Part 13

In triumph, and in defiance of the French troops under the Marshal Duke de Belleisle, he passed the Var on the 9th of November, with a fine army, consisting of forty-five squadrons of horse, and sixty-three battalions of foot--in all, 50,000 men. Among these were twenty regiments of the Piedmontese. The wild Croats on their swift grey horses, and the dashing Hungarian Hussars, clad in their brown uniforms, formed his vanguard; and fell with such fury upon the French with their long lances and sharp sabres, that they swept all before them; while the British sailors, under Vice-Admiral Medley, drove the enemy from Fort Laurette, and thereby secured his left flank. Thus safely and victoriously he passed the Var, and entered Provence, the ancient patrimony of the House of Anjou.

With the assistance of a British bomb-ketch, he reduced and took 500 soldiers in the little isles of Saint Marguerite and Saint Honorat, on the south-east coast of France, opposite to Antibes, which he invested by land, while Admiral Medley cannonaded it by sea. Leaving Baron Roth with twenty-four battalions to press the siege against the Chevalier de Sade, he made himself master of Draguignan, with the loss of 2000 men, laid all the open country under contribution, and threw forward his outposts as far as the river Argens. During these arduous operations he was seized by a fever, which confined him to a camp-bed, but he soon relinquished it for his saddle.

The batteries opened against Antibes on the 20th of September. It was cannonaded for thirty-six days, and all its houses were demolished; but on collecting a numerous army, the Marshals De Belleisle and De Boufflers advanced to its relief, while other forces, amounting to _sixty_ battalions, were hastening forward from Flanders. Meanwhile the Genoese, driven to despair by the extortions and severity of the Marquis de Botta, resolved to break their Austrian fetters or die in the attempt. The circumstance of a German officer striking an Italian who refused to drag a mortar to which he was harnessed, kindled a flame; and all the Genoese rushed to arms, and forced the arsenals. The city barriers were stormed, the Austrians driven out, and two regiments, who defended the gate of Santo Thomaso, were cut to pieces. All these circumstances combined, obliged Count Brown to raise the siege of Antibes, abandon the projected expedition against Toulon, and repass the Var. This was executed on the 23rd January, 1747, but not without considerable loss, for his rear-guard was furiously attacked. Ordering a column of horse and foot into Lombardy to join Count Schulemberg, he lined the southern bank of the Var with his main body, and kept the French under the great Belleisle completely in check, till the King of Sardinia secured all the mountain defiles, to prevent them from penetrating into Piedmont.

Brown still continued that masterly retreat which excited the admiration of all military men, and even of his enemy, the brave Belleisle, who followed him across the Var on the 25th May, and retook Mont Albano, Villa Franca, and Ventimiglia, from his garrisons, driving back forty-six Piedmontese battalions with terrible slaughter at the pass of Exilles, where the Chevalier de Belleisle (brother of the marshal), Knight of St. John of Jerusalem, fell, pierced with three wounds. Meanwhile Brown, with a force diminished to 28,000, continued his retreat towards Finale and Savona. The despatch, which was sent to him by Major-General Colloredo, detailing the affair at Exilles, was published in the _London Gazette_. In Lombardy he ordered two intrenched camps to be formed; one to hold 14,000 men, to guard the banks of the Tanaro; the other to hold 11,000, and guard the Po, near Pavia; but fatigue and want of food soon compelled all to seek quarters for the winter. The King of Sardinia marched to Turin; Brown established his head-quarters at Milan, after winning the praise of all Europe by his skilful operations in Provence. While here, by the severity of his remonstrance, he forced Marshal Schulemberg to abandon his important enterprise against Bisignano, and draw off his division to assist the King of Sardinia in covering Piedmont and Lombardy.

The remainder of that year he occupied by innumerable skirmishes and movements in defending the Italian States of Maria Theresa; among these (after the great review at Coni) was the march upon the Dermont, the assault by the French upon Maison Meau, the attack upon forty-three French battalions who were intrenched near Villa Franca, and other affairs, until the peace so happily signed in 1748, when he was sent by his mistress to Nice, where, in conjunction with the Duke de Belleisle and the Marquis de la Minas, he skilfully adjusted certain difficulties which had arisen in fulfilling the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. In reward for his many great and gallant services, the Empress-Queen now made him Governor of Transylvania where he won the love and admiration of the people by his justice, affability, and honourable bearing.

