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INTRODUCTION

IF THERE is a place on earth that has defined its identity against the British, it is Ireland. So how was it that the Irish whom the British suppressed for centuries should have contributed so much to the Waterloo campaign and why has this participation largely escaped notice to date?

Ireland’s involvement in the Waterloo campaign was significant. The Irish engagement with this hugely historic epic event at the turn of the 19th century has yet to become popularly appreciated and properly applauded. Thousands of Irish soldiers both by birth and descent were eagerly engaged on the battlefield, among the ranks, high up, and all the way throughout the chain-of-command, some even conspicuous by individually noteworthy and otherwise gallant actions. Overall, the presence, posture, and performance of the Irish at the Battle of Waterloo is a proud and compelling story.

The Irish involvement at the Battle of Waterloo is a true story which has not figured prominently, if at all, in the cultural narrative of an independent Ireland to-date. It has been a story lost within the accounts of the magnificence of the suspense, the anxious uncertainty, the excitement of the action, central to the relating of the causes, course, and consequences of the battle itself. It is timely and important at the book’s outset to remind ourselves of the magnitude of such an encounter. The battle was a hostile confrontation involving vast groups using lethal means. It was the violent imposition of will, one man’s madness manifest in might proving right. The battle was raw, frightening and ugly, it was noisy, bloody and confused. It was the ruthless killing in great numbers of its participants. It was where the feared momentum of a French attacking manoeuvre met the steely strength of Anglo-Allied static defence, a thrusting energy hitting unyielding resilience, impetus against steadfastness. Butchery was done and slaughter resulted. The attrition of hideous death was horrible and widespread, the woundings atrocious. Heads, bodies, and arms were atomised by cannon balls, the brutal breaking of bone, mangling of limbs and torsos, men and horses, the extinguishing of precious lives by the arbitrary disintegration of bodily structures immense. In the midst of this maelstrom soldiers stood or advanced in columns and awaited their individual fate, with fate itself deciding. There was courage and cowardice; mercy and cruelty; impetuousness and procrastination; panic and calmness; clarity and confusion; organisation and disorganisation; there was good, bad, and no leadership, and there were momentary misunderstandings and miscommunications leading to momentous mistakes. Napoleon said he lost Waterloo because of the ‘obstinate bravery of the British troops’ (thousands being Irish). Wellington said of the 1st Battalion of the 27th Inniskillings, ‘they saved the centre of my line’. Napoleon said of them, ‘I have seen Russian, Prussian, and French bravery, but anything to equal the stubborn bravery of the regiment with castles in their caps, I have never witnessed.’

Wellington has often been quoted (and criticised) for describing his soldiers as ‘the scum of the earth’, but seldom quoted was his proud addition, ‘it is really wonderful that we should have made them the fine fellows they are’. It was the raw material he was referring to, how the men presented on enlistment, not the finished article, the trained soldier, disciplined, drilled, with a noted proficiency for ‘clockwork musketry’ while standing steady, staunch, and silent. He was particularly proud of his Peninsular War participants, the backbone of whom were largely Irishmen. Wellington often said of this army that it was one with which ‘I could have done anything’. This Peninsular War army, on the war’s cessation in 1814, was largely dispersed to North America, Ireland, and the West Indies, however, and significantly, Wellington had available to him a sufficient portion of them come June 1815. In a Brussels park just before the opening of the Waterloo campaign proper, Wellington was asked by a companion (a British parliamentarian named Thomas Creevey) with whom he was walking about the possible outcome of the approaching hostilities. Wellington pointed to an off-duty British infantryman who happened to stroll by, and said, ‘There, it all depends upon that article whether we do business or not. Give me enough of it (them), and I am sure.’ In the event, he was just about to have ‘enough of them’ on the field of Waterloo, and just ‘enough of them’ were Irish.

Ireland, the Irish, and an exploding Europe

Saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal combined is an explosive mix called gunpowder. This black blend of chemical substances resulted in a new and devastatingly effective technology that revolutionised European warfare, bringing about a complete rethinking of defence works and battlefield tactics. More especially, massed infantry with muskets closely packed in huge formations now dominated the battlefield. Massed musket volleys allied with artillery cannon shot could decide the outcome of battles.

