Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 243 - The Troubles Part 1

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Tom O'Mahony (@gotitatguineys)Host of the Beneath The Skin Podcast takes Joe on a trip through The Troubles of Northern Ireland. Part 1/4 Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

Hello and welcome to the Lions... Hello and welcome to the Lions... Nice! We're leaving it in! We're leaving it in! Hello and welcome to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I am not Joe, I'm Tom, and joining me is Joe. Hello Tom!

I think that's the first time anybody other than me has ever done the intro, and not gonna say it's not weird for me. I am currently wearing my, like joe fursuit i am wearing my joe sauna right now to uh embody uh how you host the show um then you should know that the only thing i've had to eat today is protein shakes cigarettes and an energy drink so that's how you that's how you prep for a show. I mean, I feel like we're kind of synergizing right now because all I've eaten is a giant bowl of rice with five chicken thighs, a protein shake and a protein bar and probably about five cigarettes as well. So, you know, we've synchronized on this unintentionally. Perfect. So the old switcheroo is happening for many reasons.

One, because Nate keeps insisting that I take time off work. But mainly because I personally have a hard time covering Irish history. I have no baseline education there. My university education, grad education has nothing to do with ireland and uh you know i the troubles in general has been something that people have been requesting for four years now uh and i always felt like it was something that was kind of unapproachable for me especially someone who is not irish um and and i would end up leaving out a lot of details, a lot of nuances and obviously, uh, mispronouncing everything along the way. Um, as that is what I tend to do.

Uh, so Tom here is, uh, many people don't know this. He is, uh, he's one of the producers for our show. Uh, he puts up with our bullshit constantly. So when Nate approached me and said, Tom would be great for this. Because he knows the show. He listens to it. Unfortunately for Tom, several hours a week.

So he kind of knows how we work around here. And so maybe it's also best to explain what exactly we're going to be covering in this series. Because it's not an exhaustive or comprehensive history of the Troubles, mostly because that is impossible to do in one series, in my opinion. There is probably a podcast out there that isbles Podcast by Oshin Feeney, who he looks at it from a purely academic historical perspective and is non-partisan as well and talks about prominent figures and a lot of insular dates and events and everything. So if you're looking for that, maybe listen to that show. If you want to hear me make jokes about Oliver Cromwell, listen to this one.

He came to the right place. And there also is a bit of podcast. I don't know if you want to call it lore because it's kind of grim. We've done one series about Irish history a long time ago about the Easter Rising. And the day before it happened, the IRA murdered a journalist. So I personally believe hosting Irish history for me is cursed. And I have to give it to someone else. It's the first time in the podcast history, I literally messaged Nate like, I don't think we can publish the episodes.

Yeah, like Irish history is, it's really kind of difficult to talk about because it's so intertwined, say, with stuff like British history and like history in continental Europe. And I made a joke on Twitter about, you know, it's impossible to talk about this sort of stuff without spending like half an hour talking about an inbred Habsburg. That's like one missed handshake away from being beheaded, which I have kind of done with this episode. There's a lot of weird guys in this script. But what we're trying to do is this first episode, as you can see by the title, is about the Battle of the Boyne, which involves William Vange and King James II. And it's really fundamental in understanding the birth of sectarianism in Ireland and particularly in the North. And it's really where Protestant rule in Ireland is solidified in the 17th century. So we're going to take 200 years a step back, or well, maybe 300 years a step back to kind of understand why the foundations from a ideological perspective

originate in Northern Ireland. And then when we jump forward in subsequent episodes, what we're going to do is we're going to look at specific events during the Troubles to take it as a 360 view of understanding what happened at the time and really get a scope for what was going on um and it's not going to be fully comprehensive if there are like events that we might miss or some things that we'll miss that's okay um people have dedicated their entire academic career just studying 1969 until 1974 in the troubles so what we're going to do is try and give you an overall really good understanding of the setup for it, but also a few specific events that happened during the Troubles

and how it fundamentally shifts the mood in Ireland and Northern Ireland as well. Yeah, I mean, if there's one thing this show is good at, it's kind of having to explain 200 years of history just to get to one thing. Because I run into this problem all the time over on my uh like there's a premium series that we do uh called history of armenia and i found like it's really hard to explain modern day things without like going like all right well here this happened a thousand years ago bear with me uh so like i i empathize with you a little bit i have spent three weeks putting together this

one script and there's four of them so you know if you take this as like a really whistle-stop tour of about 200 years of irish history wait until you get to the next few episodes where i'm going to spend about 40 minutes talking about 10 minutes of actual time. Perfect. That's kind of something we do all the time here. So there's battles and things like that that don't really last all that long. But here we are talking about it for like an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, seven hours on a couple of occasions. occasions uh but yeah tom uh take me uh in the in the the chariot of podcasting through irish history so i'm taking joe's hand like a parent helping its child cross the street and uh we're

going to get into it so the history of the north of ireland is incredibly complex and in order to understand the later sectarian conflicts that would arise between irish irish catholic communities and protestant communities and the british state and the irish states it's important to understand the very fundamental events that would eventually lead to the period of the late 1960s to mid-1990s and arguably beyond that would come to be commonly known as the troubles as with most things in european history joe i'm sure you will agree with this uh around this time the main players in this event are thousands of kilometers away and are fueled by petty bullshit money and a belief of their interpretation of christianity as being the real one oh shocking yeah uh yeah a whole bunch of inbred douchebags beefing over turf

and i i do have to say one of the things that's always baffled me about this time in uh irish history british history because obviously they they end up slamming into one another is the name of the troubles really doesn't go on to describe what happens it's like the most uh like cushiony soft name you could possibly think of it's like if you called the civil war like you know a whoopsie yeah like from i moved to the uk in 2021 or 2022 and like my thing with interacting with like british people is they have this weird like oh fay kind of twee humor around stuff and it's like calling stuff like the troubles or like the kerfuffle like you know the the fact that like jimmy saville was called the jimmy saville affair you know the fact that they're very big on like playing down the severity of things to make them uh seem uh

less likely that they need to teach them in schools ah perfect yeah that sounds familiar uh so to cut a long story short the battle of the boyne centers around the dispute for the english and scottish crown which if you haven't guessed it yet also included ireland like choosing your snack in a tesco meal deal um england itself had been in turmoil for more than a century previously with the country previously suffering the hundred years war several rebellions henry the eighth being so down bad he broke with the catholic church and the political instability that he followed you know you know i i'm gonna agree with henry like sometimes you are so down bad that you stop becoming a papist but you know it is what it is um the central conflict here the central conflict here much like elsewhere in europe involves the

