Sieges of Drogheda
There were two sieges of Drogheda during the 1640s. This happened in connection with the Irish Konföderationskriegen ( Irish Confederate Wars ). Drogheda is a city in the east of Ireland. The Confederate were the war in Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms ( Wars of the Three Kingdoms ). Drogheda was first besieged during the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when Phelim O'Neill and the insurgents failed to take the city. The second time Drogheda was besieged during the conquest of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell in 1649. This siege also resulted in the Drogheda massacre . Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army attacked the city and massacred the occupation and large parts of the population.
The first siege 1641–1642
After defeating government troops at the Battle of Julianstown, a force of Irish rebels under the command of Phelim O'Neill besieged Drogheda in December 1641. The approximately 6,000 rebels, mostly from Ulster , had no siege artillery or other cannons to break into to beat the city walls. So they locked up the city to starve it to give up. In Drogheda there were about 2,000 English soldiers under the command of Colonel Tichborne.
The rebels made three attacks on the city. On the first, they just tried to climb the city walls. On the second attempt, a small detachment of 500 broke into the city at night through run-down sections of the walls to open the city gates for an assault detachment of 700 men waiting outside. However, the break-in was discovered and the attack repulsed in chaotic fighting. In the morning the garrison opened the gates to the waiting rebels. However, when they entered the city, they were captured. The rebels attempted a final attack in March 1642, when relief of the city was imminent. They attacked the city with scaling ladders, but were repulsed again. English reinforcements arrived shortly afterwards from Dublin under the command of Colonel Moore. The rebel siege was lifted and the rebels driven back from Dundalk to Ulster.
Siege by Cromwell 1649
| date | September 1649 |
|---|---|
| place | The city of Drogheda |
| output | New Model Army victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Alliance of Irish Confederates and English Royalists |
English parliamentary New Model Army |
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| approx. 3,000 | approx. 18,000 |
| losses | |
|
all soldiers and Catholic clergy |
about 150 |
Julianstown - Drogheda - Kilrush - Liscarroll - New Ross - Limerick - Galway - Benburb - Dungans Hill - Knocknanauss
Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland in August 1649 to retake the country on behalf of the English Parliament. In Drogheda at that time there was an English regiment of royalists (royalists), under the command of Arthur Aston . The regiment consisted of about 3,000 soldiers. There were also some Irish Confederation troops. Cromwell had about 18,000 men and eleven heavy 48-pounder siege cannons.
Cromwell was known as an excellent soldier in the English Civil War , especially as a cavalry commander . However, he had little experience with sieges. Instead of laboriously enclosing and starving a fortified town, he preferred the riskier but faster option of assaulting. He set up his forces on the south bank of the River Boyne to join forces for a storm attack. Besides, he didn't care whether supplies were coming into the city from the north side. In addition, a squadron of parliamentary warships blocked the city harbor. From a great distance his cannons made two wide breaches in the medieval city walls. Then Cromwell ordered the assault on September 11, 1649. Two attacks by parliamentary forces were repulsed before Cromwell's men could make their way into town.
Cromwell gained an ominous reputation by saying in his own words, "Forbid them [his soldiers] to spare anyone in town whom you meet armed in town." The crew were massacred, those who went to Millmount Fort withdrew after they had already surrendered. All Catholic clerics were also killed. A group of defenders holed up in St. Peter's Church were burned alive after parliamentary troops set the church on fire. Royalist commandant Arthur Aston was beaten to death with his own wooden leg. The soldiers of the New Model Army believed there was gold hidden in the wooden leg. Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, was one of the few soldiers of the city garrison who survived the capture. The few survivors were deported to Barbados . Cromwell wrote, “I don't think more than 30 of their total got away with their lives. Those who survived are in safe custody in Barbados. 150 parliament soldiers were killed in the attack. "
Debate over Cromwell's actions
This massacre became known in Ireland almost immediately afterwards as an act of barbarism and is still so valued today.
Cromwell justified the Drogheda massacre in two ways. At first he argued that it was "God's just judgment on these barbaric scoundrels who stained their hands with so much innocent blood", justifying his actions in retaliation for the Irish massacre of English and Scottish Protestants in 1641. He further argued that the harshness of the measure would discourage future resistance and thus prevent further death. In addition, he denied that his soldiers killed civilians. Only "armed men" were killed.
A recent study by Tom Reilly argues that Cromwell's orders were not extraordinarily cruel by the standards then prevailing. A city taken in the assault had no right to protection. The Journal History Ireland dismissed this view: “Its general thesis that Cromwell may not have had the moral right to take the lives of Drogheda or Wexford, but that he had the right firmly on his side, does not stand up to scrutiny. "
The passionate debate over Drogheda has a lot to do with a concerted propaganda campaign that was carried out then and later. English royalists and Irish Catholics cited the massacre as evidence that Cromwell was a vile tyrant . They used this example to encourage their soldiers to continue fighting. In addition, the events in Drogheda could be used by the Catholics as compensation for the memory of the Irish massacres of 1641. This enabled the Irish to be portrayed as victims rather than aggressors in the civil war. Irish nationalists later used the memory of the Drogheda massacre as an example of the English oppression of Ireland.
literature
- Pádraig Lenihan: Confederate Catholics at War, 1641–49. Cork University Press, Cork et al. 2001, ISBN 1-85918-244-5 .
- John Philipps Kenyon , Jane Ohlmeyer, (Eds.): The Civil Wars. A Military History of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1638-1660. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-866222-X .