The memorable words of an Irish member, speaking in the House of Commons during the South African War, on the gallantry of the Irish regiments, come to my mind. "This war has shown," said he, "that as brave a heart beats under the tunic of a Dublin Fusilier as under the kilt of a Gordon Highlander."
The saying may be curiously astray as to the anatomy of the Scotch, but the truth of it in regard to Irish courage has been emphasised by the victories and disasters alike of the great world war. On all the fields of conflict east and west the Irish soldiers have earned the highest repute for valour. "They are magnificent fighters," says Lieutenant Denis Oliver Barnett, an English officer of a battalion of the Leinster Regiment, in letters which he wrote home to his own people. A public school boy, with a high reputation for scholarship, he became a soldier at the outbreak of war instead of going to Oxford. Courageous and high-minded himself—as his death on the parapet of the trenches, directing and heartening his men in bombing the enemy, testifies—his gay and sympathetic letters show that he was a good judge of character. He also says of his men, "They are cheerier than the English Tommies, and will standanything." Cheeriness in this awful war is indeed a most precious possession. It enhances the fighting capacity of the men. Where it does not exist spontaneously the officers take measures to cultivate it. As far as possible they try to remove all depressing influences, and make things bright and cheerful. I have got many such glimpses of the Irish soldier at the Front, and their total effect is the impersonation or bodying forth of an individual who provides his own gaiety, and has some over to give to others—whimsical, wayward, with a childlike petulance and simplicity; and yet very fierce withal.
I met at a London military hospital an Irish Catholic chaplain and an Irish officer of the Army Medical Corps back from French Flanders. They told Irish stories, to the great enjoyment and comfort of the wounded soldiers in the ward. "Be careful to boil that water before drinking it," said the doctor to men of an Irish battalion whom he found drawing supplies from a canal near Ypres. "Why so, sir?" asked one of the men. "Because it's full of microbes and boiling will kill them," answered the doctor. "And where's the good, sir?" said the soldier. "I'd as soon swallow a menagerie as a graveyard any day." Another example of a quick-witted Hibernian reply was given by the chaplain. He came upon a man of the transport service of his battalion belabouring a donkey which was slowly dragging a heavy load. "Why do you beat the poor animal so much?" remonstrated the priest; and he recalled a legend popular in Ireland by saying, "Don't you know from the cross on the ass's back that it was on an ass Our Lord went into Jerusalem?" "But, Father," said the soldier, "if Our Lord had this lazy ould ass He wouldn't be there yet." One of the inmates of the ward kept the laughter going by giving an example of Irish traditional blundering humour from the trenches—a humour dueto an excited and over-active mind. "Don't let the Germans know we're short of powder and shot," cried an Irish sergeant to his men, awaiting the bringing up of ammunition; "keep on firing away like blazes."
Some of the flowers of speech that have blossomed from the Irish regiments at the Front are also worth culling. Speaking of the Catholic chaplain of his battalion, a soldier said, "He'd lead us to heaven; an' we'd follow him to hell." As a loaf of bread stuck on a bayonet was passed on to him in the trenches another exclaimed, "Here comes the staff of life on the point of death." The irregularity of the food supply in the trenches was thus described: "It's either a feast or a famine. Sometimes you drink out of the overflowing cup of fulness, and other times you ate off the empty plate." "What have you there?" asked a nurse of an Irish private of the Army Medical Corps, at a base hospital, as he was rummaging among the contents of a packing-case. Taking out a wooden leg, he answered: "A stump speech agin the war."
Good-humour at the Front is by no means an exclusively Irish possession. Happily the soldiers of all the nationalities within the United Kingdom are so light-hearted as to find even in the most dismal situation cause for raillery, pleasantry and laughter, and to derive from their mirth a more enduring patience of discomfort and trouble. The Irish form of humour, however, differs entirely from the English, Scottish or Welsh variety not only in quality but in the type of mind and character it expresses. In most things that the Irish soldier says or does there is something racially individual. Perhaps its chief peculiarity, apart from its quaintness, is that usually there is an absence of any conscious aim or end behind it. The English soldier, and the Cockney especially, is a wag and a jester. He is very prone to satire andirony, deliberate and purposeful. Even his "grousing"—a word, by the way, unheard in the Irish regiments, unless it is somewhat incomprehensibly used by an English non-commissioned officer—is a form of caustic wit. Irish humour has neither subtlety nor seriousness. It is just the light and spontaneous whim, caprice or fancy of the moment. It is humour in the original sense of the word, that is the expression of character, habit and disposition.
The Munstermen have contributed to the vocabulary at the Front the expressive phrase, "Gone west," for death; the bourne whence no traveller returns. In Kerry and Cork the word "west" or "wesht," as it is locally pronounced, expresses not only the mysterious and unknown, but is used colloquially for "behind," "at the back," or "out of the way." So it is also at the Front. A lost article is gone west as well as a dead comrade. "When I tould the Colonel," said an Irish orderly, "that the bottle of brandy was gone wesht, he was that mad that I thought he would have me ate." As food and drink are sent west, perhaps the Colonel had his suspicions. The saying, "Put it wesht, Larry, an' come along on with you," may be heard in French estaminets as well as in Kerry public-houses.
At parade a subaltern noticed that one of his men had anything but a clean shave on the left side of his jaw. "'Twas too far wesht for me to get at, sir," was the excuse. "Well," said the dentist to a Munster Fusilier, "where's this bad tooth that's troubling you?" "'Tis here, sir," said the soldier, "in the wesht of me jaw." Another Irish soldier told his Quartermaster that he was in a very unpleasant predicament for want of a new pair of trousers. "The one I've on me is all broken wesht," said he. It is fairly obvious what part of the trousers the west of it was.
