Part 15

Leaving Lacy to watch the Prussian general Zeithen, Leopold Daun, accompanied by his countess, repaired to Vienna, and so soon recovered, that in the spring of the following year he was able to assist at the councils of war. Fifty thousand men were now prisoners on both sides. In February, 1761, Lacy, now a field-marshal, meant to have visited Finland (where his father had received extensive estates), to settle certain family disputes which had arisen; but the preparations for another campaign, and the knowledge that his old friend Daun was about to resume the command, made him defer this journey for a time.

On the 21st of March, Marshal Daun departed from Vienna to join the army, and all the generals repaired to the head of their different brigades and divisions, for it was intended that the greatest efforts should now be made to crush the warlike King of Prussia. Daun took the command in Saxony; Marshal Count Loudon in Silesia, where he was to be supported by the Russians under Marshal Butterlin, whose train of artillery was tremendous. It consisted of no less than eight ninety-six-pounders, twenty-two forty-eight-pounders, seventy twenty-four-pounders, eighty-three twelve-pounders, eighty-six eight-pounders, and 106 lighter field pieces, drawn by 13,834 horses.

O'Donnel marched with 16,000 men to Zittau, from whence he was to assist the armies of Saxony or Silesia, as occasion might require, and he pushed one division as far as Dresden.

In June, Lacy's corps took post on the right bank of the Elbe, to preserve a communication with the division of his countryman. Several other Irishmen had high rank in the Austrian service about this time, and we may particularly note Nicholas Count Taaffe, who died a colonel-commandant in 1770, aged ninety-two, and was succeeded in his title and regiment by his son, Count Francis; and Count O'Rourke,[13] Knight of St. Louis, descended from an ancient family in the county of Leitrim, whose ancestors Cromwell is said to have stripped of an estate worth 70,000_l._ per annum.

On the Prussians, under Prince Henry, passing the Elbe in July, Daun reinforced Lacy with six battalions and some regiments of horse. In spite of their utmost efforts, Frederick, after fighting the Imperialists on the heights of Buckersdorf, where an Irish officer named O'Kelly ably defended their redoubts with only 4000 men, recovered the city of Schweidnitz on the 22nd July, though defended by 9000 men, under _another_ Irish general named Butler. He then turned his eyes towards Saxony, and proposed to besiege Dresden.

After Loudon entered Silesia in August, some severe fighting ensued, especially at Munsterberg, and on the hills of Labedau. Lacy was then hovering with his troops near Grossenhayn, and encamping at Gros-dobritz, from whence he advanced his videttes as far as Strehlen along the Elbe--for Count O'Donnel still occupied Dresden or its neighbourhood.

In September, Lacy was sent with his brigade, 15,000 strong, by Daun, to join the Russians at Brandenburg, with orders to ravage all the electorate, which, while covered by the army of Soltikoff, he did so effectually as to compel Frederick either to shift his camp from Buntzelwitz, on which he had 466 guns with 182 mines, or to weaken his army by sending out detachments to protect the burning country. In doing the latter some of Prince Henry's cavalry were severely cut up by Lacy's dragoons in a forest near Reisa; and to avoid such unpleasant surprises in future, the Prussians cut down all the magnificent timber that surrounded the old castle of Hubertsbourg; but on Lacy's nearer approach they retired to Potsdam and Spandau. In October, Prince Henry of Prussia and Marshal Daun were both encamped--one under the walls of Dresden, and the other under the ramparts of Meissen, while their hussars and light troops fought together hourly, and Lacy hovered in the neighbourhood of Lusace, watching some large detachments of Prussians.

In December he again terrified the inhabitants of the capital by appearing suddenly within seven miles of Berlin; but on an overwhelming force under General Bandemer being sent against him by Prince Henry, he recrossed the Elbe and retreated.

Fortunately in 1762 there was concluded with the Court of Vienna a cessation of hostilities for the provinces of Saxony and Silesia. This partial truce induced the Princes of the Empire to sign a treaty of neutrality to save their petty dominions from the ravages of Frederick; and as Sweden and Russia, on the accession of the Czar Peter III, had concluded a truce with him, the Septennial War was thus left to be finished by the two powers which began it--Prussia and Austria.

