Chapter XII: Part 12

Twenty battalions had been distributed to the four points of attack. One column advanced to the Breslau gate, a second on the Strigau gate, a third to the fort of Bockendorf, and a fourth on the redoubt of Eau. On the 1st October, at three in the morning, favoured by a dense fog, Loudon and Wallace led their soldiers to the assault; and the escalade was made with such rapidity, that the garrison had only time to fire _twelve_ cannon shot. Lieutenant-General Zastrow, the governor, who had been at a ball, hurried his troops to arms; but the contest was short; a few volleys were exchanged, when a magazine blew up and killed eight hundred Prussians in the fort of Bockendorf. Taking advantage of the confusion, Wallace rushed on, burst open the gates of the town, and with the loss of only six hundred men, Loudon was master of the place before daybreak. Zastrow and three thousand men were taken, with a great store of all the munition of war. This was a severe blow to the pride of Frederick, who was weak enough to attribute the success of Loudon to the treachery of Major Rocca, an Italian prisoner; but an officer named De Beville made a noble defence in the redoubt of Eau.

Loudon garrisoned the town by ten battalions, under General Butler, an Irishman; and after remaining long encamped at Freyburg, in December he sent O'Donnel into Saxony after a body of Prussians, and cantoned his own troops among the mountains, while the Russians wintered in Pomerania.

During the winter of 1761 an epidemic malady made great ravages in the army of Loudon. It was a kind of leprosy, the progress of which was so rapid, that it soon thinned his ranks, and filled the hospitals and cemeteries.

The year 1762 saw a fortunate change in the affairs of Prussia; Peter III., a peaceful prince, succeeded to the Russian throne, and formed an alliance _with_ Frederick, who did not fail to profit by it, and retook Schwiednitz, though garrisoned by 9000 men, in spite of the utmost efforts made by Daun and Loudon to prevent him. After this he concluded with Maria Theresa a cessation of hostilities in Saxony and Silesia; and soon after peace was secured to Germany by the treaty of Hubertsbourg, on the 16th of February, 1763.

In the seven campaigns of the _Seven Years' War_ seventeen pitched battles had been fought; three sieges had been undertaken and five sustained by Prussia, with innumerable skirmishes. Austria took 40,000 Prussian prisoners, and Prussia took the same number of Austrians. The hospitals were full of maimed and suffering soldiers. In each regiment, on an average, only eight officers, and less than 100 men, were alive who had witnessed the commencement of the war. Loudon was the only officer, not born a prince or of an illustrious family, who had risen to such high rank during that sanguinary struggle. He was, moreover, a stranger, _a foreigner_, and a soldier of fortune. At the peace the Empress presented him with the lordship of Klien Betchwar, not far from Kolin. On this he built a strong and beautiful castle, with the revenues which he derived from a barony in Bohemia; and there he retired to enjoy a few years of repose and peace, and to overlook the cultivation and improvement of his estate.

In 1766 the grateful Empress made him Aulic Councillor of War; in 1767 the highest nobles of the Empire received him as one of their members; and in 1769 he was appointed Commandant-General in Moravia.

In 1770 he was present at the interview between the Emperor Joseph and his old antagonist Frederick the Great of Prussia. Dissembling that ungenerous animosity which he had imbibed against the fortunate Loudon, Frederick always addressed him as "M. Velt-Maréschal," though he had not attained that rank in full; and when Loudon, with his natural reserve, was about to seat himself at the foot of the royal table,--

"Sit next to me, M. de Loudon," said his Prussian Majesty; "for, be assured, I love better to see you by my side than _opposite_ to me."

At his departure he presented the baron with two horses, the finest of his stud.

In 1778 Loudon was gazetted to the rank of Field-Marshal, and was placed at the head of an army 50,000 strong, to defend the interests of Austria in the new war which broke out between the great powers of Germany, on the death of Maximilian Joseph, the Elector of Bavaria.

He posted the army of the Emperor behind the Elbe, in strongly fortified positions; and distributed his own corps among the secure posts of the Riechenberg (on the same ground where the Austrians were defeated by the Duke of Brunswick in 1757); of Gabelona, a fortified town which occupies an important pass; of Schlukenau, thirty miles from Dresden, and towards Lusatia; but the main body of his troops he skilfully distributed between Leutmeritz, a well-fortified town; Lowositz, in the same circle, but four miles distant from it; Dux and Töplitz. The King of Prussia took the field with all his force, to prevent the Emperor from co-operating with Loudon, to whom he opposed the column of Prince Henry: and now ensued a campaign full of interest only to those who study brilliant manoeuvres and subtle tactics.

Loudon's posts at Schlukenau, Rumberg, and Gabelona were taken by the prince, who forced him to abandon Aussig and Dux, with the fortifications and magazine at Leutmeritz, and, indeed, all the left bank of the Elbe; but falling back on the Iser, he skilfully secured its passages by strong detachments. In short, so equal was the distribution of strength, numbers, skill, and discipline, that the war was a mere succession of able movements, but barren of striking events; and after a year of marches and skirmishes, the Emperor relinquished Lower Bavaria, on which he had seized unjustly, and a peace was concluded on the 13th May, 1779, the birthday of the Empress-Queen.

After this Loudon returned to his sequestered castle; and once more, for eight years, resumed the peace and pleasure of a country life.

In 1787, when in his seventy-first year, he was again summoned to the field by the Emperor, to lead the Austrian armies against the Turks; and a series of brilliant captures and encounters realized all that had been hoped from his old valour and experience.