Manufacturing gunpowder was a difficult, dangerous process and involved many skills. Ballincollig Royal Gunpowder Mills in County Cork was one of three Royal gunpowder mills that manufactured gunpowder to meet the demands of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars. In close proximity to Cork City and one of the world’s largest natural harbours, second only to Sydney, the gunpowder mill was of great strategic importance. Originally opened in 1794 as a private enterprise producing blasting powder for construction works, mining, and quarrying, the mills attracted the attention of the British Board of Ordnance after the 1798 Rebellion, and on its purchase in 1805 was expanded tenfold with 12 new mills added to the complex, as well as new processing buildings and homes for the workers. Security was an issue, and a cavalry barracks was constructed in 1810, its garrison providing military escorts for the wagons of gunpowder to Cork harbour. With its multitude of ports and harbours and its access to shipping routes to Europe, North America, and elsewhere, Ireland had always been well situated to facilitate the strategic movement of British forces around the world. There was a reverse side to this. Philip II of Spain had once said, ’If England you wish to gain, with Ireland you must begin’. In 1601, Don Juan d’Aquilla was dispatched with a Spanish expedition to Ireland and together with the Irish was narrowly defeated at the Battle of Kinsale, County Cork. The lesson was not lost on the English and they held onto Ireland mainly for military reasons. Two centuries later, as the 19th century dawned, the British empire and France were engaged in a brutal war. The armies of France, forged in the turmoil of the French Revolution and under the brilliant leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, had won repeated victories against the Ottoman Empire, Austria, Prussia, and Russia. With the continent under French control, the threat of invasion now hung over Britain. Only the English Channel protected the British from their age-old enemies. To counter this perceived threat, the government of King George III increased military garrisons and strengthened fortifications throughout Britain and Ireland.

Group of Cavalry in the Snow by Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier, 1815-1891, National Gallery of Ireland.

The French in Killala Bay by William Sadler the Younger, National Gallery of Ireland.

The Robust engaging The, Hoche off Tory Island by John Thomas, National Gallery of Ireland.

Special consideration was given to the defences of Ireland, as French strategy in recent years had been to incite and assist armed rebellion by means of military intervention. In 1796, Theobald Wolfe Tone, a leader in the United Irishmen organisation, attempted to land in Bantry Bay, County Cork, with a force of 15,000 men and 43 ships provided by France and commanded by the French General Lazare Hoche. The invasion fleet arrived in Bantry Bay on the evening of 21 December. Soon after its arrival, and before the troops could disembark, bad weather intervened in the shape of storm force winds that drove the ships out to sea again. In the climatic year of 1798 Ireland once again featured in the French war plans. On 22 August three ships containing a force of 1,100 men commanded by General Jean-Joseph Humbert landed in Killala Bay, County Mayo, their orders to make contact with the United Irishmen and assist them in establishing an independent Irish republic. Humbert and his Irish allies defeated a British force sent to stop them at the Battle of Castlebar. The subsequent retreat of the British forces became known to the locals as ‘The Castlebar Races’. Humbert’s triumph was destined to be short-lived; a British force commanded by Lord Cornwallis met and defeated his army at the Battle of Ballinamuck on 8 September.

Watching events from France, Wolfe Tone was disappointed but not discouraged by the failed invasion. Once again he sought and received military assistance from the French. On 16 September 1798, a French fleet numbering nine ships holding 3,000 troops set sail from Brest. Again disaster struck. The French invasion force was intercepted by a British fleet commanded by Sir John Warren off the Donegal coast on 12 October. Bitter fighting ensued, lasting some ten hours, the result of which was an overwhelming British victory. Without the loss of a single ship, Sir John Warren captured seven ships and about 2,500 French troops. Among those captured was Theobald Wolfe Tone, who had travelled under the nom de guerre ‘Adjutant General Smith’. In view of these events, the British government was determined to forestall any further invasion and occupation of Ireland. To this effect, garrisons were increased and fortifications strengthened throughout the county with an emphasis on strategic locations.

