Michael Patrick Kehoe 1891-1964 His book which this site is based on with permision from the copyright holder was finally published . in 2010 " With Casements Irish Brigade"
Copyright (c) Kevin Keogh 2010
Patrick Roche joined the Munster Fusiliers regiment and Michael Kehoe joined the Royal Regiment of Ireland. He was transferred to Clonmel barracks Co. Tipperary, one of his training officers was Captain Butler. He would meet Captain Butler again many years later while Kehoe was in disguise in Cologne, Germany 1919.
Later in 1913 he was transferred to Raglan barracks in Devonport England, while there he was court-marshalled for sedition and received 28 days in military prison for arguing politics in barracks. In July of 1914 his unit was in Falmouth, there was an American schooner in dock and he taught of skipping back to US but decided against this for some reason. Day’s later war was declared and his unit was shipped out of Southhampton to Boulogne.
As part of the British Expeditionary Force on 22nd August at Mons in Belgium they meet the foremost German Uhlan [cavalry Regiments] patrols and the battle began. He says in his journals large numbers of British troops were killed in those first few hours with a very high portion of Irish among them. They were out-manoeuvred by the German forces and on August 23rd the British retreated. Kehoe’s unit and several others could not retreat; those that survived the next few hours were soon out-flanked front and rear and captured.
Bering in mind it was almost 100 years ago, many Irish men joined the British army for many different reasons mentioned below and looking back now one can reflect on those reasons and hopefully learn from them. Remembering it’s the solders of all nationalities that fight and die in wars and many for brave patriotic reasons, some politicians tend to incite war and of course world bankers and munitions manufactures profit from it. Michael Kehoe shares his thought’s with us while the bombs and bullets were flying on the battle field at Mons “The Germans made good use of cover; brains and tactics moved in unison so far as they were concerned. The British commanders, on the other hand, were in the fog, merely groping in the dark, except in a very few instances. Summing up the situation at Mons, Lovat Frazer, the English war critic, truly wrote that the English expeditionary forces were composed of “lions led by asses”. At what a cost of human life: 500 Irishmen of one battalion lay dead and wounded or prisoners of war within the space of a few hours. Every foot of Mons told its own weird story. I stuck it out until late in the evening when, completely at bay, outflanked front and rear, it was a case of “Hande Hock!” which meant “Put them up and quick at that!”
The one thought that remained uppermost in my mind through this inferno was that in war time, England’s enemy was Irelands friend; therefore there was less reason why I should throw away my life for the British Empire than fall into the hands of those most likely to cripple that empire of tyranny. In a word we made the best of a bad job, submitting philosophically to the fortunes of war. Four days later, I found myself, along with some 250 other soldiers – Irish, English and Scottish – in Sennelager Camp, Westphalia, Germany. En route I paid a visit on shanks’ mare to Halle, Waterloo, Louvain and Liege in Belgium. I was now a passive spectator in the historic cockpit of Europe”.
Ireland to England to Belgium then Germany, WW1
Click on small images to enlarge & get details.
Newspapers and poster Propaganda was prolific in Ireland to convince more Irish to fight for the British Empire. Click images to enlarge.
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There were many different reasons why Irishmen chose to fight alongside; what for many of them and there ancestor’s were there oppressors for more than 700 years. They had tried over many centuries to break free but were unsuccessful.
• A false promise of Home-Rule
• A wage to feed themselves and there hungry families
• A believe that they were fighting for the benefit of small nations
• For some just the adventure of it all.
[Similar falshhood's were told to other nationalities including African Americans who fought in two Worlds Wars for the US, but didn’t gain there liberty till late 1960’s.]
The Pro-British in Ireland at that time such as Redmond and Carson led the call in public meetings and others printed in there newspapers why young Irishmen should go and fight and kill Germans and Turks. Yet most of those so-called British Empire patriots didn’t don the uniform themselves and head for the front-lines. They were needed at home to tell the tale of the Axes evil cast-upon little defenceless country’s like Belgium. But surly the Irish and the rest of the world did not forget so fast that it was an Irishman Roger Casement who had earlier exposed the mass murder, torture and enslaving of the people of the Congo by Belgium under the leadership of there King Leopold 11 and his rubber barons. Nor the same treatment dished out on the people of Peru by British rubber barons.