He poured his hosts along the Croatian and the Bosnian frontiers; and in August, 1788, after two fruitless assaults, in one of which 430 of his men were killed and wounded, he received by capitulation the fortress of Dubitzar, on the right bank of the Unna. On the 20th the Turks had attacked his camp, but were repulsed; after which he again ordered an immediate assault; but, as it failed, he ordered the town to be fired, and it burned till the morning of the 24th. He then opened several mines, and by the 25th his sappers were within ten feet of the walls. The Turks then "capitulated to Marshal Loudon, whose principal terms were:--

"That the officers might march out with swords, but their troops were to lay down all arms and surrender as prisoners of war.

"That the women and children might go to Roczaracz, attended by five Turkish soldiers, for whose return the commandant should be answerable."

Novi-bazar, a Bosnian Sanjak, the capital of a province, with its castle, next fell into his possession; then Gradiska, a strong Turkish fortress which had been erected fifteen years before by French engineers, at the junction of the Virbas with the Saave; then Belgrade, the most important town and fortress on the Austrian frontier of the Turkish empire. Its citadel occupies a commanding position on the summit of a precipitous rock which rises in the centre of the streets and is surrounded by a lofty wall, a triple fosse with flanking towers, and an esplanade 400 paces broad. These works were principally constructed by Benjamin Swinburne, a native of Staffordshire, who had embraced Islamism, adopted the name of Mustapha, and risen to high rank in the Turkish artillery. Led on by Loudon, the Austrians overcame every obstacle, and captured this famous Belgrade.

In that town he found a fine funeral monument of white marble, covered with Turkish inscriptions, arabesqued ornaments, and sculptured garlands of flowers. He had this great sarcophagus carefully taken to pieces and sent to his estate of Hadersdorf, to form a tomb for himself.

In this war of carnage, as it was justly named, for no quarter was given on either side, the Imperialists numbered at first 218,000 bayonets and sabres; but they were soon reduced to half that number by the resistance of the Turks.

Neu-Orchova, a small town and fortress of Wallachia situated on an island on the Danube, was his last capture after he had defeated the Bashaw of Travernick and was repulsed in turn from two practicable breaches; but he reduced it by a regular siege; and with this ended the Turkish war, which he had conducted with glory to Austria and ended with honour to himself.

In 1790 he returned to the army in Moravia.

He was now seventy-four years of age, and his health was failing fast. During the latter part of his life he had been much afflicted with rheumatism, gout, and colic, the fruit of military toil and hardship. All these attacked him regularly every spring and autumn.

On the 26th of June he dined with Prince Lichnowski, at Böhmisch Gratzen, and was seized on that night by a fever, from which he predicted he would never recover, and about the 6th of July he was in a dying state. Observing around his bed many of his old brother officers in tears, he endeavoured to console and reassure them by the calmness of his own demeanour.

"I implore you," said he, "to unite true religion to that high courage which I know you to possess, and to defend your minds from the approaches of atheism. All the success I have had in this world I owe to my confidence in God, as well as the glorious consolation which I now experience, in this awful time, when I am so soon to appear before Him." On the 10th, he requested the sacrament, and begged the Marshals Colloredo and Botta to be present at the reading of his will, and to bear his dying blessing and remembrances to the old officers and soldiers who had served under him. Then perceiving his favourite nephew, Alexander Loudon, weeping at his bedside, he said,--

"Arise--be a man and a Christian--love God and your fellow-creatures."

He lingered on until the 14th of July, when he expired in great agony.

Thus died, in the year 1790, Field-Marshal Baron Loudon, one of the greatest generals of the eighteenth century. "It was but seldom that a smile was seen to unwrinkle his lofty forehead," says a writer of his own time. "He was as little acquainted with the real laugh as Cato. As to his character, he knew how to diversify it wonderfully. Loudon on horseback and at the head of an army appeared to be quite another man, and was indeed a complete contrast to Loudon in the country or the town. His conduct agreed perfectly with what his cold and reserved physiognomy announced, for he spoke but little, and slowly. From his early youth he constantly avoided the society of women; he was uncommonly timid in their company, and was a very good husband. Accustomed to find himself punctually obeyed by thousands in the field, at the least sign indicated by him, he required the same docility of his vassals and servants, and he acted with severity to them--perhaps more than ought to have been used to men who were unaccustomed to military discipline."

As a souvenir of the many perils he had passed through, he carefully preserved at Hadersdorf a musket-ball which had been cut in two on the pommel of his saddle, and also his Croatian sabre, which had been struck from his hand by a bomb, and bent so that no armourer could ever straighten it.

His remains were enclosed in a double coffin, adorned by gorgeous mountings and handles, and were solemnly borne from Böhmisch Gratzen to his estate of Hadersdorf, a small town of Lower Austria, near the Klein-Kamp, and five miles west of Vienna.

In the park he had once selected a spot shaded by many fine trees, under which he had expressed a wish to be buried; but, on his return from the Turkish campaign, he selected another place, and planted it with shrubs and flowers in imitation of a Moslem sepulchre; and this he was wont to term his Turkish Garden, for therein he had reconstructed the marble sarcophagus which had been conveyed from Belgrade.

There he now lies in peace, shaded by some stately old trees and in the centre of a green meadow. His funeral monument, which is one of great magnificence, is securely walled round; and among the sculpture with which the Austrian Government adorned it, there may still be traced the shield _argent_, charged with three escutcheons _sable_; the old heraldic cognizance which the Loudons of that ilk carried on their pennons in the wars of the Scottish kings.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: Letter from an officer to a friend at Ratisbon, Oct. 25th, 1761.]

COUNT O'REILLY,

CHAMBERLAIN OF THE EMPIRE.

Were we to choose a hero for a military romance, he would be Andrew O'Reilly, who bore the high reputation of being the first cavalry officer in the Austrian service.

