LAST OUT – The Royal Munster Fusiliers on the Italian Front

British regiment marching along a road near the Piave, on their
way to take up their position in the allied line on the Italian front.
(The Great War Vol. XI, 1918)

During the closing stages of the Great War, the 1st Garrison Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers served on the Italian theatre of war, the only Irish regiment in the British Army to do so. One member of thebattalion was Private Patrick Dargan, my grandfather from Rutland Street, Limerick. He served as a clerk in the Pay Sergeant’s office and in his own words, never fired a shot in action, beyond his basic training.

At the beginning of the Great War in 1914 the Royal Munster Fusiliers was an infantry regiment of the British Army comprising of the 1st and 2nd Battalions. The regiment had its origins in India and this was reflected in the regimental cap badge, which consisted of a Bengal tiger mounted on a circular grenade burst. Over the period of the war, seven further battalions were raised and pressed into service in France, the Dardanelles and the Middle East. In around April 1917 the 1st Garrison Battalion was raised – one of a number of battalions formed specifically for home defence purposes. The rank and file members of the new battalion were made up of ‘C-Category’ men. That is men who were not appropriate for front line action, but more suitable for clerical or home guard duties. The battalion structure consisted of a headquarters unit and three infantry companies with the initial contingent drawn from other units of the Munsters, as well as from the Durham Light Infantry, the Leinster Regiment and the Connaught Rangers. The new battalion was initially based in Victoria Barracks in Cork, where its duties included guarding vulnerable points on the south Irish coast between the Shannon Estuary and Arklow, Co. Wicklow.

I am not sure exactly when my grandfather joined the 1st Garrison Battalion. He rarely spoke about the war except to say he saw little live action, as he acted as a battalion pay clerk. Prior to his joining up he had worked as a clerk in his father’s business in Limerick. When the army realised that, not only could he read and write, but he had experience of bookkeeping, he was posted to the Pay Sergeant’s office, where he served throughout the war. His one claim about his own war experience was that, other than during his basic training, he never fired a shot.

This initial tour of duty seems to have been uneventful except for two incidents in Arklow, where the battalion’s responsibility included guarding the vast Kynoch munitions factory and the town harbour facilities. In the early morning of 21 September 1917, the munitions plant suffered a massive and mysterious explosion which killed 27 workers. The soldier on guard duty was Private Richard Craig who gave evidence at the inquest on the following day. He stated that he could offer no explanation for the cause of the explosion other than to rule out an enemy attack from the sea. Curiously, the cause of the explosion was never satisfactorily explained. The same period also witnessed the death of Private Charles Reilly who was accidentally shot by a comrade while doing sentry duty at Porter’s Rock.

In November 1917 the 1st Garrison Battalion was posted to the military training camp at Prees Heath in Shropshire; where it underwent infantry and trench warfare training in preparation for front line action. Following this training period, the Battalion was ordered to Italy to join the Italian Expeditionary Force. A small number of troops remained behind in Prees Heath, where they formed the 2nd Garrison Battalion. This 2nd Garrison Battalion was subsequently moved to Portsmouth where it was involved in assembling drafts for service with the various Irish regiments for the remainder of the war, until it was disbanded in 1919.

By the end of 1917 the 1st Garrison Battalion had left Prees Heath for Southampton, from where they sailed for Le Harve. Here the battalion was transported across southern France by train. They passed through the Rivera and into northern Italy and by January 1918 joined the GHQ base in Arquata Scrivia. Along with two infantry battalions they were assigned to the lines of communication. The main duties of these troops were to act as a link between the GHQ and the main service troops and to provide a range of non-fighting services such as medical, engineering, and transport. They also provided guard and protection duties in areas such as the Base Headquarters, airfields and ammunition dumps, in addition to guarding prisoners of war.

The Italian Front opened in 1915 when Italy joined the British, French and Russian Allies against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria and Turkey. Between 1915 and 1917 the Italian and Austrian troops engaged one another in a series of eleven battles along the River Isonzo, which formed the frontier between the two countries, without either side achieving any significant advantage. In October 1917, as part of the Caporetto Offensive the Austrian and German armies finally broke through the Italian defences and advanced westwards into northern Italy, where they were halted at a line that stretched along the River Piave and swung westwards as far as the northern tip of Lake Garda (Fig1). At this juncture the Italians appealed to Britain and France for help to stem the advancing enemy. The Allies responded favourably and eleven divisions from both the British and French armies began the move to Italy from the Western Front. At the end of October two of the British divisions returned to France, at which point the Italian Expeditionary Force was made up of the 7th, 23rd and 48th Divisions, as well as the General Headquarters (GHQ).

