The Irish on the Somme Part 10

department of the Central Argentine Railway at Rosario, and, hastening home, got his commission in the Leinster Regiment. For his services at the Front he received the Certificate of the Irish Brigade. It was at Guillamont that Lieutenant Holland won the Victoria Cross. The official account of his exploits is as follows--

"For most conspicuous bravery during a heavy engagement, when, not content with bombing hostile dug-outs within the objective, he fearlessly led his bombers through our own artillery barrage and cleared a great part of the village in front. He started out with twenty-six bombers and finished up with only five, after capturing some fifty prisoners. By this very gallant action he undoubtedly broke the spirit of the enemy, and thus saved us many casualties when the battalion made a further advance. He was far from well at the time, and later had to go to hospital."

As proof of Lieutenant Holland's dash it is related that the night before the engagement he made a bet of five pounds with a brother officer that he would be first over the parapet when the order came.

He won the bet, the V.C., and, in addition, he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and of St. George of Russia.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WOODEN CROSS

DEATH OF LIEUTENANT T.M. KETTLE OF THE DUBLINS

For all this glory and renown the Irish Brigade had to pay a bitter price. Many a home in Ireland was made forlorn and desolate. The roads of the countryside by which the men went off to the war will be lonely and drear for ever to womenfolk, for never again will they be brightened by the returning foot-steps of son or husband.

One of the most grievous losses which the Brigade sustained was the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Lenox-Conyngham of the Connaught Rangers.

He came of an Ulster soldier family. He was the son of Colonel Sir W.

Fitzwilliam Lenox-Conyngham of Springhill, co. Derry, was born in 1861, and three of his brothers were also serving in the Army with the rank of Colonel. He fell at the head of his battalion, which was foremost in the rush for Guillamont. "I cannot imagine a more fitting death for him," writes Captain Stephen Gwynn, M.P., who served under Colonel Lenox-Conyngham since the days the battalion was formed at Fermoy. "He was never in doubt as to how his men would acquit themselves. To us officers he said things in private which would sound a little arrogant if I quoted them--and yet they have been made good."

The welfare of the men was always his first concern. Captain Gwynn relates that on the return of the battalion one night, after a dreary day of field operations at home, the company officers, feeling very miserable, were gathered about the door of their mess-room, waiting for dinner, when the Colonel called out that their proper place was in the cook-house, seeing that the men were first served. The incident greatly rejoiced the heart of Captain Gwynn, for, having served in the ranks, he knew that the officer who is best served by the men is he who places their comfort and well-being before his own. In France, whenever any compliment was paid to Colonel Lenox-Conyngham, he could not be content until, with frank generosity, he pa.s.sed it on to the company officers. "It is you who have done it," he would say. "He was right too," says Captain Gwynn. "We did the work, and no men were ever less interfered with; but we did it as we had been taught to do it, and because we were kept up to it at every point."

I can only mention a few typical cases of the officers of the Irish Brigade killed at Guillamont and Guinchy. Lieutenant E.R.F. Becher, of the Munster Fusiliers, was but nineteen, and the only child of E.W.

Becher, Lismore, co. Waterford. He was descended in direct line from Colonel Thomas Becher, who was aide-de-camp to King William at the Battle of the Boyne, and was on that occasion presented by the King with his watch, which is still an heirloom in the family. Captain H.R.

Lloyd of the Royal Irish Regiment was descended from the ensign who carried the colours of the Coldstream Guards at Waterloo. He was educated at Drogheda Grammar School, and was at business in Brazil when the war broke out. Lieutenant J.T. Kennedy of the Inniskillings was editor of the _Northern Standard_, Monaghan. Lieutenant Charles P.

Close of the Dublin Fusiliers was a native of Limerick, and conducted a teaching academy in that city. At the time he volunteered he was the commanding officer of the City Regiment of National Volunteers.

Another officer of the National Volunteers was Lieutenant Hugh Maguire, son of Dr. Conor Maguire of Claremorris. He was a university student when he volunteered for service in response to the national call, and got a commission in the Connaught Rangers, but was temporarily attached to the Inniskillings when he was killed. Another gallant youth was Lieutenant Thomas Maxwell, Dublin Fusiliers, son of Surgeon Patrick W. Maxwell of Dublin, who was in his twenty-first year when he fell while in temporary command of the leading company of his battalion in the taking of Guinchy. Then there is Second-Lieutenant Bevan Nolan. He was the third son of Walter Nolan, Clerk of the Crown for South Tipperary. When the war broke out he was in Canada, and, returning at once, obtained a commission in the Royal Irish Regiment.

