Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
CATHOLIC PRIESTS AND THEIR WIVES
Even though there’s a picture of a sexy model on the cover, my bride refuses to believe that I snitched the magazine for an article inside. I wouldn’t have taken it from Cleveland Attorney Michael Smith’s office but, after all, it was over a year old. Who would miss it? I never imagined it would raise such a huge anger inside me.
“Catholic Priests and Their Wives” was printed on the cover of Esquire magazine. That’s why I stuffed it into my briefcase. Seeing as I am a practicing Roman Catholic, and personally know a few married priests and know of many others, I had a natural interest in reading it.
Back home in the comfort of my family room easy chair, I turned on the reading light and opened the magazine, thinking I was about to read about American Catholic priests who have left the priesthood for married life. Omigod...the article is about Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and priests of other faith expressions who have “converted” to Roman Catholicism, and are now embraced as priests of the Roman Catholic Church.
The article focuses on five men and their families. Yes, I said their families. All have slipped in as priests of the Roman Catholic Church because of the 1980 papal decision to dispense Episcopal priests, and others, from the laws of celibacy. According to Esquire, at the time there were seventy-nine such priests in America.
Cleveland’s Father Don Cozzens is visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. He is an in-demand speaker worldwide regarding celibacy in the Catholic Church. One of his works is titled “Freeing Celibacy.” He wants an end to mandatory celibacy, calling its impact on the priesthood “an unhealthy burden that has shrunk their souls and drained the last drops of passion from their lives.” It’s not Father Don’s first publication addressing the subject. An earlier work, “The Changing Face of the Priesthood, A Reflection on the Priest’s Crisis of Soul, is a book that reflects both concern and hope for the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.
In October, 2006, the Vatican confirmed its position on mandatory celibacy. While my spiritual faith is not jolted by decisions of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, I am developing a growing belief that it truly is a “good ole boy” network.
I’m not foolish enough to think that ALL Catholic priests fit into Father Don’s view of the current spiritual state of the Catholic priesthood. Nor am I about to question the spirituality of those men of other faiths who have become Catholic priests. However, there are enough of them to prompt a new thinking. But without input by our own faithful, both laity and clerical, we’ll not see any new realities in the Catholic Church.
If the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church is to keep the faithful in our ranks, we must fill them, something that’s not being done. I don’t call ordaining married men of other faith expressions the proper way to do it while, at the same time, confiring mandatory celibacy as a policy. American Indians would call this “speaking with a forked tongue.”
We’re way past the time for a policy of optional celibacy for our own priesthood. For some it may not be important, and that’s OK. But for many it obviously is.
“Catholic Priests and Their Wives” was printed on the cover of Esquire magazine. That’s why I stuffed it into my briefcase. Seeing as I am a practicing Roman Catholic, and personally know a few married priests and know of many others, I had a natural interest in reading it.
Back home in the comfort of my family room easy chair, I turned on the reading light and opened the magazine, thinking I was about to read about American Catholic priests who have left the priesthood for married life. Omigod...the article is about Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist and priests of other faith expressions who have “converted” to Roman Catholicism, and are now embraced as priests of the Roman Catholic Church.
The article focuses on five men and their families. Yes, I said their families. All have slipped in as priests of the Roman Catholic Church because of the 1980 papal decision to dispense Episcopal priests, and others, from the laws of celibacy. According to Esquire, at the time there were seventy-nine such priests in America.
Cleveland’s Father Don Cozzens is visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. He is an in-demand speaker worldwide regarding celibacy in the Catholic Church. One of his works is titled “Freeing Celibacy.” He wants an end to mandatory celibacy, calling its impact on the priesthood “an unhealthy burden that has shrunk their souls and drained the last drops of passion from their lives.” It’s not Father Don’s first publication addressing the subject. An earlier work, “The Changing Face of the Priesthood, A Reflection on the Priest’s Crisis of Soul, is a book that reflects both concern and hope for the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church.
In October, 2006, the Vatican confirmed its position on mandatory celibacy. While my spiritual faith is not jolted by decisions of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, I am developing a growing belief that it truly is a “good ole boy” network.
I’m not foolish enough to think that ALL Catholic priests fit into Father Don’s view of the current spiritual state of the Catholic priesthood. Nor am I about to question the spirituality of those men of other faiths who have become Catholic priests. However, there are enough of them to prompt a new thinking. But without input by our own faithful, both laity and clerical, we’ll not see any new realities in the Catholic Church.
If the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church is to keep the faithful in our ranks, we must fill them, something that’s not being done. I don’t call ordaining married men of other faith expressions the proper way to do it while, at the same time, confiring mandatory celibacy as a policy. American Indians would call this “speaking with a forked tongue.”
We’re way past the time for a policy of optional celibacy for our own priesthood. For some it may not be important, and that’s OK. But for many it obviously is.
THE IRISH BRIGADE AT FONTENOY
By SIR CHARLES PETRIE, BT., M.A. (OXON), F.R.HIST.S.
The battle of Fontenoy has of late years tended to be neglected by historians, possibly because the tactics of the struggle itself are not in question: over a long period of years they have been carefully examined by competent students of warfare, so that it is safe to say that there is nothing now unexplained or mysterious. Fontenoy is not, for example, like Aughrim, where it is still not too easy to account for the fact that from the moment of St. Ruth’s death what looked like a certain Jacobite victory was suddenly turned into a Jacobite defeat. On the other hand, of late years doubts have been expressed as to the extent of the participation of the Irish Brigade, and it may not be uninteresting to reexamine the problem in the light of a recent visit to the battlefield.
First of all, there is what may be termed the traditional view of Fontenoy, namely that the charge of the Irish Brigade at a critical moment saved the day for France, and this theory has been enshrined in the well-known poem by Thomas Davis. What is more, this interpretation has very substantial backing, for, as we shall see, the first thing that Louis XV did when the British and Hanoverian column had been driven from the field was to ride down the Irish lines, and tell the troops that he owed the victory to them. Then there is the testimony of the French commander-in-chief himself, the Maréchal de Saxe, for immediately after the battle he wrote in a private letter, “ The Irish Brigade, which was in front, behaved as bravely as possible.” Lastly, there is the fact that the only English colour taken on this occasion was captured by Sergeant Wheelock of Bulkeley’s Regiment.
