Hampshire regiment in the 10th Irish Division

Snickers Man

I am curious as to how a battallion of the Hampshire Regiment (the 10th Battallion) ended up as part of the 10th Irish Division which was sent to Gallipoli in WWI.

I have been doing some research on the numbers of Irishmen killed at Gallipoli and have consulted a number of histories. Several of them refer to the fact that the 10th Hampshires replaced a battallion (5th) of the Royal Irish Regiment in the Irish Division but they are less clear about when. The CWGC website shows that both the 5th RIR and the 10th Hampshires suffered many casualties on the second week of August 1915 so that suggests they were in the front line at about the same time.

One history (The Irish Regiments in World War One by Henry Harris) makes the throwaway claim that the 10th Hamphsires, despite the English name, were "raised in Mullinger" (sic). However, the CWGC site reveals that nearly all of those killed from that batallion had parents living in the Hampshire area so it seems as if they were indeed local men recruited to the local county regiment.

I get the feeling that the casualties of the 10th Hampshires are included in most of the estimates for the overall number of "Irish" soldiers killed at Gallipoli. I have seen the figure of 4,000 bandied about. My estimate is very much lower, somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 and closer to the lower end of the scale.

Can anyone shed any light on how "Irish" if at all was the Hampshire Regiment?

arnhem44

Snickers Man wrote: »

I am curious as to how a battallion of the Hampshire Regiment (the 10th Battallion) ended up as part of the 10th Irish Division which was sent to Gallipoli in WWI.

I have been doing some research on the numbers of Irishmen killed at Gallipoli and have consulted a number of histories. Several of them refer to the fact that the 10th Hampshires replaced a battallion (5th) of the Royal Irish Regiment in the Irish Division but they are less clear about when. The CWGC website shows that both the 5th RIR and the 10th Hampshires suffered many casualties on the second week of August 1915 so that suggests they were in the front line at about the same time.

One history (The Irish Regiments in World War One by Henry Harris) makes the throwaway claim that the 10th Hamphsires, despite the English name, were "raised in Mullinger" (sic). However, the CWGC site reveals that nearly all of those killed from that batallion had parents living in the Hampshire area so it seems as if they were indeed local men recruited to the local county regiment.

I get the feeling that the casualties of the 10th Hampshires are included in most of the estimates for the overall number of "Irish" soldiers killed at Gallipoli. I have seen the figure of 4,000 bandied about. My estimate is very much lower, somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 and closer to the lower end of the scale.

Can anyone shed any light on how "Irish" if at all was the Hampshire Regiment?

Here it is from the Long Long Trail website

10th (Service) Battalion
Formed at Winchester in August 1914 as part of K1 and moved to Dublin, attached as Army Troops to 10th (Irish) Divisio. Moved to Mullingar in September.
March 1915 : moved to the Curragh and transferred to 29th Brigade in same Division. Moved to Basingstoke in May 1915.
Sailed from Liverpool on 7 July 1915 and going via Mudros landed at Gallipoli 6 August 1915.
6 October 1915 : landed at Salonika.
2 November 1916 : transferred to 82nd Brigade in 27th Division

I have two medals to an Acting Sergeant who was killed whilst serving with the 10th Hampshires at Gallipoli,he had only lasted four days there,probably a lot longer than some who were sent there.

R.Dub.Fusilier

arnhem44 wrote: »

I have two medals to an Acting Sergeant who was killed whilst serving with the 10th Hampshires at Gallipoli,he had only lasted four days there,probably a lot longer than some who were sent there.

cant help with op but i have 1914-1915 star to Corporal Alfred Edward Case 2nd hampshires. landed on V beach 25-4-1915 , with the dubs and the munsters kia 6-5-1915. he was from Gurnsey and medals sent to his brother in south africa.