It would seem from the stories I have heard that odd escapes from death are an unfailing source of playfulness and laughter. A shell exploded in a trench held by an Irish battalion. One man was hurled quite twelve feet in the air, and, turning two somersaults in his descent, alighted on his back, and but little hurt, just outside the trench. He quickly picked himself up and rejoined his astonished comrades. "He came down with that force," said an invalided Irish soldier who told me of the incident, "that it was the greatest wonder in the world he didn't knock a groan out of the ground." No groan came from the man himself. "That was a toss and a half, and no mistake," he remarked cheerily when he got back to the trench; and in answer to an inquiry whether he was much hurt he said, "I only feel a bit moidhered in me head." More comical still in its unexpectedness was the reply of another Irishman who met with a different misadventure from the same cause. A German 17-in. shell exploded on the parapet of a trench, and this Irishman was buried in the ruins. However, he was dug out alive, and his rescuers jokingly asked him what all the trouble was about. "Just those blessed snipers again," he spluttered through his mouth full of mud, "and may the divil fly away with the one that fired that bullet."
It is readily acknowledged at the Front that the Irish soldiers have a rich gift of natural humour. But, what is more—as some of my stories may show—they are never so exceedingly comic as when they do not intend to be comic at all. Is it not better to be funny without knowing it than to suffer the rather common lot of attempting to be funny and fail? It arises from an odd and unexpected way of putting things. How infinitely better it is than to be of so humdrum a quality as to be incapable of being comical even unconsciously in saying or in deed! Yet in thisessentially Irish form of fun there is often a snare for the unwary. How can you tell that these laughable things are said and done by Irish soldiers without any perception of humour or absurdity? If you could look behind the face of that apparently simple-minded Irish soldier you might find that in reality he was "pulling your leg"—or "humbugging," as he would say himself—in a way that you would regard as most uncalled for and aggravating.
For instance, an Irish sentry in a camp in France was asked by a colonel of the Army Service Corps whether he had seen any of his officers about that morning. "Indeed, and I did, sir," was the reply. "'Twas only a while ago that two of the gintlemen came out of the office down there below, and passed by this way." "And how did you know they were Army Service officers?" "Aisy enough, sir. Didn't I see their swords stuck behind their ears?" And in which category must be placed the equally amusing retort of another Irish sentry to his officer—the naïvely simple, or the slyly jocular? The sentry looked so shy and inexperienced that the officer put to him the question, "What are you here for?" and got the stereotyped answer, "To look out for anything unusual." "What would you call unusual?" asked the officer. "I don't know exactly, sir, until I saw it," was the reply. The officer became sarcastically facetious. "What would you do if you saw five battleships steaming across the field?" he said. "Take the pledge, sir," was the sentry's answer.
These officers are, by all accounts, but two of many who have got unlooked-for but diverting answers from Irish soldiers. A sergeant who was sent out with a party to make observations felt into an ambuscade and returned with only a couple of men. "Tell me what happened," said the commanding officer, when the sergeant came to make his report; "wereyou surprised?" "Surprised isn't the word for it, sir," exclaimed the sergeant. "It was flabbergasted entirely I was when, creeping round the end of a thick hedge, we came plump into the divil of a lot of Germans lying on their stomachs." Then, seeing the officer smiling, as if in doubt, as he thought, he hastened thus to emphasise his wonder and astonishment at this sudden encounter. "I declare to you, sir, it nearly jumped the heart up out of me throat with the start it gave me." Of a like kind for ingenuousness was the report made by another Irish non-com. who found himself all alone in a trench, with only a barrier of sandbags between him and the Germans. "I had nayther men, machine-gun or grenade," he wrote, expressing not only his temporal but his spiritual condition, for he added, "nothing, save the help of the Mother of God."
In Ireland domestic servants are noted for their forward manners and liberty of speech with the family, and the same trait is rather general in the relations between different social grades. An illustration of what it leads to in the Army was afforded at a camp concert attended by a large assembly of officers and men of a certain Division, into which, at a solemn moment, an unsophisticated Irish soldier made a wild incursion. Lord Kitchener had been there that day and had inspected the Division, and the General in command announced from the platform how greatly pleased the Secretary for War was with the soldierly fitness of the men. "I told Lord Kitchener," continued the General, speaking in grave and impressive tones, "that the Division would see the thing through to the bitter end." In the midst of a loud burst of cheering an Irish private rushed forward, and sweeping aside the attempt of a subaltern to stop him, jumped on to the platform, and seizing the aged General by the hand, exclaimed, "Glory to you, mevinerable friend! The ould Division will stick to it to the last, and it's you that's the gran' man to lade us to victory and everlasting fame." The General, greatly embarrassed, could only say, "Yes, yes, to be sure, my good fellow; yes, yes"; and the staff turned aside to hide their grins at this comic encounter between incongruities.
The Colonel of an Irish battalion, after a harassing day in the trenches, got a pleasant surprise in the shape of a roast fowl served for dinner by his orderly. After he had eaten it and found it tender he recalled that complaints were rather rife among the inhabitants about the plundering of hen-roosts, and his conscience smote him. "I hope you got that fowl honestly," he said. "Don't you be troubling your head about that, sir," replied the orderly, in a fine burst of evasion and equivocation. "Faith, 'twas quite ready for the killing, so it was, and that's the main thing." Then, as if to improve the occasion by a homily, he added, in a tone of religious fervour, "Ah, sure, if we wor all as ready to die as that hin, sir, we needn't mind a bit when the bullet came." The Colonel was almost "fit to die" with quiet laughter.
