"Heartiest congratulations from the New Zealand and AustralianDivision on your brilliant achievement this evening, which is a fitting sequel to the capture of Kabak Kuzu wells, and will go down to history among the finest feats of your distinguished regiment. Personally as an Irishman who has served in two Irish regiments it gives me the greatest pride and pleasure that the regiment should have performed such gallant deeds under my command. Stick to what you have got and consolidate."
"Heartiest congratulations from the New Zealand and AustralianDivision on your brilliant achievement this evening, which is a fitting sequel to the capture of Kabak Kuzu wells, and will go down to history among the finest feats of your distinguished regiment. Personally as an Irishman who has served in two Irish regiments it gives me the greatest pride and pleasure that the regiment should have performed such gallant deeds under my command. Stick to what you have got and consolidate."
But all was in vain. Gallipoli had to be abandoned. The British withdrew from the Peninsula in January, 1916. The cost of the invasion in men, killed, wounded and missing, was 114,555. The casualties in the 10th Irish Division were cruel. At least a third of the forces were killed, disabled, or invalided by bullets, shells and dysentery.
Gallipoli had become a place of shadows and phantoms to the 10th Irish Division. As they looked back upon it they could not but think of the maelstrom of thick and prickly scrub, yielding sand, rocky defiles, and steep hills of that roadless country; of strong Turkish entrenchments, the continuous roar of guns, bullets, shells, concealed snipers; of broiling heat, sweat, thirst, tormenting flies, lack of water, and dysentery, into which they were plunged on August 7th; of scrambling and bloody fighting; and of the want of foresight and imagination in their high commanders that followed. It was a soldiers' campaign, in which the bayonet and the man behind it counted for everything, and the brains of the Generals—if indeed there were any—for nothing. The whole network of memories made a horrid nightmare of confusion, agony, and sacrifice of life unparalleled in the history of the British Army, relieved only—but how magnificently relieved—by the endurance and gallantry of the troops, unequalled and unsurpassable.
Yet the 10th Division were loth to leave that dread Peninsula, which, like a fearful monster, haddevoured the young men of Ireland. They were sorry to go, because the purpose of the campaign was unachieved; still more sorry to part from their dead comrades. Because of those dead Gallipoli will ever be to the Irish race a place of glorious pride and sorrow. Well may that huddled heap of hills between Suvla Bay and Sari Bair be haunted by the wraith of Irish tragedy and grief; well may the wailing cry of the banshee be ever heard there.
In which mood do soldiers generally go into battle—devotional or profane? An observer of authority, Mr. J.H. Morgan, professor of constitutional history at University College, London, who had a long stay at the Front, in France and Flanders on Government duty, commits himself to the curious statement that most men go into action, not ejaculating prayers, but swearing out aloud. However that may be as regards the non-religious soldier, it certainly is not true of the Catholic Irish soldier. By temperament and training the average Irish soldier, like most of his race, is profoundly religious at all times, and the experiences of the chaplains to the Catholic Irish regiments show that at no time is the Irish soldier more under a constant and reverent sense of the nearness of the unseen Powers, and his absolute dependence upon them, than at the awful moment when, in the plenitude of his youth and physical strength, he is confronted by the prospect of sudden death or bodily mutilation.
Of course, if a soldier does swear on the battlefield, that circumstance must not necessarily be accepted as proof either that he is destitute of religious feelings and principles, or that there is any thought of impietyin his mind. Most likely the swearing is done quite unconsciously. At a time when the mental faculties are distraught and the tension on the central nervous system reaches almost to the breaking-point, it is probable that men no more know what they say than they do when they are under an anæsthetic; and that, in the one state as in the other, incongruous expressions—wholly inconsistent with the character of the patient—come to the lips from the deeps of subconsciousness. There is nothing like constant nearness to death to make men generally turn their thoughts to things serious and solemn. The experiences of Catholic chaplains tell how widely the sense of religion—the vanity of earthly concerns, the importance of eternity, the wish to be at peace with God—has been stirred by the war even in breasts that probably had not harboured in the years of peace a thought that there was any other world but this. Ah, the eagerness of the Irish Catholic soldiers to have sin washed away by confession and the absolving words of the priest!
The Irish are the most religious soldiers in the British Army; and it is because they are religious that they rank so high among the most brave. The two characteristics, religious fervour and fearlessness of danger, have always been very closely allied. In the average Irishman there is a blend of piety and militancy which makes him an effective soldier. Largely for the reason that he is a praying man, the Irish Catholic soldier is a fine fighting man. His religion gives him fortitude in circumstances of unmitigated horror, resignation to face the chances of being mangled or killed at the call of duty; and from this ease of mind spring that bravery and resolution in action which are the most essential characteristics of the soldier. In order that the Catholic soldier may thus show himself at his best, it is necessary that heshould have ready access to the rites of the Church. He wants the priest to be near him, and though the Catholic army chaplains appointed for active service are comparatively few, though their movements are frequently impeded by the ever-changing developments in the military situation, the priest is usually close at hand at his service. Thus the Irish Catholic soldier goes into battle stimulated by the services of his chaplain, praying that God may bring him safely through, or for a merciful judgment should he fall.
