THE GREAT PUSH AT LOOS
HISTORIC FOOTBALL CHARGE OF THE LONDON IRISH, WITH THE GERMAN TRENCHES
AS GOAL
What a stirring story of Irish gaiety and resolution is that of the
charge of the London Irish Rifles in the great advance upon the mining
village of Loos, on Saturday, September 25th, 1915! "Hurrah, the
London Irish, hurrah!" The shout ran along the British Lines on
Tuesday, September 28th, as the battalion, with many gaps in their
ranks, returned after the splendid stand against the terrific German
counter-attack which followed the charge, when, according to the
General of their Brigade, they helped to save the 4th Army Corps.
"The lucky Irish!" That is one of the names they are known by at the
Front. They are given posts of difficulty and danger, and so well do
they acquit themselves that the company officers get Military Crosses,
and the Distinguished Conduct Medal is liberally distributed among the
rank and file. Yet their casualties are remarkably low. The jealous
and the profane in other London battalions account for it, I am told,
by reviving the ancient gibe about the devil always taking special
care of his own. It is true the London Irish are up to all sorts of
"divilment"--as we say in Ireland--whether in the trenches or in
billets. I have heard no more delicious war anecdote than that which
tells of a fine trick they played on the enemy. Their telephone
linesmen happened to find two live German cables on the ground behind
their trenches. The linesmen, without as much as saying "by your
leave" to the Germans, promptly fitted wires to the cables, and for
many weeks they had a most serviceable electric installation at the
Battalion Headquarters, officers' dug-outs, and dressing-stations,
with power "milked" from the enemy.
That is the Irish kind of "divilment," and it is "divilment" that the
Devil himself would disown, for it tends to spoil the knavish designs
he has in hand when he uses the Germans as his fitting instruments.
The London Irish, as a matter of fact, are noted for their religious
devotion and practices. I read in the _Spectator_ an interesting
correspondence round the question whether the Anglican chaplains were
of any earthly good at the Front. Nothing was said, I noticed, about
their heavenly uses. But a woman sent a remarkable letter she had
received from her son in the trenches. "There is another man who has
great influence out here," he wrote. "He is a priest attached to an
Irish regiment. He insists upon charging every time with the men, and
no one dare protest. He is absolutely the idol of the regiment." This
is Father Lane-Fox, the chaplain of the London Irish, who joined in
the famous charge of the battalion at Loos, absolving those who were
shot as they fell, and arriving in the German trenches with the
foremost. And many of the men will tell you that they are "the lucky
Irish," because of the comfort and reassurance they derive from the
prayers and self-sacrificing services of their chaplain. The battalion
are also able to warm their hearts and fire their blood with the
strains of the ancient Irish war-pipes. This old barbaric music has
magic in it. It transforms the Gael. It reawakens in the deeps of
their being, even in this twentieth century, impressions, moods,
feelings, inherited from a wild, untamed ancestry for thousands of
years, and thus gives them, more than strong wine, that strength of
arm and that endurance of soul which make them invincible.
So the London Irish were ready when the great day came. Three
Divisions of the 4th Army Corps took part in the battle of Loos. The
London Irish were in a Division exclusively composed of Brigades of
London Territorials, and they had the honour of being selected to lead
that Division in the attack. As the result of the battle a double
length of trenches were carried along a line of four miles, and to a
depth, at its greatest, of four miles. The whole of this area,
amounting to at least twelve square miles, around the village of Loos,
between Hulluch and Lens, was a desperate network of trenches and
bomb-proof shelters.
On the night of September 24th the London Irish received their orders
and marched out to take up their allotted positions. "What a sight!"
writes one of the men. "Almost pitch dark, as light near the firing
line must not be--just a few glimmers here and there to mark cross
roads, and those are lanterns, mostly on the ground, in charge of one
or more soldiers, according to the importance of the posts, whose job
it is to control the traffic. Now and again a more or less lurid
illumination comes from the star shells that are used between the
trenches while searchlights sweep across the sky. Artillery flashes
continuously and the roar of the guns is added to the crash and rattle
of the traffic on the roads." At a point in the march Brigadier-General
Twaites was standing to see the battalion go by. He shook hands with
the officers and wished them "Good luck." He told the men that he was
expecting great things of them. "Remember," he said, "that the London
Irish has been chosen to lead the whole Division."
The trenches were reached about midnight. It was an inclement and
dreary time. Rain was falling in torrents. For over six hours the men
had to wait in sodden clothes in a trench of slush for the order which
would mean death to many, to others racking and disabling wounds, and
to all who survived the heartache for loved comrades gone for ever.
