Irish claim Napoleon’s war horse
BRITAIN: Surely it must have been the ultimate humiliation for the defeated French Emperor Napoleon; when Perfidious Albion took his horse, Marengo, and on the steed’s death displayed its bones in an English museum.
But now the Irish may be galloping to the rescue of Old Boney’s honour. The townspeople of Buttevant, County Cork (population 1752) have declared that the bones of Marengo - on which Napoleon rode to victory at the Battles of Austerlitz, Jena and Wagram, before final defeat at Waterloo - are rightfully theirs.
They claim the horse was Irish bred and sold at the town’s renowned Cahirmee horse fair, from where it found its way into Napoleon’s stables.
Battle began after the National Army Museum announced it was to restore Marengo’s skeleton and reposition him in a rampant pose. It prompted Kanturk and Mallow Municipal District Council to write to the museum to lay claim to the stallion’s remains.
Councillors want Marengo’s skeleton to become the star exhibit at the Buttevant museum, attracting visitors - not least the French - to the town.
However, there are rival claims. The Bartlemy horse fair, 25 miles from Buttevant, says it is where Marengo was sold, while some historians maintain it was obtained by Napoleon during his Egyptian campaign of 1798-1801.
However, the good people of Buttevant are adamant Marengo was theirs.
After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon fled in a cart, leaving Marengo - who had been wounded eight times in battle - to be captured alive by the Grenadier Guards and taken to England, where it was paraded through the streets. Marengo died at the age of 38 in 1831.
The National Army Museum said it would deal ‘‘sensitively’’ to Buttevant’s claim to Marengo’s skeleton. - Telegraph Group