More recently, however, contrary opinions have been expressed, and they are summed up in the latest edition of Chambers’ Encyclopaedia, where it is stated, “A legend arose that the Irish Brigade saved the situation for France. This is incorrect: the credit is due to the Regiment Normandie under Lowendahl.” Clearly, therefore, the authorities are divided, and it will be well in the interest of historical truth to find out which view is correct, if that be possible.
The background of the battle can be described in a few sentences. The fighting took place on Tuesday, May 11th, 1745, and it was one of the engagements in the War of the Austrian Succession. In that war France and Prussia were opposing Great Britain, Austria, and the Dutch. The campaign of 1745 saw the French in the field early, and their first act was to lay siege to Tournai. The English and Dutch set out to relieve the town, and the French waited for them on the plateau at Fontenoy.
Both armies were between fifty and sixty thousand strong, and if there was a slight advantage in numbers, it was in favour of the French. Louis XV was in the field with his troops, but the commander-in-chief was the greatest soldier of the day, namely Maréchal de Saxe: he was at this date only forty-nine years old, but his health was none too good, and throughout the battle of Fontenoy, he was in considerable physical pain. The Irish Brigade was serving with the French army, and it consisted of the regiments of Clare, Ruth, Lally, Berwick, Dillon, and Bulkeley, amounting to a total strength of 3,870. There was also one Irish cavalry regiment, namely Fitz-James’. The Earl of Clare was what in those days was termed inspector, and such was his tact and popularity that the Irish Brigade under his command may be said to have formed a single regiment. On the other side were, what for the sake of convenience may be described as the Allies, and they were a composite force of English, Hanoverians, Dutch, and Austrians in varying proportions. The English troops represented the flower of the British army, and included the Brigade of Guards. This mixed force was commanded by a young man of twenty-four, that is to say, the Duke of Cumberland, a younger son of George II.
The first impression in respect of the preliminaries of the battle is that Cumberland’s intelligence system was faulty, and he seems to have stumbled on the French position without realizing how strong it really was. On the other hand, his opponent had not been trained for nothing in the school of the Marshal Duke of Berwick, that wizard of military intelligence, and de Saxe was perfectly informed about everything that the Allies were doing. In :consequence, like Berwick at Almansa, he was able to compel his enemies to fight on ground of his own choosing, where he was ready to receive them.
Tournai was effectively masked with a force of twenty-one thousand men, and with the French field army, de Saxe took up position on a cultivated plateau five miles to the south-west of the beleaguered town. It is to be observed in the light of what followed that it is not possible from the bottom of the gentle slope leading up to this plateau to see what is on the top, and there are no surrounding hills from which a view may be obtained. In the centre of de Saxe’s line was the village of Fontenoy, while his left rested on Barri wood and his right on Antoing and the Scheldt. Both Fontenoy and Antoing were strongly fortified.
The French position having been selected in this way, de Saxe proceeded to strengthen it with a number of redoubts, which were to prove one of the decisive factors in the battle. The reason he adopted this course was his belief that French infantry could not be relied upon to meet a hostile charge in line, and he quoted the recent battle of Dettingen in support of his view. The proposal to construct these redoubts was severely criticized at a council of war, and several senior officers opposed it on the ground that they would be a reflection upon the valour of the French army which was well able to deal with its foes on open ground. Fortunately for de Saxe, the King was present at this meeting, and came out strongly on his side by saying to him, in front of his critics, ‘In confiding to you the command of the army I intend that everyone shall obey you, and I will be the first to set an example of obedience.” So de Saxe got his way, and the redoubts were built.
These tactics were, it may be observed, copied by Wellington at Waterloo, in the fortification of Hougumont, La Haye Sainte, and the twin farms of Papelotte and La Haye. Had Lauzun taken the same precaution at the Boyne, and constructed some redoubts on the south side of the river once he and James II had decided to fight there, the subsequent story of the Jacobite wars might have been very different; but then the Duc de Lauzun was not the Maréchal de Saxe, or anything approaching him.
The French reserves were on the left flank, covered by Barri wood. In the first line of these reserves were the six regiments of the Irish Brigade ; to the left of them were the Regiments Royal Corse and Normandie, and to the right was Royal Vaisseaux. These were all first-class troops, and Normandie was one of the six senior infantry regiments of the line in the French service. Behind the Irish were the Regiments Hainault, Royal Infanterie, Soissonais, and La Couronne, and behind them again two lines of cavalry regiments, the extreme left being occupied by the Carabiniers.
On the night of May 10th a strong enemy reconnaissance drove the French outposts back in the centre, and de Saxe was compelled to burn and evacuate a group of cottages, dignified by some historians with the name of a hamlet, about half mile from Fontenoy. Some squadrons of Dutch cavalry also deployed on the French right flank, but these incidents had no real effect upon de Saxe’s dispositions, especially as Cumberland made no effort to occupy Barri wood, an omission which was to cost him very dear on the following day. By night every French unit was in position, and the King and the Dauphin rode down the lines to deafening shouts of “Vive le Roi.”
The battle may be said to have begun at six o’clock on the morning of the 11th with a half-hearted attempt by the British to capture Barri wood, which by this time was firmly held by the French; but it was repulsed without any great difficulty. In another part of the field the Dutch attacked Fontenoy and Antoing, but they had not taken the trouble to reconnoitre their objectives, which were hidden from them by the nature of the ground, and so they were quite unaware of the immense strength of the positions they were assaulting. Accordingly, the attackers were greeted with a terrific discharge of grape-shot and musketry, which soon proved to be more than they could stand. One Dutch colonel, at the head of a cavalry regiment, rode off the field altogether, and having reached a place of safety, sent word to his government that the army had been cut to pieces, with the exception of the regiment which his prudence had preserved.
