THE STORY OF THE MUNSTERS
THE STORY OF
THE MUNSTERS
AT
ETREUX, FESTUBERT,
RUE DU BOIS AND
HULLOCH
BY
MRS. VICTOR RICKARD
AUTHOR OF "DREGS," "THE LIGHT ABOVE THE CROSSROADS,"
"THE FRANTIC BOAST," "THE FIRE OF GREEN BOUGHS"
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY_
LORD DUNRAVEN
_Honorary Colonel, 5th Royal Munster Fusiliers_
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXVIII
DEDICATED TO
VICTOR RICKARD
AND HIS COMRADES IN ALL RANKS OF THE
MUNSTER FUSILIERS, WHO FOUGHT AND FELL
IN THE GREAT WAR, 1914-15
* * * * *
"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake."
* * * * *
The shamrock, which forms part of the cap badge of the Royal Munster
Fusiliers, was first introduced, in February 1915, by Lieut.-Colonel
Rickard, in the Second Battalion, with the object of giving a
distinctively Irish emblem to all ranks of the Regiment. It is now worn
by all the battalions of the Munsters.
PREFACE
I should like to express my thanks to the officers of the Royal Munster
Fusiliers, and also to the friends and relatives who have helped me
to collect and arrange this book. In the following accounts of the
engagements of Etreux, Festubert, Rue du Bois and Hulloch, I do not
wish in any sense to appear as an historian; that task awaits far abler
and more qualified hands. What follows has been threaded together as a
little tribute to the men who gave their lives for an Ideal, and who
were brave soldiers in the Great War.
The first three chapters of this book appeared in _New Ireland_ during
the summer of 1915, and were shortly afterwards republished by that
paper, together with the supplementary letters, as _The Story of the
Munsters_. A second impression was sold out by the end of the year,
since when no copies of the book have been obtainable. The new features
of the present edition are the historical Introduction specially
written by Lord Dunraven, to whom my best thanks are due, and the four
pictures and the account of the Munsters at Hulloch which have already
appeared in _The Sphere_. Its Editor, Mr. Clement Shorter, has a
special claim to the lasting gratitude of the Munster Fusiliers for the
deep interest he has always shown in all records of the Regiment; and
it is by his permission that the illustrations, which add incalculably
to the slender story itself, are here reproduced. My thanks are also
offered to Mr. Geddes, who has designed the colour plate on the cover,
and brought into the book a sense of the traditions which surround the
regimental flags.
L. RICKARD.
INTRODUCTION
The origin of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, like that of those other
great Irish Regiments, the Dublins and the Leinsters, is inextricably
bound up with those great movements of Imperial expansion which took
place in the eighteenth century. Of the Leinsters one battalion
was originally raised in Canada and another in India. Both regular
battalions of the Dublins were raised in India. Like them, the
1st and 2nd Battalions of the Royal Munsters (before the Caldwell
reconstruction the 101st and 104th Foot) were originally regiments
in the army of the East India Company, raised out of British-born
volunteers in India and only taken over as part of the British Army
when the control of India passed from the Company to the Crown. It
is for this reason that on the grenade which, in common with other
Fusilier battalions, is worn by the Munsters the royal tiger of India
is superimposed.
Until the present war, with the exception of the notable service
performed by the 1st Battalion in South Africa, all the battle
honours of the Regiment come from India or the surrounding countries.
The regimental colours record service for the 1st Battalion at the
following actions: Plassey, Condore, Masulipatam, Badara, Buxar,
Rohilcund, Carnatic, Sholinghur, Guzerat, Deig, Bhurtpore, Afghanistan,
Ghuznee, Ferozeshah, Sobraon, Pegu, Delhi, Lucknow and Burmah; while
for the 2nd Battalion, raised as we shall see eighty years after the
first, there are the Punjaub, Chillianwallah, Goojerat, Pegu and Delhi.
To trace these records in detail would be to write the history of the
steps by which we acquired our Indian Empire. They explain sufficiently
(with the regimental origin in the Company's forces) why there were no
Munsters in the Napoleonic wars.
The 1st Battalion dates its corporate existence from the 22nd December,
1756, when Clive, who had just returned to India and was about to begin
the most glorious epoch of his career, raised it under the title of the
Bengal European Regiment. The Regiment fought in his army at Plassey
and Condore and in every action of that war up to the great victory of
Buxar in October 1764. In 1779 it was sent to the Presidency of Madras
and under Eyre Coote fought at Windeywash; in 1794 it took part under
Abercrombey in the Rohilla wars; it was present (being known then,
after the fashion of the India Army, by the name of its Colonel--
Clark's Corps) at the occupation of Macao in 1808. In 1839 it served
in Afghanistan, when out of volunteers for it the 104th Regiment (now
the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers) was formed. It served with
distinction in the Sikh War, and as a reward for its services was
raised to the dignity of a fusilier corps. The colours carried by the
Regiment at this period hang in Winchester Cathedral. It went through
all the fiercest engagements of the Mutiny and was present at the siege
and capture of Lucknow. In 1861 it went under the Crown and became the
101st Regiment (Royal Bengal Fusiliers). From 1868 to 1874 it served
in England, then abroad again, and in 1883 became the 1st Battalion
Royal Munster Fusiliers. In 1899 it had the distinction of being sent
to South Africa from Fermoy before mobilisation, being the first home
regiment to go out to the war. It served with great distinction
in Lord Methuen's force at Belmont, and afterwards on the march to
Pretoria, and in the latter period of the war supplied a mounted
infantry battalion.
