As a war film, based on facts. I found this brilliant to watch and actually informative about the battle and motives, regardless of the political inaccuracies. I would certainly put it up there with The Battle for Algiers, Paths of Glory, Come and See, Waterloo, Rebelle (War Witch) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 version only). This docudrama with very limited resources and non-professional actors is a must watch and riveting, as well as being available free to watch on UA-cam.
I agree with you on that. It really is an impressive documentary, especially considering the limited resources. It’s just a shame that it has a very anti-English, anti-government propagandistic element to it.
Whatever the historical merits it was a damn good film-saw it years ago and re-watched it quite recently. BBS management should be made to view it today.
Yes, it is as good a documentary as I have ever seen. Those depicted looked of their time and should there be a movie made today, a $200 dollar haircut would be standard.
Some more recent historians have questioned the depiction of O'Sullivan as the abject fool shown in the film. There was tension between Scottish Protestants like Murray and Irish Catholics like O'Sullivan, with the latter tending to be favoured by the Prince.
well, you obviously didn't spend much time researching this. There are plenty of good books on the Highland Clearances, the Lowland Clearances, and clearences in general in England. They were all driven by landlords and their supporters, and fully supported by parliament, as each clearance was enacted by act of parliament, usually following a generous bribe or the promise of one. Following Culloden, there was a deliberate government policy to rid the British Isles (Ireland as well as Scotland) of its celtic fringe, and clan leaders were paid good money to take their clans abroad, or at least to encourage the emigration of their members, especially the poorer ones. Stories of clans being dumped by unscrupulous clan lords on beaches, and forced to eat kelp, may make the clan lords out to be the bad guys, but they were driven to such ends because of the pressure on them from the British government. As for the your 3 other things you thing were wrong, it is you who is wrong. Most commentators at the time and ever since call Britain England and the British English. It is not an error. The army was English, even if there were Scots, Welsh and Irish in it. Especially when talking about behaviour generally conceived of as bad. Even the Germans during the Second World War car the British soldiers, sailors and airmen Englaender. The film accurately depicts the murder of the Highland wounded and prisoners; it is not an error, even if the Highlanders usually treated each other in the same way. The film also accurately describes the effects of the Disarming Act and the Dress Act. The fact that you support them does not make them wrong. Even if you think that disarming the Clans was a good thing for the peace it might bring, what possible good could come from the banning of the weaving of tartan or the wearing of it ? By that stage of the Union, the Highland clans, a tiny part of the Scottish population, and one generally ostracised by the rest of the Scots due to their catholicism, gaelic speech and customs, had almost no impact on life in Britain. The Highlanders could not even unify, Bonnie Prince Charlie's highlanders were outnumbered not only by the Scots but even by just other Highlanders, led by the hated Campbells.
@@helloxyz Firstly, do you have a source you could send me to evidence your claim that clan chiefs were given “generous bribes” to evict their people? I think you are being too sympathetic to the clan elites by saying they were ‘driven to such ends’. If they were willing to burn down their tenant’s homes and confiscate their livestock for refusing to fight for them in the levies then I doubt they’d think twice about evicting their poorest people and replacing them with more profitable sheep. The clan system of “human rent” (as the documentary says) was designed for small-scale crofting and tribal warfare. It was not suited to large-scale sheep farming introduced by the Agricultural Revolution. Only a few “progressive landlords” did anything to help their people in any way during the Clearances (such as Good Sir James Grant of Grant), which suggests to me that they did not really care. Secondly, no matter what “commentators at the time” said, it is ludicrous to refer to Cumberland’s English and Scottish army, fighting for Great Britain and the British crown, as anything other than a British government army. Calling it an “English” government fuels the tired old myth that the Jacobite risings were England vs Scotland. Thirdly, I never denied that the killing of wounded and surrendering Jacobite Highlanders happened. The inaccuracy I was highlighting was to do with the propagandistic element of the documentary, which seeks to demonise the British Redcoats. It does not mention how the Jacobites slaughtered fleeing and surrendering British soldiers at Prestonpans in 1745 or in earlier battles. Pillaging and the killing of innocents were also common aspects of clan feuds. Government reprisals were no more monstrous. You seem to have bought into the idea that the British government wanted to culturally genocide the Celts. This certainly wasn’t the case in Scotland. The Dress Act was passed because the Highland Dress had become synonymous with Jacobitism after no less than four risings, which were all mainly supported by the Highland clans. Exceptions were made to it for the gentry and British army Highland soldiers, and when the threat of Jacobitism disappeared, the ban was lifted. The Highland Clearances were also not an attempt at cultural genocide against the Celts. This is a laughable claim. Many Gaelic-speaking Highlanders were to be found in the sheep trade during the period, from those running the estates to the shepherds working on them. Your claim that the Highland clans were an insignificant entity is completely incorrect. They were constantly feuding with each other, raiding the Lowlands, and in 1745 made up a large part of the Jacobite army which nearly seized London (and nearly deposed the Hanoverian dynasty). The warring, non-Whig clans were a major threat to national stability and their disarming was vital to keeping the peace.