By eleven o’clock in the morning the position thus was that the Allied assaults had failed miserably. Cumberland, therefore, had the choice of beating an ignominious retreat or making a frontal attack on the French lines. He decided to make the frontal attack, but to combine it with another Dutch attempt on Fontenoy. The Dutch on this occasion were supported by two English battalions, but all the same they were again repulsed with heavy loss. This second failure took all the heart out of the Dutchmen, and their discomfiture was completed by a charge of French dragoons drawn up on their right flank. They retired out of range, and remained impassive spectators of the main attack.
Cumberland then gave the order to advance, and to do him justice, he took his place at the head of the first line, though as commander-in-chief it, would have been more convenient had he been in a position to observe the progress of the battle as a whole. Sixteen thousand men, the flower of the British army, ran to move forward up the slope to Fontenoy, raked by a murderous fire from the French redoubts. Whole ranks were swept away, but still the dense mass continued to press forward over the heaps of dead and dying, while the sergeants dressed the ranks with their long halberds, as if they were on parade. It was without question one of the most memorable feats of valour in military history, for in spite of the terrible flanking fire from the redoubts, and of the efforts of one French regiment after another, the British moved steadily on, until they stood proudly in the centre of the French position, apparently masters of the battlefield.
Up to this moment the Irish Brigade as a whole had not been engaged, though for some unexplained reason the Dillon Regiment had been detached from it, and ordered to charge in company with Normandie and Royal Vaisseaux. Irish valour, however, in this instance was unavailing, and the Dillon Regiment would seem to have suffered substantial casualties. In this connection one may note that it is not altogether impossible that the flag which the present Viscount Dillon so generously lent to the National Museum in Dublin two years ago may have been carried on this occasion.
The battle had thus reached a stage in which victory would clearly incline to the side which displayed the greater initiative, and it soon transpired that this would not be the Allies. The garrison of Tournai remained as quiescent as that of Drogheda had been at the Boyne in not dissimilar circumstances, though in both instances an effective diversion might have been made; while the Dutch on the left gave no sign. As for Cumberland, although his men were temporarily masters of the battlefield, he himself seems to have lost control of the battle, probably because he was too far in front to see it as a whole. All he did was to order the cavalry to come to his assistance, a step which he should have taken much earlier in the day if it was to be effective. The Allied horse accordingly advanced, but the fire from the redoubts was too much for the Austrians and Dutch, who thereupon bolted; this threw the English cavalry into confusion, and though they rallied in due course, they were soon hurled back again by another tide of fugitives. Eventually some useful work was done by three regiments, namely the Blues, the Scots Greys, and the Royals, but the hour for useful co-operation was past, and the cavalry effected little in support of the advance of the infantry.
Such being the case, if any initiative was to come it must clearly be from the French, and they did not prove wanting. The traditional story is that while Marchal de Saxe was bringing up his reserves, a certain Captain Isnard, of the Regiment Touraine, observed four cannon unemployed, and suggested that they should be dragged within point-blank range of the enemy. Unfortunately, the army list of the day does not show any Captain Isnard in the Regiment Touraine, and in any case that particular unit was not in the vicinity; there was, however, a Captain Isnard in Royal Vaisseaux, and it may well have been he who so dramatically changed the course of the battle. However this may be, the guns were duly brought up, and a salvo of grape-shot cut lanes in the solid mass of human flesh which was the Allied column. There was naturally some confusion in the British ranks, and de Saxe saw his chance. He ordered not only Dillon’s Regiment, but Normandie and Royal Vaisseaux, to charge again, and he threw in the other five still-fresh regiments of the Irish Brigade. They attacked the British right flank, while the Gardes Françaises and Suisses, together with a number of line regiments, assailed the left flank. Finally, the Maison du Roi charged the British front.
This was too great a concentration of force to be resisted, and the British fell back, though at no point did their retreat degenerate into anything resembling a rout. They lost something like forty guns, but this was in no small measure due to the fact that the teams, which in those days were supplied by contractors, had moved off to Brussels at the first check.
Such in its main outlines was the battle of Fontenoy and the part played by the Irish Brigade. The tribute paid to their behaviour by the King of France and Maréchal de Saxe has already been quoted, and both were in a position to know the truth. The leading English authority on the battle, the late Francis Henry Skrine, takes the same line in his Fontenoy and the War of the Austrian Seccession, where he says, “Among French infantry regiments those of the Irish Brigade stood first. Their desperate valour was a factor of great importance in our disaster.” The writer of these words clearly did not share the views of the contributor to Chambers’ Encyclopaedia to the effect that the Irish part in the French victory was a mere legend.
Let us now consider the reason for this conflict of opinion. In so far as the criticism of the services of the Irish Brigade is honest, it probably springs from a confusion between the first charge of the Dillon Regiment, with Normandie and Royal Vaisseaux, and the subsequent charge of the Irish Brigade as a whole. On the earlier occasion, as we have seen, the Irish attack was repulsed, while the second onslaught was successful.
If further testimony is required for the important part played by the Irish Brigade, it lies in the rewards which were distributed by King Louis XV upon an unprecedented scale. He certainly would not have done this had the Brigade’s services not been unprecedented too. The commanding officer of Berwick’s Regiment was promoted Brigadier, and the Lieutenant Colonels of Bulkeley’s and Ruth’s were given pensions of a thousand and six hundred livres respectively. Crosses of St. Louis were distributed lavishly, and wounded officers received gratuities of two hundred to six hundred livres. Sergeant Wheelock, of Bulkeley’s Regiment, was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant by the King in person on the field of battle for his capture of an enemy flag.
It may be worthy of mention in this connection that one of the fruits of the French victory at Fontenoy was the capture of Ghent, and in the town was found a vast quantity of British stores. Among these was a large amount of cloth, and this was duly made into uniforms for the Irish Brigade.
The Irish casualties, with the names of the officers concerned, are given in some detail by Captain J. L. A. Cohn in Les Campagnes Marechal de Saxe, and they may be summarized as follows:
Bulkeley . . . 4 officers and 34 other ranks wounded. 20 other ranks killed.
