of perpetual alarm. In this defence, so disastrous to the city, Lacy
was of incalculable service in harassing the Prussian trenches, by
his vigilance and restless bravery. Contrary to the advice of Keith,
the king, on the 13th of June, left a small force before Prague, and,
drawing off his main body, marched against Daun, who defeated him in
battle at Kolin, and forced him to leave Bohemia--a movement by which
the blockade of Prague was abandoned; and the imprisoned Austrians
received their deliverer with inexpressible joy. Lacy and other
generals issued out, with their breasts full of ardour and vengeance,
and followed the retreating Prussians over the Saxon frontier, sabring
all stragglers who fell into their power.
To narrate all the military operations in which Count Lacy bore a part,
would be to rehearse the history of the Seven Years' War. He owed
his elevation and high consideration as much to his own bravery and
skill as to the patronage and friendship of Daun, who consulted him on
every occasion, and employed him in the execution of the most delicate
measures.
Though by his vigour and decision he frequently urged Marshal Daun on
many a bold enterprise, he was possessed of great coolness and presence
of mind. "His ardour," says the historian of the House of Hapsburg,
"never exceeded the bounds of prudence, or hurried him into attempts
which might incur the censure of his patron." He was of great service
in drilling and training the Austrian forces to perform those new and
difficult manoeuvres of which Daun was the inventor; he was a strict
disciplinarian, a friend to order, and by his precept and example
succeeded in introducing a degree of economy into every branch of the
Austrian military service.
In 1758 the King of Prussia commenced the new campaign, and entering
Moravia, invested Olmutz. General Lacy was then of great service in
protecting the roads which led to Upper Silesia; and, when posted
at Gibau with a large body of Austrians, he sent a detachment of
grenadiers to Krenau, where they harassed the Prussian rear-guard, till
they were driven back by Wied. When Frederick retired from Konigsgratz,
Lacy and St. Ignan followed him with 15,000 men, and had many severe
encounters with the Putkammer hussars, who formed the rear guard of the
Prussians.
He served valiantly at the great battle of Hochkirchen, when the
good old Marshal Keith, Knight of the Black Eagle, and Governor of
Berlin, a general second to none in the Seven Years' War, was slain
that day, when lighting on foot at the head of the Prussian infantry;
and here ensued an affecting incident. After the battle, his body
was shamefully abandoned by the routed Prussians, and stripped by
Austrian stragglers. Thus it lay long on the field, undistinguished
from the thousands of others which covered it. In this degrading
situation it was found by Lacy, who was riding over the ground, and
with whose father (old Marshal Lacy) the venerable Keith had served
in Prussia, and by whose side he had been wounded in the Crimea. The
count recognised the body, says Dr. Smollett, by the large scar of a
dangerous wound which General Keith had received _in his thigh_ at
the siege of Oczakow, and could not refrain from tears on seeing his
father's honoured friend lying thus at his feet, a naked, lifeless,
and deserted corpse; and it must have been an interesting scene to
witness these two exiles--the young Irish Jacobite weeping over the
old Scottish Cavalier--on that sanguinary field. Lacy had the body
immediately covered, and interred with the honours of war, in the
adjacent churchyard, from whence it was afterwards removed to Berlin.
Lacy, with Daun and Loudon, bore a conspicuous part in the campaign of
1760, particularly in those manoeuvres by which the King of Prussia,
notwithstanding all his skill and cunning, was frustrated in his
Silesian operations.
Proposing to invade the Duchy again, he crossed the Elbe, on the 15th
June, and was joined by the Prince of Holstein. On this, Lacy, who had
been watching them, drew in his outposts, and retired to Zehaila. On
his march Frederick passed very close to Lacy's camp, with his infantry
covered by only four regiments of Saxon horse. These drove in Lacy's
pickets; on which he shifted his ground to a position at the foot of
the hills of Bockerdorf and Reichenberg. Frederick made preparations
to assail them on the morrow, and only waited for reinforcements under
General Hulsen; but Daun, who had crossed the Elbe at Dresden, and was
hastening to the assistance of his friend, dispatched an officer to
him, with orders "to shift his ground;" and together they took up a
new position at Lausa, while Frederick occupied the place which Lacy
had left by three regiments of hussars, two of dragoons, and two free
corps, which were attacked, but unsuccessfully, by Lacy in the night.
