In the Irish Brigade Part 3

"Our position was a good one. The barricade was formed of square piles, driven into the ground with small narrow openings between them. I ordered the men to keep behind the timbers until the enemy came up. The Germans opened a murdering fire as they approached, but, though the bullets pattered like rain against the palisades, and whistled in between them, not a man was touched. I waited till they were within two paces, and then gave the word, and you may well guess that there was not a bullet thrown away, and the Germans, mightily astonished, drew back, leaving nigh forty of their men behind them. Then, falling back a bit, they opened fire upon us, but it was a game that two could play at. We could see them, but they could not see us; and while we loaded our muskets in shelter, they were exposed, and we picked them off by dozens.

"The firing had, of course, given the alarm to our two regiments, who turned out just as they were, in their nightshirts. Major O'Mahony, who was in command of Dillon's regiment, as Lally was away on leave, luckily made his way in safety from his lodgings to the barracks, got his own men in order, while Colonel Wauchop, who commanded our regiment, took the command of the two battalions.

Fortunately, a portion of the regiment had been ordered to fall in early for inspection, and this gave time for the rest to get into their uniforms; and, as soon as they were ready, Wauchop led them out and fell suddenly upon a portion of Mercy's force, poured in a volley, and then charged them.

"Horse and foot fell back before the attack. Then they turned the cannon on the ramparts, and thus secured possession of the Po gate, and, pushing on, the guns helping them, drove the Austrians from the houses they occupied, and so opened communications with the French cavalry.

"A brigadier now came up, and ordered the battalions to barricade all the streets they had won, with barrels and carts. A French regiment arrived, and occupied the church of Saint Salvador, and the battery which commanded the bridge, across which Vaudemont's corps could now be seen approaching. The redoubt on the other side of the bridge was only held by fifty men, and they were now strengthened by a hundred of the French soldiers. The Austrians approached, making sure that the town had already been taken, and looking out for a signal that was to be hoisted. Their astonishment was great, when a heavy musketry fire was opened upon them by the garrison of the outpost, while the guns of the battery on the wall plunged their shot in among them.

"The column was at once halted. Eugene had regarded the struggle as over, when news was brought to him of the defeat of Mercy's corps by the Irish. Everywhere else things had gone most favourably. Marshal Villeroy had been wounded and made prisoner.

His marechal de camp shared the same fate. The Chevalier D'Entregues, who advanced to meet the enemy, was defeated and killed, as was Lieutenant General de Trenan, and the Spanish Governor of the town mortally wounded.

"On receiving the news, Eugene at once sent an officer to inspect the Irish position; but his report was that they were too well placed to be driven from it. He then sent Captain MacDonnell, an officer in his service, to offer, if the Irish would leave their position, to enrol them in the Austrian service, with higher pay than they now received. You may guess the sort of answer he received, and he was at once arrested for bringing such a message to them. Eugene then endeavoured to engage Marshal Villeroy to order the Irish to lay down their arms, as further resistance would only end in their slaughter. Villeroy simply replied that, as a prisoner, he could no longer give orders.

"During this pause, the Count de Revel and the Marquis de Queslin succeeded in gathering together a considerable number of the scattered French infantry, and with these they marched to endeavour to recover the gates that had been lost, and, having occupied the church of Santa Maria, and a bastion near the gate of All Saints, ordered the Irish to leave a hundred men at the barricades, and with the rest to push forward to the gate of Mantua. So I found myself in command of a full company.

"O'Mahony was now in command of the two regiments, as Wauchop had been wounded. It was pretty hard work they had of it, and they suffered heavily in carrying the guardhouse, held by two hundred Austrians. Eugene now launched a great force against our people, and attacked them on all sides; but O'Mahony faced them each way, and received the charge of the cuira.s.siers with so heavy a fire that they fled in disorder. Another corps of cuira.s.siers came up, and these charged with such fury that their leader, Monsieur de Freiberg, pushed his way into the middle of Dillon's regiment, where he was surrounded, and, refusing quarter, was killed; and his men, disheartened by the fall of their leader, fled, carrying with them the infantry who were ranged in their rear.

