The Irish on the Somme Part 12

"With the woolly side out and the skinny side in, Sure, We'll wallop the Gerrys, said Brian O'Lynn."

Hearty bursts of laughter and cheers arose from both trenches at the conclusion of the song. It seemed as if the combatants gladly availed themselves of the chance opportunity of becoming united again in the common brotherhood of man, even for but a fleeting moment, by the spirit of good-humour and hilarity.

Lieutenant Denis Oliver Barnett, a young English officer of a different battalion of the same Leinster Regiment (whose letters from the Front have been published as a memorial by his parents), tells of a more curious incident still, which likewise led to a brief cessation of hostilities. Two privates in his company had a quarrel in the trenches, and nothing would do them but to fight it out on No Man's Land. The Germans were most appreciative and accommodating. Not only did they not molest the pugilists, but they cheered them, and actually fired the contents of their rifles in the air by way of a salute. The European War was, in fact, suspended in this particular section of the lines while two Irishmen settled their own little differences by a contest of fists.

"Who will now say that the Germans are not sportsmen?" was the comment of the young English officer. There is, however, another and perhaps a shrewder view of the episode. It was taken, I have been told, by a sergeant of the company. "Yerra, come down out of that, ye pair of born fools," he called out to the fighters. "If ye had only a glimmer of sense ye'd see, so ye would, that 'tis playing the Gerrys' game ye are. Sure, there's nothing they'd like better than to see us all knocking blazes out of each other." But as regards the moral pointed by the officer, there must be, of course, many "sportsmen" among the millions of German soldiers; though the opinion widely prevailing in the British Army is that they are more often treacherous fighters.

Indeed, to their dirty practices is mainly to be ascribed the bitter personal animosity that occasionally mark the relations between the combatants, when the fighting becomes most b.l.o.o.d.y and desperate, and--as happens at times in all wars--no quarter is given to those who allow none.

In the wars of old between England and France, both sides were animated by a very fine sense of chivalry. Barere, one of the chief popular orators during the worst excesses of the French Revolution, induced the Convention to declare that no quarter was to be given to the English. "Soldiers of Liberty," he cried, "when victory places Englishmen at your mercy, strike!" But the French troops absolutely refused to act upon the savage decree. The principle upon which both French and English acted during the Peninsular War was that of doing as little harm to one another as possible consistently with the winning of victory. Between the rank and file friendly feelings may be said, without any incongruity, to have existed. They were able, of their own accord, to come to certain understandings that tended to mitigate, to some extent, the hardships and even the dangers to which they were both alike exposed. One was that sentries at the outposts must not be fired on or surprised. Often no more than a s.p.a.ce of twenty yards separated them, and when the order to advance was given to either Army the sentries of the other were warned to retire. Once a French sentry helped a British sentry to replace his knapsack so that he might more quickly fall back before the firing began. A remarkable instance of signalling between the opposing forces is mentioned by General Sir Charles Napier in his _History of the Peninsular War_.

Wellington sent a detachment of riflemen to drive away some French troops occupying the top of a hill near Bayonne, and as they approached the enemy he ordered them to fire. "But," says Napier, "with a loud voice one of those soldiers replied, 'No firing,' and holding up the b.u.t.t of his rifle tapped it in a peculiar way." This was a signal to the French and was understood by them--probably as a result of a mutual arrangement--to mean, "We must have the hill for a short time." "The French, who, though they could not maintain, would not relinquish the post without a fight if they had been fired upon, quietly retired," Napier writes; "and this signal would never have been made if the post had been one capable of a permanent defence, so well do veterans understand war and its proprieties."

Throughout that long campaign the British and French recognised each other as worthy foemen, and they were both solicitous to maintain unstained the honour and dignity of arms. As the opposing forces lay resting before Lisbon for months, the advanced posts got so closely into touch that much friendly intercourse took place between them.

French officers frequently asked for such little luxuries as cigars, coffee and stationery to be brought to them from Lisbon, which was held by the British, and their requests were always readily complied with. At the battle of Talavera, on July 28, 1809, the possession of a hill was fiercely contested all day. The weather was so intensely hot that the combatants were parched with thirst. At noon there was an almost entire cessation of artillery and rifle fire, as if an informal truce had been suddenly come to, by a flash of intuition, and with one accord French and British rushed down to the rivulet at the foot of the hill to moisten their burning throats. "The men crowded on each side of the water's edge," says Napier. "They threw aside their caps and muskets, and chatted to each other in broken French and still more fragmentary English across the stream. Flasks were exchanged; hands shaken. Then the bugle and the rolling drum called the men back to their colours, and the fight awoke once more."

