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ETREUX, FESTUBERT, RUE DU BOIS AND HULLOCH
AUTHOR OF "DREGS," "THE LIGHT ABOVE THE CROSSROADS," "THE FRANTIC BOAST," "THE FIRE OF GREEN BOUGHS"
_Honorary Colonel, 5th Royal Munster Fusiliers_
DEDICATED TO VICTOR RICKARD AND HIS COMRADES IN ALL RANKS OF THE MUNSTER FUSILIERS, WHO FOUGHT AND FELL IN THE GREAT WAR, 1914-15
"One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake."
The shamrock, which forms part of the cap badge of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, was first introduced, in February 1915, by Lieut.-Colonel Rickard, in the Second Battalion, with the object of giving a distinctively Irish emblem to all ranks of the Regiment. It is now worn by all the battalions of the Munsters.
I should like to express my thanks to the officers of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and also to the friends and relatives who have helped me to collect and arrange this book. In the following accounts of the engagements of Etreux, Festubert, Rue du Bois and Hulloch, I do not wish in any sense to appear as an historian; that task awaits far abler and more qualified hands. What follows has been threaded together as a little tribute to the men who gave their lives for an Ideal, and who were brave soldiers in the Great War.
The first three chapters of this book appeared in _New Ireland_ during the summer of 1915, and were shortly afterwards republished by that paper, together with the supplementary letters, as _The Story of the Munsters_. A second impression was sold out by the end of the year, since when no copies of the book have been obtainable. The new features of the present edition are the historical Introduction specially written by Lord Dunraven, to whom my best thanks are due, and the four pictures and the account of the Munsters at Hulloch which have already appeared in _The Sphere_. Its Editor, Mr. Clement Shorter, has a special claim to the lasting gratitude of the Munster Fusiliers for the deep interest he has always shown in all records of the Regiment; and it is by his permission that the illustrations, which add incalculably to the slender story itself, are here reproduced. My thanks are also offered to Mr. Geddes, who has designed the colour plate on the cover, and brought into the book a sense of the traditions which surround the regimental flags.