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Headstone of an unknown soldier of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Delville Wood Cemetery. Union of South Africa troops began the assault at Delville Wood on July 15, 1916. It was finally taken in September. On the headstone is superimposed the poem 'To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God' by Lieutenant Tom Kettle of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed in action on September 9, 1916 at Guillemont, France, in the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave. © 2013 John M. Shea
The Kasaba of Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia, where a British Indian army was surrounded and besieged by Turkish forces from the end of 1915 until the British surrender on April 29, 1915. Photograph from 'Four Years Beneath the Crescent' by Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War.
Indian soldiers unload a wagon. The caption on the back refers to the soldiers helping the Allies by 'unloading their baggage,' but Indian soldiers fought on their own. © American Press Assciation
Beneath the crown of England, Britannia with her shield and Neptune's trident sits, flanked by the flag of the United Kingdom, and the Royal Standard. Behind her, illuminated by the British crown, is a map of the world with the British Empire in pink: Canada and Newfoundland, the United Kingdom, the Union of South Africa and British East Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand.
French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau greeting General Fernando Tamagnini, commander of Portuguese forces on the Western Front.
"Headquarters, Army of the Irish Republic,General Post Office, Dublin,28th April, 1916. 9:30 A.M.The Forces of the Irish Republic which was proclaimed in Dublin, on Easter Monday, 24th April, have been in possession of the central part of the Capital since 12 noon on that day. Up to yesterday afternoon, Headquarters was in touch with all the main outlying positions, and, despite furious, and almost continuous assaults by the British Forces all those positions were then still being held, and the Commandants in charge were confident of their ability to hold them for a long time.During the course of yesterday afternoon and evening the enemy succeeded in cutting our communications with our other positions in the city and Headquarters is to-day isolated.The enemy has burnt down whole blocks of houses, apparently with the object of giving themselves a clear field for the play of artillery and field guns against us. We have been bombarded during the evening and night by shrapnel and machine gun fire, but without material damage to our position, which is of great strength.We are busy completing arrangements for the final defence of Headquarters, and are determined to hold it while the buildings last." ((1), more)
"Dawn, in fact, had lighted on a scene of destruction and desolation paralleled up to that time only by the ruined towns and cities of Northern France. To those familiar with newspaper photographs, Dublin overnight had become a second Ypres. Here rose up the same sliced, skeleton buildings, here spread the same acres of flattened and obscene rubble. Directly opposite the G.P.O. stood bare, blackened walls, smoke still wreathing around them. It was no longer possible to see as far as O'Connell Bridge. Now and then yet another wall would fall with a stupendous crash, shooting up a fresh shower of burning fragments and clouds of billowing smoke. Debris was scattered halfway across the street; steel girders hung twisted and blackened. The heat still remained and a heavy smell of burning cloth hung in the air." ((2), more)
"'I have hoisted white flag over town and fort. Troops commence going into camp near Shumran 2 p.m. I shall shortly destroy wireless.' . ..Nine thousand fighting men, 3,000 British and 6,000 Indians, exclusive of followers, surrendered at Kut; and it is useless to try and gloss over the disgrace which is attached, not to our soldiers, but to the politicians responsible for the disaster. There has been no surrender on the same scale in the history of the British army. The nearest parallel to it is that of Cornwallis with 7,073 officers and men in the American War of Independence." ((3), more)
"— Jacques G——, seconded for duty as inspector with the Sûreté Générale, is keeping a watch on Indians in Paris. There are wealthy native Princes who are trying to foment a rising in their country. Cases of arms destined for India have already been seized in France. And I have heard of an Indian Princess who is being closely watched by a woman police spy specially placed in the hotel as chambermaid." ((4), more)
"Monday, May 1, 1916.On April 29 the English suffered a severe reverse in Mesopotamia. General Townshend, who had occupied an entrenched position at Kut-el-Amara, on the Tigris, has been compelled to capitulate by lack of food and ammunition, after a siege of one hundred and forty-eight days; the garrison was reduced to 9,000 men.Simultaneously, a grave insurrection, fomented by German agents, has broken out in Ireland. A regular battle between the rebels and English troops has made Dublin a scene of blood and fire. Order appears to have been restored now." ((5), more)
(1) Beginning of a statement by Patrick H. Pearse, writing as Commandant-General Commanding-in-Chief, the Army of the Irish Republic and President of the Provisional Government, as the Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland was close to defeat. Writing of the same day, Irish poet and novelist James Stephens recorded that, south of the Liffey River, the rebels had taken to the rooftops, and that, though they could cause the British troops putting down the uprising a great deal of trouble from there, 'the fact that they have to take to the roofs, even through that be in their programme, means that they are finished' ((The Insurrection in Dublin, p. 58).
The Easter Rebellion by Max Caulfield, page 305, copyright © 1963 by Max Caulfield, publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, publication date: 1963
(2) Dublin, Ireland, Ypres, General Post Office (G.P.O.), shelled by British artillery and the gunboat Helga on the Liffey River. The Easter Rising
The Easter Rebellion by Max Caulfield, page 304, copyright © 1963 by Max Caulfield, publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, publication date: 1963
(3) Excerpt from an account of the investiture by Turkish forces of a British-Indian army under the command of General Townshend in Kut-el-Amara, Mesopotamia by Edmund Candler, an official British observer with the Relieving Force that was unable to break the Turkish siege. Attempting to seize Baghdad, the British had been defeated at Ctesiphon on November 21, 1915, 22 miles short of their goal, and forced back to Kut where they were surrounded by increasingly strong Turkish forces. All attempts by the relieving force to break the siege failed, and only limited supplies could be dropped by aircraft. One pound rations of mule in mid-February had been reduced to four-ounce rations of horse meat that gave out in on April 21. 'During the last week of the siege the daily death-rate averaged eight British and twenty-one Indians' (p. 142).
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, pp. 128, 129, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(4) Undated entry from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government from the end of April, 1916. In Dublin, Ireland, the first blow for independence from the British Empire during the war, the Easter Rising, was being crushed by British forces. At Kut-el-Amara in Mesopotamia, a British-Indian army surrendered to Turkish forces on April 29, and was going into harsh, ofter deadly, internment as prisoners-of-war.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 160, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
(5) Attempting to seize Baghdad in Mesopotamia, the British had been defeated at Ctesiphon on November 21, 1915, 22 miles short of their goal, and forced back to Kut-al-Amara where they were surrounded by increasingly strong Turkish forces. All attempts by the relieving force to break the siege failed, and the British had surrendered on April 29, 1916. The Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, begun on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, a quiet bank holiday, was suppressed by British forces with destruction to Dublin that observers compared to cities on the Western Front. Although anticipating German arms that had been intercepted by the British, the Rising was the work of Irish men and Irish women, and Irish groups seeking independence: the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and the Irish Citizens Army.
An Ambassador's Memoirs Vol. II by Maurice Paléologue, page 243, publisher: George H. Doran Company
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