Such amenities between combatants are very ancient--the Greeks and Trojans used to exchange presents and courtesies, in the intervals of fighting--and the early stages of this war seemed to afford a promise that they would be revived. The fraternising of the British and Germans at their first Christmas under arms, in 1914, will, perhaps, always be accounted as the most curious episode of the war. It was quite unauthorised by the higher command. The men themselves, under the influence of the great Christian festival, brought about a suspension of hostilities at several points of the lines, and they availed themselves of the opportunity to satisfy their natural curiosity to see something more of each other than they could see through the smoke of battle with deadly weapons in their hands and hatred in their eyes. Each side had taken prisoners; but prisoners are "out of it," and therefore reduced to the level of non-combatants. The foeman in being appears in a very different light. He has the power to strike. You may have to kill him or you may be killed by him. So the British and the Germans, impelled in the main by a common feeling of inquisitiveness, met together, unarmed, in No Man's Land. There was some amicable conversation where they could make themselves understood to each other, which happened when a German was found who could speak a little English. Cigarettes and tunic-b.u.t.tons were freely exchanged.

But, for the most part, British and Germans stood, with arms folded across their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and stared at each other with a kind of dread fascination.

It never happened again. How could it possibly be repeated? The introduction of the barbaric elements of "frightfulness," hitherto confined to savage tribes at war, the use of such devilish inventions as poison gas and liquid fire, are due to the malignant minds of the German high command, and for them the German soldiers cannot be held accountable. But the native lowness of morality shown by so many of the German rank and file, their apparent insensitiveness to ordinary humane instincts, the well-authenticated stories of their filthy and cruel conduct in the occupied districts, inevitably tended to harden and embitter their adversaries against them too. Of the instances of their treachery to Irish soldiers which have been brought to my notice, I will mention only two. One arose out of the "truce" of Christmas Day, 1914, despite the goodwill of the occasion. The victim, Sergeant Timothy O'Toole, Leinster Regiment, first mentions that he took part in a game of football with the Germans, and then proceeds--

"I was returning to my own trench unaccompanied about 12.15 p.m.

When I reached within fifteen paces I was sniped by a Hunnish swine, the bullet entering my back, penetrating my intestines.

Following the example of Our Lord, I instantly forgave him, concluding he was only a black sheep, characteristic of any army or community, but I was labouring under a delusion. Within five minutes of being hit, I had quite a number around me, including officers and clergymen. I was so mortally wounded that the 'Padre' administered the last rite of the Church on the spot.

Four stretcher bearers came out for me. I noticed the white band and Red Cross on their arms. Immediately I was lifted up on the stretcher. Though I was semi-unconscious I remember the bullets beating the ground like hailstone on a March day. I was wounded again, this time the bullet going through the lower part of my back. Here two of my bearers got hit, Privates Melia and Peters.

The former died in hospital immediately after. Naturally the two bearers instantly dropped the stretcher. I fell violently to the ground--nice medicine for a man wounded in the abdomen."

"Thank Providence, I am still living," Sergeant O'Toole adds, "but a living victim of German atrocity and barbarism." In the other case a very gallant young officer of the Dublin Fusiliers, Lieutenant Louis G. Doran, lost his life on the Somme, October 23, 1916, through the guile and falsehood of German soldiers. The circ.u.mstances are told in a letter written by Captain Louis C. Byrne to the father of Lieutenant Doran, Mr. Charles J. Doran of Blackrock, co. Dublin--

"Believe me, Mr. Doran, I sympathise fully with you in your loss because I was your son's company commander and by his death I have lost one of the best officers in my company. We attacked a certain position and we had just got to it when some Germans put up their hands to surrender. Your son went out to take their surrender and they shot him through the heart and he died at once. My other three officers were also knocked out, and only myself and thirty-six men returned to headquarters after the battle. Still, we took the position owing to gallantry of men like your son. He died a n.o.ble and heroic death--no man could possibly wish for a better one. He told me he had just had a brother wounded, so your loss is double and words cannot express my sympathy with you. Your son was buried with the men in the position we took. It was impossible to bring his body down owing to heavy fire. I think it is what he would have liked best."