It may well be that sometimes the English officers of Irish battalions are puzzled by the nature of their men—its impulsiveness, its glow, its wild imagery and over-brimming expression. It is easy to believe, too, that the changeful moods of the men, childlike and petulant, now jovial, now fierce, and occasionally unaccountable, may be a sore annoyance to officers who are very formal and precise in matters of discipline. I have heard from an Irish Colonel of an Irish battalion that the English commander of the Brigade of which the battalion was a unit came to him one day in a rage and asked him where his damned fools had been picked up. It appears the Brigadier-General, going the rounds alone, came suddenly upon one ofthe sentries of the battalion at a remote post. The sentry happened to be a wild slip of an Irish boy, not long joined and quite fresh from Mayo, and, taken by surprise, he challenged the Brigadier-General by calling out, "In the name of God, who the divil are you?" The Colonel told me his reply to the Brigadier-General was this: "Certainly, the challenge and the salute were not quite proper. But you can imagine what kind of a reception that simple but fearless lad would give to a German; and, after all, is not that the main thing just now?" Yes, the capacity of fighting well should, in war time, cover a multitude of imperfections in a soldier.
In order to get the best out of the Irish soldiers it is necessary to have a knowledge of their national habits and peculiarities, and a sympathetic understanding of their qualities and limitations. I am glad to be able to say that the most glowing tributes to the sterling character of the Irish soldiers that I have heard have come from their English or Scottish officers. These are true leaders, because they possess imagination and sympathy by which they can look into the hearts of men that are diverse from them in blood and temperament and nature.
I suppose there is nothing on earth, no matter how solemn or terrible, which may not be turned into a subject of irreverent humour in one or other of its aspects. English soldiers appear to have found that out even in regard to the war. An officer told me of a remarkable encounter on a Flanders high road between an Irish battalion coming back from the trenches and an English battalion going up for a turn at holding a section of the lines, which he thought presented a striking contrast in racial moods. The uniforms of the Irishmen were plastered with mud, and they had a week's grime on their unshaven faces. They had also suffered heavily in repelling a Germanattack. Yet they looked as proud as if they had saved Ireland by their exertions, and hoped to save the Empire by their example, and they sang from the bottom of their hearts, and at the top of their voices, the anthem of their national yearnings and aspirations, with its refrain—
"Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die,What matter when for Erin dear we fall."
"Whether on the scaffold high, or the battlefield we die,What matter when for Erin dear we fall."
The English battalion, spick and span, swung by to horrible discomforts, to wounds and death, as blithely as if they were on a route march at home. They also were singing, and if they were in the same mood as the Irishmen they would be rendering the chorus—
"Land of Hope and Glory,Mother of the Free,How shall we extol theeWho are born of thee?Wider still and widerShall thy bounds be set;God, who made thee mighty,Make thee mightier yet."
"Land of Hope and Glory,Mother of the Free,How shall we extol theeWho are born of thee?Wider still and widerShall thy bounds be set;God, who made thee mighty,Make thee mightier yet."
But instead of that the chorus of their song, set to a hymn tune, was this—
"Will you fight for England?Will you face the foe?And every gallant soldierBoldly answered—NO!"
"Will you fight for England?Will you face the foe?And every gallant soldierBoldly answered—NO!"
It has been said, with general acceptance, that the spirit of a nation can best be studied in its songs. But can it really? How wrong would be the moral drawn from its application in this case! High patriotism is a solemn thing; but the average British soldier's attitude towards it is like that of Dr. Johnson when he took up philosophy—"somehow cheerfulness was always breaking in." The English soldier willnot sing songs of a lofty type and deep purpose—songs which express either intimate personal feeling or deeply felt national convictions. These emotions he hides or suppresses, for he cannot give vent to them without feeling shamefaced or fearing that he may be regarded as insincere. Yet he is by no means so inconsequential or cynical as he affects to be. He is animated—none more so—by the spirit of duty and sacrifice. When it comes to fighting he is in earnest, desperately and ferociously in earnest, as the Germans know to their cost. It seems to me that he has been misled by Kipling into supposing that the true pose of the British soldier is to be more concerned with the temporal than with the spiritual, to grumble about the petty inconveniences of his calling, to pretend to an indifference to its romantic side and its ideals, to die without thinking that the spirits of his national heroes are looking down upon him.
The Irish have the reputation of having a delight in fighting. It is supposed that "ructions" are the commonplace of their civic life. Undoubtedly they have "a strong weakness"—as they would phrase it themselves—for distributing bloody noses and cracked crowns even among friends. It is true, also, that they find the grandest scope for their natural disposition in warfare. A war correspondent relates that he met a wounded Dublin Fusilier hobbling painfully back to the field dressing-station after a battle, and giving the man his arm to help him on, he was prompted to make the pitying remark: "It's a dreadful war." "'Tis indeed, sir; a dreadful war enough," said the soldier; and then came the characteristic comment: "but, sure, 'tis far better than no war at all."
Still, individuals are to be found among the Irish soldiers who take quite a materialistic view of the Army, and fail to rise to the anticipation of glory in a pending action. An agricultural labourer who hadbecome one of Kitchener's men was asked how he liked soldiering. "It's the finest life in the whole wide world," he exclaimed. "It's mate, drink, lodgin' and washin' all in one. Wasn't I working hard for ten long years for a farmer there beyant in Kerry, and never once in all that time did the ould boy say to me, 'Stand at aise.'" It will be noticed that in this enthusiastic outburst there is nothing about the divarshion of fighting. Another story that I heard records the grim foreboding of an Irish soldier who was lagging behind on the march to the trenches for the first time. "Keep up, keep up," cried the officer; and, by way of encouragement, he added: "You know, we'll soon make a Field Marshal of you." "You're welcome to your joke, sir," said the soldier; "but I know well what you'll make of me—a casualty, sure enough." Another Irish soldier thought he saw a way of making money out of the fighting. The Colonel of the battalion told his men, according to the story, that for every German they would kill he would give a sovereign. The next morning the men were told the Germans were coming. "How many?" "Thirty thousand at least." "Wake up, Mike," said one to a sleeping comrade; "our fortune is made."
