These were also designed to link Fort William, Fort Augustus and small garrisons at Bernera and Ruthven which were to act as the government’s eyes and ears in the Jacobite districts. The whole basis of Wade’s strategy, however, was undermined from the later 1730s, when the government stripped the forts of adequate forces in order to increase the supply of troops for European service. Wade’s roads did eventually prove to be useful, but only in expediting the march south of the Young Pretender’s army in 1745.