"But our men were now exhausted by their exertions, and suffered heavily; and O'Mahony, seeing that he was likely to be attacked by fresh troops, and that my post guarding the approach of the Po gate would then be left altogether unsupported, returned to it. I was glad enough when I saw them coming, for it was mighty trying work being left there, and hearing the storm of battle going on all round, and knowing that at any moment we might be attacked.

"They did not stop long, for orders came from Revel, who had captured the gate of All Saints, and was preparing to attack Saint Margaret's, to march again to the gate of Mantua. It seemed a hopeless enterprise. Captain Dillon, of Dillon's regiment, marched out and, after hard fighting, drove the Austrians from house to house; but, on reaching a spot where the ground was open, he was attacked on all sides, and for a time the enemy and our men were mixed up together in a melee.

"I could hear by the sound of the firing that our men were returning, and posted my fellows so as to cover their retreat; and as they came back, hotly pressed by the enemy, we opened so warm a fire that they pa.s.sed in through the gate of the barrier in safety, but only half as strong as they had gone out.

"As soon as they were in, they aided us in strengthening the position. Seeing that Vaudemont's corps was on the point of attacking the redoubt, the Marquis de Queslin sent orders to the little garrison there to withdraw across the bridge, and destroy the boats. This they effected, in spite of the heavy fire kept up by the enemy.

"In the meantime, fighting had been going on all over the town.

The gate of Mantua had been held by Captain Lynch, of Dillon's battalion, and thirty-five men. As soon as he heard the din of battle in the town, he collected a few fugitives, entrenched his position at the guardhouse, and maintained it for the whole day; not only that, but, finding that his position was commanded by a party of Austrians, who had taken post in the church of Saint Marie, close by, he sallied out, drove them from the church, and maintained possession of that as well; until, late in the afternoon, he was reinforced by two companies of our regiment, who made their way this time without opposition.

"The enemy fell back, but not unmolested, as, sallying out, we pressed hotly upon them. There now remained only the gate of Saint Margaret in the hands of the Austrians. Here a large body of troops had been stationed, and succeeded in repulsing the repeated attacks made upon them by Revel's force.

"The fight had now lasted for eleven hours, and the position of the Austrians had become critical. The desperate resistance of our men had entirely changed the position. They had repulsed every attack upon them, had given time for the scattered French to gather, and the one gate remaining in Eugene's possession was seriously threatened. Vaudemont's corps was helpless on the other side of the river, and could render no a.s.sistance, and Eugene gave the order for his troops to retire, which they did in good order.

"It had been a hot day, indeed, for us, and we were only too glad to see them go. We had lost three hundred and fifty men, out of the six hundred with which we began the fight; altogether, the garrison had lost, in killed, wounded, and in prisoners, fourteen hundred men and officers, while Eugene's loss was between fifteen and sixteen hundred.

"Personally, I have had hotter fighting, but taking the day altogether, it was the most terrible through which I have ever pa.s.sed. Throughout the day we were in total ignorance of what was going on elsewhere, though we knew, by the firing in other parts of the town, that the French there had not been overpowered, and, each time the regiments left us, I was expecting every moment to be attacked by an overwhelming force. Faith, it was enough to make one's hair white! However, I have no reason to grumble. I obtained great praise for the defence of the barrier, and was given my majority; and, if it had not been for the wound I received, two years ago, which incapacitated me from active service, I might now be in command of the regiment."

"Yes, indeed," another officer said. "It was truly a gallant affair; and, although our men had fought equally as well in many another engagement, it was their conduct at Cremona that attracted the greatest attention, and showed the French the value of the Brigade. I would we had always been employed in actions on which we could look back, with the same pride and pleasure, as we can upon Cremona and a long list of battles where we bore the brunt of the fighting; and never failed to be specially mentioned with praise by the general.