@@Weasel-vp8zk You can start with The HIghland Clearances, by John Prebble, fairly balanced. The books by T M Devine are more anti-English, but still represent a fair education. The Scottish Clearances goes into far more agricultural history, starting with the Lowland Clearances and explaining the social changes as well as the economic crivers and their impact. You mention the Agricultural Revolution as if it was something inevitable. yet it did not happen in most of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and still hasn;t happened in much of the world. London politics was driven by people who wanted to make a buck, and I don't say that in a disparaging way, and they had the power to make things happen to their advantage. Overall, the AR was a tremendous benefit for most of the global population, but there were a few who suffered. Famine in Ireland and the Highland clearances were just two such problems.
This is a difficult one on a number of levels. I cannot name my source. Bayoneting of the wounded. A quick bayonet = a quick death for a man with untreatable wounds as opposed to a prolonged agonised/painful death. British troops after Rorkes Drift may have done the same to dreadfully wounded Zulu warriors.
Yes, if the enemy was horrifically wounded, it could be seen as a merciful act. However, the lack of quarter shown to captured and retreating Jacobites implies the government troops weren't using their bayonets on the wounded out of kindness... In addition to this, a wounded man can still pose a threat to an advancing army, as they may still be able to scythe at people's legs with a sword or fire a pistol. Likewise, the Jacobites often showed little mercy to wounded and retreating government troops... Killiecrankie for example.
I think it would be hard to prove the exact number of Scots who fought on either side during the '45 Rising, apart from at specific battles like Culloden. However, there were undoubtedly many Scots fighting against the Jacobites, including Highlanders serving in "independent Highland companies" (militias). In the aftermath of Culloden it was mostly Scots who carried out punitive raids and reprisals on former Jacobites.
Peter Watkins films are often like this. I love his visual style, especially the conceit that a BBC documentary crew have shown up in 1746 to film the battle and he gets this dead eyed stare from his casts (see also The War Game, Privilege and Munch) that I haven't seen other film makers attempt as successfully. As technical exercises, I rate Watkins highly as a film maker and have seen most of his films but he is also a left wing pacifist and his politics are often at a student level. Apart from Munch and La Commune his films were mostly speculative near-future fiction (The War Game, Privilege, Punishment Park and Gladiators) and it's often the same themes over and over.
Thanks for commenting this. I had no idea about Watkins’ other films or political beliefs although I could have probably guessed he was a pacifist from ‘Culloden’ (1964).
I look forward to you examining all the western war films that imply WW2 was won on D Day - you will have to live to 300 to get that job done. In a recent poll I read that only 8% thought that the Soviet Union made the the decisive contribution in defeating the Nazi's. I would think someone like you should be mortified by that poll as you are so interested in history.
That’s an astonishing statistic… Most of those people probably think it was American troops that took Berlin in 1945!! Do you know which country the poll was taken in?
For pete's sake, will you get over this 'historical accuracy' thing? It's not a documentary. It's a commercial film made to earn money, pure and simple. The question should be: is it entertaining?
I'm afraid you are wrong. This film calls itself a 'docu-drama' and is attempting to portray a real historical event. Therefore, it must stay true to the actual history and attempt to be as objective as possible to prevent spreading misinformation and propaganda to the general public.
Your comment about the aftermath of Prestonpans was completely inaccurate. Charles made sure the Hanoverian wounded were attended to. Hanoverian officers were freed on condition they did not take up arms against the Stuart cause again.
