Michael McNally - The
question which remains to be answered is quite simply was the Battle
of Aughrim lost as a result of the ‘fortunes of war’, of one
commander being luckier than his opponent? Or is there a darker
element that needs to be considered – was the battle lost through
the supposed treachery of one or more Jacobite officers?
Firstly
we need to look in greater detail at the composition of the Jacobite
left flank itself, its’ commanders and the troops involved.
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| Another shot from the LoA game featured at Claymore 2013... |
In
Sir John Gilbert’s edition of “A Light to the Blind”, the
formation is described as follows:
‘On
the left the Marquis of St. Ruth placed the earl of Lucan’s
regiment of horse, and those of colonel Henry Luttrell, of colonel
John Parker, and colonel Nicholas Purcell, with a body of dragoons’
and shortly afterward continues ‘The conduct of this left wing was
given to major general Sheldon, the first line of which brigadier
Henry Luttrell commanded. Their business was to defend the pass of
the causeway, near to which, for added security, there were set two
regiments of foot’.
At
first reading, the above extract seems quite simple – Sheldon’s
forces consisted of four (named) regiments of horse, a force of
dragoons (also most probably four in number), with two battalions of
foot in Aughrim village – one of which we may reasonably assume to
have been that of colonel Walter Bourke, a detachment of which
regiment was also sent to occupy the ruins of Aughrim Castle. But
even so, it does raise a number of questions:
The
first query lies in the role of colonel Nicholas Purcell. It is a
matter of record that, after the expedition to Scotland in 1689, his
regiment of dragoons was converted into a regiment of horse, or heavy
cavalry. And so, one must ask as to whether this officer was actually
in command of a brigade of dragoons or, as is quite feasible, was
there a grammatical error in the editing of the original manuscript
and that – at Aughrim – he was actually the commander of a fourth
named regiment of horse. This latter assumption would make more sense
as otherwise colonel Henry Luttrell’s station would have been with
the first line of the Jacobite heavy cavalry positioned some distance
from the front line, and would therefore not have been in a position
to influence the activities of the dragoon screen thrown forward to
cover the causeway; he could only have done this if he had have
actually been in command of the dragoons.
As
has been previously discussed, by the time that Mackay launched his
attack across the Causeway, the two battalions that had been deployed
in Aughrim village had already been withdrawn and re-committed to the
main battle line. This, perhaps one of the most critical actions
during the battle, immediately compromised the security of the
Jacobite Left for, at a stroke, the three mutually supporting lines
of troops – the dragoon screen, the Aughrim garrison and the
cavalry brigade, became two lines of troop, the second of which was
not close enough to offer immediate support to their comrades in the
event of a Williamite attack. In effect, this meant that when the
enemy troops were reforming after traversing the narrow passage, and
were thus at their most vulnerable, Sheldon’s horse would be too
far away to decisively intervene. The only other option would have
been to have brought them forward into a position where they could
support the dragoon screen, but this would have left them stationary
within range of the Williamite guns, a perfect target for van
Ginkel’s artillery.
For
the dragoons, many of their number undoubtedly deployed forward in
dismounted skirmish order, the situation would have been unenviable.
Having seen the troops march out of Aughrim, they would have been
more than aware of the fact that no friendly troops were close enough
that could come to their assistance if they were to come under enemy
attack, whilst to their front this self-same enemy was clearly
reforming his troops for offensive action. For any troops, and many
of these troopers were undoubtedly veterans of Derry, the Boyne,
Athlone and many other engagements this would have been a daunting
prospect indeed, and when the Earl of Oxford’s “Blues”,
arguably the most experienced and ably led unit on the battlefield,
began their thunderous advance, the dragoons recoiled.
