THE IRISH BRIGADE

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1920, Page 13

THE IRISH BRIGADE

STORY OP GERMAN FAILURE,

The diary of Sir Rogrer Casement's Lieutenant, published in "Land and Water," tells a curious story of the fifty men who wero inveigled into forming thfl "Irjsh Brigade," to fight for the German?. He says: "I am sure we got as great a crowd of blackguards together as any twenty regiments of the British Army could boasi; of. ... . . The German officer Boehm had promised the men that they would be housed in a Gorman barracks, trained and treated like German soldiers. When the men arrived at Wuensdorf they were without much ceremony pushed into a camp tenanted by all the coloured savages of the Allied armies." The German authorities evidently set little value on the men who had consented to enlist, and these soon learned to mistrust them. Those who refused Casoment's iniquitous offer were harshly treated in the prison camp, but those who sccepted it were hooted by the Irish Kold-'ers whenever scon in the regular camp. They were throughout treated by the Germans as prisoners, though better.fed than the ° <?£ s- ,They resented being referred to as Englander.". They even begged to be allowed to return to the prison camp and after the Armistice to be allowed to surrender to the British. According to the narrator they were in the end allowed to apologise to the British Government and regain their liberty