No mention of that, just go and kill Germans and Turks. An interesting fact of history is up to WW1 there was never any ill will towards Ireland from either of those countries. There were Irish established churches, monasteries and places of learning across Germany and during Ireland’s darkest time in history when the native Irish being displaced from there land and one crop failed [not a famine] and the peasants were starving to death in there hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, the Turks sent ship loads of food aid to help the starving much to the displeasure of the English Queen. This was at the time every port in Ireland was exporting Irish livestock and foodstuffs to Britain and her empire aided by treacherous Irish landlords and guarded by British troops.
Ireland without doubt, was a defenceless country in the Europe of 1914 and the only country to come to its aid was Germany. When World War One was officially over in 1918 the gallant Allies were not queuing up on the beaches help in her liberation. Worst still in 1919, during the Treaty of Versailles, the Irish delegation led by Sean T O’Kelly were cast-aside to there own faith by the mighty liberators of the oppressed small nations of Europe. The president of the US Woodrow Wilson followed by Britain and France made it impossible for Ireland to get a hearing. They were too occupied carving up the world for there own greed’s worth and there backers in the World banks, munitions manufactures and oil barons. If Ireland wanted freedom her sons and daughters would have to go it alone in taking on the British Empire. A bloody War of Independence followed by Civil war could have been avoided.
Michael Kehoe and the other soldiers arrived in Sennelager Camp on 27 August 1914.
He says by November of that year there were approx 20,000 French and 10.000 British POW’s of which 1500 were Irish or of Irish regiments in the camp.
Back in America on 24th August, John Devoy led a Clan na Gael delegation to meet with Count Bernstorff the German ambassador to the US. They requested the Germans to supply arms and German officers to help overthrow British rule in Ireland. Roger Casement arrived in Berlin on October 1914 to meet the German Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. His mission, to begin negotiations on behalf of Clan na Gael to reach agreement on German aid to help rid Ireland of 700 years of English tyranny.
The negotiations were difficult but they reached an agreement and signed a treaty to give aid to the Irish to try and achieve there goal of freedom and liberty. One of the clauses in there agreement was in allowing Casement to try and raise an Irish Brigade from Irishmen serving in the British forces who were now POW’s in German camps. It was a task that was to prove much more difficult than he realized, for many different reasons.
In Sennelager camp the Germans placed the soldiers of Irish regiments in there own section of the camp. Kehoe had become acquainted with a German sergeant by the name of Hans, who before the war was a journalist and was known in German-American circles. Through Hans he learned of Casements negotiations with the German government and the subsequent treaty. Kehoe being a member of Clan na Gael and very Pro-Irish was very supportive of the developments but even he was surprised at the way the Germans handled the situation in Sennelager camp; a senor German officer march into the camp and stood up and announced to all that the Irish soldiers were to be transferred to there own camp in Limburg an der Lahn. While there they were to receive better food, housing and conditions and went on to explain about the treaty. One can only imagine how this went down with all the different nationalities that had just experienced and survived the horrors or modern warfare.
But the most German officers or the ordinary British soldiers would not be too familiar with the day to day goings on in Ireland or the politics, religious divide, wealth divide, Anglo Irish, True-Irish, Pro-British or West- British as they were referred to.
Being a POW and the chance of better food and conditions naturally a lot more would have some Irish blood in them from then on, until it came to signing up to return to Ireland and fight the British. This under British rule was treason no mater you being Irish or British.
There were many obstacles in recruiting volunteers for the Irish Brigade in the Limburg POW camp, to read about some of them click on the book link below and read two pages [written in 1926] from “With Casements Irish Brigade” with kind permission from the copyright holder. Its in PDF format and you will need Adobe Reader installed on you computer.
While recruiting was proceeding at Limburg camp, Irish revolutionary leader Joseph Plunkett arrived in Germany to aid Roger Casement in his task of recruiting volunteers and in securing arms for the forthcoming uprising in Ireland.
Plunkett was later executed by firing squad by the British in Dublin shortly after Easter 1916.
In general no married men were allowed to volunteer for the Irish Brigade with the exception of one, Michael O'Tool who was a friend of Plunkett, in case of reprisals back home on there families.
In all there were only 54 brave souls who signed up to fight for the freedom and liberty of there own country out of 2200 Irishmen in Limburg camp. Two more volunteered, Captain Robert Monteith who arrived from Ireland to assist in recruiting and John McGoey a courier from New York Clan na Gael. While many had there reasons for not joining the Irish Brigade the shear numbers who decided to stay in the British army as POW’s was one of the main reason for the Brigades eventual downfall. Continued
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