There is also a story told of a remark made by an Irish soldier regardless of the glory and romance of the highest distinction in the Army. The award of the Victoria Cross to Michael O'Leary was held up to a battalion for emulation. "Yerra," cried a voice, "I'd a great deal rather get the Victoria 'bus." It may be that in this we have nothing more than an instance of the impish tendency in the Irish nature displaying itself at the spur of the moment, rather than the yearning for home, its ease, repose and comforts. It recalls an anecdote of the American Civil War. General Thomas Francis Meagher of the Irish Brigade was informed by an aide-de-camp in thecourse of a battle that the Federalists had carried an important strategic point and several colours belonging to Confederate battalions. "Here's good news for ye, boys," shouted Meagher. "Our troops have won the day and captured the enemy's colours." "Yerra, Gineral," cried a private, looking up at Meagher, who was on horseback, "I'd rather have, this blessed minute, half a pint of Dinnis McGure's whisky than all the colours of the rainbow." Then there is the story told by the Colonel of an Irish regiment of an incident in the Battle of the Somme. He noticed that a private followed everywhere at his heels, and especially where the fighting was hottest. The Colonel thought that perhaps the private was anxious to come to his aid should any harm befall him. At the end of the day, however, the private thus explained his conduct to the Colonel: "My mother says to me, sir, 'Stick to the Colonel, and you'll be all right. Them Colonels never get hurt.'"
But, with all their playfulness and jocularity, there are no soldiers to whom the serious aspects of the war make a more direct appeal than to the Irish. This is seen in various ways. It is seen in their devotional exercises. The Irish Guards and other Irish regiments have been known frequently to recite the Rosary and sing hymns even in the trenches. It is seen also in their national fervour. They go into action singing their patriotic songs. From these qualities they derive support for their martial spirit, their endurance and their unconquerable courage. They never quail in the face of danger. No soldiers have risen to loftier heights of moral heroism, as the numerous records of their deeds on the roll of the Victoria Cross bear inspiring witness.
But their humour always remains. One of the injunctions to men at the Front is "Don't put your head above the parapet." The Irish soldiers are more aptthan others to disregard it, however frequently its wisdom is brought home to them. I have heard only one that was convinced. "Faix," he remarked, as the bullets of the snipers soon stopped his survey of the prospect outside the trench, "it's aisy to understand that the more a man looks round in this war the less he's likely to see." They have a comforting philosophy that it takes many a ton of lead to kill a man. An Irish soldier invalided home from France was asked what struck him most about the battles he took part in. "What struck me most?" said he. "Sure it was the crowd of bullets flying about that didn't hit me!"
Pride and sorrow struggle for mastery at the spectacle of troops returning to camp from the battle, their appearance telling of the intolerable strain which this war imposes, even in the case of victory, upon the human faculties. The thought of it alone is painful to the feelings of any one who has the least imagination. They are all begrimed and careworn, and many have the distraught look of those who have seen and suffered terrible things. So the Irish Brigade came back from Guillamont and Guinchy, on the Somme, in the early days of September 1916, what time the Empire was resounding with the fame of their exploits. On a Sunday they carried Guillamont with a rush; on the following Saturday they literally pounced upon Guinchy, and in between they lay in open trenches under continuous shell fire.
I saw the Irish Brigade before they left for the Front, and noted in the ranks the many finely shaped heads and thoughtful faces of poets and leaders of men, interspersed with the lithe frames of athletes and the resolute, hard-bitten countenances of born fighters. At first I was moved to sorrow at the thought of the pass to which civilisation has come that the best use which could be made of all this superb youth and manhood in its valiancy was to send it forth into the devouring jaws of war. Then I perceived thatsomething like a radiance shimmered about the marching ranks. It came, I noticed, both from their muscular strength and their martial ardour, for the flush of battle already mantled their cheeks, and its light was in their dancing eyes; and at once I understood that if I saw but the mound surmounted by the little wooden cross in France, and in Ireland the desolate hearthstone, they, with the wider and more aspiring imagination of youth, rejoiced that they were going out to fight in liberty's defence, and saw only their bayonets triumphantly agleam in the fury of the engagement. Careless and gay, they captured the two villages on the Somme in a ding-dong, helter-skelter fashion. They maintained the reputation of the Irish infantry as "the finest missile troops in the British Army" (so they are described by Colonel Repington, the renowned military correspondent ofThe Times), by the spirit and dash of their charge, their eagerness to get quickly into touch with the foe, and the energy and dexterity with which they wield that weapon which finally decides the issue of battles—the bayonet.
As they emerged out of the cloud of smoke on the Somme, and marched back to camp in much diminished numbers—caked with mud, powdered with grey dust, very tired—across the ground their valour had won and their grit maintained against fierce counter attacks, they displayed quite another phase of the Irish nature—its melancholy and its mysticism. The piper that led them back began to play some old Irish rhapsodies having that wonderful blending of joy and grief which makes these airs so haunting. That was well. For the men were in so extreme a stage of exhaustion, physical and mental, that they lurched and reeled, and were overwhelmed with distress at missing many beloved comrades that fought with them, and officers that led them only a few daysbefore. Then they heard the pipes, and their hearts were uplifted by the strains, plaintive and yearning, defiant and challenging, which expresses in music the history of their race. They seemed, indeed, to have caught even some of the jaunty, boastful swagger of the piper, as he strode before them, blowing into his reeds and working the bag with his left elbow.