Both armies, Prussian and Imperialist, began their march for Silesia
on the same day, each eager to anticipate and shut the other out.
The former marched by the way of Crackau; the latter marched through
Bischofswerder; and _en route_ Daun detached Lacy to Keulenburg, to
cover his left flank; but Frederick attacked the young brigadier
unexpectedly, and captured 200 of his rear-guard. The heat was so
excessive at this time that eighty men dropped dead on the march. Lacy
continued to harass the Prussian rear, till at Salzforstien Frederick
turned and attacked his Uhlans with four regiments of horse, who in
the first charge shot and sabred 400 men. At that time Lacy's whole
cavalry were encamped at Rothen Nauslitz; but he brought them up by
successive troops--for here again he was taken by surprise--and a
desultory and destructive skirmish ensued, after which both parties
separated. Frederick now decided it was necessary either to follow
Daun, who had already reached Silesia, or to rid himself at once of the
resolute Lacy, who hung like a wolf upon his skirts, and encumbered
every movement. Thus, on the evening of the 8th of July, after making
a feigned movement towards Gorlitz, he suddenly broke into Lacy's
camp, and drove him beyond the defiles of Horta, where his Prussians
passed the night, while the Austrians occupied the mountain of the
White Stag. From this Lacy's small force was driven next day, and had
to recross the Elbe at Dresden, from whence he marched to a position
at Gros Seidlitz, while lines of circumvallation were drawn round the
city. A letter written by Daun to Lacy, containing all his plans of the
campaign, was intercepted here, and brought to Frederick, to whom it
proved of great service.
On the 10th of August, Lacy lost his tents and baggage when escaping an
attack meditated by Frederick, who was baffled by the timely arrival
of Daun at Hennersdorf. Marshal Loudon invested Breslau, but raised
the siege on Prince Henry of Prussia marching to its relief. Frederick
then made his memorable march to prevent the Russians from forming
a junction with Daun and Lacy; he passed five rivers, the Elbe, the
Spree, the Neiss, the Quiess, and the Bober, though trammelled by
2000 caissons and a ponderous train of artillery; but he was unable
to bring Loudon to action before that general was joined by Lacy and
Daun. The three leaders then encompassed his camp at Lignitz, and his
affairs seemed desperate; for Daun, after a reconnoisance, announced
to Lacy and Loudon his resolution of storming the Prussian position by
a night attack; but the subtle Frederick eluded them all, by suddenly
and secretly passing the Elbe, and hastening into Saxony, whither Daun
and Lacy followed him, at the head of 80,000 men. Then Cunnersdorf,
the bloodiest battle of the Seven Years' War, was fought and lost by
Frederick. In that field he had 20,000 of his soldiers slain, and
all his generals killed or wounded. He made incredible exertions to
retrieve the day, and his uniform was riddled by musket-balls.
The Russians passed the Oder, and pushed a strong column into
Brandenburg, under Count Czernichew, who was joined by a large body
of Austrians under Lacy, and together they made themselves masters of
Berlin, the capital, about the end of October. They levied a severe
contribution upon the citizens, destroyed all the magazines, arsenals,
and foundries, pillaged the royal palaces, and ravaged all the adjacent
country, burning a vast amount of property and military stores;
but they retired by different routes on hearing that the mortified
Frederick was advancing to the relief of his plundered capital. And
soon after he had his revenge at the battle fought near Toorgau, on
the 23rd of November. There Lacy commanded the reserve of 20,000 men,
who covered the causeway and several ponds which lay at the extremity
of Daun's position, and on which his left flank rested; Lacy endured a
severe cannonade at the beginning of the action. General Count O'Donnel
commanded the cavalry. When Daun gave way, Lacy brought up his reserve,
and twice with the bayonet he strove desperately and heroically to
regain the day, but was twice driven back by the Prussians; nor did
he abandon that disastrous field until half-past nine in the dark
November evening. By that time Daun, after receiving a shot in the
thigh, had been borne away wounded, and O'Donnel had assumed the
command of the broken and discomfited army.