Whether this
retrograde movement was under as a result of a direct order from
their commanding officer, whom we presume to have been Henry
Luttrell, or simply a natural reaction by lightly armed troops on
foot when faced by advancing enemy horse is unclear, but what should
be noted is that when the army had reunited at Limerick following the
wake of the battle, there was no appeal against the conduct of either
Henry Luttrell or indeed that of his superior officer, Dominic
Sheldon, who led the left wing cavalry from the field in the wake of
Luttrell’s retreating dragoons. Instead Luttrell was damned by
posterity for entering into ‘treasonable’ correspondence with the
enemy, a correspondence solely evidenced by a letter addressed to him
by a Williamite officer of his acquaintance who had written to
enquire as to the fate of a number of his compatriots presumed to
have been captured by the Jacobites at Aughrim. In fact the point
must be stressed that at the end of his court-martial, majority of
the tribunal voted for an acquittal, and it solely Tyrconnel, as
president of the court, who insisted that he be confined and his
commission revoked.
The
next point to consider is the relative conduct of the picked
detachment of colonel Walter Bourke’s regiment that occupied the
ruins of Aughrim Castle with the aim of enfilading any Williamite
troops attempting to force a passage across the Causeway.
Traditionally their relative ineffectiveness has been excused by the
assertion that the troops were equipped with French muskets but
supplied with English musket balls, which were of a larger calibre
and thus were incompatible with the firearms. On the face of it, this
is an unassailable argument, but there are three flaws. Firstly, and
after establishing their lodgement at the base of Kilcommodan Hill,
Rowe’s ad-hoc brigade are recorded as having entered into a
fire-fight with the Jacobite left wing, by implication both the
dragoons and the troops in Aughrim Castle. Thus the castle garrison
did, at some stage during the battle, open fire upon the enemy.
Secondly,
it was the practice – during the period –to transport the lead
from which musket balls were made either in the form of sheets or
ingots which would then be distributed to the units as required. The
reason for this being simply a matter of space as a tonne of lead in
sheets or ingots is by far easier to store or transport than a
similar weight of lead balls which must themselves be stored in some
form of container. Prior to battle the troops would then take the
lead and cast their own ammunition, the immediate advantage to this
being that if they were to follow a routine, the physical act of
being kept busy would leave them less time to worry about the combat
ahead. A second advantage would also be to ensure that the troops had
the right calibre ammunition for their firearms.
Thirdly, since
Tyrconnel had issued his original commissions on behalf of King
James, the Jacobites had been increasingly dependent upon military
supplies from France, and this leads to two final questions –
firstly with what ammunition wad the remainder of Walter Bourke’s
regiment equipped and secondly if the garrison of Aughrim Castle was
in fact equipped with the wrong calibre ammunition, then where did it
come from as by the summer of 1691 the Jacobites had no access to any
of the magazines and arsenals that were under Crown control at the
beginning of the war.
This
leads us to a number of conclusions:
Firstly,
that the collapse of the Jacobite left wing at Aughrim was simply the
result of the fortunes of war, and that with the death of St. Ruth,
the army was literally ‘headless’ during possibly the most
crucial phase of the battle and that whilst both de Tessé and
Sarsfield attempted to regain the momentum that had been lost, they
were unable to do so, with tragic results. Had the Jacobite commander
not have stopped to redeploy the artillery battery it is virtually
certain that he would not have met his end at that stage in the
battle, but whether he would have survived any later combat can only
be a matter of speculation; his character and record have shown that
he would have led from the front.
Secondly
the withdrawal of the Jacobite left wing dragoons and horse came
about as a result of the breakdown in the chain of command that was
caused by St. Ruth’s death. Had he not have fallen when he did, the
chances are that he would he would have been able to halt the
retrograde movement and reinforce his orders before sufficient
Williamite troops would have been able to pass across the Causeway,
and even without the dragoons – who would have been of negligible
value in a cavalry mêlée – he would still have enjoyed a
significant local advantage over the leading enemy formations.
Thirdly,
given his effective acquittal following his trial by court martial,
it is clear that no opprobrium whatsoever had been attached to
colonel Henry Luttrell and his subsequent treatment was merely the
result of ill-feeling between him and Tyrconnel. Accordingly and
irrespective of his undoubted character deficiencies, whatever the
grounds were for his murder in 1717, none of his peers – in other
words those most affected by the defeat at Aughrim – would seem to
have blamed him for his conduct on the day of the battle, and neither
should we.
