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Tag Archives: Maria Theresa


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Battle of Campo Santo

battle-of-campo-santoDuring the War of Austrian Succession, the Irish Brigade of Spain fights at the Battle of Campo Santo in Camposanto, Italy on February 8, 1743. The regiments of Ultonia, Irlanda, and Hibernia form the Irish Brigade fighting in Italy in a Spanish army, led by Gen. Jean Bonaventure Thierry du Mont, comte de Gages. The Spaniards and their Neapolitan allies are fought to a standstill by the Austrians and their Sardinian allies under Field Marshal Otto Ferdinand Graf von Abensperg und Traun on the Panaro.

In January 1743, General De Gages’ 13,000 strong Spanish army lay at Bologna, south of the Panaro. Count Traun’s Austrian and Piedmont-Sardinian army of 11,000 lay to the north of the river, blocking De Gages’ attempts to cross the formidable barrier. Traun prefers a maneuvering defense to risking his army in a pitched battle with his opponent, but concerns in Madrid are more political than strategic. Needing a victory, Philip V of Spain and his Queen Elisabeth Farnese demand that De Gages launch an offensive or tender his resignation. Accordingly, leaving Bologna on the night of February 3, De Gages slips across the Panaro and enters the Duchy of Modena, seeking a decisive encounter with Traun.

Fortunately for De Gages, Marshal Traun is ready to oblige him. Aware of the criticism leveled at him in Vienna where his enemies are trying to relieve him of his command, and also that Spain’s recent seizure of Savoy might well induce the King of Sardinia to negotiate with the Spanish Crown, the Marshal decides that a victory will quell the uproar and induce Austria’s allies to think twice about negotiating. Gathering up his army, Traun moves to block De Gages’ path and prevent him from advancing further into Modena. The two armies meet at the village of Camposanto.

On the morning of the battle, De Gages draws up his army on the outskirts of the village in the traditional fashion with his infantry in the center and the cavalry on the wings. Traun also draws up his army in the same manner, but being slightly outnumbered, he chooses to gamble with an unorthodox strategy. Instead of aligning himself directly opposite the Spaniards, he shifts his troops to the northwest, which means that the center of Traun’s infantry is directly opposite the gap between Gages’ infantry and the right wing of cavalry. Although this means that Traun would have a greater superiority of numbers on this wing and that he could also deliver a flank attack on the Spanish right, his own right flank would, however, be vulnerable to a Spanish flank attack. Marshall is relying on the troops of that wing to delay the Spanish long enough for the action on his other wing to be decisive.

Matters are helped when De Gages chooses 4:00 in the afternoon to launch the attack, which leaves only a few hours of daylight for a battle. The Spanish are initially successful on both wings, where their cavalry drives off the Austro-Piedmontese cavalry, wounding Count Aspremont in the process and leaving the Austrian infantry vulnerable. However instead of reforming to attack the infantry, the Spanish chase them off the field. Traun stabilises his left flank, and leads his infantry into the attack against the Spanish. Meanwhile, Count Schulenberg regroups the Austrian cavalry on the Austrian right, and launches a counterattack against the Spanish cavalry. On the other flank Aspremont’s replacement, General Leutrum, leads his wing forward as well, smashing the Spanish right wing. Due to darkness it is necessary for both armies to withdraw the field. The Spanish back across the Panaro towards Bologna. Due to the smoke and darkness, many units lose their way. The 1st Guadalaxara marches in the direction of the advancing austro-sardian infantry columns, and it has to surrender after a short defence inside the walls of a farm.

Casualties in the battle are 1,755 dead, 1,307 wounded and 824 prisoners for the Spanish, while the Austro-Piedmontese lose 397 dead and 1,153 wounded or prisoners. Traun himself has two horses shot from under him during the battle.

De Gages retreats to Bologna but on March 26 he is also forced to retreat to Rimini. Despite this, the battle is widely considered a victory in Madrid, and de Gages is awarded a victory title, Count of Campo Santo. Following the battle, France promises support and co-operation with the Spanish, but for the moment Traun has saved North Italy for Maria Theresa.

Once again hundreds of Irishmen die many miles from home for “every cause but their own.”


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The Death of Art Ó Laoghaire

art-o-laoghaire

Art Ó Laoghaire, an Irish Roman Catholic and captain in the Hungarian Hussars Regiment of the army of Maria Theresa of Austria, is killed by soldiers near Millstreet, County Cork on May 4, 1773.

Ó Laoghaire marries Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, aunt of Daniel O’Connell, in 1767. She has been a widow from the age of 15 and is now 23. They have three children, Cornelius, Fiach and a third who apparently does not survive infancy.

