Читать книгу A Bloody Day - Dan Harvey - Страница 7

PREFACE

There is one past, but many histories. There was one Battle of Waterloo, but many versions. There was one Anglo-Allied Army, but many nationalities. There was one outcome, but many unknowns. One of the biggest unknowns was that many Irishmen participated. The Battle of Waterloo is itself a good story, highly dramatic, hard-fought, the outcome of which was in the balance to its very end. The story of the part played by the Irish is equally enthralling and must necessarily mention an ‘Irish’ presence, an ‘Irish’ prominence and an ‘Irish’ pride of participation. There was one Wellington, and many other Irish.

At mid-afternoon on the 18 June 1815 in the valley below the ridge of Mont-St-Jean near the Belgian village of Waterloo, Irishman Major General Sir William Ponsonby K.C.B of Imokilly, County Cork, commander of the 2nd British Cavalry (Union) Brigade was killed during a cavalry change. Later in the day, and on the ridge of Mont-St-Jean, Major Arthur Rowley Heyland from Castle Roe, Count Derry, was killed in action at the close of battle while leading the 1st Battalion of the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot. Arthur Rowley was buried near to where he fell on the battlefield of Waterloo. One of those who continued to contribute to lead the 40th Foot’s steadfast defence of an exposed position was Captain Conyngham Ellis from Abbeyfeale, County Limerick. Two years later, Conyngham Ellis, now a major, died of wounds received at Waterloo.

Determined not to be forgotten in the event of his death during the up-coming campaign, later called the ‘Hundred Days’ campaign because of the time between Napoleon’s escape from Elba and his final exile to St Helena, Ensign (Second-Lieutenant) Edward Hodder from Fountainstown, near Crosshaven, County Cork, carved his name on about a dozen beech trees along the back avenue to the farm on which he was raised. (He carved the words ‘E. Hodder Fountainstown 1815’. The trees have nearly all gone now, but there are still a couple of them standing and when pointed out, the carving is still possible to see.) Edward Hodder survived the battle but was wounded and lost a leg. The story, still within the family today, is that when he returned without his leg he built himself a wheelchair and wheeled himself down to the beach in Fountainstown regularly, a distance of a mile. On his way back he would bring stones from the beach and he eventually built himself a path that enabled him to wheel himself to the farm’s walled garden. He died in 1868.

Edward Costello, born in Mountmellick, County Laois, in 1788 enlisted with the 95th Rifles as a private soldier in 1807 and subsequently saw extensive service in the Peninsular War (1808-1814) and at Waterloo. He wrote a memoir of his service, The Adventures of a Soldier (London 1852). His memoir is a valuable record of this period, not only as one of comparatively few Irish military accounts, but due to its coming from an enlisted man, rare in a period when the average British army private soldier was illiterate. Officers’ memoirs and journals tended to dominate instead.

On 23 April 1845, as an in-patient of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, James Graham from County Monaghan died. On the occasion, a number of British newspapers and journals published fulsome obituaries of the ex-soldier, formerly of the Light Company, 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards, describing him as ‘the bravest of the brave at Waterloo’, a tribute paid to very few common soldiers of the era.

In March 1892 in the town of Sherbrooke in the province of Quebec, Canada, 97-year-old Irishman Maurice Shea from County Kerry died. Born at Prior near Tralee in 1795, he enlisted in the British army and fought at the Battle of Waterloo as a private in Number Nine Company of the Second Battalion of the 73rd Highlanders. Maurice Shea continued to serve with the 73rd until leaving the army as a corporal in 1822. He eventually settled in Canada, living there until his death. He was generally credited as being the last surviving British veteran of the Battle of Waterloo.

Arthur Wesley, later Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, a ninth generation member of the Colley Family who settled in Ireland about 1500 (while the first of the Wellesleys is believed to have arrived earlier around 1170 with Henry II) was a native of Dangan Castle near Trim, County Meath. Born in Dublin, he was baptised Arthur Mornington in St Peter’s Church, Dublin, on 30 April 1769. Commissioned in 1787, he commanded British forces in India and the Iberian Peninsula and was appointed officer-in-charge of the Anglo-Allied (British, Dutch, German, Belgian) army at the Battle of Waterloo.

One third of the Anglo-Allied army at Waterloo were British, and one third of these were, like Wellington himself, Irish. Yet such a substantial Irish participation in a dramatic event that decided the fate of Europe, a turning point in history, is neither immediately nor readily brought to mind by the British nor indeed by the Irish themselves when mention is made of the battle.

Irishmen in their thousands from every county, walk of life, and corner of society in Ireland were present and active on the battlefield of Waterloo. Whether participating in specifically designated Irish units or as sizeable proportions of many, if not most, British units with absolutely no formal Irish affiliation, they were involved in all the battle’s significant actions. Like himself, a number of Wellington’s key subordinates in his command and control structure as brigade commanders were Irish. This was true also of the next hierarchical level in Wellington’s chain-of-command, with Irishmen among his battalion and regimental commanders. Irish officers liberally populated these battalion and regimental establishments, and others held important central staff and support appointments.

These Irish were there when the irresistible force of Napoleon’s Armée de Nord (Army of the North) hit Wellington’s immovable defensive line along the ridge of Mont-St-Jean on the compressed battlefield of Waterloo, with hostilities commencing at 35 minutes past eleven on 18 June 1815. At stake was the future shape of Europe. Repeated, determined attacks throughout the day met a stiff stubborn defence, resulting in carnage. Wellington had nailed himself to the ridge and Napoleon threw everything he had to move him off it. Deadly assaults against a desperate defence. Concentrated artillery bombardments, close-quarter volleys of infantry musket-fire, courageous cavalry charges, all tore blood from flesh, flesh from bone, bone from body, and breath from life. There was bloodshed, mutilation, and violent death on both sides. Napoleon unleashed multiple cannonades, massive columns of infantry, and massed cavalry to smash Wellington’s will by sheer weight of numbers, while the latter replied with staunch defence and ferocious counter-attacks. Both generals knew the battle would be decisive. Both were highly skilled, experienced commanders in the field. Neither had faced the other before. Both were winners, but one must lose. The space over which the battle raged was compact, the battle space densely populated, and time was critical. The battlefield was 5 kilometres long and 3 kilometres wide. There were 180,000 troops, 35,000 horses and 500 cannons on it. It was a fiercely fought and formidable battle. Both commanders were determined to win, and each possessed the wit and lethal means to achieve it. The result was an enormous cost in dead and wounded. Many Irish were amongst the battle’s casualties. Of the Irish wounded at Waterloo, there were many who recovered with little ill effects; others were maimed for life; and others still did not rally from wounds received, dying days, weeks, months, even years later. Of those among the fatalities, most were buried at Waterloo. The overall extent of the casualties on all sides was staggering, the Irish suffering severely. When the battle’s death toll was increasing by the minute, its outcome far from decided, at day’s end with dusk descending, both armies shattered and near collapse, they remained evenly matched. With the issue still deadlocked, the battle in the balance, the fighting continuing, the Prussians arriving in force from the east, the French pressed harder and the bodies literally mounted. Standing with Wellington, holding the line with the battle-shocked, exhausted, and battered Anglo-Allies, only just, and at enormous cost were thousands of soldiers from Ireland, fighting bravely. This is their story.