It was September 1961, the place West Germany. The Bonn government had provided the foreign press corps with selected guides to help in the coverage of the general election of that year. Among the experienced foreign reporters and political correspondents was a young(ish) Irish journalist on his first assignment abroad.
The press party visited Bonn, Hamburg, the Ruhr and Munich. After the campaign the young reporter flew to Berlin where he achieved the distinction of being the first Irish journalist to enter East Berlin after the erection of the infamous Wall that August.
His guide in Berlin was called Ursula and she had a strange tale to tell about a distant Irish ancestor. Berlin, with its rising Wall, barbed wire, menacing border guards, gunfire and water-cannon, seemed an appropriate location for the telling of her tale, which had its own quota of warfare and killing.
Farmer's daughter
The heroine of Ursula's story was Anne Mills, a farmer's daughter born in Tullamore on May 9th, 1788. She was only 18 when she met and married a sergeant-major from Hannover who was stationed in Ireland. He was Heinrich Wilhelm Muller, born in Hannover in 1779, and he and Anne were destined to become involved in many of the battles and campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars between 1803 and 1815. How he came to be in Ireland in 1806 is another fascinating aspect of the story.
At the age of 14 Heinrich had joined the 10th Hannover Infantry Regiment and in the following year, 1794, he saw action against the French in Flanders during the French Revolutionary Wars. As a member of the Hannoverian forces allied with England, he was taken prisoner by the French, but released soon afterwards. He returned to his native Hannover where many of the ex-soldiers found themselves out of work.
Heinrich next joined the German English Regiment, took part in further actions and was again captured by the French. This time he was not released, but faced a courtmartial for allegedly trying to persuade French troops to change sides. But luck was still on his side. He managed to escape by hiding in a winetun which was loaded onto a ship bound for England. Making his way to London, he joined the 1st Hunters Battalion of the King's German Legion.
He taught himself reading and writing and soon was promoted to sergeant and then to sergeant-major. In 1806 he was sent to Ireland as a member of the contingents guarding against the threat of a Napoleonic invasion. It was at this time that he met and married Anne Mills. The marriage took place in Middleton, Co Cork, on November 6th, 1806.
Copenhagen siege
Since women accompanied their men in the field and in garrisons, Anne took up her abode with her army husband and was regarded by all as "the most beautiful and most respected woman" of the whole battalion. But their garrison duties were short-lived. The battalion was shipped out as part of the 18,000-strong British and Hannoverian force, backed up by a fleet of warships, that laid siege to Copenhagen in August 1807. Anne had by this time given birth to a son and she carried him around with her wrapped in a blanket while she and other wives tended the wounded. The incessant bombardment was said to have given the child cramps; they lived in the open, with only a blanket or two to give warmth. On one occasion they even found themselves behind enemy lines, but managed to escape.
In 1808 Heinrich was posted to Sweden as a member of a force sent to aid King Gustav and while there Anne lost her second son. There followed postings to Portugal and Spain during the Peninsular War, after which they returned to England. As an experienced veteran Heinrich was promoted to officer rank in May 1815 - his new uniform was bought for him by Anne's aunt. A little over a month later he was at Waterloo and survived the slaughter.
Bought farm
Retiring to his native Germany, he bought a farm and settled down at Osnabruck. Besides their son born in Denmark, Heinrich and Anne had a third son, John Henry, who was born in Sussex in 1811 and died in Hannover in 1886. John Henry's son, Wilhelm Heinrich, named after his grandfather, was born in 1838 at Osnabruck and died in Rotterdam in 1889.
The veteran Heinrich himself died as a pensioned officer at Osnabruck on May 20th, 1845, while Anne, the "beautiful" girl from Tullamore, died at the same place on August 5th, 1862.
Theirs was the story told by their descendant Ursula in Berlin in 1961. They are remembered in Osnabruck; but is Anne remembered in her native Tullamore?