With much of Dublin’s memory of the First World War focused on the 7th Royal Dublins Fusiliers at Gallipoli in August 1915, the central role of so many more Dubliners in the first days of fighting in August 1914, and in the rest of that year, has been neglected. There is a substantial story to tell of those regular soldiers and reservists, from the Battle of Mons and the subsequent retreat, via the First Battle of Ypres to the solidifying of the trench lines by the end of the year. Yet even before there was fighting on the Western Front, maritime Dubliners felt the effects of the war. Merchant sailors in Hamburg on four steamers were detained as war was declared. In 1918, many were still held in Germany.2 Then when war death came to Dublin, the British Empire’s second city shared in its very first losses. They came at sea more than a week before the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) arrived on the continent.

Throughout the war, Dubliners served and died on fronts and in conditions very different to France and Belgium, and different even to Gallipoli. They experienced extremes of weather, including great heat and monsoons. Drinking water could be scarce, and the terrain unfamiliar. They contended with diseases previously unknown to them and which often proved to be greater hazards – or at least more persistent and costly – than enemy action. Yet features of these fronts were also similar to some conditions on the Western Front: cold, wet and mud.

Following Arras, the next major British initiative on the Western Front was at Messines Ridge on 7 June 1917. The battle has become central to cross-community initiatives in Northern Ireland and to all-Ireland work on the First World War because at Messines the 16th (Irish) and 36th (Ulster) divisions fought alongside each other.2 Dubliners played a role, especially in the 2nd, 8th and 9th Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Messines was a prelude to the third Battle of Ypres, aiming to deprive the Germans of the view the ridge gave them over the Ypres area. If the allies held the ridge it would aid making covert troop movements in preparation for the attack.

Dublin’s story of the First World War is dominated by memory of the Dublin Pals at Gallipoli, specifically their role at Suvla Bay in August 1915. Yet they were alongside another battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers, and Dubliners also fought in many other units. Any account which only focuses on the 7th Dublins can therefore only partly explain why Gallipoli came to mean so much to Dubliners. In particular, the role of the 6th Dublins should be a central part of Dublin’s story of Suvla Bay, which began as both battalions left their camp at Basingstoke for Devonport over 9 and 10 July 1915. They reached Lesbos on 25 and 26 July via Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria where they saw exotic sights such as ‘sailing vessels like those seen in Biblical pictures’.2 Nearly a fortnight was spent on Lesbos, hearing ‘in the olive-trees the locusts making a funny noise like starlings’,3 before the battalions embarked for Suvla Bay on 6 August.4

No year of the war saw so much change in allied fortunes as 1918. The trauma of Passchendaele in the summer of 1917 was followed by a bleak winter with little prospect of victory. There was then the spectre of defeat when the spring offensive from late March 1918 brought German forces within fifty miles of Paris. Yet after a month of bitter fighting, the German army was exhausted and the allies were on the brink of a decisive advance leading to victory – snatched from the jaws of defeat – in November. The USA had entered the war in April 1917 but the relatively small number of troops it sent from the summer of 1917 had little initial impact. That changed in the early summer of 1918.

During the winter of 1914–15, two aspects of the war became apparent at a time when Dublin’s presence on the Western Front was still through the regulars and reservists. The first, seen through the war at sea, was that losses could strike far from the Western Front and close to home. Dubliners died as the HMS Viknor hit a mine off the coast of Donegal on 13 January 1915. HMS Bayano was torpedoed by a U-Boat in the Irish Sea while heading to Liverpool on 11 March 1915.2 A traditional enemy of the sailor, the weather, accounted for the Clan McNaughton which foundered in a gale off the coast of north-west Scotland on 3 February 1915.3 Eight Dubliners died on the HMS Formidable, another U-Boat victim, off Portland on the English south coast on New Year’s Day 1915. It was the first battleship to fall victim to a U-Boat in the war and the sinking caused Vice-Admiral Sir Lewis Bayly to be relieved of his command of the Channel Fleet.

As some form of independence for part of Ireland began to emerge, former British soldiers continued to play a role in republicanism. During the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty from October 1921, Emmet Dalton accompanied Michael Collins for some of his time in London, advising Collins on military matters and liaising with the British over observation of the Truce through talks at the Colonial Office with the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Winston Churchill. Dalton also made plans for Collins to escape by air if the negotiations fell apart and his liberty was threatened.1

While some returning soldiers were active in the Irish Revolution, most were not. A different future beckoned, not connected to the fight against Britain or between republicans. Their first challenge was to get home. Released prisoners of war were often soonest home, but there were some tragic cases among them. Thomas Bennett of the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment was taken prisoner at Mons in 1914. He died on 14 November 1918 when on his way home to Dublin after release.2 Yet the armistice of 11 November 1918 was not an end to the war, merely a halt, so there were no immediate mass returns. Lieutenant Allen Guest was unusual in successfully making a case for getting home a little earlier than most on the basis of his long service.