Having returned home to Rathleigh House near Macroom, Cork, the hot-tempered Ó Laoghaire becomes involved in a feud with a protestant landowner and magistrate, Abraham Morris of Hanover Hall, Macroom. When Morris is High Sheriff of County Cork in 1771, he lays charges against Ó Laoghaire following his alleged attack on Morris and the wounding of his servant on July 13, 1771, at Hanover Hall. In October of that year, Ó Laoghaire is indicted in his absence, and Morris offers a 20-guinea reward for his capture.

The feud between the two men continues and in 1773, Morris demands that Ó Laoghaire sell him the fine horse that Ó Laoghaire had brought back from his service in the Austro-Hungarian army for £5. The Penal Laws state that no Catholic might own a horse worth more than £5 and could be forced to sell a more valuable one on demand to any Protestant at this price. Ó Laoghaire refuses to sell and challenges Morris to a duel, which Morris declines. Morris uses, or misuses, his position as magistrate to persuade his fellow magistrates to proclaim Ó Laoghaire an outlaw, who can then legally be shot on sight. Morris leads a contingent of soldiers that track Ó Laoghaire down to Carrignanimma on May 4, 1773. He gives the order to fire on Ó Laoghaire. The first shot, which kills him, is fired by a soldier called Green.

Morris and the soldiers are held to be guilty of Ó Laoghaire’s murder by a coroner’s inquest on May 17, but Morris is acquitted of the murder by Cork magistrates on September 6, 1773. Morris is shot in Cork on July 7 by Ó Laoghaire’s brother Cornelius, who sees Morris at a window of a house in Hammond’s Lane where he is lodging. He fires three shots, wounding Morris. The shots are not immediately fatal, but Morris dies in September 1775, presumably as the result of the shooting. The soldier Green is decorated for his “gallantry.”

Ó Laoghaire’s wife Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill composes the long poem “Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire” (Lament for Art O’Leary), mourning his death and calling for revenge.

Ó Laoghaire’s tomb at Kilcrea Friary has the epitaph likely composed by his widow:

Lo Arthur Leary, generous, handsome, brave,
Slain in his bloom lies in this humble grave.


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Birth of Physician & Writer William James MacNeven

William James MacNeven, Irish American physician and writer, is born on March 21, 1763, at Ballynahowna, near Aughrim, County Galway. One of the oldest obelisks in New York City is dedicated to him at St. Paul’s Chapel on Broadway while a second obelisk is dedicated to Thomas Emmet, a fellow United Irishman and Attorney General of New York. MacNeven’s monument features a lengthy inscription in Irish, one of the oldest existent dedications of this kind in the Americas.

The eldest of four sons, at the age of 12 MacNeven is sent by his uncle Baron MacNeven to receive his education abroad, for the penal laws render education impossible for Catholics in Ireland. This Baron MacNeven is William O’Kelly MacNeven, an Irish exile physician, who for his medical skill in her service has been created an Austrian noble by the Empress Maria Theresa. Young MacNeven makes his collegiate studies at Prague. His medical studies are made at Vienna where he is a pupil of Pestel and takes his degree in 1784. The same year he returns to Dublin to practise.

MacNeven becomes involved in the United Irishmen of the time, with such men as Lord Edward FitzGerald, Thomas Addis Emmet, and his brother Robert Emmet. He is arrested in March 1798, and confined in Kilmainham Gaol, and afterwards in Fort George, Scotland, until 1802, when he is liberated and exiled. In 1803, he is in Paris seeking an interview with Napoleon Bonaparte in order to obtain French troops for Ireland. Disappointed in his mission, MacNeven comes to America, landing at New York on July 4, 1805.

In 1807, MacNeven delivers a course of lectures on clinical medicine in the recently established College of Physicians and Surgeons. Here in 1808, he receives the appointment of professor of midwifery. In 1810, at the reorganization of the school, he becomes the professor of chemistry, and in 1816 is appointed in addition to the chair of materia medica. In 1826 with six of his colleagues, he resigns his professorship because of a misunderstanding with the New York Board of Regents and accepts the chair of materia medica in Rutgers Medical College, a branch of the New Jersey institution of that name, established in New York as a rival to the College of Physicians and Surgeons. The school at once becomes popular because of its faculty, but after four years is closed by legislative enactment on account of interstate difficulties. The attempt to create a school independent of the regents results in a reorganization of the University of the State of New York.

MacNeven’s best known contribution to science is his “Exposition of the Atomic Theory” (New York, 1820), which is reprinted in the French Annales de Chimie. In 1821 he publishes with emendations an edition of Brande’s “Chemistry” (New York, 1829). Some of his purely literary works, his “Rambles through Switzerland” (Dublin, 1803), his “Pieces of Irish History” (New York, 1807), and his numerous political tracts attract wide attention. He is co-editor for many years of the “New York Medical and Philosophical Journal.”

William James MacNeven dies on July 13, 1841, at the age of 78 in New York City.