He was a very gallant young officer, and most popular with his comrades. In the camp the general verdict was: "Nolan is destined for the V.C., or to die at the head of his platoon." He was only twenty-one years of age, and a splendid type of young Tipperary.

The greatest loss in individual brain-power which Ireland suffered was through the death of that brilliant man of letters and economist, Lieutenant T.M. Kettle of the Dublin Fusiliers. He was a son of Andrew J. Kettle, a Dublin farmer, one of the founders of the Land League, and a member of the executive who in 1881, on the arrest of the leaders, Parnell, Davitt and Dillon, signed the No-Rent Manifesto addressed to the tenants. In the House of Commons, where he sat as a Nationalist from 1906 to 1910, young Kettle made a reputation for eloquence and humour of quite a fresh vein. He resigned on his appointment as Professor of National Economics in the National University of Ireland. He was married to Margaret, daughter of David Sheehy, M.P., whose sister is the widow of Sheehy Skeffington, shot by the military in the Dublin Rebellion.

In public life Kettle was a vivid figure, and very Irish. At first he belonged to the extreme, or irreconcilable section of Nationalists, noted for a cast of thought or bias of reasoning which finds that no good for Ireland can come out of England. When England was fighting the Boers he distributed anti-recruiting leaflets in the streets of Dublin. To his const.i.tuents in East Tyrone he once declared that Ireland had no national independence to protect against foreign invasion. "I confess," he added, referring to the over-taxation of Ireland, "I see many reasons for preferring German invasion to British methods of finance in Ireland." But increased knowledge brought wider views. As a result of his experiences in Parliament, where he found in all parties a genuine desire to do what was best for Ireland according to their lights, he approached the consideration of Irish questions with a remarkably tolerant, broad-minded and practical spirit. When the war broke out there was no more powerful champion of the Allies.

The invasion of Belgium, which he had witnessed as a newspaper correspondent, moved him to an intense hatred of Germany, and, throwing himself with all his energy into the recruiting campaign in Ireland, he addressed no fewer than two hundred meetings, bringing thousands of his countrymen to the Colours. One of his epigrammatic and pointed sayings--suggested by the ill-favour of absentee landlordism of old in Ireland--was: "Nowadays the absentee is the man who stays at home."

In a letter written to a friend on the night his battalion was moving up to the Somme, Kettle said he had had two chances of leaving--one on account of sickness and the other to take a Staff appointment. "I have chosen to stay with my comrades," he writes. "The bombardment, destruction and bloodshed are beyond all imagination. Nor did I ever think that valour of simple men could be quite as beautiful as that of my Dublin Fusiliers." On the eve of his death he wrote to his wife another fine tribute to his battalion. "I have never," he says, "seen anything in my life so beautiful as the clean and, so to say, radiant manner of my Dublin Fusiliers. There is something divine in men like that."

Kettle fell in the storming of Guinchy. His friend and comrade, Lieutenant James Emmet Dalton, M.C., states that they were both in the trenches in Trones Wood opposite Guillamont, on the morning of September 8th, discussing the loss of two hundred men and seven officers which the battalion had sustained the day before from German sh.e.l.l fire, when an orderly arrived with a note for each of them, saying, "Be in readiness. Battalion will take up A and B position in front of Guinchy to-night at 12 midnight." Lieutenant Dalton continues: "I was with Tom when he advanced to the position that night, and the stench of the dead that covered our road was so awful that we both used some foot-powder on our faces. When we reached our objective we dug ourselves in, and then, at five o'clock p.m. on the 9th, we attacked Guinchy. I was just behind Tom when we went over the top. He was in a bent position, and a bullet got over a steel waistcoat that he wore and entered his heart. Well, he only lasted about one minute, and he had my crucifix in his hands. Then Boyd took all the papers and things out of Tom's pockets in order to keep them for Mrs. Kettle, but poor Boyd was blown to atoms in a few minutes.

