The Great War: A Belturbet Soldier’s ordeal
Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column is about poetry and the Great War and includes a poem by the Belturbet Poet, P.J. Kennedy, which he was happy to have included...
In childhood, I remember hearing of older men living in our neighbourhood who were veterans of the First World War, that terrible tragedy we call ‘The Great War.’ In many Irish towns following the armistice in 1918 homes were constructed to accommodate the lucky ones returning alive from the war. But most men were broken by the experience of soldiering amidst the inhumane barbarity of that conflict and lived daily in its shadow haunted by blood-spilled memories for the rest of their lives.
A question we might ask is, what caused war in 1914? Briefly, the Great War had four discernible causes. Firstly, nationalism, the desire of a people sharing a ‘common history, language, and customs’ to seek the right to govern themselves. The second reason was imperialism, that is, the desire of countries to gain colonies for ‘prestige, raw materials and markets.’ The third cause were the alliances between the powers, designed to protect one another, and fourthly, the militarism of Germany’s Kaiser, who built up his army, navy, and weapons.
By 1914, Europe was a time-bomb. Finally, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo lit the fuse that ignited war. What followed, locked the Allied powers into a battle to the death against the aggressive Central powers.
On 12 December 1914, Private John Horgan made the regional news when The Anglo-Celt reported on his recent return home, but it was not an entirely pleasant break for him, having been invalided with an 'acute attack of rheumatism' caused by conditions in the trenches. All the same, John remained in good spirits and hoped to be back in shape and back on the front by 19th December that year. Horgan, who served with the Royal Irish Fusiliers, talked about what happened to him from when he left home on August 23, 1914, to landing at Boulogne in France, and then to be entrained near the Belgian border, from where he marched from 3 o’clock at night till the battalion reached the trenches on the next day.
Horgan’s first experience of hostilities was an incoming German aeroplane, ominously ‘mounted with a machine gun,’ loitering above their heads. But he did not stay long in the trenches because by evening orders were given to depart, and thereafter they marched till dawn.
John Horgan served with the Royal Irish Fusiliers, 4th Division, who were sent to back up the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Divisions. He remembered when they were about seven miles from Mons, Belgium, how the enemy suddenly attacked and that the battle scene turned into a 'fearful slaughter' where the Germans lost forty percent of their soldiers whom he witnessed advancing, only to be mown down by machine guns, artillery and rifle fire and then fall like a 'lot of flies'.
Corporal John F. Lucy, of the Royal Irish Rifles, wrote of the enemy infantry who 'withered away under the galling fire of the well-trained and coolly led Irishmen'. Afterwards, when the soldiers were retiring back from the trenches, Horgan said that a young man named McClean from Kilconny, Belturbet, 'got mixed up' to the rear of his division and unluckily for him, the Germans captured him.
Next, they advanced to the Marne River where the division fought an eight day battle pushing the Germans back to the Aisne. The Allied soldiers stayed entrenched for almost three weeks. Horgan said stories of the enemy ‘plundering houses, burning all before them, and insulting women’ were true. There was no respect shown by many of the German soldiers for the dead, nor the injured and they fired at ambulances by levelling the big guns on them, said the Belturbet man. He added, it was a luxury to be back home in clean clothes, since he had only the one outfit in the trenches, and it was never washed once during the three months he was there. The only time he got clean garments was the time he got a change of socks. It was a jubilant moment for him.
Tragedy was never too far away. He witnessed Sergeant Carson Jones from Drumaloor, Cavan, get shot through the head while preparing his trench. Sergeant Jones although unconscious, remained alive for two days and according to Horgan, he had been a ‘brave soldier’. The imagery of the battle was seared in Horgan’s memory and possibly one of the most graphically grotesque things he encountered was the ‘terrible death’ of three artillery men who were hit by a shell that took their heads off at the shoulders, and then before falling each body seemed to walk ‘a step or two’ before collapsing. The same interview mentioned two others injured Belturbet soldiers who were invalided home; identified as Private Owen Wade and Private Maguire of the ‘Enniskilling Fusiliers.’ Wade it was stated, had lost half his left hand in a blast.
In an earlier letter to his sister Miss Nell Horgan of Kilconny, Belturbet, on 21 November 1914 John told of the German soldiers’ cruelty, stealing money and jewellery from women. On one occasion, Horgan wounded a German soldier, on whom they discovered two bottles of brandy and ‘a large number of rings and two watches,’ which he believed was ‘proof enough’ the goods had been looted.
Horgan family
Two of John’s brothers also fought in the Great War and their father was ex-colour Sergeant John Horgan of Ivy Cottage, Kilconny, Belturbet. Tragically, Sergeant and Mrs Horgan’s third son, Daniel was killed in the war on April 14, 1915, at Shabri, Persian Gulf, while serving in the 2nd Norfolk Regiment. He was aged twenty-four years. Daniel had completed nine years’ service in Gibraltar, South Africa, and India. He had travelled from India to fight the Turks on 4 November 1914. During his years in the army, and being on ‘foreign service,’ he had never had an opportunity to return home to his parents. The King of England sent a message of sympathy to Mr. and Mrs. Horgan. An anniversary notice for Daniel Horgan carried the words:
Somewhere abroad a volley rings,
The bugle sounds a farewell,
A little cross, a passing flower,
Mark where our loving son lies.
Rest In Peace.
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