This distinguished Irish soldier of fortune, the _last_ of the _éleves_ of the Lacys and others whose achievements in the third Silesian war and the Turkish campaign have already been recorded, obtained the rank of General in the Austrian army, Chamberlain, and Commander of the Imperial and Military Order of Maria Theresa, with the rank of Colonel Proprietaire of the 3rd Regiment of Light Horse.

He was born in 1740, and was the second son of James O'Reilly, of Ballincough, in the county of Westmeath, and of Barbara, daughter of Thomas Nugent, Esquire, of Dysart (grand-daughter of Thomas, fourth Earl of Westmeath). His brother Hugh was created a Baronet by George III., and subsequently assumed the name of Nugent. His only sister married Lord Talbot de Malahide.

Entering the Imperial service early in life, O'Reilly filled in succession all the military grades save that of Field-Marshal; but of those events in his stirring life which led to his elevation to a coronet, we barely afford a summary. One of the most important incidents in his early career is connected with his marriage; and while it illustrates the manners of the last century, is worthy of notice, for the remnant of old romance and chivalry it displays. He and a brother officer, Count Klebelsberg, uncle of Francis Count de Klebelsberg, who, in 1831, was President of the Government of Lower Austria, were rivals for the hand of the Countess Wuyrlena, a rich and beautiful Bohemian heiress; and aware that _both_ could not succeed, they determined to solve the difficulty of selection by a combat _à l'outrance_. The intended duel was, however, reported to the authorities, and both O'Reilly and Klebelsberg were placed under close arrest by the Director General of the High Police; but, resolved to achieve their purpose, they secretly left Vienna, and travelled post together to Poland, and meeting in the neutral territory of Cracow, fought their remarkable combat. The duel lasted long, for both were perfect swordsmen, active, skilful, and wary; but at length O'Reilly ran Klebelsberg through the body, after receiving many dangerous wounds in his own person.

The affections of the countess, with her hand and fortune, were the immediate reward of the soldier of fortune.

Rejoining the army, he served with great brilliance in the war between France and Austria. The forces of the latter were commanded by the Archduke Charles.

On the 14th June, 1800, he fought under General Melas, at the battle of Marengo. "Melas," says M. Thiers, in his _History of the Consulate and Empire_, "placed General O'Reilly on the left, and Generals Kaim and Haddick on the right, to gain the road to Piacenza, the object of so many efforts and the salvation of the Austrian army."

On the 2nd December, 1805, that great day when "the sun of Austerlitz arose," and eighty thousand Frenchmen, flushed by rapid conquests, by the capitulation of Ulm, and the recent capture of Vienna, met the Austro-Russian army in one of the bloodiest battles on record--a battle, which, as General Rapp has it, "was a veritable butchery, where we fought man to man, and so mingled together, that the infantry on either side dared not fire lest they should kill their own men"--the star of Napoleon bore all before it; and the French, though losing thirteen thousand men, totally routed their allied enemies, with the loss of thrice that number, taking all their colours, baggage, ammunition, and one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon. On that terrible day, the political result of which was an almost immediate cessation of hostilities between France and Austria, it was universally admitted that a succession of daring and brilliant charges made by the Light Dragoons of O'Reilly, "alone saved the Austrian army from total annihilation."

The Emperor Alexander declined the overtures of Bonaparte, and renewed the war next year. The field of Eylau gave his Russians a partial revenge; and ere long they reaped the fulness of it amid the flames of Moscow and the slaughter of Smolensko.

On the 12th of May, 1809, O'Reilly, for his services at Austerlitz and elsewhere, was appointed Governor of Vienna, with a powerful garrison; and in a few days after, the Eagles of Napoleon were at its gates. Shut up in the city with the troops, the Archduke Ferdinand resolved to defend it, though the French had already stormed and carried all the suburbs. In vain were flags of truce sent in; the bearers were not only refused admittance, but, despite the orders of O'Reilly, were even maltreated, and in some instances massacred by the people. The bombardment followed, and soon Vienna was wrapped in flames; but the Emperor Napoleon, being informed by O'Reilly that one of the archduchesses had remained in Vienna detained by illness, gave orders to cease firing.

"Strange destiny of Napoleon!" exclaims old General Bourrienne; "this archduchess was Maria Louisa!"--the future Empress of France.

On O'Reilly devolved the difficult and trying task of obtaining honourable terms for the capital of the Empire, from an enemy flushed by victory and the pride of a hundred hard-fought fields. He accordingly deputed the Prince of Dietrechstien, the Burgomaster, and the chief citizens to Napoleon, who inveighed bitterly against the obstinacy of the gallant Archduke Ferdinand, but lauded the coolness, bravery, and great presence of mind of the governor, whom he emphatically terms "_le respectable General O'Reilly_," and accepted all the terms proposed by him; but in the fourteenth clause stipulated that O'Reilly should be the bearer of the treaty to his master, to the end that he should honestly and faithfully lay before him the true position of the now half-conquered Austrian Empire--and this duty O'Reilly ably performed.

He served in the great battle fought near Aspern on the Marchfeld, during the 21st and 22nd of May, between the French under Napoleon, and the Austrians under the Archduke Charles.

In the prince's plan of the attack "to be made upon the hostile army, on its march between Essling and Aspern," it was ordered "that the cavalry brigade under the command of Veesy will be attached to the second column, and the _Regiment O'Reilly_ to the third." This regiment consisted of eight squadrons of Light Dragoons, and the column to which it was attached comprised twenty-two battalions.

O'Reilly, with his cavalry, followed the column which marched from Seiring, by the road of Sussenbrunn and Breitenbe. Here O'Reilly, with several troops of Light Horse and Chasseurs formed the advanced guard, which met the enemy's cavalry at three o'clock in the afternoon, near Hirschstettin, while the other columns of the Austrian army drew the French back upon their position between Esslingen and Aspern, and while Lieutenant-General Hohenzollern ordered up his batteries, and the battle became general on all sides.

