Part 11

His father, Ulysses Baron de Brown and Camus, the representative and descendant of one of the most ancient families in Ireland, was then a Colonel of Cuirassiers in the service of Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, and was one of the many brave Irish gentlemen who, after the unfortunate battle of Aughrim, the surrender of Galway, and capitulation of King James's army under St. Ruth, at Limerick, were forced to feed themselves by the blades of their swords in the service of foreign countries. When Marshal Catinat and the Duke of Savoy laid siege to Valenza in 1696, they had no less than six battalions of Irish exiles in their army. Baron Brown had served under the Emperor Leopold I., who died in 1703; and by the Emperor Charles VI. had been created Count of the Holy Roman Empire; while his brother George received the same exalted rank, being at the same time a distinguished general of infantry, colonel of a regiment of musketeers, and councillor of war.

In his childhood Ulysses Maximilian was sent to the city of Limerick by his father, and there, for a few years, he pursued his studies at a public school, until his uncle, Count George Brown, sent for him, when only _ten_ years of age, to join his regiment of infantry, which was then with the army marching into Hungary, under the famous and gallant Prince Eugene of Savoy, against the Turks, who had invaded the Imperial frontier. With this army the great Count Saxe was serving as a subaltern officer.

The Turks had broken the peace of Carlovitz in 1715, conquered the Morea, declared war against Venice, besieged Corfu, and spread a general alarm among the courts of Europe. The Emperor's mediation was rejected with disdain by Achmet III., the imperious Porte, whose army, 150,000 strong, hovered on the right bank of the Danube; but Prince Eugene, with a small, well disciplined force, having passed the river in sight of the inactive Osmanli, encamped at Peterwaradin, on the confines of Sclavonia. Ulysses Maximilian Brown was with this army in the regiment of his uncle.

A battle ensued on the 5th August, 1716, near Carlovitz, and the Turks were totally routed, with the loss of their Grand Vizier Ali, and 30,000 slain; while fifty standards, 250 pieces of cannon, and all their baggage, were taken. Other, but minor victories followed, and in the month of June the brave Prince Eugene invested Belgrade, the key of the Ottoman dominions on the Hungarian frontier. For two months it was vigorously defended by 30,000 men, while the Turkish army, under the new Grand Vizier, was intrenched close by, in a semi-circle which stretched from the Danube to the Save, thus inclosing the troops of Eugene in the marshes between those rapid rivers.

By war and disease the Imperialists suffered fearfully; fighting of the most desperate kind ensued daily; and there, while yet a child, the little Irish boy was taught to handle his espontoon, and became a witness of, if not an actor in, those military barbarities which have always blackened a war along the Ottoman frontier.

It was apparent to Eugene that the Turks, by destroying the bridge of the Save, might obstruct his retreat, surprise a body of his Austrians at Semlin, or cut off his artillery, which were bombarding the lower town of Belgrade, while sickness and scarcity pressed severely upon his slender force; thus it became evident that nothing but a decisive victory would save him from gradual destruction. Already the Turks, 200,000 strong, were within musket-shot, and would soon storm his lines, which were defended by only 40,000 men, exclusive of the 20,000 who were blocking up Belgrade.

On a dark midnight--the 16th of August--after uniting his forces by firing three bombs, he attacked the mighty host of the Sultan Achmet--the most complete that Turkey had ever equipped for battle. Favoured by a thick fog, the Austrians broke through the slow and heavy Osmanli, stormed all their intrenchments at the point of the bayonet, turned their _own_ guns upon them, and grape-shotted the turbaned fugitives, whose unwieldy army was totally routed, and fled, leaving every cannon and baggage-waggon behind. The surrender of Belgrade, two days after, was the immediate consequence of this brilliant victory, and the Peace of Passarovitz, which, under the mediation of Great Britain, was signed in July, 1718, succeeded in establishing a twenty-five years' truce, and securing to Austria the western part of Wallachia, Servia, Belgrade, and part of Bosnia.

After this battle, Ulysses Brown, then in his twelfth year, was sent to Rome, where he continued his studies at the Clementine College, for the period of four years.

In 1721 he went to Prague, and in two years completed himself in the study of civil law.