In 1752 he was made governor of the city of Prague, and commander-in chief of all the troops in the kingdom of Bohemia; and in the following year the King of Poland, as Elector of Saxony, honoured him with the Order of the White Eagle, the collar of which is a gold chain (to which a silver eagle is attached), and first worn by Udislaus V. on his marriage with a daughter of the Duke of Lithuania. In 1754 he was raised to the rank of Marshal of the Empire.

After five years of peace the clouds of war again began to gather on the Prussian frontier, and Marshal Brown was summoned for the _last_ time to the field. A quarrel having ensued between the courts of Berlin and Vienna, the warlike King of Prussia became alarmed by the hostile preparations that were made along the Livonian frontier, and resolving to anticipate the designs of his enemies, in 1756 invaded Saxony, and made himself master of Dresden. On the first tidings of this invasion, Marshal Brown put himself at the head of the army of Prague, and marched to relieve the Saxons; but this movement was anticipated by Frederick, who left 40,000 men to continue the blockade of Pirna on the left bank of the Elbe (where Augustus III. of Poland was shut up), and penetrated into Bohemia at the head of 24,000 soldiers.

Brown encamped at Kolin, while his compatriot, Prince Piccolomini, was posted at Konigingratz. From Kolin he marched on the 23rd of September to the fine old city of Budyn, which was surrounded by walls, and contains the ancient fortress of Hassenberg. Here he endeavoured to concert measures with the Saxons for securing their freedom; but Frederick, on being joined by another column of his army, under the great Scottish Marshal Keith, marched to encounter him.

Passing the Egra, Count Brown encamped at Lowositz, on the Elbe, and near the Saxon frontier, and there the King of Prussia came in sight of his army, in position, at daybreak on the 1st of October, with 65 squadrons, 26 battalions, 102 pieces of cannon, which formed in order of battle as they advanced, in that steady manner for which the Prussians had now become so famous. The infantry were formed in two lines, and the cavalry in three in their rear. Frederick's right wing occupied a village at the foot of the Radostitz, a wooded mountain; and on the Homolkaberg, in front of it, he had placed a battery of heavy guns; his left wing rested on the Loboschberg; and his centre occupied the fertile valley between.

The high and steep face of the Loboschberg was covered by vines, and intersected by many stone walls. Among these Marshal Brown advanced a large body of Croats, with several battalions of Hungarians to sustain them; a deep ravine and rugged rivulet lay between the army of Frederick and the Austrians, which consisted of 72 squadrons, 52 battalions, and 98 pieces of ordnance, being 70,000 men. Brown formed them in two lines, with his horsemen on the wings. He planted cannon in the village of Lowositz, and in redoubts on the level ground before it.

At seven in the morning, and during a dense fog, the battle began between the Prussian left and the Croats on the Loboschberg, who continued firing till noon, when Frederick, seeing that Brown's right was his weakest point, marched from the summit of the mountain and drove down the Croats and Hungarians from the vineyards into the plain and ravine below. The marshal, believing that the fortune of the day depended on the retention of Lowositz, threw his retiring right wing into the village, where it soon gave way. He then led forward his left, but the infantry fell into confusion at the village of Sulowitz, being exposed to a dreadful fire of shot and shell from redoubts and field-pieces, grape, canister, hand-grenades, and musketry, which mowed them down like grass, and drove them back in disorder; the marshal then ordered a retreat, which he conducted in so masterly a manner, that no effort was made to harass him. He fell back at three in the afternoon to a new position, so well chosen that Frederick dared not follow, but contented himself with keeping his line behind the ravine of Lowositz, though by sending forward a body of cavalry under the Prince of Bavern, he turned the marshal's left flank, a manoeuvre which compelled him to repass the Egra, and again occupy his old camp at Budyn.