In that year the Khan of the Crimea proposed to join the former, and indeed marched 5000 men towards the frontier of Poland for that purpose; but the death of the Czarina Elizabeth, and the consequent revolution in Russia, had so bewildered the poor Tartar, that not knowing what side to take, he timidly retreated to Perekop. On this Frederick recalled the Prince of Bavern from Moravia, with his troops, that together they might make doubly sure of Schweidnitz.

They joined forces, and the prince encamped on the heights of Peilau. Scarcely had this junction been effected before the Austrians, under Daun, Lacy, and O'Donnel, entered among the mountains on the 16th of August, 1762, and after a skirmish at Langan Bielau, encamped with forty battalions and forty squadrons close by; while General Beck, another Imperialist, occupied the Kletchberg with twelve battalions and twenty squadrons. All night the Prussians were under arms; their cavalry bitted and saddled, their muskets loaded, and port-fires lit; every trooper slept beside his horse, and each gunner by his cannon. Daun assailed the Prince of Bavern in his position with great impetuosity. Lacy passed the village of Peilau with six battalions, which he skilfully kept concealed behind a hill whereon his artillery were posted. To cover his left flank, O'Donnel marched forty squadrons directly from Peilau, and three times his Imperial cuirassiers were repulsed from the valley, and by a volley of grape from fifteen six-pounders his confusion was completed. O'Donnel, with the loss of 1500 dragoons, fell back, and thus exposed the left flank of Lacy, who, after making great efforts to storm the heights occupied by the foe, was compelled to retreat; and next day Daun retired by Wartha and Glatz to Scharfneck, where he remained till the close of the campaign.

This was the last military service of importance performed by Marshal Count Lacy at that time; for soon after, the war came to a close, by the treaty of peace, signed in February, 1763, by which it was agreed that a mutual restitution of conquests and oblivion of injuries should take place; and that Prussia and Austria should be put in the same position as when the hostilities began; and thus happily ended this truly atrocious strife, in which nearly NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND SOLDIERS PERISHED. Prussia fought ten pitched battles, and lost 180,000 men; Russia, four great battles, and lost 120,000 men; Austria, ten battles, with the loss of 140,000 men; France lost 200,000; Britain, 165,000; Sweden, 25,000; and the Circles 28,000; while Austria found herself encumbered by one hundred millions of crowns of debt!

For fourteen years Lacy led a life of peace, devoting himself to the development of discipline in the Austrian army, till the death of the Bavarian Elector, on the 30th December, 1777, opened up a new prospect of aggrandizement to the Imperial Government, and again lighted the torch of war in Germany. The Elector Palatine, the Elector of Saxony and Duke of Mechlenburg-Schwerin laid claim to the vacant Electoral hat; but their voices were lost when the formidable and covetous House of Hapsburg also put forth a demand, and the Emperor Joseph and Marshal Lacy appeared with 100,000 men, and an immense train of artillery, at the celebrated position of Konigsgratz, above the confluence of the Adler and the Rhine.

The Prussians and Saxons broke into Bohemia, and compelled Loudon to retreat, and a year of the old manoeuvring war and devastation followed, till the Congress of Teschen, by which Charles Theodore, Elector Palatine of the House of Neuberg, obtained the Bavarian hat, on the 13th May, 1779. The Emperor was compelled to relinquish his unjust claims, and tranquillity was restored to Germany, enabling Count Lacy, then in his sixty-first year, once more to sheath the sword; and this command which he held in the Bavarian dispute was the last act of importance performed by him in the service of Austria.

He had now the rank of Field-Marshal, which at the age of thirty-six he had declined, on the plea that his achievements were unworthy of it. He had the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa; he was a member of the Aulic Council, Chief of the Staff, and General of the Ordnance.

During his command-in-chief of the Austrian army, the following romantic incident occurred.

