The Irish at the Front. Michael MacDonagh

in the battle line, who, at the call of danger and national opportunity, by passing into the soldier's panoply have lifted the name of Irishmen to a new plane in the world's eyes, and opened to their country's cause a new outlook? To themselves the same opportunity of ennoblement comes. The ranks of their brothers in the field are thinning under the wastage of war. Will they keep them filled? Aye, will they! I have given my lifetime, such as it has been, to the service of Ireland in a deep faith in the essential nobility and wisdom of the Irish people. I should be untrue to that faith if for a moment I had any doubt on this matter—if I could harbour for a moment the idea that the young men of Ireland could think unmoved of the wistful bewildered faces of their noble brothers while they held back, could watch the ranks of the Irish armies thinning, and the glorious regiments, brigades, and divisions gradually filling up with others than Irish soldiers until their character as Irish armies finally vanished and ceased to exist—and something, I fear, would go with that character which Ireland might never get back. No, the Irish race has not changed, as these very soldiers have proved. Chivalry is of its essence, and nations who do not want to die, but to live, as Ireland does, must act through their essential qualities. Those brave sons in the field need not fear for the honour they have won for their country. Their brothers are coming to them. Ireland's armies will be maintained.

      J.E. REDMOND.

      February, 1916

      FOOTNOTES:

      [1] One is reminded of tributes to Meagher's Brigade at Fredricksburg in the American Civil War. "Braver men," writes Horace Greely, in his "American Conflict," "never smiled at death. Never did men fight better or die, alas! more fruitlessly than did Hancock's corps, especially Meagher's Irish Brigade, composed of the 63rd, 69th, and 88th New York, 28th Massachusetts, and the 116th Pennsylvania, which dashed itself repeatedly against those impregnable heights, until two-thirds of its numbers strewed the ground" (vol. ii., p. 345). In the same book Greely quotes the following from the correspondent of the London Times, watching the battle from the heights, and writing from Lee's headquarters: "To the Irish Division commanded by General Meagher was principally committed the desperate task of bursting out of the town of Fredricksburg and forming under the withering fire of the confederate batteries to attack Marye's Heights. Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, or at Waterloo was more undoubted courage displayed by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic attacks which they directed against the almost impregnable position of the foe."

CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

THE RETREAT FROM MONSToC

       Table of Contents

      HOW THE MUNSTERS SAVED THE GUNS AND GOT RINGED ROUND WITH FIRE

      Regular battalions of all the Irish regiments were included in the British Expeditionary Force which left for France, at the outbreak of war, in the early weeks of August, 1914. For its size it was the finest Army that the world has ever seen, in equipment, discipline, and martial ardour. It was commanded by Field-Marshal Sir John French, the scion of an Irish family long settled in Roscommon, of which Lord De Freyne is the head, and a soldier who made a brilliant reputation as a cavalry leader in the South African War.

      On the morning of Sunday, August 23rd, two of the three Army Corps which composed the Force were extended along a front of twenty-five miles east and west of Mons, a Belgian town of 25,000 inhabitants and the centre of coal mining, iron, and glass works. In the First Corps, under Sir Douglas Haig, were the 1st Irish Guards, the 2nd Munster Fusiliers, and the 2nd Connaught Rangers. The Second Corps, under Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, included the 2nd Irish Rifles and the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment. The 4th Royal Irish Dragoons were with the cavalry. An Irish trooper of that regiment on outpost duty had the distinction of opening the Great War between England and Germany by firing the first shot, which brought down a Uhlan officer, in the early hours of Saturday, August 22nd, fifteen miles beyond Mons, on the road to Brussels.

      The Battle of Mons, the first encounter in force between the British and the Germans, commenced at twenty minutes to one o'clock on Sunday, August 23rd. Not a German was then in sight. But an enemy aeroplane hovered overhead, like a hawk peering for prey in the fields and hedges, and there was a burst of shrapnel over the British lines, followed by the booming of distant artillery. An attack so soon was unexpected. The bells of Mons had been ringing for the Sunday services, as usual, all the morning, and the Cathedral was crowded with worshippers at the High Mass when the sound of the German guns broke startlingly in upon their devotions. It was a beautiful day, and many of the men in one of the Irish regiments billeted in a farmyard close to the town were bare but for their trousers—availing themselves of the warm sunshine to wash and dry their shirts and socks after their long tramp in France and Belgium—when the bugles rang out "Stand to arms." The Germans were unseen, but having on Saturday beaten the French at Charleroi—to the British right—they were advancing in overwhelming numbers, under Von Kluck, in the cover of the woods, railway embankments and hedgerows. Soon the sharp crackle of musketry was added to the cannonading of the guns, and the sabre and lance of cavalry gleamed in the sun.

      The first of the Irish regiments to exchange shots with the enemy's infantry were the 2nd Rifles, who suffered severely, holding a position in the suburbs of Mons. The 2nd Royal Irish Regiment defended a village behind the town, and on the main road leading south. A Gordon Highlander named Smiley says the Irish were "fearfully cut up" when his company, about two miles behind, were directed to advance to their relief. The Gordons crept up the road, and reached the trenches of the Irish at dusk. Another Gordon says:—"When we got to the trenches the scene was terrible. The Irish were unprepared for the sudden attack. They were having dinner when the Germans opened on them, and their dead and wounded were lying all around."

      The Irish Guards, who lay to the east of Mons, on the British right, had, as the regiment's first experience of warfare, to meet the shock of a cavalry charge. One of the most popular recruiting posters in the early days of the war was a picture of a comical-looking Tommy on the field of battle. He was represented striking a match to light his pipe, and saying, with a devil-may-care glint in his roguish eye, "Half a mo', Kaiser," while German horsemen in the background were charging towards him. The idea was suggested to the artist by an incident in the encounter between the Irish Guards and the Germans at Mons. "I am told," says an English newspaper correspondent, "that when the German cavalry were only 200 yards away one Irish Guardsman momentarily put down his rifle and begged a cigarette of a comrade, which he coolly lit. Then they 'prepared to receive cavalry,' and did it in better order and with much less excitement than if they had been about to witness the finish of a St. Leger." In this we have an example of the easy bearing in the presence of the advancing foe for which, by all accounts, the Irish are remarkable. Such imperturbability springs not so much from contempt of the enemy, as from confidence in their own prowess. The two front ranks were kneeling, and presenting a double row of steel. Their virgin bayonets, seen now for the first time on a field of battle, glittered as sharp and terrible as if they had around them the halo of a hundred victories. Standing behind were two other ranks who poured a stream of rifle fire into the German horsemen. So the Irish Guards met the whirlwind of galloping horses and flashing swords, and drove back the survivors in a ragged, straggling line. They were eager to start winning battle honours for their banners, and Mons is a brilliant opening of a list that promises to be lengthy and crowded before this Great War terminates.

      Then came the order for a general retreat of the British forces. In the evening Sir John French found out that he was vastly outnumbered in men and guns—250,000 Germans to 82,000 British—and saw that if his Army were to escape being outflanked and annihilated they must retire until they got behind some substantial line of natural defence which they could hope to hold against such fearful odds.