The General of the Brigade watched his troops go by, and in his eyes they were all the grander for the horrid disarray of their torn, muddy and bloody uniforms, and their haggard faces blackened with sweat and smoke and soil. "I am proud of you," he called out in a voice surging with emotion. "Ye did damned well, boys." A handful of men, once a company, was led by a sergeant. Every officer was gone. "Bravo, Dublins!" exclaimed the General; but for the moment his heart was heavy within him as he recalled to mind the dashing, gallant young lads, so hearty and joyous, buried now round about the ruins of the villages from which the Germans had been driven at the bayonet-point by the splendid rank and file at whose head they fell. Quickly the thoughts of the General came back to the survivors. "Ireland is proud of you, boys," he cried in exultant tones. He knew that would stir them. Ireland is their glory; and they lifted up their heads a little more as they caught the import of their Commander's words.
This Irish Brigade, officially known as the Irish Division, was the outcome of the meeting in Dublin addressed by Mr. Asquith, shortly after the outbreak of the war, in the course of his tour of the country as Prime Minister to explain the origins and aims of the conflict. Lord Wimborne, the Viceroy, presided. The Lord Mayor of Dublin and mayors of most of the chief towns of Ireland, the chairmen of county councils and representatives of all shades of political and religious opinions were present. Mr. JohnRedmond proposed, at the meeting, the formation of an Irish Brigade. While "Irish Division" sounds meaningless to young Irishmen, "Irish Brigade" at once arouses thrilling memories of the battlefields of Europe during the eighteenth century. For a hundred years, from the fall of the Stuarts to the French Revolution, there was an Irish Brigade in the service of France. It was regularly recruited from Ireland through that long span of time, though to join it was a penal offence. As the young men stole secretly away to France in smuggling crafts from the west of Ireland, they were popularly known as "the wild geese." "Everywhere and always Faithful" was the motto bestowed on the Brigade by the King of France. That being so, there was a hearty response to the call for a new Irish Brigade to serve again in France, and for causes more worthy than the old.
Just as the Ulster Division was composed of Unionists and Protestants, the Irish Division was recruited mainly from the Nationalist and Catholic sections of the population. The Nationalist Volunteers, supporters of the policy and aims of the Irish Parliamentary Party, provided most of the rank and file. Like another Irish Division, the first of Ireland's distinctive contributions to the New Armies, which perished in the ill-starred expedition to Gallipoli, the Irish Division was composed of the youth of Ireland at its highest and best—clean of soul and strong of body, possessing in the fullest measure all the brightest qualities of the race, the intellectual and spiritual, not less than the political and humorous.
One of the first to join was Mr. William Redmond, M.P. for East Clare, younger brother of the Irish Leader, though he was well over the military age. He was appointed Captain in the Royal Irish Regiment—the premier Irish regiment—in which he had served thirty-three years previously, before hiselection to the House of Commons. Speaking at an early recruiting meeting, he said that, should circumstances so demand, he would say to his countrymen "Come" instead of "Go." He was as good as his word. For his services at the Front he was promoted to the rank of Major, and has been mentioned by Field-Marshal Haig in despatches. Other nationalist Members of Parliament who were officers of the Brigade were Captain W. Archer Redmond, Dublin Fusiliers, son of Mr. John Redmond, Captain Stephen Gwynn, well known as a man of letters, who joined the Connaught Rangers as a private and was promoted to the rank of Captain in the battalion; Captain J.L. Esmonde, Dublin Fusiliers, and Captain D.D. Sheehan, Munster Fusiliers, who also gave his two boys to the Brigade. General Sir Lawrence Parsons, son of the Earl of Rosse—scion of a distinguished Irish family resident for centuries at Birr, King's Co.—was appointed to the command of the Division.
Sir Francis Vane, an eminent Irish soldier of Nationalist sympathies, who was appointed by the War Office to supervise the recruiting for the Division, says that never in his life did he witness so extraordinary a scene as that presented at Buttevant and Fermoy, co. Cork, where the men first assembled in September and October 1914. "It reminded me," he says, "of the pages of Charles Lever in the variety of Irish types answering to the call. There were old men and young sportsmen, students, car drivers, farm labourers, Members of Parliament, poets,litterateurs, all crowding into barracks which were totally incapable of housing decently the half of them." They were dressed in all sorts of clothes, from the khaki, red and blue of the Services, to "the latest emanation of the old clo' merchants." That curious assortment of all types and classes was the rough material out of which was fashioned, by training and discipline, asuperb military instrument. The soldierly essentials were there in abundance. Within two years they came successfully through ordeals that would have tried the nerves of the toughest veterans of the Old Guard of Napoleon.
In the course of 1915 the Division was removed to camps at Aldershot to complete their training. The men were visited there, in November, by Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, who gave them his benediction, and said he was sure they would do their duty at the Front "as good children of Ireland and good sons of the Catholic Church." Early in December they were reviewed by the Queen. It was originally arranged that the review should be held by the King, but his Majesty, on a visit to the Front, had been flung from his horse, and was not sufficiently recovered from the accident to be able to be present. Among those in the reserved enclosure surrounding the saluting-base that day were Mr. John Dillon, M.P., and Mr. T.P. O'Connor, M.P. In the march past the Queen they were led off by the South Irish Horse, a body of Yeomanry. Each of the three infantry brigades was headed by one of the Irish wolfhounds which Mr. John Redmond presented to the Division as mascots. At the conclusion of the review her Majesty sent for General Parsons and the three Brigadier-Generals, and congratulated them upon the appearance and efficiency of the troops.