He then entered the Austrian army, and in 1723 became a captain in the regiment of infantry commanded by his uncle, Count George Brown; and such was his ardour and such his knowledge in the art of war, that only two years after, in 1725, we find him appointed to the lieutenant-colonelcy of the same corps.

On the 15th of August in the following year he married Maria Philippina, Countess of Martinitz, the beautiful Bohemian heiress, and the last of an ancient and noble line.

In 1730 he served in the expedition to Corsica, and by his bravery and example contributed greatly to secure the capture of Callansara, where he was severely wounded in the thigh. This successful expedition caused a rumour that the island was to be erected into a kingdom for the Chevalier de St. George--James VIII. of the Scottish Jacobites; and George II., on being bribed by the Genoese, prohibited his English subjects from furnishing any assistance to the troops or inhabitants.

In 1732, Count Brown was made Chamberlain of the Austrian Empire: and in 1734 was appointed full colonel of infantry, and Italy was the next scene of his service.

France had resolved on humbling the overweening power of the House of Hapsburg; the venerable Marshal Villars crossed the Alps, and with a combined army of French and Spaniards, burst into Milan, overran Austrian Lombardy, and carrying victory wherever he marched, in two months' time left only Mantua under the flag of Charles VI. The latter made strenuous efforts to protect himself--to secure the passage of the Rhine against the Marshal Duke of Berwick on one hand, and to recover his power in Italy from Villars on the other. The Diet voted him 120,000 men; the Count de Merci marched 6000 of these to protect the important fortress of Mantua; and with a force increased to 60,000 soldiers, drew towards the head of the Oglio and Po.

Leaving his young wife at the court of Vienna, Count Brown accompanied this force with his regiment of German infantry; and it was among the first of those brave battalions which effected the arduous passage of the Po near Santo Benedetto, where the Count de Merci so boldly and skilfully surprised the French troops, and drove them back at the bayonet's point, with the loss of all their ammunition, baggage, and the cities of Guastalla, Novella, and Mirandola, of which he immediately took possession.

During this campaign Count Brown distinguished himself on every occasion, but most particularly at the great battle of Parma, on the 29th of June, 1734. There a desperate hand-to-hand conflict ensued in front of the city, on the high road which leads to Piacenza; and after a struggle as deadly as Italy ever saw, the Austrians remained masters of the field; but the Count de Merci, their general, was mortally wounded by a musket-ball, and Count Brown and the Prince of Wirtemberg, the lieutenant-general, had their horses shot under them. The French made their most desperate stand at a farm-house, from the walls of which "they mowed down whole companies of the Imperialists by grape and musket-shot. This dreadful conflict lasted for ten hours without intermission, when the enemy retired in good order towards the walls of Parma." On the field lay ten thousand corpses; of the Imperialists there fell the commander-in-chief, seven generals, and three hundred and forty officers, were killed and wounded. Thus ended an attack which the Count de Merci risked in direct opposition to the _advice_ of Count Brown and other officers of experience. The Imperial army now fell back upon Guastalla, where it was the good fortune of Count Brown to save it and the cause of Charles VI. from total destruction.

The Austrians, under the Prince of Wirtemberg, were posted between the Crostolo and the Po, near some strong redoubts at the head of one of their bridges; and there, on the 19th of September, they were attacked by the French, when after a hard conflict of eight hours, during which Brown, then in his twenty-ninth year, charged repeatedly at the head of his regiment, the Austrians were driven back, with the loss of four standards, while the gallant Prince of Wirtemberg, old General Colmenaro, the Prince of Saxe Gotha, and many other brave men, were slain.

Count Brown made incredible exertions to preserve discipline, and with his own regiment to cover the rear of the discomfited Imperialists, who were thus enabled to fall back in good order to a new and stronger position on the northward of the Po, where they kept the field until January in the ensuing year, when the wearied French and Spaniards retired into winter quarters. One of the most brilliant feats of the campaign was the destruction of the bridge which the Marshal Duke de Noailles had thrown over the Adige. At the head of his regiment the brave Irish soldier of fortune achieved this arduous task in sight of the whole French army, under a heavy discharge of cannon and musketry. Thus terminated the Lombardo campaign, in which Austria, if she did not lose her honour, won but little glory, though in the two battles of Parma and Guastalla she lost ten thousand soldiers.

