It is a curious fact that, in spite of his ill health, immediately after
leaving Cairo, MacIver was sufficiently recovered to at once
plunge into the Franco-Prussian War. At the battle of Orleans,
while on the staff of General Chanzy, he was wounded. In this war
his rank was that of a colonel of cavalry of the auxiliary army.
His next venture was in the Carlist uprising of 1873, when he
formed a Carlist League, and on several occasions acted as bearer
of important messages from the "King," as Don Carlos was called,
to the sympathizers with his cause in France and England.
MacIver was promised, if he carried out successfully a certain
mission upon which he was sent, and if Don Carlos became king,
that he would be made a marquis. As Don Carlos is still a
pretender, MacIver is still a general.
Although in disposing of his sword MacIver never allowed his
personal predilections to weigh with him, he always treated
himself to a hearty dislike of the Turks, and we next find him
fighting against them in Herzegovina with the Montenegrins. And
when the Servians declared war against the same people, MacIver
returned to London to organize a cavalry brigade to fight with the
Servian army.
Of this brigade and of the rapid rise of MacIver to highest rank and
honors in Servia, the scrap-book is most eloquent. The cavalry
brigade was to be called the Knights of the Red Cross.
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