Shortly afterwards the Division left for the Front, under the command of Major-General William Bernard Hickie, C.B., an Irishman and a Catholic, who has had a very brilliant military career. Born on May 21, 1865, the eldest son of the late Colonel J.F. Hickie of Slevoyre, Borrisokane, co. Tipperary, he was educated at Oscott and Sandhurst. At the age of nineteen he joined his father's old regiment, the 1st battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, of which in duecourse he became Colonel. In the South African War he served on the Staff, in command of a mounted infantry corps and of a mobile column. On his return home he became Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General to the 8th Division. In 1912 he was appointed Assistant Quartermaster-General of the Irish Command. On the outbreak of the war General Hickie became Deputy Assistant Quartermaster-General of the Second Army, and is stated to have particularly distinguished himself maintaining good order during the retreat from Mons. The Irish Brigade was most fortunate in having such a man as Commander. Thoroughly understanding the Irish character, its weak points as well as its strong ones—its good-humoured and careless disposition; its impatience often of the restraints and servitude of military life; its eagerness always for a fight or any sort of enterprise with a spice of danger in it—he was able to get the most out of his men. One of his happy thoughts was the institution of a system of rewards in the Division apart from but supplementary to the usual military honours. Any company officer or man who, in the opinion of the commander of his regiment, has given proof of exceptional good conduct and devotion to duty in the field, is presented by General Hickie with a Parchment Certificate at a parade. The certificate has been specially prepared in Ireland, having the words "The Irish Brigade" in Gaelic letters enwreathed with shamrocks at the top, setting out the name of the recipient, the nature and date of his achievement, and the signature of the General. The men send these certificates home, where they are preserved as precious mementoes. An Honours Book of the Irish Brigade is also kept in which these presentations and the military honours won are recorded.
The first experience which the Irish Brigade had of the trenches was in the Loos-Hullock line. Itis the most desolate of the war-stricken regions, one bare, black, open plain, where everything has been blown to pieces and levelled to the ground, save here and there some wire entanglements; where there is no sign of human life, except when parties of the thousands upon thousands of combatants who burrow beneath its surface, emerge in the darkness of the night for stealthy raids on each other's positions. The front line trenches of both sides run close together. At one point they are no more than sixteen yards apart. They are notoriously of the worst type, nothing more, indeed, than shallow and slimy drains, badly provided with dug-outs, and much exposed to fire. Under such conditions the craving of the body for food and rest could be satisfied only at the bare point of existence.
Major William Redmond, in a letter to Dr. Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, dated February 3, 1916, says: "Our first spell in the trenches was for twelve days, and in that time we had no change of clothing, just stayed as we were all the time. The shelling was terrific, and the Division suffered some losses. The day before we came out the enemy began to celebrate the Kaiser's birthday, January 27, and we were shelled without ceasing for twenty-four hours. The men of our Division behaved very well, and received good reports; so the General said." Testimony to the excellent way in which the Irishmen passed through the ordeal comes from quite independent and impartial sources. Here, for example, is an extract from a letter written by the Rev. H.J. Collins, chaplain to a battalion of the Black Watch—
"Our Division had the privilege of introducing the Irish battalions to the trenches, when they arrived out here; and they were our guests for a week or so before taking over on their own account. They made a great impression on our lads by their cheerfulness and their eagerness to be 'up andat' the Hun. The Connaughts arrived one evening just as our line was being heavily shelled, and although they were our visitors they at once took charge of the situation. They had never been in the trenches in their lives before; they were experiencing shell fire for the first time; and before they had had time to get their packs off and settle down, one impatient sergeant was over the parapet, crying out in a rich and musical brogue: 'Come on, the Connaughts!'"
"Our Division had the privilege of introducing the Irish battalions to the trenches, when they arrived out here; and they were our guests for a week or so before taking over on their own account. They made a great impression on our lads by their cheerfulness and their eagerness to be 'up andat' the Hun. The Connaughts arrived one evening just as our line was being heavily shelled, and although they were our visitors they at once took charge of the situation. They had never been in the trenches in their lives before; they were experiencing shell fire for the first time; and before they had had time to get their packs off and settle down, one impatient sergeant was over the parapet, crying out in a rich and musical brogue: 'Come on, the Connaughts!'"
As is well known, the men of one regiment are not greatly disposed to praise those of another. In fact, some bitter regimental feuds exist in the British Army, or used to among the old Regulars. It is, therefore, all the more remarkable to find in theGlasgow Heraldof February 24, 1916, a letter signed "Jock," proclaiming in the warmest terms the fine qualities of the new Irish soldiers. "Your readers may like to hear that we Scotsmen, who have been tried and not found wanting, have a great admiration for the new Irish Division that came out some time ago," says "Jock." "We have lived in the trenches side by side with them, and find them as keen as a hollow-ground and as ardent as a young lover. At a recent attack when the Germans were advancing the excitement became unbearable, and one sergeant got up on the parapet with the shout of: 'Come on, bhoys, get at them.' One of them, too, was heard to grumble, 'Here we've been in th' trinches fur two weeks an' niver wance over th' paradise.' It is to be feared they will outvie even the kilts."
