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Austria has had a special fascination for the wandering Irish since the monks of the ninth century. Ever chivalrous, when the militant Prussian, Frederick the Great, declared war on Maria Theresa of Austria, Irishmen flocked to her aid and joined her regular army, so much so, that at one time there were no less than thirty Irish generals in the Imperial Army. I The bestknown descendants of these generals were Brownes, Fitzgeralds, Nugents, 0'Donnells, O'Connells, Lacys, 0'Briens and Taaffes and, in 1915, Viscount Taaffe was Field Marshal, Minister of State and Chamberlain to the Emperor Franz Joseph.
As early as 1620, Thomas Carve, born in Tipperary in 1590, was the Catholic chaplain to the Austrian Foreign Legion. Francis MacDonnell, born in Connaught in 1656, joined the Austrian Army and captured the French Marshal Villeroi in battle. Count Andrew O'Reilly, who was born in Ireland in 1742, distinguished himself in the Seven Years War, fought at the battles of Amberg and Ulm in 1796, as well as at Kehl, and was made Governor of Vienna, the city where he died in 1832. His fellow Irish soldier, Field Marshal Brady, started life as a theological student destined for the priesthood in Vienna, and gave this up to enter the army of Maria Theresa. Field Marshal Nugent left Austria for England in 1811 and became diplomatic representative for his adopted country.
Many other Irishmen achieved eminence and it is probable that many Austrian citizens today, particularly in Vienna, who bear Irish names are unaware of their ancestral connections with the Emerald Isle.
Many of the Irish leaders trained in the fencing schools of France and became the greatest swordsmen of their day. Several returned to Galway and enjoyed the: thriQ of challenging the Williamite usurpers of their land to a gentleman's duel. The Williamites were not skilled in swordplay, and thus many leading families were deprived prematurely of their arrogant young sons. Due to the inequaIity of skills in swordplay, the first rules of dueling were set up in Galway -- pistols at dawn at twenty paces. This evened up the chances of survival for the young Williamite bloods in their duels with their French-trained opponents. Voltaire, commenting on the military genius of the Irish in the service of France, admired their gallantry fighting abroad and said that they had "always fought badly at home. " This was echoed by Thomas Davis, who commented that the "Wild Geese" fought with all the advantages of French discipline and equipment, and as soldiers with the rights of war, and not as "Rebels, with halters round their necks. "
The Irish were loath to stay out of European wars -some 250, 000 served in the British forces in World War I. They, like many, died bloodily in their thousands, and Professor Tom Kettle, an Irish Volunteer, summed up their thoughts when he wrote the following lines a few days before he was killed on the Western Front: "So here, while the mad guns curse overhead
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for Flag, nor Emperor,
But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,
And for a secret scripture of the poor. "
Реферат опубликован: 14/09/2006