The lady to whom Lieutenant Doran was engaged to be married kindly sent me a few extracts from his letters which convey something of his care and thought for his men. "Those I have seen from the men," she says, "amplify this from their own experience in ways which he would never dream of mentioning, he was always so modest about all he did."

"I'm going to tell you what I would really love to get now and again,"

Lieutenant Doran wrote in one letter. "You see, we officers are never very hard up for grub, and I would much prefer to receive something for my men, who get very little in the way of luxuries or dainties. As you know, a platoon is split into four sections, and anything that I could divide into four parts amongst them would be most acceptable.

For instance, four small tins of b.u.t.ter would be a great luxury, or a big cake--anything that gives them a change." In another he said: "As you say, there are always hungry soldiers to be found, and I often wish some of the presents I receive would only come together, as one cake is a useless thing among forty hungry men. The poor fellows have fairly rough fare as a rule, and sometimes not even much of that. One wonders how it is they keep so cheerful." The men, in turn, were most devoted to Lieutenant Doran. They would do anything to prevent a hair of his head being hurt.

Generally speaking, feeling in the British Army is, however, extraordinarily devoid of that vindictiveness which springs from a deep sense of personal injury, and evokes, in turn, a desire for revenge which, were it shown, would, however lamentable, be not unnatural in many circ.u.mstances of this war. The Germans, in the ma.s.s, are regarded as having been dehumanised and transformed into a process of ruthless destruction. In any case, they are the enemy. As such, there is a satisfaction--nay, a positive delight--in sweeping them out of existence. That is war. But the rage for killing them is impersonal. Against the German soldier individually it may be said that, on the whole, there is no rancour. In fact, the British soldiers have a curiously detached and generous way of regarding their country's enemies. When the German soldier is taken prisoner, or picked up wounded, the British soldier is disposed, as a hundred thousand instances show, to treat him as a "pal"--to divide his food and share his cigarettes with him as he pa.s.ses to the base.

It is very noticeable how all the war correspondents, in their accounts of the taking of the village of Guinchy on the Somme by the Irish Division, dwelt on the chivalrous way in which the Irish treated their vanquished foes. Once the spirit of combativeness is aroused in the Irish soldiers they hate the enemy like the black death to which they strive to consign them. But when the fury of battle has died down in victory there are none so soft and kindly to the beaten enemy.

Surrender should always, of course, disarm hostility. No true soldier would decline to lower his bayonet when a foeman acknowledges defeat and places his life in his keeping. That is, after a fair and gallant fight on the part of the foeman. It was because the Germans at Guinchy were vindictive in combat, and despicable when overthrown, that the Irish acted with rare magnanimity in accepting their submission and sparing their lives.

In that engagement the Irish made a characteristically headlong dash for the enemy positions. Rifle and machine-gun fire was poured into them by the Germans up to the very last moment--until, in fact, they had reached the trenches; and then, as they were about to jump in and bayonet and club their bloodthirsty foemen, they found them on their knees, with hands uplifted. The Irish were enraged at the sight. To think that men who had been so merciless should beg for mercy when their opponents were on top of them! Were their comrades slain only a moment since to go unavenged? These thoughts pa.s.sed rapidly through the minds of the Irish. As swiftly came the decision, worthy of high-souled men. An enemy on his knees is to them inviolable, not to be hurt or injured, however mean and low he may have proved himself to be. So the Irish bayonet, at the very b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Germans, was turned aside; that was the right and proper thing to do, and it would not call for notice but that it shines with the light of chivalry in comparison with the black meanness and treachery of the Germans.

In the gladiatorial fights for the entertainment of the people in ancient Rome the defeated combatant was expected to expose his throat to the sword of the victor, and any shrinking on his part caused the arena to ring with the angry shouts of the thousands of spectators: "Receive the steel." The way of the Irish at Guinchy was different, and perhaps the renunciation of their revenge was not the least magnificent act of a glorious day.

"If we brained them on the spot, who could blame us? 'Tis ourselves that would think it no sin if it was done by any one else," said a private of the Dublin Fusiliers. "Let me tell you," he went on, "what happened to myself. As I raced across the open with my comrades, jumping in and out of sh.e.l.l holes, and the bullets flying thick around us, laying many the fine boy low, I said to myself, this is going to be a fight to the last gasp for those of us that get to the Germans.