Extraordinarily varied and trying as have been the experiences of the priesthood in the mission-field, it is probable that never has it been subjected to so severe a trial of nerve and endurance on its physical side as it is in the present War of Nations. As to the kind of men best suited for the service, the Rev. William Forrest, an Irish Catholic chaplain himself, writes:—"Priests between thirty and forty, not afraid of some rough and tumble, with, perhaps, an adventurous vein in their composition, and with plenty of zeal and sympathy, would be the most suitable—riders and good horse-masters rather than ponderous theologians and professors, though, indeed, these would have much to learn, and would very greatly profit, by their experience." Certainly the record of Catholic army chaplains shines gloriously for its zeal, self-sacrifice, and heroism; and its sanctifying light illumines the awful tragedy of suffering and woe that has befallen the human race.
The Catholic chaplain has also various duties to perform when his men are resting in billets, on guard in the lines of communication, or lying wounded or ill in the base hospitals. He goes about in khaki, like the other officers of the battalion to which he is attached, save that he wears the Roman collar and black patches on his shoulder straps. His equipment or kit is usually heavy. It contains the stone for thealtar, the vestments, the sacred vessels, the candles, the crucifix, and other requisites for the Mass. On his person he always carries the Holy Oils and the Viaticum for the last sacrament of all, when the soul of the mortally wounded soldier is about to take flight into the eternal.
Services are held in all sorts of places and on every possible occasion. Lieutenant C. Mowlan, medical officer to the 1st Irish Fusiliers, writes:—"We have Mass out in the open, and it is most gratifying to see the long line of men waiting for confession, and at Mass the devotion with which they attend, and tell the beads of our Blessed Lady, a devotion so dear for many reasons, historical as well as devotional, to the heart of the Catholic Irishman. A large crowd attended Communion." A door laid upon two trestles or a packing-case often serves as an altar, with the two burning candles, and a few hastily gathered evergreens for decorations. Mass is frequently celebrated in the very early hours of the morning before the dawn begins to creep into the sky. And a strange and wonderful spectacle it is! Black darkness, save for the two candles; the priest offering up the Sacrifice at the rudely improvised altar; the soldiers, each with his rifle, and weighed down with his kit and ammunition, grimed with the mud of the trenches and the smoke of battle, kneeling in a circle round the light. They receive the final Blessing with bowed heads, then, crossing themselves, they stand up for the last Gospel, their haggard and unshaven faces all aglow with religious exaltation.
But perhaps the most moving and inspiring scene of all is that of giving the General Absolution to a battalion ordered to advance immediately into action. Father Peal, S.J., of the Connaught Rangers, enables us vividly to see it in the mind's eye. The regiment were in billets in Bethune when one winter's morningat three o'clock they received instructions to make an attack. Before the men left, Father Peal got the Colonel's permission to speak to them. They were drawn up in a large square behind a secular school, called "Collège de Jeunes Filles," when their chaplain, mounting the steps of the porch, thus addressed them in the dark: "Rangers, once again at the bidding of our King and country you are going to face the enemy. Before you go, turn to God and ask of Him pardon for your sins. Repeat the act of contrition after me." Then the square resounded with the fervent ejaculations of the men. "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee. I detest my sins most sincerely, because they are displeasing to Thee, my God, who art most worthy of all my love; and I promise never to offend Thee again." "I shall now," says the priest, "give you Absolution in God's name. 'Dominus noster Jesus Christus vos absolvat et ego auctoritate Ipsius vos absolvo a peccatis vestris, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.' May God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, bless you and lead you to victory. Amen." As the priest blessed them, the men again made the sign of the Cross. No wonder that men of such deep faith and so heartened by the services of their chaplains should fight valiantly.
The tireless care and solicitude of the Catholic chaplain for his men is seen in the fine record, during a long and arduous campaign, of Father Francis Gleeson, of the 2nd Munster Fusiliers, who has been in Flanders and France since the outbreak of the war. If you meet a man of the 2nd Munsters, just mention the name of Father Gleeson, and see how his face lights up. "Father Gleeson, is it!" exclaimed one whom I encountered among the wounded at a London hospital. "He's a warrior and no mistake.There's no man at the Front more brave or cooler. Why, it is in the hottest place up in the firing line he do be to give comfort to the boys that are dying." "And, do you know," he added with a laugh, as he recalled the chaplain's playful and sportive ways, "Father Gleeson brought us mouth-organs, and showed that he could play 'Tipperary' with the best of us." Another man described a meeting with Father Gleeson in a village close to the first line of trenches, where the chaplain was waiting to attend to the wounded. "It got so hot with stray bullets that he gave me absolution as I stood in the street of the ruined village. It was very dramatic, I covered with mud and standing bareheaded, and he blessing me. I'll never forget it." I gathered, too, that Father Gleeson is the counsellor of the battalion as well as its chaplain. The men go to him with their temporal troubles of all kinds, and never fail in getting sympathy, guidance, and help.
The chaplains of all denominations are equally devoted. But the Catholic priest has a special impulse to self-sacrificing duty for two reasons—first, the desire that Catholics have to die shriven and anointed; and the softening of the bereavement of parents and relations which comes from the knowledge that Paddy, Jamsie, Joe, or Mike had been to his duty before the battle, or had the priest with him when he died. Accordingly, no consideration of danger to himself will deter the Catholic chaplain from going into the firing line to administer the last rites. In the circumstances, it was to be expected that though the chaplains of all the denominations are zealous and brave in the discharge of their sacred duties, the first chaplain of any denomination to give his life for his men should be an Irish priest, Father Finn, of the 1st Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who fell in Gallipoli.
