BROWN, Ulysses Maximilian, a celebrated general of the eighteenth century, was son of Ulysses, Baron Brown and Camus, colonel of a regiment of cuirassiers in the emperor's service, and descended from one of the most ancient and noble families in Ireland. He was born at Basel in 1705; and having finished his first studies at Limerick in Ireland, was in 1715 sent for into Hungary by Count George Brown, his uncle, member of the aulic council of war, and colonel of a regiment of infantry. He was present at the famous battle of Belgrade in 1717. Next year he followed his uncle into Italy, who made him continue his studies in the Clementine College at Rome till the year 1721, when he was sent to Prague in order to learn the civil law. At the end of the year 1723 he became captain in his uncle's regiment, and in 1725 lieutenant-colonel. In 1730 he went into Corsica with a battalion of his regiment, and contributed greatly to the taking of Callansara, where he received a considerable wound in his thigh. In 1732 the emperor made him chamberlain. He was raised to the rank of colonel in 1734, and distinguished himself so much in the war of Italy, especially at the battles of Parma and Guastalla, and in burning in the presence of the French army the bridge which the Marshal de Noailles had caused to be thrown over the Adige,
that he was made general in 1736. The following year, by an excellent manoeuvre, he favoured the retreat of the army, after the unhappy battle of Banjuluc in Bosnia, and saved all the baggage. His admirable conduct upon this occasion was rewarded by his obtaining a second regiment of infantry, vacant by the death of Count Francis de Wallis.
On his return to Vienna in 1739 the emperor Charles VI. raised him to the rank of field-marshal-lieutenant, and made him counsellor in the aulic council of war. After the death of that prince, the king of Prussia entering Silesia, Count Brown with a small body of troops disputed the country with him inch by inch. He signalized himself on several occasions; and in 1743 the queen of Hungary made him a privy-counsellor at her coronation in Bohemia. He at length passed into Bavaria, where he commanded the van-guard of the Austrian army; seized Deckendorf, with a great quantity of baggage; and obliged the French to abandon the banks of the Danube, which the Austrian army passed in full security. The same year, that is, in 1743, the queen of Hungary sent him to Worms in quality of her plenipotentiary to the king of Britain, where he put the last hand to the treaty of alliance between the courts of Vienna, London, and Turin. In 1744 he followed Prince Lobkowitz into Italy; took the city of Veletri on the 4th of August, in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy; entered their camp, overthrew several regiments, and took many prisoners. The following year he was recalled into Bavaria, where he took the town of Wilshosen by assault, and received a dangerous wound in the thigh. The same year he was made general of artillery; and in January 1746 he marched for Italy at the head of a body of eighteen thousand men. He then drove the Spaniards out of the Milanese; and having joined the forces under Prince de Lichtenstein, he commanded the left wing of the Austrian army at the battle of Placentia on the 15th of June 1746, and defeated the right wing of the enemy's forces commanded by Marshal de Maillebois. After this victory he commanded in chief the army against the Genoese; seized the pass of Bocchetta, though defended by above four thousand men; and took the city of Genoa. Count Brown at length joined the king of Sardinia's troops, and, in conjunction with them, took Mont-Alban and the county of Nice. On the 30th of November he passed the Var in spite of the French troops; entered Provence; took the isles of St Margaret and St Honorat; and expected to have rendered himself master of a much greater part of Provence, when the revolution which happened in Genoa, and Marshal Belleisle's advancing with his army, obliged him to execute that fine retreat which procured him the admiration and esteem of all persons skilled in war. He employed the rest of the year 1747 in defending the states of the house of Austria in Italy; and after the peace in 1748 he was sent to Nice, to regulate there, in conjunction with the Duke of Belleisle and the Marquis de la Minas, the differences that had arisen with respect to the execution of some of the articles of the definitive treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
The empress queen, to reward these signal services, especially his glorious campaign in Italy in 1749, made him governor of Transylvania, where he rendered himself generally admired for his probity and disinterestedness. In 1752 he obtained the government of the city of Prague, with the chief command of the troops in that kingdom; in 1753 the king of Poland, elector of Saxony, honoured him with the collar of the order of the White Eagle; and the next year he was declared field-marshal.
The king of Prussia entering Saxony in 1756, and attacking Bohemia, Count Brown marched against him,
and repulsed that prince at the battle of Lowositz on the 1st of October, though he had only twenty-seven thousand men, and the king of Prussia had at least forty thousand. Seven days after this battle he undertook the famous march into Saxony, to deliver the Saxon troops shut up between Pirna and Königstein; an action worthy of the greatest captains, ancient or modern. He at length obliged the Prussians to retire from Bohemia, for which he was rewarded by being made a knight of the Golden Fleece. Soon afterwards Count Brown hastily assembled an army in Bohemia to oppose the king of Prussia, who had again penetrated into that kingdom at the head of all his forces; and, on the 6th of May, he fought the famous battle of Prague, in which, while he was employed in giving his orders for maintaining the advantages he had gained over the Prussians, he was so dangerously wounded that he was obliged to be carried to Prague, where he died of his wounds, on the 26th of June 1757, at the age of fifty-two. There is reason to believe, that if he had not been wounded, he would have gained the victory, as he had broken the Prussians, and the brave Count Schwerin, one of their greatest generals, was slain.