Yet how cheerful they were! To say that none of them were afraid would
be to convey that each was a bloodless abstraction. Whatever else an
Irishman may be he certainly is never that. He is a hot-blooded human
creature, with more than his share of the passions and desires which
agitate the heart of man, and so he is prone at times to have fits of
depression and despair. It is possible, then, that the minds of some
were darkened by gloomy forebodings. But as an instance of the general
stout-heartedness of the men, an officer told me that many of them
took out cigarettes, and, having lighted them, held the burning match
at arm's length to see if their hands were steady as they waited under
the shadow of death. Just at the last moment, too, the liveliest
interest was aroused by a rumour which ran along the trenches. It was
said that some particularly bright spirits in the battalion had
arranged to make the coming charge for ever memorable by an act of
unparalleled daring. What is it to be? The question was eagerly put.
But those in the secret would not say more than the remark that the
nature of it no one would ever guess even if he were to sit down and
give all his life to it, and work overtime as well.
At half past six o'clock in the morning the signal came from Major
Beresford--a shrill note of the whistle and the cry, "Irish up and
over." Gas had been turned on some little time before to help in
clearing the ground for the advance, and as the wind was slightly
favourable it drifted, a mass of dark vapour, towards the German
trenches. But as there was a danger that the cloud might be overtaken,
if the charge were successful and rapid, most of the men put on their
gas helmets, and fearful and wonderful monsters they looked as, in
obedience to the company officers' order, "Over you go, lads," they
mounted the parapets. Over they went by platoons, with half a minute's
interval between each, and though the enemy immediately opened fire
they formed up in four splendid lines, with bayonets fixed and rifles
at the slope before they charged.
Then it was that the grand secret was disclosed, a thing almost
incredible and unthinkable, indeed. A football was dropped by members
of the London Irish Rugby Club in the ranks, and as they charged they
kicked it before them across a plain as flat, grassy, and bare of
cover as the Fifteen Acres in the Phoenix Park, or the upper stretch
of Wimbledon Common. A game of football on the border line between
life and death! What a fantastic conception! No wonder that the French
troops who were watching the advance were astounded by the spectacle.
"It is magnificent, but it is not war!" Possibly the French at Loos
had the same thought that the French at Balaclava had when they saw
the charge of the Light Brigade. But, wait a while. Despite the
apparent oddity and inconsequence of the incident, we shall see that
behind it there was a grim and dread purpose well befitting the
occasion.
On the Rugby playing fields the rush and dash of the Irish are famous.
Who that was there will ever forget the glorious international match
that was played at Twickenham between England and Ireland the year
before the war, with the King and Prime Minister among the tens of
thousands of fascinated spectators of the finest game that ever was
seen? Several of the grand young fellows who superbly contended for
the mastery of the ball on that great day are buried close to where
they fell in France and Flanders, gallantly leading their men as
company officers (the thought of it is enough to make one weep), and
they played the game on these different fields, according to their
separate national characteristics--equally clean-handed and
chivalrous, both, as sportsmen, incapable of a mean trick or taking an
opponent at an unfair advantage; disciplined, resourceful, dexterous,
and deft the English; light-hearted, frank, ardent, and dare-devilled
the Irish. So, too, at Loos the London Irish dashed forward with the
same rapture in the game that they used to display in a match on their
grounds at Forest Hill, shouting their slogan, "On the ball, London
Irish!" They kicked the ball before them, not this time in the face of
an opposing English, Welsh, or Scottish pack, but against unceasing
volleys of shrapnel and rifle fire which brought many of them down,
dead or disabled.
One man who was in the charge told me that at first he had a confused
sense of a clamorous hubbub and of comrades falling around him.
Afterwards he saw dimly--as if still in a bad dream--the football
being kicked, and there came vaguely back to his mind the talk in the
trenches as they waited for the whistle. Then he had a shock of
surprise which brought everything into sharp reality; and the
exhilaration of the episode restoring him to normality and confidence,
he followed the ball with the others until it was kicked right into
the enemy's trench with a joyous shout of "Goal!" Thus this exhibition
of cool audacity--unparalleled, perhaps, in the annals of war--instead
of retarding the advance added immensely to its go. It will be
historic, that game of football amid the thunders and the lightnings
of the field of battle, with the German trenches for the goal; and
soaring up from the very depths of the awful tumult of the fight will
ever be heard, "On the ball, London Irish!"