A Tipperary man, serving on the English Mission in the Province of Liverpool, Father Finn joined the 1st Dublins on their arrival in England from India for active service, in November, 1914. The Dublins, with the 1st Munster Fusiliers, took part, as I have already described, in the first landing of British troops on the Peninsula, at Sedd-el-Bahr, on Sunday, April 25th, 1915. On the Saturday morning Father Finn heard the confessions of the men on board the transport, off Tenedos, said Mass, and gave Holy Communion. Then on Sunday morning he asked permission of the commanding officer of the battalion to go ashore with the men. Colonel Rooth tried to persuade him to remain on the transport, where he could give his services to such of the wounded as were brought back. "You are foolish to go; it means death," said the officer. "The priest's place is beside the dying soldier; I must go," was Father Finn's decisive reply. For these and other particulars of the gallant action of the priest, I am mainly indebted to the Rev. H.C. Foster, Church of England naval chaplain, who was in one of the warships engaged in the bombardment of the Peninsula at the landing, and highly esteemed Father Finn as a friend.
Father Finn left the transport for the shore in the same boat as the Colonel. When the boats crowded with the Dublins got close to the beach a hail of shrapnel, machine-gun fire, and rifle fire was showered upon them by the Turks, hidden among the rocks and ragged brushwood on the heights. Numbers of the Dublins were killed or wounded, and either tumbled into the water or dropped on reaching the beach. This fearful spectacle was Father Finn's first experience of the savagery of war. It terribly upset him. He at once jumped out of the boat and went to the assistance of the bleeding and struggling men. Then he was hit himself. By the time hehad waded to the beach his clothing was riddled with shot. Yet disabled as he was, and in spite also of the great pain he must have been suffering, he crawled about the beach, affording consolation to the dying Dublins. I have been told that to give the absolution he had to hold up his injured right arm with his left. It was while he was in the act of thus blessing one of his men that his skull was broken by a piece of shrapnel. The last thought of Father Finn was for the Dublins. His orderly says that in a brief moment of consciousness he asked: "Are our fellows winning?" Amid the thunder of the guns on sea and land his soul soon passed away. He was buried on the beach where he died, and the grave was marked by a cross, made out of an ammunition box, with the inscription—"To the memory of the Rev. Capt. Finn." Gallipoli is classic ground. It is consecrated by the achievements of the ancient Greeks over the Persian hordes at the dawn of Western civilisation. It is now further hallowed as the grave and monument of that warrior priest, Father Finn, and the gallant Dublins and Munsters.
The next Catholic chaplain to lose his life on active service was Father John Gwynn, S.J., of the 1st Irish Guards, who was killed in the trenches near Vermelles on October 11th, 1915. Born at Youghal, and reared in Galway, Father Gwynn entered the Society of Jesus in 1884. At the outbreak of the war he was one of the governing body of University College, Dublin, and volunteering for active service he was attached, the first week of November, 1914, to the Irish Guards, as their first war chaplain. A big, handsome man, and soldierly in appearance, Father Gwynn was fitting in every way to be chaplain to so splendid and almost wholly Catholic body of Irishmen as the Irish Guards. His experiences at the Front—the devotion he showedto his duties and the risks he ran—prove more than the truth of the old saying that every Irishman is born either a soldier or a monk, for they establish that often he is born both.
Father Gwynn was the first chaplain of any denomination attached to the British Expeditionary Force to be wounded. That was during the memorable engagement at Cuinchy, on February 1st, 1915, when Michael O'Leary won the Victoria Cross. What a moving picture of piety it presents! The task of the Irish was to retake positions in the brickfields captured by the Germans from the Coldstream Guards. Eager to retrieve the position the Coldstreams first advanced, but being met by a heavy fire from the enemy, they showed signs of wavering. Then a company of the Irish Guards were ordered out. They had received absolution and Communion behind the trenches, a few days before, from Father Gwynn, and their chaplain was still with them at the supreme moment. Now, before advancing, they knelt in silent prayer for a minute. Then, each man making the sign of the Cross, they sprang to their feet, and dashing in wide open order across the exposed ground, swept by the enemy's fire, they hunted the Germans from the brick-fields. We all know that when the story of Michael O'Leary's achievement that day became known, half the world stood up bare-headed in acknowledgment of his gallantry. I have been told that the incident which was most talked of from end to end of the British lines was that of the Guardsmen kneeling down in prayer before the charge. Nothing like it ever occurred before. At least it is unprecedented in the history of the English Army of modern times. Those who saw them say that, as the Irish Guards dashed across the plain, they had an expression of absolute happiness and joy on their faces. Surely an episode that will live in the crowded annals of this war. Itwas then that Father Gwynn was wounded. He said the last thing he remembered was seeing the Irish Guards get to the top of their trench when a lurid blaze seemed to flash into his eyes with a deafening crash. He was hurled back five yards or so and lay unconscious for some minutes. When he came to he felt his face all streaming with blood and his leg paining him. He was suffocated, too, with a thick, warmy, vile gas, which came from the shell. "A doctor bandaged me up," he goes on, "and I found I was not so bad—splinters of the shell just grazed my face, cutting it; a bit, too, struck me an inch or so above the knee and lodged inside, but in an hour's time, when everything was washed and bandaged, I was able to join and give Extreme Unction to a poor Irish Guardsman who had been badly hit."
