Clare and the Great War

by Joe Power

  They took the hill at the point of the bayonet, the Turks fleeing in all directions. It was a magnificent performance and we have been personally congratulated on it, and we called the hill Fort Dublin. Our casualties were over 100, including Maj. Tippet shot dead and Lieut Julian, who has I hear, since died. D Company lost 22 injured altogether and only one killed outright, though I am afraid some of the others will not recover. It was just dusk when we took the hill and then we had to go and get water for the men, who were parched with the thirst. This was a long job and we had to go back two miles to a well. Meanwhile, we had established ourselves on the trenches on the hill and at 1.30 am I ate a biscuit, the first food I ate since breakfast the previous morning. The enemy counter-attacked during the night, but they were easily driven off.

  All Sunday morning and afternoon a furious fight was going on on the ridge to our right, where our forces had the advantage. Meanwhile, shrapnel and high explosives were spoiling our day’s rest, and the place was full of snipers. These snipers are the very devil, as if you put up your hand at all, bullets whizz past you. They are up trees, hidden in furze, and in every conceivable hiding place and it is very hard to spot them. We captured some, including a woman and a man draped in green to resemble the tree he was in and shot several more. On Monday there was a tremendous fight for the hill on our left by an English division. The brigade on our right ran out of ammunition and D Company was called upon to supply them. I sent 40 men under Captain Tobin, to bring up 20,000 rounds to the supports and took 80 men myself to get 40,000 rounds, which were further away to the same place, but with orders from the colonel to come back immediately as our side of the hill was very weakly held. When I got up I found that Tobin and 12 of his party had gone further up as the ammunition was urgently needed. I dumped down the ammunition with the supports and came back to the hill as ordered. Meanwhile, Tobin and his party had got into the firing line and one of my best sergeants, Edward Miller, was killed. He died gallantly and his name has been sent forward for recognition.

  The next few days were uneventful save that we got no sleep, as we had to stand to arms about six times each night; and the incessant din of howitzers and heavy guns allowed no rest whatsoever. Finally, on Thursday night, or rather on Friday morning at 1.30 am, we were relieved, and were not sorry to leave a hill, which none of us will ever forget, and the taking of which will add lustre to the records of the Dublin Fusiliers. D Company’s casualties amounted to 40 out of 188 men landed on Saturday morning. I forgot to say that we discarded our packs at the landing (and have never seen them again), and all this time we never had our boots off, a shave, or a wash, and even the dirtiest water was greedily drunk on the hill where the sun’s rays beat pitilessly down all day long and where the rotting corpses of the Turks created a damnably offensive smell. This is one of the worst features here – unburied bodies and flies. But the details are more gruesome than my pen can depict. Well, we marched out at 1.30 on Friday morning, a bedraggled and want of sleep tired body, and marched seven miles back to a rest camp. Several of the men walked back part of the way in their sleep, and when we arrived at 4.30 on Friday morning, everyone threw himself down where he was and fell asleep. But our hopes of a rest were short-lived, as we were ordered out again at four the next day, and here we are now, on the side of a hill, waiting to go forward again and attack. Meanwhile, it is soothing for us to know that we have achieved something, which has got us the praise of all the staff and big men here, but I dare say, you will hear more about it in despatches from the front.34

  Capt. Hickman was killed the very next day on 15 August 1915. He was the second son of Francis William Gore-Hickman, DL of Kilmore, Knock, Kilmurry McMahon. He was 35 years old. A well-known sportsman, he played rugby for Trinity College and was later captain of Wanderers Football Club. He was called to the bar in 1909 and was secretary of the Munster Circuit. He was also a freemason, having been enrolled in Lodge 60, Ennis, Co. Clare He enlisted in September 1914, joining the ‘Pals’ battalion. Two of his brothers also joined the 7th battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers, the ‘Pals’ battalion. Capt. Hickman was killed in action leading a bayonet charge on a ridge at Kiretch Tepe. He was well out in front, leading his men forward, shouting: ‘On Dublins!’ before he was cut down by Turkish fire. The famous D Company of the Dublin Fusiliers was practically wiped out in the Dardanelles.35