"The most unpleasant work that I ever did was when under Marshal de Catinat. Eight Irish battalions were sent up, in 1694, from Pignerolle into the valley of La Perouse, to oppose the Vaudois, who had always offered a vigorous resistance to the pa.s.sage of our troops through their pa.s.ses. They were wild mountaineers, and Huguenots to a man, who had, I believe, generations ago been forced to fly from France and take refuge in the mountains, and maintained themselves st.u.r.dily against various expeditions sent against them.

"I own the business was not at all to my taste, and many others of our officers shared my opinions. It was too much like what we remembered so bitterly at home, when William's troopers pursued our fugitives to the hills, burning, destroying, and killing, and, above all, hunting down the priests. This was the other way, but was as cruel and barbarous. The poor people had given no offence, save that they held to their own religion. An Irishman should be the last to blame another for that, and, seeing they had successfully opposed the efforts of the French to root them out, it was much against my will that I marched with my regiment. I hope that, when it comes to fighting against regular troops, of whatever nationality, I am ready to do my work; but to carry fire and sword among a quiet people, in little mountain villages, went against the grain.

"It seemed to us that it was to be a ma.s.sacre rather than fighting, but there we were mistaken. It was the hardest work that I ever went through. It was impossible in such a country to move in large bodies, and we were broken up into small parties, which advanced into the hills, each under its own commander, without any fixed plans save to destroy every habitation, to capture or kill the flocks of goats, which afforded the inhabitants their chief means of subsistence, and to give no quarter wherever they resisted.

"Even now, I shudder at the thought of the work we had to do; climbing over pathless hills, wading waist deep through mountain torrents, clambering along on the face of precipices where a false step meant death, and always exposed to a dropping fire from invisible foes, who, when we arrived at the spot from which they had fired, had vanished and taken up a fresh position, so that the whole work had to be done over again. Sometimes we were two or even more days without food, for, as you may imagine, it was impossible to transport provisions, and we had nothing save what we carried in our haversacks at starting. We had to sleep on the soaked ground, in pitiless storms. Many men were carried away and drowned in crossing the swollen torrents. Our clothes were never dry. And the worst of it was, after six weeks of such work, we felt that we were no nearer to the object for which we had been sent up than we were when we started.

"It was true that we had destroyed many of their little villages, but as these generally consisted of but a few houses, only rough buildings that could be rebuilt in a few days, the gain was not a substantial one. We had, of course, killed some of the Vaudois, but our loss had been much heavier than theirs, for, active as our men were, they were no match in speed for these mountaineers, who were as nimble as their own goats, knew everything of the country, and could appear or disappear, as it seemed to us, almost by magic. It was a wretched business, and once or twice, when our parties were caught in the narrow ravines, they were overwhelmed by rocks thrown down from above; so that, on the whole, we lost almost as many men as we should have done in a pitched battle, gaining no credit, nor having the satisfaction that we were doing good service to France.

"I hope I may never be employed in a business like that again. It was not only the Vaudois that we had to fight, for, seeing that at first we were pushing forward steadily, the Duke of Savoy, under whose protection they lived, sent six hundred regular troops to a.s.sist them, and these, who were well commanded, adopted the same tactics as the peasants, avoiding all our attempts to bring on an engagement, and never fighting except when they had us to great advantage.

"As a rule, our men were always dissatisfied when they received orders to fall back, but I think that there was not a man among us but was heartily glad, when we were recalled to rejoin Catinat at Pignerolle."

The expedition, however, although altogether unsuccessful in rooting out the Vaudois, created such terrible devastation in the mountains and valleys that the Irish name and nation will long remain odious to the Vaudois. Six generations have since pa.s.sed away, but neither time nor subsequent calamities have obliterated the impression made by the waste and desolation of this military incursion.

