THE DUBLIN FUSILIERS ("The Old Toughs")

The Dublin Fusiliers had a large share in writing the red history of India. Their prestige has been drawn mainly from the East. Indeed, although they have been in existence 246 years, they never set eyes on the white cliffs of Dover until the other day, so to speak, in 1871. On their colours stand the Royal Tiger of Bengal, and the Indian Elephant, together with the honours—Plassey, Mysore, The Carnatic, Buxar, and many others gained in India which are unknown to any other regiment. In the conquest of India they were Clive's men, Warren Hastings' men, and "their names are the names of the victories of England." It is scarcely too much to say that Indian territory was made British by the Dublin Fusiliers. The story of how India would have become part of the French Empire but for the daring genius of an obscure youth and the indomitable valour of the Dublin Fusiliers makes thrilling reading.

The French had laid siege to Trichinopoly, knowing that, with its fall, fell India into their hands; but Clive, a young man of twenty-five years, a born genius, without any further acquirement in the way of special training, evolved as if by a heaven-sent inspiration—a sudden plan—the consummate daring of which has not been equalled in the history of any other nation. It was, in brief, to raise the siege of Trichinopoly by dealing a sledge-hammer stroke upon Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic—a city whose population was 100,000, and whose garrison consisted of 1,100 trained men. Clive proposed to subdue this strongly defended city with 200 Dublin Fusiliers and 300 Sepoys. This unheard-of intention must have had something unseen and undreamt of behind it, as the shadow of the coming event. The issue proved this. With his handful of men, tuned to his own pitch of enthusiasm, he marched boldly on Arcot during the night. He was not alone. His allies were the elements. As he neared the gates of the city, they broke loose. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and the rain descended in torrents. In the midst of this, he and his little band entered the city as if at the head of an unknown mighty army. These men, who came attended by the artillery of the storm gods, by the lightning's flash and search-light, seemed all too many for the garrison. Terrified, they fled in tumult and disorder, and Clive by this master-stroke, aided by That which has aided Britain many times in a moment of daring extremity, seized Arcot, and held it.

But this master-stroke required confirmation before it was effective. It yet remained for Clive, and his brave band to display the endurance and patience necessary to hold what was won. The besiegers of Trichinopoly gathered reinforcements, and beleaguered Arcot. Ten thousand men enforced that place. In the course of days four officers, nearly 100 Dublin Fusiliers and over 100 Sepoys were lost. Says an eye-witness who describes the place, "The ramparts were too narrow to admit the guns, the battlements too low to protect the soldiers." In this siege, which lasted fifty days, elephants were used by the besieging hosts. With the battering-rams slung between them, they were pushed forward against the walls, but the "Dubs" sent such a fusilade against them that the beasts turned tail, and trampled hundreds of the enemy to death.

The little body of Dublin Fusiliers and Sepoys—it was the first, but not the last time that Indian troops have fought bravely by our side—held out, and finally the enemy, after a fierce attack, in which they were worsted, retreated. Clive followed them up remorselessly. In that pursuit Pondicherry and Tanjore were taken, and now, at Plassey, were 100 British, and 2,000 Sepoys, who, in a decisive action, defeated 60,000 of the enemy under Surajah Dowlah. This superiority of a cause which, reinforcing an inferiority of men, has proved, through thick blood and thin, to be at the behest of civilisation, is not without its far-off echo in the present day.

It needs to be added that the whole of the honours of the Dublin Fusiliers, until "South Africa, 1899-1902," and "Relief of Ladysmith," were won by the Madras Fusiliers and Bombay Fusiliers (East India Company's regiments). It was only in 1881 that they were given the name "Royal Dublin Fusiliers," and as such, our English, Scotch and Welsh have never a fault to find with them.

It was at Arcot that Lieutenant Trewith, of the Madras Fusiliers, saved Clive's life at the expense of his own, and so, indirectly, yet practically, saved India. At a moment when Clive was unaware of danger Trewith saw one of the besiegers taking a long, steady aim at him through a small breach. There was no time to do anything in the way of warning. There was merely time to thrust his own body between the bullet and Clive's heart—between another Power and India. That was a moment as heroic for an individual as it was critical for a nation.

From the battle of Plassey onwards, wherever there was fighting, there were the Dublin Fusiliers. At Condore and Wandiwash, at Buxar and Sholingur, they were present—not in numbers but in force. It has ceased to be a strange thing regarding the Dublin Fusiliers that their greatest victories were those in which the odds were against them.

At Cuddalore the "Dubs" saw the first step of a romance which went far in a world of practical reality. It was there that they took no less a person than Bernadotte prisoner—Bernadotte, the born leader of men, who afterwards married Desirée Clary (the early love of Napoleon), became Field Marshal, and died King of Sweden. Little did those practical fighters think, when they treated the young Bernadotte kindly at their camp fire that they had actually captured the future father of King Oscar of Sweden—a monarch who received his name from his god-father Napoleon Bonaparte, after his favourite hero, Oscar of Ossian.