A young Neapolitan noble, who, by war or gambling, had been reduced to poverty, became anxious to obtain military employment in the service of Austria; and on being furnished with a letter of introduction to Lacy from another soldier of fortune who served in the army of Ferdinand IV., he travelled on foot towards Vienna. He reached the Austrian territories almost penniless, and one evening found himself at a poor wayside inn, not far from the capital. In the drinking room he met three officers who were also travelling towards Vienna; and they, with the frankness of German soldiers, invited the stranger to sup with them, and in the course of the evening he told them what were his views and wishes, and that all his hopes depended upon Lacy.

"I regret to say that your plan is a bad one," said one of the Austrian officers who wore the cross of Maria Theresa; "we have had a long peace, and so many of our young nobility are crowding to Vienna in search of military employment, that I fear there is little likelihood of Marshal Lacy being able to befriend a stranger."

Undeterred by this, the young Italian said that he was resolved to persevere; and he added an account of himself, of his family, their past importance and services in war, of his present necessity and circumstances; and all this was related with a candour and modesty which so pleased him who appeared the senior officer, that he said,--

"Well, sir, since you are resolved to try your fortune at Vienna, I will give you a letter to the Marshal Lacy; it may prove of use to you, for he knows me well."

Furnished with this additional credential, the Italian reached Vienna. He waited on Lacy and presented his papers; all, at least, save the Austrian officer's letter, which unfortunately he had mislaid. Lacy read them, and frankly told him that to grant what he wished was impossible. Crushed by this, the Italian retired in desperation, for the state of his funds could ill brook delay. Three days elapsed, until chancing to find the letter he had obtained so peculiarly at the inn, he again presented himself at the levee of Lacy and delivered it. The marshal opened it, and on reading the contents, his face expressed the utmost astonishment.

"How comes it, sir," said he, with severity, "that you did not deliver this letter to me sooner?"

"Because it was mislaid; and from the casual manner in which it was received, I deemed it of little value."

"Do you know from whom it comes?"

"No," replied the Italian; "but the writer wore the gold cross of Maria Theresa."

"That officer with the gold cross was _the Emperor_--Joseph II. You ask me for a subaltern's commission, and he desires me to give you the rank of captain in a newly-raised regiment, and I have much pleasure in obeying his orders."

This young volunteer died a colonel of Hussars, and fell in battle against Custine, on the Upper Rhine, in 1792.

Lacy's plans of military reform won him a high renown in the Empire, to which he extended the mode of defence previously employed with such success upon the frontiers of Bohemia. He established the great fortress of Koningsgratz, and strengthened the defences of Theresienstadt and Josephstadt, which are still the admiration of all engineers. He regulated the war finance by a system of economy, still remembered with gratitude in Austria. True and faithful to the land he served, he was ever ready to sacrifice his personal interests and feelings for the good of the State. Of this he gave a prominent example in 1788, when Joseph II., having experienced only reverses in his contest with the Porte, was recommended by Lacy to entrust all to Baron Loudon (with whom he had ever been on terms of coldness), as being the _only general_ capable of repairing the misfortunes of the war.

Finding his health failing, he visited the Spa at Baden, and on his return to Vienna died, full of years and honours, on the 28th November, 1801.

He bequeathed to the Archduke Charles an extensive park in the environs, with a request that the people should have free use of it.

He had enjoyed the trust and confidence of Maria Theresa, of Francis I., and of Joseph II., to the full; and until he became enfeebled by time and wounds, he had more State patronage than any other subject in the empire. Frederick the Great had the highest esteem for his character as a soldier, and pronounced him the first tactician of the age, and assuredly the King of Prussia was no mean authority. They had often met in the field. With his characteristic acuteness, Frederick thus spoke of the two greatest generals against whom he led the Prussian armies.

"I _admire_ the dispositions of Lacy, but I _tremble_ at the onset of Loudon!"

Loudon, his companion and rival--of whom elsewhere--ended his career victoriously, after defeating the Turks and capturing Belgrade with the same soldiers whom Lacy had led to many a battle-field.

FRANCIS ANTHONY COUNT DE LACY, the celebrated Spanish general and diplomatist, was the next member of this Irish family who attained an eminent position in the history of Europe.