  The conduct of the Irish soldiers at Gallipoli was ‘a story of heroism and slaughter’. The Munster and Dublin regiments arrived at Suvla Bay in August 1915 and displayed enormous courage when making a landing on the treacherous beaches, which were stoutly defended by the Turkish Army. The landings have been described as being one of the most terrible days’s fighting of the war. One eyewitness was Lt Commander Josiah Wedgewood, a British MP, who was present on the steamer River Clyde, which was run aground at the landing. His description, published in the Westminster Gazette, testifies to the bravery of the Irish soldiers:

  I never noticed the grounding, for the horror in the water and on the beach. Five rows of five boats, each loaded with men were going alongside us. One moment it had been early morning in a peaceful country, and the next, while the boats were just twenty yards from the shore, the blue sea around each boat was turning red. Of all those brave men, two thirds died, and hardly a dozen reached the shelter of the five foot sand dunes. Then they charged from the wooden horse. From the new large ports on the lower deck they ran along gangways to the bows, and then moved three lighters to a spit of rock. Twenty slippery yards over the rocks and there was shelter. I think theirs was more terrible. In the first rush none got alive to land and they repeated these rushes all day. There was no room on the rocks, there was no room on the lighters and boats, they were so covered with the dead and wounded.

  It was the Munsters that charged first, with a sprig of shamrock on their caps, then the Dubliners, then the Worcesters, and then the Hampshires. Lying on the beach, on the rocks, on the lighters, they cried on the mother of God. Even when I looked ashore, I saw five Munsters. They at some moment had got ashore. They had been told to cut off the wire entanglements. They had left the shelter of the bunk, charged fifteen yards to the wire and there they lay in a row at two yards interval. One could hardly believe them dead. All the time the great shells kept hitting the shivering ship and doing slaughter in the packed holds. These shells were fired from Asia, but it was the maxims and pom poms in Seddul Bahr and on the amphitheatre that kept our heads down below the bulwarks and boiler plate.

  When the village of Seddul Bahr was cleared, it was found that there were no wounded survivors of the Munsters and Dublins. Two German officers were found and killed. These fiends, it appears had instigated the things done to the dying Irishmen, and we never afterwards found similar Turkish atrocities.36

  ‘The Turk’ Gormley

  One Ennis soldier, Pte Gormley, who also served in the Dardanelles, described in detail how he killed a Turk with a bayonet after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle. For this action he was re-christened with the nickname ‘The Turk’ when he returned to Ennis after the war:

  I happened to get wounded while up in the Dardennelles. My wound is progressing favourably. We had a very warm time of it up in Gallipoli, most of my regiment being knocked over. The hospital is situated down on the seashore, so we are in quite a healthy spot, with plenty of sea breezes etc. We are getting well treated, so I have no cause to complain. I have one consolation in knowing that I killed my opponent.

  I was coming from the firing line with a wounded comrade. I brought him to the nearest dressing station, about four miles from Aki Baba. Returning again to the firing line, I had to pass a battery of howitzers on my right, when the major of the battery called me asked me if I was returning to the firing line. I told him I was so he told me to look out for snipers. I went about 150 yards from the battery. I stood against a tree to have a drink, when I heard some noises. I got closer to the tree, where I could see the bayonet and part of a rifle of a Turk protruding from
a tree. Unfortunately, I did not have my rifle with me, having left it in the trenches. I made a grab for his rifle and he fired, wounding me in the right hand. I made a grab with my left hand and caught hold of his rifle. I then forced the rifle upwards. He tried to wrench the rifle from me, but I held on. I watched for my opportunity and kicked him in the groin. He then dropped, letting go of the rifle. With his struggles I gave him another kick, this time in the jaw. This knocked him unconscious for a time. I then pointed the bayonet at his stomach and putting my weight on the butt drove the point home.

