THE HISTORY
OF THE
36^TH (ULSTER) DIVISION

INTRODUCTION

The history of the 36th (Ulster) Division is the record of a great effort and a great achievement. The effort which resulted in its inception was the outcome of the determination, on the part of a people brought up in great traditions and inspired with a fervent spirit of loyalty, that they should be worthily represented in the fierce and prolonged struggle which from the outset was clearly foreshadowed. The achievement was the response made to the call by their representatives, the gallant deeds accomplished, the courage and determination displayed, and the sacrifices made.

The narrative gives a very clear picture of what the campaign in France and Flanders involved for the troops engaged in it. There is no reference to any great strategical movements or brilliant tactical operations, because there were none such to describe. It brings out, however, quite plainly that the victory was gained in the only way in which it could have been gained, by sheer hard fighting, carried out continuously, now on a small, now on a large, scale, but always by troops who never admitted defeat.

This was the character of the struggle into which the Ulster Division was plunged from its entrance into the campaign until its close, and the book describes very fully the part it played in it. Each chapter is a little history of itself, which frequently has sufficient subject-matter for a volume, and which always contains a record of events or incidents of absorbing interest. It is not a narrative of a series of unbroken successes, and there is no pretence that all the efforts made by the Division were successful. Readers of the History will find stories of failures, but they were glorious failures, the account of which no-one need feel ashamed to describe or peruse.

A tribute, no more than is due, is paid to Major-General Sir Oliver Nugent, K.C.B., D.S.O., the General who was in command of the Division for the greater part of the campaign, and who led it throughout with a confidence in it only equalled by its confidence in him. All who served under him will always hold him in affectionate remembrance, and all Ulstermen should realize that they owe him a debt of gratitude.

I hope this History will be read, not only by those who served in the Division and their relatives and friends, but by all Irishmen.

Young men approaching manhood and young women approaching womanhood should read it, and ponder over the example their predecessors have set them. For all who read will realize that in the great struggle which convulsed Europe for more than four years the men of Ulster did not fail.

PLUMER, F.M.

Malta,

25th November, 1922.

PREFACE

The history of the 36th (Ulster) Division is published under the patronage of the Right Hon. the Lord Carson of Duncairn, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, and Major-General Sir O. S. W. Nugent, K.C.B., D.S.O.

Its publication once decided upon, the first step taken was the formation of an influential Committee; the second, that of a Guarantee Fund to cover the whole cost of its production, which was, within a few weeks, largely over-subscribed.

The materials upon which the History is chiefly based are the official War Diaries in the possession of the Historical Section (Military Branch) of the Committee of Imperial Defence. To the officials at 2, Cavendish Square I am indebted for courtesy and assistance in matters of difficulty. I have made use also of a very large number of contributions sent to me by those who served with the Division, from Sir James Craig and Sir Oliver Nugent to several private soldiers. So long is the list that I cannot acknowledge my debt to these contributors by name, but I desire to thank one and all for material without which the record would have been bald and dry, material which has, I hope, enabled me to give some tinge of humanity to the History. In several cases these personal contributions have been of greater value still than this. They have—and this is true especially of the Retreat of March, 1918—furnished me with a record of incidents upon which official Diaries throw no light. Two such incidents, in particular, the defence of a company of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles at Le Pontchu Quarry, near St. Quentin, on March the 21st, and the last stand of the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles at Cugny, three days later, have hitherto gone unrecorded, because the survivors of these heroic episodes fell into the hands of the enemy.

I have also to thank Sir Oliver Nugent, Colonel-Commandant W. M. Withycombe, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.; Brigadier-General C. J. Griffith, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.; Brigadier-General A. St. Q. Ricardo, C.M.G., C.B.E., D.S.O.; Major H. F. Grant Suttie, D.S.O., M.C., and Major J. C. Boyle for their trouble in reading the History in MS. and for their many helpful suggestions. The Honours List, a very big undertaking, is based almost entirely on the compilation of Mr. Andrew Jardin, M.S.M., formerly Chief Clerk in the Administrative Branch of Divisional Headquarters. In this and other matters connected with the History I have had much assistance from my wife.

The most important acknowledgment, on behalf of the Committee and all interested in the publication of the work as well as on my own, is due to Captain Kenneth M. Moore, M.C., who acted as Honorary Secretary. The whole of the business side of the undertaking has been conducted by him. Into it he has thrown all his organizing ability and his enthusiasm. No appeal has been made to him in vain.

I have only to add that it has been my endeavour to make this History not a mere record of battles, but, so far as space has permitted, a picture of life as it was lived in the days of war. Lacking the second, the first is like dry bones without flesh to cover them. If I have succeeded in combining the two, I have right to hope that I have made a contribution, however small, to history in a general sense, as apart from military history.

It is to-day a favourite pretension that the war was as uninteresting as it was terrible: a vast error, based upon a temporary reaction, when not upon a pose. I made recently the discovery that between 1906 and 1921 there were published over one hundred books on the Napoleonic Wars. The number would have been far greater but for the fall in the publication of all books between 1914 and 1919. So, a hundred years hence, men will be delving into our records of the late war. Soldiers will be studying the lessons of its battles. But a yet greater number of seekers will be demanding with curiosity how men lived in such circumstances, how they reacted to the strain of war, what compensations they found. It behoves those who were eye-witnesses to depict it in all its aspects, not to shrink from discovering its horror, indeed, but also not to pretend that it had not a better side. The picture now so often painted, representing the war as a single scene in a torture chamber, whence men emerged physical or mental wrecks, may be good anti-militarist propaganda, but it is false, because incomplete. From those experiences many men have emerged happy and strong. Many knew how to snatch some happiness even from their midst. A far greater number can see, in retrospect, that they played a part in one of the most dramatic, as well as one of the most terrible, tragedies in history. That stands for something of good, amid all its evil, in any man's life. The comradeship of war's days is a memory not less happy.

It is not alone because the story of the Ulster Division is a record of courage and fortitude, in which men who are my friends had part, but because it represents in a microcosm man in one of the greatest and most curious catastrophes the world has known, that I have had, however unworthy of the task, a pleasure so intense in writing this book.

C. F.

CONTENTS

MAPS

ILLUSTRATIONS