The history of the 2nd Battalion is shorter, but no less glorious.
Formed during the first Afghan War in 1839 out of surplus volunteers
for its sister Battalion, it took part in the great victory of
Chillianwallah, went through the Burmese War 1851-53, and in the Mutiny
was part of the force which stormed Delhi. In 1861 it was brought into
the line as the 104th Regiment, but served for ten years more in India
before it came home. In 1887 it joined the Second Burmah Expedition,
and like the 1st Battalion served with great distinction in the South
African War in Natal, and later under Lord Kitchener in the Transvaal
and Cape Colony. The 2nd Battalion was sent to France at the beginning
of the present war. It suffered very severely and has been reinforced
by the 3rd, 4th and 5th Battalions. The 1st, 6th and 7th Battalions
have served at the Dardanelles, and after the evacuation of Gallipoli
the 1st Battalion went to France. They have also suffered heavy losses.
Both on the Western front and in the East the Regiment has splendidly
maintained its ancient renown. To go further into modern history
would be to trespass upon Mrs. Victor Rickard's admirable pages. I
write these few lines about the origin of the Regiment because they
may be interesting to her readers. We must not forget that though the
bones come from Bengal, the blood and sinews are Irish. It is as an
Irish regiment that the Munsters are celebrated in these pages. It is
Irishmen who have won its new battle honours. It is Irish men and
women who have suffered, Irishmen who have triumphed in the field. The
record of the Regiment is splendid, and I am proud to sign myself
DUNRAVEN,
_Hon. Col. 5th Battalion_,
_Royal Munster Fusiliers_.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE STAND OF THE MUNSTERS AT ETREUX. 1
THE MUNSTERS AT FESTUBERT 17
THE MUNSTERS AT RUE DU BOIS 32
THE MUNSTERS AT HULLOCH 45
THE STAND AT ETREUX 55
APPENDIX 67
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE MUNSTERS AT ETREUX
(_Drawn by Christopher Clark_) _To face page_ 1
MAJOR P. A. CHARRIER (_Photograph_) " 6
THE MUNSTERS AT FESTUBERT
(_Drawn by Philip Dadd_) " 17
LT.-COL. A. M. BENT, C.M.G.
(_Photograph_) " 24
LT.-COL. G. J. RYAN, D.S.O. (_Photograph_) " 28
THE LAST ABSOLUTION AT RUE DU
BOIS . (_Drawn by F. Matania_) " 34
LT.-COL. V. G. H. RICKARD (_Photograph_) " 38
CAPT. J. CAMPBELL-DICK (_Photograph_) " 40
THE MUNSTERS AT HULLOCH
(_Drawn by F. Matania_) " 45
MAJOR J. W. CONSIDINE (_Photograph_) " 49
MAPS TO ILLUSTRATE THE STAND OF
THE MUNSTERS AT ETREUX (_Sketch A_) _page_ 57
(_Sketch B_) " 63
OFFICERS OF THE 2ND RL. MUNSTER
FUSILIERS, MAY 1915 (_Photograph_) _To face page_ 66
[Illustration: THE MUNSTERS AT ETREUX, AUGUST 27TH, 1914
_Drawn by Christopher Clark._] [_To face p. 1._]
THE STAND OF THE
MUNSTERS AT ETREUX
_August 27th, 1914_
(WHICH TOOK PLACE DURING THE RETREAT
FROM MONS)
"Then lift the flag of the last crusade,
And fill the ranks of the last brigade,
March on to the fields where the world's remade
And the ancient dreams come true."
"A Song of the Irish Armies." By T. M. KETTLE.
On the 13th of August, 1914, the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers
left Aldershot on their way to an unknown destination "somewhere in
France."
The Expeditionary Force was reaching forward, as one of the officers
wrote, towards "a jolly in Belgium," and he also added, "some of us
will not come back." The same joy that was with Garibaldi and his
thousand when they went forth to the redemption of a small and gallant
race, went, we all know, with the men of the First Division. Each one
knew that an hour lay ahead when great issues were to be joined, and
the Munsters were proud to feel that the chance was with them to add to
the records of their Regimental history.
The Battalion embarked at Southampton, and the transport steamed out
shortly after noon, arriving at Le Havre at 3 a.m. on the 14th of
August. From there they marched to a rest camp on the ridge west of
Harfleur, where they remained until the 16th of August, and once more
they marched to Havre, where they entrained for the concentration
area at Le Nouvion. On Sunday, the 17th, Le Nouvion was crowded with
French troops, and the townsfolk, wild with enthusiasm, welcomed the
Munsters, and from thence the Regiment marched to Bouey, three miles
distant from Etreux. The dawn of the 22nd of August saw the Battalion
on the road again, marching towards Mons.
All of this is now like the fragment of a dream, and the troops who
marched and sang are many of them on the further side of the boundary;
but still the memory remains, though the rows and ranks of men are
gone, and, like the clerk in the old story, "Come to Oxford and their
friends no more."
"It's a long way to Tipperary,
A long wa-ay to go."
* * * * *
All round and about Chapeau Rouge, a village near the river Sambre, and
not far from Le Cateau, the country is a bower of green hedgerows in
the month of August. In ordinary times, when trenches, deeper than any
grave, and wire entanglements, and all the devastation of war is not,
a country cut up into small fields has an intimate and friendly look.