I seem to recall reading that many of the British soldiery at Prestonpans were slaughtered by the Jacobites even as they tried to surrender, in spite of Charles pleading for mercy. Charles didn't speak Gaelic so the Highlanders couldn't understand him. However, I now can't find where I read that so I apologise if that turns out to be a load of rubbish. Perhaps a better example of Jacobite brutality would have been Killiecrankie (1689), where fleeing government troops were slaughtered or drowned in the River Garry. The battle itself only lasted 15 minutes, but the killing went on for hours into the night. I'm not saying this made the Jacobites particularly monstrous.... cutting down routing armies was normal at the time. However, because this docu-drama wants to demonise the Redcoats or at least portray the Highlanders in a more favourable light, it never mentions Jacobite atrocities or ruthlessness. Likewise, the government reprisals following Culloden are shocking to a modern audience. However, that sort of pillaging and revenge-taking on innocent civilian populaces was a common occurrence in clan feuds. At the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke, MacDonald clansmen set fire to a church full of MacLeods. The church was burned as revenge for a previous atrocity committed by the MacLeods on the MacDonalds. Sometime soon, I will make a video on the most brutal clan battles.
I have just now found an account written by James Johnstone, a Jacobite officer, describing the slaughter at Prestonpans: '[those British soldiers which] threw down their arms, and begged for quarter upon their knees, were cut inhumanely.... such who fled into the enclosures were pursued and murdered...'
How do u excuse the govt troops bayoneting woulded jacobites but then say the romanticism of the clans is dimenshed when they do thigs less brutal? Rhats not all the hanoverian troops did. All the way to inverness. Women an children. There is a ton of propaganda in thos film.
I have never excused the government troops for bayonetting the wounded Jacobites or killing women and children. However, reprisals and the ruthless pursuit of a fleeing enemy was commonplace in the 18th century, not that this is a justification. The Jacobites likewise murdered retreating or surrendering government soldiers. Highland clans were also not above killing women and children in feuds. Did you know that it was mostly Highlanders loyal to the Hanoverians who hunted for rebels and carried out reprisals following Culloden? My own Scottish ancestors, the Grants of Glenmoriston, had their homes burned down by Lord Loudon and his Highland soldiers for supporting the Jacobites...
m.ua-cam.com/video/-1TZq6DfKKA/v-deo.html&pp=ygUNQ3VsbG9kZW4gMTk2NA%3D%3D
link to the full documentary
As a war film, based on facts. I found this brilliant to watch and actually informative about the battle and motives, regardless of the political inaccuracies. I would certainly put it up there with The Battle for Algiers, Paths of Glory, Come and See, Waterloo, Rebelle (War Witch) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 version only). This docudrama with very limited resources and non-professional actors is a must watch and riveting, as well as being available free to watch on UA-cam.
I agree with you on that. It really is an impressive documentary, especially considering the limited resources. It’s just a shame that it has a very anti-English, anti-government propagandistic element to it.
Thanks for doing us this service.
Good job that Braveheart fella didn't get his hands on it.
Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, a Mel Gibson Hollywood movie about Culloden and the Jacobites might actually make me have a fit!
Whatever the historical merits it was a damn good film-saw it years ago and re-watched it quite recently. BBS management should be made to view it today.
@@tomjones7593 A very atmospheric and immersive documentary, that’s for sure. The portrayal of the battle was truly terrifying, as it should be.
Yes, it is as good a documentary as I have ever seen. Those depicted looked of their time and should there be a movie made today, a $200 dollar haircut would be standard.
Some more recent historians have questioned the depiction of O'Sullivan as the abject fool shown in the film. There was tension between Scottish Protestants like Murray and Irish Catholics like O'Sullivan, with the latter tending to be favoured by the Prince.
That’s interesting... I didn’t know religion also played a part in the conflict within the Jacobite command. All round, a very divided army!
well, you obviously didn't spend much time researching this. There are plenty of good books on the Highland Clearances, the Lowland Clearances, and clearences in general in England. They were all driven by landlords and their supporters, and fully supported by parliament, as each clearance was enacted by act of parliament, usually following a generous bribe or the promise of one. Following Culloden, there was a deliberate government policy to rid the British Isles (Ireland as well as Scotland) of its celtic fringe, and clan leaders were paid good money to take their clans abroad, or at least to encourage the emigration of their members, especially the poorer ones. Stories of clans being dumped by unscrupulous clan lords on beaches, and forced to eat kelp, may make the clan lords out to be the bad guys, but they were driven to such ends because of the pressure on them from the British government.
As for the your 3 other things you thing were wrong, it is you who is wrong. Most commentators at the time and ever since call Britain England and the British English. It is not an error. The army was English, even if there were Scots, Welsh and Irish in it. Especially when talking about behaviour generally conceived of as bad. Even the Germans during the Second World War car the British soldiers, sailors and airmen Englaender.
The film accurately depicts the murder of the Highland wounded and prisoners; it is not an error, even if the Highlanders usually treated each other in the same way.