"Although I have been in twenty-eight battles," says a Swiss officer,
whose letter appears in a Scottish newspaper of the time,[12] "I never
saw anything more dreadful than the field presented. It was near six
o'clock, a most obscure night--to use the words of Harlequin, _a night
of ink_--the only light we had was the infernal fire of the artillery
and musketry, the horrid noise of the combatants rendered more dreadful
by the night; the melancholy cries of the wounded, mixed with the sound
of drums and trumpets, filled the soul with horror. _Kill! Kill!_ was
cried out everywhere. In a word, I never saw anything that better
corresponded with the melancholy idea given us of hell itself!"
The Austrians, despite their 200 pieces of cannon, were routed and
driven over the Elbe; 10,000 of them lay slain on the field, and
four generals, 200 other officers, and 8000 men were taken, with
twenty-seven stand of colours, and fifty guns, for of all Frederick's
victories this was the most successful and glorious. He recovered
all Saxony except Dresden, in the neighbourhood of which an Austrian
division, under General MacGuire, another Irish soldier of fortune, was
hovering. The troops of the Empress-Queen evacuated Silesia, while the
Russians abandoned Colberg and retired into Poland; and thus closed the
year 1760.
Leaving Lacy to watch the Prussian general Zeithen, Leopold Daun,
accompanied by his countess, repaired to Vienna, and so soon recovered,
that in the spring of the following year he was able to assist at the
councils of war. Fifty thousand men were now prisoners on both sides.
In February, 1761, Lacy, now a field-marshal, meant to have visited
Finland (where his father had received extensive estates), to settle
certain family disputes which had arisen; but the preparations for
another campaign, and the knowledge that his old friend Daun was about
to resume the command, made him defer this journey for a time.
On the 21st of March, Marshal Daun departed from Vienna to join the
army, and all the generals repaired to the head of their different
brigades and divisions, for it was intended that the greatest efforts
should now be made to crush the warlike King of Prussia. Daun took
the command in Saxony; Marshal Count Loudon in Silesia, where he
was to be supported by the Russians under Marshal Butterlin, whose
train of artillery was tremendous. It consisted of no less than
eight ninety-six-pounders, twenty-two forty-eight-pounders, seventy
twenty-four-pounders, eighty-three twelve-pounders, eighty-six
eight-pounders, and 106 lighter field pieces, drawn by 13,834 horses.
O'Donnel marched with 16,000 men to Zittau, from whence he was to
assist the armies of Saxony or Silesia, as occasion might require, and
he pushed one division as far as Dresden.
In June, Lacy's corps took post on the right bank of the Elbe, to
preserve a communication with the division of his countryman. Several
other Irishmen had high rank in the Austrian service about this
time, and we may particularly note Nicholas Count Taaffe, who died a
colonel-commandant in 1770, aged ninety-two, and was succeeded in his
title and regiment by his son, Count Francis; and Count O'Rourke,[13]
Knight of St. Louis, descended from an ancient family in the county of
Leitrim, whose ancestors Cromwell is said to have stripped of an estate
worth 70,000_l._ per annum.
On the Prussians, under Prince Henry, passing the Elbe in July, Daun
reinforced Lacy with six battalions and some regiments of horse.
In spite of their utmost efforts, Frederick, after fighting the
Imperialists on the heights of Buckersdorf, where an Irish officer
named O'Kelly ably defended their redoubts with only 4000 men,
recovered the city of Schweidnitz on the 22nd July, though defended by
9000 men, under _another_ Irish general named Butler. He then turned
his eyes towards Saxony, and proposed to besiege Dresden.
After Loudon entered Silesia in August, some severe fighting ensued,
especially at Munsterberg, and on the hills of Labedau. Lacy was
then hovering with his troops near Grossenhayn, and encamping at
Gros-dobritz, from whence he advanced his videttes as far as Strehlen
along the Elbe--for Count O'Donnel still occupied Dresden or its
neighbourhood.
In September, Lacy was sent with his brigade, 15,000 strong, by Daun,
to join the Russians at Brandenburg, with orders to ravage all the
electorate, which, while covered by the army of Soltikoff, he did
so effectually as to compel Frederick either to shift his camp from
Buntzelwitz, on which he had 466 guns with 182 mines, or to weaken his
army by sending out detachments to protect the burning country. In
doing the latter some of Prince Henry's cavalry were severely cut up by
Lacy's dragoons in a forest near Reisa; and to avoid such unpleasant
surprises in future, the Prussians cut down all the magnificent timber
that surrounded the old castle of Hubertsbourg; but on Lacy's nearer
approach they retired to Potsdam and Spandau. In October, Prince Henry
of Prussia and Marshal Daun were both encamped--one under the walls
of Dresden, and the other under the ramparts of Meissen, while their
hussars and light troops fought together hourly, and Lacy hovered
in the neighbourhood of Lusace, watching some large detachments of
Prussians.
