ECW Campaign - another new General

This is General William Forbes Geddes, commanding the troops of the Scottish Army of the Covenant serving in Lancashire. "Big Willie" was born in 1592 at Seton Grange, Haddington, youngest son of Alexander Geddes - a wealthy landowner and salt merchant - and his wife Margaret Fallon. A professional soldier since he left school, where he was noted for his prowess in both Latin and wrestling, Geddes is a strange mixture - considered a "hard man" and pretty much humourless, yet he is very highly regarded by his troops, because of his reputation for ensuring that pay and provisions are supplied promptly and in full measure. Unusually tall for the day, he is also gifted with remarkable physical strength which is legendary - at the Siege of Heidelberg (1622) he is said to have  thrown a Spanish officer into the river Neckar on one of the rare occasions when he lost his temper.

This casting is by Art Miniaturen, and my humble paintwork is of interest (to me) only in that it is the first time I have made exclusive use of the (cheap) Deco-Art "Crafter" acrylic paints. No particular problems - coverage is not quite so dense as with the more exotic brands, but it's OK, and anything which makes it possible for me to stay away from the GW shops has to be good.

By the way, if anyone noticed a short-lived post earlier this week, it featured a YouTube clip which refused to run properly in Blogger, so I scrapped it. Fair enough - sorry about that.

ECW Campaign – Week 4

Barnabas Pobjoy, the formidable mayor of Midlawton, more than a match
for the unfortunate Lord Porteous

Some aspects of the week are also covered in the account of the Battle of Midlawton; what follows here is a summary.

The Parliamentarian army assembled in the area of Pacefield, and marched northwards towards Midlawton, where they were surprised by Lord Porteous, with all the troops he had available, but without the expected reinforcement under the command of General Sir John Darracott. The resultant Battle of Midlawton (28^th March 1644) is recorded in the histories as one of the great disasters of the Royalist cause – Porteous’ losses in killed wounded and missing were about 40% of his strength, he lost all his artillery and a number of his most able brigade commanders, and the wreck of his army fell back, as best they could, to Lowther. On reaching that town, with his army still strung out behind him in disorder, Lord Porteous announced that he was unwell, and retired to his quarters, leaving Lord Sefton in temporary command. Sefton had the challenge of doing what he could to organise some kind of army out of the bits, as more stragglers returned to their units.

Ralph Molyneux, Lord Sefton - commanding the Royalist
"Army of North Lonsdale" during the indisposition of Lord Porteous

Word soon reached Darracott, at Woodhouses with the supporting force seconded from the Marquis of Newcastle, of the catastrophe at Midlawton, and he ordered his troops forward to the fortress town of Erneford, to cover Porteous’ retreat.

Sir John Darracott - commander of the forces from
Northumberland

The victorious Sir Henry Figge-Newton handed over command of the Army of Parliament to Sir Nathaniel Aspinall (who was the actual field commander during the battle) and retired to Pacefield, to meet up with the Scottish Covenanter forces under Gen William Geddes (“Big Willie Geddes” to his men – Gen Geddes was a giant of a man, apparently – “six and a half” feet tall).

"Big Willie" Geddes - in command of the Scottish forces
seconded to Parliament

Aspinall duly took possession of the town of Midlawton (a situation he cannot have expected), including a portion of the baggage train of Royalist Army, with one of the treasure chests and much of that army’s correspondence and records, and he also acquired 4 good field pieces in working order, plus a mass of other abandoned weapons and ammunition. The mayor of Midlawton, Mr Barnabas Pobjoy, was keen to place his town at the disposal of Parliament, subject to some guarantees about the behaviour of the soldiers. He found Aspinall to be a rather more combative negotiator than Porteous had been, but he was also famed for his intolerance toward looting and any other ungodly activity in his army, and a gallows was promptly erected in the town market to emphasise what was expected of the soldiery. General Aspinall made it clear that the gallows would also be used to deal with any official or citizen of the town who caused any trouble or provided information to the enemy.

The Midlawton Town Guard (trained band without firearms) was taken into the Parliament army, and Aspinall appointed a new officer of his own to command it.

A large proportion of the losses on both sides at the Battle of Midlawton consisted of men who had gone missing – some of the Royalists were bona fide prisoners, but a great many had simply run away from the combat. The situation after the battle was complicated. Many of the Royalist units were raised in Cumberland and Westmorland, to the north, and – though many took shelter with sympathetic locals, or just disappeared – the best-supplied and quickest way home for these men was probably to rejoin their army in the retreat.

