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A priest blessing an Irish ensign. A Susini tobacco / cigarette card.
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.
"Is it not an additional horror that on the very day when we hear that men of the Dublin Fusiliers have been killed by Irishmen in the streets of Dublin, we receive the news of how the men of the 16th Division—our own Irish Brigade, and of the same Dublin Fusiliers—had dashed forward and by their unconquerable bravery retaken the trenches that the Germans had won at Hulluch? Was there ever such a picture of the tragedy which a small section of Irish faction had so often inflicted on the fairest hopes and the bravest deeds of Ireland?As to the final result. I do not believe that this wicked and insane movement will achieve its ends. The German plot has failed. The majority of the people of Ireland retain their calmness, fortitude and unity. They abhor this attack on their interests, their rights, their hopes, their principles. Home Rule has not been destroyed; it remains indestructible." ((1), more)
"From the roof of the College of Surgeons, the Countess Markievicz watched Dublin burning. 'Think of it,' she said to Chriss Caffrey. 'That's not Rome burning—but Dublin!'A short distance away Professor O'Briain sat awestruck, and then commented, 'Lord, we are destroying the city.'From Killeney Hill, nine miles away, people could pick out Nelson atop his pillar.In a cellar near the docks where he and several other 'suspects' had been incarcerated by the military, Sean O'Casey laid down his volume of Keats and gazed at the scarlet stain spreading across the sky. One of the men playing cards followed his gaze for a moment and then said, 'Christ help them now!'" ((2), 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." ((3), more)
"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." ((4), 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." ((5), more)
(1) End of an address by John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) and Member of the United Kingdom's Parliament representing Waterford City, Ireland. Redmond was reacting to the Easter Rising still being fought in Dublin by rebels who wanted independence for Ireland, and not Home Rule — the resurrection of an Irish Parliament and limited self-government — sought by the Irish Parliamentary Party. Even as the insurrection in Dublin was being crushed by British troops, Redmond's day was passing. He died in March, 1918 with World War I still in progress. In the general election of 1918, the IPP took only 6 seats of 105 from Ireland. On April 27, 1916, an Irish brigade drove German troops from craters at the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and held their position against a German gas and infantry counter-attack two days later.
The Great Events of the Great War in Seven Volumes by Charles F. Horne, Vol. IV, 1916, p. 118, copyright © 1920 by The National Alumnia, publisher: The National Alumni, publication date: 1920
(2)
The Easter Rebellion by Max Caulfield, pp. 299, 300, copyright © 1963 by Max Caulfield, publisher: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, publication date: 1963
(3) 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
(4) 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
(5) 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
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