I have before me a number of letters written by Father Gwynn. They are all most interesting. In every one of them he has something to say in praise of the Catholicity and valour of the Irish Guards. "We have to have Mass in a field," he writes in one letter, "the Irish Guards are nearly all Catholics, and we are at present the strongest battalion in the Guards' Brigade. The men then sing hymns at Mass, and it is fine to hear nearly a thousand men singing out in the open at the top of their voices. You have no idea what a splendid battalion the Irish Guards are! You have Sergeant Mike O'Leary, V.C., with you. I often have a chat with him when he comes to see me. But do you know that there are plenty of men in the Irish Guards who have done as bravely as O'Leary, and there's never a word about it." In another letter, written a few weeks before his death, he says:—"It would have done your heart good to hear them last night in the little village church where we are just for the moment, singing the 'O Salutaris,' 'Tantum Ergo,' 'Look Down, O Mother Mary,' and at theend the 'Hail Glorious St. Patrick.' A Grenadier officer who happened to be present, having ridden over from where the Grenadiers are, said it was worth coming ten miles to hear. I feared for the roof of the church, especially when they came to the last verse of the hymn to St. Patrick."
Throughout the morning of the day he received his mortal wound, Father Gwynn had had a most arduous and anxious time in the trenches. It was during the fighting round Hill 70, after the Battle of Loos. An Irish Guardsman writes:—
"I saw him just before he died. Shrapnel and bullets were being showered upon us in all directions. Hundreds of our lads dropped. Father Gwynn was undismayed. He seemed to be all over the place trying to give the Last Sacrament to the dying. Once I thought he was buried alive, for a shell exploded within a few yards of where he was, and the next moment I saw nothing but a great heap of earth. The plight of the wounded concealed beneath was harrowing. Out of the ground came cries of 'Father, Father, Father,' from those who were in their death agonies. Then as if by a miracle Father Gwynn was seen to fight his way through the earth. He must have been severely injured, but he went on blessing the wounded and hearing their confessions. The last I saw of him was kneeling by the side of a German soldier. It was a scene to make you cry."
"I saw him just before he died. Shrapnel and bullets were being showered upon us in all directions. Hundreds of our lads dropped. Father Gwynn was undismayed. He seemed to be all over the place trying to give the Last Sacrament to the dying. Once I thought he was buried alive, for a shell exploded within a few yards of where he was, and the next moment I saw nothing but a great heap of earth. The plight of the wounded concealed beneath was harrowing. Out of the ground came cries of 'Father, Father, Father,' from those who were in their death agonies. Then as if by a miracle Father Gwynn was seen to fight his way through the earth. He must have been severely injured, but he went on blessing the wounded and hearing their confessions. The last I saw of him was kneeling by the side of a German soldier. It was a scene to make you cry."
Shortly after this scene Father Gwynn was at luncheon with four other officers in the Headquarters' dug-out when a German shell landed in the doorway and burst. Captain Lord Desmond FitzGerald (brother of the Duke of Leinster) was slightly hit. Colonel Madden was so severely wounded that he died some days afterwards. Father Gwynn received as many as eight wounds. One piece of the shell entered his back and pierced one of his lungs. He was sent to hospital at Bethune, and died there the next morning. In the Bethune cemetery his grave is marked by a marble monument which bears these two inscriptions:—
"R.I.P.REV. FATHER JOHN GWYNN, S.J.Attached to the1st Irish Guards.He Died at Bethune on October 12th, 1915, fromWounds Received in Action near Vermelleson October 11th, 1915.Aged 49 years.This Monument has been erected by all Ranks of the 1st Bat. Irish Guards in grateful Remembrance of their Beloved Chaplain, Father Gwynn, who was with them on Active Service for nearly twelve months from Nov., 1914, until his death, and shared with unfailing devotion all their trials and hardships."
"R.I.P.REV. FATHER JOHN GWYNN, S.J.Attached to the1st Irish Guards.He Died at Bethune on October 12th, 1915, fromWounds Received in Action near Vermelleson October 11th, 1915.Aged 49 years.
This Monument has been erected by all Ranks of the 1st Bat. Irish Guards in grateful Remembrance of their Beloved Chaplain, Father Gwynn, who was with them on Active Service for nearly twelve months from Nov., 1914, until his death, and shared with unfailing devotion all their trials and hardships."
The wonder, indeed, is that many more Catholic chaplains have not been killed. Father James Stack, of the Redemptorist Order—a County Limerick man—had a narrow escape from being killed by German rifle fire as he was attending to a dying Irish soldier between the opposing lines. The soldier was heard in the British trenches calling for a priest. Father Stack crept out to him, heard his confession, anointed him, and lay by his side praying until he passed away. While he was engaged on this sublime errand of mercy the priest was fired on by the Germans, but he got back unhurt. He was mentioned in Sir John French's valedictory despatch. A dramatic story is also told of another dauntless Catholic chaplain. One bitter winter's night eight men left a British trench to bomb the Germans. None of them returned. Their comrades wore consumed with anxiety as to their fate. Were they prisoners, were they dead, or were they lying wounded in the mud and the slush? The Catholic chaplain of the battalion volunteered to go out in front and try to learn what had become of them. After some hesitation his request was granted. "Donning his surplice and with a crucifix in his hand the priest proceeded down one of the saps and climbed out into the open," writes a staff correspondent of the Central News at the Front. "With their eyes gluedto periscopes, the British line watched him anxiously as he proceeded slowly towards the German lines. Not a shot was fired by the enemy. After a while the chaplain was seen to stop and bend down near the German wire entanglements. He knelt in prayer. Then with the same calm step he returned to his own lines. He had four identity discs in his hand, and reported that the Germans had held up four khaki caps on their rifles, indicating that the other four were prisoners in their hands."