In close column of battalions, the line of the third column was advancing with great bravery, when the French cavalry fell upon them, sabre in hand, with such fury, that they were repulsed, and nearly lost their cannon. At this moment the regiments of Zach, Colloredo, Zetwitz, and the second battalion of the legion of the Archduke Charles, led by Lieutenant-General Brady, an Irish officer, "demonstrated with unparalleled fortitude what the fixed determination to conquer or die is capable of effecting against the most impetuous attacks."

The splendid cavalry of France turned both flanks of Brady's column, and penetrating between them, repulsed the Light Horse of O'Reilly, who came up at full speed to succour the soldiers of his countryman. Surrounded, the Regiment O'Reilly were summoned to lay down their arms; but a destructive fire of carbines was the answer to this degrading proposition, and the French cavalry gave way.

The Regiment O'Reilly passed the night on the field of battle, which was lost by the Austrians. The market town of Aspern, on the north side of the Danube, was destroyed, and the loss of the Imperialists was frightful.

After a two days' conflict, there lay on that field the flower of the Austrian army; 87 field-officers, 4199 subalterns and privates, 12 generals (including the Prince de Rohan), 663 officers, and 15,651 soldiers were wounded; of these, Field-Marshal Webber, with 8 officers, and 329 men were taken prisoners, with 3 pieces of cannon, 7 powder waggons, 17,000 muskets, and 3000 corslets. The loss of the French was terrible! 7000 men and an immense number of horses were buried on the field; 29,773 wounded men strewed the streets and suburbs of Vienna; hundreds of corpses, gashed and shattered, floated down the rapid Danube and were flung upon its shores, where they lay unburied and decaying, filling the air with pestilence and the place with horror.

In October peace was signed at the camp of Schoenbrunn, and, divorcing the woman who had loved him when he had only his sword and his epaulettes, Napoleon espoused Maria Louisa of Austria; and Prince Charles, who by his accumulated blunders at the battle of Aspern, had thrown away the fortunes of Continental Europe, received from his Imperial conqueror the Grand Riband of the Legion of Honour. O'Reilly came in for a full share of the honours and decorations which were showered upon the Austrian army.

At the general peace of 1814 the Empire, exhausted by a war of five-and-twenty years, reduced her vast military establishments to 58 regiments of the line, 12 battalions of chasseurs, and 5 garrison battalions--in all, 1044 companies of fusiliers, and 116 of grenadiers. The cavalry were reduced to 36 regiments of cuirassiers, light dragoons, uhlans and hussars. Of the third regiment of light horse O'Reilly was colonel and proprietor. He was also High Chamberlain of the Empire.

At this time Louis Count Taaffe, a noble of Irish parentage, was Second President of the Austrian High Court of Justice, and General Count O'Donnel was Military Governor of Austrian Lombardy. One of the Emperor's most distinguished officers was General Count Nugent, who in the war of 1847-8 led 30,000 Austrian infantry to succour Marshal Radetzki, who was then opposed to the troops of Charles Albert.[19] Count Taaffe was a member of the new ministry formed on the 21st of March, in the year of the Austrian revolution: but he retired from office shortly before the appearance of the chartered constitution on the 19th of April.

O'Reilly lived to see Austria affected by the commotions which pervaded Europe after the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Modena and the Archduke of Parma were obliged to quit these states, and a formidable insurrection broke out in the Patrimony of St. Peter--an insurrection to quell which 18,000 Austrian troops were marched towards the frontier; but O'Reilly was too far advanced in years to draw his sword again in the service of the House of Hapsburg. He died in October, 1833, at Vienna, after attaining the patriarchal age of _ninety-two_. He had long survived his countess, and died childless.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: Nugent, a field-marshal in 1858, commanded 25,000 Austrian troops at the funeral of Marshal Radetzki, and acted as chief mourner.]

COUNT O'CONNELL,

KNIGHT OF ST. LOUIS, AND COLONEL OF THE IRISH BRIGADE.

The life of this military wanderer presents, in his chequered career, the curious anomaly of a general and his soldiers being received into the service of their native country and native monarch, against whom they had previously fought with a bravery that too often gave the laurels of victory to his enemies.

Count Daniel O'Connell was of the same family as the famous political agitator who bore his name, and he sprang from an old Milesian race who held the rank of Toparchs in their own province. He was the son of Daniel O'Connell of Derrynane, and of Mary, daughter of Duffe O'Donoghue, of Anwys in the county Kerry, Ireland, and was born at Derrynane Abbey, in 1742. At the early age of fifteen, like others whose fortunes I have recorded, he left his native country to seek foreign military service, and in 1757 was appointed a Sub-Lieutenant of the Irish Brigade in the French service, in the battalion known as the Infantry regiment of O'Brien, or Lord Clare, and which bore the title of Clare until its dissolution, thirty-five years after.

In the preceding year war had been declared between France and Britain respecting their mutual territorial claims in North America. The former prepared a vast military armament to carry on the strife; and in the army formed on the 12th July, 1759, to be led by the Maréchal Princes of Condé and Soubise, were the _Irish_ and _Scottish_ Brigades; and in the former was the Regiment of Clare, with which young O'Connell was serving as a subaltern. From this period, for some time, little is known of him, save that he served throughout the Seven Years' War, and at its close, for his good conduct, was promoted into a new corps which had recently been embodied.

