The Irish on the Somme Part 8

"We are Saxons. If you don't fire, we won't."

The Irish Brigade and the Irish Volunteers who rose in rebellion in Dublin were alike recruited from the same cla.s.s. Such are the unhappily wayward circ.u.mstances of Irish life that the tremendous fact whether this lad or that was to fight for England in Flanders or against her in Dublin was in many cases decided by mere chance or accident. At any rate, the kith and kin of numbers of men of the Irish Brigade were among the Sinn Feiners. A widowed mother in Dublin had, in consequence, a most tragic experience. The post on Easter Monday morning brought her a letter from a company officer of a battalion in the Irish Brigade announcing that her son had been killed in action.

"He died for Ireland," said the officer, knowing that it was true and that it would help to soften her maternal grief. Before the day was out her other son, wearing the green uniform of the Irish Volunteers, staggered home mortally wounded, and as he lay gasping out his life on the floor he, too, used the same phrase of uplifting memories: "Mother, don't fret. Sure, I'm dying for Ireland."

The effect of the German placards on the battalion of Munster Fusiliers, then holding the British line, was very far astray from that which their authors hoped for and intended. A fusillade of bullets at once bespattered the wheedling phrases. What fun to make a midnight foray on the German trenches and carry off the placards as trophies! No sooner was the adventure suggested than it was agreed to.

In the darkness of night a body of twenty-five men and two officers of the Munsters crawled out into No Man's Land. They were discovered when about half-way across by a German searchlight, and then the flying bullets of two machine-guns commenced to splutter about them. Some of the men were killed; some were wounded. The others lay still for hours in the rank gra.s.s before they resumed their stealthy crawl, like the Indians they used to read of in boyhood stories, and, having noiselessly cut their way under the enemy entanglements, they sprang, with fixed bayonets and terrifying yells, into the trench. The Germans, startled out of their senses by this most unexpected visit, scurried like rabbits into the nearest dug-outs. The notice-boards were then seized and borne in triumph to the Irish trenches, to the unbounded delight and pride of the battalion; and they are now treasured among the regiment's most precious spoils of vanquished enemies.

A few days later, on the morning of April 27, the Germans tried what blows could do where lying blandishments had failed; and the Irish Brigade had to face, for the first time, an infantry attack in force.

The enemy began their operations by concentrating a bombardment of great intensity upon trenches held by Dublin Fusiliers. Then, shortly after five o'clock, there came on the light breeze that blew from the German lines a thick and sluggish volume of greenish smoke. "Poison gas! On with your helmets!" Surely, the hearts of the most indomitable might well have quailed at the thought of the writhing agony endured by those who fall victims to this new and most terrible agency of war.

Instead of that, the flurry and excitement of putting on the masks was followed by roars of laughter as the men looked at one another and saw the fantastic and absurd beings, with grotesque goggle-eyes, into which they had transformed themselves. But they were not the only monsters in the uncanny scene. Like grey spectres, sinister and venomous, the Germans appeared as they came on, partly screened by the foul vapour which rolled before them. Not one of them reached the Irish trenches. The Dublins, standing scathless in the poison clouds which enveloped them, poured out round after round of rifle fire, until the Germans broke and fled, leaving piles of their dead and wounded at the wire entanglements, and the body of the officer who had led them caught in the broken strands.

Two hours later, that same morning, there was another sally from the German trenches, under cover of gas, against a different section of the Irish. The parapets here had been so demolished by sh.e.l.l fire that the Germans gained a footing in the trenches. But they were hardly in before they were out again. "The time during which the Germans were in occupation of our trenches was a matter of minutes only," says the war correspondent of _The Times_. They were put to rout by the Inniskillings, who came up from the reserve trenches at the double.

"Never was a job more cleanly and quickly done," adds _The Times_ correspondent. On the next occasion that the Germans launched an attack with gas, they had themselves to drink, so to speak, the poison cup they had prepared for the Irish. That was two days subsequently, on April 29. "Providence was on our side," writes Major William Redmond, "for the wind suddenly changing, the gas blew back over the German trenches where the Bavarians had already ma.s.sed for attack.

Taken by surprise, they left their front line and ran back across the open under the heavy and well-directed fire of our artillery. In one battalion of that Bavarian Infantry Regiment the losses from their own gas and from our fire on that day were stated to be, by a deserter, over eight hundred; and the diary of a prisoner of another battalion captured on the Somme in September states that his regiment also had about five hundred ga.s.sed cases, a large number of whom died."