He was born in Spain, whither his father had followed the Duke of Berwick, in 1731, and after receiving the usual rudiments of education, commenced his military career at the early age of sixteen, in the brave old Irish regiment of Ulster infantry, then in the service of his Most Catholic Majesty Ferdinand VI., who had succeeded his father, Philip Duke of Anjou, on the Spanish throne, in the preceding year, 1746.

Francis Anthony Lacy served with this regiment in the Italian campaign of 1747, which was undertaken to advance the claims of the Spanish Bourbons to the crowns of Naples and Sicily, and to the Duchy of Milan, which had been claimed by Philip V., as successor to the House of Austria; while he also demanded Parma, Placentia, and Tuscany, in right of his queen, though he had been obliged to relinquish them _all_ by the solemn treaty of Utrecht; but such is the faith kept by princes.

The Irish regiment of the young Count Lacy was with the army of the Count de Gages, the Spanish commander-in-chief, who had then under his orders the combined armies of Spain and Naples. Genoa had revolted against the Austrians; Marshal Boufflers had entered it at the head of 4500 Frenchmen, and thus encouraged, the Genoese resolved to die, rather than submit to the tyranny of the House of Hapsburg, whose armies made incredible exertions to recover it. Then ensued the passage of the Var by the Marshal Duke de Belleisle; the storming of Montalbano and other places; the investment of Genoa by the Austrians and Piedmontese, and other operations of that extensive campaign, in which _le Regiment Irlandais d'Ultonie Infanterie_ bore a most prominent part, more so, perhaps, than their enemies relished, till the naval victories of the British Admirals Anson and Warren in the East Indian Ocean, and those of Fox and Hawke elsewhere, forced Louis XV. and his allies to listen to those proposals by which peace was secured to Europe by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, on the 7th October, 1748.

Passing through all the successive grades with honour to himself, Count Lacy, in his thirty-first year, obtained the colonelcy of the Ulster regiment, and, at its head, served in the war against Portugal in 1762, when Charles III. of Spain added to the calamities of his unfortunate neighbour Don Joseph, by invading his small dominions with a powerful army, which threatened with still further destruction his hapless city of Lisbon--then recently ruined by the great earthquake. One Spanish column, under the Marquis de Sarria, entered Portugal on the north; a second, under the Count O'Reilly, took Chaves; a third entered by Beira and spread along the Tagus. This wanton invasion was suggested to Spain by France, as a means of insulting an ally of their common foe--Britain--and also of extending by conquest the power of the Houses of Bourbon.

Britain supplied Portugal with arms, ammunition, and 10,000 men, under Brigadier General Burgoyne, who skilfully co-operated with the Count de la Lippe, a German, and with General Forbes, a Scot, who commanded the army of Don Joseph. Two regiments of Catholics were raised in Ireland especially for this service, and these are still existing in the British line.

In all the operations of this war Lacy acquitted himself with the greatest honour.

In 1780, he was appointed Commandant of the Spanish Artillery, and as such was employed at the famous Siege of Gibraltar, and was present with the army which, under the Duke de Crillon (the conqueror of Minorca), made "the last desperate and unparalleled efforts" to restore the key of the Mediterranean to the hands of King Charles III.

General Elliot of Stobs, in Midlothian, with 7000 men, valiantly defended the rock against 40,000 soldiers who assailed it by land with 200 pieces of cannon: and against the combined fleets of France and Spain, forty-seven sail of the line, seven three-deckers (the strongest that had ever been built), eighty gunboats, and a swarm of frigates and smaller vessels, which opened a shower of shot from 400 pieces of cannon against him.

The first shot was fired on the 12th January, 1780, and it killed a woman in Gibraltar. The Spanish camp was crowded by French _noblesse_ and Spanish hidalgos, who had all hastened there to behold the _fall_ of this great fortress.