In 1779, when France espoused the cause of America, and sought to harass the mother country in Europe, O'Connell was engaged in the expedition against Portmahon, which is the principal town in Minorca, situated on a rocky promontory, difficult of access from the landward, and defended by Fort San Philipo, in which there was a resolute garrison. O'Connell, with his new regiment, served under the Duc de Crillon at the siege, and conducted himself with such honour as to be specially noticed. The operations were severe and protracted, but in three years the Spaniards and their allies recaptured the whole island of Minorca, which at the peace of 1763 had been formally ceded to Britain.

In 1782, O'Connell served with the combined French and Spanish armament which blockaded Gibraltar, during that memorable siege which had commenced on the 12th of January in the preceding year. Having shown considerable skill as an engineer at Minorca, he was one of the council-of-war appointed to assist the Chevalier d'Arcon in conducting the grand attempt in which France and Spain had resolved to try their full strength for the capture of that celebrated rock, the key of the Mediterranean; and for this purpose, as already related in the memoir of the Lacys, 40,000 soldiers, with 200 pieces of cannon and 80 mortars, pressed the attack by land, while 47 sail of the line, 10 battering ships, and a multitude of frigates, mounting 1000 guns and having 12,000 chosen soldiers added to their crews, lay before the fortress by sea--and in that fortress, to meet all this warlike preparation, were only 7000 British soldiers!

The French army was commanded by Louis Duc de Crillon-Mahon, the representative of an ancient noble family in the Vaucluse, who had commenced his military career in the Grey musketeers, and served under Marshal Villars in Italy. He had direction of the whole attack; his engineers were the most expert in Europe, and brave volunteers came from all quarters to take part in a siege which attracted the attention and raised the expectation of all Continental Europe.

As a member of the council-of-war, O'Connell repeatedly opposed the plans of the Duc de Crillon and of the Chevalier d'Arcon, and declared their system of attack "worthless;" and the sequel, in the triumph of General Elliot, proved that his observations were correct.

In the grand attack he accepted command of one of the floating batteries.

Ten of these, mounting from ten to twenty-eight guns, had been built under the orders of M. d'Arcon. Their bottoms were of solid timber, their sides were sheathed with wetted cork, and filled with damp sand between the timbers. They had sloping roofs of raw hides and net--work to receive the bombs, which thus exploded harmlessly over the heads of the besiegers. These floating batteries were exposed during the whole time to that terrible fire of red-hot shot--a suggestion of General Boyd--which ultimately, by firing the great ship of Buenaventura de Moreno, struck the Spaniards with confusion and dismay.

O'Connell had one of his ears torn off by a cannon-ball; and by the explosion of a shell, which by its weight penetrated the roof of skins, he was covered with wounds and bruises of minor importance.

His services, during this futile and disastrous siege, were considered so valuable by the King of France, that, on the recommendation of the Duc de Crillon, he was rewarded with the colonelcy of the Regiment de Salm-Salm; a German corps raised in the principality of that name; but this post he held for a short period, being removed to the regiment of Royal Swedish Infantry.

After this, in 1787, the government of France having resolved that the military economy of their army should undergo a complete revision and remodelling, appointed a military board, consisting of four generals and _one_ colonel to prepare reports and recommend alterations where necessary. The colonel chosen was O'Connell, who drew up a system of regimental economy, and a code of tactics, which were afterwards used with brilliant success against himself and his loyal comrades during the first campaigns of the revolution. When the labours of the board ceased, he was appointed to the onerous situation of Inspector-General of Infantry, with the duty of regulating the new uniforms and equipment of the Line, when many alterations and improvements were adopted in 1791.

He was succeeded as colonel of the Swedish regiment by Count Pherson, afterwards one of the principal agents in the escape of Louis XVI. from Paris.

O'Connell now enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most distinguished officers in France.

Besides his very extensive knowledge of mathematics and military strategy, says a French writer, he was well versed in the study of languages; and although Latin and Greek were to him alike familiar, he spoke with equal fluency French, English, Italian, and German. He had conceived a great predilection for the Erse (_gallique_) of the mountains of Kerry, and he was never more happy than when he could converse in this dear old idiom, of which he could so well appreciate the beauties.[20]

Now came the fatal, the culminating, point of the once splendid monarchy of France--the dark days of the Revolution; of the captivity and death of the weak, but unhappy Louis; of the flight or destruction of his nobles. Before the final catastrophe of the royal execution, a proposal was made by the National Assembly, which deeply interested Count O'Connell and others who had made France the land of their adoption. This was the intended expulsion from her soil of all foreign officers and soldiers who had served King Louis, including Irish, Scots, and Switzers. While this ungenerous measure was being debated, the gallant Duke of Fitzjames, in February, 1791, addressed to Louis XVI. a letter on behalf of the exiles; and this document is so remarkable in its tenor, that I may be pardoned in quoting from it one or two paragraphs. After briefly and modestly stating the services rendered by his father and grandfather to the line of St. Louis, he thus advanced the claims of the Irish in France:--

"Sire, my grandfather came not alone into France! His brave companions are now mine, and the dearest friends of my heart! He was accompanied by Thirty Thousand Irishmen, who abandoned home, fortune, and honour to follow their unfortunate king. For the descendants of those brave men, whom your ancestors deemed so worthy of protection because they had been faithful to their sovereign, I now entreat the same bounty from the great-grandson of Louis XIV. It is reported that the National Assembly propose disbanding the Irish regiments as foreign troops. The blood they have shed in the cause of France ought to have procured them the right of being denizens of that kingdom, even though their capitulation had not entitled them to that privilege.

"Sire, permit me to lay at your Majesty's feet the ardent wish of the Irish regiments, who are as much attached to France by gratitude as formerly they were to the _House of Stuart_ by love and duty. If the Assembly now reject their services, they implore your Majesty's _recommendation_ to the prince of your family now reigning in Spain, presuming to assure you that the present will be worthy of being made by a King of France, and of being favourably received by a prince of your royal race.