The Irish Division continued to hold the Hulluch-Loos sector of the line until the end of August 1916. They were subjected to severe bombardments. It was a common occurrence for the enemy to send from two to five thousand 5.9 sh.e.l.ls a day into their trenches. What fort.i.tude and grim determination must they not have had at their command to enable them to pa.s.s unshaken through these terrible ordeals. They retaliated in the way they love best, with many a das.h.i.+ng raid on the German positions.

For conspicuous gallantry in these operations the Military Cross was awarded to several of the officers. In the cases of Captain Victor Louis Manning and Lieutenant Nicholas Joseph Egan of the Dublin Fusiliers, the official record says that "by skilful and determined handling of their bombing parties they drove off three determined bomb attacks by the enemy in greatly superior numbers," and that "they continued to command their parties after they had both been wounded,"

gives but a faint idea of the faring nature of their deed. A small counter-mine was exploded under a German mine at a point between the opposing lines, but nearer to those of the Germans. The Germans were able to occupy the mound first and establish a machine-gun on it, with which they dominated the Dublin trenches. Volunteers being called for to clear them out, Lieutenant Egan and a small party of privates, armed with bombs, rushed out and carried the position. Then they had to hold it against German counter-attacks which were launched during the next three days. Lieutenant Egan was wounded in the wrist early in the fight, but he and six men, being plentifully supplied with bombs, held their ground doggedly. Instead of waiting for the Germans to reach the mound, in what threatened to be the worst of the counter-attacks, the party of Dublins advanced to meet them and drove them back, thus conveying the impression that they were in greater strength than was really the case. On the night of the third day another party, under Captain Manning, came to their support. After a further series of encounters had ended in favour of the Dublins, the Germans abandoned the hope of recapturing the post, which was subsequently strongly consolidated by the victors. On the fourth day, when the struggle had definitely ended in favour of the Dublins, and Lieutenant Egan was about to return to the lines, a bomb fell at his feet. He was blown a distance of fifteen yards, and was picked up seriously wounded in the thigh. Lieutenant Egan is a grandson of Mr.

Patrick Egan of New York, well known in the stormy agrarian agitation in Ireland under Parnell and Davitt as the treasurer of the Land League. Previous to the war Lieutenant Egan was in business in Canada.

Another fine exploit standing to the credit of the Irish Brigade was that of Lieutenant Patrick Stephen Lynch of the Leinsters, who got the Military Cross "for conspicuous gallantry when successfully laying and firing a torpedo under the enemy's wire." It was an uncommon deed, and just as uncommon is the very remarkable tribute with which the official record ends: "His cool bravery is very marked and his influence over his men very great." The Brigadier-General, George Pereira, D.S.O., in a letter of congratulation to Lieutenant Lynch, dated July 1, 1916, says: "Your leading the attack along the parapet was splendid, but you must be more careful another time." Before the month was out Lieutenant Lynch got a bar to his Military Cross--in other words, he had won the distinction twice over--an honour which, as General Hickie wrote to him, was well deserved, and likely to be very rare. This young Waterford man--a fine type of the fearless and das.h.i.+ng Irish officer, made out of a civilian in two years--was promoted Captain in the Leinsters, and was killed on his birthday and the completion of his twenty-fifth year, December 27, 1916. The battalion was plunged into grief by the loss of Captain Lynch.

"'Paddy'--the name we all knew him by from the C.O. down to the youngest sub.--was considered the most efficient officer in this battalion, and he was certainly the most popular," writes Lieutenant H.W. Norman, an officer of the Captain's company. "Everybody mourns his death, and when the news got to his men they could not believe that such a brave and daring officer could be killed, but the news was only too true; and when it was confirmed I saw many's the officer and man crying like children. He lost his life to save his men, who were in a trench that was being heavily sh.e.l.led. He went up with a sergeant, in spite of danger and certain death, to get them out, and on the way up a sh.e.l.l landed in the trench where they were, killing both instantaneously." Another n.o.ble deed was that for which Lieutenant John Francis Gleeson, Munster Fusiliers, won the Military Cross. "Under heavy rifle fire and machine-gun fire, he left his trench to bring in a wounded man lying within ten yards of the enemy entanglements."