Father J. Fahey, a Tipperary man, made a lasting reputation among the Dominion Forces in Gallipoli by his services as chaplain to the 11th Australian Battalion. The Archbishop of Perth (Australia) got a letter from an officer in Gallipoli which said: "You are to be congratulated for sending us such an admirable chaplain as Father Fahey. He is the idol of the 11th Battalion, and everyone, irrespective of creed, has a good word to say for him." Dr. McWhae, one of the medical officers, puts in a different way the estimation in which Father Fahey is held: "He is one of the finest fellows in the world, and everybody swears by him. He landed at Gallipoli with the covering party, and spends his time in the trenches." Before the troops left Lemnos Island for the first landing at Anzac on April 25th, 1915, the Brigadier went round and told the chaplains of all denominations that they could go aboard the hospital ships if they wished. Father Fahey and Father McMenamin, a chaplain with the New Zealand Forces, said they would go in the transports with the men and also accompany them into the trenches. And, sure enough, these two priests were the first of the chaplains in the firing line looking after their men. "The 'Padre,' as he is called by his battalion," writes the officer in his letter to the Archbishop of Perth, "fills in his spare time carrying up provisions to the men at the front, and helps the wounded back, and I can tellyou he is not afraid to go where the bullets fall pretty thickly," Father Fahey has done more in the way of utilising his spare time—he has led the men in a charge against the Turkish entrenchments. On an occasion when all the officers had been killed or disabled he called on the remnants of the company, "Follow me, and though I have only a stick, you can give the Turks some Western Australian cold steel."
Father Fahey himself gives the following racy account of the discomforts which attended the discharge of his duties in Gallipoli:—
"I have had my clothes and boots off only once during the past month. I had a wash twice, and one shave, so I can assure you I do not look a thing of beauty. I am cultivating a beard, and in another month I expect to look as fierce as a Bedouin chief. Water is scarce; we only get enough to drink and cook, but none to wash; so we are not too clean. I have had several narrow escapes, so many, in fact, that I wonder why I am still alive. I had four bullets in my pack, one through a jam tin out of which I was eating, which spoiled the jam and made me very wild. One through my water-bottle; one through a tobacco-tin in my pocket; one took the epaulette off my tunic, and once I had nineteen shrapnel bullets through a waterproof sheet on which I was lying only a few minutes previously. I have lost count of the shells that nearly accounted for me; I hardly expect to get through the business alive, but seeing that I have been lucky so far I may."
"I have had my clothes and boots off only once during the past month. I had a wash twice, and one shave, so I can assure you I do not look a thing of beauty. I am cultivating a beard, and in another month I expect to look as fierce as a Bedouin chief. Water is scarce; we only get enough to drink and cook, but none to wash; so we are not too clean. I have had several narrow escapes, so many, in fact, that I wonder why I am still alive. I had four bullets in my pack, one through a jam tin out of which I was eating, which spoiled the jam and made me very wild. One through my water-bottle; one through a tobacco-tin in my pocket; one took the epaulette off my tunic, and once I had nineteen shrapnel bullets through a waterproof sheet on which I was lying only a few minutes previously. I have lost count of the shells that nearly accounted for me; I hardly expect to get through the business alive, but seeing that I have been lucky so far I may."
The last I heard of Father Fahey was that he was lying wounded in an hospital at Malta. Writing of his work as a priest, he says: "I have heard confessions in all kinds of weird places, with the shrapnel bursting overhead and bullets whizzing around. I go along the trenches every day in case anyone might want to see me. It is all so strange and uncanny. Passing along the trenches, a soldier with his rifle through a loophole and one eye on the enemy may call me to hear his confession; while it is being done the bullets are plopping into the sandbags of the parapet a few inches away. It is consoling and satisfactory work, if a little dangerous."
The part of the chaplain's work that is most harrowing to him personally, but most consoling to those whom he serves, is that of ministering to the wounded at the hospital clearing stations nearest to the firing line. "Sometimes when I hold them up on the stretcher to try to get them to take a drink," writes Father L.J. Stafford, one of the chaplains to the 10th Irish Division in Gallipoli, "I think that Christ must have foreseen this awful slaughter and borne it in His Passion as part of the sorrows of mankind, and I try to associate myself with the feelings of His Virgin Mother." The acts and the thoughts of the priest blend together in perfect harmony like the words and music of an inspired hymn to the Almighty. Well might Father Stafford add: "I am in great peril, but doing my duty fearlessly. Could man wish for more?"
As the priest kneels down by these dying Irish youths he receives many last messages to send to the loved ones at home, a sacred trust which he is most scrupulous faithfully to discharge. There are thousands of mothers in Ireland grieving for darling sons lying mouldering in Flanders, France, and Gallipoli. If anything can ease the gnawing pain at the heart of these bereaved mothers, it surely must be the receipt of one of those beautifully sympathetic and healing letters which they receive from the Irish Catholic chaplains. I have had the privilege of reading numbers of them, and happily in none have I come upon any heroics about the nobility of the youth's self-sacrifice and the grandeur of the cause for which he died. To the Irish Catholic mother such phrases bring no consolation. His death tells her that her son has done his duty; that is enough; and her sole concern is with his eternal salvation. It is on this point that the chaplain is at pains to reassure her.
