Plymouth dan Sindikat "DIAKON"

Plymouth (ⁱ/ˈplɪməθ/) is a city on the south coast of Devon, England, about 37 miles (60 km) south-west of Exeterand 190 miles (310 km) west-south-west of London, between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west where they join Plymouth Sound to form the boundary with Cornwall.

Plymouth's early history extends to the Bronze Age, when a first settlement emerged at Mount Batten. This settlement continued as a trading post for the Roman Empire, until it was surpassed by the more prosperous village of Sutton founded in the ninth century, now called Plymouth. In 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers departed Plymouth for the New Worldand established Plymouth Colony – the second English settlement in what is now the United States of America. During the English Civil War the town was held by the Parliamentarians and was besieged between 1642 and 1646.

The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers") over, principally, the manner of England's government. The first (1642–46) and second (1648–49) wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third (1649–51) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles IIand supporters of the Rump Parliament. The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The overall outcome of the war was threefold: the trial and execution of Charles I (1649); the exile of his son, Charles II (1651); and the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of England (1649–53) and then the Protectorate under the personal rules of Oliver Cromwell (1653-58) and his son (1658-59). The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England ended with the victors' consolidating the established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established the precedent that an English monarch cannot govern without Parliament's consent, although the idea of Parliament as the ruling power of England was legally established as part of the Glorious Revolution in 1688.^[2]

Strategy and tactics[edit]

Many of the officers and veteran soldiers of the English Civil war studied and implemented war strategies that had been learned and perfected in other wars across Europe, namely by the Spanish and the Dutch during the Dutch war for independence which began in 1568.^[7]

The main battle tactic came to be known as pike and shot infantry, in which the two sides would line up, facing each other, with infantry brigades of musketeers in the centre, carrying matchlock muskets;^[8] these muskets were inaccurate,^[8] but could be lethal at a range of up to 300 yards.^[8] The brigades would arrange themselves in lines of musketeers, three deep, where the first row would kneel, the second would crouch, and the third would stand, allowing all three to fire a volley simultaneously.^[8] At times there would be two groups of three lines allowing one group to reload while the other group arranged themselves and fired.^[9] Mixed in among the musketeers were pikemen carrying pikes that were between 12 feet (4 m) and 18 feet (5 m) long, whose primary purpose was to protect the musketeers from cavalry charges.^[8] Positioned on each side of the infantry were the cavalry, with a right-wing led by the lieutenant-general, and a left-wing by the commissary general;^[8] the main goal of the cavalry was to rout the opponent's cavalry and then turn and overpower their infantry.^[8][10]

The Royalist cavaliers' skill and speed on horseback led to many early victories. Prince Rupert, the leader of the king's cavalry, learned a tactic while fighting in the Dutch army where the cavalry would charge at full speed into the opponent's infantry firing their pistols just before impact.^[8][11]

However, with Oliver Cromwell and the introduction of the more disciplined New Model Army, a group of disciplined pikemen would stand their ground in the face of charging cavalry and could have a devastating effect.^[8] While the Parliamentarian cavalry were slower than the cavaliers, they were also better disciplined.^[8] The Royalists had a tendency to chase down individual targets after the initial charge leaving their forces scattered and tired. Cromwell's cavalry, on the other hand, trained to operate as a single unit, which led to many decisive victories.^[12]