johnny_doyle

10th Battn Hampshires were in the 10th Irish Division as were a number of Indian Army battlalions. A distant relative by marriage, Richard Skilbeck Smith, won a Military Cross. He'd been in the Middlesex Regt, then with an Indian Army unit. Don't believe he was with the 10th at Gallipoli. Wrote a book about his experiences "A subaltern in Macedonia and Judæa, 1916-17". As far as I know, not a drop of Irish blood in his veins. The son of a vicar, he became a vicar after the war.

arnhem44

I would guess that while the Hampshire's were in Ireland and the way people could chose which regiment they wanted to enter at the early stages of the war many locals may of joined them that way but most likely only a small percentage as most would of went into the Irish regiments or the navy.Looking at different regiments during the war you'll find many different units attached to them.The figures that you posted up are interesting though,the true figure will never be known unless someone would trawl through the records and break them down.

Morlar

I have a few books at home which refer to the hampshires & Gallipoli re Irish regiments. I will dig them out later and post anything that may help.

Morlar

Not sure how helpful this will be :

Irish Regiments in the World Wars (Osprey) - Author David Murphy

Irish battalions also served outside Europe in the first
two years of the war. During the 1915 Gallipoli campaign in
the Dardanelles, the Regulars of the 1st Royal Iniskilling
Fusiliers, 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers and 1st Royal Dublin
Fusiliers served with 29th Division. On 25 April the Royal
Munster Fusiliers and Royal Dublin Fusiliers, alongside
men of the 2nd Hampshires, took part in the ill-conceived
landings on V Beach. Under a hail of Turkish fire they tried
to disembark from the beached collier River Clyde into barges
opposite the strong enemy positions at Sedd el-Bahr. The
two Irish battalions suffered such heavy casualties that they
were later amalgamated into a temporary unit known as
the 'Dubsters', with just 8 officers and some 400 men. At
X Beach the 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers landed in the face of only
light opposition; but casualties mounted during the months of shortrange
trench warfare that followed, punctuated by costly assaults and
Turkish counter-attacks. By the end of the campaign the Inniskillings
had lost 428 dead, the Munsters 397 and the Dublins 569 killed, from
battalion establishments of just over 1,000 all ranks.
In many ways the Gallipoli campaign typifies the way in which the
battalions of the old Regular Army were thrown into impossible attacks
only to wither away. By the time that units from the new Irish divisions
began to arrive in the Dardanelles and on the Western Front in 1915
and 1916 the original Irish contingent of Regulars, like their comrades
from the other parts of Great Britain, had been more than decimated they
were well on their way to being wiped out.

(There is also a photo of the 5th Bn, Connaught Rangers
in training at Basingstoke,
Hampshire, in 1915. )

==

It goes on to say that the 10th alone lost 2000 men killed or later from wounds at Gallipoli.


--

Doesnt give accurate numbers but does provide this about the replacement levels & the effects;

Irish Regiments in the First World War
Discipline and Morale
Timothy Bowman

The replacement of experienced officers was a serious
problem for some Irish units. Following heavy losses at their
landing at Gallipoli in May 1915, Lieutenant Guy Nightingale
was dismissive of many of the officers sent to rebuild the 1st
Royal Munster Fusiliers. He noted, ‘We have now got 38 officers.
Geddes is commanding + with 5 of us originals and 36
Territorials, Militia + Special Reserve people – we are a most
peculiar crowd. There are nearly as many officers as men now!
The new ones are very funny – extraordinarily helpless, frightfully
keen + about as much idea of soldiering as the man in the
moon.

I believe this is also covered in the book 'A Forlorn Hope' but this is currently lent out to someone.

Snickers Man

Morlar wrote: »

It goes on to say that the 10th alone lost 2000 men killed or later from wounds at Gallipoli.

I haven't finished my researches (if I ever do) but I reckon that although that figure may be correct, I estimate only about 15-1600 of those were accounted for by the Irish regiments of the 10th Division. I guess the shortfall may be made up of numbers of dead from the Hampshires, who weren't Irish at all.