It was also in connection with these raids on the German trenches that the Irish Division gained the first of its Victoria Crosses. The hero is Captain Arthur Hugh Batten-Pooll of the Munster Fusiliers--a Somerset man, and he got the V.C. "for most conspicuous bravery whilst in command of a raiding party." "At the moment of entry into the enemy's lines," the official record continues, "he was severely wounded by a bomb, which broke and mutilated all the fingers of his right hand. In spite of this he continued to direct operations with unflinching courage, his voice being clearly heard cheering on and directing his men. He was urged, but refused, to retire. Half an hour later, during the withdrawal, whilst personally a.s.sisting in the rescue of other wounded men, he received two further wounds. Still refusing a.s.sistance, he walked unaided to within a hundred yards of our lines, when he fainted, and was carried in by the covering party."

Captain D.D. Sheehan of the Munster Fusiliers supplies the following spirited account of the raid--

"Our men got into the enemy's trenches with irresistible dash.

They met with a stout resistance. There was no stopping or stemming the sweep of the men of Munster. They rushed the Germans off their feet. They bombed and they bludgeoned them.

Indeed, the most deadly instrument of destruction in this encounter was the short heavy stick, in the shape of a s.h.i.+llelagh, the use of which, we are led to believe, is the prescriptive and hereditary right of all Irishmen. The Munster Fusiliers gave the Huns such a dressing and drubbing on that night as they are not likely to have since forgotten. Half an hour in the trenches and all was over. Dug-outs and all were done for. Of the eight officers, four were casualties, two, unhappily, killed, and two severely wounded, of whom one was Batten-Pooll."

For months the Irish Brigade had on their right the renowned Ulster Division. Thus the descendants of the two races in Ireland who for more than two centuries were opposed politically and religiously, and often came to blows under their rival colours of "Orange" and "Green,"

were now happily fighting side by side in France for the common rights of man. Though born and bred in the same tight little island, the men themselves had been severed by antagonisms arising out of those hereditary feuds, and thus but imperfectly understood each other.

"When they met from time to time," says Major William Redmond, M.P., "the best of good feeling and comrades.h.i.+p was shown as between brother Irishmen." Evidence of these amicable relations is afforded by a letter written by Private J. c.o.o.ney of the Royal Irish Regiment. "The Ulster Division are supporting us on our right," he says. "The other morning I was out by myself and met one of them. He asked me what part of Ireland I belonged to. I said a place called Athlone, in the county Westmeath. He said he was a Belfast man and a member of the Ulster Volunteers. I said I was a National Volunteer, and that the National Volunteers were started in my native town. 'Well,' said he, 'that is all over now. We are Irishmen fighting together, and we will forget all these things.' 'I don't mind if we do,' said I; 'but I'm not particularly interested. We must all do our bit out here, no matter where we come from, north or south, and that is enough for the time.'"

Private c.o.o.ney adds: "This young Belfast man was very anxious to impress me with the fact that we Irish were all one; that there should be no bad blood between us, and we became quite friendly in the course of a few minutes." Meeting thus in the valley of darkness, blood and tears, the fraternity born of the dangers they were incurring for the same great ends, united them far more closely than years of ordinary friends.h.i.+p could have done. To many on both sides the cause of their traditional hostility appeared very trivial; and there were revealed to them reasons, hitherto obscured by prejudice and convention, for mutual loving-kindness and even for national unification.

But it was not the first time that north and south fought together in the Empire's battle. There is an eloquent pa.s.sage on the subject in Conan Doyle's _Great Boer War_. It refers to the advance of Hart's "Irish Brigade"--consisting of the 1st Inniskillings, 1st Connaughts and 1st Dublins--over an open plain to the Tugela river, at the Battle of Colenso, under heavy fire from front and flank, and even from the rear, for a regiment in support fired at them, not knowing that any of the line was so far advanced--

"Rolling on in a broad wave of shouting, angry men, they never winced from the fire until they swept up to the bank of the river. Northern Inniskillings and Southern men of Connaught, orange and green, Protestant and Catholic, Celt and Saxon, their only rivalry now was who could shed his blood most freely for the common cause. How hateful those provincial politics and narrow sectarian creeds which can hold such men apart!"

On July 1 the Ulster Division won immortal renown on the Somme. It was now the turn of the Irish Brigade to uphold the martial fame of the race on the same stricken field. They were done with trench raids for a while, and in for very big fighting.

