The Second Battalion of the Irish Guards was marked to be disbanded later, with thousands of others. Their loyalty, their long endurance, their bravery—the ceaseless labour, love, and example that had gone to their making and upholding, in which work men had died as directly as any killed by gas or shell—had done all that was called for. They made no claim to have accomplished or suffered more than others. They knew what load had been laid upon all. They were the younger battalion, born in Warley, officered from the first by special reserve officers, always most intimately bound up with their sister battalion, yet always most strictly themselves. They had been a “happy” battalion throughout, and, on the admission of those whose good opinion they most valued, one that had “done as well as any” in a war that had made mere glory ridiculous. Of all these things nothing but the memory would remain. And, as they moved—little more than a company strong—in the wake of their seniors, one saw, here and there among the wounded in civil kit, young men with eyes which did not match their age, shaken beyond speech or tears by the splendour and the grief of that memory. COMMANDING OFFICERS 2ND BATTALION FROM AUGUST 16, 1915 ---------+--------------------------------------+---------+------------- Rank | Name | From | To ---------+--------------------------------------+---------+------------- Lt.-Col. | Hon. L. J. P. Butler, C.M.G., D.S.O. | 16.8.15 | 5.5.16 ” | P. L. Reid, O.B.E. | 12.5.16 | 12.1.17 ” | E. B. Greer, M.C. | 13.1.17 | 31.7.17 Major | R. H. Ferguson | 1.8.17 | 1.10.17 Lt.-Col. | H. R. Alexander, D.S.O., M.C. | 2.10.17 | 3.11.18 ” | A. F. L. Gordon, D.S.O., M.C. | 6.11.18 | To return to | | | England. ---------+--------------------------------------+---------+------------- APPENDIX A OFFICERS KILLED IN ACTION OR DIED OF WOUNDS 1ST BATTALION IRISH GUARDS Lieut.-Colonel C. FitzClarence, V.C. (Temp. Brigadier-General), In Command of 1st Guards Brigade, 12.11.14 Lieut.-Colonel G. C. Nugent, M.V.O. (Temp. Brigadier-General), In Command of 5th London Infantry Brigade, 31.5.15 Lieut.-Col. The Hon. J. F. Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, D.S.O. (Temp. Brigadier-General), In Command of the 20th Brigade after Commanding 1st Battalion, 24.10.15 Lieut.-Colonel The Hon. G. H. Morris, 1.9.14 MAJORS