In 1803 Napoleon began assembling his invasion force in north-eastern France. Napoleon’s Irish Legion, Legion Irlandaise, was formed in November of that year in Morlaix, Brittany. The Irish Legion (as it was to evolve, the forerunner of the French Foreign Legion) was created with a view to concurrent landings in Ireland and England, when a locally recruited force in Ireland would take up arms on its arrival. This would open up a second front, a simultaneous point of attack in a co-ordinated offensive on Britain Any unrest caused by Robert Emmet’s Rising of 1803 was short-lived, largely confined to Dublin, and did not ignite the hoped-for insurrection. This was not to dampen the on-going planning and preparations of the Legion, and throughout early 1804 it continued to recruit, train, and prepare. However, in August 1805, the British naval victory by Admiral Nelson’s fleet over that of the French at Trafalgar, where more than 30 per cent of Nelson’s sailors were Irish, removed the possibility of invasion. Napoleon turned his army eastwards and marched them towards Austria. Victories over the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz in December 1805 and the Prussians at Jena in 1806 saw him continue to hold sway on the continent. If Napoleon could not invade Britain he could blockade her; after all, it was an island and supplies could be prevented from arriving if they were stopped from being exported in the first place at their ports of origin. Napoleon attempted to extend his influence over England’s trading partners and to effect a blockade that would cut off her supplies. However, while many countries approved of his values for self-determination, interfering with their trade was another matter and seen as taking a step too far. In any event, the Spanish requested assistance from Britain. Following the French invasion and occupation of Spain in May 1808, the Spanish authorities appealed to Britain for ‘aid to rescue them from this flagrant usurpation of Bonaparte’. On receipt of this appeal it was decided that a force being assembled in Cork under Wellesley to assist the defence of the Spanish colonies in South America would go instead to Portugal, thus starting a campaign that became known as ‘the Peninsular War’. Of the force that was placed under his command, the following units assembled in Cork and were quartered on the outskirts of the city: 1st Battalion 5th Foot, 1st Battalion 40th Foot, 1st Battalion 91st Foot, 1st Battalion 9th Foot, 5th Battalion 60th Foot, 4 Companies 95th Foot, 1st Battalion 38th Foot, 1st Battalion 71st Foot, and 4th Royal Veterans’ Battalion.

On his arrival in Cork, Wellington lost little time in sending dispatches to Viscount Castlereagh, the Secretary of State; to Lieutenant General Floyd, commanding at Cork; and to Lieutenant Cheeseman, RN, Resident Agent of Transport, Cork. These dispatches concerned the equipping and transportation of 444 officers, 552 sergeants, 227 drummers, 9,505 rank and file and 215 horses, which were to embark from ‘Cove’ under his command. The force embarked on 13 July 1808 and set sail for Portugal.

The Peninsular War (1807-1814) stands as one of the longest campaigns in British military history. Irish participation was pivotal. Ireland provided Wellington with a large proportion of his infantry, which played an important part in the persistent, painstaking pushing of the French from the Iberian Peninsula of Portugal and Spain, then up into southern France. Two Irish cavalry squadrons fought in the Peninsular War but their participation was far less than the infantry. Wellington’s Irish Battalions consisted of three battalions of the 27th Foot (Inniskillings), and a battalion from each of the 83rd Foot, 87th Foot (Prince of Wales’s Own Irish), 88th Foot (Connaught Rangers), and a brief appearance from the 89th Foot (The Princess Victoria’s). In addition to these seven Irish infantry battalions continually present in the Peninsula, the non-Irish regiments had an average 35 per cent of Irishmen. The national composition of a battalion varied from year to year, according to casualties, recruitment, and transfers, so there was between 8 and 50 per cent Irish varying throughout the overall duration of the war. The 57th Foot (West Middlesex) had 34 per cent native Irish in 1809, many of whom had been recruited in the London area. The 29th Foot (Worcestershire) had 19 per cent in 1809. rising to 37 per cent in 1811. The 28th Foot (North Gloucestershire) had 40 per cent, a figure reputedly shared by the Royal Artillery. The 94th Foot (The Scots’ Brigade) at one point contained the highest percentage of Irish, just over 51 per cent. ‘Elite’ light infantry battalions, the 43rd (Monmouthshire), the 52nd (Oxfordshire), and the 95th (Rifles), had about 25 per cent Irish. Most recruits came from the Catholic population.

‘The Inniskillings’ or the 27th Inniskillings were one of the strongest units in the British army during the Napoleonic period and one of the very few from 1812 on to have three battalions simultaneously in the Peninsula, mustering 4,078 men in 1810. The 3rd Battalion was the most heavily engaged, spending 64 complete months in that theatre. The 27th is also one of the oldest regiments, raised in 1689 during the Williamite Wars for the defence of the town of Enniskillen, and was originally known as Tiffin’s Inniskilling Regiment, named after its first Colonel, Zachariah Tiffin. In 1751, the regiment became the 27th Foot and served in the Seven Years War (1756-63) in North America and the West Indies. It formed part of the British force in Alexandria (Egypt) in 1801, and in 1806 the First Battalion of the 27th fought at Maida, and with the second and third Battalions formed part of the Peninsula army, gaining battle honours at Badajoz, Salamanca, Vitoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Orkey, and Toulouse. The 3rd Battalion was the first of the three battalions to enter the Peninsular War in November 1808, the 1st Battalion entering in November 1812 and the 2nd Battalion a month later. The 1st Battalion, with a composition from 27 counties of origin throughout Ireland, went on to fight at Waterloo under the command of Major John Hare (6th Division, 10th Brigade). At half past six in the evening, the French, capturing the farmhouse strong-point of La Haye Sainte (‘The Holy Hedge’), brought up field horse artillery and shredded the Anglo-Allied line at a range of less than 300 metres. Deployed in square at the junction of the Ohain and the Brussels-Charleroi crossroads, the 1st Battalion 27th Foot, 747 strong at daybreak, sustained 493 casualties or 66 per cent, reportedly the highest of any battalion.

