Page 296 - Demo

296 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
So with the vast majority of the French army thus engaged, and despite Wolf e Tone’s best efforts in Paris, only minor French expeditions could be sent to help the Irish rebels: unfortunately, these expeditions arrived too late. On 22 August, 1798, a small French force numbering 1,019, under the military command of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert, or ‘General Humbert’ as he is known in the vernacular, landed at the ancient anchorage of Kilcummin, in historic Killala Bay, county Mayo.
The French in Killala Bay-William Sadler
A few days before the rebellion broke out, Napoleon Bonaparte, commanding a massive army sailed for Egypt, a country which he had decided should be the main French overseas objective.
So with the vast majority of the French army thus engaged, and despite Wolf e Tone’s best efforts in Paris, only minor French expeditions could be sent to help the Irish rebels: unfortunately, these expeditions arrived too late. On 22 August, 1798, a small French force numbering 1,019, under the military command of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert, or ‘General Humbert’ as he is known in the vernacular, landed at the ancient anchorage of Kilcummin, in historic Killala Bay, county Mayo.
Once ashore, they quickly seized and garrisoned the town of Killala, and then, the force being swelled by large numbers of the men of Mayo who flocked to the French standard, the newly formed Franco-Irish army marched through the village of Lahardane, across Barnageeha- ‘the Windy Gap’ to Castlebar, where they soundly defeated General Lake and a British army numbering over 3,500 men, chiefly militia. So completely were the British routed and so rapidly and cowardly did they and their commander Lake flee before a charge
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