  During the affair the major of the battery heard the report, on which he came up with four men and asked me if I were very much hurt. He bandaged my hand up with my field dressing, there being a constant flow of blood. He congratulated me, and took my name, number and regiment. When I said it was the Munsters, he said he thought so. So that is the only one I can account for. I can tell you it is no picnic up there. I regret to say Jack Regan was killed by my side on 2nd May and Pat Frawley and young Burley.37

  Pte Armstrong of the 7th Battalion, Dublin Fusiliers, from Kilrush, son of the local Church of Ireland minister, Canon Armstrong, sent a letter home describing the very difficult conditions, especially the shortage of water and the dangers from snipers in the Dardanelles:

  We took a hill just before dark. The Turks did not wait for the bayonet, but cleared when we got near their trenches, leaving their slippers, etc. behind. We had a very stiff time of it for about nine days, getting practically no sleep, as the Turks used to threaten us with attacks every night, sometimes coming very near the trenches.

  We had to clear out a lot of unexploded shrapnel shells, which the Turks had stored up in a dug-out running along with them, while snipers were landing bullets rather too near us to be comfortable. However, we captured all the shells, without any casualties.

  We had to get our water supply under fire, and the only way to escape the bullets was to keep on the move. I have trotted a couple of miles over and over again, with water bottles, while the snipers were potting for all they were worth, often getting half a dozen bullets running a few feet in front of me. Then they would sometimes turn shrapnel on the wells and cause a good many casualties. However, thank God, I have not had a bullet in me yet, although I have had a few narrow shaves …

  I am here (Valetta Hospital, Malta), recovering from dysentery. We are very well cared for – nice porridge for breakfast, with an egg, bread and butter and ripping tea. Chicken etc., nicely boiled for dinner, then tea and supper. The hospital seems like a palace after Gallipoli.38

  The Gallipoli campaign turned out to be an unmitigated disaster for the Allied forces. The British-led attempt to defeat the Turks and to open a supply route to Russia via the Black Sea was a costly failure, partly due to incompetence in the high command and to the very strong Turkish defences. The bravery of the Allied soldiers could not be faulted. The British withdrew their forces from Gallipoli on 9 January 1916 after ten months of slaughter, which began on 25 April 1915. About 70,000 British troops were killed in the Dardanelles on the Gallipoli Peninsula, including 2,017 men from the 10th Division, among them at least forty-eight Clare men, mainly from the Munster, Inniskilling and Dublin regiments, who met their baptism of fire in August 1915, and whose bones are resting on the beachheads of Gallipoli. Besides the dead, more than 150 Clare men were wounded here.39

  On the beach at Gallipoli. (Courtesy of Great War photos.com)

  Map of Gallipoli. (Courtesy of Gordon Smith, www.navalarchive.net)

  Among those wounded at Gallipoli was Capt. Robin Tottenham of Mountcallan, County Clare. He was badly wounded on 25 April within six hours of arrival at the battle scene. His right arm was amputated above the elbow. After treatment in a London hospital, Capt. Tottenham drove himself home to Clare to recuperate. He learned to shoot with one arm and shot his first snipe on 19 January 1916! His severe wounds did not deter him from action and he went to France on 16 March 1916 as an ADC to Maj. Gen. Hickie, commander of the 16th Irish Division and served for the rest of the war.40

  Maj. Brian Mahon, commander of the 29th Brigade, wrote:

  Never in history did Irishmen face death with greater courage and endurance than they did in Gallipoli and Serbia in the summer and winter of 1915 … The four plagues of Gallipoli were flies, thirst, dirt and enteritis … For a week the battalion held the line that was captured … water was very short and had to be fetched from a considerable distance … by day the Turkish snipers made this impossible, so the men lay hot and thirsty and tormented by flies … to add to the horror the unburied bodies of those who had fallen in the previous fighting, lay in inaccessible gullies in the midst of scrub, began to spread around the foul, sweet, sickly odour of decay … the real trouble was thirst.41

  The Clare MPs and the War: Maj. Willie Redmond, MP

  While Willie Redmond, MP, was true to his word and joined the army to fight for Ireland in France, he did not see much action during this year. He seems to have been used by the British Army for public relations and to assist recruiting throughout Ireland. In November he visited the front line in France. He gave an account of his experiences to the Press Association.