The Welsh Guards buried Mr. Kettle's remains. Tom's death has been a big blow to the regiment, and I am afraid that I could not put in words my feelings on the subject." In another letter Lieutenant Dalton says: "Mr. Kettle died a grand and holy death--the death of a soldier and a true Christian."

Lieutenant Kettle left his political testament in a letter to his wife and in verses addressed to his little daughter. The letter, written a few days before his death, with directions that it was to be sent to Mrs. Kettle if he were killed, says--

"Had I lived I had meant to call my next book on the relations of Ireland and England _The Two Fools; A Tragedy of Errors_. It has needed all the folly of England and all the folly of Ireland to produce the situation in which our unhappy country is now involved. I have mixed much with Englishmen and with Protestant Ulstermen, and I know that there is no real or abiding reason for the gulfs, salter than the sea, that now dismember the natural alliance of both of them with us Irish Nationalists. It needs only a Fiat Lux of a kind very easily compa.s.sed to replace the unnatural by the natural. In the name, and by the seal, of the blood given in the last two years I ask for Colonial Home Rule for Ireland, a thing essential in itself, and essential as a prologue to the reconstruction of the Empire. Ulster will agree. And I ask for the immediate withdrawal of martial law in Ireland, and an amnesty for all Sinn Fein prisoners. If this war has taught us anything it is that great things can be done only in a great way."

The lines, "To my daughter Betty--The Gift of Love," were written "In the field before Guillamont, Somme, September 4, 1916--

"In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown To beauty proud as was your mother's prime-- In that desired, delayed, incredible time You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own, And the dear breast that was your baby's throne, To dice with death, and, oh! they'll give you rhyme And reason; one will call the thing sublime, And one decry it in a knowing tone.

So here, while the mad guns curse overhead, And tired men sigh, with mud for couch and floor, Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, Died not for Flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsman shed And for the secret Scripture of the poor."

These young leaders have won the wooden cross--the symbol of the supreme sacrifice they made that others might live; the symbol, also, of eternal peace for themselves--the wooden cross which marks their graves. From north, south, east and west of Ireland, of differing creeds, of opposing political opinions--these men of the Irish Brigade and the Ulster Division--they lie, as they fought, side by side, comrades in a n.o.ble cause. It is sad to think of the many rare intelligences, ardent and glowing spirits, which are quenched for ever in the little cemeteries that have sprung up along the Allied Front.

The loss to Ireland is incalculable. But gain might come from it, which, weighed in the balance, would not be found wanting, if only the solemn lesson which it teaches were brought home to all: that one in Irish name, as one in Irish fame, are the northerners and southerners who died in France for the liberation of humanity.

Major-General Hickie--as mindful of the memories of those of his men who have fallen as of the well-being of those still in the fighting ranks--erected as a memorial to the dead of the Irish Brigade a statue in white marble of Our Lady of Victories in a town of the district.

Another striking proof of his esteem for the men is afforded by the following Order which he issued on December 18, 1916--

"To-day is the anniversary of the landing of the Irish Division in France; The Divisional Commander wishes to express his appreciation of the spirit which has been shown by all ranks during the past year. He feels that the Division has earned the right to adopt the motto which was granted by the King of France to the Irish Brigade, which served in this country for a hundred years: 'Everywhere and always faithful.' With the record of the past, with the memory of our gallant dead, with this motto to live up to, and with our trust in G.o.d, we can face the future with confidence."

G.o.d SAVE THE KING.

CHAPTER XV

MORE IRISH HEROES OF THE VICTORIA CROSS

DEEDS OF THE HIGHEST MERIT AND l.u.s.tRE

In this war Victoria Crosses are being won in remarkably large numbers, despite dangers and sufferings immeasurably greater than were ever conceived of in any war of the past. It would seem, indeed, as if human nature is capable of withstanding any test to which it can conceivably be put. "Man," said Mr. Lloyd George, "is the bravest animal that G.o.d has made; and, in comparison with him, the lion is an arrant coward."

Up to the end of 1916 the war has contributed 221 additional names to that golden chronicle of valorous deeds--The Roll of the Victoria Cross. Of these as many as thirty-five are Irishmen. That is a most glorious achievement, having regard to the proportion of Irishmen in the Army. The number, taking the Irish regiments, the Irishmen in English and Scottish regiments and in the forces of the different Dominions, is altogether about 500,000; and estimating the entire strength of the Army to be 5,000,000, it will be seen that if the other nationalities won Victoria Crosses in the same ratio to their numbers as the Irish, the Roll of the present war would contain not 221, but 350 names. To put it in another way, the Irish on a basis of numbers would be ent.i.tled only to twenty-two of the 221 Victoria Crosses that have actually been awarded.