CHAPTER XI

STORMING OF GUILLAMONT BY THE IRISH BRIGADE

RAISING THE GREEN FLAG IN THE CENTRE OF THE VILLAGE

At the end of August the Irish Brigade was ordered to the Somme. The civil authorities of the district, headed by the mayor and cure, called upon General Hickie to express their appreciation of the good conduct and religious devotion of his troops. The General was a proud man that day. Nothing pleased him more than praise of his soldiers. In return, they gloried in him. As an example of his fatherly solicitude for them, he had established a divisional laundry under the care of the nuns, in which 25,000 s.h.i.+rts a week and 5000 pairs of socks per day are washed for them, and every day's rations sent to the men in the trenches was accompanied by a dry pair of socks. The result was that "trench feet"--feet benumbed with the cold and the wet--were almost unknown in the Division. He also provided for a thousand baths a day being given to his men in a specially constructed bath-house.

The marches of the Brigade to their new station was done to the accompaniment of patter, drip, trickle, ripple, splash--all the creepy sounds of continuous rain, and across the sodden and foul desolation that was once the fair fields of France. Up to the firing line swung a battalion of the Munster Fusiliers, gaily whistling and singing in the rain. They carried a beautiful banner of the Sacred Heart, the gift of the people of the city of Limerick, from which many of the men came. Miss Lily Doyle of Limerick, who made the presentation to Major Lawrence Roche of the battalion, tells me that the idea of the banner originated with the Reverend Mother of the Good Shepherd's Convent, Limerick, who had read, in what are termed the "Extended Revelations,"

that a promise was given by Jesus to Blessed Margaret Mary that, inasmuch as soldiers derided His Sacred Heart when He hung upon the Cross, any soldiers who made reparation by carrying His standard would have victory with them. The cost of the banner (10) was mainly raised by penny subscriptions. It was worked by the Good Shepherd nuns on crimson poplin. On one side is a beautiful piece of embroidery representing Our Lord with His Heart exposed on His breast to Blessed Margaret Mary, with the inscriptions, "Tu Rex Gloria Christi" and "Parce Domine, parce populo tuo." On the other side are the words of the Archangel Michael: "Quis ut Deus," surrounded with monograms of "Royal Munster Fusiliers" and "G.o.d save Ireland." "You could not have sent us a more suitable gift," the Rev. J. Wrafter, S.J., chaplain of the battalion, wrote to Miss Doyle, "or one which would give more pleasure to the men. I believe they prefer it to any material comforts that are sent to them." This is the third religious banner borne by soldiers since the Crusades. The first was the standard of Joan of Arc, and the second that of the Pontifical Zouaves, when Rome was an independent state. As the Munsters thus marched to battle a cry of "Look!" was suddenly raised in the ranks, and as all eyes turned in the direction indicated a wonderful sight was seen. The great tower of Albert Cathedral appeared through the mist of rain, and the sun shone on the great copper statue of the Blessed Virgin and the Child, which dominated the countryside for miles around, and, laid prostrate by German gunners, was now lying out level with the top of the tower.

Thus that symbol of faith, though fallen, was not overthrown. Its roots in the pedestal were firm and strong. The Virgin Mother, facing downwards, still held the Infant Jesus scathless in her outstretched hands, as if showing Him the devastation below, ready to be uplifted again on the day of Christianity's victory. The piety of the battalion was kindled by that strange and moving spectacle. Quickly responsive always to things that appeal to the imagination, the men felt as if they were witnesses of a miracle, and with one accord they took off their helmets and cheered and cheered again.

Though it is an unusual thing for the Commander-in-Chief to give in his dispatches the names of the troops who took part in a particular engagement, Sir Douglas Haig makes special mention of the Irish Brigade in his message announcing that Guillamont had fallen. "The Irish regiments which took part in the capture of Guillamont on September 3 behaved," he says, "with the greatest dash and gallantry, and took no small share in the success gained that day."

