THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR--AN IRISH AMBULANCE CORPS--THE FRENCH FOREIGN
LEGION.
When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the sympathy of Ireland was
naturally, for historic reasons, on the side of France. It was not
surprising, then, that many young Irishmen who had served in America, or
in the ranks of the Papal Volunteers, or had borne a share in the Fenian
movement, were anxious to show their sympathy in a practical way, and at
the same time to gratify the national propensity for a fight
--in any good cause at all.
I happened to number among my friends some of these young Irishmen, of
whom I may mention Captain Martin Kirwan, James Lysaght Finigan, Edmond
O'Donovan, Arthur Forrester, Frank Byrne, and James O'Kelly. There was a
strong feeling in Ireland to send a considerable body of men to France,
but the law stood in the way. It was evaded by the formation of an
Ambulance Corps, and for this generous subscriptions flowed in, along
with numerous applications from volunteers. These were all medically
examined, as if for a regular army, and in this way as fine a body of
young men as ever left Ireland was picked from those who had
volunteered. The ambulance service was equipped in the most perfect
manner, and presented to the French nation. On arriving in France, there
were (as was, of course, intended) more men than were required for the
ambulance duties, and these at once volunteered for service as soldiers.
They were formed into a company under the command of Captain Kirwan, one
of the sergeants being Frank Byrne, who was afterwards Kirwan's
colleague as an official of the Irish constitutional organisation in
Great Britain. The company might have developed into a regiment, and
even into a brigade, had the movement started earlier to get men over to
France by various means. This could have been done, notwithstanding the
Foreign Enlistment Act; and towards the end of the war, French agents
were in this country providing for the sending over of large numbers of
men to France, when the capitulation of Paris caused the collapse of
their arrangements.
The men of the Irish Ambulance Corps did their work so well as to show
that not only did Irishmen make good soldiers, but that, possessing the
sympathetic Celtic nature, their services were highly appreciated by the
wounded who fell to their charge. Captain Kirwan's company fought
bravely, sustaining the credit of their country through the whole
campaign, and, under Bourbaki, were among those who actually struck the
last blow the Germans received on French soil.
Arthur Forrester, who joined the French Foreign Legion, was severely
wounded in the foot. After the war he came into the office of the
"Catholic Times," when I was manager and John McArdle editor of that
paper. We welcomed him, of course, not only as an old friend and brother
journalist, but as one who had been fighting for France.
In his "Camp Fires of the Legion" written for my "Irish Library," James
Lysaght Finigan tells of his adventures in the war. He found his way to
Lille, in the north of France, and, with several hundreds of other
Irishmen became enrolled in the ranks of the Foreign Legion. In
Lieutenant Elliott he was delighted to recognise Edmond O'Donovan, who
had figured so prominently in the Fenian movement, and whose
incarceration in Ireland and exile in America were fresh in his memory.
"The Legion," Finigan says, "showed itself worthy of its predecessors,
the Irish Brigades of former days, during the reverses that constantly
befel the armies of France." He gives graphic accounts of the battles
they were engaged in, and how, in the defence of Orleans, he and a
number of his comrades were taken prisoners, among those being his
friend O'Donovan, who had been wounded by a piece of shell.
The Foreign Legion must have borne the brunt of the fighting. The fourth
battalion was cut to pieces at Woerth, Gravelotte, and Sedan; the fifth
battalion was reduced from 3,000 to some 300; the sixth battalion retook
Orleans, was compelled to abandon it, and covered itself with glory at
Le Mans and elsewhere; and the seventh was interned with Bourbaki in
Switzerland until the end of the war.
Although I often heard from him afterwards, the last time I met Edmond
O'Donovan, if I remember rightly, was in a North Lancashire town, in
which John O'Connor Power had been lecturing the same night. I forget
exactly who else of the "boys" were there--I think William Hogan was
one--but there were some choice spirits, and we made just such an Irish
night of it as Finigan describes they had when he and O'Donovan fought
in the Foreign Legion.