Such was the battle of Lowositz, where the marshal left 4000 of his men dead on the field, and in his retreat had to blow up his magazine, while the Prussians had only 653 killed and 800 wounded. Having failed to relieve the Saxons, he marched to Lichtendorf, near Schandau, to join the King of Poland, and made an attempt to force back the Prussians at the head of 8000 chosen soldiers; but the effort proved ineffectual, and Augustus III. was compelled to capitulate, and deliver 17,000 men and eighty pieces of cannon into the hands of Frederick--a mortification as bitter to the marshal as it was to the Polish monarch.

On the 14th he retired towards Bohemia. The Prussian hussars followed his rear-guard, and put 300 Croats to the sword. For his services he now received the Collar of the Golden Fleece--one of the first of European knightly orders.

In 1757 a confederacy was completed to punish Frederick of Prussia for his invasion of Saxony. France sent 80,000 men to the Rhine, under the Marshal d'Estrees; 60,000 Russians threatened Livonia; the Swedes gathered on the Pomeranian frontier; and Maria Theresa mustered 150,000 soldiers, the most of whom were stationed in Prague, under Prince Charles of Lorraine and the Marshals Brown and Daun. The Austrians were then formed into four divisions--one under Marshal Brown, at Budyn; a second under the Duke d'Aremberg, at Egra; a third under Count Konigsegg, at Richtenberg; a fourth under Marshal Daun, in Moravia. Undeterred by this vast array against him, Frederick in April marched straight upon Prague, and driving before him a column under Marshal Schwerin, attacked Brown at Budyn, before Daun's division could join him from Moravia. On finding his flank turned, Brown fell back upon the Bohemian capital, and Frederick, leaving one division of his army under Marshal Keith, followed him fast with the rest, and gave battle to the Austrians on the 6th of May, at dawn in the morning.

The Imperialists under Marshal Brown were 80,000 strong; his left wing rested on the Ziskberg towards Prague; his right on the hill of Sterboli. In the front were steep and craggy mountains, which no cavalry could climb or artillery traverse; but the deep vale at their foot was lined by hussars and hardy Hungarian infantry. The battle was commenced by Lieutenant-General the Prince of Schonaich assailing the Austrian right with sixty-five squadrons of cavalry; a movement which Brown skilfully repulsed by drawing off his cavalry from the left, and overwhelming the prince by the united rush of one hundred and four squadrons. Thus outflanked, they were repulsed, after two charges, until General Zeithen hurled the Austrians back upon their infantry by a magnificent charge of twenty squadrons of hussars.

The battalions of Prussian grenadiers were routed by a discharge of twelve-pounders loaded with musket-shot, and the noble Marshal Schwerin, who, seizing the colours, placed himself on foot at their head, was shot through the heart; but his officers rallied the troops, and assailed the Austrian right, at the same moment that Frederick broke through their centre, and drove it towards Prague. A desperate struggle with the bayonet now ensued between the Austrian left and the Prussian right under Prince Henry: and Marshal Brown, while in act of issuing orders to an aid-de-camp, received a deadly wound in the body; and as he could ill brook the double mortification of a defeat and of resigning the command to Prince Charles of Lorraine, it became mortal. He was compelled to leave the field, from which his right wing fled to Maleschitz, while the left followed the centre in hopeless disorder to Prague, leaving the victory to the Prussians, who by their own account had 3000 killed and 6000 wounded (by another account, 18,000 killed), 397 officers fell, many of them high in rank; 8000 Austrians were slain, 9000 taken prisoners, and 50,000 were shut up in Prague, while all the cavalry fled to Beneschau, and joined Marshal Daun. Such was the terrible and disastrous battle of Prague, and seldom has the sun set upon such a scene of suffering or slaughter as the field presented, for there were more than _twenty thousand killed and wounded men lying upon it at six in the evening_!

Marshal Brown was conveyed by his soldiers into Prague, where he endured the greatest torture from his wound, which was aggravated by the bitterness of being disabled at such a critical time. Thus by the agitation and bitterness of his mind it became fatal, and fifty-one days after the battle he expired of mingled agony and chagrin, on the 26th of June, 1757, at the age of fifty-two.

