1914
MONS TO LA BASSÉE
At 5 P. M. on Tuesday, August 4, 1914, the 1st Battalion
of the Irish Guards received orders to mobilize
for war against Germany. They were then quartered
at Wellington Barracks and, under the mobilization
scheme, formed part of the 4th (Guards) Brigade, Second
Division, First Army Corps. The Brigade consisted
of:
The 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards.
" 2nd " Coldstream Guards.
" 3rd " Coldstream Guards.
" 1st " Irish Guards.
Mobilization was completed on August 8. Next day, being Sunday, the Roman Catholics of the Battalion paraded under the Commanding Officer, Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. G. H. Morris, and went to Westminster Cathedral where Cardinal Bourne preached; and on the morning of the 11th August Field-Marshal Lord Roberts and Lady Aileen Roberts made a farewell speech to them in Wellington Barracks. This was the last time that Lord Roberts saw the Battalion of which he was the first Commander-in-Chief.
On the 12th August the Battalion entrained for Southampton in two trains at Nine Elms Station, each detachment being played out of barracks to the station by the band. They were short one officer, as 2nd Lieutenant St. J. R. Pigott had fallen ill, and an officer just gazetted—2nd Lieutenant Sir Gerald Burke, Bart.—could not accompany them as he had not yet got his uniform. They embarked at Southampton on a hot