"Fidelity and valour are their titles to recommendation! Of the former they expect an authentic testimonial from the French nation, as they have never ONCE failed in their duty during a century, and wherever they have fought their valour has been conspicuous in battle.

"Sire, I entreat you to listen to their request; for myself I ask no compensation--for me there is none! The honour of commanding _them_ cannot be repaid. It secures my glory, as to lead them against a foe ensures immediate victory!"

But this spirited and touching letter failed to stay the popular clamour against these military strangers in the sequel.

In July the Assembly decreed that the standards of the Irish, German, and Liegoise infantry should be the tri-colour, inscribed "Discipline and obedience to the law;" but when the princes, Monsieur of France (or Comte de Provence) and Charles Philippe, the Count d'Artois, fled to Coblentz, the formal defection of several Irish officers hastened the destruction of the old brigade of immortal memory; and with it, after the 10th of August, disappeared the ancient Swiss, German, Italian, Scottish, and Catalonian regiments of the monarchy.

During the crumbling of that monarchy, O'Connell, though in secret communication with the princes at Coblentz, lingered in Paris until the close of 1791, when that strange convention was held at Pilnitz between the Emperor Leopold and the Prussian king, who formed a league to invade France and remodel its government. In a letter from Pavia, dated 6th July, the Emperor had already openly avowed his intentions in this new war, and invited all European powers to co-operate with him. At this crisis the French government proposed to place O'Connell at the head of one of their many armies levied to meet this European combination; but the count, despite the earnest recommendations of Carnot and of his friend the celebrated General Dumouriez, declined; and then, unable to withstand the issue of the suspicions which this refusal excited in Paris after the terrible 10th of August, 1792, when the attack of the Tuileries and massacre of the Swiss took place, he secretly left the city, and repairing to the princes, offered to them his sword and fealty at Coblentz; which, being within the Prussian frontier, became the head-quarters of all those emigrants and Prussian troops destined to form the army of the Prince of Conti, who vainly hoped to restore the line of St. Louis to the throne of his forefathers. His chief aid-de-camp was the Comte de Macarthy, an emigrant officer of distinction, a marshal-de-camp of horse in 1791.

O'Connell, relinquishing his higher claims among the crowd of noble applicants for service, accepted the command of a regiment as colonel, and left nothing undone to improve its discipline and efficiency, for his whole energies and enthusiasm were devoted to the reconstitution of the French monarchy.

The first of the French troops to proffer their loyalty, on this occasion, were the Scottish and Irish soldiers of the old Regiment de Berwick. The depôt of this corps was then quartered at the strong town of Givet, on the frontiers of France, under the command of Sir Charles MacCarthy-Lyragh, who immediately marched his men to Coblentz, and joined the battalion. Sir Charles afterwards passed into the British service, when he was made a Colonel and Governor of Senegal, where in 1824 he fought a battle with the Ashantees, by whom he was slain and beheaded. The loyalty of the Irish brigade met with a warm response from the fugitive princes. "This offer," replied Monsieur to the deputation who came to proffer fealty, "will mitigate the sufferings of the king, who will receive from you with pleasure the same mark of fidelity which James II. received from your ancestors. This double epoch ought for ever to furnish a device for the Regiment de Berwick! It will henceforth be seen upon your colours; every faithful subject will there read his duty, and behold the model he ought to imitate."

"The colours of Berwick," added Charles Philippe the Comte d'Artois, "are, and always will be, in the path to honour, and we will march at their head!"[21]

The king perished, and then followed the campaign of 1793, a period most disastrous to the emigrants; but amid all the slaughter and merciless butchery, with which the republicans inspired the war--a war, to maintain which, the fiery zeal of Carnot enrolled no less than _fourteen_ armies, mustering 1,400,000 men--O'Connell led his battalion with honour to himself and to the cause he served, till all hope was lost, and then with others he fled to England in the beginning of 1794.

Among those condemned by Robespierre's tribunal in that year, were two distinguished officers of the Irish brigade--General O'Moran, who defended Dunkirk against the Duke of York; and John O'Donoghue, General de Brigade in the Army of the Rhine.

At the same time were condemned, M. Murdoch, a Scotsman in the service of the Comte de Montmorin; and W. Newton, an English colonel of the Dragoon Regiment de Liberté, and formerly an officer in the Russian service.

In reduced circumstances O'Connell reached London, where he resided for a time in comparative obscurity; and where, for many reasons, his residence was far from being a pleasant one. Still, undiscouraged by the aspect of affairs in France, and by the numerous bloody defeats and massacres sustained by the emigrant troops and other supporters of the Bourbons, he took a warm interest in the attempts meditated in 1794; but fresh conflicts seemed only to fire the zeal of the republicans anew, till the French armies, following their victories, drove their enemies across the Meuse and then beyond the Rhine; after which they penetrated into Holland, revolutionized it, and succeeded in detaching Prussia from its alliance with Britain.

At this epoch O'Connell laid before William Pitt the plan of a new campaign, which so pleased that minister, that he made the count, then in his fifty-second year, an offer of military service under the British government. This he at once accepted, and proposed to form a new brigade to be named _the Irish_, and to be raised principally from remnants of the regiments of Clare, Lally, Dillon, Berwick, &c., emigrant officers, and men who represented the old brigade of King James; but here O'Connell's religion, which was strictly Catholic, prevented him, in those days of intolerance, prior to the Emancipation Act, attaining in the British service a higher rank than Colonel; and this rank he held till the day of his death.