The film also accurately describes the effects of the Disarming Act and the Dress Act. The fact that you support them does not make them wrong. Even if you think that disarming the Clans was a good thing for the peace it might bring, what possible good could come from the banning of the weaving of tartan or the wearing of it ? By that stage of the Union, the Highland clans, a tiny part of the Scottish population, and one generally ostracised by the rest of the Scots due to their catholicism, gaelic speech and customs, had almost no impact on life in Britain. The Highlanders could not even unify, Bonnie Prince Charlie's highlanders were outnumbered not only by the Scots but even by just other Highlanders, led by the hated Campbells.
@@helloxyz Firstly, do you have a source you could send me to evidence your claim that clan chiefs were given “generous bribes” to evict their people? I think you are being too sympathetic to the clan elites by saying they were ‘driven to such ends’. If they were willing to burn down their tenant’s homes and confiscate their livestock for refusing to fight for them in the levies then I doubt they’d think twice about evicting their poorest people and replacing them with more profitable sheep. The clan system of “human rent” (as the documentary says) was designed for small-scale crofting and tribal warfare. It was not suited to large-scale sheep farming introduced by the Agricultural Revolution. Only a few “progressive landlords” did anything to help their people in any way during the Clearances (such as Good Sir James Grant of Grant), which suggests to me that they did not really care.
Secondly, no matter what “commentators at the time” said, it is ludicrous to refer to Cumberland’s English and Scottish army, fighting for Great Britain and the British crown, as anything other than a British government army. Calling it an “English” government fuels the tired old myth that the Jacobite risings were England vs Scotland.
Thirdly, I never denied that the killing of wounded and surrendering Jacobite Highlanders happened. The inaccuracy I was highlighting was to do with the propagandistic element of the documentary, which seeks to demonise the British Redcoats. It does not mention how the Jacobites slaughtered fleeing and surrendering British soldiers at Prestonpans in 1745 or in earlier battles. Pillaging and the killing of innocents were also common aspects of clan feuds. Government reprisals were no more monstrous.
You seem to have bought into the idea that the British government wanted to culturally genocide the Celts. This certainly wasn’t the case in Scotland. The Dress Act was passed because the Highland Dress had become synonymous with Jacobitism after no less than four risings, which were all mainly supported by the Highland clans. Exceptions were made to it for the gentry and British army Highland soldiers, and when the threat of Jacobitism disappeared, the ban was lifted. The Highland Clearances were also not an attempt at cultural genocide against the Celts. This is a laughable claim. Many Gaelic-speaking Highlanders were to be found in the sheep trade during the period, from those running the estates to the shepherds working on them.
Your claim that the Highland clans were an insignificant entity is completely incorrect. They were constantly feuding with each other, raiding the Lowlands, and in 1745 made up a large part of the Jacobite army which nearly seized London (and nearly deposed the Hanoverian dynasty). The warring, non-Whig clans were a major threat to national stability and their disarming was vital to keeping the peace.
@@Weasel-vp8zk You can start with The HIghland Clearances, by John Prebble, fairly balanced. The books by T M Devine are more anti-English, but still represent a fair education. The Scottish Clearances goes into far more agricultural history, starting with the Lowland Clearances and explaining the social changes as well as the economic crivers and their impact.
You mention the Agricultural Revolution as if it was something inevitable. yet it did not happen in most of Europe and the Ottoman Empire, and still hasn;t happened in much of the world. London politics was driven by people who wanted to make a buck, and I don't say that in a disparaging way, and they had the power to make things happen to their advantage. Overall, the AR was a tremendous benefit for most of the global population, but there were a few who suffered. Famine in Ireland and the Highland clearances were just two such problems.
@@helloxyz Thanks for the book suggestions. Yes, there is no denying that many suffered because of the Agricultural Revolution.
This is a difficult one on a number of levels. I cannot name my source. Bayoneting of the wounded. A quick bayonet = a quick death for a man with untreatable wounds as opposed to a prolonged agonised/painful death. British troops after Rorkes Drift may have done the same to dreadfully wounded Zulu warriors.
Yes, if the enemy was horrifically wounded, it could be seen as a merciful act. However, the lack of quarter shown to captured and retreating Jacobites implies the government troops weren't using their bayonets on the wounded out of kindness... In addition to this, a wounded man can still pose a threat to an advancing army, as they may still be able to scythe at people's legs with a sword or fire a pistol. Likewise, the Jacobites often showed little mercy to wounded and retreating government troops... Killiecrankie for example.
Its not true there were more 5:16 scots against Charles than in his army.