But however that may be, the Irish part of the Roll, as it stands, will be found to be a very thrilling record of the gallantry of Irish officers and men in the various theatres of war. Twenty of the thirty-five Irish heroes of the Victoria Cross are dealt with in the first series of _The Irish at the Front_. Of the remaining fifteen, the deeds of four are recounted in the exploits of the Ulster Division; one, in the story of the Irish Brigade--the second Cross that fell to the Brigade having been won by an English officer--and the other ten are dealt with here.

Sub-Lieutenant Arthur Walderne St. Clair Tisdall, V.C., of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, was another of the many gallant Irishmen who distinguished themselves at the memorable first landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, when the Munsters and the Dublins won imperishable renown. The announcement of the award of the Victoria Cross to Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall was not made until March 31, 1916. The following official statement explains the delay--

"During the landing from the ss. _River Clyde_ at V Beach, in the Gallipoli Peninsula, on April 25, 1915, Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall, hearing wounded men on the beach calling for a.s.sistance, jumped into the water, and, pus.h.i.+ng a boat in front of him, went to their rescue. He was, however, obliged to obtain help, and took with him on two trips Leading Seaman Malin, and on other trips Chief Petty Officer Perring and Leading Seamen Curtiss and Parkinson. In all Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall made four or five trips between the s.h.i.+p and the sh.o.r.e, and was thus responsible for rescuing many wounded men under heavy and accurate fire. Owing to the fact that Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall and the platoon under his orders were on detached service at the time, and that this officer was killed in action on May 6, it has now only been possible to obtain complete information as to the individuals who took part in this gallant act."

Sub-Lieutenant Tisdall came of a well-known Irish family, the Tisdalls of Charlesfort, who have been established in co. Meath since the year 1668. The late head of the family, Major Tisdall of the Irish Guards, fell guarding the retreat of the British Army in France in September 1914. The volume of _Memoirs and Poems of A.W. St. C. Tisdall, V.C._, by Mrs. M.L. Tisdall, states that among his ancestors and relatives on both sides were "Crusaders, Royalists, who lost everything--even their family name--for King Charles I; Scotch Covenanters and French Huguenots, who had been driven from their own countries for their faith's sake; Irish patriots who fought at the Battle of the Boyne, a Danish Diplomatist who had danced with Queen Marie-Antoinette; an ancestress who is said to have fired the first cannon at the siege of Gibraltar; a famous Attorney-General for Ireland; a brilliant and versatile Cathedral Chancellor, a Bishop, three missionaries, and many university, military and naval men." He was born at Bombay on July 21, 1890, his father--the Rev. Dr. St. Clair Tisdall (now of St. George's Vicarage, Deal)--being then in charge of the Mohammedan mission of the Church Missionary Society. He was educated at Bedford School from 1900 to 1909, when he left as Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had a distinguished career, culminating in the winning of the Chancellor's Gold Medal in the university in 1913, after which he entered the Home Civil Service. On the outbreak of war he was called to the Colours as an A.B. of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, of which he had been a member for some time previously. He served in the ranks in the Antwerp expedition, and was afterwards given a commission. By this time, the memoirs tell us, "he had acquired great self-control, and had practically conquered two of his Irish handicaps--viz. a hot temper and a certain carelessness, or casualness, in business. Latterly, the 'Tisdall temper,' as it is called in the family, only flashed out in the presence of what he considered wrong or unjust."

The following extract from a letter by an officer of the Royal Navy who took part in the landing in Gallipoli was published in _The Times_ on December 6, 1916--

"It has been, unfortunately, my sad lot to write of the ending on this earth of many heroes, for I have been through much since August 1914; but I sincerely a.s.sure you that I have never seen more daring and gallant deeds performed by any man, naval or military, than those performed by the man I now know to have been Sub-Lieutenant A.W. St. Clair Tisdall, Anson Battalion, R.N.V.R., at the landing from the _River Clyde_ on that terrible 'V' Beach. Throughout the afternoon of April 25 a boat containing an officer (unknown to all) and three bluejackets, one of them a petty officer, was very prominent. The officer and the petty officer did the most daring of things, and were seen by very many. Time after time they visited that awful beach and brought back wounded officers and men. Darkness came on and that officer was nowhere to be found. All the petty officer and bluejackets could say was, 'He's one of those Naval Division gents.' Days and weeks pa.s.sed away, and I and others never ceased trying to find out if we could who and where the unknown hero was. Over and over we discussed in the _River Clyde_ and in dug-outs on the beach how those two had escaped."