The brigade consisted of six battalions, each of the strength usual on a war establishment; but O'Connell had the mortification to find himself gazetted by the Horse Guards Colonel of the _fourth_ regiment instead of the first, to which he was justly entitled, by his previous position and general military character.

His commission was dated 1st October, 1794.[22]

The list of colonels was as follows:--

1st Regiment--the Duke of Fitzjames.

2nd Regiment--Anthony, Count Walsh de Serrant.

3rd Regiment--Honourable Henry Dillon.

4th Regiment--Count Daniel O'Connell.

5th Regiment--Charles, Viscount Walsh de Serrant,

6th Regiment--James Henry, Count Conway.[23]

Several of his old friends were appointed to the corps; among these were Bartholomew, Count O'Mahoney, Colonel, 1st January, 1801; John O'Toole, Colonel, 1805; and Colonel James O'Moore, who was appointed Major-General in 1801.

This brigade, which was embodied under circumstances so singular, instead of being sent to fight upon the continent of Europe, as O'Connell and his brother emigrants had fondly anticipated, after many changes in its constitution and organization, was ordered to Nova Scotia, to Cape Breton, and to the then pestilential West India Isles. The snows of America and the burning sun of the tropics soon had a fatal effect upon these unfortunate wanderers, and they were nearly all swept away by disease and death.

Of the six regiments, only thirty-four officers of all ranks were alive in 1818, on the Irish half-pay.

On the 25th December, 1797, O'Connell, weary of a service so heartless, and so little conducive to the welfare of the cause he loved so much, retired upon the full-pay of colonel unattached, and returned home.[24]

In 1802 he profited by the Treaty of Amiens, when peace was negotiated between Great Britain and France, to return to the latter; but the frail bond of unity was soon broken, and he was comprehended in the harsh decree which seized, as prisoners of war, all British subjects remaining in France.

At the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 he regained his liberty, and Louis XVIII. restored to him his rank of General, and with it the Colonelcy of a regiment and the pension and Grand Cross of St. Louis, which he enjoyed with his retired full pay as a British Colonel. This was after the decree of the 16th July, by which the whole of the old army was disbanded, and the command conferred upon Marshal Macdonald, who remodelled a new army from the wreck of Napoleon's veterans.

O'Connell lived in tranquillity and honour, a remnant of other days and of old romantic sympathies, until 1830, when he was again deprived of his French emoluments for his unwavering fidelity to Charles X. and the elder branch of the Bourbons. After this he retired to his château at Meudon, near Blois, where he died, on the 9th of July, 1833, in the ninety-first year of his age, the oldest Colonel of the British army, and the senior general of the French.

Such was the chequered career of one of the last of the brave old Irish Brigade.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 20: _Biographie Universelle._]

[Footnote 21: _Scots' Magazine_, 1791.]

[Footnote 22: War-Office Records--communicated.]

[Footnote 23: War-Office Record.]

[Footnote 24: _Ibid._]

MARSHAL MACDONALD.

Stephen James Joseph Macdonald, Marshal of France and Duke of Tarentum, was the son of Neil MacEachin Macdonald (a gentleman sprung from the branch of the Clanranald in Uist), who served in France as a lieutenant in the Scottish Regiment of Ogilvie, to which he had been appointed by the recommendation of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, whom he had served bravely and loyally even after the close of his disastrous campaign in Scotland, and whom he had followed into exile after materially contributing to that deliverance which was effected by the celebrated Flora Macdonald. He was one of the hundred and thirty Highlanders who gathered on the shore of Loch nan Uamh after the horrors of Culloden, and embarked with Prince Charles for France.

Neil MacEachin (_i.e._, the son of Hugh) had been a preceptor in the family of his chief, Clanranald, and being originally designed for the Catholic Church, had been educated at the Scottish College in Paris. He spoke French with great fluency, and to the exiled prince proved a faithful adherent, friend, and solace, in all his wanderings; and when Charles was so ungenerously committed to a dungeon at Vincennes by order of the French government, his captivity was shared alone by the brave islesman from Uist. According to Mr. Chambers, there is every reason to believe that he was the author of a little work entitled _Alexis_, in which he preserved a minute record of the prince's wanderings and dangers in the Western Isles of Scotland.

His son, the future Marshal of the Empire, was born on the 17th of November, 1765, in the old fortified town of Sedan, in the departement of the Ardennes.

Destining him for the profession of arms, he had him educated with the greatest care, and in his nineteenth year enrolled him as a cadet in the Legion of Maillebois, which was to enter Holland, and second a revolution there--a movement neutralized by the influence of Prussia.

In 1784 young Macdonald was appointed a Sub-lieutenant in Dillon's Regiment, a battalion of the Irish Brigade, which now included in its rank many Scottish emigrants and their descendants; and in this corps he remained a subaltern until the Revolution in 1792, when his colonel, the brave, loyal, and unfortunate Dillon, was murdered at Lisle, where his body was literally torn to pieces by the revolted soldiers and infuriated mob.

Although, like the 4th Hussars and the Regiment of Berwick, Dillon's battalion emigrated entire and joined the fugitive French princes, Macdonald remained in France; _not_ because he did not share the loyal sentiments of his comrades, but because he loved the beautiful Mademoiselle Jacob, whose father had joined the popular party against the monarchy. This lady he afterwards married; and the influence of her family led him to embrace, or at least to adopt, the principles of the revolutionists, while he avoided their crimes and excesses.

The new government soon discovered that Macdonald was a bold, active, and intelligent officer, and at once gave him employment. He made the first campaign of the revolutionary war as Staff-major, under de Bournonville, and served afterwards in the same capacity with General Dumourier, acquitting himself so much to the satisfaction of these distinguished leaders, that, on the 1st of March, 1793, he was appointed Colonel of the Regiment de Picardie, the second regiment of the old French line, which was then in garrison at Thionville; and this ancient corps (which was originally raised by Charles IX. in 1562) he commanded in the first campaign in Belgium.

