Jean-Chretien and his Chasseurs

Jean-Chretien de Fischer entered the French army in 1737.  In 1741, he became a valet to a French officer during the Sieges of Prague.  Fischer took care of his master's horse, taking it outside the city and across the river to graze.  Many other servants and horses followed Fischer.  But one day, wild Hungarian hussars swept down on them all, to carry away the horses.  Fischer and his fellow-servants beat them off.  General Saxe heard of this and put all the servants under Fischer's command, creating an Independent Company for him.  These Chasseurs de Fischer served in Alsace, at Lauffeldt and Bergen-op-Zoom.  After the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle, Fischer was the only light corps commander to have his corps not disbanded.  In the Seven Years' War, Fischer's Chasseurs would go on to further glory in Hanover, Sandershausen, Krefeld, Bergen, Minden, Kloster Kamp, Lutterberg and Warburg.

Jean-Chretien de Fischer was an organizer of men.  In addition to raising the Chasseurs de Fischer, he raised a unit of light troops sent to India, and the Volontaires-Etrangers.  He died in 1762.  His story is an excellent example of Matthew 25:21:

"His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."

Celtic Christianity

"Although the 'Breastplate of St Patrick' has been popular as a hymn ever since its translation into English in the nineteenth century, the earliest version known belongs to a time three centuries after Patrick's death.  What we can find in it--or in the hymn 'Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart'--is the atmosphere of this obscure period.  Here was a faith deeply personal but also securely orthodox, accepting battle against the magic of paganism, creating a Celtic Christianity full of confidence in its Lord and in itself."--from pp. 32-33, Christian England: Its Story to the Reformation by David L. Edwards

A Ballad of the French Fleet

Last time I wrote about how God confounded the Duc d'Anville's expedition to reconquer Acadia and burn Boston.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about this fleet, which ascribes the glory of the victory to God.

A Ballad of the French Fleet

A fleet with flags arrayed

Sailed from the port of Brest

And the Admiral's ship displayed

The signal: "Steer southwest."

For this Admiral D'Anville

Had sworn by cross and crown
To ravage with fire and steel
Our helpless Boston town.

There were rumors in the street,
In the houses there was fear
Of the coming of the fleet,
And the danger hovering near.
And while from mouth to mouth
Spread the tidings of dismay,
I stood in the Old South,
Saying humbly: "Let us pray!"

"O  Lord! we would not advise;
But if in thy Providence
A tempest should arise
To drive the French Fleet hence,
And scatter it far and wide,
Or sink it in the sea,
We should be satisfied,
And thine the glory be."

This was the prayer I made,
For my soul was all on flame,
And even as I prayed
The answering tempest came;
It came with a mighty power,
Shaking the windows and walls,
And tolling the bell in the tower,
As it tolls in funerals.

The lightning suddenly
Unsheathed its flaming sword,
And I cried: "Stand still, and see
The salvation of the Lord!"
The heavens were black with cloud,

The sea was white with hail,

And ever more fierce and loud

Blew the October gale.

The fleet it overtook,

And the broad sails in the van

Like the tents of Cushan shook,

Or the curtains of Midian.

Don on the reeling decks

Crashed the o'erwhelming seas;

Ah, never were there wrecks

So pitiful as these!

Like a potter's vessel broke

The great ships of the line;
They were carried away as a smoke,

Or sank like lead in the rine.

O Lord! before thy path

They vanished and ceased to be,

When thou didst walk in wrath
With thine horses through the sea!

Duc d'Anville Expedition

The novel Guns of Thunder is set during the 1745 Siege of Louisbourg.

In 1744, the colonies of France and Great Britain were drawn into the War of the Austrian Succession.  New France repelled an attack at Canso.  In 1745, New England mounted an ambitious expedition.  4,000 colonists besieged the mighty French fortress of Louisbourg.  After 49 days, Louisbourg fell, and the British and their colonies rejoiced.

