class="poem">

On the 13th of August, 1914, the 2nd Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers left Aldershot on their way to an unknown destination “somewhere in France.”

The Expeditionary Force was reaching forward, as one of the officers wrote, towards “a jolly in Belgium,” and he also added, “some of us will not come back.” The same joy that was with Garibaldi and his thousand when they went forth to the redemption of a small and gallant race, went, we all know, with the men of the First Division. Each one knew that an hour lay ahead when great issues were to be joined, and the Munsters were proud to feel that the chance was with them to add to the records of their Regimental history.

The Battalion embarked at Southampton, and the transport steamed out shortly after noon, arriving at Le Havre at 3 a.m. on the 14th of August. From there they marched to a rest camp on the ridge west of Harfleur, where they remained until the 16th of August, and once more they marched to Havre, where they entrained for the concentration area at Le Nouvion. On Sunday, the 17th, Le Nouvion was crowded with French troops, and the townsfolk, wild with enthusiasm, welcomed the Munsters, and from thence the Regiment marched to Bouey, three miles distant from Etreux. The dawn of the 22nd of August saw the Battalion on the road again, marching towards Mons.

All of this is now like the fragment of a dream, and the troops who marched and sang are many of them on the further side of the boundary; but still the memory remains, though the rows and ranks of men are gone, and, like the clerk in the old story, “Come to Oxford and their friends no more.”

All round and about Chapeau Rouge, a village near the river Sambre, and not far from Le Cateau, the country is a bower of green hedgerows in the month of August. In ordinary times, when trenches, deeper than any grave, and wire entanglements, and all the devastation of war is not, a country cut up into small fields has an intimate and friendly look. It suggests little things, and is small and near and has none of the sudden desolation of open space, stretching empty to the sky line. But what is beautiful in times of peace may in one moment become terrible in time of war, and the little hedgerows cost Ireland dear on the morning of the 27th of August, 1914.

The morning broke sullen and heavy, and the distant electric premonition of coming storm and coming battle vibrated in the air. The Munsters were placed as the Right Battalion, next to them came the Coldstream, further on the Scots Guards, with the Black Watch in reserve. The frontage of the Munsters extended from Chapeau Rouge, where the roads crossed, to another cross roads north of Fesmy. Major Charrier (commanding the Munsters) had explicit orders to hold the cross roads above Chapeau Rouge, unless or until he received orders to retire. Dawn found the men of B Company, commanded by Captain Simms, busily digging trenches and strengthening their position, while the air was comparatively cool.

The German attack was expected in the course of the morning, and B Company was the first company of the Battalion to receive its baptism of fire.

For men whose record shows them proud, fiery, and dashing soldiers, the task allotted to B Company was no easy one. It was necessary that their position should be kept secret, and when at last the crackle and rattle of German musketry broke the tension of this waiting, the Company holding the outpost did not reply. The German patrol, whose business it was to locate their position, kept up an intermittent fire, and the small handful of Irish did the hardest thing of all for them—they waited. The lulls and bursts followed one upon the other; tremendous echoes repeated the volleys of sound, and the swinging shrill of flying bullets continued overhead, punctuated now and again by spells of intense quiet.

Suddenly the midsummer storm broke with a violence that is indescribable. Torrents of drenching rain soaked the men to the skin and collected in the trenches, and in the vortex of the storm the Germans advanced to the attack. In one moment it was “War, war, bloody war,” and the first onslaught fell upon B Company, and D Company (commanded by Captain Jervis) with Lieutenant Crozier and Lieutenant R. W. Thomas.

Major P. A. Charrier

2nd Royal Munster Fusiliers, killed at the head of his Battalion at Etreux, near Mons, August 27th, 1914

Record of Service:—West Africa, 1900—Operations in Ashanti, slightly wounded; Despatches, London Gazette, 8th March, 1901. South African War, 1902—Employed with Imperial Yeomanry operations in Cape Colony, May, 1902. Queen’s Medal, with two clasps. East Africa, 1903-4—Operations in Somaliland on Staff (as Special Service Officer). Employed on Transport (from November, 1903). Medal, with clasp.

The Munsters repelled the attack with fierce determination, and the little fields around Chapeau Rouge became a place of violent and terrible memory, but the men held doggedly to their position until the order came to withdraw a mile to the rear. B Company was at this point detailed to act as right flank guard on the east, where the attack was hottest, and in endeavouring to carry out this order, they were cut off from the flank by the thick green hedgerows, and so to them came the adventure of maintaining a little battle of their own.

The rain continued and the mud grew deep, and very slowly and without heavy loss B Company fell back through Fesmy, fighting through the small wide street until it rejoined the Battalion on the further side. They had shaken the Germans off for the moment in spite of their immensely superior numbers, and had done most gallantly. After a short delay Major Charrier sent them to take the head of the column and march to Oisy as advance guard.

The day continued showery for some hours, with occasional drenching bursts, but the men cared nothing for the discomfort of soaked clothes. It has been decreed by the Power that rules the destiny of men and nations that the call of a bugle makes the heart of Ireland glad. There was real adventure in their lives that morning; the actual vital essence of it was touched by the rank and file of the marching men, for abstract safety as a condition to be desired has never entered very much into the Celtic vision of what life can give in those moments when it is at its best.

From Fesmy the Munsters pushed on to Etreux, there to join the main body of troops holding that town.

Up the wide road where the bridge at Oisy spans the curve of the river Sambre, and some miles from where the Munsters were