As I came near to the trenches I picked a man out for myself. Straight in front of me he was, leaning out of the trench, and he with a rifle firing away at us as if we were rabbits. I made for him with my bayonet ready, determined to give him what he deserved, when--what do you think?--didn't he notice me and what I was up to. Dropping his rifle, he raised himself up in the trench and stretched out his hands towards me. What could you do in that case, but what I did? Sure you wouldn't have the heart to strike him down, even if he were to kill you. I caught sight of his eyes, and there was such a frightened and pleading look in them that I at once lowered my rifle. I could no more prod him with my bayonet than I could a toddling child. I declare to the Lord the state of the poor devil almost made me cry. I took him by the hand, saying, 'You're my prisoner.' I don't suppose he understood a word of what I said, but he clung to me, crying, 'Kamerad! kamerad!'

I was more glad than ever then that I hadn't the blood of him on my soul. 'Tis a queer thing to say, maybe, of a man who acted like that; but, all the same, he looked a decent boy every bit of him. I suppose the truth of it is this: we soldiers, on both sides, have to go through such terrible experiences that there is no accounting for how we may behave. We might be devils, all out, in the morning, and saints, no less, in the evening."

The relations between the trenches include even attempts at an exchange of repartee. The wit, as may be supposed, in such circ.u.mstances, is invariably ironic and sarcastic. My examples are Irish, for the reason that I have had most to do with Irish soldiers, but they may be taken as fairly representative of the taunts and pleasantries which are often bandied across No Man's Land. The Germans holding part of their line in Belgium got to know that the British trenches opposite them were being held by an Irish battalion. "h.e.l.lo, Irish," they cried; "how is King Carson getting on? and have you got Home Rule yet?" The company sergeant-major, a big Tipperary man, was selected to make the proper reply, and in order that it might be fully effective he sent it through a megaphone which the colonel was accustomed to use in addressing the battalion on parade. "h.e.l.lo, Gerrys," he called out. "I'm thinking it isn't information ye want, but divarshion; but 'tis information I'll be after giving ye, all the same. Later on we'll be sending ye some fun that'll make ye laugh at the other side of ye'r mouths. The last we heard of Carson he was prodding the Government like the very devil to put venim into their blows at ye, and more power to his elbow while he's at that work, say we. As for Home Rule, we mean to have it, and we'll get it, please G.o.d, when ye're licked. Put that in ye're pipes and smoke it."

Of all the horrible features of the war, surely the most heartrending is the fate of the wounded lying without succour in the open between the opposing lines, owing to the inability of the higher command on both sides to agree to an arrangement for a short suspension of hostilities after an engagement so that the stricken might be brought in. p.r.o.ne in the mud and slush they lie, during the cruel winter weather, with the rain pouring down upon them, their moans of agony in the darkness of the night mingling with the cold blasts that howl around them. But, thanks to the loving kindness of man for his fellow, even in war, these unfortunate creatures are not deserted.

British soldiers without number have voluntarily crept out into No Man's Land to rescue them, often under murderous fire from the enemy.

Many of the Victoria Crosses won in this war have been awarded for conspicuous gallantry displayed in these most humane and chivalrous enterprises.

One of the most uplifting stories I have heard was told me by a captain of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Out there in front of the trench held by his company lay a figure in khaki writhing in pain and wailing for help. "Will no one come to me?" he cried in a voice broken with anguish. He had been disabled in the course of a raid on the German trenches the night before by a battalion which was relieved in the morning. These appeals of his were like stabs to the compa.s.sionate hearts of the Irish Fusiliers. Several of them told the captain they could stand it no longer, and must go out to the wounded man. If they were shot in the attempt, what matter? It happened that a little dog was then making himself quite at home in both the British and German trenches at this part of the lines. He was a neutral; he took no sides; he regularly crossed from one to the other, and found in both friends to give him food and a kind word, with a pat on the head. The happy thought came to the captain to make a messenger of the dog. So he wrote, "May we take our wounded man in?", tied the note to the dog's tail, and sent him to the German trenches. The message was in English, for the captain did not know German, and had to trust to the chance of the enemy being able to read it. In a short time the dog returned with the answer. It was in English, and it ran: "Yes; you can have five minutes." So the captain and a man went out with a stretcher and brought the poor fellow back to our lines.