Clare . . . 4 officers and 6 other ranks killed.
14 officers and 72 other ranks wounded.
Dillon . . . 3 officers and 51 other ranks killed
11 officers and 70 other ranks wounded.
Ruth . . . 2 officers and 47 other ranks killed.
8 officers and 46 other ranks wounded.
Berwick . . . 1 officer and 52 other ranks killed.
11 officers and 60 other ranks wounded.
Lally . . . 3 officers and 35 other ranks killed.
10 officers and 42 other ranks wounded.
This makes a total of 274 officers, non-commissioned officers and men killed, and 382 wounded, or 656 casualties in all, which was a very high proportion indeed of the 3,870 who went into action. The one Irish cavalry regiment in the French service, namely Fitz-James’, would seem to have suffered at least as heavily as the foot: eleven officers were killed and seven were wounded, but it has not been possible to find the casualty figures for the other ranks; they must, however, have been considerable, for the regiment was granted seventy-four horses from the Royal Remount Department to replace what is described as a portion of those which had been killed during successive charges.
Indeed, Fontenoy ranks among the most murderous conflicts of the eighteenth century. In all, the French lost over seven thousand officers and men in killed and wounded, and this represented a little more than twelve per cent of the total number engaged. The Allied losses were about the same. In a sense, the Irish Brigade never fully recovered from the War of the Austrian Succession, for the losses at Fontenoy and at Laffeldt, two years later, were not wholly replaced from Ireland, and in part at any rate the strength was brought up to establishment by the inclusion of men who were not of Irish origin.
In his official report Cumberland wrote that his army had not lost any colours or standards, but O’Callaghan in the History of the Irish Brigades declares that a pair of colours was taken from the Coldstream Guards by Bulkeley’s Regiment, and it has already been shown that a sergeant of that regiment was promoted by King Louis himself for the capture of a colour. Moreover, the Duke of Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches contain a letter dated August 25th, 1815, from Lord Bathurst, then Secretary of State for War, to the Duke, who was then commanding the British army of occupation in France, to the following effect:
“I understand that there are at Paris - at the Ecole Militaire, if I am not mistaken - several English colours, particularly one belonging to the Coldstream regiment, taken at Fontenoy. I hope your grace will make inquiries about these trophies, and that you will take the proper measures for their restoration.”
The result of this request is not recorded, but we find a Captain G. Bowles writing during the occupation of Paris: “We are proceeding on more liberal principles, and do not talk of requiring anything except some old colours now hung up at the Hotel des Invalides, which were, I believe, taken at the battle of Fontenoy.”
The Coldstream Guards do not appear to have any record of such a loss, but, on the other hand, it seems very unlikely that Louis XV would have promoted a man on the field of battle for something he had never done. It is of course possible that the colours in question may have been company colours, which were still carried in the British army, and not regimental colours, but what eventually became of them is likely to remain a mystery.
In fine, it would seem that in the main the traditional account of the part played by the Irish Brigade at Fontenoy is the right one. They did not win the victory by their unaided efforts, as Thomas Davis implies, but their charge, following on Captain Isnard’s brilliant exploit, was the deciding factor in the battle. So when, in the following January, Prince Charles Edward, pointing to the enemy battalions at Falkirk, said to the detachments from the Dillon, Ruth and Lally Regiments, “Those are the men you beat at Fontenoy,” he had some justification for his statement.
The battle of Fontenoy has of late years tended to be neglected by historians, possibly because the tactics of the struggle itself are not in question: over a long period of years they have been carefully examined by competent students of warfare, so that it is safe to say that there is nothing now unexplained or mysterious. Fontenoy is not, for example, like Aughrim, where it is still not too easy to account for the fact that from the moment of St. Ruth’s death what looked like a certain Jacobite victory was suddenly turned into a Jacobite defeat. On the other hand, of late years doubts have been expressed as to the extent of the participation of the Irish Brigade, and it may not be uninteresting to reexamine the problem in the light of a recent visit to the battlefield.
First of all, there is what may be termed the traditional view of Fontenoy, namely that the charge of the Irish Brigade at a critical moment saved the day for France, and this theory has been enshrined in the well-known poem by Thomas Davis. What is more, this interpretation has very substantial backing, for, as we shall see, the first thing that Louis XV did when the British and Hanoverian column had been driven from the field was to ride down the Irish lines, and tell the troops that he owed the victory to them. Then there is the testimony of the French commander-in-chief himself, the Maréchal de Saxe, for immediately after the battle he wrote in a private letter, “ The Irish Brigade, which was in front, behaved as bravely as possible.” Lastly, there is the fact that the only English colour taken on this occasion was captured by Sergeant Wheelock of Bulkeley’s Regiment.
More recently, however, contrary opinions have been expressed, and they are summed up in the latest edition of Chambers’ Encyclopaedia, where it is stated, “A legend arose that the Irish Brigade saved the situation for France. This is incorrect: the credit is due to the Regiment Normandie under Lowendahl.” Clearly, therefore, the authorities are divided, and it will be well in the interest of historical truth to find out which view is correct, if that be possible.
The background of the battle can be described in a few sentences. The fighting took place on Tuesday, May 11th, 1745, and it was one of the engagements in the War of the Austrian Succession. In that war France and Prussia were opposing Great Britain, Austria, and the Dutch. The campaign of 1745 saw the French in the field early, and their first act was to lay siege to Tournai. The English and Dutch set out to relieve the town, and the French waited for them on the plateau at Fontenoy.
Both armies were between fifty and sixty thousand strong, and if there was a slight advantage in numbers, it was in favour of the French. Louis XV was in the field with his troops, but the commander-in-chief was the greatest soldier of the day, namely Maréchal de Saxe: he was at this date only forty-nine years old, but his health was none too good, and throughout the battle of Fontenoy, he was in considerable physical pain. The Irish Brigade was serving with the French army, and it consisted of the regiments of Clare, Ruth, Lally, Berwick, Dillon, and Bulkeley, amounting to a total strength of 3,870. There was also one Irish cavalry regiment, namely Fitz-James’. The Earl of Clare was what in those days was termed inspector, and such was his tact and popularity that the Irish Brigade under his command may be said to have formed a single regiment. On the other side were, what for the sake of convenience may be described as the Allies, and they were a composite force of English, Hanoverians, Dutch, and Austrians in varying proportions. The English troops represented the flower of the British army, and included the Brigade of Guards. This mixed force was commanded by a young man of twenty-four, that is to say, the Duke of Cumberland, a younger son of George II.