conflict between those supporting louis the 14th severe of influence in europe and the ascendant dutch house of orange with which opposed him if you haven't guessed it yet or don't know louis was the catholic ruler of the empire controlled by the french and the united dutch states were at the helm of a protestant mercantile class whose overseas holdings rivaled that of the french state i i liam isn't here so i do have to insert myself making fun of the dutch um yeah fuck the dutch fuck you your stupid shoes and your national pastime of blackface and fuck you for beating the us in the world cup you motherfuckers exactly exactly so the dutch ruling class themselves were not entirely opposed to the French, as many of them held quite close ties to Versailles. But this conflict was brought to the fore by the ascendancy of a party led by William, Prince of Orange, whose family had long been chief magistrates of several Dutch provinces.

provinces and the overthrow of the dutch government william was appointed captain general and admiral for life admiral for life you know that's a that's a title how many uh how many uh ribbons you think he had on his chest for that uh i'm gonna say that uh it's gonna look like one of those photoshopped pictures of north korean generals when they're like down to their like on his pants it's just an entire suit made of army medals. So he led the defeat of the French in part due to him opening the dikes and flooding the country surrounding Amsterdam. So he just pulled his finger out of the dike and flooded the country. And then all the French floated back to Normandy. I should say it's the podcast stance that that should happen again. Bring back the flooding of Amsterdam.

So essentially, everyone had to pick a side. Were you aligned with the French and received what boiled down to a French Patreon subsidy in the form of money, influence or military backing? Like King Charles II of England had secretly done in exchange for support of an anti-Dutch alliance? Or did you side with the Dutch like the Spanish, the Habsburgs or the German Rhineland? So in 1677 in an attempt to quash any claims of Catholic influence in Whitehall

Charles II arranged the marriage of his Prince Mary, the eldest daughter of the Duke of York, to her cousin the Dutch William of Orange. James, Duke of York the then Duke of York to her cousin, the Dutch William of Orange. James, Duke of York, the then Duke of York, who was Charles's brother, was not entirely happy with this arrangement, but allowed it to go ahead nonetheless. A peace treaty was signed in 1678 between the French and the Dutch territories, but it didn't last long. In 1680, the French marched into the Principality

of Orange under the pretense of removing it as a potential rallying point for French Huguenots and annexed it to the French crown. I can't believe that that's relevant in 2022. I can't believe that someone would do that again. William saw this as a direct threat to his growing power and from then on set himself to thwart the ambitions of Louis XIV. William, in an attempt to bolster his territory against the French crown,

used his considerable diplomatic skills to form the League of Augsburg. Weird words. Dutch-speak normal words. A coalition of his already existing allies Spain, the Austro-Hungarians, Sweden and others. The Swedes are getting involved

in this for some reason. Fuck it, why not? Everybody just pile in yeah exactly exactly i want to see the ottomans have a claim to the dutch throne or something they probably do like i'm not gonna lie they probably do have some like weird claim to it and they're like their current claim it is like posting anime titties on twitter many people don't know this but uh ireland is ancestral turkish land yeah i was gonna say ireland ireland is the armenia of the west you know i mean you're kind of right you're kind of right yeah i mean like we were annexed by our next biggest neighbor you know subjected to colonialism and uh genocide so you, you're still missing part of it. Yeah. Yeah, we're still missing part of it.

We're going to get into the genocide soon. But all of these states had reason to fear the French aggression and expansionary ambition, which they had clearly shown with the annexation of the Principality of Orange. So on the 6th of February, 1685,

the aforementioned King of England and Scotland and French ally Charles literally shit himself and died from an apoplectic fit and left no direct male heir I'm sorry I do have to hit this we got

we got our first shitting death of the series boys we did it it only took 15 minutes. It's going to probably be the first and last time you use that horn. Thank you.

I'm glad to be at the receiving end of that for once. On a side note, it's worth mentioning that there were allegations in the court of murder and subterfuge due to how suddenly he died, but it's most likely that he were allegations in the court of murder and subterfuge due to how suddenly he died but it's most likely that he said he suffered a kidney failure due to his interest in science and his experiments with mercury alongside other chemicals oh fuck yeah

uh like imagine like yield cops being like you see this wasn't even his shit someone stuffed this shit up his ass so he could shit it out and frame it as simply dying of shitting himself like we all do back now back back in these days and in reality it's like no he's just ingesting a wild quantity of mercury he's lethally boofing mercury oh fuck i love history king charles. I want to see King Charles. Yeah. I want to see King Charles II, you know, trying to, like, do ketamine in the court that he's just, like, miraculously made and think he's some alchemical wizard.

In reality, he's just made horse tranquilizers. You see, I've been working on this thing. I call it fentanyl. And I am going to blow it directly into my own face because my fingers are so huge i cannot make proper lines i mean like the dutch probably had some uh involvement in the invention of fent so you know i wouldn't be surprised if they did it back in the 17th century and poisoned charles with it um that would explain everything to do with the duchess that they've just been ripped to the gills on fentanyl for fucking centuries now as anyone who's familiar with history or indeed this show will know uh not leaving a direct male heir is kind of a big issue

at the time so in the absence of a legitimate heir the crown went to his brother james duke of york this is this is the problem you know charles uh he wasn't busting enough you know if you are a a mid you know between like 1400 and 1800 you have to bust uh don't we need that clip of kamala harris saying do not come do not come well see one of the problems with playing uh no not november uh back in the day was that you kill your entire family line uh and not you know not to mention uh when you're ingesting wilds about wild amounts of mercury uh you're you're just shooting fat ropes of toxic chemicals you're like the toxic avenger roaming around your palatial home after the death of King Charles

William saw the coronation of his father-in-law, the Catholic King James as a momentary distraction of power before his wife, James' daughter Mary, would be crowned Queen Mary II fortunately for William James soon weathered the Argyll and Monmouth

rebellions and the subsequent political fallout and the souring public opinion after his execution of Lord Monmouth. Sound that buzzer again. We got an execution. Hell yeah. I didn't know a certain pattern of socks led an arm drop rising. That's my entire knowledge of Argyll

and Leomula. With King James seemingly secure in his position on the throne, William decided something needed to be done if Mary and by extension him were his position on the throne, William decided something needed to be done if Mary, and by extension him, were to sit on the throne of England. The birth of James's son, the Prince of Wales, also called James, in June 1688, pretty much fucked William's plans because it removed Mary from the direct line of succession.

