aise Tyneside battalions, including one of Irish.
Mr. O'Connor went down, and the upshot was that four Irish battalions
were raised. They were in existence by January 1, 1915, when General
Parsons was already writing that unless Irishmen could be found to fill
up the Division, we must submit to the disgrace of having it made up by
English recruits. The obvious answer was to annex the Tyneside Irish
Brigade. Redmond, moreover, held that to bring over this brigade to
train in Ireland, and to incorporate it bodily in the Sixteenth
Division, would please the Tyneside men--for a tremendous welcome would
have greeted them in their own country--and would have an excellent
effect on Irish opinion generally. But the proposal was rigorously
opposed by the War Office. It was argued that these men had enlisted
technically as Northumberland Fusiliers and Northumberland Fusiliers
they must remain. In reality, as far as one can judge, the War Office
were penny wise and pound foolish. "We have got these men," they said,
"and we have a promise from Redmond to fill a Division. Why relieve him
of one-third of his task?"

Redmond knew, and we all knew, that the essential was to get our
Division complete and into the field at the earliest possible moment. He
had confidence that once they got to work they would make a name for
themselves, which would be the best attraction for recruits. Let it be
remembered that at this moment popular expectation put the end of the
war about July. When I joined the Rangers in April 1915, our mess was
full of young officers threatening to throw up their commissions and
enlist in some battalion which would give them the chance of seeing a
fight. We could not expect to move to France before August, and by that
time all that we could hope would be to form part of the army of
occupation. Rumour was rife, too, that the Division would be broken up
and utilized for draft-finding, that it would never see France as a
unit. All this talk came back to Redmond and increased his anxiety to
make the work complete.

He held, and I think rightly, that the whole machinery of recruiting
worked against us; that every officer had instructions to send no man to
the Sixteenth Division who could be got into a draft-finding reserve
battalion. Knowing what we know, I cannot blame them; but the game was
not fairly played. A man would come in and say he wanted to join the
Irish Brigade. "Which regiment?" Often he might not realize tha