The first impression in respect of the preliminaries of the battle is that Cumberland’s intelligence system was faulty, and he seems to have stumbled on the French position without realizing how strong it really was. On the other hand, his opponent had not been trained for nothing in the school of the Marshal Duke of Berwick, that wizard of military intelligence, and de Saxe was perfectly informed about everything that the Allies were doing. In :consequence, like Berwick at Almansa, he was able to compel his enemies to fight on ground of his own choosing, where he was ready to receive them.
Tournai was effectively masked with a force of twenty-one thousand men, and with the French field army, de Saxe took up position on a cultivated plateau five miles to the south-west of the beleaguered town. It is to be observed in the light of what followed that it is not possible from the bottom of the gentle slope leading up to this plateau to see what is on the top, and there are no surrounding hills from which a view may be obtained. In the centre of de Saxe’s line was the village of Fontenoy, while his left rested on Barri wood and his right on Antoing and the Scheldt. Both Fontenoy and Antoing were strongly fortified.
The French position having been selected in this way, de Saxe proceeded to strengthen it with a number of redoubts, which were to prove one of the decisive factors in the battle. The reason he adopted this course was his belief that French infantry could not be relied upon to meet a hostile charge in line, and he quoted the recent battle of Dettingen in support of his view. The proposal to construct these redoubts was severely criticized at a council of war, and several senior officers opposed it on the ground that they would be a reflection upon the valour of the French army which was well able to deal with its foes on open ground. Fortunately for de Saxe, the King was present at this meeting, and came out strongly on his side by saying to him, in front of his critics, ‘In confiding to you the command of the army I intend that everyone shall obey you, and I will be the first to set an example of obedience.” So de Saxe got his way, and the redoubts were built.
These tactics were, it may be observed, copied by Wellington at Waterloo, in the fortification of Hougumont, La Haye Sainte, and the twin farms of Papelotte and La Haye. Had Lauzun taken the same precaution at the Boyne, and constructed some redoubts on the south side of the river once he and James II had decided to fight there, the subsequent story of the Jacobite wars might have been very different; but then the Duc de Lauzun was not the Maréchal de Saxe, or anything approaching him.
The French reserves were on the left flank, covered by Barri wood. In the first line of these reserves were the six regiments of the Irish Brigade ; to the left of them were the Regiments Royal Corse and Normandie, and to the right was Royal Vaisseaux. These were all first-class troops, and Normandie was one of the six senior infantry regiments of the line in the French service. Behind the Irish were the Regiments Hainault, Royal Infanterie, Soissonais, and La Couronne, and behind them again two lines of cavalry regiments, the extreme left being occupied by the Carabiniers.
On the night of May 10th a strong enemy reconnaissance drove the French outposts back in the centre, and de Saxe was compelled to burn and evacuate a group of cottages, dignified by some historians with the name of a hamlet, about half mile from Fontenoy. Some squadrons of Dutch cavalry also deployed on the French right flank, but these incidents had no real effect upon de Saxe’s dispositions, especially as Cumberland made no effort to occupy Barri wood, an omission which was to cost him very dear on the following day. By night every French unit was in position, and the King and the Dauphin rode down the lines to deafening shouts of “Vive le Roi.”
The battle may be said to have begun at six o’clock on the morning of the 11th with a half-hearted attempt by the British to capture Barri wood, which by this time was firmly held by the French; but it was repulsed without any great difficulty. In another part of the field the Dutch attacked Fontenoy and Antoing, but they had not taken the trouble to reconnoitre their objectives, which were hidden from them by the nature of the ground, and so they were quite unaware of the immense strength of the positions they were assaulting. Accordingly, the attackers were greeted with a terrific discharge of grape-shot and musketry, which soon proved to be more than they could stand. One Dutch colonel, at the head of a cavalry regiment, rode off the field altogether, and having reached a place of safety, sent word to his government that the army had been cut to pieces, with the exception of the regiment which his prudence had preserved.
By eleven o’clock in the morning the position thus was that the Allied assaults had failed miserably. Cumberland, therefore, had the choice of beating an ignominious retreat or making a frontal attack on the French lines. He decided to make the frontal attack, but to combine it with another Dutch attempt on Fontenoy. The Dutch on this occasion were supported by two English battalions, but all the same they were again repulsed with heavy loss. This second failure took all the heart out of the Dutchmen, and their discomfiture was completed by a charge of French dragoons drawn up on their right flank. They retired out of range, and remained impassive spectators of the main attack.
Cumberland then gave the order to advance, and to do him justice, he took his place at the head of the first line, though as commander-in-chief it, would have been more convenient had he been in a position to observe the progress of the battle as a whole. Sixteen thousand men, the flower of the British army, ran to move forward up the slope to Fontenoy, raked by a murderous fire from the French redoubts. Whole ranks were swept away, but still the dense mass continued to press forward over the heaps of dead and dying, while the sergeants dressed the ranks with their long halberds, as if they were on parade. It was without question one of the most memorable feats of valour in military history, for in spite of the terrible flanking fire from the redoubts, and of the efforts of one French regiment after another, the British moved steadily on, until they stood proudly in the centre of the French position, apparently masters of the battlefield.
Up to this moment the Irish Brigade as a whole had not been engaged, though for some unexplained reason the Dillon Regiment had been detached from it, and ordered to charge in company with Normandie and Royal Vaisseaux. Irish valour, however, in this instance was unavailing, and the Dillon Regiment would seem to have suffered substantial casualties. In this connection one may note that it is not altogether impossible that the flag which the present Viscount Dillon so generously lent to the National Museum in Dublin two years ago may have been carried on this occasion.