Yet during this instructional period, when the various battalions of the Brigade were attached to other regiments for preliminary practice in the trenches, some high military honours were won. Sergeant J. Tierney, of the Leinster Regiment; Lance-Corporal A. Donagh, and Private P.F. Duffy, of the Connaught Rangers, gained the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Donagh and Duffy, in response to a call for volunteers, undertook to carry messagesforward under heavy fire, as all telephone communication had been cut. The task was one of extreme danger, but the men succeeded in accomplishing it unhurt, and were awarded the D.C.M. for their coolness and bravery. Corporal Timoney, of the Munster Fusiliers, was especially mentioned in Army Orders for an act of courage in picking up and throwing away a live Mills-grenade which had fallen among some men under instruction. By this act he undoubtedly saved the lives of several men, and if it had happened in the field instead of at practice he would have been eligible for recommendation for a higher honour.
It was from the Germans that the Irish Brigade got the first intimation of the troubles in Dublin at Easter, 1916. The Germans, heedless of their failure to induce the Irish soldiers in their captivity to forswear allegiance and honour, availed themselves of the Rebellion to try their wiles on the Irish soldiers in the field. Both sides in the trenches often become acquainted, in curious ways, with the names and nationality of the regiments opposed to them. But in regard to a particular section of the British line, between Hulluch and Loos, in April 1916, the Germans might easily know it was held by Irish troops. The fact was proclaimed by the green banner with the golden harp which the boys of the Brigade hoisted over the breastworks—the flag which, in their eyes, has been consecrated in the great cause of liberty by the deeds and sacrifices of their forefathers, the flag for whose glorified legend they were proud to die. So it happened that one morning these Irish troops were surprised to see two placards nailed to boards on the top of poles, displayed by the Germans, on which the following was written in English—
"Irishmen! In Ireland's revolution English guns are firing on your wives and children. The English Military Billhas been refused. Sir Roger Casement is being persecuted. Throw away your arms; we give you a hearty welcome."We are Saxons. If you don't fire, we won't."
"Irishmen! In Ireland's revolution English guns are firing on your wives and children. The English Military Billhas been refused. Sir Roger Casement is being persecuted. Throw away your arms; we give you a hearty welcome.
"We are Saxons. If you don't fire, we won't."
The Irish Brigade and the Irish Volunteers who rose in rebellion in Dublin were alike recruited from the same class. Such are the unhappily wayward circumstances of Irish life that the tremendous fact whether this lad or that was to fight for England in Flanders or against her in Dublin was in many cases decided by mere chance or accident. At any rate, the kith and kin of numbers of men of the Irish Brigade were among the Sinn Feiners. A widowed mother in Dublin had, in consequence, a most tragic experience. The post on Easter Monday morning brought her a letter from a company officer of a battalion in the Irish Brigade announcing that her son had been killed in action. "He died for Ireland," said the officer, knowing that it was true and that it would help to soften her maternal grief. Before the day was out her other son, wearing the green uniform of the Irish Volunteers, staggered home mortally wounded, and as he lay gasping out his life on the floor he, too, used the same phrase of uplifting memories: "Mother, don't fret. Sure, I'm dying for Ireland."
The effect of the German placards on the battalion of Munster Fusiliers, then holding the British line, was very far astray from that which their authors hoped for and intended. A fusillade of bullets at once bespattered the wheedling phrases. What fun to make a midnight foray on the German trenches and carry off the placards as trophies! No sooner was the adventure suggested than it was agreed to. In the darkness of night a body of twenty-five men and two officers of the Munsters crawled out into No Man's Land. They were discovered when about half-way across by a German searchlight, and then the flyingbullets of two machine-guns commenced to splutter about them. Some of the men were killed; some were wounded. The others lay still for hours in the rank grass before they resumed their stealthy crawl, like the Indians they used to read of in boyhood stories, and, having noiselessly cut their way under the enemy entanglements, they sprang, with fixed bayonets and terrifying yells, into the trench. The Germans, startled out of their senses by this most unexpected visit, scurried like rabbits into the nearest dug-outs. The notice-boards were then seized and borne in triumph to the Irish trenches, to the unbounded delight and pride of the battalion; and they are now treasured among the regiment's most precious spoils of vanquished enemies.
A few days later, on the morning of April 27, the Germans tried what blows could do where lying blandishments had failed; and the Irish Brigade had to face, for the first time, an infantry attack in force. The enemy began their operations by concentrating a bombardment of great intensity upon trenches held by Dublin Fusiliers. Then, shortly after five o'clock, there came on the light breeze that blew from the German lines a thick and sluggish volume of greenish smoke. "Poison gas! On with your helmets!" Surely, the hearts of the most indomitable might well have quailed at the thought of the writhing agony endured by those who fall victims to this new and most terrible agency of war. Instead of that, the flurry and excitement of putting on the masks was followed by roars of laughter as the men looked at one another and saw the fantastic and absurd beings, with grotesque goggle-eyes, into which they had transformed themselves. But they were not the only monsters in the uncanny scene. Like grey spectres, sinister and venomous, the Germans appeared as they came on, partly screened by the foul vapour whichrolled before them. Not one of them reached the Irish trenches. The Dublins, standing scathless in the poison clouds which enveloped them, poured out round after round of rifle fire, until the Germans broke and fled, leaving piles of their dead and wounded at the wire entanglements, and the body of the officer who had led them caught in the broken strands.
