February 25

Eleven British army soldiers and a French mill-owner were executed by the Germans at the fort of Guise in Aisne, northern France. The soldiers were amongst the many who ‘disappeared’ after becoming detached from their regiments during the British Expeditionary Force’s ‘long march’ southwards, with the Germans in close pursuit, after the Battle of Mons in August 1914. Help came from a patriotic Frenchman. They were discovered in an emaciated state in woods near the village of Iron by a local mill-owner, who, with the support of fellow villagers, sheltered them in his own home for four months. In the meantime, the local German commander warned that Allied soldiers hiding behind enemy lines should surrender and become prisoners of war. If otherwise captured, they, and any civilians who assisted them, would be shot as spies. The soldiers were betrayed by one of the villagers, a Franco-Prussian war veteran. Jealous of the mill-owner’s son, who had won the affections of a local woman whom he had planned to marry, he took his revenge by reporting his rival’s father’s activities to the Germans. Though referred to locally as les onze Anglais d’Iron, ten of the eleven were members of Irish regiments and six were Irish. Ptes Denis Buckley (33) and Daniel Horgan (18) from Cork and Pte John Nash (21) from Kerry were with the Royal Munster Fusiliers. Pte Terence Murphy (29) from Sligo, Pte John Walsh (33) from Offaly and Pte Mathew Wilson (37) from Galway were with the Connaught Rangers. A memorial of Wicklow granite, sponsored by the Munster Fusiliers Association, was unveiled in their honour in Iron in 2011.