The news of the capture of Louisbourg shocked the French.  They assembled 11,000 soldiers on board a fleet of 64 ships--the largest expedition to the New World unti the American War of Independence.  The Duc d'Anville commanded the expedition to reconquer Acadia (Nova Scotia) and "consign Boston to flames."

The Duc d'Anville and the French flotilla

Alarmed, the New Englanders fasted and prayed, and God intervened.  Storms battered the French ships, while disease wiped out many soldiers.  When the expedition landed, the Duc d'Anville fell sick and died.  Finally, the remnants of the expedition returned to France.  New England had stood still and seen the salvation of the Lord.

Royal Edinburgh Light Dragoons

During the French Revolution, England expected an invasion from a France ruled by revolutionary tyrants.  To supplement her army, the militia was called up and volunteer corps were raised.  One was the Royal Edinburgh Volunteer Dragoons.  Walter Scott was Quartermaster and also wrote their war song.

"The following War-Song was written during the apprehension of an invasion.  the corps of volunteers to which it was addressed, was raised in 1797, consisting of gentlemen, mounted and armed at their own expense.  It still subsists, as the Right Troop of the Royal Mid-Lothian Light Cavalry, commanded by the Honourable Lieutenant Colonel Dundas.  The noble and constitutional measure of arming freemen in defence of their own rights, was nowhere more successful than in Edinburgh, which furnished a force of 3,000 armed and disciplined volunteers, including a regiment of cavalry, from the city and county, and two corps of artillery, each capable of serving twelve guns.  To such a force, above all others, might, in similar circumstances, be applied the exhortation of our ancient Galgacus: "Proinde ituri in aciem, et majores vestros et posteros cogitate.""--pg. 147, Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott

Honor in the Seven Years War

There was within his cantonments a very splendidly furnished palace, called the Hubertsburg Schloss, belonging to the King of Poland.  On the 21st of January, 1761, Frederick summoned to his audience-room General Saldern.  This officer cherished a very high sense of honor.  The bravest of the brave on the field of battle, he recoiled from the idea of performing the exploits of a burglar.  The following conversation took place between the king and his scrupulous general.  In very slow, deliberate tones, the king said:

"General Saldern, to-morrow morning I wish you to go with a detachment of infantry and cavalry to Hubertsburg.  Take possession of the palace, and pack up all the furniture.  The money they bring I mean to bestow on our field hospitals.  I will not forget you in disposing of it."

"Forgive me, your majesty," General Saldern replied, "but this is contrary to my honor and my oath."

The king, in still very calm and measured words, rejoined, "You would be right if I did not intend this desperate method for a good object.  Listen to me.  Great lords don't feel it in their scalp when their subjects are torn by the hair.  One has to grip their own locks as the only way to give them pain."

"Order me, your majesty," said General Saldern, "to attack the enemy and his batteries, and I will cheerfully, on the instant, obey; but I can not, I dare not, act against honor, oath, and duty.  For this commission your majesty will easily find another person in my stead."

The king turned upon his heel, and, with angry voice and gesture, said, "Saldern, you refuse to become rich."

In a pet Frederick left the room.  The heroic general, who had flatly refused to obey a positive command, found it necessary to resign his commission.  The next day another officer plundered the castle.  Seventy-five thousand dollars of the proceeds of the sale were appropriated to the field hospitals.  The remainder, which proved to be a large sum, was the reward of the plundering general.

Quote from History of Frederick the Second by John Stevens Abbott.

Byzantium

"The Byzantine Empire actually became a manifest monument to the beneficence of Christian culture.  Throughout the Middle East, across North Africa, and deep into the heart of Europe, imperial stability and steadfastness had spawned a remarkable flowering of culture.  The legal system was just and efficient; government was limited and decentralized; trade was free and prosperous; families were stable and secure; perversity and corruption were suppressed while personal rights and civil liberties were enhanced.  Advancement in the sciences was unprecedented; art, music, and ideas flourished as in no other time in human history up to that point, and the literary output was bedazzling.  That was Byzantium."--quote from The Rise of Byzantium and the Fall of Rome (CD #4 in Vision Forum's History of the World A.D.) by Dr. George Grant