But William, in league with several English allies, felt that he was confident in his challenge to the throne. So on the 19th of October, William boarded his flagship, the Den Briel, and was ready to set sail to stake his claim. But adverse weather kept him at port until November. Then on the 1st of November, backed by, and I quote,

Protestant wind, his fleet headed into the mass estuary and across the English Channel. So across the English Channel, James was making preparations for an invasion. He had assembled some 50,000 men made up of English soldiers, mercenaries, and

Irish and Scottish regiments who had been transferred to his defense. Although they easily outnumbered William's forces, they would need to cover several potential landing points and this would lead his army being spread across the northern and eastern coasts of England, thus severely diluting his power.

Joe, can I just get a military history check? Do you think this is a good idea? It sounds amazing if you want to have significantly less soldiers than when you started out with i will say um ever everybody knows you should divide your forces wildly and unplanned across the coast it's like it's like a cryptocurrency you know you need to divide your assets assets across like loads of shit coins so that way you know if one of them

tanks at least the rest of them are going to hold their value i i will say uh if there was to be a stable coin uh which is a it's just something i don't understand um in history it would be uh dead british soldiers somewhere uh that that were dropped that dropped dead from horrible illness or exposure like oh i put all my money in this dead pile of fucking redco coats i mean if you were going to uh mint a lines led by donkey's coin it would have to be napoleon coin um and you know it just uh its value raises and lowers depending on the temperature yeah uh napoleon coin it's only good for a couple of years and then it dies yeah pretty much and the english feet uh under the command of the earl of dartmouth was stationed off the coast of essex but william received intelligence of the king's

positioning and rerouted his armada to the straits of dover so remember that protestant wind i told you about joe yeah i'm going to assume it turned real catholic there all of a sudden well the exact opposite it pushed the dutch army towards their destination and the headwinds held the defensive forces in place unable to move to insert intercept the invaders as they were forced to watch the ships of orange float past them on the english channel as they made it headway for torbeck i can't imagine how pissed off you would be as the earl of dart Dartmouth and having to watch an enemy fleet just like float past you while you're held in place by the wind that like it's one of the

things that always kind of surprises me about like the age of sail is like how good can you be when like oh wind change direction we're fucked we can't move yeah pretty much like you're you're a little bit fucked if there's like a slight breeze William Nade landing at Torbay on the 5th of november and once news had spread of his arrival people immediately

began to desert king james uh william began his march on on london and after a series of skirmishes on the 22nd of november james ordered his men to withdraw towards reading multiple of james's previous allies saw this as the perfect opportunity to jump ship, including John Churchill and James' own nephew, the Duke of Grafton. It was here where James' nerve faltered, and with his army deserting in droves,

his allies betraying him, and William marching up the Kent coast, he fled and arranged for his son and wife to be taken to France. But this wasn't the end of his bad luck because on the 11th of December, he was captured by William's forces and taken to Faversham. This presented a problem for William. He had beaten James, but he himself was not yet king. And the only way out of this predicament was to let James go. So on the 8th of December, as William

marches forces into London, James was sailing across the Sea of France, essentially abdicating the throne to William, and James would never see England again. I mean, that normally means he's lucky, right? Yeah, I mean, like, most of the time, and like, a lot of these people

who crop up in this story of the Battle of the Boy, were actually were actually previously captives of the other side. There's very famously someone we'll talk about later on who completely fucks over William. And similarly, the other side sends someone to Louis XIV as under the pretense of an envoy. But he's immediately locked up by louis the 14th oh outstanding i always i always love when like you know the people who see themselves as conquering heroes just trip over their own dick and end up in a dungeon yeah yeah you know we're

literally about to talk about someone who uh while successful during his lifetime trips over his own dick and uh ends up hanging outside of uh Westminster, as far as I can remember. Now, you may be wondering, huh, I thought this was an episode that happened about a battle that happened in Ireland. And with that, you are correct. But there is a small bit more context that we need to cover before we get there. need to cover before we get there because like all things irish you can't discuss irish history without first talking about several generations of english and continental european inbreds that were one missed handshake away from getting beheaded like we said earlier on and one famous inbred whose head would eventually end up on a skewer is oliver cromwell now cromwell was a well

decorated military officer and politician who had served in the english civil war he was for about 40 years of his life an unremarkable farmer who in another universe thankfully would have died of dysentery in a bed filled with straw hacking up his lungs while he pissed and shitted himself to death but unfortunately this is not the case we call that the grand slam yeah so uh there is a point when i'm talking about cromwell where i have an animal fact ready for you joe because uh we're gonna eventually talk about genocide and of course we are why wouldn't we talk about genocide um in 1649 cromwell led a parliamentary invasion of ireland in order to quash the military threat posed by the alliance between irish confederate catholics and the

english royalists There were other warring factions in Ireland but Cromwell had both a political and religious opposition to Irish Catholics returning the seat of power to the country stating in a speech to the Army Council on the 23rd of March

I had rather be overthrown by a Cavalierish interest than a Scotch interest I'd rather be overthrown by a Cavalierish interest than a Scotch interest. I'd rather be overthrown by a Scotch interest than an Irish interest. And I think that is most dangerous. So, yeah, Cromwell really hated Catholics. On the religious side, he was a devout Protestant, believing Catholicism placed primacy of papal and clerical influence

over that of the bible which he blamed for the persecution of protestants in europe not only did he hate catholics he would later class strains of protestantism such as quakerism as heresy and undermining of the protestant faith as well as the corruption of the soul my man really hated catholics yeah i mean all right like i understand this is one of those problems with certain people in history where it's like, I get a series coming from, right? You can't trust those

fucking Quakers. They make too much oatmeal. You can never trust anybody that makes that much oatmeal. But it's so good, Joe. Quaker oats are so good, and they're very important for your gains. If you're in the gym, be eating your Quaker oats. Come on, you know, be the strong protestant that cromwell wanted you to be you have to deliver me onto temptation but it's just quaker oats