"I saw him last at 7.30 p.m. on July 14th. He wasvery exhausted, and I could see that he would not last long. He tried to give me his mother's address, but failed. All he could say was: 'Not weep. With God.' I told him I should tell his mother not to weep because he would be with God, and he shook his head in consent. He then said: 'Good-bye, Father. God bless you.'" So does Father Felix Couturier, O.P., describe the death in hospital at Alexandria of Lance-Corporal Wilkerson, 7th Dublin Fusiliers, wounded at Gallipoli. Then there is the consoling letter of Father O'Herlihy, chaplain in Egypt, to Mrs. Kelleher, Cork, telling of the death of her son, Patrick, a private in the 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers, also wounded in Gallipoli. Here is an extract from it:—
"I've seen many in pain and suffering since the war began, but few have I seen to bear it all so willingly and so patiently as your son, Paddy; for God and His Blessed Mother were helping him a lot. About, a week after the operation his sufferings increased, and on Sunday morning last, when I said Holy Mass at the hospital, he again asked me to bring him Holy Communion, as he was confined to bed. You could see the happiness in his features, when Our Blessed Lord came to him again to give him new strength and grace to bear up. He said to me after: 'Father, every time you'll say Holy Mass here, you will bring me Holy Communion again, won't you? I don't like to trouble you, but I long so much to receive.' Poor Paddy! He was such a good boy! I know, dear Mrs. Kelleher, you have long since put your son in God's holy hands, leaving him entirely to God. And God and Mary will now, I know, reward you and give you help and grace to bear for the love of them the sorrowful news it's my hard lot to be the first to send you, perhaps. Your poor Paddy passed away to the God whom he loved so much, and for whom he bore all so patiently. Don't fear for Paddy. He is happy now, poor lad, after many sufferings."
"I've seen many in pain and suffering since the war began, but few have I seen to bear it all so willingly and so patiently as your son, Paddy; for God and His Blessed Mother were helping him a lot. About, a week after the operation his sufferings increased, and on Sunday morning last, when I said Holy Mass at the hospital, he again asked me to bring him Holy Communion, as he was confined to bed. You could see the happiness in his features, when Our Blessed Lord came to him again to give him new strength and grace to bear up. He said to me after: 'Father, every time you'll say Holy Mass here, you will bring me Holy Communion again, won't you? I don't like to trouble you, but I long so much to receive.' Poor Paddy! He was such a good boy! I know, dear Mrs. Kelleher, you have long since put your son in God's holy hands, leaving him entirely to God. And God and Mary will now, I know, reward you and give you help and grace to bear for the love of them the sorrowful news it's my hard lot to be the first to send you, perhaps. Your poor Paddy passed away to the God whom he loved so much, and for whom he bore all so patiently. Don't fear for Paddy. He is happy now, poor lad, after many sufferings."
Could there be anything more precious to an Irish Catholic mother than such an account of the last hours of the son of her heart—a vic mo chree—dying of battle wounds in a far foreign land?
What a stirring story of Irish gaiety and resolution is that of the charge of the London Irish Rifles in the great advance upon the mining village of Loos, on Saturday, September 25th, 1915! "Hurrah, the London Irish, hurrah!" The shout ran along the British Lines on Tuesday, September 28th, as the battalion, with many gaps in their ranks, returned after the splendid stand against the terrific German counter-attack which followed the charge, when, according to the General of their Brigade, they helped to save the 4th Army Corps.
"The lucky Irish!" That is one of the names they are known by at the Front. They are given posts of difficulty and danger, and so well do they acquit themselves that the company officers get Military Crosses, and the Distinguished Conduct Medal is liberally distributed among the rank and file. Yet their casualties are remarkably low. The jealous and the profane in other London battalions account for it, I am told, by reviving the ancient gibe about the devil always taking special care of his own. It is true the London Irish are up to all sorts of "divilment"—as we say in Ireland—whether in the trenches or in billets. I have heard no more delicious war anecdote than that whichtells of a fine trick they played on the enemy. Their telephone linesmen happened to find two live German cables on the ground behind their trenches. The linesmen, without as much as saying "by your leave" to the Germans, promptly fitted wires to the cables, and for many weeks they had a most serviceable electric installation at the Battalion Headquarters, officers' dug-outs, and dressing-stations, with power "milked" from the enemy.
That is the Irish kind of "divilment," and it is "divilment" that the Devil himself would disown, for it tends to spoil the knavish designs he has in hand when he uses the Germans as his fitting instruments. The London Irish, as a matter of fact, are noted for their religious devotion and practices. I read in theSpectatoran interesting correspondence round the question whether the Anglican chaplains were of any earthly good at the Front. Nothing was said, I noticed, about their heavenly uses. But a woman sent a remarkable letter she had received from her son in the trenches. "There is another man who has great influence out here," he wrote. "He is a priest attached to an Irish regiment. He insists upon charging every time with the men, and no one dare protest. He is absolutely the idol of the regiment." This is Father Lane-Fox, the chaplain of the London Irish, who joined in the famous charge of the battalion at Loos, absolving those who were shot as they fell, and arriving in the German trenches with the foremost. And many of the men will tell you that they are "the lucky Irish," because of the comfort and reassurance they derive from the prayers and self-sacrificing services of their chaplain. The battalion are also able to warm their hearts and fire their blood with the strains of the ancient Irish war-pipes. This old barbaric music has magic in it. It transforms the Gael. It reawakens in the deeps of their being, even in this twentieth century, impressions, moods, feelings,inherited from a wild, untamed ancestry for thousands of years, and thus gives them, more than strong wine, that strength of arm and that endurance of soul which make them invincible.