"You were at Blenheim, were you not, Captain O'Donovan?"

"Yes. A tough fight it was, and a mismanaged one. I was in the Earl of Clare's regiment, which, with Lee and Dorrington's battalions, was stationed with the force in Oberglau in the centre of our position. It seemed to us, and to our generals, that our position was almost impregnable. It lay along a ridge, at the foot of which was a rivulet and deep swampy ground. On the right of the position was the village of Blenheim, held by twenty-seven battalions of good French infantry, twelve squadrons, and twenty-four pieces of cannon. Strong entrenchments had been thrown up round our position, but these were not altogether completed.

Blenheim, moreover, had been surrounded by very heavy and strong palisades, altogether impa.s.sable by infantry, and, as the allies could not hope to get cannon across the stream and swamps, it seemed to defy any attack. From Oberglau the army of Marshal de Marcin and the Elector stretched to the village of Lutzingen. We had some five-and-twenty cannon at Oberglau.

"The weak point, as it afterwards turned out to be, was the crest between us and Blenheim. Considering that both the artillery and musketry fire from both villages swept the slope, and as in numbers we equalled the enemy, it was thought well-nigh impossible for him to cross the swamps and advance to the attack; and almost the whole of the French cavalry were ma.s.sed on the crest, in order to charge them, should they succeed in crossing and try to ascend the slope.

"At first the battle went altogether favourably. We had opposite to us the English, Dutch, Hanoverians, and Danish troops under Marlborough, while facing our left were Prussians, Imperialists, and other German troops under Eugene. Marlborough's Danish and Hanoverian cavalry first crossed, but were at once charged and driven back. Then they tried again, supported by English infantry.

Then Marlborough led up a still stronger force, drove back our light cavalry, and began to ascend the hill. We were attacked by ten battalions--Hanoverians, Danes, and Prussians, while the English bore against Blenheim. The fighting at both places was desperate, and I must do the Germans the justice to say that nothing could have exceeded the gallantry they showed, and that, in spite of the heavy fire we maintained, they pressed up the slope.

"We remained in our entrenchments, till it could be seen that the English were falling back from Blenheim, whose palisade, manned by twenty-seven battalions of infantry, offered an obstacle that would have defied the best troops in the world to penetrate.

"Immediately this was seen, nine battalions, headed by our three regiments, leapt from the trenches and poured down on the Germans.

The enemy could not withstand our onslaught. Two of their regiments were utterly destroyed, the rest suffered terribly, and were driven back. On the left, Marcin held his ground against all the attacks of Eugene, and it seemed to us that the battle was won.

"However, it was not over yet. While the fierce fighting had been going on in front of Oberglau and Blenheim, Marlborough had pa.s.sed the whole of his cavalry and the rest of his infantry across the rivulet, and, in spite of artillery and musketry fire, these moved up in grand order, the infantry inclining towards the two villages as before, the cavalry bearing straight up the slope, and, when they reached the crest, charging furiously upon our horse stationed there. They were superior in numbers, but on this head accounts differ. At any rate, they overthrew our cavalry, who fled in the greatest disorder, pursued by the allied horse.

"The infantry poured into the gap thus made, Blenheim was entirely isolated, and we were exposed to a.s.sault both in front and rear.

Nevertheless, we repulsed all attacks, until Marcin sent orders for us to retire; then we sallied out, after setting fire to the village, flung ourselves upon the enemy, and succeeded in cutting our way through, our regiment forming the rear guard. The whole of Marcin's army were now in full retreat, hara.s.sed by the allied cavalry; but whenever their squadrons approached us, we faced about and gave them so warm a reception that they attacked less formidable foes. As for the garrison in Blenheim, you know they were at last surrounded by Marlborough's whole force, with artillery; and with the Danube in their rear, and no prospect of succour, they were forced to surrender.