Some of these understandings are come to by a sort of telepathic suggestion inspired by the principle of "live and let live," however incongruous that may seem in warfare. As an instance, recuperative work, such as the bringing up of food to the firing lines is often allowed to go on in comparative quietude. Neither side cares to stand on guard in the trenches with an empty stomach. Often, therefore, firing is almost entirely suspended in the early hours of the night, when it is known that rations are being distributed. That is not the way everywhere and always. A private of the Royal Irish Regiment told me that what he found most aggravating in the trenches was the fusillading by the Germans when the men were getting ready a bit to eat. "I suppose," he remarked, "'twas the smell of the frying bacon that put their dandher up." But even defensive work has been allowed to proceed without interference, when carried on simultaneously by both sides. Heavy rain, following a hard frost, turned the trenches in the Ypres district into a chaos of ooze and slime. "How deep is it with you?" a German soldier shouted across to the British. "Up to our knees, bedad," was the reply. "You are lucky fellows. We're up to our belts in it," said the German. Driven to desperation by their hideous discomfort, the Germans soon after crawled up on to their parapets and sat there to dry and stretch their legs, calling out, "Kamerads, don't shoot; don't shoot, kamerads!" The reply of the Irish was to get out of their trenches and do likewise. On another occasion, in the broad daylight, unarmed parties of men on both sides, by a tacit agreement, set about repairing their respective barbed-wire entanglements. They were no more than fifteen or twenty yards apart. The wiring-party on the British side belonged to the Munster Fusiliers. Being short of mallets, one of the Munsters coolly walked across to the enemy and said, "Good-morrow, Gerrys. Would any of ye be so kind as to lend me the loan of a hammer?" The Germans received him with smiles, but as they did not know English they were unable to understand what he wanted until he made it clear by pantomimic action, when he was given the hammer "with a heart and a half," as he put it himself. Having repaired the defences of his own trench, he brought back the hammer to the Germans, and thought he might give them "a bit of his mind,"

without offence, as they did not know what he was saying. "Here's your hammer, and thanks," said he. "High hanging to the man that caused this war--ye know who I mean--and may we be all soon busily at work hammering nails into his coffin."

Many touching stories might be told of the sympathy which unites the combatants when they find themselves lying side by side, wounded and helpless, in sh.e.l.l holes and copses, or on the open plain after an engagement. The ruling spirit which animates the soldier in the fury of the fight is, as it seems to me, that of self-preservation. He kills or disables so that he may not be killed or disabled himself.

Besides that, each side are convinced they are waging a purely defensive war. So it is that hostility subsides, once the sense of danger is removed, and each side sees in its captives not devils or barbarians, but fellow-men. Especially among the wounded, British and German, do these sentiments prevail, as they lie together on the field of battle. In a dim way they pitifully regard each other as hapless victims caught in the vortex of the greatest of human tragedies, or set against each other by the ambitions of rulers and statesmen in which they have no part. They try to help each other, to ease each other's sufferings, to stanch each other's wounds, to give each other comfort in their sore distress.

"Poor devil, unnerved by sh.e.l.l shock," was the comment pa.s.sed as a wounded German was being carried by on a stretcher sobbing as if his heart would break. It was not the roar of the artillery and the bursting of high explosives that had unnerved him, but the self-sacrifice of a Dublin Fusilier, who, in succouring him, lost his own life. At the hospital the German related that, on recovering his senses after being shot, he found the Dublin Fusilier trying to stanch the wound in his shattered leg, from which blood was flowing profusely. The Irishman undid the field-dressing, consisting of bandage and antiseptic preparation, which he had wrapped round his own wound, and applied it to the German, as he appeared to be in danger of bleeding to death. Before the two men were discovered by a British stretcher party, the Dublin Fusilier had pa.s.sed away. He developed blood-poisoning through his exposed wound. The German, on hearing the news, broke down and wept bitterly.