The French strengthened their forces, and a cruel edict was issued at Paris, ordaining all British subjects in France between the ages of fifteen and fifty to enlist in the Irish Brigade, or go to the galleys--an edict which was enforced with such rigour, that in fifteen days all the Parisian prisons were crowded with British residents, chiefly poor Scottish Jacobites; but France soon found other and more worthy means of reinforcing her armies in Italy and on the Rhine, than by resorting to such inhospitable tyranny.

For his services in the Italian war, Count Brown received a general's commission in 1736 from the Emperor Charles VI., who, discouraged by his reverses, signified a desire for peace; but it was scarcely negotiated, before he became involved in a new war that broke out on the confines of Europe and Asia. The rapid progress of the Russians against the Turks, and their capture of the Crimea, excited the ambition of Charles, who, by the treaty of 1726, was bound to assist Russia against the Porte; and now that prophecy, so often propagated, was in every one's mouth, that the period fatal to the Crescent was arrived!

Again the Osmanli turned their arms against Hungary; and to protect that ancient kingdom rather than to assist the Czarina (who demanded of Austria 10,000 horse and 20,000 foot), Charles sent 8000 Saxon infantry, under Field-Marshal Seckendorf and General Count Brown, with whom the Duke of Lorraine went as a volunteer. By the peculation of the commissaries and contractors, these forces suffered incredible hardships, and their leaders found Gradisca, Bioc, even Belgrade, and all the Hungarian frontier fortresses dilapidated, and incapable of being defended. More troops and 600,000 florins were promised to them from Vienna, but neither came. Thus Seckendorf and Brown found themselves before the Turks with a small army of recruits, destitute of horses, caissons, and all the munitions of war. On receiving 10,000 florins, they raised 26,000 infantry, 15,000 horse, and 4000 irregulars; but the indecision of the Emperor, who interfered with all their arrangements, the nature of their forces, clamours among their soldiers, cabals among their officers, the severities they encountered, and the pressing ardour of the Osmanli, gave to the Imperial arms but a succession of humiliating defeats; and though Brown's fiery energy captured many small fortresses, others of greater importance were lost by Seckendorf, and at last Belgrade, the scene of our hero's earlier service, was besieged.

Banjaluca, a strongly fortified town, which has two castles to defend it, and which stands on the frontier of Bosnia, at the confluence of the Verbas with the Save, was skilfully invested by the Austrians under the Prince of Hildburghausen, but he was compelled to raise the siege, and after a bloody conflict, was driven towards the Save by the Turks.

Charles, alarmed for the safety of Austria, ordered Seckendorf and Brown to march through Servia, and form a junction with the prince, which they immediately did, after dispatching a reinforcement to Marshal Kevenhueller. With only 20,000 men they fought a way through Servia, and made themselves masters of Utzitza, after a short siege, and would have taken Zwornick, but for an inundation of the Drina. On the 16th of October they encamped on the southern bank of the Save. Thus, they arrived in time to share some of the fighting near Banjaluca, and on the retreat from thence the Austrian baggage, sick, and wounded, were only saved from the barbarous Mussulmans by the personal exertions of Count Brown, who secured that movement by his valour and example.

Discouraged by the misfortunes of his army, Charles VI. resolved to end a strife in which his troops gathered nothing but disgrace; and, leaving the quarrel to the mediation of France, he bequeathed to the Czarina the whole brunt of the war. The ill-success of the Austrians was attributed to the unfortunate Seckendorf, the victim of circumstances and the cabals of the Jesuits; thus he was committed, for an unlimited time, to the gloomy Castle of Glatz, an old fortress on the mountains of Silesia. On the peace of Belgrade being signed, Marshal Wallace was also sent prisoner to Zigieth, and Count Neuperg was placed in the Castle of Holitz; and as these three generals were ordered to remain captive during the lifetime of the Emperor, no part of the stigma of their ill-success fell on their Irish compatriot, Brown, who, on his return to Vienna, in 1735, was created Field Marshal-lieutenant, and a member of the Aulic Council of War.