Two hours later, that same morning, there was another sally from the German trenches, under cover of gas, against a different section of the Irish. The parapets here had been so demolished by shell fire that the Germans gained a footing in the trenches. But they were hardly in before they were out again. "The time during which the Germans were in occupation of our trenches was a matter of minutes only," says the war correspondent ofThe Times. They were put to rout by the Inniskillings, who came up from the reserve trenches at the double. "Never was a job more cleanly and quickly done," addsThe Timescorrespondent. On the next occasion that the Germans launched an attack with gas, they had themselves to drink, so to speak, the poison cup they had prepared for the Irish. That was two days subsequently, on April 29. "Providence was on our side," writes Major William Redmond, "for the wind suddenly changing, the gas blew back over the German trenches where the Bavarians had already massed for attack. Taken by surprise, they left their front line and ran back across the open under the heavy and well-directed fire of our artillery. In one battalion of that Bavarian Infantry Regiment the losses from their own gas and from our fire on that day were stated to be, by a deserter, over eight hundred; and the diary of a prisoner of another battalion captured on the Somme in September states that his regiment also had about five hundred gassed cases, a large number of whom died."
The Irish Division continued to hold theHulluch-Loos sector of the line until the end of August 1916. They were subjected to severe bombardments. It was a common occurrence for the enemy to send from two to five thousand 5.9 shells a day into their trenches. What fortitude and grim determination must they not have had at their command to enable them to pass unshaken through these terrible ordeals. They retaliated in the way they love best, with many a dashing raid on the German positions.
For conspicuous gallantry in these operations the Military Cross was awarded to several of the officers. In the cases of Captain Victor Louis Manning and Lieutenant Nicholas Joseph Egan of the Dublin Fusiliers, the official record says that "by skilful and determined handling of their bombing parties they drove off three determined bomb attacks by the enemy in greatly superior numbers," and that "they continued to command their parties after they had both been wounded," gives but a faint idea of the faring nature of their deed. A small counter-mine was exploded under a German mine at a point between the opposing lines, but nearer to those of the Germans. The Germans were able to occupy the mound first and establish a machine-gun on it, with which they dominated the Dublin trenches. Volunteers being called for to clear them out, Lieutenant Egan and a small party of privates, armed with bombs, rushed out and carried the position. Then they had to hold it against German counter-attacks which were launched during the next three days. Lieutenant Egan was wounded in the wrist early in the fight, but he and six men, being plentifully supplied with bombs, held their ground doggedly. Instead of waiting for the Germans to reach the mound, in what threatened to be the worst of the counter-attacks, the party of Dublins advanced to meet them and drove them back, thus conveying the impression that they were ingreater strength than was really the case. On the night of the third day another party, under Captain Manning, came to their support. After a further series of encounters had ended in favour of the Dublins, the Germans abandoned the hope of recapturing the post, which was subsequently strongly consolidated by the victors. On the fourth day, when the struggle had definitely ended in favour of the Dublins, and Lieutenant Egan was about to return to the lines, a bomb fell at his feet. He was blown a distance of fifteen yards, and was picked up seriously wounded in the thigh. Lieutenant Egan is a grandson of Mr. Patrick Egan of New York, well known in the stormy agrarian agitation in Ireland under Parnell and Davitt as the treasurer of the Land League. Previous to the war Lieutenant Egan was in business in Canada.
Another fine exploit standing to the credit of the Irish Brigade was that of Lieutenant Patrick Stephen Lynch of the Leinsters, who got the Military Cross "for conspicuous gallantry when successfully laying and firing a torpedo under the enemy's wire." It was an uncommon deed, and just as uncommon is the very remarkable tribute with which the official record ends: "His cool bravery is very marked and his influence over his men very great." The Brigadier-General, George Pereira, D.S.O., in a letter of congratulation to Lieutenant Lynch, dated July 1, 1916, says: "Your leading the attack along the parapet was splendid, but you must be more careful another time." Before the month was out Lieutenant Lynch got a bar to his Military Cross—in other words, he had won the distinction twice over—an honour which, as General Hickie wrote to him, was well deserved, and likely to be very rare. This young Waterford man—a fine type of the fearless and dashing Irish officer, made out of a civilian in two years—was promotedCaptain in the Leinsters, and was killed on his birthday and the completion of his twenty-fifth year, December 27, 1916. The battalion was plunged into grief by the loss of Captain Lynch. "'Paddy'—the name we all knew him by from the C.O. down to the youngest sub.—was considered the most efficient officer in this battalion, and he was certainly the most popular," writes Lieutenant H.W. Norman, an officer of the Captain's company. "Everybody mourns his death, and when the news got to his men they could not believe that such a brave and daring officer could be killed, but the news was only too true; and when it was confirmed I saw many's the officer and man crying like children. He lost his life to save his men, who were in a trench that was being heavily shelled. He went up with a sergeant, in spite of danger and certain death, to get them out, and on the way up a shell landed in the trench where they were, killing both instantaneously." Another noble deed was that for which Lieutenant John Francis Gleeson, Munster Fusiliers, won the Military Cross. "Under heavy rifle fire and machine-gun fire, he left his trench to bring in a wounded man lying within ten yards of the enemy entanglements."
It was also in connection with these raids on the German trenches that the Irish Division gained the first of its Victoria Crosses. The hero is Captain Arthur Hugh Batten-Pooll of the Munster Fusiliers—a Somerset man, and he got the V.C. "for most conspicuous bravery whilst in command of a raiding party." "At the moment of entry into the enemy's lines," the official record continues, "he was severely wounded by a bomb, which broke and mutilated all the fingers of his right hand. In spite of this he continued to direct operations with unflinching courage, his voice being clearly heard cheering on and directing his men. He was urged, but refused, toretire. Half an hour later, during the withdrawal, whilst personally assisting in the rescue of other wounded men, he received two further wounds. Still refusing assistance, he walked unaided to within a hundred yards of our lines, when he fainted, and was carried in by the covering party." Captain D.D. Sheehan of the Munster Fusiliers supplies the following spirited account of the raid—