He was sincerely attached to Dumourier; but, on the defection of that general from the Republic, after his fruitless attempts on behalf of the king, his retreat to the camp at Maulde, and the attempt to assassinate him on the 5th April, Macdonald did not accompany him in his flight to the Austrians, but remained with the army, in which he was soon after named a General of Brigade. Under the celebrated Pichegreu he served with this rank in the Army of the North against the combined forces of Britain and Austria, and particularly signalized himself at Werwick and Comines.

The column of Pichegreu consisted of fifty thousand men. It penetrated to Courtrai, which was surrendered by a garrison that found it indefensible. Macdonald was next at the investment of Menin on the Lys, where a formidable resistance was made. The battle before this place lasted from eight a.m., until four in the afternoon, when the Germans, who had advanced to the relief, retired, and left Menin to its fate. A few months after saw all the Austrian Netherlands overrun by the victorious French, and the allies who had come to protect the province retiring in disorder beyond the Meuse. On this retreat the British and Hanoverians were particularly pressed by Macdonald, who followed them into Holland.

At the passage of the Meuse a Scottish officer named Macdonald came to Pichegreu's army with a flag of truce, and during the parley--

"You have," said he, "among you a general of my name; we wish much to take him prisoner."

"Have a care, monsieur," replied a French officer, "that he does not take _you_."

And next day this officer, with a party, was nearly captured by the column of Macdonald.[25]

The passage of the Waal on the ice, under the heavy batteries of Nimeguen, when leading the right wing of the Army of the North, was one of Macdonald's most brilliant achievements.

After many desultory movements, the discomfited allies had taken up a position beyond this river, which is a branch of the Rhine, and contested the passage with the French during the severe winter of 1794. The stream was a mass of ice, as the frost was unusually intense; thus the sufferings of the soldiers were great.

Resolved to avail themselves of the advantage which these sufferings gave them, the French had made repeated attempts to force the passage of the river. On the night of the 26th December, when an unusual gloom had settled over the frozen stream and snow-clad scenery, Pichegreu, with all his forces, advanced towards the boundary with such rapidity that he lost several cannon and soldiers. Next day he ventured on the ice and the swamps that bordered it, making a general assault upon the posts of the allies. Macdonald, with the right wing, pushed boldly between Fort St. Andre and the walls and batteries of the ancient town of Nimeguen, in which there lay a strong garrison. His orders were "to act as an army of observation, and prevent the British and Germans from supporting the Dutch, as the main attacks were to be made by the left and centre."

The latter, numbering 16,000 bayonets, crossed the Meuse in three columns, near the village of Driel, and invested Fort St. Andre and the fortifications in the Isle of Bommel; while Macdonald achieved with signal success the passage elsewhere, and formed his battalions in position beyond the frozen stream. Taken by surprise, the inert Dutch soldiers in the Bommeler-waard made but a show of resistance. They were driven out by the charged bayonet, and 600 of them were captured.

The French left wing advanced towards Breda with equal success, and stormed the lines between that city and Gertrudenberg in Northern Brabant; forced the entrenchments at Capellan in Gueldreland, and stormed Waspick. In this series of reverses the allied British, Dutch, and Austrians lost one hundred pieces of cannon, and had more than a thousand prisoners taken; while the French securely established themselves far beyond the contested river. Ere long all resistance to their progress ceased; every fortress, city, and castle submitted to them in succession, till the desperation of his affairs compelled the Stadtholder to seek refuge in Britain, while his allies retreated by the way of Amersfort to cross the Issel, abandoning Holland to its fate, and to the armies of Pichegreu and Macdonald.

For his services in this campaign the latter was now made a General of Division. Every officer under whom he served mentioned him with honour in their reports to the Directory; but while, with that openness which is characteristic of soldiers, his comrades thus rendered every justice and tribute to his worth and bravery, the suspicious representatives of the people, who followed the Army of the North, and thrust their officious counsels upon its generals, occasioned him constant anxiety. Their dislike of his Scottish name was never concealed, and his natural frankness unfortunately laid him but too open to their insidious attacks; till ultimately their animosity was gratified by the Directory _depriving_ him of his command. Of this injustice Pichegreu complained bitterly, and said, "My army will soon become disorganized, if thus wantonly deprived of its best officer."

"We have dismissed Macdonald," was the coarse reply of the Deputy St. Just, "because neither his _face_ nor his _name_ are republican; but we will restore him, Pichegreu, to thee, and with thy head shalt thou answer for him."

This opinion of the Committee of Public Safety so far influenced the Directory, that, until he replaced Championnet in Italy, Macdonald was never entrusted with an independent command. Soon after this mortification in Holland, the convention for a peace between France and Austria was held at Leoben, and on its conclusion he repaired to Cologne, and, quitting the army of the Rhine, joined that of Italy, where the bright star of Napoleon was now in the ascendant. By the nature of his frontier service Macdonald had hitherto little or no correspondence with the future Emperor, who having also imbibed the suspicions of the Directory, was long in discovering the worth or relying on the fidelity of the only Scottish soldier in his service. Macdonald appeared in Italy too late to bear any part in the first events of the campaign of 1797, when the armies of the aggressive republic marched to spread their new political principles throughout the Italian peninsula; but in the following year he was at the invasion of the Papal States, with the terrible Massena and with Berthier, who proclaimed the republic at Rome, on which the Pope fled to Florence. One of the early measures of the French generals was the suppression of the English, Scottish, and Irish colleges, all the effects in which were seized and the students dispersed.