The Irish Wars
A Military History of Ireland From the Norse Invasions to 1798 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Irish Wars: A Military History of Ireland From the Norse Invasions to 1798

The most reliable way to study the history of warfare in any country is to begin with the topography or natural geography of the country. The physical make-up of a region very largely determines the character of any military operations carried on within it. This fact is quite as true at the present time as it was two thousand years ago. Topographical features in any country that we examine as a possible theatre of war must come under either of two heads: they may be avenues along which an army can move towards a given objective, or they may be obstacles calculated to hamper its march. We must develop each of these a little more fully.

The avenues through a theatre of war are of several kinds - roads, railways, navigable rivers, canals. But even in the very earliest times they had to be such as would allow of the passage of large bodies of men kept united. There had to be enough space to hold the numbers available, and the surface underfoot had to have at least some kind of solidity. These routes might be, and in early times were, very unsatisfactory; but at least they were better than none at all, and as time went on they were improved and developed. Practically in every country the earliest routes used followed the valleys of rivers. Nearly always the land bordering rivers had a large enough amount of level surface, and frequently the rivers themselves could be used as routes. So much for the avenues in the first instance; the further development of them was largely conditioned by the lie of the obstacles with reference to them.

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