On the 23rd, after Divine Service, Major-General Gough, commanding the Seventh Division, after going round the billets made a short speech to each Company, and afterwards talked to a large number of men, which greatly pleased them. On the 27th the Division was inspected by General Joffre, the French Commander-in-Chief. The three brigades were drawn up in one field in mass, the artillery being in an adjoining field. General Joffre was received with the general salute, and walked down the front of the line. After giving three cheers the whole of the infantry marched past in fours, being played past by the massed pipers of the Division. On the 31st the sad news of the death of Brigadier-General G. C. Nugent was received. He had served for many years in the Grenadiers before he was transferred to the Irish Guards, and his unrivalled wit and literary talents had long delighted the readers of the _Guards Magazine_. He was a man of exceptional ability, and there is small doubt that had he lived he would have risen to high distinction. [Sidenote: June.] The Battalion went into a new line of trenches in front of Festubert and Givenchy, which it took over from the 6th and 18th Battalions of the London Regiment. On June 3 these trenches were very heavily shelled, as the 6th Battalion Gordon Highlanders was making an attack farther to the right, and there were 3 men killed and 45 wounded. On the 5th the Battalion went into billets at Hingette, and on the 8th moved to Robecq, thence to Essars, where it remained until it relieved the Border Regiment in the trenches on the 14th. On the 15th an attack was made by the Seventh Division over some flat ground between two rises at Givenchy. The portion allotted to the Battalion was on the flat ground, where an advance was not a matter of great difficulty, but until the rises on each side had been made good it was useless to attempt to press the attack home in the centre. After going a short distance, the Battalion was forced to wait until the situation on each flank developed. Owing to the nature of the ground the artillery was unable to dispose of the wire entanglements behind these rises, and therefore the Battalions on each side were held up. During this engagement Second Lieutenant Dudley-Smith was killed, Lieut.-Colonel Corkran slightly wounded, and Second Lieutenant Viscount Lascelles wounded in the head. There were sixty-three casualties among the N.C.O.'s and men. The Battalion hung on all day under heavy shell-fire to the line it had gained, but it was found impossible to advance farther on the flanks, and the whole force withdrew to its original line. Lord Cavan wrote in a private letter: "I am proud to say that the old 1st Battalion stuck it out last night and to-day in glorious isolation. Pray God they are fed, watered, and replenished to-night. I wrote to Heyworth to pass them a word of encouragement from me if he could."