September 3 was a Sunday. On the night before the battle the Irish troops selected for the attack on Guillamont bivouacked on the bare side of a hill. They were the Connaughts, the Royal Irish, the Munsters and the Leinsters. The rain had ceased, but the ground was everywhere deep in mud, the trenches were generally flooded and the sh.e.l.l holes full of water. It was a bleak and desolate scene, relieved only here and there by the sparkle of the little fires around which the platoons cl.u.s.tered. Just as the men of one of the battalions were preparing to wrap themselves in their greatcoats and lie down for the rest which they might be able to s.n.a.t.c.h in such a situation, the Catholic chaplain came over the side of the hill and right to the centre of the camp. "In a moment he was surrounded by the men," writes Major Redmond. "They came to him without orders--they came gladly and willingly, and they hailed his visit with plain delight. He spoke to them in the simple, homely language which they liked. He spoke of the sacrifice which they had made in freely and promptly leaving their homes to fight for a cause which was the cause of religion, freedom and civilisation. He reminded them that in this struggle they were most certainly defending the homes and the relations and friends they had left behind them in Ireland. It was a simple, yet most moving address, and deeply affected the soldiers." Major Redmond goes on to say: "When the chaplain had finished his address he signed to the men to kneel, and administered to them the General Absolution given in times of emergency. The vast majority of the men present knelt, and those of other faith stood by in att.i.tudes of reverent respect. The chaplain then asked the men to recite with him the Rosary. It was most wonderful the effect produced as hundreds and hundreds of voices repeated the prayers and recited the words, 'Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.' At the dawn Ma.s.ses were said by the chaplains of all the battalions in the open, and most of the officers and men received Holy Communion."

The attack was timed to begin at noon. All the morning the war-pipes of these Leinsters, Munsters and Connaughts gave out inspiring Irish tunes--"Brian Boru's March," that was played at the Battle of Clontarf in the eleventh century when the Danish invaders were driven from Ireland; "The White c.o.c.kade," the Jacobite marching tune of the first Irish Brigade in the service of France; "The Wearin' o' the Green,"

one of the finest expressions of a country's devotion to an ideal; and "A Nation Once Again," thrilling with the hopes of the future. The pipers strode up and down, green ribbons streaming from their pipes, sending forth these piercing invocations to ancient Irish heroes, to venerable saints of the land, to the glories and sorrows of Ireland, to the love of home, to the faith and aspirations of the race, to come to the support of the men in the fight. And what of the men as they waited in the a.s.sembly trenches for the word? The pa.s.sage from Shakespeare's _Henry V_ best conveys their mood: "I see ye stand like grey-hounds in the leash straining upon the start."

At twelve o'clock the battalions emerged from the trenches. Numbers of the men had tied to their rifles little green flags with the yellow harp. Like the English infantry a.s.sociated with them, the Irish advanced in the open snaky lines in which such attacks are always delivered. But there was a striking difference--noted by the war correspondents--in the pace and impetus of the Irish and the English.

Mr. Beach Thomas of the _Daily Mail_ says: "It gives, I think, a satisfying sense of the variety and a.s.sociation of talent in the new Army to picture these das.h.i.+ng Irish troops careering across the open while the ground was being methodically cleared and settled behind them by English riflemen." "The English riflemen who fought on their right had more solidity in their way of going about the business,"

says Mr. Philip Gibbs of the _Daily Chronicle_, "but they were so inspired by the sight of the Irish dash and by the sound of the Irish pipes that those who were in support, under orders to stand and hold the first German line, could hardly be restrained from following on."

The English advance was calm, restrained, deliberate, infused by a spirit of determination that glowed rather than flamed. A breath of fire seemed to sweep through the Irish. From first to last they kept up a boisterous jog-trot charge. "It was like a human avalanche," was the description given by the English troops who fought with them.

The country across which this dash was made was pitted with innumerable sh.e.l.l holes, most of them of great width and depth and all full of water and mud. A Munster Fusilier graphically likened the place to a net, in his Irish way--"all holes tied together." So the men, as they advanced, stumbled over the inequalities of the ground, or slipped and tripped in the soft, sticky earth. It was a scene, too, of the most clamorous and frightful violence. The sh.e.l.ls were like fiends of the air, flying with horrid shrieks or moans on the wings of the wind, ignoring one another and intent only on dropping down to earth and striking the life out of their human prey. Blasts of fire and flying bits of metal also swept the plain.

There is a loud detonation, and when the smoke clears away not a trace is seen of the ten or dozen comrades that a moment before were rus.h.i.+ng forward like a Rugby pack after the ball. They have all been blown to the four winds of heaven. "Jim, I'm hit," cries a lad, as if boastingly, on feeling a blow on his chest. He twirls round about like a spinning top and then topples face downward. His body has been perforated by a rifle bullet. A sh.e.l.l explodes and a man falls. He laughs, thinking he has been tripped up by a tree root or piece of wire. Both his legs are broken. Another sh.e.l.l bursts. A Leinsterman sees a companion lifted violently off his feet, stripped of his clothes, and swept several yards before he is dashed violently to the ground. He goes over to his friend and can see no sign of a wound on the quite naked body. But his friend will never lift up his head again. The blasting force of the high explosive, the tremendous concussion of the air, has knocked the life out of him. "Good-bye, Joe, and may G.o.d have mercy on your soul," the Leinsterman says to himself, and, as he dashes on again he thinks, "Sure, it may be my own turn next." It is that which a.s.suages the grief of a soldier for a dead comrade, or soon ousts it altogether from his mind.

