William Lawless

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William Lawless (Shankill, Co. Dublin, 1772-Paris, 1824), like Bernard MacSheehy, was a product and protagonist of the revolutionary upheaval of the late 18th century. Of good family, he studied at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and was named to the chair of anatomy and physiology there in 1794. However, Lawless became a member of the United Irishmen and was seriously involved in the preparations for the 1798 uprising. Warned that he was about to be arrested, he escaped to Paris in spring 1798. Lawless seems to have had some money when he first arrived in the French capital and was generous enough in lending some of it to many of his more impecunious compatriots. Lawless briefly served as a chef de battalion in the French army in the Dutch campaign of 1799, but then requested a discharge. For the next three years, he spent his days, like many other expats, reading the English-language newspaper, the Argus, in the London Coffee House in rue Jacob (6th arrondissement, no longer extant).

The Lawless grave in Père Lachaise

Lawless spent 1803-1806 with the Irish Legion in Brittany before being appointed chef de battalion of the First Battalion of the 3rd Foreign Regiment (Irish), as the Legion was subsequently renamed. The battalion was wiped out in 1809 in an unsuccessful attempt to defend the town of Flushing against the British. In his subsequent report to the French minister of war, Lawless writes that during the fighting he was “struck by a ball which entered below the right eye and lodged below the ear on the same side”. Despite his wounds, Lawless managed to escape with the help of a local doctor and was awarded the Légion d’Honneur. In 1809, he was appointed major in the Irish Regiment. But in 1811 the word ‘Irish’ was dropped from the regiment’s official name. In any case, by this stage, the lower ranks were overwhelming composed of Germans and Poles. In February 1812, Lawless was promoted to colonel and became the fourth commander of Napoleon’s "Irish" forces. He succeeded Daniel O’Meara (“prone to the glass”, according to Miles Byrne), Antoine Petrezzoli and Bernard MacSheehy.

Lawless fought at the battle of Bautzen in May 1813 and then at the Battle of Lowenberg in Silesia in August of the same year, during which he lost a leg. Here is how Miles Byrne describes the incident.

Napoleon…ordered a general attack. The Irish regiment was to pass through a mill, which stood in the centre of the river, the bridge having been destroyed the day before; the town was bombarded by the enemy’s batteries. Under this tremendous fire, Colonel Lawless passed at the head of his regiment, and saluted the emperor, who was on horseback in the street leading to the river where the regiment had to pass. The emperor was surrounded by his staff officers, the King of Naples (Murat) etc…Colonel Lawless, seeing the grenadiers and the most part of his regiment had got through the mill, immediately rode through the river and placed himself at the head of his regiment to attack the enemy; he had hardly advanced a few steps when his leg was carried off by a cannon ball from the enemy’s battery, which was placed on an eminence to defend the passage of the river. Colonel Lawless was brought into town upon a door by six grenadiers of his regiment. Napoleon saw him again as he returned wounded, and sent his chief surgeon, Baron Larrey, to perform the amputation.

Despite his amputation, Lawless avoided capture and made it back to Paris. The Irish regiment, however, was decimated during the battles of August 1813. After the fall of Napoleon, Lawless (like a number of other Irish officers, including Miles Byrne) settled in Tours. His wife, also Irish, died at rue de la Ferme des Mathurins in Paris (street no longer exists) in August 1854.

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