It suggests little things, and is small and near and has none of the
sudden desolation of open space, stretching empty to the sky line. But
what is beautiful in times of peace may in one moment become terrible
in time of war, and the little hedgerows cost Ireland dear on the
morning of the 27th of August, 1914.
The morning broke sullen and heavy, and the distant electric
premonition of coming storm and coming battle vibrated in the air.
The Munsters were placed as the Right Battalion, next to them came
the Coldstream, further on the Scots Guards, with the Black Watch in
reserve. The frontage of the Munsters extended from Chapeau Rouge,
where the roads crossed, to another cross roads north of Fesmy. Major
Charrier (commanding the Munsters) had explicit orders to hold the
cross roads above Chapeau Rouge, unless or until he received orders to
retire. Dawn found the men of B Company, commanded by Captain Simms,
busily digging trenches and strengthening their position, while the air
was comparatively cool.
The German attack was expected in the course of the morning, and B
Company was the first company of the Battalion to receive its baptism
of fire.
For men whose record shows them proud, fiery, and dashing soldiers, the
task alloted to B Company was no easy one. It was necessary that their
position should be kept secret, and when at last the crackle and rattle
of German musketry broke the tension of this waiting, the Company
holding the outpost did not reply. The German patrol, whose business
it was to locate their position, kept up an intermittent fire, and
the small handful of Irish did the hardest thing of all for them--they
waited. The lulls and bursts followed one upon the other; tremendous
echoes repeated the volleys of sound, and the swinging shrill of flying
bullets continued overhead, punctuated now and again by spells of
intense quiet.
Suddenly the midsummer storm broke with a violence that is
indescribable. Torrents of drenching rain soaked the men to the skin
and collected in the trenches, and in the vortex of the storm the
Germans advanced to the attack. In one moment it was "War, war, bloody
war," and the first onslaught fell upon B Company, and D Company
(commanded by Captain Jervis) with Lieutenant Crozier and Lieutenant R.
W. Thomas.
[Illustration: MAJOR P. A. CHARRIER
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, killed at the head of his Battalion at
Etreux, near Mons, August 27th, 1914
Record of Service:--West Africa, 1900--Operations in Ashanti,
slightly wounded; Despatches, London Gazette, 8th March, 1901. South
African War, 1902--Employed with Imperial Yeomanry operations in
Cape Colony, May, 1902. Queen's Medal, with two clasps. East Africa,
1903-4--Operations in Somaliland on Staff (as Special Service Officer).
Employed on Transport (from November, 1903). Medal, with clasp.]
[_To face p. 6._]
The Munsters repelled the attack with fierce determination, and the
little fields around Chapeau Rouge became a place of violent and
terrible memory, but the men held doggedly to their position until the
order came to withdraw a mile to the rear. B Company was at this point
detailed to act as right flank guard on the east, where the attack was
hottest, and in endeavouring to carry out this order, they were cut off
from the flank by the thick green hedgerows, and so to them came the
adventure of maintaining a little battle of their own.
The rain continued and the mud grew deep, and very slowly and without
heavy loss B Company fell back through Fesmy, fighting through the
small wide street until it rejoined the Battalion on the further side.
They had shaken the Germans off for the moment in spite of their
immensely superior numbers, and had done most gallantly. After a short
delay Major Charrier sent them to take the head of the column and
march to Oisy as advance guard.
The day continued showery for some hours, with occasional drenching
bursts, but the men cared nothing for the discomfort of soaked clothes.
It has been decreed by the Power that rules the destiny of men and
nations that the call of a bugle makes the heart of Ireland glad.
There was real adventure in their lives that morning; the actual vital
essence of it was touched by the rank and file of the marching men, for
abstract safety as a condition to be desired has never entered very
much into the Celtic vision of what life can give in those moments when
it is at its best.
From Fesmy the Munsters pushed on to Etreux, there to join the main
body of troops holding that town.
* * * * *
Up the wide road where the bridge at Oisy spans the curve of the river
Sambre, and some miles from where the Munsters were retiring towards
Etreux, about sixty men of the Battalion, under Captain Emerson, took
up their position, hoping to hold the road. They were here reinforced
by the Coldstream Guards, who were endeavouring to get into touch with
the Munsters, now separated from them by five miles of road, upon which
the enemy were advancing rapidly.
To the meadow near the bridge where the Munsters were collected an
orderly carrying a dispatch came up at about three o'clock in the
afternoon. The time of the dispatch was not marked upon the message,
which was to order the Munsters to retire "at once." The orderly who
carried the message had, he said, been chased by the enemy, and after
lying hidden for a time under the nearest cover, believed that it was
not possible for him to bring the message through to Major Charrier.
Upon this incident the tragedy of the whole day turned. Time had been
lost, time too precious ever to regain; the exclusive supremacy is
nearly always a question of minutes.
Colonel Ponsonby decided that it was best to retire the Coldstreams and
the handful of Munsters who were with them, and these were joined some
miles back by Captain Woods and seventy men, who had fallen back to the
Guise road.
* * * * *
The river Sambre is full of curves, and winds past Fesmy and Etreux.
Just along the right bank there runs a railway line, turning through a
deep cutting into the station of Etreux. From there, the old you or I
who lived before the war could have travelled comfortably across three
frontiers in a few short hours. In this pastoral country, surrounded at
evening by the softness of rising damp, stands Etreux, but none of the
wandering fortunes of life will ever carry anyone back to look at the
same picture any more.
