War and Wilderness

As the longer-term reader of the blog might be aware, I rarely stray to an era more recent than the very early Eighteenth Century. All right, I admit to having wargamed World War Two, occasionally, and also to have lost to the British in a Napoleonic Wars game. But mostly I stick to the Seventeenth Century and earlier. This is not for any particular ethical or taste reason. They just do not appeal that much.

Be that as it may, I was intrigued by an article in this month’s (roughly) History Today:

Scribner, V., ‘Natural Enemies’, History Today, 75, 2, 38-49, February 2025.

The article recounts the various difficulties British (and assorted German, of course) forces had with the natural environment in the American War of Independence (or American Revolutionary War, if that is more to your taste).

The basic idea was that not only was there a human enemy, but the natural environment of the territories fought over was also against the soldiers. Firstly, there was the trip across the Atlantic to even get to the theatre. This was scary enough for many troops and could take up to three months. The reinforcements could arrive weary, sick, and despondent, which is probably not what the local commanders needed.

The major obstacle to the forces movement was the great American swampland. I imagine that this was a good deal more extensive than it is today, and most troops seem to have found it a memorable and dangerous problem. The ‘Great Swamp’ in New York was bad enough, but further south they got bigger and more dangerous. The ‘Great Dismal Swamp’ in Virginia and North Carolina was daunting, not only was it difficult country, but the natural fauna as well as rebels were a major problem, for scouting let alone moving bodies of troops.

Then, of course, we come to the larger animals found there. Alligators were creatures of fear for many troops. This did actually inhibit movement, as troops refused to sleep in boats and insisted on camping on high ground with a fire to ward off the nasties. There were a lot of them, as well – one diarist reckoned that he could walk across the river on their heads. No wonder they were a bit apprehensive.

Other problems abounded, of course. Mosquitoes were a persistent nuisance, with their bites a constant aggravation. Yellow fever and malaria were also common causes of sickness and death. Scribner remarks that for each death in combat there were 8 from disease. The British and German troops had no prior exposure or immunity to these diseases, and so were particularly vulnerable. The cultivation of rice in the southern states led, of course, to perfect mosquito breeding grounds. It is quite possible that malaria caused the loss of Yorktown, as disease is reported to have reduced Cornwallis- forces by up to 65%.

There were worse places, of course. The young Nelson was sent to capture the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception on the ‘Mosquito Coast’ in 1780. Indeed, the entry of Spain and France into the war forced Britain to defend Florida as well as take the offensive in Central America. The fortress in inland, downstream from Lake Nicaragua. The approach was bad, the boats accompanied by manatees, which the men thought to be alligators. Some of the troops succumbed to snake bites and the like, let alone the jaguar that attacked an outlying unit, or seemingly potable water poisoned by nearby trees. Nelson himself had to retreat, seriously ill with, apparently, malaria and dysentery, before the fort fell. He returned to England to recuperate. I would guess that many of his troops were not so lucky.

Even those who did return from North America were, shall we say, affected by the experience. Scribner has an account by a young officer of wandering around the delights of Brighton and finding little pleasure in the amusements on offer. As the officer in question, Thomas Hughes, had been in America for five years and endured battles, captivity, disease and thoughts of suicide. A modern diagnosis of post-traumatic stress might be appropriate, if anachronistic.

I am sure I do not need to spell out the implications of this for the reader of this blog. We all sort of know that disease was a problem in most armies; it still is, after all, in those places of the world unfortunate enough to have any modern infrastructure it might have destroyed. Largely, however, as wargamers, we ignore it. I do not have a problem with that, but it is as well to be reminded of disease from time to time.

The question of the environment fighting back is, however, something we perhaps consider a bit less. Aside from ferocious wild animals, the attack of which could make a good skirmish or role-playing game scenario, the sheer difficulty of some of the terrain is something we probably underestimate. We are quite happy scattering around bits of ‘difficult going’ without really considering how difficult it is, or how troops of one side or the other might be more at home in it. This does seem to have been a significant problem in the AWI, with British and Hessian troops uneasy in the terrain which their foes had already adjusted to.

These points do not just apply to North America, of course. As colonial empires expanded from the Fifteenth Century on, European adventurers encountered more and more dangerous animals, difficult terrain and inhabitants who knew the land extremely well. Including these things in a set of wargame rules, whether for battles or campaigns is a challenge, I think. We can always go down the route of ‘Rebel forces get +1 cm move in swamps’ but while workable, it does not really capture the essence of was going on. British forces were quite happy operating in the fields of New England, I believe. It was the swamplands and other areas that were the problem. And that is even before we consider logistics...