But that's just a preliminary "tally man" estimate.

Morlar

Thought this may be interesting to some here. Though why in the name of god she is laying a wreath at attaturk's tomb is beyond me.

McAleese begins Turkey visit

President Mary McAleese leaves today for a three-day visit to Turkey to mark the deaths of thousands of Irish soldiers in the First World War.

On Wednesday, she will attend wreath-laying ceremonies in the Gallipoli region where nearly 4,000 Irish troops died in a bloody five-month campaign in 1915.

She will first lay a wreath on the main Turkish memorial, the Monument of Martyrs, before attending a commemoration at Green Hill Cemetery in memory of the Irish soldiers who lost their lives and are buried in the area.

The official visit begins with Mrs McAleese travelling to the capital, Ankara, tomorrow to meet President Abdullah Gul and later Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. She will also lay a wreath on the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Later, she will meet Mehmet Ali Sahin, Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, and attend a reception for the Irish community hosted by the Irish ambassador.

Fratton Fred

What are you using as a base for nationality? Because although this may not be relevant, my GGF was in the Inniskillings and saw service with then during the Boer war and was eventually injured in 1916 during the battle of the somme.

Frederick was Portsmouth through and through, as were a lot of his comrades from what I can gather.

I believe that the Inniskillings had two Battalions but went up to 27 during WWI, a lot of these were, I believe, raised as much in Hampshire as they were Ireland.

R.Dub.Fusilier

Snickers Man wrote: »

I am curious as to how a battallion of the Hampshire Regiment (the 10th Battallion) ended up as part of the 10th Irish Division which was sent to Gallipoli in WWI.

i remember reading somewhere that the 5th Royal Irish Regiment in the 10th Irish Division was changed into a pionneer battalion and it was replaced in the fighting line by the Hampshires. but not 100% on that

Snickers Man

Fratton Fred wrote: »

What are you using as a base for nationality? Because although this may not be relevant, my GGF was in the Inniskillings and saw service with then during the Boer war and was eventually injured in 1916 during the battle of the somme.

Frederick was Portsmouth through and through, as were a lot of his comrades from what I can gather.

I believe that the Inniskillings had two Battalions but went up to 27 during WWI, a lot of these were, I believe, raised as much in Hampshire as they were Ireland.

The Inniskillings never went up to 27 Batallions. More like 13 and some of those were reserve batallions that stayed on Garrison duty.

Several of the newly raised batallions of the Inniskillings were formed in Ulster with their recruits coming exclusively from the Ulster Volunteers, Carson's men who were preparing to resist Home Rule (armed by the Germans of course, although they like to gloss over that). They went into the 36th (Ulster) Division.

These did not however form part of The 10th Irish Division which included the fifth and sixth battallions of the Inniskillings. They included many Catholics and nationalists in their ranks, as you might expect with their main recruiting ground being west Ulster.

The 10th Irish Division was sent to Hampshire for part of its training, so the constituent battallions may well have picked up a few straggler recruits, such as, I respectfully suggest, your great grandad while they were there. In much the same way, the Hampshires might have attracted one or two locals into their ranks while they were stationed in Mullingar.

I am trying to estimate as accurately as possible how many Irishmen died at Gallipoli. I would not include your great grandfather as an Irishman (for which I'm sure he would forgive me ) and I realise that a significant minority of the soldiers in Irish regiments at Gallipoli were not Irish.

It's proving to be a Sisyphus-like task because even though computerised and Internet searchable records are a boon, they are very incomplete especially when it comes to the details.

I have worked out as a fact that about 2,900 men died at Gallipoli while serving with Irish named regiments. This is a long way short of the figure of 4,000 bandied about, not least by the newspaper report on President McAleese's visit quoted above.

Certainly, there were Irishmen who served in other regiments but then there were a good number of Englishmen, as you have pointed out, serving in the Irish regiments.