Edmond O'Donovan was the son of the famous Irish scholar and antiquary,
John O'Donovan, the translator from the Gaelic--with O'Curry and
Petrie--of that great Irish history, "The Annals of the Four Masters,"
and other manuscripts. The elder O'Donovan had made the acquaintance of
Sir Thomas Larcom, when both were young men together on the staff of the
Ordnance Survey. John O'Donovan appointed his friend Larcom to be
guardian of his children in case of his death.
It was Larcom's duty, as an official of the Government, to hunt down the
Fenians, both native and foreign, so that he had undertaken a serious
and perplexing charge. For O'Donovan's elder sons were strong
Nationalists and Fenians; so that, on the death of his old friend,
Larcom was like an old hen having charge of a brood of ducklings who
could not be kept from the troubled waters of Fenianism. There is no
doubt that Larcom's influence kept them from or saved them from a lot
of trouble. The O'Donovans were an accomplished family, the one I knew
best, besides Edmond, being Richard, who has held a responsible
mercantile position for some years, and who furnished me with much
valuable information about his father, when Thomas Flannery--one of our
best Gaelic scholars--was writing a life of Dr. John O'Donovan for my
"Irish Library" series.
Besides being thoroughly acquainted with several languages, Edmond
O'Donovan had an excellent scientific training, which was brought into
requisition in connection with the projected Fenian military movements
in Ireland. While a thorough classical scholar, the poems he liked best
were the songs of Thomas Davis and the Young Irelanders. He was slender
of figure and had a handsome oval face. In speaking, whether in private
or before an audience, he had an animated and expressive manner, with a
good deal of gesture, such as a Frenchman or Italian would use. I have
heard him singing songs like "Clare's Dragoons" with much fire and
fervour, throwing his whole soul into it in a way I can never forget.
In 1877-1878 he was a special correspondent in the Russo-Turkish war
with the Turkish army, and he sent home powerful and graphic accounts of
every battle and siege.
His intimate knowledge of Arabic stood to him in these and in the
Egyptian campaigns in which he afterwards took part. In 1879 he went
through Russia to the shores of the Caspian Sea, travelled through the
north of Persia and the adjacent territory of Khorassan, to the land of
the Tekke Turcomans, and to Merv, thus penetrating the mysteries of
Central Asia as no European traveller had ever done so perfectly before.
In 1881 he returned to England, and published his book, "The Merv
Oasis," and afterwards read a paper before the Royal Geographical
Society on "Merv and its surroundings."
Finally, in 1883, he went as special correspondent to the Soudan, and
there this brilliant Irishman perished with the whole of Hicks Pasha's
army. No tidings ever came of how Edmond O'Donovan met his death, but
those who knew him best feel that he must have yielded up his gallant
spirit to its Creator with a courage and fortitude worthy of an
Irishman.
In January, 1906, I had occasion to call upon his brother Richard in
Liverpool, and asked if they had ever got any trace of Edmond. Nothing
had been heard of how he had actually perished, but an authentic relic
of him had fallen into the hands of a priest in the Soudan. This was a
blood-stained garment, which was proved beyond doubt to have belonged to
him.
I have mentioned another name in connection with the Franco-Prussian
War--that of James O'Kelly. His career, like that of O'Donovan, had been
stormy and adventurous. I had previously met him in connection with the
Fenian movement.
He had been in the French army, and served in the campaign which was so
disastrous to the Mexican Emperor Maximilian. His adventurous
temperament led him again to join the French service during the
Franco-Prussian war. He was employed on the confidential mission of
raising a force of Irishmen for the war. I have described the formation
of the company under Kirwan, which was the outcome of the Ambulance
Corps. It will be seen, too, that there were a considerable number of
Irishmen in the Foreign Legion. But, after all, these did not amount to
a number sufficient to have much appreciable result on the ultimate
fortunes of the war. The French military authorities, knowing what
splendid fighting materials Irishmen would make, commissioned O'Kelly to
raise a large force. For this purpose he made Liverpool his
headquarters, and I was pleased to see him again when he called upon me
at the office of the "Catholic Times" My sympathies were strongly with
France, and I gave him what assistance I could in furthering the object
of his mission. At my suggestion, therefore, he took up his abode at the
hotel opposite our office, at the corner of Moorfields and Dale Street.
