The Irish on the Somme: Being a Second Series of 'The Irish at the Front'MacDonagh, Michael
History
The Irish on the Somme: Being a Second Series of 'The Irish at the Front'
MacDonagh, Michael
Great Britain. Army; Somme, 1st Battle of the, France, 1916; World War, 1914-1918 -- Regimental histories
It says that if Wellington wanted a body of troops to get to a
particular place quickly by forced marches he gave an assurance that
on their arrival Scottish regiments would be given their arrears of
pay; English regiments would have a good dinner of roast beef, and the
bait held out to Irish regiments to give speed to their feet, however
weary, was an all-round tot of grog. The Welsh, it will be noticed,
are not in the story. This cannot be explained by saying they had yet
to achieve separate national distinction on the field of battle. The
23rd Regiment of Foot (Royal Welsh Fusiliers) served under Wellington
and contributed more than their fair share to the martial renown of
the British Army. It is solely due, I think, to the fact that they had
not yet emerged from their absorption in the English generally. But,
to round off the story, what motive of a material kind would impel the
Welsh Regiments to greater military exertions? Shall we say any one of
the three inducements mentioned--pay, grub or grog, or, better still,
all of them together?
The present war has provided the most searching tests of the qualities
of the races involved in it. They have all been profoundly moved to
the uttermost deeps of their being, both in the mass and as
individuals. The superficial trappings of society and even of
civilisation have fallen from them, and they appear as they really
are--brave or cowardly, noble or base, unselfish or egotistical. We
see our own soldiers, English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish, not perhaps
quite as each came from the hands of Nature, but certainly as the
original minting of each has been modified only by the influence of
racial environment. All the races within the United Kingdom are alike
in this, that each is a medley of many kinds of dissimilar individuals
with very varied faculties and attributes. But there are certain
broad, main characteristics which distinguish in the mass each racial
aggregate of dissimilar units; and it is these instincts, ideas,
habits, customs, held in common, that fundamentally separate each
nationality from the other. That is what I mean by racial environment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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