So the first line of German trenches was reached. The barbed wire
entanglements had been blown to pieces by shell fire before the
attack. Another effect of that terrific bombardment, which lasted
nineteen days, was the cowed and dazed condition of the Germans. They
were so easily and quickly disposed of by the first line of London
Irish that the other lines pressed forward, scrambling across the
trench over the bodies of killed and wounded enemies; and, as they did
so, catching glimpses through the smoke of the haggard and frightened
faces of the grey-clad survivors making but a feeble resistance or
surrendering without striking a blow.
The advance to the second line of German trenches was not so easy.
Here was an inferno of tangled wreckage strewn over mud, smoke-dimmed,
and torn with shrapnel, through which the men could advance but
slowly, with stumbling feet and gasping breath, while their ears were
assailed with horrid noises--screaming, yelling, crashing, pounding,
cheering, screeching. Major Beresford, who led the charge, fell with a
bullet through his lung on the way to the first German trench. Four
officers were killed on the same piece of ground. But the men went
steadily on, though bereft of most of their leaders, and at the second
line trench of the Germans, more strongly held than the first, were
inspired for the ordeal before them by the sight of Captain and
Adjutant A.P. Hamilton, who, though shot through the knee and
suffering great pain, guided the operations as he moved from place to
place, limping heavily. There was desperately fierce hand-to-hand work
here and bomb firing parties were hard at it, clearing out every
corner. One man performed a particularly brave act and a shrewd one to
boot. He came alone into a German communication trench beyond the
reserve line. In a minute a bright thought struck him, and as quickly
as possible he bundled the sandbags down into the trench, and so
formed a barricade. The Germans came back, just as he had anticipated,
and as they clambered over, so he shot them. We got rid of thirteen in
this way, and the enemy gave up that passage and retired Captain
Hamilton remained in this second line trench reorganising and
encouraging the men until the consolidation was well advanced. He was
awarded the Military Cross for his services. The official record says,
"He had to be ordered back for medical attendance." Indeed, the only
way that could be found to prevent Captain Hamilton from stubbornly
going on till he bled to death was to place him under arrest.
The London Irish had thus magnificently succeeded in the task allotted
to them--the capture of a section of the German second line trenches.
Carried away by their excessive impetuosity, they also helped to clear
the Germans out of the village of Loos, which they were among the
first to enter. They were still untroubled and unperplexed. "When the
village was about half cleared," says Rifleman T.J. Culley, in a
letter to Sister Celestine, of the Homes for Destitute Catholic
Children in London, "could you have peered into one of the estaminets
which was still inhabited, you would have perceived one of the Irish
calmly asking a most attractive and business-like madame for a _cafe
au lait_, and being served amid torrents of shot and shell; and when
he was finished he slung his arms and calmly walked on to do further
death-dealing deeds." Culley adds that when the village was eventually
cleared some of the New Army passed through the thinned ranks of the
Territorials to carry on the advance. "You may have noticed in the
papers," he says, "that the credit of capturing the village went to
the New Army. This is not so. The Territorials, with the London Irish
among their leaders, should be given the honour."
But the real trial of the London Irish was now to begin. The Germans
on the Sunday launched a tremendous counter-attack. Would the London
Irish be able to beat it back, and hold on to the trenches they had
taken until relief came? Again and again, there seemed to be no
possible escape from the destruction which imminently menaced them.
"All Monday passed and still no relief came," writes a rifleman of the
battalion. "Indeed, it was a question whether any minute we should not
be blown to atoms and the line swamped with a rush of the enemy. We
could hardly stand from fatigue, having been in action steadily since
Saturday morning. 'Fight on, lads,' said an officer who was afterwards
killed. 'Remember the Division looks to you. This is bound to end
sooner or later. Let it be in a way that will never be forgotten when
they hear of it at home in London and Ireland.' So we fought on, and
never a single German got nearer than a dozen yards from our lines.
Soon we got the word that we should be relieved early Tuesday morning
under cover of the darkness. The announcement sent a thrill of joy
through us, for then we knew we had won." As soon as they got to the
back trenches in safety a huge cheer went up from all the others, "The
London Irish--Hurroo!" "They shook us by the hands and took our rifles
from our grasp and the kits from our backs in their eagerness to show
their gratitude," says the same rifleman.
The General in command of the Brigade who stood and watched the
battalion on their way to battle on Friday night, addressed the
remnant afterwards and said: "Not only am I proud to have had the
honour of being in command of such a regiment, but the whole Empire
will be proud whenever, in after years, the history of the battle of
Loos comes to be written, for I can tell you it was the London Irish
who helped to save a whole British Army Corps. You have done one of
the greatest actions of the war."
Thus the London Irish raised themselves on the pinnacle of a notable
and conspicuous triumph. Thus they earned for themselves the name of
"The Footballers of Loos."