John Bellew, Part II

The army also participated in peacetime Imperial domestic affairs. From the early to mid-1780s, Bellew was in various camps in northern Hungary, the usual station for cavalry units, because of the inexpensive provisions. In 1785-87, he was with the troops in the Trans-Danubian county of Gyor who assisted in conducting Imperial land surveys and kept order among the peasantry. Here as well he encountered military action of a sort. In 1784, the Emperor Joseph had ordered a census of Hungary, which was to register property, households, and dwellings, including those of the nobility. The nobles, whose property had traditionally been tax-exempt, feared, correctly, that the census was the first step toward their eventual taxation in an attempt to increase state revenue. In several Hungarian counties, the military had to be used to enforce registration.
As well, the peasantry had to be kept in order; the government feared that they too would cause problems, “as they imagined they would lose some of their meadows and plowing lands” as a result of the survey (Bellew Papers, 6 May 1787). The peasants may have been afraid that the census would uncover landholdings beyond the maximum specified in the Urbarial regulations of Maria Theresa; if this was the case, the excess could be confiscated by their landlords. In any event, peasant unrest was a problem the government could not ignore; there had been a number of minor peasant revolts and insurrections in Hungary in the 1750s and 60s and a major one in Transylvania in 1784, which had been put down by the nobles and the army. Exploitation by their lords, heavy taxation and duties, the robot or forced labour, and the heavy tithe were at the root of these revolts; poor leadership and lack of adequate weapons ensured their suppression.
John Bellew, stationed at “Pallas Gyarmath” [Gyormat] in the county of Gyor, experienced one of these peasant insurrections with its typical result. In 1784, serfs on the estates of the Batthyanys in Vas, a county contiguous to Gyor, had revolted; in 1787, in Gyor itself, trouble arose. Bellew was sent to a town where the peasants had rebelled against their landlord. The troops took twelve of the ringleaders prisoner, then found themselves set upon by the remaining peasants who assaulted them with “scythes, pitchforks, hatchets, sticks, and stones.” Bellew was attacked by a peasant with a scythe, but parried the blow, which struck his horse instead. With perhaps forgivable bravado, he concluded, “he received the reward due to his bravery. I immediately discharged a brace of balls through his brains so that he
and my horse lay together” (Bellew Papers, 6 May 1787).

Besides providing descriptions of his participation in Imperial military campaigns and domestic peacekeeping, John Bellew’s letters portray eighteenth-century military life in general and Imperial service in particular. In a letter of 1783, he responded to Michael Bellew’s request for advice in regard to his son’s  entering a military career. He outlined a plan of action for this prospective Irish Imperial officer: he would spend a year at least in the “college at Vienna” (perhaps a reference to the military academy established by Maria Theresa for the education of officer cadets) to learn German, then, a familiar theme, would be placed through Irish connections in a regiment of infantry, “which we can easily do through Tom D’Alton, the priest. He can write to his brother the general.” Interestingly, Bellew recommended the infantry over the more glamorous cavalry, primarily for economic reasons. An officer would receive the same pay, but be spared the expense of housing a servant and maintaining a horse. (This was a serious financial consideration for Bellew; cavalry mounts, especially for cuirassiers, were very expensive. When he lost one of his horses to glanders, he had to go on foot for a time; its eventual replacement cost him 15 guineas (Bellew Papers, 12 September 1783). Bellew estimated that with a supplement of £50 a year to his infantry pay, an officer could live “well and genteel.” He concluded that for him, the military life was both a pleasing and a disagreeable one. He boasted, “I have had the honour to dine three times with the Emperor,” and he enjoyed his military companions, but regretted his continual lack of money. The expenses of maintaining a horse and equipage, his uniform, and a servant, as well as general appearances – he asked Michael Bellew to send him his deceased father’s seal with the family arms, “very necessary for me here” – appear as constant themes in his correspondence (Bellew Papers, 12 September 1783, 20 July 1786, 30 December 1786). In addition, the dangers of service are stressed; besides the obvious ones of death or wounds in battle, poor health was another. As a result of his Turkish campaigns in territory Maria Theresa considered “a lot of barren mountains and feverish swamps,” he complained that “the heat, the bad climate, bad water, and many other inconveniences has wrecked my constitution entirely” (Bellew Papers, 13 December 1790).