A large number of volunteers were got from among the advanced element in
Liverpool and surrounding towns, who wanted to learn the use of arms in
real warfare--their ultimate object I need not mention. From other
quarters in Ireland as well as England there were volunteers for the
French army. I had arranged through an emigration agent, Mr. Michael
Francis Duffy, a much respected and patriotic Irishman of singular
culture, for the charter of two steamers to take the men to Havre; but
just then Paris fell, after a long siege; the war ended, and the Irish
Legion project collapsed.
In 1872 James O'Kelly turned his attention to journalism as a
profession. He got his first opening on the "New York Herald," partly
through his thorough knowledge of the military profession, but still
more by that singular tact that never failed him under the most trying
circumstances.
Some years after, he called on me again in Liverpool, and I heard from
him of some stirring incidents in his career. Amongst those were his
perilous experiences in connection with the fighting in Cuba, from which
he narrowly escaped with his life.
Since then he has entered Parliament. He was a staunch supporter from
the first of Mr. Parnell. When the unfortunate "split" came, he took the
side of the "Chief," but none is more pleased than he to be a member of
the now re-united Irish Party.
In connection with the Franco-Prussian war I may be allowed to refer
here to a non-combatant, who, with his brother priests, remained at
their post during the terrible siege of Paris, ministering to the sick
and dying. This was my cousin, Father Bernard O'Loughlin, Superior of
the Passionist Order in Paris.
And yet, notwithstanding their noble services to humanity on this and
other occasions, the Passionist Fathers have since been driven out of
the country by the French Government. The announcement of the danger of
this, when it was first threatened, caused consternation in the foreign
Catholic colony of Paris, to whom the Passionist Fathers had endeared
themselves by their labours on behalf of needy and stranded
English-speaking people, and their devoted spiritual ministrations.
The Passionist mission in Paris was founded some forty years ago by
Father Bernard, with his friend, Father Ignatius Spencer, also a
Passionist, and uncle of the present Earl Spencer.
The Archbishop of Paris had invited the Passionists to establish a
church in Paris, on account of the number of Irish, American, and
English Catholics requiring religious ministrations, few of the French
clergy being able to speak English. Father O'Loughlin first commenced
his labours in the Church of St. Nicholas, in the Rue Saint Honoré,
where he remained three years. After this a sum of 200,000 francs was
subscribed, chiefly by Irish, American, and English residents, for the
site and building of a church. Father Bernard was soon joined by several
other members of the order sent from England, and there were always four
or five Passionist Fathers attached as chaplains to the church. The
following distinguished prelates have preached in this Church--Cardinal
Manning, Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Richard, Archbishop Ireland,
Archbishop Spalding, and Archbishop Passadière.
Mrs. Mackay was the most generous of the supporters of the order in
Paris; and, in 1903, when the fathers found themselves unable to pay the
tax created by the French "Loi d'accroissement," she paid down the
20,000 francs required to save the church.
Their devotion in remaining faithful to their flock during the long and
terrible siege of Paris in 1870 ought to have recommended them to the
sympathies of all patriotic Frenchmen. The Passionists not only
ministered to the spiritual but to the temporal wants of those coming
under their charge. They visited the sick and poor, relieved the age in
need, provided for orphans, and assisted stranded Irish and English
governesses, irrespective of creed, who had come to Paris in search of
situations. Those who suffered most from the withdrawal of the
Passionists were the poor and afflicted.
The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, the American Embassy, and the British
Ambassador, addressed the French Government on their behalf, pointing
out that the services of the Passionists were indispensable--but in
vain. It is humiliating that the government of what is supposed to be a
great Catholic nation like France should be appealed to in such a cause,
fruitlessly, by the ambassador of non-Catholic England.
Father Bernard O'Loughlin's name in the world was John, after his
father, my mother's brother, John O'Loughlin. The elder John was a
brewer's traveller, and often came to our house in Liverpool, bringing
his violin with him. He had a wide knowledge of old Irish airs, and to
his accompaniment we had many a genuine Irish night, singing the
stirring songs then appearing in the "Nation."