The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign WarsGrant, James
History
The Cavaliers of Fortune; Or, British Heroes in Foreign Wars
Grant, James
British -- Foreign countries; Great Britain -- History, Military
O'Reilly lived to see Austria affected by the commotions which pervaded
Europe after the French Revolution of 1830, when the Duke of Modena
and the Archduke of Parma were obliged to quit these states, and a
formidable insurrection broke out in the Patrimony of St. Peter--an
insurrection to quell which 18,000 Austrian troops were marched
towards the frontier; but O'Reilly was too far advanced in years to
draw his sword again in the service of the House of Hapsburg. He died
in October, 1833, at Vienna, after attaining the patriarchal age of
_ninety-two_. He had long survived his countess, and died childless.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: Nugent, a field-marshal in 1858, commanded 25,000
Austrian troops at the funeral of Marshal Radetzki, and acted as chief
mourner.]
COUNT O'CONNELL,
KNIGHT OF ST. LOUIS, AND COLONEL OF THE IRISH BRIGADE.
The life of this military wanderer presents, in his chequered career,
the curious anomaly of a general and his soldiers being received into
the service of their native country and native monarch, against whom
they had previously fought with a bravery that too often gave the
laurels of victory to his enemies.
Count Daniel O'Connell was of the same family as the famous political
agitator who bore his name, and he sprang from an old Milesian race
who held the rank of Toparchs in their own province. He was the son
of Daniel O'Connell of Derrynane, and of Mary, daughter of Duffe
O'Donoghue, of Anwys in the county Kerry, Ireland, and was born at
Derrynane Abbey, in 1742. At the early age of fifteen, like others
whose fortunes I have recorded, he left his native country to seek
foreign military service, and in 1757 was appointed a Sub-Lieutenant of
the Irish Brigade in the French service, in the battalion known as the
Infantry regiment of O'Brien, or Lord Clare, and which bore the title
of Clare until its dissolution, thirty-five years after.
In the preceding year war had been declared between France and Britain
respecting their mutual territorial claims in North America. The former
prepared a vast military armament to carry on the strife; and in the
army formed on the 12th July, 1759, to be led by the Marechal Princes
of Conde and Soubise, were the _Irish_ and _Scottish_ Brigades; and
in the former was the Regiment of Clare, with which young O'Connell
was serving as a subaltern. From this period, for some time, little is
known of him, save that he served throughout the Seven Years' War, and
at its close, for his good conduct, was promoted into a new corps which
had recently been embodied.
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