nations who do not want to die, but to live, as Ireland does, must act through their essential qualities. Those brave sons in the field need not fear for the honour they have won for their country. Their brothers are coming to them. Ireland's armies will be maintained. J.E. REDMOND. _February, 1916_ FOOTNOTES: [1] One is reminded of tributes to Meagher's Brigade at Fredricksburg in the American Civil War. "Braver men," writes Horace Greely, in his "American Conflict," "never smiled at death. Never did men fight better or die, alas! more fruitlessly than did Hancock's corps, especially Meagher's Irish Brigade, composed of the 63rd, 69th, and 88th New York, 28th Massachusetts, and the 116th Pennsylvania, which dashed itself repeatedly against those impregnable heights, until two-thirds of its numbers strewed the ground" (vol. ii., p. 345). In the same book Greely quotes the following from the correspondent of the London _Times_, watching the battle from the heights, and writing from Lee's headquarters: "To the Irish Division commanded by General Meagher was principally committed the desperate task of bursting out of the town of Fredricksburg and forming under the withering fire of the confederate batteries to attack Marye's Heights. Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, or at Waterloo was more undoubted courage displayed by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic attacks which they directed against the almost impregnable position of the foe." CHAPTER I THE RETREAT FROM MONS HOW THE MUNSTERS SAVED THE GUNS AND GOT RINGED ROUND WITH FIRE Regular battalions of all the Irish regiments were included in the British Expeditionary Force which left for France, at the outbreak of war, in the early weeks of August, 1914. For its size it was the finest Army that the world has ever seen, in equipment, discipline, and martial ardour. It was commanded by Field-Marshal Sir John French, the scion of an Irish family long settled in Roscommon, of which Lord De Freyne is the head, and a soldier who made a brilliant reputation as a cavalry leader in the South African War. On the morning of Sunday, August 23rd, two of the three Army Corps which composed the Force were extended along a front of twenty-five miles east and west of Mons, a Belgian town of 25,000 inhabitants and the centre of coal mining, iron, and glass works. In the First Corps, under Sir Douglas Haig, were the 1st Irish Guards, the 2nd Munster Fusiliers, and the 2nd Connaught Rangers. The Second Corps, under Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, included the 2nd Irish Rifles and the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment. The 4th Royal Irish Dragoons were with the cavalry. An Irish trooper of that regiment on outpost duty had the distinction of opening the Great War between England and Germany by firing the first shot, which brought down a Uhlan officer, in the early hours of Saturday, August 22nd, fifteen miles beyond Mons, on the road to Brussels.