In December he again terrified the inhabitants of the capital by
appearing suddenly within seven miles of Berlin; but on an overwhelming
force under General Bandemer being sent against him by Prince Henry, he
recrossed the Elbe and retreated.
Fortunately in 1762 there was concluded with the Court of Vienna a
cessation of hostilities for the provinces of Saxony and Silesia.
This partial truce induced the Princes of the Empire to sign a treaty
of neutrality to save their petty dominions from the ravages of
Frederick; and as Sweden and Russia, on the accession of the Czar
Peter III, had concluded a truce with him, the Septennial War was thus
left to be finished by the two powers which began it--Prussia and
Austria.
In that year the Khan of the Crimea proposed to join the former,
and indeed marched 5000 men towards the frontier of Poland for that
purpose; but the death of the Czarina Elizabeth, and the consequent
revolution in Russia, had so bewildered the poor Tartar, that not
knowing what side to take, he timidly retreated to Perekop. On this
Frederick recalled the Prince of Bavern from Moravia, with his troops,
that together they might make doubly sure of Schweidnitz.
They joined forces, and the prince encamped on the heights of Peilau.
Scarcely had this junction been effected before the Austrians, under
Daun, Lacy, and O'Donnel, entered among the mountains on the 16th of
August, 1762, and after a skirmish at Langan Bielau, encamped with
forty battalions and forty squadrons close by; while General Beck,
another Imperialist, occupied the Kletchberg with twelve battalions
and twenty squadrons. All night the Prussians were under arms; their
cavalry bitted and saddled, their muskets loaded, and port-fires
lit; every trooper slept beside his horse, and each gunner by his
cannon. Daun assailed the Prince of Bavern in his position with great
impetuosity. Lacy passed the village of Peilau with six battalions,
which he skilfully kept concealed behind a hill whereon his artillery
were posted. To cover his left flank, O'Donnel marched forty squadrons
directly from Peilau, and three times his Imperial cuirassiers were
repulsed from the valley, and by a volley of grape from fifteen
six-pounders his confusion was completed. O'Donnel, with the loss of
1500 dragoons, fell back, and thus exposed the left flank of Lacy, who,
after making great efforts to storm the heights occupied by the foe,
was compelled to retreat; and next day Daun retired by Wartha and Glatz
to Scharfneck, where he remained till the close of the campaign.
This was the last military service of importance performed by Marshal
Count Lacy at that time; for soon after, the war came to a close, by
the treaty of peace, signed in February, 1763, by which it was agreed
that a mutual restitution of conquests and oblivion of injuries should
take place; and that Prussia and Austria should be put in the same
position as when the hostilities began; and thus happily ended this
truly atrocious strife, in which nearly NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND SOLDIERS
PERISHED. Prussia fought ten pitched battles, and lost 180,000 men;
Russia, four great battles, and lost 120,000 men; Austria, ten battles,
with the loss of 140,000 men; France lost 200,000; Britain, 165,000;
Sweden, 25,000; and the Circles 28,000; while Austria found herself
encumbered by one hundred millions of crowns of debt!
For fourteen years Lacy led a life of peace, devoting himself to the
development of discipline in the Austrian army, till the death of the
Bavarian Elector, on the 30th December, 1777, opened up a new prospect
of aggrandizement to the Imperial Government, and again lighted the
torch of war in Germany. The Elector Palatine, the Elector of Saxony
and Duke of Mechlenburg-Schwerin laid claim to the vacant Electoral
hat; but their voices were lost when the formidable and covetous House
of Hapsburg also put forth a demand, and the Emperor Joseph and Marshal
Lacy appeared with 100,000 men, and an immense train of artillery, at
the celebrated position of Konigsgratz, above the confluence of the
Adler and the Rhine.