It was not till June 15, 1915, that the writer of the letter learned who the hero was. He adds: "His very saving of the wounded and the handling of them was in itself the work of an artist, and a very great one." The end of this gallant officer is told by an A.B. of the Anson Battalion, who, writing to Mrs. Tisdall, says: "On May 6 the Naval Division got orders to make an advance, which we did, and advanced about a mile. When we got nicely settled in the enemy trench your son stood up on the parapet, looking for the enemy, but was not there long before he was shot through the chest, and he never said one word." This was at the first battle of Achi Baba. Tisdall was buried on the night of May 7, a few yards from where he fell. It was a glorious death, but far from the kind of death he had dreamt of. In a poem, "Love and Death," written in 1910, he says--

"Be love for me no hoa.r.s.e and headstrong tide, Breaking upon a deep-rent, sea-filled coast, But a strong river on which sea-s.h.i.+ps glide, And the lush meadows are its peaceful boast.

Be death for me no parting red and raw Of soul and body, even in glorious pain, But while my children's children wait in awe, May peaceful darkness still the toilsome brain."

Corporal William Richard Cotter, an Irishman serving in the East Kent Regiment, got the V.C. for an act of unexampled courage and endurance.

It was a deed which showed to what heights the bravery of Irish soldiers can soar. On the night of March 6, 1916, in the course of a raid made by his company along an enemy trench, his own bombing party was cut off owing to heavy casualties in the centre of the attack. The situation was so serious that Cotter went back under heavy fire to report and bring up more bombs. On the return journey his right leg was blown off close below the knee, and he was wounded in both arms.

By a kind of miracle, the miracle of human courage, he did not drop down and die in the mud of the trench--mud so deep that unwounded men found it hard to walk in it--but made his way for fifty yards towards the crater where his comrades were hard pressed. He came up to Lance-Corporal Newman, who was bombing with his sector to the right of the position. Cotter called to him and directed him to bomb six feet towards where help was most needed, and worked his way forward to the crater against which the Germans were making a violent counter-attack.

Men fell rapidly under the enemy's bomb fire, but Cotter, with only one leg, and bleeding from both arms, took charge. The enemy were repulsed after two hours' fighting, and only then did Cotter allow his wounds to be bandaged. From the dug-out where he lay while the bombardment still continued he called out cheery words to the men, until he was carried down, fourteen hours later. He died of his wounds. A wonderful story of gallantry, endurance and fort.i.tude, it would seem almost incredible were it not established by official record of the awarding of the V.C. to Corporal Cotter--

"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty. When his right leg had been blown off at the knee, and he had also been wounded in both arms, he made his way unaided for fifty yards to a crater, steadied the men who were holding it, controlled their fire, issued orders, and altered the dispositions of his men to meet a fresh counter-attack by the enemy. For two hours he held his position, and only allowed his wounds to be roughly dressed when the attack had quieted down. He could not be moved back for fourteen hours, and during all this time had a cheery word for all who pa.s.sed him. There is no doubt that his magnificent courage helped greatly to save a critical situation."

Cotter was born at Sandgate, near Folkestone, of Irish parents who came from Limerick, and was thirty-four years of age. He was educated at the Catholic School, Folkestone. Always fond of adventure, he ran away to sea as a boy. He then enlisted in the Army, and, after twelve years in the Buffs, came out on the Reserve in 1914, and was employed by the Sandgate Council. He was called up at the outbreak of war. He had lost an eye as the result of an accident, but nevertheless was sent on active service, and this disability enhances the extraordinary heroism of his deed. He was the eldest of six sons, one of whom was killed in France, one was in the Navy, one in Salonika, and another died after serving in the South African War. The chaplain of his regiment wrote to his parents informing them of his death, and said his last words were "Good-bye, G.o.d bless them all." Cotter was previously recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal in December 1915.