I think it would be hard to prove the exact number of Scots who fought on either side during the '45 Rising, apart from at specific battles like Culloden. However, there were undoubtedly many Scots fighting against the Jacobites, including Highlanders serving in "independent Highland companies" (militias). In the aftermath of Culloden it was mostly Scots who carried out punitive raids and reprisals on former Jacobites.
A French actor played Charles, with a strong French accent, for which there is little to no evidence. Charles spoke English, French and Italian.
I suppose it’s better than him having a strong Scottish accent…
Peter Watkins films are often like this. I love his visual style, especially the conceit that a BBC documentary crew have shown up in 1746 to film the battle and he gets this dead eyed stare from his casts (see also The War Game, Privilege and Munch) that I haven't seen other film makers attempt as successfully. As technical exercises, I rate Watkins highly as a film maker and have seen most of his films but he is also a left wing pacifist and his politics are often at a student level. Apart from Munch and La Commune his films were mostly speculative near-future fiction (The War Game, Privilege, Punishment Park and Gladiators) and it's often the same themes over and over.
Thanks for commenting this. I had no idea about Watkins’ other films or political beliefs although I could have probably guessed he was a pacifist from ‘Culloden’ (1964).
I look forward to you examining all the western war films that imply WW2 was won on D Day - you will have to live to 300 to get that job done. In a recent poll I read that only 8% thought that the Soviet Union made the the decisive contribution in defeating the Nazi's. I would think someone like you should be mortified by that poll as you are so interested in history.
That’s an astonishing statistic… Most of those people probably think it was American troops that took Berlin in 1945!! Do you know which country the poll was taken in?
@@Weasel-vp8zk I think it was here in the UK
Thank you pretty intense.
Glad you enjoyed it.
For pete's sake, will you get over this 'historical accuracy' thing? It's not a documentary. It's a commercial film made to earn money, pure and simple. The question should be: is it entertaining?
I'm afraid you are wrong. This film calls itself a 'docu-drama' and is attempting to portray a real historical event. Therefore, it must stay true to the actual history and attempt to be as objective as possible to prevent spreading misinformation and propaganda to the general public.
Your comment about the aftermath of Prestonpans was completely inaccurate. Charles made sure the Hanoverian wounded were attended to. Hanoverian officers were freed on condition they did not take up arms against the Stuart cause again.
I seem to recall reading that many of the British soldiery at Prestonpans were slaughtered by the Jacobites even as they tried to surrender, in spite of Charles pleading for mercy. Charles didn't speak Gaelic so the Highlanders couldn't understand him. However, I now can't find where I read that so I apologise if that turns out to be a load of rubbish.
Perhaps a better example of Jacobite brutality would have been Killiecrankie (1689), where fleeing government troops were slaughtered or drowned in the River Garry. The battle itself only lasted 15 minutes, but the killing went on for hours into the night. I'm not saying this made the Jacobites particularly monstrous.... cutting down routing armies was normal at the time. However, because this docu-drama wants to demonise the Redcoats or at least portray the Highlanders in a more favourable light, it never mentions Jacobite atrocities or ruthlessness.
Likewise, the government reprisals following Culloden are shocking to a modern audience. However, that sort of pillaging and revenge-taking on innocent civilian populaces was a common occurrence in clan feuds. At the Battle of the Spoiling Dyke, MacDonald clansmen set fire to a church full of MacLeods. The church was burned as revenge for a previous atrocity committed by the MacLeods on the MacDonalds.
Sometime soon, I will make a video on the most brutal clan battles.
I have just now found an account written by James Johnstone, a Jacobite officer, describing the slaughter at Prestonpans: '[those British soldiers which] threw down their arms, and begged for quarter upon their knees, were cut inhumanely.... such who fled into the enclosures were pursued and murdered...'
How do u excuse the govt troops bayoneting woulded jacobites but then say the romanticism of the clans is dimenshed when they do thigs less brutal? Rhats not all the hanoverian troops did. All the way to inverness. Women an children. There is a ton of propaganda in thos film.
I have never excused the government troops for bayonetting the wounded Jacobites or killing women and children. However, reprisals and the ruthless pursuit of a fleeing enemy was commonplace in the 18th century, not that this is a justification. The Jacobites likewise murdered retreating or surrendering government soldiers. Highland clans were also not above killing women and children in feuds. Did you know that it was mostly Highlanders loyal to the Hanoverians who hunted for rebels and carried out reprisals following Culloden? My own Scottish ancestors, the Grants of Glenmoriston, had their homes burned down by Lord Loudon and his Highland soldiers for supporting the Jacobites...