a small force of hastily-organised militia with obsolete weapons was attempting to take on a modern army in its centre of power and it wasn't going to end well.
 
At this point the prince has already lost most of his artillery, thrown away a contingent of men under John Hamilton for no good reason which any of his advisors could see by insisting on holding a town in England and determined that he has no popular support in England.

Meanwhile in Argyll the militia has been mobilized against him, Stirling Castle and the Highland forts and Inverness all stand against him, Rear Admiral Byng is blocking any attempts to bring in arms or reinforcements from France and Edinburgh has been retaken while Glasgow raised a regiment against him.


There will either be a battle or the prince's army will simply fall apart.
 

Blair152

Banned
I'm reading Simon Schama's "A History of Britain, Volume 2" now and it states that Bonnie Prince Charlie's generals begged him not to make his stand at Culloden. He decided to do so anyway, his Scotsmen charged uphill into the Hanoverian guns, and they lost.

What if the Jacobites didn't engage at Culloden but somewhere else? Where could they have done this and how would this affect the '45?
Where might that be?
 
I agree. The fact was, a small force of hastily-organised militia with obsolete weapons was attempting to take on a modern army in its centre of power and it wasn't going to end well.

Moreover they were facing a modern army who had been drilled to face specifically them. The British troops had, only weeks or days before the battle, been trained by their General (can't be bothered to look up the name right now) to fight with bayonets in much the same closed ranks/coordinated defence way that the Roman legionaries fought, with the direct intention of using it to combat the Highland charge.
 
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