In June 1918 the Austrians launched the Piave Offensive with the aim of advancing beyond the line of the Piave River. The offensive failed and Austrians retreated behind the river. In October the Italian army, including the British divisions, launched a successful two pronged counter attack against the enemy. By the beginning of November the Italian troops, with the French and British contingents had pressed northwards and into Austria. At the same time the allied army moved eastwards and crossed the River Piave, where the Austrian army fell back and totally collapsed within a few days (Fig.2). An armistice was signed on 3 November 1918, and hostilities were brought to a close.

Normally it is possible to trace the activities of British military units during the First World War from the Regimental War Diaries. These are the day-to-day records of the military events experienced by most battalions in the British army during the war. The diaries were completed in the field and were sent to the War Office in London on a regular basis. Today these diaries are housed in the National Archives in Kew, where they are accessible to the general public. Unfortunately, the diaries of the 1st Garrison Battalion have been lost, so very little detail of the Battalion’s activities on the Italian Front is available. Despite this it is possible to piece together some of the Battalion’s experiences from the limited range of publications that deal with the British Army’s involvement on Italian Front, such as the works of Barnett, Edmonds, McCance, and Barnsley, as well as from the details provided by the Commonwealth War Grave Commission internet.

As the British troops and GHQ moved eastwards across northern Italy, it must be assumed that some, at least, of the 1st Garrison Battalion moved with them, but it does seem that, at times, the battalion was split into different sections. For example Sir James Edmonds in the ‘Official History of the Great War’, notes that three companies of the 1st Garrison Battalion served with the ‘Lines of Communication’ at the beginning of 1918, but by June of the same year this number had been reduced to two. In another example, the War Graves Commission notes that Lance Corporal Paton served with the 63rd Anti-Aircraft Section. The War Graves Commission internet site provides information relating to the members of the Royal Munster Fusiliers who were killed in action in Italy and who lie buried in the war graves that lie between the Arquata Scrivia base and the River Piave (Fig.2). Eight members of the battalion were buried in Arquata Scrivia, two were buried at Cremone, two at Montecchio and a single member was buried at Legnano (Fig.3). This suggests that the 1st Garrison Battalion members served in that area of the war front between Arquata Scrivia and the River Piave.

Following the Italian armistice the 1st Garrison Battalion seems to have returned to the Arquata Base, where it continued to undertake guard and administration duties. On 11 November 1918, the General Armistice came into effect and the Italian Expeditionary Force began the slow process of returning home. Finally in 1920, it was the turn of the 1st Garrison Battalion and in April of that year it returned to England – the final British Army unit to leave Italy. It is interesting to note that just prior to this Private Daniel Corless died on 7 January 1920, and was buried in the Arquata Scriva cemetery. In April the 1st Garrison Battalion retuned to Plymouth and there it was disbanded on 4 May 1920.

On his return back to Ireland Patrick Dargan remained in the army, but as a civilian. He was based in the Artillery Barracks in Limerick where his duties consisted of checking the quartermaster’s accounts from barracks across the Munster area. Curiously during this period his sons were active members of the Volunteers. The older boy, John, was a member of the Limerick City Active Service Unit while the younger son, Thomas, was interned in Spike Island.

After Thomas was arrested, Grandfather was accused of being a spy and he was dismissed from his post by the army. He immediately telegrammed the War Office in London explaining he had been dismissed by the army. The War Office telegrammed him back and instructed him to get back to work immediately as the army had no authority to dismiss him as he was an employee of the War Office – not the army. Later when the British Army withdrew from Ireland after the Anglo/Irish Treaty, the War Office offered him a similar position in Liverpool, but he declined and spent the remainder of his life in Limerick.

The only other reference I have of my grandfather and his war experience was that when he had a few drinks with his old army comrades in Limerick, they liked to sing the Munster Fusiliers, to the air of the British Grenadiers.

With the establishment of the Irish Free State the British Army disbanded six of their Irish regiments. In June 1922 the Royal Munster Fusiliers, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Leinster Regiment, and the South Irish Horse, were stood down. Their colours were presented to King George V at Windsor Castle and the Royal Munster Fusiliers as a British regiment ceased to exist.