In the following year, his friend and master, Charles VI. (having unfortunately surfeited himself with mushrooms), died. He was the _last_ prince of the ancient House of Hapsburg, sixteenth Emperor of Germany, and eleventh King of Bohemia; and the grave had scarcely closed over him, ere the disputed succession to his hereditary dominions kindled another war in Europe.

By the Pragmatic Sanction his ancient possessions were guaranteed to his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa (Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and wife of Francis Stephen, Duke of Tuscany), by Britain, Russia, Holland, France, Spain, and Prussia; but the three last-named powers fell--as an old writer says--"upon the poor distressed orphan queen, like three wolves, without mercy or equity;" and in defiance of their solemn league, the Bavarian Elector laid claim to Bohemia; the sovereigns of France, Poland, and Saxony demanded all the vast inheritance of Austria each for themselves; and all prepared for open war, while Maria Theresa quietly took possession of her father's throne.

At this startling crisis Count Brown was in command at Breslau. The first blow of this new and general contest was struck by Frederick III. of Prussia, who, having at his disposal all the immense treasure which had been accumulated by the rigid economy of his politic father, together with 76,000 idle troops, for whom he had been left to find employment, now revived an ancient claim to Silesia, based upon such pretensions as the English kings of old advanced to the thrones of Scotland and France; and suddenly marching twenty battalions of infantry and thirty-six squadrons of horse into the duchy, he took possession of Breslau, its capital, from which Count Brown was forced to retire, having only 3000 men, with whom he retreated towards Moravia, leaving small garrisons in Glogau and Breig, which Frederick blockaded with six battalions. This was in the January of 1741.

Frederick now offered to supply the Queen of Hungary (as Maria Theresa was styled) with money and troops to support her claims against _the other_ violators of the Pragmatic Sanction, provided she would cede to him the Silesian province. Aware of the danger of yielding to one pretender, she sent Count Neuperg (who, since the Peace of Belgrade, had been a captive) with an army to the assistance of the faithful Brown, who, after disputing every inch of Frederick's progress, had maintained the contest with him single-handed for two months.

The King of Prussia sent a detachment of infantry across the Oder to attack Brown's garrison of 300 men in Namslau, where they surrendered in a fortnight. Leaving one regiment in Breslau, he marched against Brown's next garrison, consisting of 400 men, in Ohlau, under Colonel Formentini, who finding the place ruinous, and the Prussians overwhelming, capitulated. Then General Kleist invested Breig with five battalions and four squadrons.

Count Neuperg, one of Austria's best generals, being a senior officer, assumed the command of the whole force, which he had first assembled in the environs of Olmutz, and sent General Lentulus to occupy the narrow defiles of Glatz in Silesia, and thus protect Bohemia. Neuperg, meanwhile, meditated operations on the Neiss, and his hussars cut off the King of Prussia's convoys and outposts in every direction. The skirmishes around Neiss were incessant, and in one cavalry encounter Frederick was nearly taken prisoner--a stroke which would have ended the war at once. After many manoeuvres and encounters, the armies of Neuperg and Frederick drew near each other, on the 10th of April, 1741, at Molowitz, a village in the neighbourhood of Neiss, where a desperate battle was fought.

On this inauspicious day--inauspicious for the Austrian cause--General Count Brown (or _Brauen_, as the King of Prussia names him in his works) commanded the infantry. The scene of the encounter was within a league of the river Neiss, and the ground was mantled with snow to the depth of two feet. The Prussian army consisted of twenty-seven battalions of infantry, twenty-nine squadrons of cavalry, and three of hussars.

The Prussian infantry were, at that time, says Frederick, who had brought their discipline to perfection, "walking batteries! The rapidity of loading tripled their fire, and made a Prussian equal to three adversaries." They came on with such ardour, that Marshal Neuperg had to form his troops in order of battle under a cannonade from Frederick's artillery; but the right wing of his cavalry (thirty squadrons), under Roemer, fell headlong on the Prussian left, and drove back their blue-coated dragoons. On they continued to press, with swords uplifted, until the steady fire of two grenadier battalions routed them, and slew the brave Roemer as he led them to the charge for the third time.