I'm taking a fairly narrow definition of Irishman here. Basically if they were born and/or raised in Ireland, then they're Irish. If they weren't, then they're not. I am of the opinion, for example, that Bernard Law Montgomery who was born in London and largely raised in Australia, was no more Irish than Barak Obama. Having a holiday home in Moville does NOT make you Irish, any more than a Ballyfermot drug dealer holed up in the Costa Del Sol is Spanish.

So I'm counting those born or reared on the island of Ireland as Irish for the purposes of this study, Catholic Protestant or Dissenter. To broaden it further to include those of Irish ancestry could lead you to conclude that the entire Allied ARmy, apart from the French and the Gurkhas were Irish.

For example, here's a select list of dead from just one of the smaller cemeteries in the Gallipoli region. Every name on it is Irish or quite common in Ireland.

Byrne, Carroll, Clancy, Clark, Clark, Clarke
Clarke, Collins, Connel, Connolly, Connor, Cunningham
Darragh, Donnelly, Downie, Duggan, Dunleavy, Farrell
Farrell, Farrell, Gibson, Gill, Griffin, Hagan
Harrington, Hayes, Henderson, Humphreys, Keegan, Ledwidge
MacGibbon, Mahoney, Martin, McCarthy, McDonald, McDonnell
McEnery, McFlinn, McGowan, McGrath, McGuire, McIlroy
McInnes, Mitchell, Mitchell, Moore, Morrow, Murphy
O'Hare , O'Leary, Ryan, Thornton, Tracey

But these guys, of course, were all Australian!

Fratton Fred

Oops, getting my numbers mixed up. The Inniskillings were the 27th Regiment of Foot weren't they.

My point was that the 1st Battalion was based in Hampshire for a number of years and was the resident garrison in Portsmouth when my GGF joined.

Fred (that was his real name btw!) Was wounded during the relief of Ladysmith (at Hart's Hill) and discharged, but rejoined and I believe he saw action in Gallipoli before being seriously wounded in the Somme in 1916.

He signed up in 1889 and they were still there in 1891.

One thing about the Inniskillings, they were present at some of the fiercest fighting the British army saw over a 20 year period.

Morlar

I think it's great that she has moved the Irish in Gallipoli back onto the national agenda but my god this woman is an embarrassment - first of all making a speech about how Ireland wants turkey in the EU, then visiting the attaturk memorial and now this. Why could she not just have gone there and paid her respects to the Irish troops and left it at that ?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0325/1224267012277.html

President tells Turks an anecdote of myth not fact

PRESIDENT MARY McAleese and her officials were left red-faced last night after it was learned that remarks she made on Tuesday night in Turkey linking that country with Drogheda were based on local myth and not fact.

The comments were made during a state dinner in the capital, Ankara, as part of a four-day official visit.

Mrs McAleese told VIP guests Turkey had helped Ireland during the Famine. She said: “During that famine, Turkey’s then leader Sultan Abdul Majid sent three ships loaded with food to Ireland. The cargo was unloaded in a port called Drogheda and since then, at the insistence of the people, the star and crescent of your country forms part of the town’s coat of arms.”

Local historians in Drogheda have been left wondering where the President’s scriptwriters unearthed the details. Liam Reilly, an administrator with the Old Drogheda Society based in the town’s Millmount Museum, said last night the comments were incorrect. “There are no records with the Drogheda Port Authority of this ever happening. Drogheda historians can trace the star and crescent back to 1210 when the British governor of Ireland, King John Lackland, granted the town its first charter,” he said.

Spokeswoman for Mrs McAleese Sheila Clarke said: “While included in good faith on information supplied, it is now accepted that the reference . . . would not appear to be based on sound historical fact.”

Fratton Fred

Christ almighty, it is bad enough that a handful of brainwashed shinners think this, but for the President to come out and say it...

I wonder if she stopped short of saying that Queen Victoria only gave 50 quid and set the royal navy after the ships which is why they landed in Drogheda and not Dublin.

