James MacPherson - The Poems Of Ossian

The Highlands is a very hard place to control militarily, and the Highlanders used this to their advantage. The would situate the battle to take place on hills, so they would charge down the hill and engage with the enemy. It was called the ''highland charge'' and proved to be very effective. Culloden actually took place on flat marshy land, so the Jacobites could not use this, coupled with the fact that the order to charge came late because of the messenger being shot by a cannon. In order to control a mountainous people and a mountainous area, the inhabitants would seek to use local men, like the Black Watch, and their know-how of controlling the people and the land was basically all that the government could do. The Roman Empire could not conquer such a mountainous region, so no one could. This is perhaps why generals like Napoleon were so successful throughout Europe, as were the Highlanders fighting later for the British, as Napoleon was from Corsica, a very rugged and mountainous island. He knew how to fight in the mountains. Without such expertise and knowledge of the hilly countryside, a general does not know how to fight in the mountains.