The Prussians and Saxons broke into Bohemia, and compelled Loudon
to retreat, and a year of the old manoeuvring war and devastation
followed, till the Congress of Teschen, by which Charles Theodore,
Elector Palatine of the House of Neuberg, obtained the Bavarian hat,
on the 13th May, 1779. The Emperor was compelled to relinquish his
unjust claims, and tranquillity was restored to Germany, enabling Count
Lacy, then in his sixty-first year, once more to sheath the sword; and
this command which he held in the Bavarian dispute was the last act of
importance performed by him in the service of Austria.
He had now the rank of Field-Marshal, which at the age of thirty-six
he had declined, on the plea that his achievements were unworthy of it.
He had the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa; he was a member of the Aulic
Council, Chief of the Staff, and General of the Ordnance.
During his command-in-chief of the Austrian army, the following
romantic incident occurred.
A young Neapolitan noble, who, by war or gambling, had been reduced to
poverty, became anxious to obtain military employment in the service of
Austria; and on being furnished with a letter of introduction to Lacy
from another soldier of fortune who served in the army of Ferdinand
IV., he travelled on foot towards Vienna. He reached the Austrian
territories almost penniless, and one evening found himself at a poor
wayside inn, not far from the capital. In the drinking room he met
three officers who were also travelling towards Vienna; and they, with
the frankness of German soldiers, invited the stranger to sup with
them, and in the course of the evening he told them what were his views
and wishes, and that all his hopes depended upon Lacy.
"I regret to say that your plan is a bad one," said one of the Austrian
officers who wore the cross of Maria Theresa; "we have had a long
peace, and so many of our young nobility are crowding to Vienna in
search of military employment, that I fear there is little likelihood
of Marshal Lacy being able to befriend a stranger."
Undeterred by this, the young Italian said that he was resolved to
persevere; and he added an account of himself, of his family, their
past importance and services in war, of his present necessity and
circumstances; and all this was related with a candour and modesty
which so pleased him who appeared the senior officer, that he said,--
"Well, sir, since you are resolved to try your fortune at Vienna, I
will give you a letter to the Marshal Lacy; it may prove of use to you,
for he knows me well."
Furnished with this additional credential, the Italian reached Vienna.
He waited on Lacy and presented his papers; all, at least, save the
Austrian officer's letter, which unfortunately he had mislaid. Lacy
read them, and frankly told him that to grant what he wished was
impossible. Crushed by this, the Italian retired in desperation, for
the state of his funds could ill brook delay. Three days elapsed, until
chancing to find the letter he had obtained so peculiarly at the inn,
he again presented himself at the levée of Lacy and delivered it. The
marshal opened it, and on reading the contents, his face expressed the
utmost astonishment.
"How comes it, sir," said he, with severity, "that you did not deliver
this letter to me sooner?"
"Because it was mislaid; and from the casual manner in which it was
received, I deemed it of little value."
"Do you know from whom it comes?"
"No," replied the Italian; "but the writer wore the gold cross of Maria
Theresa."
"That officer with the gold cross was _the Emperor_--Joseph II. You
ask me for a subaltern's commission, and he desires me to give you the
rank of captain in a newly-raised regiment, and I have much pleasure in
obeying his orders."
This young volunteer died a colonel of Hussars, and fell in battle
against Custine, on the Upper Rhine, in 1792.
Lacy's plans of military reform won him a high renown in the Empire,
to which he extended the mode of defence previously employed with
such success upon the frontiers of Bohemia. He established the
great fortress of Koningsgratz, and strengthened the defences of
Theresienstadt and Josephstadt, which are still the admiration of all
engineers. He regulated the war finance by a system of economy, still
remembered with gratitude in Austria. True and faithful to the land
he served, he was ever ready to sacrifice his personal interests and
feelings for the good of the State. Of this he gave a prominent example
in 1788, when Joseph II., having experienced only reverses in his
contest with the Porte, was recommended by Lacy to entrust all to Baron
Loudon (with whom he had ever been on terms of coldness), as being the
_only general_ capable of repairing the misfortunes of the war.
Finding his health failing, he visited the Spa at Baden, and on his
return to Vienna died, full of years and honours, on the 28th November,
1801.
He bequeathed to the Archduke Charles an extensive park in the
environs, with a request that the people should have free use of it.