Morlar

Sorry to keep spamming the thread with articles but this may be interesting to some re the Irish in Gallipoli.

I would agree with most of this (the President of Ireland brain-numbingly saying Ireland wanted Turkey in the EU is the subject for another thread) I agree with the article up to the part about 1916.


Kevin Myers: The peoples of Turkey and Ireland both suffered from the war-mongering of Winston Churchill

By Kevin Myers

Tuesday March 30 2010

The President's blunder over the mythical tales of food shipments to Ireland from the Ottoman Empire is relatively unimportant; it's what happens when goodwill outruns common sense. It's also a useful example of how an anecdote exists simply because it suits the current needs of the teller. Last week it was time to be nice to the Turks, but without losing any British friends in the process. So what Mary McAleese did not say, and what the Turks would probably have preferred her not to, was the inconvenient truth, as in the following speech:

'The peoples of Turkey and of Ireland have much in common; both suffered around the time of the Gallipoli invasion from the war-mongering belligerence of Winston Churchill. It was he who peremptorily ordered the confiscation of two battleships, the 'Sultan Osman I' and 'Reshadieh' that were building in Tyneside shipyards, in 1914, for the Ottoman Empire.

This caused immense and understandable anger amongst the people of Turkey, who had raised the money for them by public subscription. On the very morning of the formal handover, in a fairly typical gesture of needlessly insulting melodrama, Churchill sent in British soldiers -- Sherwood Foresters, with fixed-bayonets -- to seize the battleships in their shipyards. No single deed did more to propel the Ottoman Empire into the arms of the Kaiser -- who promptly responded by giving the Ottomans two battleships to compensate them for their loss.

The resulting war between the Ottoman empire and the Anglo-French Entente was a tragic turning point in world history. For the Ottomans alone had the sophistication and the knowledge to govern some of the most difficult and complex parts of their empire. To our ears today, they sound like the headlines on a very bad morning: Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait.

How much better for the world had that belligerent egomaniac Churchill not propelled the Ottomans into the arms of the Kaiser, and to war. This strategic calamity was followed by Churchill's folly of executing military operations against the Gallipoli Peninsula, which could not possibly have succeeded.

The squandering of so much Irish blood in an imperialist war that few Irish families could empathise with -- for was this not a war for Belgium and other small nations? -- had a profound effect on the leaders of a tiny group of republicans in Ireland. To them, a continued association with Britain could only mean that Irishmen would continue to be cynically used for future imperialistic wars.

Of course, these republicans were in their own way mad, and so, in a truly insane and quite immoral pact, threw in their lot with the Kaiser, whom they even called 'our gallant ally'.

I should remind you here that 'our gallant ally' had conquered and subdued Namibia and Tanganyika by methods even more barbarous than those of the British in taking their own African empire. These were foolish times of course, and only an idiot today would look back to the bloodshed of these years with pride.

I am happy to say that in Ireland, we have put the 1916 Rising well behind us, and we refer to it merely as an example of the sorry lunacy that can seize the souls of otherwise good men, when madness becomes fashionable. So, at least some of the seeds of the 1916 Rising were sown in the Dardanelles. It was a cruel paradox that the first regiment to arrive from Britain to put down the Rising were the Sherwood Foresters -- who, if you remember, had been used to 'secure' the Turkish battleships, the seizure of which had helped propel the Ottomans to war in the first place.

Winston Churchill's terrible impact on Turkish history continued well after 1915. For once the Great War had ended, he urged Greek attacks on your sovereign territory, and upon your new republic, formed by that great national hero, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (Would that we ever had a leader so single-mindedly dedicated to the principles of secular democracy!).

At around the same time, either as British secretary of state for war, or as secretary of state for the colonies -- for he was successively both -- Churchill was responsible for ordering savage military reprisals against civilians in post-Ottoman Mesopotamia, or Iraq as we now call it, which had become one of the British imperial-spoils of war.