So the London Irish were ready when the great day came. Three Divisions of the 4th Army Corps took part in the battle of Loos. The London Irish were in a Division exclusively composed of Brigades of London Territorials, and they had the honour of being selected to lead that Division in the attack. As the result of the battle a double length of trenches were carried along a line of four miles, and to a depth, at its greatest, of four miles. The whole of this area, amounting to at least twelve square miles, around the village of Loos, between Hulluch and Lens, was a desperate network of trenches and bomb-proof shelters.
On the night of September 24th the London Irish received their orders and marched out to take up their allotted positions. "What a sight!" writes one of the men. "Almost pitch dark, as light near the firing line must not be—just a few glimmers here and there to mark cross roads, and those are lanterns, mostly on the ground, in charge of one or more soldiers, according to the importance of the posts, whose job it is to control the traffic. Now and again a more or less lurid illumination comes from the star shells that are used between the trenches while searchlights sweep across the sky. Artillery flashes continuously and the roar of the guns is added to the crash and rattle of the traffic on the roads." At a point in the march Brigadier-General Twaites was standing to see the battalion go by. He shook hands with the officers and wished them "Good luck." He told the men that he was expecting great things of them. "Remember," he said, "that the London Irish has been chosen to lead the whole Division."
The trenches were reached about midnight. It was an inclement and dreary time. Rain was falling intorrents. For over six hours the men had to wait in sodden clothes in a trench of slush for the order which would mean death to many, to others racking and disabling wounds, and to all who survived the heartache for loved comrades gone for ever. Yet how cheerful they were! To say that none of them were afraid would be to convey that each was a bloodless abstraction. Whatever else an Irishman may be he certainly is never that. He is a hot-blooded human creature, with more than his share of the passions and desires which agitate the heart of man, and so he is prone at times to have fits of depression and despair. It is possible, then, that the minds of some were darkened by gloomy forebodings. But as an instance of the general stout-heartedness of the men, an officer told me that many of them took out cigarettes, and, having lighted them, held the burning match at arm's length to see if their hands were steady as they waited under the shadow of death. Just at the last moment, too, the liveliest interest was aroused by a rumour which ran along the trenches. It was said that some particularly bright spirits in the battalion had arranged to make the coming charge for ever memorable by an act of unparalleled daring. What is it to be? The question was eagerly put. But those in the secret would not say more than the remark that the nature of it no one would ever guess even if he were to sit down and give all his life to it, and work overtime as well.
At half past six o'clock in the morning the signal came from Major Beresford—a shrill note of the whistle and the cry, "Irish up and over." Gas had been turned on some little time before to help in clearing the ground for the advance, and as the wind was slightly favourable it drifted, a mass of dark vapour, towards the German trenches. But as there was a danger that the cloud might be overtaken, if the charge were successful and rapid, most of the menput on their gas helmets, and fearful and wonderful monsters they looked as, in obedience to the company officers' order, "Over you go, lads," they mounted the parapets. Over they went by platoons, with half a minute's interval between each, and though the enemy immediately opened fire they formed up in four splendid lines, with bayonets fixed and rifles at the slope before they charged.
Then it was that the grand secret was disclosed, a thing almost incredible and unthinkable, indeed. A football was dropped by members of the London Irish Rugby Club in the ranks, and as they charged they kicked it before them across a plain as flat, grassy, and bare of cover as the Fifteen Acres in the Phœnix Park, or the upper stretch of Wimbledon Common. A game of football on the border line between life and death! What a fantastic conception! No wonder that the French troops who were watching the advance were astounded by the spectacle. "It is magnificent, but it is not war!" Possibly the French at Loos had the same thought that the French at Balaclava had when they saw the charge of the Light Brigade. But, wait a while. Despite the apparent oddity and inconsequence of the incident, we shall see that behind it there was a grim and dread purpose well befitting the occasion.
On the Rugby playing fields the rush and dash of the Irish are famous. Who that was there will ever forget the glorious international match that was played at Twickenham between England and Ireland the year before the war, with the King and Prime Minister among the tens of thousands of fascinated spectators of the finest game that ever was seen? Several of the grand young fellows who superbly contended for the mastery of the ball on that great day are buried close to where they fell in France and Flanders, gallantly leading their men as company officers (the thought of it is enough to make one weep), and they played thegame on these different fields, according to their separate national characteristics—equally clean-handed and chivalrous, both, as sportsmen, incapable of a mean trick or taking an opponent at an unfair advantage; disciplined, resourceful, dexterous, and deft the English; light-hearted, frank, ardent, and dare-devilled the Irish. So, too, at Loos the London Irish dashed forward with the same rapture in the game that they used to display in a match on their grounds at Forest Hill, shouting their slogan, "On the ball, London Irish!" They kicked the ball before them, not this time in the face of an opposing English, Welsh, or Scottish pack, but against unceasing volleys of shrapnel and rifle fire which brought many of them down, dead or disabled.