The forces which Wellington led in Portugal and Spain and up into southern France between 1808 and 1814 achieved a consistent record of victory perhaps unmatched in the history of the British army. Put together, the Irish regiments and the Irish in non-Irish regiments made up some 40 per cent of this volunteer army, a remarkable figure given the bloodshed of the recent unrest of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland and to a far lesser extent that of 1803. The size of the Irish contingent was out of proportion to Ireland’s share of the United Kingdom’s total population, especially as most Irish troops were drawn from Ireland’s Catholic population. Officers of Irish birth or strong Irish connections, which may have been as great as one third of the officer corps, came mainly from Ireland’s Anglican community of much less than one million, or about seven per cent of the population, but Catholic officers were appearing in increasing numbers.

Why did such recruits become available? Provoked by the American and French Revolutions, the Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1782 abolished many restrictions on Catholics and began to bring them into the mainstream of British and Irish life. The 1793 Act in Ireland had amongst its supporters the Member of Parliament for Trim, County Meath, Arthur Wellesley, aged 24, later 1st Duke of Wellington. This act changed Ireland dramatically by enfranchising Catholics and giving them the heretofore denied access to the professions and to higher education. It also allowed Catholics once again to bear arms and to enter the armed forces legitimately, resulting in vast numbers swelling the rank and file, and so was a major factor in providing troops for the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It was not simple altruism or the need to reduce dissatisfaction in the wake of the French Revolution that motivated the Protestant Parliament in Dublin to restore the right to bear arms, but the pressing need to employ the well-established military talents of the Irish. As soon as the measure became law, regiment after regiment, hungry for recruits, sent parties to Ireland to recruit. It soon became impossible for a regiment to have served in Ireland not to have a strong Irish element. Recruiting parties found thousands of fit and tough young men only too eager to embrace the military life and escape the arduous living conditions and the problems caused by the lack of education, opportunity, and employment in an increasing population. Indeed, it was a policy to garrison a ‘skeleton’ battalion in Ireland after great losses from yellow fever in the West Indies to build up strength again. In 1797, for example, of the seven regular regiments of foot on the Irish establishment, five had recently returned from the West Indies, and were ‘skeleton’ units, busily recruiting.

The year 1795, two years after the outbreak of war with France, saw the formation of Ireland’s most controversial force, the Irish Militia, at a strength of 18,000, which was increased to 28,000 in 1798. With its sister forces in England and Scotland, the Irish Militia was to have a major impact on the make-up and performance of the British armed forces between 1798 and 1815. With a majority of the infantry of the line (regular army) being Irish, could their loyalty be counted on? When it came to suppressing the 1798 Rebellion, only regiments with an overwhelming proportion of non-Irish troops were sent, such as the 100th Highlanders, later the 92nd Gordon Highlanders, and the 5th Battalion of the 60th (Royal American), composed mainly of Germans. The greater part in the suppression of the rebellion was played by the Irish Militia and by Fencible regiments from Scotland, such as the Stratspey Fencibles. From 1799, various Militia Transfer Acts enabled militiamen to transfer to their chosen line regiment up to a maximum of 15 per cent of the strength of the militia unit each year. Further acts enabled extra transfers in certain years. These transfers were commonplace, and Ireland often surpassed England and Scotland in numbers of volunteers or in percentage of quota achieved. Although recruitment by other methods continued, militia transfers were far more important, delivering to the army a supply of trained and ready troops. Overall, the extent of Irish recruitment in the British Army was impressive. Between 1793 and 1815, as many as 200,000 may have enlisted, many of whom found their way to the Peninsula with Wellington.

Napoleon’s firm grip on the Continent of Europe and beyond began to slip as he over-reached, and after 15 years of continuous and glorious victories for France,his disastrous 10-month Russian campaign in 1812 was compounded by outright defeat against four European states at the three-day Battle of Leipzig in 1813. With Wellington’s army pushing up from the south and those of Austria, Prussia, and Russia moving in from the east, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and was exiled on the Mediterranean Island of Elba. Europe was at peace. However, like the explosive mix of saltpetre, sulphur, and charcoal that was gunpowder, the destabilising ingredients of Napoleon’s unquenched adventurous ambition was set to once again ignite, suddenly and sharply, and the Continent once more exploded into war.