As the almost impossible name of Nundy Droog has been glorified by the "Dubs," one may fairly reason that the glory of a place-name may be derived from what takes place there. Nundy Droog is a fortress set upon a great crag, nearly half a mile high. The story of the three weeks' siege of this difficult place has a sublime climax in the final and victorious assault of the Dublin Fusiliers. It was night, and the Indian moon shone full upon the giant crag, whose serried points seemed to pierce the sky, casting deep shadows on the rocky facets and gloomy ravines. From far above fell the bugle calls of the defenders, tossed by echo from precipice to precipice, to die away in the dark spaces. Then rang out an answering clarion note from below, sounding the assault, and the Dublin Fusiliers advanced up the sides of that precipitous height. "Then," says a chronicler, with a peculiar inversion of metaphorical allusion, "hell opened above them, cannon shot ploughed through them, musketry raked them, rockets blasted them, great boulders rolled down from above and carried many away." But, undaunted, the Dublin Fusiliers climbed on and up, until at last their final dash on the summit was so determined that the enemy fled dismayed.

Later, standing in pools of blood where lay women of Cawnpore, while little baby-shoes floated about them, the Dublin Fusiliers—strong men, sobbing with grief—vowed vengeance on the perpetrators of the foulest deeds, and saw it carried out. The murderers were captured and blown from the guns, their hands smeared with the blood of their innocent victims, and, according to their own belief, their high-caste souls consequently damned for ever.

The Dublin Fusiliers fought grandly in the Boer War, and nothing could hold them back. After Colenso they were found to be only 400 strong. In view of their terrible losses it was decided to send them off to Frere to keep the communications open. It was at parade that they were informed of this, and they one and all "nabbed the rust" and swore they would be in the fighting line or die. They were expostulated with, but all arguments were of no avail; the fighting spirit was too strong, and these heroic fellows were allowed to remain to have another cut at the enemy.

During the battle of Colenso occurred a real "Irish" incident which is amusing. The "Dubs" were advancing on the enemy's left flank under a searching shell and rifle fire, when they paused for cover at a poorly-sheltered spot. Here two of the men had a private difference, and, with the battle raging round them, and the bullets whistling through their hair, they set about one another with their fists, their comrades gathering round and looking on with interest. When the matter was satisfactorily settled, and the best man had let the other up, the two shook hands, and, joining common cause against the enemy, coolly resumed the advance, and proceeded about the less personal business of the day.

It was at Lucknow that Tommy Atkins, the sentry, when he saw the people flying for the Residency, refused to leave his post, and was killed by the Sepoys. This proud nickname, Tommy Atkins, has now come to mean any soldier in the British Army, and rightly so, for, be it said, they are all built on the same plan as the one who immortalized their present name.

There are two true stories of the Dublin Fusiliers which will bear repeating; indeed, they are more than true: they are tender and true, and show the noblest form of self-sacrifice in the face of unconquering death. At Natal, when Captain Paton was severely wounded, one of his disabled men crept to his side in the cold, teeming rain, and lay with his arms about him all night long, trying to keep the necessary warmth in his body. And if you remind an old Dublin Fusilier of this touching story, he will most probably tell you another of eighty years ago, which is like unto it. There were, so the records tell, two foster-brothers in the Bombay Fusiliers (the 2nd "Dubs")—the younger an officer, and the elder a devil-may-care private. "Ye'll be lookin' after the lad," said their mother, when they left for the front. "I will," replied the reckless one; and he did. They were found, years later, upon a mountain-side in India, both dead, lying among dead and wounded. But—and here is the lump in the throat—the younger had been badly wounded, and the elder only slightly; but, dead from exposure, there he lay by his brother's side, stripped to the skin, all his clothes being piled upon his mother's younger son to keep his ebbing life-spark warm. Deep down in the devil-may-care Bombay Fusilier who did that deed was surely the spirit that conquers death, subjecting it to the higher glory of Britain.

THEIR BADGES AND BATTLE HONOURS, ETC.

Badges.—The Royal Tiger, superscribed, "Plassey," "Buxar." The Elephant, superscribed "Carnatic," "Mysore."

Motto.—"Spectamur Agendo."

Battle Honours.—Arcot, Condore, Wandiwash, Scholingur, Nundy Droog, Amboyna, Ternate, Banda, Pondicherry, Mahidpoor, Guzerat, Seringapatam, Kirkee, Beni Boo Ally, Aden, Punjaub, Mooltan, Goojerat, Ava, Pegu, Lucknow, S. Africa 1899-1902, Relief of Ladysmith.

Uniform.—Scarlet with blue facings.