probably heard
also a story of the American Civil War. An Irish regiment on the side
of the North carried a green flag bearing a harp in the glow of a
sunburst, and so noted were they for their wild and reckless daring
that a Confederate general, seeing the dreaded colour surging
forwards, and borne proudly aloft through the battle smoke and the
hail of bullets, cried out to his men, "Steady, boys, steady. Here's
that infernal green flag again." The Germans, on the day that Lord
Cavan waved the improvised flag of the Irish Guards had reason also
to curse it if they but knew--for the loss of valuable trenches.

On September 13th the main forces of the Germans retired to the high
ground two miles north of the Aisne and entrenched themselves. As the
British also dug themselves in, this was the beginning of trench
warfare. But the combatants did not settle themselves down to it
entirely for some months afterwards. There were still surprise attacks
and counter-strokes, in which cavalry took a part, as is seen from an
adventure of the 2nd Irish Fusiliers as told by Lance-Corporal
Casement. "One night," he says, "after a very hard day in the
trenches, when we were wet to the skin, and had lighted fires to dry
our tunics, we heard firing along our front, and then the Germans came
down on us like madmen. We had to tackle them in our shirt-sleeves. It
was mainly bayonet work, and hard work at that. They were well
supported by cavalry, who tried to ride us down in the dark, but we
held our ground until reinforcements came up, and then we drove the
enemy off with a fine rush of our horsemen and footmen combined."

One of the most inspiring of the deeds of self-sacrifice which the war
has produced was done by an Irish soldier. In the churchyard of a
village near the Aisne is the grave of a private of the Royal Irish
Regiment marked by a cross without a name, but with the arresting
inscription--"He saved others; himself he could not save." The story
of how this unknown hero gave his life to save others was told by a
wounded corporal of the West Yorkshire Regiment in an hospital at
Woolwich. On September 14th, in the concluding stage of the struggle
for the Aisne, the battalion was sent ahead to occupy a little village
near Rheims. "We went on through the long, narrow street," says the
narrator, "and just as we were in sight of the end of it a man in
khaki, to our great surprise, dashed out from a farmhouse on our right
and ran towa