The Irish at the Front. Michael MacDonagh

immediately after an action, and sometimes sent home in a letter or an order of the day, from the spontaneous testimony of onlookers of other corps rather than from official reports, the record, so far, of these Irish levies, old and new, is put together. Official mentions are scant. The official account given by Admiral de Robeck of the landing and taking of "V" Beach, with its sunken wire entanglements, one of the most extraordinary of deeds, and valuable in results in spite of the appalling cost to the Irish battalions who accomplished it, for it rendered the landing of the troops that arrived later safe—a feat which General Sir Hunter Weston next day declared to be "without parallel in the history of feats of arms"—did not even mention the names of the glorious Irish regiments—although the names of the regiments concerned in all the other landings were given with eulogies. General Hamilton, in explanation of his meagre references to the Tenth Division at Suvla, says he found it difficult to obtain "living human details." I do not refer to this by way of complaint, though I hope this omission may yet be officially set right. The thing is past, and there is going, we hope, to be a great change in such matters in future. Besides, the facts get known. Such deeds cannot be hidden—they are too great. I refer to the matter to explain why it is that books like this, imperfect as it is, have to be compiled. Other volumes like it will have to supplement the tale. We Irish are determined that henceforth the doings of our armies in the field shall not be in vain in any sense. Piously shall we glean the record, whether official or unofficial, and what our men, our officers, and our Generals think ought to be known shall no longer, so far as we can help it, remain unknown. Our brave lads in the battle-line may rest assured that their country is lovingly and proudly watching them, and that the sacrifice they make in her name will, as they wish it—for their wish is the same as the dying Sarsfield's on the field of Landen—go to her profit.

The record so far brings Ireland great honour. And this excites no jealousy in the Army—for it is from the other corps in the Army itself comes the most generous testimony to the work of the Irish soldiers and the most comrade-like regret where it is thought there has been lack of recognition. What stands out is that on every front, and whether new levies or regulars, the work of the Irish troops has not only been of great merit in every instance, but of exceptional merit, and they have to their credit some of the most splendid and astonishing achievements. The Irish Guards at Mons, the Royal Irish Regiment at Ypres, the London Irish at Loos (dribbling a football before them as they charged—the boys in the trenches, before the charge, holding out the matches with which they had lit their cigarettes to show each other that their hands were not shaking), the regular battalions at "V" Beach, the new "service" battalions of the Tenth Division at Sulva, I name out of a long list to illustrate this statement. To General Mahon's Division, composed exclusively of new levies who were civilians when the war began—thousands of Nationalist families in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught represented its ranks—the terrific open fighting at Suvla Bay (which began with the shelling of the lighters at the landing and the bursting of chains of contact mines as they set foot on shore) was their first experience of being under fire. Undismayed, their coolness undisturbed, they formed for attack as if on the parade ground. These were the "freshies" spoken of in the letter partly quoted above of Captain Thornhill, himself a representative of those magnificent Australian and New Zealand troops whose prowess has been another of the revelations of the war. "The Empire can do with a heap more 'freshies' of the Irish brand," he writes. "Their landing at Suvla Bay was the greatest thing you will ever read of in books by high-brows. Those that witnessed the advance will never forget it. Bullets and shrapnel rained on them, yet they never wavered. … God! the men were splendid. The way they took that hill (now called Dublin Hill) was the kind of thing that would make you pinch yourself to prove that it was not a cheap wine aftermath. How they got there Heaven only knows. As the land lay, climbing into hell on an aeroplane seemed an easier proposition than taking that hill."[1] It may be well to point out, for it bears upon one of the popular fallacies about Irish character, that it is not only in the desperate charge or the forlorn hope that Irish soldiers have proved their worth in this or other wars. They have shown it equally in the tenacity, grim yet cheerful, with which for days and weeks and months difficult positions are held and bitter hardships borne. Again, let it be noted what this whole young Tenth Division proved itself fit for after its months at Gallipoli. When it was decided to occupy Salonika and to march to the aid of the Serbian army it was to the Irish Division, under their splendid Irish commander, General Sir Bryan Mahon, that the place of honour for this desperate enterprise was given. Coming straight from their hard service in the Peninsula, they performed in the Serbian mountain passes above Lake Doiran what General Sarrail, the eminent French Commander, the vanquisher of the Crown Prince's Army at Verdun, has pronounced to be one of the most striking feats of arms of the whole war. Acting as a rearguard against an army ten times their number, they did what was neither expected nor counted upon. But their instinctive military genius, as well as their courage and determination, came into play, and they held up the overwhelming enemy for so long and with such skill that the entire French and British forces were able to withdraw safely to their defensive positions without the loss of a single gun or a single transport wagon.

      One seems to be verging on exaggeration in these accounts, but the thing is bare truth, and I am striving to bring out what has been done for Ireland by the character of these troops. I have indicated their martial quality. But they have brought another quality into the field which is equally characteristic and therefore should at least be mentioned here, and which, perhaps, in the circumstances of the time, deserves a special reference. That is, their religious spirit. Everybody has remarked it. The Irish soldier, with his limpid faith and his unaffected piety, his rosary recited on the hillside, his Mass in the ruined barn under shell-fire, his "act of contrition" in the trench before facing the hail of the assault, his attitude to women, has been mostly a singular impression. And his chaplain! The Irish battalion must have its chaplain as well as its colonel, and both must be of the best. The chaplains of every denomination and of every corps have made a noble name for themselves in this war; but I am speaking here only of the Irish chaplains—of the men like Father Finn, killed at "V" beach, refusing to stay behind on the ship because, as he answered, "The place of the chaplain is with the dying soldier"; and like Father Gwynn, of the Irish Guards, killed at the French front, of whom his battalion commander, a Protestant Irishman, writes these words: "No words of mine could express or even give a faint idea of the amount of good he has done us all out here, or how bravely he has faced all dangers, and how cheerful and comforting he has always been. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that he was loved by every officer, N.C.O. and man in the battalion. The Irish Guards owe him a deep and lasting debt of gratitude, and as long as any of us are left who saw him out here, we shall never forget his wonderful life, and shall strive to lead a better life by following his example." This quality of our soldiers appears to have impressed observers, as well as their fighting quality. It is referred to again and again, and the same transference of thought from the character of the men to the cause of their country, as appears in one of the letters above quoted from a Scottish soldier, a spectator of "V" beach, occurs repeatedly: "The race that can produce such men, who did such glorious work for the Empire, has the most perfect right to get the freedom of its country and the right to rule it. … There is not a man in the service but who would willingly do anything now for the Irish people—yes, the Irish Catholics."

      Thus we see that our Irish troops in this war are fulfilling a mission. As I said at the outset, it is into their keeping, with the eyes of the world upon them, that the cause of their country for the time being has passed. The influence of their action upon her fortunes will extend far beyond the immediate effects which will appear the moment the war is over. No people can be said to have rightly proved their nationhood and their power to maintain it until they have demonstrated their military prowess; and though Irish blood has reddened the earth of every continent, never until now have we as a people set a national army in the field. I have written vainly if I have not shown, moreover, that never was a people more worthily represented in the field than we are to-day by these Irish soldiers. It is heroic deeds entering into their traditions that give life to nations—that is the recompense of those who die to perform them—and to Fontenoy, Cremona, Fredericksburg, and the rest, these soldiers of the Irish people to-day have added Mons, Ypres, Loos, "V" beach, Suvla Bay, Lake Doiran. How do the Irish people regard their armies in the field? How do their brothers at home