On the other hand, many of Aspinall’s soldiers had been recruited in Blackburn, Salford, West Derby and other areas well to the south, and the official orders forbidding collection of any booty from Midlawton brought a rush of desertions – many felt that the battle was won, the campaign must now be over, the immediate prospects for life in the army did not appear attractive, and they would be best setting off for home. Aspinall quickly detailed some of his units of horse to patrol the tracks heading south in search of deserters, but they had little success – they had too much ground to cover, and the situation was not helped by the fact that some of the troopers took the opportunity to desert also.

The consequence of all this was that the proportion of missing men who rejoined the colours after the battle was rather higher in the defeated army, which seems counterintuitive but was nonetheless true.

A pre-war portrait of Sir Roderick Broadhurst, hero
of Hobden's Mill, whose brigade of the Royalist horse
was practically destroyed at Midlawton

Royalist

Force A (Lord Porteous with the brigades of Rice, Fulwood & Parkfield, at Lowther), Force B (Lord Sefton with a detached force at Midlawton) and Force D (Col Broadhurst, with a cavalry force at Erneford) were ordered to garrison the town of Midlawton. This was compromised by the refusal of the Mayor of Midlawton to allow more troops into the town, followed by the unfortunate battle on 28^th – afterwards these forces merged into a revised Force A (Lord Sefton in acting command, with Porteous indisposed) and fell back to the area of Lowther.

Force F (Genl Darracott, with the reinforcement from the Marquis of Newcastle) had orders to rest until 5^th February at Woodhouses, but on hearing of the defeat at Midlawton he marched his troops to Erneford, the old fortress on the River Arith, to cover Porteous’ retreat.

Parliament

The various columns converged on Pacefield, and marched north, where they were engaged in battle at Midlawton. Following the battle, the victorious forces were merged into revised Force A, at Midlawton, under the command of Genl Aspinall (Genl Figge-Newon having left to join the Scots…)

Force I - General Geddes’ Covenanters marched from Briskhill to Pacefield.

ECW Campaign – Erm…? – a quick time-out

A detached look at running a solo campaign

This follows from an email that Martin S sent me - he is one of a few regular correspondents I have who comment by email since they refuse on principle to have Google accounts in any shape or form – I respect this, but choose not to have a view on it (of course). His email was, as always, friendly and amusing, but his main message was a large question mark in response to my ECW campaign – what the hell is this?

I do the blog and the campaign for my own amusement, of course, but it has been fairly apparent that reaction to the campaign thus far has been less than rapturous, shall we say, and I wondered if there were others who felt, like Martin, that it seems to be, in his words, “a vague sort of fairy tale with toy soldiers”.

This is not intended as a justificatory piece, but it might at least help me to get my own head straight about what I’m doing – and if no-one reads it, it doesn’t matter anyway!

I very much enjoyed the Peninsular War-type solo campaign I did a year or two ago (or whenever it was), but a few things cropped up which could have been better (as in “easier”, or “more fun”). First, the scale of the campaign was very ambitious for a solo effort – the book-keeping and the application of the very detailed intelligence and supply rules drove it, pretty much, and that took a lot of hard work. The bits I enjoyed most were when I was getting stuck, or bogged down, and I took some kind of sideways political swipe to change the game and keep it moving – thus the occasional sacking of generals, and having Napoleon overturn the French strategy from his armchair in Paris, produced some of the best moments. This is, after all, the greatest single advantage of a solo game. In essence, my Peninsular narrative was driven by the rules, but the most enjoyable bits were when the narrative took over for a while. Also, my attempts to isolate a bit of Spain so that I could ignore the off-map goings-on (to keep the scope finite) did not work too well. At best, some distortions arose; at worst, the game became a little silly at times – some of the events just would not have happened in the real history.

OK – that was Lesson One – let’s spend less time on the hospital returns, reduce the scale, put more emphasis on the narrative as the driver and – for the context of the ECW campaign – try to get away from the constraints imposed by real places and real people – they always push you towards real events. [I remember reading some of the paperwork that some friends were producing for yet another postal Peninsular campaign years ago, and I was struck by the fact that they used an overall map which (I think) came from one of Michael Glover’s books – which showed the principal towns that featured in the real war, the roads which featured in the real campaign, and even the battlefields. I made a jocular suggestion that one of the generals was going to have to get a move on, because otherwise he would be late for the Battle of Albuera (which was, of course, marked on their map), and the total humour failure which greeted this comment revealed that I might have hit a nerve. These chaps had not intended to do a botched-up re-enactment campaign, but they had accidentally forced themselves into something very similar.]