Thus died Austria's most able general and diplomatist--and one of Ireland's greatest sons; one of whom she has every reason to be proud, for he was the military rival of Frederick of Prussia, and of France's most skilful marshals, and he filled all Europe with the fame of his exploits in the field and his talent in the cabinet.

A magnificent monument was erected to his memory, and his titles and estates were inherited by his sons, of whom he left two by his countess, Maria Philippina of Martinitz. One of these died at Vienna, on the 1st May, 1759, a major-general in the service of Austria: he expired in great torture, under wounds received in battle.

MEMOIRS OF THE LACYS.

Ireland has given to the armies of Europe five brave soldiers, all kinsmen of the name of _Lacy_--viz., Marshal Lacy, who overran the Crimea in the service of Russia, and was the fellow-soldier of the great Count Munich; Marshal Count Lacy, his son, the friend of Leopold Daun, and, like him, a distinguished general in the Septennial War; Francis Anthony Count de Lacy, who died Captain-General of Catalonia: his brother Patrick Lacy, Major of the Ulster Regiment in the Spanish service; and his son, Louis Lacy, who fought with such bravery in the wars of the Peninsula, and was _Chef-du-Battailon_ of the Irish in 1807.

All those Lacys were of the old Irish family of Bruree, and their native place originally was Athlacca, a parish in the county of Limerick, on the Maig. Many of this gallant race are buried there, in the ancient churchyard, where an old tomb is yet extant, inscribed--

"John, Thomas, and Edward Lacy, 1632."

The family followed to foreign wars the fortunes of the exiled James Fitz-James, Duke of Berwick, Commander of the first troop of Irish Horse Guards, and natural son of James II. of England and VII. of Scotland. He was married first to a daughter of the Earl of Clanricarde, by whom he had a son, the successor of his titles and estates in Spain, and who also became the friend of the Lacys.

The first of the family who rose to eminence was Marshal Peter Lacy, who entered the service of Russia, and commanded with such distinction and success against the Turks.

He served as a subaltern and regimental officer in the armies of Peter the Great, and first learned the art of war in those sanguinary and desperate conflicts between the forces of the Czar and those of Charles XII. of Sweden, against whom Peter made an alliance with the Kings of Poland and Denmark in 1699, and with whom his general, the brave Prince Menschikoff, fought so many battles in the early part of the last century.

In the year 1736 Lacy had attained the rank of general in the Russian army, under Anne Ivanowna (niece of Peter I.), who at that time governed the vast and barbarous empire of the Muscovites. Count Munich, who, for her service, had left the army of the Elector of Saxony, was at the head of her troops. "He was the Prince Eugene of Muscovy," says Frederick the Great; "but he had the vices with the virtues of all great generals. _Lascy_ (the younger), Keith, Lowendhal, and other able generals, were formed in his school." Sir Patrick Gordon, a Scottish soldier of fortune, had already disciplined the Russian army, and brought it from barbarism to an equality with others in Europe; and in the time of Lacy and Munich it consisted of 10,000 guards, 60,000 infantry of the line, 20,000 dragoons, 2000 cuirassiers, 30,000 militia, with Cossacks, Tartars, Calmucs, and other barbarians, in unnumbered hordes.

In the year 1736 the differences between the Czarina Anne and her hereditary enemy the Grand Seignior, came to a crisis; and she declared war, in consequence of the provoking outrages of the Tartars of the Crimea, and the neglect of the Sultan to her repeated remonstrances on that subject; and the Emperor of Austria concerted with her the plan of the new campaign against Turkey. It was agreed that a Russian army, under General Lacy (or _Lasci_, as it is often spelt), should march against the city of Azoph; that another Russian army, commanded by the Count de Munich, should penetrate to the Ukraine; while the Austrians, under Count Seckendorf, should prepare to assault Widin, in Servia; and all these armies marched accordingly.

