The Irish Guards in the Great War, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b The First BattalionKipling, Rudyard
History
The Irish Guards in the Great War, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b The First Battalion
Kipling, Rudyard
Great Britain. Army. Irish Guards -- History; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
Among the distinguished visitors to be shown the trenches was
Lieut.-Colonel R. S. de Haviland of the Eton O.T.C.--a man of many
friends in that company. The come-and-go of visitors cheered and
interested the men in the front trenches, since their presence even
for a little proved that, somewhere in the world, life continued on
not inconceivable lines. They jested naturally enough at those who
looked on for a day or two at their hardships and went away, but
the hardships were lightened a little by the very jest. Even while
the Commandant of the Eton O.T.C. was with them the Battalion was
energetically devising means to drain out an unspeakable accumulation
of stagnant water down hill from a mine near the Shrine under the
White House barricade (the White House was scarcely more than a name
even then) into some German trenches at the foot of the slope. This
work necessitated clearing a ditch by the roadside in which were
found four German corpses, “besides pieces of other human beings,”
which were buried, and in due course the whole flood of abomination
was decanted on the enemy. “As it was very horrible, I don’t suppose
they will like it,” writes one of the officers chiefly concerned.
On the same day, April 16, while 2nd Lieutenant H. Marion-Crawford,
who it will be remembered was Brigade Bombing Instructor, was
schooling some men of the 3rd Coldstream with live grenades one
exploded and killed him instantaneously. He had shown the greatest
ability in organizing the bombing work and his loss at that time,
where bombers were being more and more leaned upon, was very
seriously felt. He was buried four hours after his death in the
cemetery near Givenchy.
On the 17th the Battalion went back to the Collège des Jeunes Filles
at Béthune for a four days’ rest while its place in the trenches
was taken by a couple of Territorial Battalions--the Post Office
Rifles and the 15th County of London. While it was route-marched,
and instructed, and washed and steadily drilled, the battle for Hill
60 was being fought with mines and hand-grenades, hand-mortars,
and the first gas-shells, a score of miles to the north, where it
was made known to the Germans how, man for man, their fresh and
fully-trained troops could not overcome ours. The demonstration cost
some three thousand casualties on our side, and, it may be presumed,
strengthened the enemy’s intention to use gas on a larger scale in
the future. But no echo of the little affair interfered with the work
at Givenchy. The question was how the new Territorial battalions
would hold their trenches, and one sees in all the documents a
justified pride in their teachings when the Battalion went up to the
front again on the 22nd and found the Territorials were keen and had
kept their trenches clean. For the Guards teach, not unsuccessfully,
that unless a man is clean he cannot be the best sort of soldier.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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