The Irish on the Somme Part 7

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 German attack. 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."

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 thee Who are born of thee?

Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set; G.o.d, 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 soldier Boldly 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 att.i.tude towards it is like that of Dr. Johnson when he took up philosophy--"somehow cheerfulness was always breaking in." The English soldier will not 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 antic.i.p.ation of glory in a pending action. An agricultural labourer who had become 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 was.h.i.+n' 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 divars.h.i.+on 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 the course 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 apt than 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!"

CHAPTER IX

THE IRISH BRIGADE

"EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS FAITHFUL"

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 Sat.u.r.day they literally pounced upon Guinchy, and in between they lay in open trenches under continuous sh.e.l.l 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 pa.s.s 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 that something like a radiance s.h.i.+mmered 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 of _The 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 days before. 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 d.a.m.ned 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 das.h.i.+ng, 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. John Redmond 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 his election to the House of Commons. Speaking at an early recruiting meeting, he said that, should circ.u.mstances 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 b.u.t.tevant and Fermoy, co.

Cork, where the men first a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sortment of all types and cla.s.ses was the rough material out of which was fas.h.i.+oned, by training and discipline, a superb 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 due course 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 a.s.sistant Quartermaster-General to the 8th Division.

In 1912 he was appointed a.s.sistant Quartermaster-General of the Irish Command. On the outbreak of the war General Hickie became Deputy a.s.sistant 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 inst.i.tution 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. It is 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 sh.e.l.ling 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 sh.e.l.led 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 pa.s.sed 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 and at' the Hun. The Connaughts arrived one evening just as our line was being heavily sh.e.l.led, 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 sh.e.l.l 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 the _Glasgow Herald_ of 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 messages forward under heavy fire, as all telephone communication had been cut. The task was one of extreme danger, but the men succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng 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.

CHAPTER X

IRISH REPLIES TO GERMAN WILES AND POISON GAS

HOW THE MUNSTERS CAPTURED THE ENEMY'S WHEEDLING PLACARDS

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 Bill has been refused. Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt is being persecuted. Throw away your arms; we give you a hearty welcome.