So my ECW campaign is narrative driven. The fake geography is the easy bit. It is also peopled by fake individuals – this is my first ever look at an imagi-nation style storyline, and I spent some time reading Tony Bath and others on how you define (and use) the personalities of made-up people. I also had a look at a booklet which I downloaded from the world of fantasy gaming – a field I thought might lend itself ideally to what I had in mind – but I confess that I got scared very quickly, so abandoned it, for fear that I might end up living in some kind of parallel universe, with people I had invented (and didn’t like).

I also backed off quite a way from the thorough treatment Tony Bath describes; thus I have stuffed my OOB lists with individuals whose rough, high level character is known to me, and the decision points in the narrative (the theory goes) are to be driven as required by roughly assessing some probabilities, and rolling the odd die. As an example, given Lord Porteous’ lack of confidence, the most likely scenario in Week 4 was that his army would sit tight until the reinforcement from Northumberland arrived to hold his hand – in the event, the dice threw up a bit of a shock, in that his self-obsession and his taste for intrigue (let us say) produced an unlikely decision to take the offensive, without waiting for them. The surprise adds to the fun, I find.

Porteous’ performance at Midlawton was also something of a long-shot. Having found himself on the battlefield, the most likely strategy was that he would dither around until he was forced to react to the enemy’s taking the initiative. In fact the dice said otherwise – improbable though it seemed, he would attack immediately. Since I felt that such an attack would ruin his army, and thus possibly wreck the campaign at an early stage, I considered giving the dice another chance(!), but decided to stick with the surprise strategy to see what happened.

Which brings us up to date. The Sir Henry Figge-Newton character (Parliamentarian C-in-C) is a political appointment, and my reading of the machinations of the Parliament leadership suggested it might be fun to make him a mystery figure – we don’t really know why he is there, we don’t really know what he is like. I thought it was amusing that he appeared on the battlefield at Midlawton in his carriage – where he stayed throughout. It is said that he was there with his military secretary, but we don’t really know if he was there at all. He appears happy to let Aspinall do all the work, and – potentially – take any blame that is going. He also seems content to live as well as possible, Puritan values or not, so he maybe feels he has a lot to lose – these appointments do not come along very often…

That’s really more than I wanted to say about this (but you would expect that). I might add that, from a wargame point of view, my return to the C&C-based tabletop rules for the big battle was a joy and a delight – like getting back into a warm bed on a cold morning. I was particularly pleased with the variants to cope with using the 10-foot table, and the “brigade move” tweak – the brigade structure of each army is denoted by attaching coloured counters; the units in a brigade, and their brigade commander, each have a distinctive colour attached. On “section” type Command Cards (those which refer to a flank, or the centre), this tweak allows an order to be given to a Leader who is attached to a unit in his own brigade, and he may issue additional orders to a concatenated group of units from the same brigade – no gaps – a daisy-chain system. It worked really well – for a big battle on a big table, it does away with the need to have bonus moves or double card-plays to keep things moving. Very pleased with that. The brigades stayed together, the brigadiers were proactive – and, as a result, they took a few wounds.

I’m also very pleased with a comment received from Michael, who has entered into the spirit of the thing sufficiently to suggest that Lord Sefton, the excitable cavalry commander on the Royalist side, could be played by Trevor Howard. Excellent – apart from the fact that this is great casting, I am heartened to consider that I might not be the only bloke around who is daft enough to think of this stuff. As a background project, I am now taking suggestions for who should play the various characters in the eventual movie of this campaign. Let us not worry that the movie might turn out to be very short – nor that such an idea is even more far-fetched than my fairy story. Let us not concern ourselves, either, with taking all our players from the same time – thus far I have Stephen Fry pencilled in as Lord Porteous, and I have Russell Crowe and Michael Redgrave on my short list for other roles.

It might be a weird way to run a campaign, but I’m really enjoying myself!

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a king...

ECW Campaign – Battle of Midlawton – 28th March 1644

This battle took place, primarily, because Lord Porteous, the commander of the Royalist “Army of North Lonsdale”, overruled the objections and counsel of his senior officers, and precipitated an attack on the Parliamentarian force which opposed him. This attack is universally criticised by military historians, and the background to the action is of some interest (we hope…).

