"One For the Irish"

The oldies are the goodies!

I'm reading now about the French invasion of Ireland that happened in the 1790s.  Fascinating stuff.   The British commander was Lord Cornwallis, the same general that surrendered to Washington in our own Revolutionary War, in which we were also offered great amounts of support and aid by the French.

The Irish did not fare as well, though.

Has anyone recently tried googling 'french military victories' hilarious!

The French get a bad rap on that, and American involvement is quite often over blown.  Despite popular history, they pretty much won WWI by themselves, and the terrible destruction of that war effected them deeply.  They stopped the German advance with minimal help at Marne, effectively starting the stagnating trench war that the American's found when they arrived, almost three years later.  The absolute brutality and outright destruction of that conflict touched every single citizen of France.

When the Germans again started misbehaving the French were still recovering from WWI.  Again, America didn't involve itself in the conflict until almost two years after the conflict started.

French forces have fought with tenacity and courage for a long time.   Were it not for the French, America would not exist.  The failure of the Irish invasion had nothing to do with the French, and everything to do with a disorganized and despondent Irish peasantry.   The French during that escapade issued several defeats to Cornwallis' forces while being greatly outnumbered.

/ End of speech...

well said Jerome, saves me typing it

And daddy 1066, battle of hastings? King Harold Godwin, I might be related so I have got my title correct for in here apart from Harold was not Scottish.

but still the french have got a lot to answer to the scots.

( just to let anyone know that gets the wrong idea of my words since they have done in the past. Because I am scottish and I want independance this does not mean in any way I hate or dislike the english. I just hate the government, I also hate the scottish governement too, I just dont like the way the union came about or how a parliment in another country has the power over their supierior country north of them )

ken

so the english didnt really have that many "english kings"? french kings scottish kings, german kings, dutch kings ????? geeezo man, they seem to borrow folk from everywhere to rule for them

The Bantry Bay landing took place two years before the general uprising in 1798.  Tone had been in France, and had convinced the French that the Irish peasantry were primed and ready to rise in support behind French leadership.   Unfortunately, this wasn't the case.   As a result of the Bantry Bay invasion, the rebellion plot had been compromised, and the British went on a reign of terror to expose and execute anyone involved in it.  In the course of that, they tortured and killed a whole lot of innocent people.

The Wexford uprising (the one you mention) was a result of that, and while it was successful in that it was able to take a town or two, it was highly unorganized and more significantly, unusual in it's success.   It was motivated primarily by outrage at the manner in which the British had been conducting their purge of rebellions.  In the rest of the country, any attempt at rebellion was easily crushed by the British, or more commonly,  the Irish simply did not rise up.   They were for the most part hiding and trying to avoid the British and their brutality.

So that's the backstory, before the French arrived.  The rebellion had been plotted and planned by an odd conspiracy of two groups; The United Irishmen (Tone's Group) and the Defenders.    The first fleet that landed troops was headed by General Humbert (?), and landed in Mayo.  With about 1000 French troops, they had full expectation that they would be met by a ready and disciplined Irish militia.  Instead they were met with an untrained, undisciplined, and for the most part, unarmed Irish peasantry.  So with about 5000 of these guys behind them, they managed to capture and occupy several towns, and defeat the British militarily on several fronts.   Humbert believed (rightly) that he was on the vanguard, and was to be followed by several other invasion fleets.  He actually began to plan a march on Dublin itself.  He also believed (wrongly) that those fleets were right behind him, and would be landing in a matter of days.   The truth was that they were a month away from sailing.  In the end, he was defeated purely as a matter of overwhelming odds.  His 1000 would have had to stand against tens of thousands of British.  He surrendered in Longsford.  He and his troops were repatriated to France.  The Irish that rose with him were all hung as traitors to the Crown.

The second invasion fleet, carrying Tone, arrived a month or so later and was intercepted by the Royal Navy.  There was a fairly fierce sea battle, but the French were badly outnumbered and out gunned, and finally struck their colors.  As a result, Tone was captured, tried, and sentenced to be hung.   He escaped the noose, though, by cutting his own throat on the eve of his execution.

Thus ended the Irish rebellion of 1798.