The battle had thus reached a stage in which victory would clearly incline to the side which displayed the greater initiative, and it soon transpired that this would not be the Allies. The garrison of Tournai remained as quiescent as that of Drogheda had been at the Boyne in not dissimilar circumstances, though in both instances an effective diversion might have been made; while the Dutch on the left gave no sign. As for Cumberland, although his men were temporarily masters of the battlefield, he himself seems to have lost control of the battle, probably because he was too far in front to see it as a whole. All he did was to order the cavalry to come to his assistance, a step which he should have taken much earlier in the day if it was to be effective. The Allied horse accordingly advanced, but the fire from the redoubts was too much for the Austrians and Dutch, who thereupon bolted; this threw the English cavalry into confusion, and though they rallied in due course, they were soon hurled back again by another tide of fugitives. Eventually some useful work was done by three regiments, namely the Blues, the Scots Greys, and the Royals, but the hour for useful co-operation was past, and the cavalry effected little in support of the advance of the infantry.
Such being the case, if any initiative was to come it must clearly be from the French, and they did not prove wanting. The traditional story is that while Marchal de Saxe was bringing up his reserves, a certain Captain Isnard, of the Regiment Touraine, observed four cannon unemployed, and suggested that they should be dragged within point-blank range of the enemy. Unfortunately, the army list of the day does not show any Captain Isnard in the Regiment Touraine, and in any case that particular unit was not in the vicinity; there was, however, a Captain Isnard in Royal Vaisseaux, and it may well have been he who so dramatically changed the course of the battle. However this may be, the guns were duly brought up, and a salvo of grape-shot cut lanes in the solid mass of human flesh which was the Allied column. There was naturally some confusion in the British ranks, and de Saxe saw his chance. He ordered not only Dillon’s Regiment, but Normandie and Royal Vaisseaux, to charge again, and he threw in the other five still-fresh regiments of the Irish Brigade. They attacked the British right flank, while the Gardes Françaises and Suisses, together with a number of line regiments, assailed the left flank. Finally, the Maison du Roi charged the British front.
This was too great a concentration of force to be resisted, and the British fell back, though at no point did their retreat degenerate into anything resembling a rout. They lost something like forty guns, but this was in no small measure due to the fact that the teams, which in those days were supplied by contractors, had moved off to Brussels at the first check.
Such in its main outlines was the battle of Fontenoy and the part played by the Irish Brigade. The tribute paid to their behaviour by the King of France and Maréchal de Saxe has already been quoted, and both were in a position to know the truth. The leading English authority on the battle, the late Francis Henry Skrine, takes the same line in his Fontenoy and the War of the Austrian Seccession, where he says, “Among French infantry regiments those of the Irish Brigade stood first. Their desperate valour was a factor of great importance in our disaster.” The writer of these words clearly did not share the views of the contributor to Chambers’ Encyclopaedia to the effect that the Irish part in the French victory was a mere legend.
Let us now consider the reason for this conflict of opinion. In so far as the criticism of the services of the Irish Brigade is honest, it probably springs from a confusion between the first charge of the Dillon Regiment, with Normandie and Royal Vaisseaux, and the subsequent charge of the Irish Brigade as a whole. On the earlier occasion, as we have seen, the Irish attack was repulsed, while the second onslaught was successful.
If further testimony is required for the important part played by the Irish Brigade, it lies in the rewards which were distributed by King Louis XV upon an unprecedented scale. He certainly would not have done this had the Brigade’s services not been unprecedented too. The commanding officer of Berwick’s Regiment was promoted Brigadier, and the Lieutenant Colonels of Bulkeley’s and Ruth’s were given pensions of a thousand and six hundred livres respectively. Crosses of St. Louis were distributed lavishly, and wounded officers received gratuities of two hundred to six hundred livres. Sergeant Wheelock, of Bulkeley’s Regiment, was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant by the King in person on the field of battle for his capture of an enemy flag.
It may be worthy of mention in this connection that one of the fruits of the French victory at Fontenoy was the capture of Ghent, and in the town was found a vast quantity of British stores. Among these was a large amount of cloth, and this was duly made into uniforms for the Irish Brigade.
The Irish casualties, with the names of the officers concerned, are given in some detail by Captain J. L. A. Cohn in Les Campagnes Marechal de Saxe, and they may be summarized as follows:
Bulkeley . . . 4 officers and 34 other ranks wounded. 20 other ranks killed.
Clare . . . 4 officers and 6 other ranks killed.
14 officers and 72 other ranks wounded.
Dillon . . . 3 officers and 51 other ranks killed
11 officers and 70 other ranks wounded.
Ruth . . . 2 officers and 47 other ranks killed.
8 officers and 46 other ranks wounded.
Berwick . . . 1 officer and 52 other ranks killed.
11 officers and 60 other ranks wounded.
Lally . . . 3 officers and 35 other ranks killed.
10 officers and 42 other ranks wounded.
This makes a total of 274 officers, non-commissioned officers and men killed, and 382 wounded, or 656 casualties in all, which was a very high proportion indeed of the 3,870 who went into action. The one Irish cavalry regiment in the French service, namely Fitz-James’, would seem to have suffered at least as heavily as the foot: eleven officers were killed and seven were wounded, but it has not been possible to find the casualty figures for the other ranks; they must, however, have been considerable, for the regiment was granted seventy-four horses from the Royal Remount Department to replace what is described as a portion of those which had been killed during successive charges.
Indeed, Fontenoy ranks among the most murderous conflicts of the eighteenth century. In all, the French lost over seven thousand officers and men in killed and wounded, and this represented a little more than twelve per cent of the total number engaged. The Allied losses were about the same. In a sense, the Irish Brigade never fully recovered from the War of the Austrian Succession, for the losses at Fontenoy and at Laffeldt, two years later, were not wholly replaced from Ireland, and in part at any rate the strength was brought up to establishment by the inclusion of men who were not of Irish origin.
