Ulysses Maximilian Brown, Field-Marshal of the armies of the Empress Maria Theresa, Governor of Prague, and Knight of the Golden Fleece, was born on the 24th of October, 1705.
His father, Ulysses Baron de Brown and Camus, the representative and descendant of one of the most ancient families in Ireland, was then a Colonel of Cuirassiers in the service of Joseph I., Emperor of Austria, and was one of the many brave Irish gentlemen who, after the unfortunate battle of Aughrim, the surrender of Galway, and capitulation of King James's army under St. Ruth, at Limerick, were forced to feed themselves by the blades of their swords in the service of foreign countries. When Marshal Catinat and the Duke of Savoy laid siege to Valenza in 1696, they had no less than six battalions of Irish exiles in their army. Baron Brown had served under the Emperor Leopold I., who died in 1703; and by the Emperor Charles VI. had been created Count of the Holy Roman Empire; while his brother George received the same exalted rank, being at the same time a distinguished general of infantry, colonel of a regiment of musketeers, and councillor of war.
In his childhood Ulysses Maximilian was sent to the city of Limerick by his father, and there, for a few years, he pursued his studies at a public school, until his uncle, Count George Brown, sent for him, when only ten years of age, to join his regiment of infantry, which was then with the army marching into Hungary, under the famous and gallant Prince Eugene of Savoy, against the Turks, who had invaded the Imperial frontier. With this army the great Count Saxe was serving as a subaltern officer.
The Turks had broken the peace of Carlovitz in 1715, conquered the Morea, declared war against Venice, besieged Corfu, and spread a general alarm among the courts of Europe. The Emperor's mediation was rejected with disdain by Achmet III., the imperious Porte, whose army, 150,000 strong, hovered on the right bank of the Danube; but Prince Eugene, with a small, well disciplined force, having passed the river in sight of the inactive Osmanli, encamped at Peterwaradin, on the confines of Sclavonia. Ulysses Maximilian Brown was with this army in the regiment of his uncle.
A battle ensued on the 5th August, 1716, near Carlovitz, and the Turks were totally routed, with the loss of their Grand Vizier Ali, and 30,000 slain; while fifty standards, 250 pieces of cannon, and all their baggage, were taken. Other, but minor victories followed, and in the month of June the brave Prince Eugene invested Belgrade, the key of the Ottoman dominions on the Hungarian frontier. For two months it was vigorously defended by 30,000 men, while the Turkish army, under the new Grand Vizier, was intrenched close by, in a semi-circle which stretched from the Danube to the Save, thus inclosing the troops of Eugene in the marshes between those rapid rivers.
By war and disease the Imperialists suffered fearfully; fighting of the most desperate kind ensued daily; and there, while yet a child, the little Irish boy was taught to handle his espontoon, and became a witness of, if not an actor in, those military barbarities which have always blackened a war along the Ottoman frontier.
It was apparent to Eugene that the Turks, by destroying the bridge of the Save, might obstruct his retreat, surprise a body of his Austrians at Semlin, or cut off his artillery, which were bombarding the lower town of Belgrade, while sickness and scarcity pressed severely upon his slender force; thus it became evident that nothing but a decisive victory would save him from gradual destruction. Already the Turks, 200,000 strong, were within musket-shot, and would soon storm his lines, which were defended by only 40,000 men, exclusive of the 20,000 who were blocking up Belgrade.