The consequences live with us still. Alas, we cannot accuse Churchill of lethargy at this time, for it was he who proposed the formation of a new counter-terror police force in Ireland, known generically as the Black and Tans.

Yes, in the loathsome figure of Winston Churchill -- an imperialistic war-monger and egotistical bully -- the Turkish and Irish peoples are united by a common and imperishable loathing.'

Now, through some inexplicable oversight, the Department of Foreign Affairs did not give this speech of mine for the President to make at Gallipoli. Why not? The British tabloid headlines the next day would have been the purest joy to read.

And as for the President's comments about Turkey's proposed membership of the EU, which have clearly vexed many of you, more tomorrow.

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers

Irish Independent
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-the-peoples-of-turkey-and-ireland-both-suffered-from-the-warmongering-of-winston-churchill-2116638.html

Fratton Fred

Good old Myers.

Snickers Man

You know, I would actually agree with much of what Myers says in that. Although I think it is unfair of him to depict it as solely a product of the demented imperialist imagination of Winston Churchill. I think there were larger forces than one man impelling Britain and France into war with Turkey.

But I certainly think the gist of his analysis is closer to the truth than the flowery lines of Francis Ledwidge which the Irish Times printed in its comment piece last week.

"We but war when war serves Liberty or keeps a world at peace"

That's just nicely put nonsense, Frank.

Fratton Fred

IIRC, Turkey was pretty much split in its support for Britain and Germany, but snatching the two battleships lost Britain the support of the Navy, which was its only support in Turkey.

I also seem to recall that Turkey would never enter into an alliance with France, because of its alliance with Russia.

WWI was very complex and it does annoy me when it gets written off as an imperial war between countries with solely imperialist intentions.

The Lions led by Donkeys annoys me as well, there was a lot more to it than that.

Morlar

Fratton Fred wrote: »

WWI was very complex and it does annoy me when it gets written off as an imperial war between countries with solely imperialist intentions.

The Lions led by Donkeys annoys me as well, there was a lot more to it than that.

I agree it was pretty complex, in fact I was reading about the Russo-Japaneese war the other day and you could even relate parts of it to that.

Re Churchill & Gallipoli though - I don't feel that aspect is overplayed in that article. Wasn't the entire strategy for Gallipoli the personal brainchild of churchill ? Didn't he lobby for his plan to attack turkey at Gallipoli be enacted ? from what I recall it contributed to his years in the political wilderness as a direct result - only to be salvaged by the timely arrival of WW2.

If it weren't for ww2 churchill would nowadays be known as the 'butcher of gallipoli' or something similair. He was a warmonger and a fool and cost countless thousands of lives (including thousands of Irish lives) through his pure arrogance and ego.

who the fug

Morlar wrote: »

I agree it was pretty complex, in fact I was reading about the Russo-Japaneese war the other day and you could even relate parts of it to that.

Re Churchill & Gallipoli though - I don't feel that aspect is overplayed in that article. Wasn't the entire strategy for Gallipoli the personal brainchild of churchill ? Didn't he lobby for his plan to attack turkey at Gallipoli be enacted ? from what I recall it contributed to his years in the political wilderness as a direct result - only to be salvaged by the timely arrival of WW2.

If it weren't for ww2 churchill would nowadays be known as the 'butcher of gallipoli' or something similair. He was a warmonger and a fool and cost countless thousands of lives (including thousands of Irish lives) through his pure arrogance and ego.

Defeat is an orphan, Churchill carried the can on this one, but many others were very keen on this project.

Kitchner for one, and the problem was bad local leadership and planning, not the original idea

Morlar

who the fug wrote: »

the problem was bad local leadership and planning, not the original idea

No - the original idea was incorrectly based on the assumption by churchill that the turks were an inferior force and would crumble under a bombaradment. I would criticise not just the decision /idea which was churchills but also the haste with which it was enacted - which is also the direct and sole fault of churchill. Obviously you had navy commanders and army commanders who share a portion of the blame but the initial flawed concept and the haste with which it was enforced (which exacerbated the problems) are on churchills head alone.