The Khan of the Crimea was, in those days, a powerful prince, who paid tribute to the Sultan, though he was styled _Emperor_ by his Tartar subjects, and, being descended of the Ottoman blood, had a claim to the Turkish throne, on the extinction of the race of Achmet III. The sultans had the power of deposing them, and, being jealous of their rank and authority, allowed few of them to die at liberty. Thus most of the Khans of the Crimea have ended their lives in chains in the dungeons of Rhodez. Among his own people the khan could then, at any time, command an army of eighty or a hundred thousand men; but darts, arrows, and spears, with a few muskets, were their weapons, with wooden saddles and stirrups. His revenues were, the tenth of all captives, a _black mail_ paid by the Poles and Muscovites, and twenty cart-loads of honey from the Moldavians. He had vast flocks, coined copper money, and maintained a guard of Janissaries, who bore his green and purple standard. The Crimea then contained several great cities, and, besides many noble monuments of the Genoese, was covered by the ruins of the Grecian age and power.

Lacy came in sight of Azoph in March, 1736. It stands on the left bank of the most southern branch of the Don, in a district full of dangerous swamps, and on an eminence, the only spot capable of bearing buildings in that bleak and barren district. The city was then of a square form, situated at the foot of an acclivity, and having a castle of great strength. Lacy attacked both town and castle with great vigour; and though assailed by incessant showers of bullets, arrows, darts, stones, and other missiles, shot by its strong garrison of Tartars and Turks, he took it by storm, after a twelve days' siege, and completely reduced it.

Field-Marshal Count Munich, with 100,000 men, was equally successful elsewhere.

Lacy next forced the far-famed lines of Perekop, which, till then, had been considered impregnable. They extended across the Isthmus, from the Euxine to the Palus Maeotis, and had been the labour of 5000 men for many years. The great ditch (from whence we have the name of _Perecopz_) was seventy-two feet broad by forty-two feet deep, and the rampart was seventy feet in height, from its base to the cope of the parapet. The town was defended by a castle, the residence of the Aga of the Guards upon the Don and Dnieper, and by six great towers mounted with cannon; but the whole of these ample fortifications were manned by an army which made the most pitiful resistance; for this Irish soldier of fortune forced them, sword in hand, at the head of his troops, cut to pieces all who resisted, and hewed a passage into the peninsula.

He took Bakhtchissari, which lies within twenty-two miles of Sebastopol. It then contained about 4000 houses, a mosque with a fine palace, and many stately tombs where the khans were buried. Around it were baths, gardens, and orchards; and near it, in the narrow valley, there still stands the now deserted mausoleum of a famous Georgian beauty, who was the chief wife of the Khan Khareem Gheraee.

While Munich was marching towards Bessarabia, Lacy overran the whole Crimea, and ravaged the country with fire and sword, up to the northern slopes of the Tauric mountains; but being foiled before Kaffa (on the sea shore), which was defended by strong walls, two castles, and a garrison under a bashaw, he was compelled, by the approach of winter, to retreat, after subjugating the whole country, and defeating more than 20,000 Tartars in one pitched battle.

"General Lacy," says Smollett, "routed the Tartars of the Crimea; but they returned in greater numbers, and harassed his Muscovites in such a manner, by intercepting their provisions and destroying the country, that he was obliged to abandon the lines of Perekop." The great Field-Marshal, Baron Loudon (descended from an Ayrshire family), served in this war, under Lacy, as a subaltern officer. Among the Scottish volunteers who also served there, were Colonel Johnstone; the gallant General Leslie, who, with all his soldiers, was destroyed on the Steppe by the Tartars; and General Balmaine, who stormed Kaffa.

After these triumphant operations, Lacy entered the Ukraine, joined Marshal Munich, and together, in 1737, they laid siege to Oczakow, at the mouth of the Borysthenes.

Oczakow, or _Dziar Cremenda_, had then about 5000 houses, a mosque, a palace, with a number of tombs of the Crimean khans, which stood among their gardens and orchards. It had a castle, built by Vitolaus, Duke of Lithuania, and therein a Turkish garrison had been established since 1644. Munich and Lacy assailed the town and castle on the landward side; but towards the sea they were attacked by the cannon of eighteen galleys. The Muscovites carried all their approaches with such impetuosity and perseverance, that, in a few days, the Turks and Tartars became filled with terror.