Count van Hoorn, Colonel Dolman and the Dutch attack Essay Example

says "even more so because they saw that the Count van Hoorn's troops were being attacked.

" Which implies that even with the Count van Hoorn's men the Dutch would be unable to take the fort. The Dutch knew that they could not capture the fort but still had to attempt and so two attacks on the fort were made and when both failed and the Dutch had done as much damage as they could the Dutch withdrew "in good order to help the troops of the Count van Hoorn."The Count van Hoorn's men could not help Colonel Dolman attack the fort as "Skirmishing (fighting) had scarcely begun near the fort when the enemy appeared in the pass with foot and horse where the Count van Hoorn's troops were occupying it."The main reason source E tells why the Dutch attack failed is because the Dutch underestimated the defensive capabilities of Landguard fort.My site record also tells me a lot about why the Dutch attack failed. The Dutch landing site was about 2 miles away from the Fort.

Although this site provided cliff protection and time to unload, it also meant that the troops would have a long march before the battle therefore the men would not be at their best during the battle. As both source E and my site record confirm the Dutch troops split up at the end of the cliffs and about 400-500 men were left to guard a pass so that the English did not attack from the rear. It was not suspected at the time that these men would be needed.The fort was surrounded by open ground, which made spotting the

Dutch very easy and allowed the English to fire at the Dutch before the Dutch could even get close to the fort.

The moral of the soldiers would have been very low as they went into battle as once they saw the fort's defences and that it was undamaged they would have known that victory would be near impossible and that many men would die. The failure of the sea attack which left the fort undamaged would have been one of the greatest reasons of why the Dutch attack failed as the men had no chance of taking the undamaged fort.