When the Munsters marched onwards the early evening was bright again,
and the heavy clouds had rolled to westward. The little environs
stretched out along the road; a few houses, a cabaret, an orchard
bright with cider apples, some already collected in piles under the
trees; further again another proud house, bigger than the rest, and
then streets, a palisade of trees and a spire. All this seen at a
glance, where the road passed the railway cutting; for in the month
of August war had not yet made France hag-ridden and desolate. Near
to the railway cutting, and on the rise of ground a cross marked a
turn to a side road, and a number of tiny lath crosses stuck into the
grass signified that the good folk of Etreux carried their dead that
way. Beneath the high cross was written "Ave Crux Spes Unica," and its
shadow fell over the road, dividing the Munsters from the village like
the boundary of a frontier.
Within a few yards of the outlying buildings, a sudden burst of rifle
and artillery fire swept through the ranks of the Regiment, informing
them finally and terribly that they were cut off. The men rallied
magnificently, and B Company extended at once. Led by Captain Simms,
they went forward to attack the enemy's main position, which was in the
loopholed house that dominated the road. The railway cutting was held
in force by the Germans, and D Company, commanded by Captain Jervis,
and covered by the steady rifle fire of the men in position by one
of the fields on the side of the road, rushed the railway cutting.
Every man save two were shot down in the attempt; Lieutenant Crozier,
showing the greatest gallantry, crossed a narrow lane, and exposing
himself recklessly to the enemy's fire, shouted, "There they are; come
on, men," and fell, killed instantaneously. The rattle of musketry,
the booming of guns speaking terribly, was everywhere; the air itself
vibrated and the ghastly transformation which men call war, continued.
Everywhere the dead lay in huddled heaps, and the wounded with grey
faces tried to rise, or crawled in maimed agony a little further on to
die.
Bit by bit the shattered remnant of the Battalion fell back into the
orchard, where Captain Chute brought the machine guns along the road
under a hail of lead, and placed them in position. He was wounded in
the side, and immediately afterwards was killed by another bullet.
Led by Major Charrier, the Munsters charged and charged again, against
the enveloping force which now circled them around with a ring of fire,
dropping shells and bullets. Major Charrier, who was twice wounded,
steadily continued the direction of the action. He was standing by one
of the guns which had been put out of action when Lieutenant Gower came
and reported to him, just about sunset. Once more he rallied the men to
the charge, and mortally wounded, he fell as they crossed the road.
Incident by incident the later stages of the heroic stand developed as
the hours passed on, and ammunition could only be renewed by taking
what was left on the dead and dying, and moment after moment gave fresh
hostages to death.
Slowly and dreadfully the twilight came as the German onslaught
gathered force, and the many sounds of battle rose and rose around the
men who, with the Battalion thinned to less than half their fighting
forces, still resisted the massed battalions of German soldiers; but
the Munsters gave themselves with courage and lavishness, strong and
unconsciously splendid. Once more they charged, and the great seas of
uncounted enemy's troops crushed and broke them and forced those who
were left to surrender.
So the bitterest hour of all was the last.
* * * * *
It is told that the German officers said that men had never fought more
bravely; it is also said that they sent back to their headquarters for
a chaplain to bury the Irish dead.
Major Charrier and eight officers of the Munsters were buried near the
trench where the men were laid to rest, under the shadow of the trees
where they had fought their great fight. But though we call them dead,
we know that the spirit that is strong and cheerful, and that has added
to the page of a nation's history, outlives all so-called untimely
endings. The finished work, the completed undertaking, is not for many
in the story of this great war, and it is not a little thing but a fine
deed, to have left a record that betters the honourable traditions of
the Royal Munster Fusiliers.
"Dying ye shall die greatly with a glory that shall surpass the glories
of the past."
[Illustration: THE MUNSTERS AT FESTUBERT
December 22nd, 1914
_Drawn by Philip Dadd._] [_To face p. 17._]
THE MUNSTERS AT FESTUBERT
_December 22nd, 1914._
"Your ashes o'er the flats of France are scattered,
But hold a fire more hot than flesh of ours.
The stainless flag that flutters frayed and tattered,
Shall wave and wave like spring's immortal flowers.
You die, but in your death life grows intenser,
You shall not know the shame of growing old.
In endless joy you wave the holy censer,
And blow a trumpet though your lips are cold."
"To Our Dead." By EDMUND GOSSE.
On the evening of the 20th December, 1914, the 2nd Battalion Royal
Munster Fusiliers, commanded by Colonel A. M. Bent, were billeted in
the outskirts of Bailleul. They were scattered about in the farm houses
and barns, in the narrow, yellow-plastered châteaus, that let in all
the draughts from all the corners of the country, and in the little
villa houses on the threshold of Bailleul itself.
Up to that time Bailleul had escaped from the destruction of falling
shells, and only the far-away boom of guns made war very strongly
evident; that and the masses of British troops and the passing of motor
transport, divorced it from its old dreaming quiet of a few months
back. The weather was intensely cold; an icy west wind came over the
frozen flats, and drove the tearing rain-storms out of the mist-covered
fens.