Khaki and grey-clad forms were lying everywhere in the frightfully distorted postures a.s.sumed by the killed in action--arms twisted, legs doubled together, heads askew. Some had their lips turned outward, showing their teeth in a horrible sneer. Their mouths had been distended in agony. Others had a fixed expression of infinite sadness, as if in a lucid moment before death there came a thought of home.

More horrifying still was the foul human wreckage of former battles--heads and trunks and limbs trodden under foot in the mud, and emitting a fearful stench.

The priests followed in the wake of the troops to give the consolations of religion to the dying. They saw heartrending sights.

One of them, describing his experiences, says: "I was standing about a hundred yards away, watching a party of my men crossing the valley, when I saw the earth under their feet open, and twenty men disappear in a cloud of smoke, while a column of stones and clay was shot a couple of hundred feet into the air. A big German sh.e.l.l, by the merest chance, had landed in the middle of the party. I rushed down the slope, getting a most unmerciful whack between the shoulders. I gave them all a General Absolution, sc.r.a.ped the clay from the faces of a couple of buried men who were not wounded, and then anointed as many of the poor lads as I could reach. Two of them had no faces to anoint, and others were ten feet under the clay, but a few were living still.

By this time half a dozen volunteers had run up, and were digging the buried men out. We dug like demons for our lads' lives, and our own, to tell the truth, for every few minutes another 'iron pill' from a Krupp gun would come tearing down the valley." Another priest says: "Many of the wounded were just boys, and it was extraordinary how they bore pain, which must have been intense. Very few murmurings were heard. One young man said to me, 'Oh, father, it is hard to die so far from home in the wilds of France.' Certainly the fair land of France just here did seem wild, with the trees all torn and riven with shot, and the earth on every side ploughed with huge sh.e.l.l holes."

But the Irish troops swept on. Nothing could stop them--neither their fallen comrades, nor the groans of the wounded, nor the abominably mangled dead; and the blasts of fire and iron and steel which the enemy let loose beat in vain against their valour and resolution.

"'Tis G.o.d's truth I'm telling you," a Leinsterman remarked to me, "when I say we couldn't stop ourselves in the height of our hurry, we were that mad." In fact, they had captured Guillamont before they were aware of it. "Where's that blessed village we've got to take?" they shouted, as they looked round and saw not a stick or a stone. "We're in it, boys," replied a captain of the Munsters as he planted a green flag with a yellow harp on the dust heap which his map indicated was once the centre of Guillamont, and the Irishmen, mightily pleased with themselves, raised a wild shout.

CHAPTER XII

THE BRIGADE'S POUNCE ON GUINCHY

GALLANT BOY OFFICERS OF THE DUBLIN FUSILIERS

Guinchy fell within the same week as Guillamont. It was stormed on the following Sat.u.r.day, September 9. The village had been taken two or three times previously--some accounts say four--by the British and recaptured each time by the Germans. But the grip of the Irish Brigade could not be relaxed. Standing on a hill 500 feet high, Guinchy was one of the most important enemy strongholds on the Somme, particularly for artillery. It had been fortified with the acc.u.mulated skill of eighteen months' labour by the German engineers. It was well protected by guns. Picked troops--the Bavarians--defended it. The Germans, according to a captured officer, believed that Guinchy could not be taken. "But," he added, "you attacked us with devils, not men. No one could withstand them." The capture of the place was therefore a good day's work. It stands solely to the credit of the Irish Brigade. They did it all by themselves.

The attack was mainly delivered from the direction of Guillamont. All through the week, for five days and nights, most of the Irish battalions had lain in the trenches--connected sh.e.l.l craters for the most part--under heavy artillery fire. In these circ.u.mstances they could get nothing hot to eat. They subsisted mainly on the iron rations of bully beef and biscuit, which formed part of each man's fighting equipment, and a little water. As for sleep, they were unable to get more than disturbed and unrefres.h.i.+ng s.n.a.t.c.hes. Yet they were as full of spirit and had nerves as unshaken as if they had come fresh from billets, and they were as eager for a fight as ever.