um now cromwell's invasion of ireland in 1649 was brutal and was the site of many atrocities that we would now consider war crimes the parliamentary army set army set out to Ireland to reconquer lands that were considered to be under the divine right of the English crown and were only temporary out of control after the Irish Confederacy uprisings of 1641. They also sought revenge for many reasons, such as the massacre of the Scotch planters during the 1641 campaigns

and the fact that towns such as Wexford, where I'm from, and Waterford had acted as bases for privateers that attacked English traders. I'm not seeing the problem. There's no problem here. Nothing bad is going to happen. But above all else and

in the words of Wu-Tang Cash Rules everything around me there was also the matter of money. It always comes down to money. The English crown had taken out substantial loans in order to fund the Adventurers Act, which was essentially a war bond system

through which citizens could invest £200 to fund the army effort to suppress the rebellion of 1641 and in exchange they would receive 1,000 acres of confiscated land from the rebels when all was said and done the total money raised was 10 million pounds a total of 2.5 million acres were set aside for investors bear in mind ireland only has an entire

square acreage of 20.9 million acres so that's the equivalent about 12 percent of the country holy shit like imagine being in the hole for 10 million pounds in the 17th century that's is that adjusted for inflation no that is at the time oh my god yep so like imagine how much you know a very very toxic wine and mercury you could buy for 10 million pounds. So they needed this land back fast. So obviously, this didn't really work out with a treaty signed between Charles I and the Confederates. So the crown suddenly had a lot of angry investors

on their hands, and therefore it was paramount that these lands be seized by force and the Irish Catholics be removed. For Cromwell and his army, this was not simply just a mission to repay debts, but a crusade fueled by a burning hatred of what they say was a heretic faith of the Irish. And for his hatred, he earned the moniker

Lord Protector of the Protestant Faith, which can still be seen above murals in Northern Ireland today. Oh, God. Oh, Joe, I've been waiting to say this, but it gets worse. When Cromwell landed, the first place to fall to his sword was the poor town of

Drogheda, a strategic position accessible by sea and a gateway to the east coast of Ireland. The walls of the town were medieval curtain walls, which were tall and thin, making them vulnerable to cannon fire upon cromwell's arrival and the arrival of the cannons via sea two days later he sent a communication to sir arthur aston the leader of the irish confederates and royalists inside the town

offering amnesty in exchange for surrender and i kind of want to point out that uh this is not you know your confederate soldiers in the u.s this is a a different kind of confederacy so before you put away your uh your um rebel flag uh just bear that in mind we we are not the same isn't there a weird uh section of population in i want to say northern ireland that uh is quite fond of the confederate flag yeah that would be the unionists um that are ironic yeah so they the unions have like a big penchant for uh the rebel flag the israeli flag um and also apartheid south africa so you know you can imagine what their political opinions are uh well i mean as long as they're putting up like the trifecta of flags that lets everybody

know that, yes, we know everybody hates us and we're very comfortable with it. Sir Arthur Astin refused and the walls were quickly breached and Cromwell soon rode into Drada with 6,000 soldiers behind him. Now, Joe, it's time to talk about why Oliver

Cromwell gets his reputation um first arthur aston was beaten to death with his own wooden leg on the top of drahada castle and it's because by cromwell's soldiers and it is alleged because there was a rumor that he kept his gold pieces inside his wooden leg sure why not you, you can't keep it under your mattress to keep it stuffed in your leg. Exactly. And some 200 prisoners

were taken. But if you're listening at home, it does get worse. It gets a whole lot worse. The civilians and prisoners faced a fate much worse than Sir Aston.

When Cromwell rode through the city, through the city wall, seeing approximately 150 dead parliamentarian soldiers. He was absolutely enraged and gave an order of no quarter.

In his own words, in the heat of the action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms of the town. And that night they put their swords to about 2,000 men. Jesus. Just wait, it does get a lot worse um now logistics of that is just fucking

horrible like yeah like it like how how how do they kill that many people with swords they have like they have like shift changes good god yeah so yeah yeah so it it's you know a killing field um as the garrison was also made up by Royalist soldiers, and many of them were English men, they were to be taken as prisoners and subsequently released on military parole in continuity with military law. But as Cromwell saw it,

Ireland was a different jurisdiction, and therefore they were to be considered the same as the Irish Confederacy rebels. All enemy soldiers were chased that night through the streets and into private homes, executed and their bodies left to rot in the streets. The only account from a civilian survivor stated that he had barricaded himself alongside 30 other civilians inside his home when parliamentarian soldiers began firing through the windows and the door of the home. parliamentarian soldiers began firing through the windows and the door of the home. And upon the soldiers breaching the building, the civilians were only spared as they were identified as Protestants. As you can imagine, the Catholic civilians fared much worse. Accounts vary on the

total number of casualties. Cromwell's forces counted 2,800 soldiers and about 700 to 800 dead civilians. Others claimed that there were 2,000 to 3,000 civilians dead during the siege and in the ensuing days. And Cromwell didn't really feel anything about this massacre. In his letter to the House of Commons, he stated, I am persuaded that this is the righteous judgment of God on these barbarous wretches who have imbued their hands with so much innocent blood and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory

grounds for such actions which cannot otherwise but work remorse and regret. How you feeling, Joe? This Cromwell character, I get the feeling there's a large section of the population that still treats him like a hero. Yes.

There is a certain population in a certain section of the island of Ireland that loves Oliver Cromwell and sees him as the Lord Protector of the Faith. But this was only the beginning of Cromwell's campaign.

So this would be only the beginning of a long campaign in Ireland, after which 200 000 people would be dead out of an estimated population of 2 million and the institution of the penal laws which by legal right removed the ownership of land from irish catholics and forced relocation of irish catholics to the west coast of ireland which is forever enshrined in Cromwell saying, to hell or to conduct. Goddamn. Do you want an animal fact, Joe? Hit me.