Both armies were expecting reinforcements at this time – a sizeable force sent to Porteous by the Marquis of Newcastle had arrived at Woodhouses, some 40 miles distant from Midlawton, but was resting – in accordance with agreed orders – following a remarkably rapid march from Northumberland. The intention was that these troops would be present with Porteous’s army and ready for action from around 5^th April.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentarian army was about to be strengthened by the addition of a contingent of the Scottish Covenanter army, which had, also, had a long and trying march to reach the area.

Porteous, not normally noted as a decisive general, surprised his subordinates by insisting on an early march from Lowther (his chief administrative centre and garrison town) to Midlawton, some 15 miles to the south-west – his stated plan being to put that town into a decent state of defensive order before the Roundheads arrived, and place a strong garrison there.

His officers urged that such a move should be delayed until the Newcastle troops joined the army – at which point they could expect to be strong enough to defeat the Parliamentarians in open battle, which would give far better options than holding Midlawton, which was a market town, without military walls and not easily defended. Porteous had an alternative agenda here – he was concerned that the commander of the Newcastle force, Sir John Darracott, was regarded as a more able general (especially by Prince Rupert, it was said), and that a joining of the forces might result in his being demoted. His information indicated that the Scots were not yet with Aspinall’s army, and he believed that the (fairly minor) action at Hobden’s Mill the week before had caused a great deal of upset and demoralisation among the commanders of the Roundhead horse. He saw a chance to strike a decisive blow quickly (before Darracott was present to take any credit for the success…). He stuck to his argument with such vigour that his officers backed down and agreed to his plan, though Lord Sefton was said to be furious about the whole matter, and had to be persuaded by his friends not to resign his position as General of Horse.

The Parliament army reached Furnace Hill, some 20 miles from Midlawton, on 26^th March, and a column brought from the south east by General Sir Henry Figge-Newton was added to the main force, under Sir Nathaniel Aspinall. Figge-Newton was the overall commander, but he placed Aspinall in command of the foot, and Lord Alwyn (discomfited by his experience at Hobden’s Mill) in command of the horse.

Figge-Newton’s sources of information in this area were not of the highest quality – the local population were traditionally loyal to the King – and his best guess was that there were Royalist troops at Midlawton, but that the main force was still at Lowther – further north.

Porteous arrived at Midlawton, also on 26^th, at the head of the largest army he had yet commanded in the field, but his entry into the town was greeted with open hostility, and he and Lord Sefton were required to attend a meeting with the mayor and the Town Committee, at which Porteous was very firmly told what he could do with his army. The mayor made it very clear that a five-fold increase in the size of the town garrison, which was already causing great hardship to the citizens, was not welcome. Further, if he thought that they could fortify the place and hold out under any kind of formal siege then he could think again. Apart from the violence and suffering inflicted on the gentle townspeople by bombardment and starvation, it was general knowledge that Aspinall had a large force of savage Scottish highlanders with him, and what would happen if the place was taken by storm did not bear thinking about.

To Sefton’s horror, Porteous was obliged to sign a document agreeing that the works and walls of the town would be left alone, that it would remain an open town, and that his army would camp – and, if necessary, engage the enemy – in open country, outside the town. Sefton could not believe that a military governor could be treated like this.

Horror or not, poor Porteous did as he was told, and on the morning of the 28^th he duly lined his army up to the south of Midlawton, facing west, to oppose the Army of Parliament. The old Roman road from Pacefield to Midlawton bisected the field, parallel to the lines of battle. The shallow Manning Water, which runs into the Arith near Lowther, passes by the western edge of the town, where it is crossed by an ancient stone bridge. Manning Water, however, was easily fordable at that time, and offered the Parliamentary troops little difficulty, though it did mean that the foot regiments of Lord Lambton’s brigade were a little damp and chilly as they arrived on the field.

Porteous placed some dragoons and some medium guns on the edge of the town, facing the river, and the Town Guard (the “Untrained Band”, who had received no firearms) were stationed at the bridge to help protect their nearest and dearest from the enemy. The Firelock unit of Captain Groves was placed in the gardens of a house a short distance outside the town’s Stockgate, beside the road. The rest of the army were deployed conventionally, horse on the flanks, foot in the middle, with guns between the foot brigades.

The action began with a determined artillery barrage from both sides. Concerned that his horse were outnumbered, and by the losses his foot were suffering to cannon fire, Porteous appears to have acted in something close to panic. He sent his two leading brigades of foot in to attack, across the road, completely in the open and with no support – the only cover they gained was from the powder smoke, which lay thick in the calm morning.

