A ROW has broken out on the anniversary of Culloden over claims that tactics used by British Redcoats after the battle were similar to both carpet-bombing by western powers and the terrorism of groups like Islamic State.
Culloden was the last-full scale battle fought on British soil and one of the bloodiest events in Scotland’s history. Sarah Fraser, author of The Last Highlander, a biography about the famous clan chief Simon Fraser – known as Lord Lovat of the ’45 – said the devastating damage caused to civilians as government forces hunted the Jacobite leaders was similar to indiscriminate bombing attacks in modern warfare. She also pointed to the attempted destruction of Highland culture in the aftermath of Culloden as being similar to tactics used by IS to extinguish culture in territories it has taken over.
However leading historian Professor Devine said it was “nonsense” to try and compare the actions of the British state in the 1700s with a 21st century terror group whose ideology was driven by hatred. Fraser yesterday delivered a talk about what happened in the aftermath of Culloden at the National Trust for Scotland’s Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre. It is part of a series of events this weekend marking the 271st anniversary of the battle, which took place on April 16, 1746. On that day the Jacobite forces seeking to restore the Stuart monarch to the British throne fought the Duke of Cumberland’s government troops. In less than an hour, around 1,500 men were slain – more than 1,000 were Jacobites.
Fraser told the Sunday Herald: “What struck me was there are still uncomfortably close parallels sometimes in the way rebellions are approached, what tactics are used, what the goal is – and in the end when you have won, what will be the attitude of the victors towards the defeated.” She said one example was British army officers sent to hunt for Jacobite leaders in ‘Fraser country’ with orders to “destroy all the rebels” they found. “Of course what they do is go and devastate the country as part of their investigations – they burn property, they asset-strip and they torch Castle Downie [home of the Fraser chiefs],” she said. “There is a correlation between blanket bombing something and going in and devastating Fraser country – you are after the rebels and the rebel leaders, but of course the fallout is massive for the civilian population.”
Fraser, who has a new book The Prince Who Would be King - The Life and Death of Henry Stuart published next month, said the attempt by the government to crush Highland culture in the wake of Culloden, by banning Highland clothing and bagpipes, also had parallels with actions being taken today by IS. “For any city that comes under the control of IS, the women have got to dress in a certain way and the men must grow beards,” she said. “There is that attempt to extinguish cultural particularity.”
But Devine said: “You can’t put a 21st Century phenomenon on an 18th Century phenomenon. The acclaimed historian added that while the British state in the mid-18th century was a “landed oligarchy who ruled” and not in any sense a democracy - it was still not driven by the same motives as Islamic State. He added: “It didn’t have an ideology driven by hatred. To compare the two is - let me put it euphemistically - inappropriate, but more specifically, nonsense."
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