Reconciliation between wounded foemen is happily a common occurrence on the stricken plain. The malignant roar of the guns may still be in their ears, and they may see around them bodies battered and twisted out of all human shape. All the more are they anxious to testify that there is no fury in their hearts with each other, and that their one wish is to make the supreme parting with words of reconciliation and prayers on their lips. I have had from a French officer, who was wounded in a cavalry charge early in the war, an account of a pathetic incident which took place close to where he lay. Among his companions in affliction were two who were far gone on the way to death. One was a private in the Uhlans, and the other a private in the Royal Irish Dragoons. The Irishman got, with a painful effort, from an inside pocket of his tunic a rosary beads which had a crucifix attached to it. Then he commenced to mutter to himself the invocations to the Blessed Virgin of which the Rosary is composed. "Hail, Mary! full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." The German, lying huddled close by, stirred with the uneasy movements of a man weak from pain and loss of blood on hearing the murmur of prayer, and, looking round in a dazed condition, the sight of the beads in the hands of his fellow in distress seemed to recall to his mind other times and different circ.u.mstances--family prayers at home somewhere in Bavaria, and Sunday evening devotions in church, for he made, in his own tongue, the response to the invocation: "Holy Mary, Mother of G.o.d, pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death. Amen." So the voices intermingled in address and prayer--the rapt e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the Irishman, the deep guttural of the German--getting weaker and weaker, in the process of dissolution, until they were hushed on earth for evermore.

War has outwardly lost its romance, with its colour and pageantry. It is b.l.o.o.d.y, ugly and horrible. Yet romance is not dead. It still survives, radiant and glowing, in the heroic achievements of our soldiers, and in the tender impulses of their hearts.

THE END

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, BRUNSWICK ST., STAMFORD ST., S.E., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.

THE IRISH AT THE FRONT

By MICHAEL MacDONAGH

FROM THE REVIEWS OF THE FIRST SERIES

_Westminster Gazette._--"Mr. MacDonagh has crammed into a small volume an almost incredible number of thrilling stories of great deeds, whether of collective dash and daring and endurance or of individual heroism. He has found his material in the letters of officers and men and the conversation of those who have come home, as well as from the records compiled at regimental depots; and he has utilised it skilfully, avoiding too frequent quotation and giving his reader a connected and fluent narrative that is of absorbing interest. He gives us vivid pictures of the retreat from Mons--of the Irish Guards receiving their baptism of fire; of the Connaught Rangers' part in the first stand that was made ('It was a grand time we had,' one of them said, 'and I wouldn't have missed it for lashin's of money!'); of the Dublins at Cambrai, where they went into the fray in a way that is well described as 'uproariously and outrageously Irish,' after singing all the Fenian songs for which they had time; and of the Munsters who harnessed themselves cheerfully, for lack of horses, to the guns they had captured from the Germans. He tells us of the green flag that Corporal Cunningham bought from a pedlar in London, and that the Irish Guards have since followed to the gates of death on a score of fields; of the Irish Rifles rallying to the 'view-hallo' that Lieutenant Graham gave them on a French newsboy's horn; of the glorious sacrifices of the Dublins and the Munsters at the Gallipoli landings; and of the desperate resistance at Loos, where, as the Brigadier said to his men when it was over, 'It was the London Irish who helped to save a whole British Army Corps.' From first to last it is a glorious story of almost incredible deeds."

_Star._--"It is an amazing story of incredible gallantry and fantastic daring, gay with humour and poignant with pathos. I defy anybody except a tapeworm to read it without a lump in the throat and tears in the eyes."--JAMES DOUGLAS.

Bound in cloth, 1s. 3d. net. Postage 4d. extra.

THE IRISH AT THE FRONT

SOME FURTHER REVIEWS

_The Times._--"'It is heroic deeds entering into their traditions that give life to nations,' writes Mr. John Redmond in his preface to Mr. Michael MacDonagh's _The Irish at the Front_. The phrase sums up the aim and temper of the book, which is designed to bring home to English, and especially to Irish, readers the magnificent service of Irish soldiers in the war and the sanct.i.ty of the cause for which they fight. It is an appeal to Irishmen not to let the national effort flag, for the sake of the highest interests both of humanity and of Ireland. In a vivid and earnest popular style Mr. MacDonagh puts flesh and blood on the dry bones of the official dispatches by drawing on regimental records and the narratives of officers and men. The letters of Irish soldiers give a lively impression of battle scenes, and add greatly to the spirit of the volume; but many of the most striking testimonies to the achievements of the Irish regiments come from comrades who are not Irish. It is indisputable that the traditional military valour of the Irish race has been brilliantly sustained in this war, not only by the old Regular battalions, but by the Irishmen of the New Army."