In his official report Cumberland wrote that his army had not lost any colours or standards, but O’Callaghan in the History of the Irish Brigades declares that a pair of colours was taken from the Coldstream Guards by Bulkeley’s Regiment, and it has already been shown that a sergeant of that regiment was promoted by King Louis himself for the capture of a colour. Moreover, the Duke of Wellington’s Supplementary Despatches contain a letter dated August 25th, 1815, from Lord Bathurst, then Secretary of State for War, to the Duke, who was then commanding the British army of occupation in France, to the following effect:
“I understand that there are at Paris - at the Ecole Militaire, if I am not mistaken - several English colours, particularly one belonging to the Coldstream regiment, taken at Fontenoy. I hope your grace will make inquiries about these trophies, and that you will take the proper measures for their restoration.”
The result of this request is not recorded, but we find a Captain G. Bowles writing during the occupation of Paris: “We are proceeding on more liberal principles, and do not talk of requiring anything except some old colours now hung up at the Hotel des Invalides, which were, I believe, taken at the battle of Fontenoy.”
The Coldstream Guards do not appear to have any record of such a loss, but, on the other hand, it seems very unlikely that Louis XV would have promoted a man on the field of battle for something he had never done. It is of course possible that the colours in question may have been company colours, which were still carried in the British army, and not regimental colours, but what eventually became of them is likely to remain a mystery.
In fine, it would seem that in the main the traditional account of the part played by the Irish Brigade at Fontenoy is the right one. They did not win the victory by their unaided efforts, as Thomas Davis implies, but their charge, following on Captain Isnard’s brilliant exploit, was the deciding factor in the battle. So when, in the following January, Prince Charles Edward, pointing to the enemy battalions at Falkirk, said to the detachments from the Dillon, Ruth and Lally Regiments, “Those are the men you beat at Fontenoy,” he had some justification for his statement.
Cleveland's Hibernian Guards - Co. B, 8th OVI,
James K. O'Reilly is shown wearing his uniform. The other image is Thomas F. Galwey. Both were returning from Sunday Mass at Cleveland's St. Edward Church on Woodland Avenue when news posters announced the assault on Ft. Sumter, South Carolina. America's Civil War began on that April day. O'Reilly, born in Longford Town, County Longford in 1838 came to Cleveland in 1858 via New York City. He and his Irish friends James Butler and Thomas Francis Galwey were anxious to join Union forces before the fight was over. They hurried to the armory of the Hibernian Guards and enlisted for three months, officially becoming Co. B, 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. When it was all over, almost five years later, the 8th Ohio would have 97 men present for muster-out out of a total 990 that began the unit.
The honorable Kenneth R. Callahan, most recently a Common Pleas Court Judge in Cuyahoga County, is a direct descendent of Captain O'Reilly, his maternal great-grandfather. He honors the spirit of his colorful and gallant forebear by insuring Americans don't forget the deeds and valor of the 8th Ohio, a unit that fought fiercely in most of the major battles of the Potomac Army. He also wants to
insure that history accurately reflects the role they played in turning the famous 'Pickett's Charge' at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in July of 1863.
By June, General Robert E. Lee's rag-tag forces had moved into the farmlands of Pennsylvania, rich in the much-needed resources of food, material and steed. The march to Gettysburg was brutally hot. Unlike modern armies, neither side at Gettysburg had winter and summer uniforms - only heavy wool. Some were lucky to have shoes. During the march it was frightfully hot. O'Reilly suffered sunstroke and went by horse-drawn ambulance to Gettysburg. "When he found out the 8th was positioned outside the Emmitsburg Road," said Callahan, "He left the hospital and ran out and joined the company there."
O'Reilly, deathly ill, arrived at Gettysburg on July 3rd, after the first day of battle. Colonel Samuel Springs Carroll (of the Maryland Carrolls) ordered the Hibernians immediately into a cornfield between the Union lines on Cemetery Ridge and Confederate lines on Seminary Ridge, with orders were to push rebel sharpshooters back. With this advanced picket line established, O'Reilly's
Hibernians spent the night there while the rest of the brigade was pulled out by General Hancock to support other areas. Confederate sharpshooters reminded them of their closeness throughout the evening by shooting at them.
On the morning of the 4th, General Lee, believing the center of the Union line to be weakened, opened up his attack with a two-hour artillery barrage. "Nothing more terrific than this story of artillery can be imagined," said Colonel Franklyn Sawyer. "The missiles of both armies passed over our heads. The roar of the guns was deafening, the air was soon clouded with smoke, and the shrieks and the startling crack of the exploding shells above, a round and in our midst; the blowing up of our caissons in our rear; the driving through the air of the fence rails, posts and limbs of trees; the groans of dying men, the neighing of frantic and wounded horses, created a scene of absolute horror."
General Lee followed this up by sending fifteen thousand gray backs into the fray. The 15O - 18O men of the 8th Ohio poured rifle fire into the left flank of James J. Pettigrew's division. "They moved up splendidly," Sawyer wrote, "deploying into column as they crossed the long, sloping interval between us and their base. At first it looked like they would sweep our position, but as they advanced, their direction lay to our left."
"A moan went up from the battlefield distinctly to be heard amid the storm of battle," related survivor
Galwey. The surprised Southerners, led by gallant officers on horseback, broke and retreated. "...the first sign of faltering came from Colonel J.M. Brockenbrough's brigade of Virginians who, under Pettigrew, were stationed in the extreme left of the advance, that is, directly in front of the 8th Ohio," Callahan related.
With Sawyer admitting their 'blood was up', he then turned his men ninety degrees and fired into the flank of Joseph Davis' brigade. When Union commanders saw this development, they sent reinforcements down to turn the attack. The 8th advanced, cutting off three regiments, capturing their colors and many soldiers. Afterwards, an attempt was made to discharge Colonel Sawyer from the service for
it was believed he was drunk...one would think that no commander in his right mind would attempt such a maneuver with such a small force.
Later that summer, after the battle of Gettysburg, the 8th Ohio was sent to New York City for riot duty. When the draft was instituted, provisions were made for purchasing one's way out through the process of buying a substitute. Naturally, many Irish and other immigrants could not afford to do so and objected to the practice.