Snickers Man

Fratton Fred wrote: »

WWI was very complex and it does annoy me when it gets written off as an imperial war between countries with solely imperialist intentions.

I think that was the overriding context within which the various struggles were fought out. There was rivalry between on the one hand the two most powerful empires in the world (France and Britain) and the emerging powers who were trying to catch up with them (Germany and to a lesser extent Italy). The other empires who were in various stages of decay or decline (Russia, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman) were desperate to maintain their status and territories.

Each empire was suspicious of all the others. The way they formed alliances with each other was often an accident of history and timing.

Where you have an Empire, you have subject peoples. The increasing democratisation forces of literacy and education, made necessary by an increasingly industrialised, dare I say "knowledge economy"?, world had strengthened the demand for greater autonomy, cultural toleration and outright independence from the nations within those empires.

Furthermore, the preponderance of monarchies and rule by aristocracy in early 20th century Europe was an anachronism more suited to medieval times than a world increasingly shrunk by motorised transport and electrical communications.

Of course this produced a complex web of conflicting loyalties and massive historical ironies. But the basic reason there was a war with Turkey, and consequently a campaign in Gallipoli, was that the British and French wanted one.

They wanted, for the first time, to get their hands on parts of the Ottoman Empire, namely the oil fields of Arabia. Or to control the new rulers of the states there once they had effected the "regime change" of removing the Ottoman Empire.

All the other "complexities" derived from that basic fact.

kabakuyu

I also have wondered about the accuracy of the number of Irish casualties at Gallipoli, the figure I have seen most quoted is c.3000 I have done a tally of Irish casualties in the 3 Irish regiments of the 29th Division.I classify Irish as born on the island of Ireland,I have not included as casualties ,those resident in Ireland but born elsewhere or with an enlistment location in Ireland.As I said these are tallies compiled from the hard copy versions of SDGW.

1st Batt RMF = 256

1st Batt RDF = 410

1st Batt RIF = 283

I hope to have a look at the 10th Div if time permits and other Divs involved at Gallipoli for example a quick look shows Irish casualties in

8th Batt Welsh = 11

1st Batt Lan Fus.=17

1st Batt KOSB = 11

Reagrds,
Kabakuyu

Snickers Man

kabakuyu wrote: »

I also have wondered about the accuracy of the number of Irish casualties at Gallipoli, the figure I have seen most quoted is c.3000 I have done a tally of Irish casualties in the 3 Irish regiments of the 29th Division.I classify Irish as born on the island of Ireland,I have not included as casualties ,those resident in Ireland but born elsewhere or with an enlistment location in Ireland.As I said these are tallies compiled from the hard copy versions of SDGW.

1st Batt RMF = 256

1st Batt RDF = 410

1st Batt RIF = 283

I hope to have a look at the 10th Div if time permits and other Divs involved at Gallipoli for example a quick look shows Irish casualties in

8th Batt Welsh = 11

1st Batt Lan Fus.=17

1st Batt KOSB = 11

Reagrds,
Kabakuyu

I have been looking out and listening out quite intently to numbers quoted in the Irish media of late for the number of Irishmen killed in Gallipoli. Of late, most papers have fastened on to the number of 4,000. I suspect this is a figure which got into somebody's clippings file and thus gets regurgitated frequently. It was widely repeated round the time of President McAleese's visit to Turkey.

RTE's David Davin Power, a direct descendant of a Gallipoli veteran, gave the figure of 3,400 in his report from the presiden't visit to the Gallipoli graveyard.

Without touching SDGW (is that available in public libraries?) I have trawled through the CWGC records and literally counted gravestones (or more usually commemoration monuments) for soldiers who died while serving with Irish regiments.