At this critical moment, the infantry under Brown rushed on, and, though unsupported by cavalry, made incredible efforts to break through Frederick's serried ranks; and in this struggle the first battalion of his guards lost half its officers, and no less than 800 men. For five hours the firing continued; and, as ammunition failed, the dead were all turned on their faces, and their pouches emptied, to carry on the strife, which was only ended by Marshal Schwerin making a motion with his left, which threatened the Austrian flank. "This," says Frederick, in the _History of his Own Times_, "was the signal of victory, and the Austrian defeat--their rout was total." This was at six, P.M.

Count Brown was severely wounded, and Maria Theresa had 180 officers, 7000 horse and foot, killed, and three standards, seven cannon, and 1200 prisoners taken, with 3000 wounded. Brown, though faint with loss of blood, never left his saddle; but, by his efforts at the head of the infantry, covered the retreat of the whole army, which Neuperg, who was also wounded, ordered to retire under the cannon of Neiss, leaving Frederick victorious on the field, where he remained for three weeks.

Availing himself of this success, the victor, after a short siege, took Breig, removed his head-quarters to Strehlen, and, on driving 4000 Austrian hussars from the important pass of Fryewalde, began to recruit his army among the conquered Silesians. Re-establishing himself in Breslau, on being joined by the Duke of Holstein, his army, consisting of forty-three battalions and seventy squadrons, would soon have cut off all communication between the troops of Neuperg and his supplies; and moreover, would have formed a junction with the armies of France and Bavaria, which had now taken the field in his favour--the former under the famous marshal, Duke de Belleisle, and the latter under their Elector. The outposts of their allied enemies were now within eight German miles of Vienna, and the cause of the young and beautiful Maria Theresa seemed almost desperate. She retired to Presburg, where her appearance before the assembled Palatines, with an infant son in her arms, kindled such an enthusiasm that, as one man, they drew their sabres, exclaiming "We will die for our sovereign, Maria Theresa!"

She sent for Count Brown in 1743, to be present at her coronation, and, as a reward for his past services, made him a privy councillor of the kingdom of Bohemia.

The brave Hungarian nobles now rose in arms, and old Count Palfy marched at the head of 30,000 men to relieve Vienna, the Governor of which, Marshal Kevenhueller, had only 12,000 men to resist the three armies of France, Prussia, and Bavaria, while the Marshals Neuperg and Brown covered the roads to Bohemia with 20,000 men, as a protection against the kingdom of Bavaria. In all the operations of the Austrians, during the many encounters and severe campaigns of 1742-3, Count Brown commanded the vanguard or first division, and always with honour.

Prince Charles of Lorraine having succeeded Marshal Neuperg in command of the army, encountered the enemy near Braunau, and a desperate, but drawn battle (in which his forces suffered most) was fought, while Prince Lobcowitz, on marching from Bohemia, drove the French from all their posts and garrisons in the Upper Palatinate. Then the combined forces of the Prince, Brown, and Lobcowitz, forced those of Marshal Broglio to abandon their strongly intrenched camp at Pladling, on the Danube, and to fall back in confusion on the Rhine, while the irregular horse, Croats, Pandours, and Foot Talpaches, harassed their rear-guard, and exterminated the stragglers.

In this expedition Count Brown seized Deckendorf at the head of the vanguard, captured a vast quantity of baggage, and obliged the French, after immense slaughter, to abandon the banks of the Danube, which the whole Austrian army, under the Prince of Lorraine, passed in security on the 6th of June.

On this spot a pillar was afterwards erected, bearing, in the following inscription, an honourable testimony to the valour of the Irish hero:--

"Theresiae Austriacae Augustae Duce Exercitus, Carlo Alexandro Lothairingico, Septemdecim, superatis hostilibus villis, Captoque Deckendorfio, renitendibus undis, Resistentibus, Gallis, Duce exercitus Ludovico Borbonio Contio Transivit hic Danubium, Ulysses Maximilianus Brown, Campi Marashalus, Die 5o Junii," A.D. 1743.

When Marshal Broglio reached Donawert, in the Swabian circle, he was joined by 12,000 men, under the warlike Maurice Count de Saxe, afterwards Marshal General of France and Duke of Courland; but finding his main body almost destroyed, instead of hazarding a battle, he retreated before Prince Charles and Brown to Heilbron, and there abandoning to them his artillery and baggage, retired with greater precipitation to Prague.