In Dublin, in the capital city of Ireland, we have one of the largest collections of urban deer in the Phoenix Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in all of Europe. If you go to the Phoenix Parkenix park you can go in a you can go and pet the deer you can feed the deer it's recommended you don't feed the books because i have seen people get booked by them but you can go and see some pretty pretty deer you can go have a

picnic and the deer are just roam around in the park that's adorable i love deer that's when the the i grew up in michigan so there there's white-tailed deer everywhere. One of the things that always used to bug me is like, oh yeah, that means there's more of them to shoot when we go hunting. You could just go to the store and buy your meat like everyone else. I don't get hunting, personally. Yeah, neither do I, but

unfortunately, Joe, those deer hate Catholics. Now, you may be wondering where exactly does this tie into the story at hand? Well, to put a long story short, many of the deposed Catholics in Ireland had been seen, had seen the ascendancy of James to the throne as possible

reprieve and would be returned to their lands by the incumbent Catholic king in the hopes that James would repeal the penal laws enacted by Cromwell which barred them from owning land and the discharge of their holdings. Indeed during James's time on the throne the political climate shifted with the replacement of the Duke of Ormond with two Lord Justices to lead the administration of Ireland until suitable replacements could be found. More importantly though it was the appointment of two prominent Catholic officers Justin McCarthy and one of the only officer

survivors from the siege of Drogheda by Oliver Cromwell the aforementioned Richard Talbot as commanders of military units which had previously been under the command of the Duke of Ormond. Previous rebellions in 1685 had proved the unreliability of regional militias because having armed troops roaming around the country with no direct command or oversight is a pretty bad idea. So James decided to disarm them and store the weapons in a royal arsenal. Joe, what would you expect to happen if you had, you know, just people armed to the teeth roaming around the country with no general oversight?

I've never seen that before. Just strange armed groups of men with no central organizational structure, commander, or oversight. I can't see that going badly in any way. Oh no, my home is burning down and someone is stealing my children yeah i i can imagine that uh you know it's probably not a good idea if you're one to have some sort of you know political and uh stability some sort of physical safety you know it's probably not the best idea but the responsibility of this fell to richard talbot now talbot did this pretty well in ireland uh then a colonel,

secure in the knowledge that no Catholics will be disadvantaged by his actions as the Irish militia was wholly Protestant formation. And by June 1685, he was honoured with Irish peerage as the Earl of Tyrconnell. He will be referred to going forward

as Tyrconnell. When the replacement for the Duke of Ormond was named, it was King James's brother, Henry Hyde for the Duke of Ormond was named, it was King James' brother, Henry Hyde, then Duke of Clarendon. The situation in Ireland remained relatively unchanged while this process was happening, but James had begun to develop plans to reform the army and make it loyal to him rather than the parliament. And in early 1686, Richard Talbot assumed the title of Lieutenant General Marshal of Ireland, essentially the commander of the Irish Army and thus effectively severing ties between the civil and military administrations.

By the time Henry Hyde, the Duke of Clarendon, assumed his role, Tyr Conall had already gone to great lengths to reform the Irish Army, establishing his own clientele of mainly Catholic Anglo-Irish officers, many of whom were tied to him through marriage or friendship. Confident in his position, Talbot spent the best part of 1686 lobbying for the recall of Clarendon and refusing to work with him, and within a year he had won, securing the title of Lord Deputy. This left much of Ireland effectively under the control of a Catholic officer who had am mass a large army loyal to him and was keen to support the now fled king james the second with me so far joe yeah that uh it's always good to start a military organization that's just staffed by your family members yeah you know it worked in waco you know i mean it did for, what, 40 days, give or take? Yeah, Jesus didn't even

last that long. Now, the collapse of King James' rule put Tyrconnel in a difficult position. William's successful taking of the throne had led to unrest among Irish Protestants, many of whom were outraged by concessions made to Catholics under James.

Over half of Tyrconnel's army had been transferred to England and subsequently jailed by William's new regime. Many successfully escaped imprisonment and made their way back to Ireland either directly or through France but pretty much Ireland was now militarily bankrupt. William was advised to move on this opportunity by his court partly out of fear that the loyal Catholics in Ireland would provide refuge and a stronghold for the deposed king but also sensing the greater issue of the French crown supporting

an Irish upstart rebellion in order to undermine William. It's always the French. The French love doing this shit. The French are the British version of the British person of what they do to France. So in order to alleviate this tension, William sent an envoy

to Dublin in order to negotiate political settlement. William sent Colonel Richard Hamilton, who was one of James' most loyal and trusted officers and had been imprisoned up until this point by King William. How do you think this went, Joe? Seeing

what podcast this is, I'm going to take a nice swing at this and say it worked out great. Yeah, it did. So, Williams hopes that Hamilton's familial ties would smooth over the situation. Didn't last long, though because as soon as Hamilton arrived in Dublin, he immediately spilled the beans on all of the turmoil in England and urged Tyrconnel to send word to King James to take up arms against William in Ireland

as at this point the conflict was inevitable. Under the guise of still being willing to negotiate with William, Lord Tyrconnel sent Lord Mountjoy, a previous leader of Protestants in Ireland, to France to ask for instructions. But in reality, it was so Louis XIV could lock him up in the Bastille

as a political prisoner and to kneecap Protestant forces. So a lot of people being sent essentially to prison. Yeah, you gotta love a time when you could just send your enemies to, not like prison per se, but like this is a hole in which you die in. You're not charged with anything. You're not sentenced to anything. You just go to this room in which you die in uh like you're not charged with anything you're not sentenced anything like you just go to this room and you'll die in this room yeah just go uh sit in this oubliette as we like pour cold water on you from above for you know 30 years and either you become like the man in the iron mask or you just like rot and die hon hon hon we're gonna

tear off your fingernails every six months. Hon, hon, hon. So on the 29th of January 1689, Tyrconnel did the only thing he could do to compensate for his lack of manpower and appealed to the Irish Gaelic and Catholics for their support by writing to James,

who many were still loyal to. His soldiers were unclothed, unarmed, and only had enough supplies to last until the end of february okay i know this is not what you mean but i'm just imagining a formation of dudes just dicks out and sock feet like we're ready to go boss let's fucking do this what if you had a company entirely made of white general butt naked okay but that might win the war it's like those uh videos on tiktok that i send you of like um one uh soldier with an automatic shotgun versus like a hundred orcs

or like a million orcs they're like no that would generally turn the tides you put general butt naked with like a russet ak-47 at the battle of boyne it would have turned out probably a little bit differently all right lads forward march everyone just starts doing the helicopter with like a russet ak-47 at the battle of boyne it would have turned out probably a little bit differently all right lads forward march everybody just starts doing the helicopter that's the shields that if they have metal over it so it's like a shield that like it stretches it out as well so like oh god after like a couple of seconds it's actually like covering your whole body it's like the um the personal shields in david lynch's dune oh god damn in order to help louis sent a consignment of 8 000 matchlocks to help arm the irish one thing to point out here is that most of them were fucking shit um but this wasn't enough

for tyrconnel in order to tip the scales of the oncoming battle, he needed legitimacy, and in order to get it, he needed the Catholic king on Irish soil. You can really imagine, like, Louis just there is like, oh no, send them the shit metalux. We do not want to give them the real guns.