Karen Sullivan decorates the grave of 8th OVI veteran, KIA, Gettysburg. St. John’s Cemetery, Cleveland.
While there, O'Reilly met his future bride, Susan O'Brien. "The whole thing was a drinking expedition," Callahan said. "Commander Sawyer was telling everybody not to get drunk but about an hour later he was arrested for drunkenness. I think they had a good time in New York City."
In August, 1865, at the war's end, O'Reilly returned to New York City and married Susan O'Brien at St. Stephen's Parish. The couple came to Cleveland and resided at 189 Quincy Ave., where they raised seven children. Part of the time he worked for Thomas Jones & Sons Monument Co., which was located at E. 28th & Prospect Ave. Because of his disability from his Gettysburg sunstroke, however, he was never able to work for long periods of time. He tried to get a pension the rest of his life in a protracted struggle with the War Department. His widow was finally awarded one thirty years after his death, in 1930. In 1900, after a funeral Mass at St. Edward's Church, O'Reilly was laid to rest in St. John's cemetery, next to the church. His stone, erected by his daughter, says simply, "Captain J.K. O'Reilly."
Callahan met Captain O'Reilly's daughter, Isabelle, in 1952. She blamed her father for the fact that she never married. "She claimed every time somebody came over to see her he pulled them into the parlor and kept them up until midnight telling stories about the Civil War."
Callahan is a graduate of Cleveland's St. Ignatius High School and received his undergraduate degree from Cleveland's John Carroll University. He received his law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Additionally, he studied art, history, anthropology and literature at both Trinity and University Colleges, Dublin. Callahan is a published author and a military historian. He and his spouse Martha are parents of Casey and Eoin.
As of this original writing, The Callahan and O'Reilly families of Cleveland have never been in touch with any surviving O'Reilly family in Longford. Although they know chances are slim to non-existent, they would be delighted to hear from anyone who recognizes a family kinship.
The following letter is Comrade Galwey’s tribute to his friend and Captain as printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
New York, May 22nd, 1900
Editor of the Sunday Cleveland Plain Dealer
Sir:
I desire as a comrade officer of the 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry to say through the Plain Dealer (sic) a few words upon the military career of the late Captain J.K. O’Reilly, the news of whose recent death at 189 Quincy Street, Cleveland, has just reached us.
During the twenty campaigns and more than sixty engagements in which the 8th Infantry gained its fame in the Civil War, O’Reilly’s influence and example, first among its non-commissioned officers and afterwards among its commissioned officers, contributed greatly to its fighting spirit, conduct and methods. He was fearless and quick-witted in the moment of danger or other emergency.
The two bravest and most brilliant among the many brave and brilliant acts of that regiment were its bayonet charge across the Sunken or Bloody Lane at Antietam at the end of five hours close fighting, and its wheel to the left at Gettysburg, by which it struck the left flank of Pickett’s confederate column, and put it into disorder at that point, at the very moment when the front of that column had crossed the Emmittsburg Road and was shaking its battle flags at the “high water mark of the rebellion.”
In both of those splendid manoeuvres O’Reilly was very conspicuous, if he was not to some extent the real author of each. He was at first a man of fine physique, and like many others who constantly exposed themselves, escaped almost unharmed by the enemy, but he suffered to the last from a sunstroke that befell him during fearful hot day on the march to Gettysburg, and I understand that this was the chief cause of his death.
Cleveland is not today the quiet little city it was on the 16th of April, 1861, when, in defence of the Union, O’Reilly enlisted as a private in the Hibernian Guards, which became Company B of the 8th Ohio Infantry. But big and bustling as Cleveland has become, it will not, I imagine, forget the honor done to its name in the Civil War by such a man as O’Reilly.
Respectfully,
Thos. F. Galwey
15 West 123rd St.,
New York City
-30-
Author’s Note: Both Butler and Galwey relocated to New York City. Butler became keeper of General Grant’s Tomb.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
GALWEY, THOMAS FRANCIS,The_Valiant_Hours,_Narrative_of_"Captain Brevet,"_an_Irish-American_in_the_Army_of_the_Potomac. Harrisburg PA., Stackpole Co., 1961. Col. William S. Nye, Editor
DOWNES, CAPTAIN THOMAS M.F., Co. B. 8th Ohio Infantry (Reenactment)from_a_speech_to_the_Ancient_Order_of Hibernians,_Boland-Berry
Division, Cleveland, Ohio 1989.
CALLAHAN, KENNETH, conversations, 1993 - 2009.
Envy - A Capital Sin
There were, in my 5th grade class at Cleveland's St. Vincent DePaul Grade School, the brothers Lembach. Twins Robert and Richard were the kind of guys who could crayon colorfully and masterfully. Girls could always crayon and stay within the lines. Boys couldn't. The twins were the exception. Their work was always posted in the classroom for all to admire....except me. I was envious of their talent.
At the end of our school year, everyone whose work was posted, the brothers included, had the option of taking their art home or leaving it for someone else to dispose of. That someone else was me.
I snagged what I judged to be the best of the Lembachs' work. He had written his name in the upper left-hand corner. It was a simple matter of fixing - I just tore it off and took it home to proudly show off my work. Dad took one look at the torn corner and said, "What was here? Somebody else's name?"
I was only reminded of this story when I learned of my three year old grandson's talent. Liam, can crayon within the lines.
You'd think at my age it wouldn't bother me. I'm jealous.
At the end of our school year, everyone whose work was posted, the brothers included, had the option of taking their art home or leaving it for someone else to dispose of. That someone else was me.
I snagged what I judged to be the best of the Lembachs' work. He had written his name in the upper left-hand corner. It was a simple matter of fixing - I just tore it off and took it home to proudly show off my work. Dad took one look at the torn corner and said, "What was here? Somebody else's name?"
I was only reminded of this story when I learned of my three year old grandson's talent. Liam, can crayon within the lines.
You'd think at my age it wouldn't bother me. I'm jealous.
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