The Regiment had been some weeks in billets, re-equipping and training,
going steadily through the process by which freshly drafted youngsters
are made into fine soldiers. Colonel Bent was unusually gifted with the
quality that inspires men to realise the value of central control;
his personality and indomitable will made for an influence that the
hundreds of men under his command responded to instinctively. Many of
those who fought with him at Ypres and elsewhere have testified to this.
Previous to December 20th the Battalion had been "standing by" ready
to move at the shortest notice, but on the morning of December 20th a
message was received from Brigade Headquarters to the effect that the
Battalion need no longer be held in readiness; so normal, semi-peace
conditions reigned. They were, however, not destined to enjoy these
conditions for long, nor to turn their thoughts towards the completion
of Christmas festivities, for at 5 p.m. an urgent message was received
by Colonel Bent that the 3rd Brigade, to which the Battalion belonged,
was to be ready to march "as soon as possible."
It was quite dark when the order came, and though the men were
scattered in their billets, at 6.15 p.m. the Munsters were in their
place in the Brigade, and marching out into the stormy darkness. Behind
them the dream of Christmas vanished like so many dreams. Reality took
its place, a reality of a road ankle deep in mud, a tearing blizzard of
rain and hail, and a black drenching tempest to face with bent heads.
For six hours the Battalion marched forward until at Merville a halt
was called; and in an empty factory there was rest and shelter for the
drenched and weary men.
There was no sign anywhere of any promise of day in the sky; it might
have been the commencement of eternal night and of eternal darkness
when the Munsters stood to arms. The men were heavy with their four
hours' sleep, heavy, too, with their load of ammunition and equipment.
They left the factory behind them and took the sodden road, and at last
the ashen grey dawn broke, and the landscape slowly cleared from the
shadow of night, but the rain never ceased nor lessened; and the sound
of the heavy guns told that the "business as usual" of the war had
begun again.
At 8 a.m., outside Bethune, the Battalion halted again awaiting
orders, the men sitting or lying in the mud along the roadside,
keeping as cheerful as circumstances would permit. With his unwavering
cheerfulness and energy, Colonel Bent worked against the conditions
of the weather and the hardships his men were undergoing, affecting
everyone with his own courage and dispelling the despondency of
weariness, which is one of the hardest things a man can face. A
battle itself calls up the human characteristics of dash and fight,
but weariness and rain and mud are cruel adversaries, fought at a
disadvantage. It is in those hours that most of all the magnetism
of personality is of superb value. Afterwards, when the issue is no
longer doubtful and the battle is over, and the definite, conspicuous
end gained, it is easy for anyone to raise a cheer; but sitting in the
liquid mud, weary and very cold, it takes a strong heart and the truest
kind of pluck to rise above it all.
By 3 p.m. orders were received that the Battalion was to occupy the
trenches at Festubert vacated by the Indian troops; the leading Brigade
deployed for attack, and shortly after the Third Brigade were placed
on the left of the First Guards Brigade. This Brigade consisted of the
2nd Welsh Regiment, the 1st Gloucesters, supported by the Munsters,
the 1st South Wales Borderers, and the 4th Royal Welsh Fusiliers
(Territorial). After the issue of these orders the Brigade resumed its
march, through Gorre to Festubert, where the Battalion remained in
reserve, but on the night of the 21st received orders that there was to
be a general attack upon the German line.
All the night of the 21st the Munsters waited, and all the night of the
21st it rained and snowed and stormed.
* * * * *
The pitch darkness of a night of waiting is a memorable experience,
even when there are many such to record. There is the curious feeling
of loneliness common to all humans out in the night. The bright smoke
of fires over the land behind the parapets of the German trenches made
will-o'-the-wisp columns of misty light; sometimes a star shell shot
up, lighting the place like day, and sometimes the crack of a rifle
tore the dark and spattered in the mud of the trench. Life and death
come much closer in the night than they do in the day time, and the
whole almost intolerable mystery of war is intensified a thousandfold.
Very slowly the sullen dawn broke, as if unwilling to reveal the sights
that night clothed over, and the sodden fields and the barns and
farmsteads stood out blackly against the grey. The green and yellowish
water lying over the flats was frozen, and the dead were very visible,
lying in pathetic heaps amid the refuse of a thousand unexpected
things. The weary desolation of dawn over French Flanders passes all
description.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL A. M. BENT, C.M.G.
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, dangerously wounded at Festubert, 22nd
December, 1914
Record of Service:--South African War, 1902--Operations in the
Transvaal, January to April, 1902. Queen's Medal, with three clasps.
North-West Frontier of India, 1908--Operations in Mohmand Country.
Medal with clasp.]
[_To face p. 24._]
The noise grew with the morning light, and the boom and bang of heavy
crashes grew fiercer, until the hour arrived when the Battalion, led
by Colonel Bent, started to the attack.
The men swarmed over the parapets and raced across the fields,
carrying their heavy equipment and following their officers over the
shell-scarred, churned-up earth. Strands of barbed wire beset their
way, and the ground was broken by great shell-holes. Before them, from
the German trenches, the machine guns hammered out their deadly message
of welcome; and the men went gamely on, most splendidly led by their
officers.