"It was a disastrous day, and I have not yet recovered from the wound I received there. Wad five thousand infantry been posted in a redoubt, halfway between Blenheim and Oberglau, so as to give support to our cavalry, the result of the battle would have been very different. Still, I suppose that most battles are lost by some unlooked-for accident--some mistake in posting the troops. We can only say that, had the allied forces been all composed of such troops as those Eugene commanded, they would have been beaten decisively; and that had, on the contrary, Eugene commanded such troops as those under Marlborough, Marcin would never have held his ground."

"How many British troops were there in the battle, Captain O'Donovan?"

"Somewhere about twelve thousand, while the Continental troops were forty-seven or forty-eight thousand. There is no doubt that they were the backbone of the force, just as we flatter ourselves that our three regiments were the backbone of the defence of Oberglau."

Chapter 3: A Strange Adventure.

When the party broke up, O'Neil and O'Sullivan, as usual, came in for a quiet chat to Desmond's room.

"As we may be possibly ordered to Spain," Kennedy said, "I should like to know a little about what we are going to fight about; for, although I know a good deal about the war in Flanders, no news about that in Spain ever reached Kilkargan."

"Well, you know, of course," O'Neil said, "that Philip the Fifth is a grandson of Louis; and is naturally supported by France against the Archduke Charles of Austria, who is compet.i.tor for the throne, and who is, of course, supported by England. Six thousand English and Dutch troops were sent to aid the Archduke Charles in his attempt to invade Spain and dethrone Philip. The King of Portugal, who is a member of the allied confederacy, promised to have everything ready to cooperate with them. They found, however, on their arrival, that no preparations had been made, and they were accordingly distributed, for a time, among the garrisons on the frontier.

"Philip, on his part, had not been so inactive, and two armies--the one commanded by the Duke of Berwick, and the other by General Villadarias--invaded Portugal. Berwick surprised and captured two Dutch battalions, and then captured Portalagre, and compelled the garrison, including an English regiment of infantry, to surrender.

"The allies, to make a diversion, sent General Das Minas into Spain, with fifteen thousand men, who captured one or two towns and defeated a body of French and Spanish troops. The hot weather now set in, and put a stop to hostilities, and the troops on both sides went into quarters. The general--I forget his name--who commanded the English and Dutch contingent, was so disgusted with the proceedings of the Portuguese that he resigned his command, and the Earl of Galway was appointed in his place. The next year he crossed the frontier, captured several towns, without much fighting, and invested Badajos. Here, however, a stern resistance was met with. Galway's hand was carried off by a shot, and the French general (Tesse) coming up in force to the relief of the town, and the Portuguese not arriving at all, the allies were obliged to fall back upon Portugal. But Philip was threatened from a fresh quarter.

"In June, the Earl of Peterborough sailed from Portsmouth with five thousand men, and at Lisbon took on board the Archduke Charles. At Gibraltar some more troops were embarked, and Peterborough set sail for the coast of Valencia. Peterborough himself, one of the most daring of men, and possessed of extraordinary military talent, was in favour of a march upon Madrid; but, fortunately for us, he was overruled, and commenced the siege of Barcelona--a strong town garrisoned by five thousand good troops, while he himself had but a thousand more under his command. Nevertheless, by a sudden and daring attack he captured the strong castle of Montjuich, which commanded the town, which was in consequence obliged to surrender four days later, and the whole of Catalonia was then captured. Saint Matteo, ninety miles from Barcelona, which had declared for Charles and was besieged by a large force, was relieved; and so brilliant were the exploits accomplished by Peterborough, with most inadequate means, that the Spaniards came to the conclusion that he was possessed by an evil spirit.

"Large reinforcements were sent from France, and King Philip advanced upon Barcelona, and invested it by land, while a French fleet bombarded it by sea. Peterborough hurried, with a small force from Valencia, to aid the besieged, the matter being all the more important since Charles himself was in the city. Before his arrival, however, an English fleet appeared, and our fleet retired.