FORE:General Evans had taken the command of the Spanish Legion, which throughout the whole of the campaign was encompassed with difficulties and pursued by disasters, without any military success sufficiently brilliant to gild the clouds with glory. Within a fortnight after the debate on Lord Mahon's motion came the news of its utter defeat before Hernani. This defeat encouraged the opponents of Lord Palmerston's policy to renew their attacks. Accordingly, immediately after the recess, Sir Henry Hardinge brought forward a motion on the subject. He complained that no adequate provision was made for the support of those who were in the Legion. At Vittoria they were placed for four months in uninhabited convents, without bedding, fuel, or supplies of any kind. Not less than 40 officers and 700 men fell victims to their privations. The worst consequence was, however, the total demoralisation of the troops. Theirs was not honourable war, it was butchery. They were massacring a fine and independent people, who had committed no offence against Britain. Ill treatment, want of food and of clothing, habits of insubordination and mutiny, and want of confidence in their officers, had produced their natural effects. Let them palliate the disaster as they would, there was no doubt, he said, of the fact that a large body of Britons had suffered a defeat such as he believed no British soldiers had undergone in the course of the last five or six hundred years. The motion was defeated by 70 votes to 62, but as the Legion was dissolved in the following year, 1838, the object of the Opposition was gained.
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FORE:The Directory began its campaigns of 1796 with much spirit and ability. The plans which had been repeatedly pointed out by Dumouriez, Pichegru, Moreau, and more recently by Buonaparte, of attacking the Austrians in Germany and Italy simultaneously, and then, on the conquest of Italy, combining their armies and marching them direct on the Austrian capital, were now adopted. Pichegru, who had lost the favour of the Directory, was superseded by Moreau, and that general and Jourdain were sent to the Rhine. Jourdain took the command of sixty-three thousand foot and eleven thousand horse, at Coblenz, and immediately invested the famous fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, on the opposite bank of the river. Moreau was sent to lead the army at Strasburg, consisting of seventy-two thousand foot and nearly seven thousand horse. Jourdain found himself soon menaced by the Archduke Charles, the Emperor's brother, the ablest and most alert general that the Austrians possessed at that period. He advanced rapidly on Jourdain's position with seventy thousand foot and twenty thousand horse, defeated a division of Jourdain's army under General Lefebvre, and compelled Jourdain himself to raise the siege. But the archduke, out of too much anxiety for Wurmser, who was opposed to[452] Moreau with much inferior forces, ascended the Rhine to support him, and Jourdain immediately availed himself of his absence to advance and seize Frankfort on the Main, Würzburg, and other towns. Moreau advanced to drive back Wurmser and the archduke, till a union with Jourdain would enable them to fall conjointly on the Austrians. But the archduke perceived that, in consequence of the orders of the Directory, Moreau was spreading his army too wide, and he retreated so as to enable Wurmser to join him. This retrograde movement was mistaken, both by friends and enemies, for a sign of weakness; and whilst Moreau advanced with increased confidence, many of the raw contingents of the archduke's army deserted, and several of the petty States of Germany sued to the Directory for peace. But the moment for the action of the archduke had now arrived. Whilst Moreau was extending his lines into Bavaria, and had seized Ulm and Donauw?rth, and was preparing to occupy the defiles of the Tyrol, the Archduke Charles made a rapid detour, and, on the 24th of August, fell on Jourdain, and completely defeated him. He then followed him to Würzburg, and on the 3rd of September routed him again. With a velocity extraordinary in an Austrian, the archduke pushed on after Jourdain's flying battalions, and on the 16th of September gave him a third beating at Aschaffenburg, and drove his army over the Rhine. Moreauleft in a critical position, so far from the frontiers of France, and hopeless of any aid from Jourdain, who had lost twenty thousand men and nearly all his artillery and baggagemade haste to retrace his steps. Thus both of the French armies were beaten back to the left bank of the Rhine, and Germany was saved.About ten o'clock on the morning of the 4th of August the squadron weighed anchor for Dublin Bay. They passed that night in Waterford Harbour, and arrived at Kingstown on the afternoon of the following day. When the Queen appeared on deck there was a tremendous burst of cheering, which was renewed again and again, especially when the Victoria and Albert amidst salutes from yachts and steamers, swung round at anchor, head to wind. At that time it is calculated that there must have been 40,000 people present. Monday, the 6th of August, was an auspicious day for the Irish metropolis. It opened with a brilliant sun, and from an early hour all the population of Dublin seemed astir. Trains began to run to Kingstown as early as half-past six, and from that hour to noon the multitudes poured in by sea and land in order to see and welcome their Queen. The Earl of Clarendon (the Lord-Lieutenant), Lady Clarendon, Prince George of Cambridge, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Sir Edward Blakeney, Commander of the Forces, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, the chief judges, and a number of peers and leading gentry, arrived early to welcome the Sovereign. There was also a deputation from the county of Dublin, consisting of the High Sheriff, Mr. Ennis, Lords Charlemont, Brabazon, Howth, Monck, Roebuck, and others. The Queen landed at ten o'clock. The excitement and tumultuous joy at that moment cannot be described. There was a special train in waiting to convey the Queen to Dublin, which stopped at Sandymount Station, where the procession was to be formed. In addition to the innumerable carriages waiting to take their places, there was a cavalcade of the gentry of the county and a countless multitude of pedestrians. The procession began to move soon after ten o'clock, passing over Ball's Bridge and on through Baggot Street. At Baggot Street Bridge the city gate was erected. All was enthusiasm, exultation, and joy. Nobody could then have imagined that only one short year before there had been in this very city bands of rebels arming themselves against the Queen's authority. All traces of rebellion, disaffection, discontent and misery were forgotten in that demonstration of loyalty.
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