Major Thomson, Second in Command, fell across the first German trench,
but would not permit himself to be removed; continuing to issue orders
from where he lay, he was wounded again, the second wound proving
fatal. He met his death unvanquished and unappalled, and his name
remains bound in with the great story of the Regiment. Colonel Bent
fell in the earlier part of the charge, desperately wounded; Major
Day was killed a little later, showing the greatest gallantry; and
Captain Hugh O'Brien, a young Irish officer beloved by his men, and
who had been proved in the South African War to possess unusual dash
and coolness, fell as he shouted to his company, "Get a bit of your
own back, boys." Not twenty yards from where Captain O'Brien fell
Captain Durand met his death. He had joined the 3rd Battalion Royal
Munster Fusiliers in 1906, having served through the Matabeleland and
Mashonaland campaigns in the Rhodesian Horse; he died most nobly,
leading at the extreme point of the advance made by C Company, under
fierce enfilading fire. The sorrow and the heroism of such death is
touched by the great enduring light of glory.
Men fell on the right and left, and again and again they rallied and
stumbled over the broken ground, holding steadily on under the wail
of tearing shrapnel, and at last the Munsters reached their goal, the
given point; and in the fierce counter attack they did not lose an inch
of what they had taken.
So the day passed, and the wounded lay out under the cruel lash of the
sleet and the bitter wind. Not one man returned to Headquarters, except
some wounded who straggled in, dazed and bleeding. The chorus of the
field guns, and the detonation of the great guns, and the crack, crack
of rifle fire went on persistently. Lyddite and high explosives rained
through the murky evening, and still no orders were issued that reached
the Munster Fusiliers. They had gone out, as is their way, to do their
bit, and had disappeared into the vast nothingness behind the night.
Darkness fell, and great flashes lit the dark; those pale, awful
gleams of super-civilisation swept over the ghastly land. The enemy's
search-lights were feeling after the mutilated and wounded, showing up
the stretcher bearers and Red Cross dressers, and as each slow beam
swung in its deadly course, a hail of lead followed it, bearing death
on its coming.
In a big yawning gap of bog and dyke and mud the Munsters held on,
unassisted, supports having failed. The Companies were lying out under
fire, pinned to the ground, and with nearly all their officers killed
or wounded, they still held on.
* * * * *
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL G. J. RYAN, D.S.O.
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, killed near Festubert, January 23rd, 1915
Record of Service:--South African War, 1899-1901--Employed with the
Mounted Infantry, advance on Kimberley, including actions at Belmont
and Modder River; operations in the Transvaal from June to 29th
November, 1900; operations in Cape Colony, operations in the Transvaal,
30th November, 1900, to March, 1901; operations in Orange River Colony,
March to June, 1901. Despatches, London Gazette, 10th September,
1901--Vaal, June to 29th November, 1900; operations in Cape Colony.
Queen's Medal and five clasps, D.S.O. Soudan, 1905--Operations against
the Nyam-Nyam tribes in Bahr-el-Gazel Province; Despatches, London
Gazette, 18th May, 1906. Egyptian Medal Clasp. Soudan, 1906--Operations
at Talodi in Southern Kordofan--Clasp to Egyptian Medal. Soudan,
1906--Operations in Blue Nile Province. Promoted Temporary
Lieutenant-Colonel, London Gazette, 22nd January, 1915.]
[_To face p. 28._]
Major Julian Ryan, D.S.O., who had gone back to Brigade Headquarters on
the morning of the 22nd, to arrange about ammunition and transport, as
he put it himself in a letter, "sized up trouble" when "the Regiment
disappeared into nothingness." It was he who left a record of the work
done by the six men of the search party to whose efforts, as to
his own, the safe return of a single man of the Munster Fusiliers is
chiefly due.
Having reported at Brigade Headquarters, and having received the reply
that no help could be given, Major Ryan split his men into patrols of
two and sent them out. At 8 p.m., when it was very dark and the enemy's
fire unceasing, the men, whose names, unfortunately, are not recorded,
came back reporting: "Very few officers left; many casualties; Colonel
wounded; two senior Majors killed. Send orders." Major Ryan, fully
aware that daybreak would see the end of the gallant Battalion if
nothing were done, redoubled his efforts.
"It was 10 o'clock before the Brigadier's orders got to me to get
orders out to the Battalion to retire, and even by then I had not a
single unwounded man left of all the four companies that had gone out
at 7 a.m. to show me where they had got to. Once more I called on my
trusty six who had located them at dusk, and sent them out in three
parties, again with definite orders to come back to me at a certain
point where I was alone but for a few stray men and no officers. By
midnight, to my relief, I got the remnant of the four companies in,
worn out and starved, as their officers had fallen and many men, in the
advance. All they could do was to follow my guides in. I called for
volunteers and took a party out with stretchers and got some wounded
in, but drew blank for the Colonel and Major Thomson. The Adjutant had
come in unwounded, but dead beat, and could not say where the Colonel
was.
"At 2 a.m., or nearly 3, I went round and collected the exhausted
non-commissioned officers who had come in, called for volunteers
again, and put the machine-gun officer in charge. The party returned
carrying the Colonel wounded. All the rescue work was done under
fire.... The Regiment did all, and more than all, that men could do;
they played up splendidly. I have never known men do so much. I am very
proud of them."
A few weeks later Major Ryan, an officer of the most brilliant promise
and striking personality, was killed by a sniper, to the great sorrow
of the Battalion.
THE MUNSTERS AT RUE DU BOIS
_May 9th, 1915._
"She, beyond shelter or station,
She beyond limit or bar,
Urges to slumberless speed
Armies that famish and bleed,
Giving their lives for her seed,
That their dust may re-build her a Nation,
That their souls may re-light her a star."