Yeah, we went into our layaway and we found these matchlocks that uh we couldn't even sell to our colonies uh the french canadians didn't want them uh let's dump them on ireland ireland once again the algeria of western europe uh vauban the famous French engineer, summed the situation up best at the time. He said, I have an idea that when a man plays his last stake, he ought to play it himself or to be on the spot. King of England seems to be in this condition. His last stake is in Ireland.

And on the 12th of March, 1689, it was when King James landed in Ireland and would play his last stake for the crown. Over the course of the next year, battles were fought all over Ireland between Tyrconnel's forces and those loyal to William. In March, Richard Hamilton led forces out of Dublin and pacified the eastern part of Ulster to clear the way for James's advance further north. On the 27th, he attempted to besiege Coleraine and in April, James was en route to Derry. Bogged down by cannon fire

and only making inches of ground at each forward push, Richard Hamilton retreated his forces from the walls of Coleraine and rerouted for Derry too. Having measured the defenses at Coleraine, he estimated that the garrison would be indefensible in time

and the defenders would be forced to abandon their position and retreat to Derry. And he planned to cut their route. This will come back into tactics later on. For anyone who's made it this far, I have actually looked at recreations of maps of troop movements for the Battle of the Boyne. So the nerds are going to be in for a treat. for the Battle of the Boyne. So the nerds are going to be in for a treat. As anticipated, Coleraine fell and the Protestants desperately sent word to William

of the situation, hoping for help. Over the next few months, battles were fought up and down the country, with ground being gained and seated on both sides. William, now secure in his position as King of England, he turned his eye to Ireland. So he raised an army around the core of the then 75 year old duke of schomburg uh friedrich herman as commander who had fought in

almost every european theater of war of the last 50 years it is the 1600s and this motherfucker is still fighting wars in his 70s i mean i'm gonna be lucky if my like knees still work in my like late 30s you know this dude is out here like commanding thousands of troops but i i always wonder like how good of a capacity did he have at that age um you know was he like out riding with everyone or was he just like giving orders um and he will very very quickly fall out of favor with william and because i think that may have answered our question then yeah william had a deep distrust of the existing english military hierarchy seeing many of the officers that had deserted James when the war was turning to William

as potential breaks in the pipe. So with Schomburg at its center and a nucleus of veteran Dutch troops, a further 7,000 English veterans and 7,000 Dutch troops joined the Williamites and landed on the shore of Ireland on August 1689. Over the ensuing winter and spring, the two sides fought and as lambing season began, the Williamites and Jacobites would move towards their final conflict on the Boyne. William at this stage was in a more tenuous position as many of his supporters had done so under the pretense of being awarded favour by the new king. Many had yet to receive them. Also keenly aware of his status as a Dutchman and not English, this predicament in Ireland posed the most dire threat to his

legitimacy. To quieten his domestic opponents, he decided to take the problem of Ireland into his own hands and by extension unite his country against the real enemy of France. He confirmed his intention to go to Ireland in an address to Parliament on January 27, He confirmed his intention to go to Ireland in an address to Parliament on January 27, 1690, saying, It is a very sensible affliction to me to see my good people afflicted with taxes. You know, I'm going to agree with William on this. But since the speedy recovery of Ireland is, in my opinion, the only means to ease them and to preserve the peace and honor of the nation i'm resolved to go thither in person and a few months later william would land in ireland himself william's army had two choices on how to advance out of their ulster stronghold in order to face the jacobites first

was to move southeastward out of cavern and the second was to move along the east coast through newry and then through the mary pot the mary pass into dundalk less than 50 miles from dublin in response to this king james dispatched his army to move forward move to forward positions at dundalk and cavern respectively so you know once again splitting up his troops he didn't learn the last time it didn't work last time i like my odds this time you know if first you fail try try try again you know i don't believe in the uh that old adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results see this is why i i truly uh uh have personally adopted the the grind set of world war ii japanese officers which is at first you don't succeed, kill yourself, so it doesn't happen again.

Exactly. After William landed at Carrickfergus at the head of 15,000 troops, there was a surge of support for the Protestant king as Danish and Dutch troops rolled off the transport because although William was not well known as a fantastic field commander, the fact that he rarely acted without a feeling that he was an advantageous position gave inspiration to his followers. William decided on driving his army southwards through the Mary Pass with the final objective

being Dublin. Knowing that James would be unlikely to give up Dublin without a fight and would try and head off the Williamites at the pass. He instructed his soldiers to concentrate on Lockbrick Land in County Down. The pass, well known in Irish history as a bottleneck and the site of the battle between the armies of Cú Chulainn and Queen Maeve, the route was known as the Gap in the north. While this would have been a battle the Jacobites could have won, James is commander of the French Brigade

Lausanne. If I'm not saying that right, I don't care. French people, you can tweet at me. My Twitter's in the description. Haha, welcome to my world. He warned him that his position was far too advanced and could end up like Thermopylae. Instead, they set an ambush and acted too

soon, leading to severe casualties on both sides. And the failure to hold the Moiré Pass would lead to only one natural barrier between William and Dublin, which would be the River Boyne. How do commanders always end up in a Thermopylae situation? You know, literally one of the most famous military stories and no one has learned from it. famous military stories and no one has learned from it. Ah, couldn't see it.

Yeah. I understand it happened to King Leonidas, but you see me, I'm built different. What happened to me? I'm not down bad. Like a King Leonidas. I can do this.

You know, I'm smarter than that. Um, on the 29th of June, the night before the battle, James's army crossed the river Boyne at Drahoda and Oldbridge and set up camp on the northern slopes of the hills of Dunor. Knowing that the Williamites were a little more than a day behind, they began to set up defences. With a little more than 1,300 men of their own and 3,000 soldiers sent by Patrick Sarsfield and Cavan after the Williamite army abandoned their posts at Lockbrick Land to join the main regiment of the Boyne, they were a little bit understaffed.

at Lockbrick Land to join the main regiment of the Boyne. They were a little bit understaffed. William arrived at the site a little after 9am on the 30th and immediately sent a small recon mission of some dragoons and cavalry to assess the Jacobites. They were immediately spotted and they were shot.