  On 18 November he met the Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander of the 4th Army Corps, and Maj. Gen. Holland. He addressed a battalion of the Munster Fusiliers and was ‘cheered lustily as they marched away to the strains of ‘O’Donnell Abu’. On the following day he went to the HQ of the 2nd Army under Gen. Plummer, where he met and addressed the 2nd Battalion of the Leinster Regiment, after which he was given ‘a most enthusiastic reception’. Here he also met some Catholic chaplains, who spoke highly in praise of the men. Then he went to the Divisional HQ, where he met Gen. Dore, a Wexfordman. He was brought along the trenches within 80 yards of the German lines and he heard the continuous roar of the big guns. While he was there he wrote that one of his constituents, a Clareman, was killed instantly by a bullet.

  After this, he met members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Rifles, with Fr Gill, their chaplain, leading them into the trenches. Again, Willie Redmond was given a ‘warm welcome’ and was ‘heartily cheered’ when he reminded them that the men were from the north and south of Ireland. He was told that the men from the north and south were the best of friends. On 29 November he met men of the Royal Irish Rifles and Royal Dublin Fusiliers and after addressing them, ‘received a hearty greeting’.

  He brought a message from Sir John French, congratulating the Royal Irish Regiment ‘for gallantry in the field’ and he told them of how proud Sir John French was to be their colonel. Then Gen. Hull brought him to the most dangerous part of the firing line, after traversing almost 2 miles of communications trenches. There he saw men of the Dublin Fusiliers and the Ulster men of the Royal Irish Rifles ‘fighting side by side in the trenches’. After this, on 21 November, he met the Irish Guards Division commanded by Lord Cavan. Here he also met the Prince of Wales and Lord Claud Hamilton. He noted that the prince seemed to be ‘in first-rate health and spirits and was leading the same life as any other young subalterns’.

  Willie Redmond stated that the King of Belgium had graciously expressed a desire to meet him. He was moved by the occasion, ‘I shall never forget my visit to the king – his kindness, his courtesy and his sympathy, and how generously he spoke of the little that Ireland had been able to do to help him. I confess that my emotions were stirred by this interview, more perhaps than ever before.’

  The following day, Redmond returned to London on a troopship carrying 1,400 officers and men home on leave. Throughout the visit he had received ‘the greatest courtesy’.42

  Col Arthur Lynch, MP,

  Col Arthur Lynch, who had enthusiastically endorsed the war and spoke of raising an Irish Brigade to fight alongside France against the Germans, did not join the British Army at this time; instead he gave lectures about warfare. Because of his fluent French and his wide connections, he aided communication between English and French leaders. Considering his past, it would h
ave been difficult for Lynch to join the British Army at this time as his treason during the Boer War was not easily forgotten or forgiven.

  Towards the end of May 1915 he had passed through Ennis to give a series of lectures to his West Clare constituents on topics such as modern warfare, which he had witnessed as an observer on the Western Front, by courtesy of the French military authorities.

  He spoke at venues in Ennistymon, Miltown Malbay, Lahinch and Kilfenora. He also addressed a meeting of Kilrush UDC. According to the Clare Journal, Lynch returned to England ‘having made many friends by his eloquence and magnetic personality. After the meeting in Kilfenora he was cheered enthusiastically after his lecture, with the words of the song, ‘He’s a jolly good fellow’ ringing in his ears.

  One of his supporters, Mr C.E. Egan BA from Lahinch, sent a letter to the Clare Journal on 9 September to inform his constituents that: