THE STORY OF
THE MUNSTERS

AT

ETREUX, FESTUBERT,
RUE DU BOIS AND
HULLOCH

BY

MRS. VICTOR RICKARD

AUTHOR OF “DREGS,” “THE LIGHT ABOVE THE CROSSROADS,”
“THE FRANTIC BOAST,” “THE FIRE OF GREEN BOUGHS”

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

LORD DUNRAVEN

Honorary Colonel, 5th Royal Munster Fusiliers

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

MCMXVIII

DEDICATED TO

VICTOR RICKARD

AND HIS COMRADES IN ALL RANKS OF THE

MUNSTER FUSILIERS, WHO FOUGHT AND FELL

IN THE GREAT WAR, 1914-15

The shamrock, which forms part of the cap badge of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, was first introduced, in February 1915, by Lieut.-Colonel Rickard, in the Second Battalion, with the object of giving a distinctively Irish emblem to all ranks of the Regiment. It is now worn by all the battalions of the Munsters.

PREFACE

I should like to express my thanks to the officers of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and also to the friends and relatives who have helped me to collect and arrange this book. In the following accounts of the engagements of Etreux, Festubert, Rue du Bois and Hulloch, I do not wish in any sense to appear as an historian; that task awaits far abler and more qualified hands. What follows has been threaded together as a little tribute to the men who gave their lives for an Ideal, and who were brave soldiers in the Great War.

The first three chapters of this book appeared in New Ireland during the summer of 1915, and were shortly afterwards republished by that paper, together with the supplementary letters, as The Story of the Munsters. A second impression was sold out by the end of the year, since when no copies of the book have been obtainable. The new features of the present edition are the historical Introduction specially written by Lord Dunraven, to whom my best thanks are due, and the four pictures and the account of the Munsters at Hulloch which have already appeared in The Sphere. Its Editor, Mr. Clement Shorter, has a special claim to the lasting gratitude of the Munster Fusiliers for the deep interest he has always shown in all records of the Regiment; and it is by his permission that the illustrations, which add incalculably to the slender story itself, are here reproduced. My thanks are also offered to Mr. Geddes, who has designed the colour plate on the cover, and brought into the book a sense of the traditions which surround the regimental flags.

L. Rickard.

INTRODUCTION

The origin of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, like that of those other great Irish Regiments, the Dublins and the Leinsters, is inextricably bound up with those great movements of Imperial expansion which took place in the eighteenth century. Of the Leinsters one battalion was originally raised in Canada and another in India. Both regular battalions of the Dublins were raised in India. Like them, the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the Royal Munsters (before the Caldwell reconstruction the 101st and 104th Foot) were originally regiments in the army of the East India Company, raised out of British-born volunteers in India and only taken over as part of the British Army when the control of India passed from the Company to the Crown. It is for this reason that on the grenade which, in common with other Fusilier battalions, is worn by the Munsters the royal tiger of India is superimposed.

Until the present war, with the exception of the notable service performed by the 1st Battalion in South Africa, all the battle honours of the Regiment come from India or the surrounding countries. The regimental colours record service for the 1st Battalion at the following actions: Plassey, Condore, Masulipatam, Badara, Buxar, Rohilcund, Carnatic, Sholinghur, Guzerat, Deig, Bhurtpore, Afghanistan, Ghuznee, Ferozeshah, Sobraon, Pegu, Delhi, Lucknow and Burmah; while for the 2nd Battalion, raised as we shall see eighty years after the first, there are the Punjaub, Chillianwallah, Goojerat, Pegu and Delhi. To trace these records in detail would be to write the history of the steps by which we acquired our Indian Empire. They explain sufficiently (with the regimental origin in the Company’s forces) why there were no Munsters in the Napoleonic wars.

The 1st Battalion dates its corporate existence from the 22nd December, 1756, when Clive, who had just returned to India and was about to begin the most glorious epoch of his career, raised it under the title of the Bengal European Regiment. The Regiment fought in his army at Plassey and Condore and in every action of that war up to the great victory of Buxar in October 1764. In 1779 it was sent to the Presidency of Madras and under Eyre Coote fought at Windeywash; in 1794 it took part under Abercrombey in the Rohilla wars; it was present (being known then, after the fashion of the India Army, by the name of its Colonel— Clark’s Corps) at the occupation of Macao in 1808. In 1839 it served in Afghanistan, when out of volunteers for it the 104th Regiment (now the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers) was formed. It served with distinction in the Sikh War, and as a reward for its services was raised to the dignity of a fusilier corps. The colours carried by the Regiment at this period hang in Winchester Cathedral. It went through all the fiercest engagements of the Mutiny and was present at the siege and capture of Lucknow. In 1861 it went under the Crown and became the 101st Regiment (Royal Bengal Fusiliers). From 1868 to 1874 it served in England, then abroad again, and in 1883 became the 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers. In 1899 it had the distinction of being sent to South Africa from Fermoy before mobilisation, being the first home regiment to go out to the war. It served with great distinction in Lord Methuen’s force at Belmont, and afterwards on the march to Pretoria, and in the latter period of the war supplied a mounted infantry battalion.

The history of the 2nd Battalion is shorter, but no less glorious. Formed during the first Afghan War in 1839 out of surplus volunteers for its sister Battalion, it took part in the great victory of Chillianwallah, went through the Burmese War 1851-53, and in the Mutiny was part of the force which stormed Delhi. In 1861 it