That's kind of what I saw happening. Well done boys. You did it. Yeah, like if you're going to send a scouting party, at least have them maybe be like some guys that are sneaky you know send some guys who are like five foot three don't send like dragoons and cavalry send the guys at the tallest fanciest hats they'll never see this coming exactly exactly so not satisfied with this william himself rode out with a retinue of his party and they rode down towards the river. And after observing the Jacobites for some time, they dismounted in full view of the Jacobite army.

A group of Jacobites, including Tyrconnel, Sarsfield and Lassun, then rode down to the bank and immediately opened fire with small cannons on them, killing one man and severely injuring others. They also managed to clip william in the shoulder and he was quickly escorted back to camp where his wounds were dressed but there was already rumors that he had died from this cannon i can imagine the normally when you get you know clapped with a cannon uh it's that ends in one way is you fucking dying especially in an era where medicine is like getting the ghosts out of your blood and sawing off limbs normally you don't survive that yeah like

I can't imagine they put many leeches on him but in order to quash the rumors of his death William once bandaged up got up on his horse and rode around the camp to great cheers of his soldiers both William and James knew that the battle to come the following day would decide upon whose head the crown of England would rest. And at around 5am on the 1st of July,

some 7,000 soldiers under the command of Schomburg set out from the Williamite camp to try and flank the Jacobites and cut off their line of retreat. Now there is some debate about why William decided to do this due to his distrust of Schomburg's units, as it was almost three quarters English soldiers. A scouting party was headed off by Sir Sean O'Neill's dragoons unit, and they had been observing them from the hill, and the ensuing skirmishes would send a decisive blow to the Jacobites. blow to the Jacobites. As they crossed the banks of the Boyne, Schomburg's light artillery arrived and began bombarding the Jacobites with small cannon fire and musket fire, sending the Jacobites

into disarray. O'Neill having his thighs shattered by a cannonball. Everyone, like, don't just avoid the cannons. That's all I'm saying. Avoid the cannons. Many people go towards the cannons. You want to know how I never got hit with a cannonball? I didn't go towards the cannons. Problem solved. I know how I never got hit with a cannonball?

I didn't go towards the cannons. Problem solved. I was going to say it's because you were in a tank, but that might have helped. O'Neill having his tie shattered by a cannonball and having to be carried dying from the battlefield, King James' Gaelic troops slackened off and with no real command structure in place there was no immediate field commander there to take his place

and thus they retreated back towards Dinor Schomburg attempted to follow this retreat to solidify their position on the banks of the Boyne and send word to William of a new secured position but this would have left them vulnerable because while the Jacobite forces were in disarray in their retreat, it also made their attempt at turning of the left flank movement apparent to King James' command. So sometime after William's command decided they would take a two-pronged attack with the deployment of their main forces on side would attack the Jacobites at Oldbridge at low tide

the second column would approach on the opposite flank doing a pincer movement holding the Jacobites in the place and Schomburg's brigade of about 6,000 soldiers would attack from the front. James decided to withdraw his troops via Dulique in an attempt to retreat back

to Dublin and ordered his men to march westward towards Slane and then back towards south to try and avoid his men to march westward towards Slane and then back towards south to try and avoid the Williamites. While this was happening, the main body of soldiers would move leftwards covering the rear and defending the crossing at Oldbridge. Orders were sent to our good friend Tyr Conall, advising him of the king's decision and commanding him to observe the enemy on the northern banks of the Boyne before withdrawing himself. Soon, Tyrconnel will be forced to hold the main crossing with just 7,000 soldiers against an advancing army

about four times the size. Jesus. Do you like his odds, Joe? You know what? I've been wrong about most things so far. I'm going to go with someone else important is going to get hit with a cannonball. Funnily enough no

but someone is in a dire straits and nearly dies um as word got to william that the jacobites are moving westward he knew that victory was his for the taking williamites marched forward over four over five strategic crossing points of the boyne at old Bridge held by Tirkconnell, Grove Island, Yellow Island and the ford south of Drybridge. The river itself would prove to cause trouble for the onward march of the Williamites as the turbulent water acted as a cover for the Jacobite retreat. There were clashes at all of the crossing points with bodies soon floating down the river downstream. As the Jacobites were pursued across the Boyne, a desperation set in among them

as all of their units had been scattered and overwhelmed by the numbers of the Williamites. After a solid three hours of cavalry and infantry fighting, James and his party made a desperate run to Duleague

as their last hope of surviving the battle. A funny side note about this, about William crossing the Boyne, William nearly died doing this not because of a cannonball or because of combat but because he had an asthma attack i mean uh asthma back that is pretty pretty fatal uh obviously um but it's also like yeah you kind of have to imagine that is the day he discovered he had asthma, you know, like,

oh no, the gods have gripped my lungs. Yeah, getting like absolutely off because you couldn't get salbutamol in the 17th century. Of all the things to suck at, he sucks at breathing. As he was crossing the river, the churned up riverbed caught his horse and he dismounted to

lead him across the river and it started to have he started to have an asthma attack from exertion he would have surely drowned and died if one of his soldiers didn't spot him and drag him to the bank of the river like that's kind of funny you know like fought this like massive war to secure you know your place on the throne and you lose it because you can't breathe i mean to be fair that's probably always going to happen at some point but you know normally with nobles it's like his his old fat ass was trying to get up a flight of stairs in his palace and his asthma kicked in yeah i'd like there's a funny anecdote about um william's horse as well because obviously unionists uh don't want to admit

any kind of um influence on uh the north of ireland you know it's a part of england part of you know british culture and obviously belfast is from the irish bale fairsta which means mouth of the sandbank ford, unionists instead say, argue that, no, it's named after William's horse who was called Bale and was very fast. Certainly faster than he was. Yep, exactly. Unless the horse

also had asthma. I mean, well, you know, you never know. Can horses have asthma? I know cats can have asthma. Yeah, I'm going to assume horses can have every horrible disease and affliction that we can because I don't like horses. Breaking for Dulique, Schomburg pursued the Jacobite forces until around 10pm when he received orders directly from William to stop. For a battle this scale involving around 50,000 soldiers, only about 2,000 people died. And this is mainly because of the active retreat of the Jacobites before