Predictably, this assault was driven back with very heavy loss, and the attack was badly compromised by the loss of all the infantry brigade commanders within the first 30 minutes of the action. Porteous himself took command of Col Rice’s brigade after Rice had been carried, wounded, from the field, but they took little further part in the combat. On the Royalist left, Col Broadhurst (the hero of Hobden’s Mill) led a brave attack by his brigade of horse, but found to his cost that the hills to his front concealed a greatly superior force of enemy cavalry – his brigade fought gallantly, but were routed and pursued from the field.

Around this time [as the result of a “Chaunce” card] the contractor who had supplied the draught horses for the Royalist artillery decided that it would be safest to take his animals home, thus leaving the artillery train with no means of  recovering their guns. Visibly shaking with fury, Lord Sefton performed one last, wild charge with his cavalry on the Royalist right flank, and succeeded in fighting his way through to a battery of sakers, which were captured, but there was no way of moving them, so they had to be abandoned again. This was the end of the Royalist effort – Porteous’ army was streaming back up the road to Lowther, leaving all their artillery behind, and dragging their wounded as best they could.

The final indignity to the King’s cause was inflicted by the Midlawton Town Guard. Seeing that the best interests of the town might best be served by co-operating with the victors, these fine fellows seized part of Porteous’ baggage train, including a weighty treasury chest and most of the correspondence of the army, and presented the lot to General Aspinall as he entered the town, along with their request to swear loyalty to the Parliament and change sides to serve with his army. [The campaign rules include a commitment check for all militia-class troops in times of stress.]

Orders of Battle

Royalist “Army of North Lonsdale” – Lord Porteous

Horse – Lord Sefton – (Lord Sefton commanded the horse on the right flank):

Right flank (Sefton): Regts of Jenkinson, Sefton & Cressington

Left flank – Bde of Col Broadhurst: Regts of Clevedon & Broadhurst

Foot:

Bde of Col Rice: Regts of Monkton, Galliard & Rice

Bde of Sir Jas Parkfield: Regts of Ullet, Maxwell & Parkfield

Bde of Col Fulwood: Regts of Davies & Fulwood

Unattached: Dingle’s Dragoons, Groves’ Firelocks & Midlawton TB  

Artillery: 6 pieces

Parliament – Sir Henry Figge-Newton

Horse – Lord Alwyn:

Bde of Sir Beardsley Heron: Regts of Heron, Winstanley & Chetwynd

Bde of Sir Rowland Barkhill: Regts of Dundonald, South & Barkhill

Bde of Col Allington: Regts of Sudley & Eastham

Foot – Sir Nathaniel Aspinall:

Bde of Col Buckland: Regts of Buckland, Mossley & Grafton

Bde of Col Bryanston: Regts of Bryanston & Hawkstone

Bde of Lord Lambton: Regts of Burdett, Lambton & Nielson

Unattached: Ancaster’s Dragoons

Artillery: 6 field pieces + 1 heavy mortar

Porteous had about 6400 foot, 2400 horse and 6 guns – his loss in killed, wounded and missing appears to have been about 3300, and he was forced to abandon his entire artillery train. Of his senior officers, Sir James Parkfield and Col Fulwood both received mortal wounds and Col Rice was struck in the arm by a musket ball, from which he is expected to recover.

Figge-Newton had about 5400 foot, 3500 horse and 7 guns – his total loss was officially recorded as 1400. Casualties among the brigade commanders were light - Col Buckland had his ear removed by a sword cut, but is expected to recover.

The action took place toward the end of Week 4 of the campaign. Reports and returns for the end of that week will appear in due course.

[Some further details of the combat can be seen in the photographs – I am delighted to welcome Nick back to the camera role for this episode!]

General view, looking south - Royalists on the left

Lord Alwyn, keen to make amends, with the Parliament horse on the right flank

View along the Roman road - not much traffic today...

Troops placed on the edge of the town, despite the Mayor's instruction 

Tourist shots of Midlawton

The cottage with Firelocks in the garden...

 

The Town Guard all ready to deal with invaders, or clean up the flower beds 

Sir Julius Mossley's RoF [P]

The coloured counters indicate the brigade structure - they may look a bit cheesey,
but they were far easier to see (and handle) than the dumb little beads I used previously

Lord Lambton's brigade chase the Firelocks out of the garden

Suddenly, the Parliament right flank found they had no-one facing them
- note the gallant Col Broadhurst waving his sword in solitary defiance...

Another Chaunce card - believe it or not, one of the Puritan units of
horse were hung-over!

Brave, but too late - Sefton tries to save a little face

This is how confusing it looks to the poor guys in the ranks