A. C. SWINBURNE.
About a mile from the market-place of Neuve Chapelle, and above
Festubert and Givenchy, is the Rue du Bois, a street lying east and
west, some 500 yards behind the British trenches. Last year the bells
of Neuve Chapelle sent the sound swinging over the little distance,
but the pounding of the shells of friend and enemy alike, silenced
the bells, when war let loose the great stream of human blood and
human tears. The Rue was once a thoroughfare for early carts and other
traffic going towards the Distillery on the Violaines Road, and had
been built according to the Roman system--one straight line of houses
all built together. Along this street the carts used to pass, coming
up from Richebourg St. Vaast and Richebourg l'Avoué, and going on by
the road that leads to distant Lille. The Rue du Bois is now a sad
place, for the chimney-stacks have fallen, and the roofs and walls gape
desolately. Changed times for France since the early carts went by, and
a changed world for many of us.
On the evening of Saturday, May 8th, 1915, the 2nd Royal Munster
Fusiliers, commanded by Colonel Victor Rickard, were on their way to
take their place in the trenches in front of Rue du Bois; with them
was Father Francis Gleeson, whose name is known throughout the whole
of Munster. It was a clear spring evening, dark under a green sky, the
orchards through the country heavy with blossom, their scent recalling
manifold recollections. The poplar trees, many of them shell-scarred
and broken, were very still in the windless twilight, dark spires
against the clear clean sky. At the entrance to the Rue du Bois there
stands a broken shrine, and within the shrine is a crucifix.
[Illustration: THE LAST ABSOLUTION OF THE MUNSTERS AT RUE DU BOIS, MAY
8TH, 1915
_Drawn by F. Matania._]
[_To face p. 34_]
When the Munsters came up the road, Colonel Rickard halted the
Battalion. The men were ranged in three sides of a square, their green
flags, embroidered with the Irish harp and the word "Munster," a gift
from Lady Gordon, placed before each Company. Father Gleeson mounted,
Colonel Rickard and Captain Filgate, the Adjutant on their chargers,
were in the centre, and in that wonderful twilight Father Gleeson gave
a General Absolution. To some present, very certainly, the "vitam
æternam" was intensely and beautifully manifest, the day-spring of
Eternity very near. "Miseratur vestri Omnipotens Deus, et dimissis
peccatis vestris, perducat vos ad vitam æternam." The whole Regiment
with their heads bared, sang the _Te Deum_, the great thanksgiving, the
"Sursum Corda" of all the earth.
There are many journeys and many stopping-places in the strange
pilgrimage we call life, but there is no other such journey in
the world as the journey up a road on the eve of battle, and no
stopping-place more holy than a wayside shrine.
The men who prayed there were, very few of them, the men of the
original Battalion. Gaps had been filled again and again, and most of
the Munsters who fought next day were newly come from Ireland and new
to the life. Lads from Kerry and Cork, who, a year before, had never
dreamed of marching in the ranks of the British Army.
The Regiment moved on, and darkness fell as the skirl of the Irish
pipes broke out, playing a marching tune. The Munsters were wild with
enthusiasm, they were strong with the invincible strength of faith and
high hope, for they had with them the vital conviction of success,
the inspiration that scorns danger--which is the lasting heritage of
the Irish; theirs still and theirs to remain when great armaments and
armies and empires shall be swept away, because it is immovable as the
eternal stars.
* * * * *
On the morning of May the 9th, 1915, the Third Infantry Brigade were
ordered to attack. Their right was on the Cinder Track, and their left
on the Orchard Redoubt. The Munster Fusiliers were the assaulting
Battalion, with the 4th Royal Welsh Fusiliers; the Gloucesters and
South Wales Borderers in reserve.
The morning of the 9th broke incredibly still and fair, touching the
land with the strange suggestion of unreality, which is part of the
mystery of early dawn; and the Rue du Bois, for all its desolation, was
for a moment beautiful with the spaciousness of peace. Night dews were
still in the air, and the first coming of the sun was not far distant
when sustained thunder pervaded the whole world. The bombardment of the
enemy's trenches had begun, and the noise grew to the dimensions of
intensest force, crashing and roaring with the rage of a storm at sea.
The object of the bombardment was to cut gaps in the barbed wire in
front of the Battalion, and for seven minutes the torrent of sound tore
and rent the air. Only for thirty minutes the guns spoke, and on the
amazed instant of silence Colonel Rickard gave the order for attack.
Cheering wildly the men followed him over the breastworks, with a rush
that swept them across the open under deadly fire to a little ditch,
some half-way between the British and German lines. There they were
to lie down and take cover while the Artillery again bombarded, only
continuing the rush when the fire lifted.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-COLONEL V. G. H. RICKARD
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, killed while gallantly leading the
Battalion at Rue du Bois, 9th May, 1915
Record of Service:--South African War, 1902--Served as Adjutant,
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, operations in the Transvaal, April to
May, 1902. Operations in Orange River Colony, February, April and
May, 1902. Queen's Medal, with three clasps. Promoted Temporary
Lieutenant-Colonel, 8th March, 1915.]
[_To face p. 38_]
As they crossed the first hundred and fifty yards to the given point,
Colonel Rickard fell, killed by a bullet that struck the spinal column
of the neck. No one who knew him could ever doubt that he would have
chosen any other end than to die leading the Regiment he so loved
all his life; he gained the perfect death that takes no thought of
self, and which, in all truth, is swallowed up in victory.
Captain Campbell Dick, leading with magnificent dash, carried on B
Company with 5 and 6 Platoons, led to admiration by Lieutenant Price
and Lieutenant Horsfall; by this time the close-range fire of the
Germans poured like rain from thunder-clouds. Caring nothing at all
for the enemy's bullets, Captain Dick swept on, followed by his men,
his great buoyant spirit lifted to the very heights by the joy of the
charge. If life may truly be measured by its intensity, the Munsters
lived well and dangerously in those moments. Captain Dick, gifted, as
has been said of another very brave officer, "with a certain devilry
of spirit" and "a ceaseless militancy in life and death," was well
known to be a man of unshaken nerve and flame-like attributes; as
he reached the second line of the German trenches he stood on the
enemy's breast-works, quite indifferent to the danger which lay on
every side, and standing as he often stood cheering a winner in the
old days in Ireland, he waved his cap and shouted to his men, "Come
on, the Munsters!" A moment after, he fell into the German trenches,
and the Company he commanded dashed onwards with Lieutenant Price and
Lieutenant Horsfall, and were enveloped in the very heart of the grey
enemy forces. Lieutenant Carrigan and Lieutenant Harcourt brought the
machine guns over the parapet of the German first line, and there faced
an enfilading fire that beat and battered upon the men, who, without
wavering, held grimly to the trenches; a little further up the line
Lieutenant Sealy King died most gallantly as he dashed to a renewed
attack.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN J. CAMPBELL-DICK
2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, killed in action 9th May, 1915
Record of Service:--South African War, 1899-1902--Advance on Kimberley,
including action at Belmont; operations in the Transvaal, West of
Pretoria, July to 29th November, 1900; operations in Orange River
Colony, May to 29th November, 1900, including actions at Linaley (27th
June), Bethlehem (6th and 7th July), and Wittenbergen (1st to 29th
July); operations in Cape Colony, South of Orange River, 1899-1900;
operations in Transvaal, 30th November, 1900, to January, 1901;
operations in Orange River Colony and Cape Colony, September, 1901,
to 31st May, 1902; operations in Cape Colony, North of Orange River;
Despatches, London Gazette, September 19th, 1901. Queen's Medal with
three clasps; King's Medal with two clasps.]
[_To face p. 40_]
The Regiments on the left and right being unable to get near the line
where the Munsters were fighting, the position became that of a forlorn
hope; but the fighting stuff of which the Munster Fusiliers are made,
does not break. Their dash and coolness drew words of admiration from
the Artillery officers who were observing, and the men, almost entirely
without officers or N.C.O.'s, rallied and fought with unabated courage.
Only 300 yards away was the safety of the British trenches, but between
that point and where the Battalion fought the gulf might as well have
been as wide as eternity.
The hail of shells and the rain of bullets never ceased, and as the
time went on and the Battalion was unsupported, Major Gorham, then in
command and wounded in the arm, sent a message back that the assault
was held up by the great breaking superiority of the enemy's forces.
Once again the heavy guns boomed out, pitching shell after shell
into the German lines, and under cover of this protective fire the
Battalion withdrew. Incidents of great self-sacrifice were many during
the retirement. Sergeant Gannon carried one officer and four wounded
comrades out under fire; Private Barry, himself mortally wounded, and
only a slight slip of a boy from Cork, brought in Captain Hawkes, one
of the biggest officers in the Battalion. Captain Hawkes was severely
wounded in three places, and could not move, and as he carried his
officer to safety, Private Barry fell, dying heroically, his death a
tribute to the feeling that so strongly existed between officers and
men.
* * * * *
So the Munsters came back after their day's work; they formed up again
in the Rue du Bois, numbering 200 men and three officers. It seems
almost superfluous to make any further comment.
* * * * *
In a garden near a place called Windy Corner, Colonel Rickard is buried
at the head of a line of graves. As Father Gleeson wrote: "The Munsters
who gave their lives so heroically and cheerfully, have, even in death,
at their head, their kindly and loving leader, who so much inspired
them and cheered us all."
Honest and brave soldiers, the world must go on without you, and those
who are left to mourn you must face what remains in life with a little
of your own fine spirit. But your lives and your great deaths have
enriched the story of the world, the story of Ireland and the story of
the Battalion, even though, through all the voices and all the sounds
of life, we listen for your voices, and will listen still in vain.
[Illustration: THE MUNSTERS AT HULLOCH
September 25th, 1915
_Drawn by F Matania._]
[_To face p. 45._]
THE MUNSTERS AT HULLOCH
_September 25th, 1915._
"In a trench upon a battlefield of France himself is lying,
And shall never set potatoes any more.
Just himself and me together, in the spring and autumn weather,
Will not set or dig potatoes any more."
OONA BALL.
Below the château of Vaudricourt there is a wood which closes it around
with a sense of security belonging to fir woods, and the zone of pines
is dense and fragrant.
On the night of September 23rd, 1915, the Royal Munster Fusiliers
marched from the little village of Philosophe and bivouacked in the
Vaudricourt domain. The battalion was on the march again, and that
dim, cloudy night they trooped in under the shelter and lighted their
camp fires.
The whole effect was mysterious and unreal as things seen in dreams;
the columns of luminous smoke soared upwards, illuminating the low
strong branches of the trees, and around the fires the men lay huddled
in their great-coats, grouped within the circles of flickering light.