the battle had even really begun. James arrived in Dublin around 5pm and over the next few hours, rumours were abound about the size and nature of the battle. And in one account that may or may not be true, but is kind of funny nonetheless, James encounters Lady Tyrconnell who, after asking

if he was hungry, he is reported to have said after the breakfast which i have been served i have even less stomach for supper the breakfast being getting your fucking teeth kicked in yeah getting your ass shoved down your throat and at a meeting with his privy council he effectively conceded defeat and said the and said about the irish troops would had sought and said about the irish troops would had sought which had sought to defend his claim to the crown, when it came to a trial that they basely fled, and left the spoil to the enemy, nor could they have prevailed upon to rally, though the loss in it the whole defeat was but inconsiderable,

the whole defeat was but inconsiderable so that henceforth i never more determined to head an irish army and do now resolve to shift for myself and so you gentlemen must you and on the second of july james boarded a french frigate and sailed out of duncanon fort in waterford to france where he would live out the rest of his life in exile and william would sit atop the english throne and hold dominion over ireland laying ulster awash in orange forevermore you know the worst part is is like you know when he went lived in exile his exile was very comfortable like yeah you know he wasn't you know shitting and pissing himself like a peasant i feel like nobody back then was cutting a solid shit like even though Even the lords were just shitting liquid fire. Because they're eating the best food, but the best food in the 1600s is still half rotten and pigeon ass. How much bread and cheese can one man eat?

I'm actually currently testing that theory myself. I will let you know. This is your winter bulking plan. You're just going to eat as much bread and cheese as possible. I fucked myself because where I moved in downtown Yerevan has a bakery

at the bottom floor and they also have cheese. So every morning I go down there and like a French guy, I leave with a baguette of some kind sticking out of a bag and a block of Armenian cheese and I go upstairs like, ah, breakfast. And then I proceed to eat a baguette of some kind sticking out of a bag and a block of armenian cheese and i go upstairs like ah breakfast and then i proceed to eat a family's worth of bread so bread cheese coffee and a cigarette is the joe kasabian breakfast yep that's right uh donate to

my fucking uh diet template or something don't worry it all fits in your macros. If your macros make you hate yourself. Yeah, you know, from doing 33rd County with Shox, I have learned that he makes cold brew and then heats it up in the microwave like normal hot coffee. So he's just drinking hot cold brew, which has an insane amount of coffee. That is the most vile fucking thing I've ever heard

in my life. You have to give him a shit about it. He's cut from the podcast. He's cut from the podcast. He's going to be eliminated from the history like a Stalin photo. I mean, I've done something similar where back when I was living in the United States, I went to like a Trader Joe's against my better judgment. And I got what I thought was cold brew coffee, but it was cold brew coffee concentrate.

And I was just sipping on that shit like a human being is supposed to do that. And I have never felt so bad in my life. And I have a caffeine tolerance that is, as my doctor says, unnatural. My heart was about to reverse scorpion out of my chest uh it was awful yeah i i used to be a barista and when i mean i'm a podcast producer what other job could i have had before this and oh yeah this podcast uniform uh universe the only other job you could possibly have is uh

being in the irish military or also having several other podcasts like liam yeah pretty much pretty much but uh yeah i had to go in at like half six every morning and like dial in the coffee machine and what you're supposed to do when you dial in the coffee machine is you are supposed to like adjust the grind and the flow time and like pull essentially like four shots you're only meant to like take a sip of the shot and spit it out. But I was drinking four double shots first thing in the morning. And like I've said

to Shox on our show, I was like, I might as well have just smoked crack at that stage. Yeah, exactly. I think I've told this story before on the show, but I've been doing this for almost five years now and everything's blending together. But one time in Afghanistan, I decided that I was going to make my pre-workout drink supplement.

But one of my friends was like, you should do it with a, with a rip it and rip it as an energy drink. Right. And so I mixed rip it with my pre-workout into a cup and that made me taste colors. It was fucking like, I might as well, it would be like if if you know it was methadone to to meth as a methadone to heroin at that point like

that is something that someone is gonna is going to use as a come down i couldn't even work out afterwards my fucking chest hurt like that is the most michigan shit ever as well yeah it's a problem i mean what else are we gonna do chain smoke and caffeine and what you do go outside fucking cold you can really effectively rip copper out of walls after drinking that yeah just and you don't even have to use pliers anymore you're fueled by the most powerful upper man has created that is not technically illegal yet so joe that is the end of the Battle of the Boyne. Are you excited to get even

infinitely more depressed? Oh, you know, my secret, Tom, is I'm always depressed. Much like the Hulk, you can't bring me down any more than my baseline. I look forward to it. This is really cool. I hope everybody else is looking forward to it as well.

I can't wait to find out what other awful things the British have done that I did not previously know about. Oh, see, you know, it's like that Stalin quote, or maybe it's an apocryphally attributed to him of, you know, one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. This is the most it's going to be a statistic. It's nothing but tragedy from here on out. Great. Now you know how it feels, Joe. Now you know how it feels. I deserve this.

It's been a long time coming. I hope everybody enjoys me being on the receiving end of it. Like, God damn it. Okay, fine. Yeah, it's oh, how the tables have turned. Yeah, yeah. fine like and uh yeah it's uh oh how the tables have turned yeah yeah and uh if you want to hear more of my ramblings i do a show with shocks from the zoo crew called 33rd county where we talk about the connection between like the irish american and the irish experience through watching cinema

and talking about you know loads of different shit and i also co-host a tattoo history podcast called beneath the skin it's the history of everything told through the history of tattooing i my co-host is a fantastic art historian called dr matt lauder and yeah we do cool shit over there so check it out you can find me on twitter i'm sure it's in the description yeah will be and And everybody, thank you for listening to the show. If you like what we do here, consider subscribing to our Patreon.

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or negative feedback and we'll laugh at you for being an asshole. Also, check out my books. I'll link them in the description if you like military sci-fi and you like anything that I've ever written to include every podcast of this show other than this one, maybe you'll enjoy the books. They're very cheap.

And yeah, people have seemed to enjoy them. They've done very well in the standings. And I have more stuff coming out soon. I think that is all of the plugs I can possibly think of because there's way too many. Tom, thank you so much for taking the wheel this week and the weeks to come. And for everyone

else, don't invade Ireland. I don't know how else to end this one. Don't try and have a large scale battle at a river crossing. It's not a good idea. Do hit your enemies with cannonballs.