Bellew’s correspondence also provides the basis for an examination of the Irish in foreign service within a larger and more significant context: the process of assimilation as well as the attempt to preserve Irish identity. Irish officers in Imperial service considered themselves loyal and faithful supporters of the Habsburgs, not mercenaries. The references in Bellew’s letters to “our country” demonstrate well that the Irish generally served their adoptive country faithfully. Their assimilation was evidenced in a variety of ways. Irish and Anglo-Norman names underwent a Germanic transformation;
Brownes changed their names to Brouns, and O’Nolans to O’Neilans, or in one case Neulau. Many Irish officers attached the Germanic “von” to their place of origin, resulting in such hybrid names as Johann Sigismund Macguire von Inniskillen, or Kavanaugh von Ballybrack. In cases of a family’s long-term service, languages changed as well. While Field Marshal Maximilian Browne spoke English well, albeit with a brogue, his spelling became Germanicised, and his son Philip was unable to speak English at all. Nonetheless, there remained strong ties to, and an abiding interest in, Ireland and things Irish.

When Philip Browne was considering marriage in 1763, his first inquiry was to the eligibility of Lord Kenmare’s daughter. Some officers in the first generation of Irish service to the Empire preferred to use Irish with their compatriots, and the distinctive sense of Irishness continued. There were gatherings and reunions of Irish officers on St. Patrick’s Day; a notable one occurred on March 17, 1766 in Vienna when the Spanish ambassador, a Count Mahoney, invited prominent Irishmen to a fete. The military contingent included Count Lacy, president of the Hofkriegsrat, six generals, four Chiefs of the Grand Cross, two governors, several Knights Military, six staff officers, and four privy councillors. In response, the state officials and the entire Imperial court wore Celtic crosses to honour the Irish element in their army and nation.

Communication with other Irish in Europe and with the mother country was maintained through relatives, newly arrived Irish officers, or through the good offices of the House of the Irish Franciscans in the “Street of the Irish” in Prague. (Founded in 1629, this Franciscan establishment was supported by both the Imperial House and the financial aid of Irish soldiers in Imperial service. The House educated priests for the Irish mission and served to link the Irish in central Europe with their fellows on the continent and in Ireland until its suppression by Joseph II in 1786).

This continuing tie to Ireland is seen in John Bellew’s correspondence as well. Besides, as we have seen, his reports of battles and casualties, he also mentioned the fellow Irish with whom he associated – members of local families, “Garrett Kelly and young O’Kelly of Ballinlass”, and his relatives from county Louth. (The Austrian service of one of the latter was only one segment of a rather tumultuous career. Matthew Bellew was injured by the explosion of a mine during the siege of Belgrade in 1789. Retiring from the Austrian army, he entered Russian service, where he rose to the rank of major. Returning to Ireland in 1796, he made his way to Killala, where his brother Dominick Bellew was Catholic bishop. In 1798, in the French invasion under Humbert, he offered his services to the French commander and was appointed general of the Irish auxiliaries. He was taken prisoner in the recapture of Killala and hanged for his part in the rebellion).

Moreover, Bellew’s knowledge of events in Ireland, both national and local, was impressive, considering most of his camps were in Hungary. In 1783, he wrote to Michael Bellew, “I was glad to hear, my dear Mick, that you have profited of the liberty that was granted from Parliament of purchasing lands,” and knew that he had invested £7,000 in such transactions. In 1786, he read that a Mr Fitzgerald was hanged in county Mayo and asked, “was that one of Capt. Fitzgerald’s family and what was his crime? Likewise, the Whiteboys, if they are so desperate as the newspaper says that they burn and murder in every place they come . . .” (Bellew Papers, 16 April 1783, 30 December 1786). The former reference is to George Robert Fitzgerald, a notorious county Mayo member of the Anglo-Irish gentry, who owed the nickname “Fighting Fitzgerald” to his excessive predilection for duelling. In the course of a highly eccentric career, he murdered an under-tenant and was hanged in June, 1786. Bellew was always eager for news of home, begged to be remembered to local friends, and fretted over the health of his relatives; when he heard of the illness of Michael Bellew’s wife, “cousin Jenny,” he replied that he was in quarters in a Hungarian town with a religious order and would get “Mass read for her recovery, and that from every friar in the convent” (Bellew Papers, 20 July 1786).

In summary, while it appears clear that gentry emigres preserved their Irish identities, it is equally clear that their emigration was a loss to Ireland. It is impossible to calculate this loss in quantitative terms; in qualitative terms, it was enormous, since it included many members of an industrious class whose enterprise and intelligence were put to the service of foreign countries rather than their own. This was obvious to enlightened contemporary observers. Arthur Young, of all the eighteenth-century improvers the one to whom this waste would have been most abhorrent, perhaps stated it best:
“Think of the loss to Ireland of so many Catholics of small property resorting to the armies of France, Spain, Sardinia, and Austria for employment! Can it be imagined, that they would be so ready to leave their own country, if they could stay in it with any prospect of promotion, success in industry, or even liberal protection? It is known that they would not; and that under a different system, instead of adding strength to the enemies of this Empire, they would be among the foremost to enrich and defend it.”

The Journal of The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland , Karen Harvey, 1988.