ИГПЗС учебный год 2023 / oliver cromwell
.rtfOliver Cromwell
(1642 - 1651)
Given his lack of previous military experience, Cromwell's military rise was spectacular: captain in 1642, colonel early in 1643, in charge of the cavalry of the second most important of the regional armies by the end of the year, Lieutenant General of the New Model 1645-9 and Lord General for the campaigns in Ireland (1649-50) and Scotland (1650-1). In 1642-4, he helped to put East Anglia under complete parliamentarian control, and worked tirelessly to create the most efficient and responsive civilian support structure in the country, ensuring the flow of money and supplies to his troops. He took part in five of the ten major battles, moving his troops as far west as Newbury and as far north as York. His role in the greatest of victories, at Marston Moor in July 1644, was crucial.
In 1645-6 he again played a vital role, in the planning of campaigns and on major battlefields, as the New Model systematically destroyed the remaining royalist armies at Naseby in Northampton in June 1645, Langport in Somerset a month later and then in a relentless series of sieges of royalist strongholds. He was not a military innovator or a brilliant tactician, but he had an extraordinary ability to instill self-belief into his men, to share with him his own utter conviction that God was with them and willing them to victory; and he ruthless and relentlessly ensured that they were better paid and fed than were other armies, even if that meant some controversial requisitioning of supplies. In 1647, he struggled to maintain the unity of army in the face both of Parliament's attempts to disband it before a political settlement was reached with a defeated king and of radical attempts to eliminate monarchy and to establish a constitution that would promote a major redistribution of wealth and social and economic power. In 1648, Charles I tried to overturn his defeat in the First Civil War by making a new alliance with the Scots and calling on former royalists and disillusioned Parliamentarians to rise up. Faced by revolt across Britain, the New Model divided and Cromwell took on the lion's share of the work, crushing a major rebellion in South Wales, defeating a Scots invasion force at Preston and then pacifying Yorkshire.
...every tenth common soldier - were killed, many clubbed to death. It was in accordance with the laws of war, but it went far beyond what any General had done in England
In the summer of 1649, Cromwell was sent to Ireland with two objectives: to place it firmly under English control; to superintend the confiscation the land of all 'rebels' - as a result almost forty per cent of the land of Ireland was redistributed from Catholics born in Ireland to Protestants born in Britain. His first target was the town of Drogheda north of Dublin which he stormed and captured. Perhaps 2,500 men, mainly in arms, were killed during the storm and several hundred more - all the officers, all Catholic priests and friars, every tenth common soldier - were killed, many clubbed to death. It was in accordance with the laws of war, but it went far beyond what any General had done in England. Cromwell then perpetrated a messier massacre at Wexford. Thereafter most towns surrendered on his approach, and he scrupulously observed surrender articles and spared the lives of soldiers and civilians. It was and is a controversial conquest. But, from the English point of view, it worked. In the summer of 1650, he returned to England and was sent off to Scotland, where Charles II had been proclaimed and crowned as King of Britain and Ireland. In a campaign as unrelenting but less brutal, he wiped out the royal armies and established a military occupation of the lowlands and west that was to last until 1660. In September 1651 he returned to a roman-style triumphant entry in London. One foreign ambassador watching predicted that he would soon he king. He was almost right.