Under Lacy, the Spanish artillerists fired with great precision and effect; but the determined old General Elliot defended Gibraltar with the most obstinate bravery; and General Boyd (his countryman) recommended, for the first time, a discharge of red-hot balls, which had the most disastrous effect upon the Spaniards by land and sea; for at least 1500 of them perished. The British fired 716 barrels of powder and 8300 rounds of cannon-balls (more than half of which were _red hot_) between the time of firing the first cannon and the _last_, on the 2nd February, 1783, when the French and Spaniards were completely discomfited, and a peace was signed, which ceded the fortress to Britain for ever.

For his services Lacy obtained the Grand Cross of Charles III., and the rank of Commander of the Cross of San Iago, an old Spanish order of chivalry instituted by King Ramiro, in commemoration of a victory over the Moors, in 1030--their badge is a red cross in the form of a sword. He was also made Titular of the rich Commanderie of _Las Cazas Buenas_, at Merida, in Estramadura.

After the peace between Spain and Britain was firmly established, he was sent successively as plenipotentiary to Gustavus III. of Sweden, and to the Empress Catherine II. of Russia (widow of the Czar Peter III.); and the success he obtained in his embassies proved that he had secured for himself and his royal master the love and esteem of the courts of Stockholm and St. Petersburg.

Immediately on his return fresh honours were heaped upon him; he was named, _par interim_, Commandant General of the Coast of Granada and Member of the Supreme Council of War; then Lieutenant-General of the Spanish Army, Commandant of the Corps of Royal Artillery, and sole Inspector-General of that branch of the service. He was also made Inspector-General of the manufactories of arms, cannon, and all the munitions of war throughout Spain and the two Indies.

In consequence of an unlooked-for _emeute_ in Barcelona the governor of which had not fulfilled his trust, in March, 1789, Lacy was appointed to the important and arduous office of Governor and Captain-General of the Province of Catalonia. The Catalonians, who had long resisted the authority of the kings of Spain, and had frequently risen in arms to assert their independence and choose princes of their own, were still liable to partial insurrections against the viceroys, to whose yoke they submitted with sullen apathy, while they treated their monarchs with hatred and contempt, till the conciliatory visit of Charles IV. But Lacy contrived to win the love and esteem even of those sullen and jealous provincials, and in every step of his career gave constant proofs of disinterestedness, skill, and devotion to the king and country of his adoption.

He seconded with great energy the measures taken by the Spanish Government to prevent the principles of the French revolutionists from crossing the Pyrenees. "Et fut reconduire sur la frontiere le consul de France, qui avoit tenu des propos indiscrets a Barcelone. Par le meme motif," adds a French writer, "Lacy retenait dans catalogue les emigres Francois."

The pupils of the Royal School of Artillery at Segovia obtained from Count Lacy the amelioration of their severe system of discipline, an augmentation of the number of their scholars and cadets, and the increase of certain branches of knowledge relating to their branch of the military profession, by the establishment of the schools of chemistry, of mineralogy, and of pyrotechny, of all of which he urged the creation.

Some have supposed that Count Lacy was more admirable for his lofty spirit, his sparkling wit, and tall and handsome figure--which approached the gigantic--than for his talents as a soldier; but his amiable and conciliatory character have never been denied, while his benevolence, his Christian virtues, and patriotism were extolled even by his enemies; for he stood too high in the favour of the Spanish King to have friends _alone_. Such was Francis Anthony Lacy.

He died at Barcelona, in the time of Charles IV., on the 31st December, 1792, in the sixty-first year of his age.

On that occasion the most universal regrets were manifested at his funeral, which was conducted with great splendour and solemnity; and the officers and cadets of the Spanish artillery, by whom he was sincerely beloved, celebrated him in high eulogies, which were published in all the journals of Madrid and Catalonia.

Don Antonio Ricardo Carillo, of Albornoz, succeeded him as Captain-general of Catalonia.

PATRICK LACY, the brother of Count Anthony Francis, was major of the Ulster Regiment of Irish Infantry in the service of Spain, and died early in life, leaving a son named Louis, who was justly celebrated for his bravery, his misfortunes, and romantic history.

LOUIS LACY was born on the 11th January, 1775, at San Roque, a judicial

## partido and town of Andalusia, six miles distant from Gibraltar, after