One man who was in the charge told me that at first he had a confused sense of a clamorous hubbub and of comrades falling around him. Afterwards he saw dimly—as if still in a bad dream—the football being kicked, and there came vaguely back to his mind the talk in the trenches as they waited for the whistle. Then he had a shock of surprise which brought everything into sharp reality; and the exhilaration of the episode restoring him to normality and confidence, he followed the ball with the others until it was kicked right into the enemy's trench with a joyous shout of "Goal!" Thus this exhibition of cool audacity—unparalleled, perhaps, in the annals of war—instead of retarding the advance added immensely to its go. It will be historic, that game of football amid the thunders and the lightnings of the field of battle, with the German trenches for the goal; and soaring up from the very depths of the awful tumult of the fight will ever be heard, "On the ball, London Irish!"
So the first line of German trenches was reached. The barbed wire entanglements had been blown to pieces by shell fire before the attack. Another effect of that terrific bombardment, which lasted nineteen days,was the cowed and dazed condition of the Germans. They were so easily and quickly disposed of by the first line of London Irish that the other lines pressed forward, scrambling across the trench over the bodies of killed and wounded enemies; and, as they did so, catching glimpses through the smoke of the haggard and frightened faces of the grey-clad survivors making but a feeble resistance or surrendering without striking a blow.
The advance to the second line of German trenches was not so easy. Here was an inferno of tangled wreckage strewn over mud, smoke-dimmed, and torn with shrapnel, through which the men could advance but slowly, with stumbling feet and gasping breath, while their ears were assailed with horrid noises—screaming, yelling, crashing, pounding, cheering, screeching. Major Beresford, who led the charge, fell with a bullet through his lung on the way to the first German trench. Four officers were killed on the same piece of ground. But the men went steadily on, though bereft of most of their leaders, and at the second line trench of the Germans, more strongly held than the first, were inspired for the ordeal before them by the sight of Captain and Adjutant A.P. Hamilton, who, though shot through the knee and suffering great pain, guided the operations as he moved from place to place, limping heavily. There was desperately fierce hand-to-hand work here and bomb firing parties were hard at it, clearing out every corner. One man performed a particularly brave act and a shrewd one to boot. He came alone into a German communication trench beyond the reserve line. In a minute a bright thought struck him, and as quickly as possible he bundled the sandbags down into the trench, and so formed a barricade. The Germans came back, just as he had anticipated, and as they clambered over, so he shot them. We got rid of thirteen in this way, and the enemy gave up that passage and retiredCaptain Hamilton remained in this second line trench reorganising and encouraging the men until the consolidation was well advanced. He was awarded the Military Cross for his services. The official record says, "He had to be ordered back for medical attendance." Indeed, the only way that could be found to prevent Captain Hamilton from stubbornly going on till he bled to death was to place him under arrest.
The London Irish had thus magnificently succeeded in the task allotted to them—the capture of a section of the German second line trenches. Carried away by their excessive impetuosity, they also helped to clear the Germans out of the village of Loos, which they were among the first to enter. They were still untroubled and unperplexed. "When the village was about half cleared," says Rifleman T.J. Culley, in a letter to Sister Celestine, of the Homes for Destitute Catholic Children in London, "could you have peered into one of the estaminets which was still inhabited, you would have perceived one of the Irish calmly asking a most attractive and business-like madame for acafé au lait, and being served amid torrents of shot and shell; and when he was finished he slung his arms and calmly walked on to do further death-dealing deeds." Culley adds that when the village was eventually cleared some of the New Army passed through the thinned ranks of the Territorials to carry on the advance. "You may have noticed in the papers," he says, "that the credit of capturing the village went to the New Army. This is not so. The Territorials, with the London Irish among their leaders, should be given the honour."
But the real trial of the London Irish was now to begin. The Germans on the Sunday launched a tremendous counter-attack. Would the London Irish be able to beat it back, and hold on to the trenches they had taken until relief came? Again and again, there seemed to be no possible escape from thedestruction which imminently menaced them. "All Monday passed and still no relief came," writes a rifleman of the battalion. "Indeed, it was a question whether any minute we should not be blown to atoms and the line swamped with a rush of the enemy. We could hardly stand from fatigue, having been in action steadily since Saturday morning. 'Fight on, lads,' said an officer who was afterwards killed. 'Remember the Division looks to you. This is bound to end sooner or later. Let it be in a way that will never be forgotten when they hear of it at home in London and Ireland.' So we fought on, and never a single German got nearer than a dozen yards from our lines. Soon we got the word that we should be relieved early Tuesday morning under cover of the darkness. The announcement sent a thrill of joy through us, for then we knew we had won." As soon as they got to the back trenches in safety a huge cheer went up from all the others, "The London Irish—Hurroo!" "They shook us by the hands and took our rifles from our grasp and the kits from our backs in their eagerness to show their gratitude," says the same rifleman.
The General in command of the Brigade who stood and watched the battalion on their way to battle on Friday night, addressed the remnant afterwards and said: "Not only am I proud to have had the honour of being in command of such a regiment, but the whole Empire will be proud whenever, in after years, the history of the battle of Loos comes to be written, for I can tell you it was the London Irish who helped to save a whole British Army Corps. You have done one of the greatest actions of the war."
Thus the London Irish raised themselves on the pinnacle of a notable and conspicuous triumph. Thus they earned for themselves the name of "The Footballers of Loos."