There was also a feeling that what might vanquish a bunch of half-trained rebels could hardly deliver results against the European masters of war. Had not Yorktown demonstrated the superiority of French arms?
There was, though, a secret of the American and West Indies campaigns that those around the Duke of York did not understand. Colonel Dundas might have grasped it, had he wanted to, since there were officers on the Irish Establishment who were witnesses to the one or two occasions where formed bodies of French infantry (as opposed to the proficient engineers and gunners who had won Yorktown) had tested themselves against the redcoats. In these rare moments, the ‘flimsy’ British line had caused the French horrendous casualties. The French had been beaten back from the British defences at Savannah in October 1779. Before that, in December 1778, French troops had suffered an even worse defeat on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. Advancing on the peninsula of La Vigie, they had been engaged by the 5th Foot and some British light infantry. The British 'gave their fire and retired,' wrong the Sergeant Major of the 5th, 'but doing it in quite a light infantry style, dispersing, forming again in small parties and according to the advantages of trees or ground, a style which [the French] since confessed they were perfectly unacquainted with.' After this initial blooding, the disordered French threw themselves into disastrously unsuccessful assaults on a British fieldwork.
When using old tactics, quite similar to those being reintroduced by David Dundas in 1788, the 5th had suffered more heavily than any other regiment at Bunker Hill. Adopting the 'light infantry style', they had humbled the French three years later. Opening up formations, using cover, retiring at the run, had all given the redcoats the ability to pour fire on the packed French ranks without allowing them much of a chance to hit back. Serving later in Ireland, the 5th were expected to return to the formalism of the Prussian system. The American tragedy was complete.
