The Irish at Gallipoli
Published in Issue 5 (September/October 2015), Letters, Volume 23Sir,—Having read ‘The Irish at Gallipoli’ by Jeff Kildea in your fine magazine (HI 23.4, July/Aug. 2015), I was intrigued by his omissions and, if you will pardon the description, his sleight of pen. In tone it was reminiscent of G.A. Henty, who long ago eulogised the ‘derring do of young Englanders’ as they helped to build the empire. For instance, Prof. Kildea lets the elderly but inexperienced Lt. General Sir Frederick Stopford (4th Earl of Courtown) off lightly. Not so in Richard Van Emden’s book Gallipoli:
‘… the seeds of failure were already sown before anyone put a foot on the shore at Suvla by the appointment of sixty-one-year-old Stopford, enjoying semi-retirement in England, where he was Lieutenant to the Tower of London … chaos was the result as orders were matched by counter-orders. Lt. Gen. Stopford was all at sea, literally and metaphorically, never leaving the sloop HMS Jonquil that brought him there and he slept as the landing was in progress.’
Capt. Arthur Crookenden commented on the chaos: ‘No one at Suvla seemed to care a solitary damn … nothing can convey the atmosphere of indifference, laissez-faire and chaos into which we plunged’.
The article admits that Sir Bryan Mahon resigned ‘in a fit of pique’ because he was not promoted to fill Stopford’s position. In fairness it also mentions that Mahon’s resignation was the cause of the disaster on Kiritich Tepe. However, Mahon escaped with a caution because, as Australian L.A. Carlyon wrote, he (Mahon) was ‘a member of the Club’. Sir Bryan Mahon’s first action on reinstatement was to endorse the execution of a Pte Downey as ‘it would be good for discipline’. Downey, an Irishman like Mahon, had been court-martialled for failing to wear his cap!
The article fails to mention that Sir Bryan Mahon was promoted to commander-in-chief of the British Army in Ireland from 1916 until 1922 and that on retirement he was appointed to the first Irish Senate by W.T. Cosgrave and reappointed for a second term. He died in his bed in 1930. We are told near the end of the article that an ‘Irish’ journalist, Michael MacDonagh, said that Gallipoli would ‘Ever be to the Irish Race a place of glorious pride and sorrow’. What is not revealed is that MacDonagh was an Irish journalist with the London Times and that the above opinion was aired in his book The Irish at the Front, which has a fourteen-page introduction by recruiter-in-chief for the British Army John Redmond. The latter’s introduction is studded with gems:
‘No people can be said to have rightly proved their nationhood and their power to maintain it until they have demonstrated their military prowess; and though Irish Blood has reddened the earth of every continent, never until now have we as a people set a national army in the field.’
The London Times journalist devotes three chapters to the landing of the 10th (Irish) Division and their departure in January 1916 from Suvla Bay. Not once does he mention the desertion of Sir Bryan Mahon, en-gaging instead in banalities such as:
‘The Irish hungered for the wild exultation of the bayonet charge … August 15th, the day of the great Irish feast of Our Lady’s Day, the men were able to reinforce themselves with the sustaining power of the Mass … as they left Suvla Bay and looked at the hills between Suvla Bay and Sari Bair they felt that the wailing cry of the Banshee be ever heard there.’
We should remember that Mr Churchill, desperate for ‘any victory’ at that stage in the war, said in a cable to Vice-Admiral Sackville Carden, commander of the British squadron off the Dardanelles, ‘… that the importance of a result would justify severe losses’.
Sadly, your Gallipoli piece reminded me of Ronan Fanning’s introduction to The Fatal Path, in which he wrote that ‘few historians would dispute that we are all revisionists now’. He also quoted the description by Bernard Lewis, eminent historian of the Middle East, of those who ‘would rewrite history not as it was, or as they have been taught it was, but as they would prefer it to be’.—Yours etc.,
HUGH DUFFY
Co. Galway
Personal Histories
On this Day
May 09
1908 Luke Livingstone Macassey (c. 65), civil engineer and barrister, died. Macassey is remembered as Belfast’s ‘water hero’, the visionary engineer who brought a reliable supply of clean water to a city whose population had risen from 22,000 in 1807 to 270,000 in 1890 and in so doing probably saved more lives—from typhoid and cholera—than the medical profession at the time. In 1874 the Belfast and District Water Commissioners appointed him as their consultant hydraulic engineer, and he proceeded to build reservoirs above Carrickfergus and Lisburn, which were sufficient for the city’s needs until 1890, when it became clear that drastic action was needed. He and his team investigated five possible sources of water supply, ruled out four (including Lough Neagh) and recommended the Mournes, where rainfall was plentiful and 30 million gallons of water were deliverable every day. Apart from a massive pipeline, a reservoir in the chosen location would be required. The Commission therefore purchased the 9,000 acres of mountain needed for the plans, and in 1905 the pipeline began to deliver water from the Kilkeel and Annalong rivers to a reservoir some 30 miles away to the south of the city, which has provided a plentiful supply ever since. Work then began on constructing a wall to mark the Commission’s catchment area. The famous ‘Mourne Wall’, standing up to 8ft high, 3ft wide and 22 miles in length, which connects the summits of no less than fifteen mountains, including Slieve Donard (850m), was completed by an army of seasonal workers in 1922. Macassey didn’t live to see his proposed reservoir. The Silent Valley reservoir was built between 1923 and 1933 and augmented by the Ben Crom reservoir in 1957.- 1918 Sir John French was sworn in as lord lieutenant and supreme commander of the British Army in Ireland.
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Above: Col. Thomas Blood—he switched sides during the English Civil War and gained a reputation for intrigue and espionage.
1671 Irishman Col. Thomas Blood stole the Crown Jewels of England from the Tower of London. Having switched sides during the English Civil War, during which he gained a reputation for intrigue and espionage, Blood lost most of his lands with the Restoration and thereafter conducted a terror campaign against the Stuart establishment. None of his operations were remotely successful. A conspiracy to take Dublin Castle and stage a coup d’état was easily foiled, forcing him to flee to the Continent with a bounty of £1,000 on his head. A year later he reappeared in a kidnap attempt on the duke of Ormond in London, which was also unsuccessful, as was an attempt to assassinate the king as he was taking a dip in the Thames. The theft of the royal regalia was similarly botched. Pursued by the guards, with the crown, globe and sceptre stuffed under their clothing, he and his accomplices were promptly arrested. Yet in terms of outcome the botched robbery was his one big success. Refusing to speak to anyone except the king himself, he admitted to all of his conspiracies and warned the king that he had many friends who would ‘expose his majesty … to the daily fear and expectation of a massacre’. On the other hand, were he free to use his experience in the spying profession as a secret agent for the royal administration, he could prevent such attacks. And his arrogance prevailed. Charles was won over and accepted his offer. Blood lived in comfort on a generous royal allowance for another decade. Whether his services were of any use is not known.