If you include all graves and memorials in the Gallipoli region and add in those in Greece, Malta and Egypt to which wounded soldiers from the Gallipoli campaign may have been taken, there are about 2,900 men who died in the GAllipoi campaign while serving with Irish regiments.

Of course not all of these were Irish, and many Irish born men served with other regiment and indeed other armies. There is a staggering number of Australian war dead with Irish surnames.

So it all comes down to how you define an Irishman.

kabakuyu

SDGW usually gives more information than CWGC,their records record where born,where resident, and enlistment location.As far as I am concerned a baseline for Irishness in this case is "born in Ireland" I know this can be misleading and their will be anomalies but we cant go back and ask them did they consider themselves Irish ,British or other.Up to the present day,casualties are still accepted for inclusion on the CWGC roll of honour,so there may be still Irish casualties who are not recorded anywhere.I would agree with your estimate of 2-3000 Irish casualties and it may be near 3000 if you include all British regiments,Australian Forces, and NZEF members, to see how many were Irish born. We should also include naval casualties within the Gallipoli theatre to get an accurate picture.As far as I recall the Australians suffered approx 7000 killed at Gallipoli and the service records for these men are available free of charge at the AWM,even checking the Irish names would be a mammoth task.According to aussie members on another forum they estimate 25-30% of Australian forces were British born,but their is no breakdown of the nationialty of the men and I dont how these figures would relate to casualty figures, so a search of all the likely records would be the only way.For the moment I will count from the hard copy versions(SDGW) of the records I have but I am told the newer CD is more accurate.
Best Regards,
KK.

Snickers Man

kabakuyu wrote: »

SDGW usually gives more information than CWGC,their records record where born,where resident, and enlistment location.As far as I am concerned a baseline for Irishness in this case is "born in Ireland" I know this can be misleading and their will be anomalies but we cant go back and ask them did they consider themselves Irish ,British or other.Up to the present day,casualties are still accepted for inclusion on the CWGC roll of honour,so there may be still Irish casualties who are not recorded anywhere.I would agree with your estimate of 2-3000 Irish casualties and it may be near 3000 if you include all British regiments,Australian Forces, and NZEF members, to see how many were Irish born. We should also include naval casualties within the Gallipoli theatre to get an accurate picture.As far as I recall the Australians suffered approx 7000 killed at Gallipoli and the service records for these men are available free of charge at the AWM,even checking the Irish names would be a mammoth task.According to aussie members on another forum they estimate 25-30% of Australian forces were British born,but their is no breakdown of the nationialty of the men and I dont how these figures would relate to casualty figures, so a search of all the likely records would be the only way.For the moment I will count from the hard copy versions(SDGW) of the records I have but I am told the newer CD is more accurate.
Best Regards,
KK.

How accessible is a CD version of the SDGW records? Are they available in public libraries?

Chook55

Presumably the referral to the Hampshires being "raised" in Mullingar is a lighthearted reference to their training there and perhaps becoming more Irish.

The Hampshires were definitely very English. (My great uncle was in the 10th & died at Gallipoli.)

There's a book available online called The Tenth (Irish) Division in Gallipoli by Major Bryan Cooper, available for download (or to read online) here:
http://www.archive.org/details/tenthirishdivisi00cooprich
The 10th Hampshires' movements are mentioned often in the book, and there's a little about their joining the Irish and their acceptance by the other troops. I don't think there's much if anything about why English battalions were sent to join an Irish division.

Also, the 10th Hampshire and the 29th Brigade (which includes the 10th Hampshires) diaries are available for download at the National Archives (for a small fee):
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/default.htm
It's a bit of mucking about to get through the search to the links, but they're there.

And there's a diary by one of the men of the 10th Hampshires here:
http://e-d-deane-war-memoirs.blogspot.com/

Other downloadable books are linked on this page:
http://www.1914-1918.net/Gallipoli.htm

Hope all of this is at least of interest if not particularly enlightening.

Cheers,
Lee