Irish Brigade (World War I)

The "Irish Brigade" was an attempt by Sir Roger Casement to form an Irish nationalist military unit during World War I among Irishmen who had served in the British Army and had become prisoners of war (POWs) in Germany. Casement sought to send a well-equipped and well-organized Irish unit to Ireland, to fight against Britain, in the aim of achieving independence for Ireland. Such an action was to be concurrent with the ongoing war between Britain and Germany, thereby providing indirect aid to the German cause, without the ex-POWs fighting in the Imperial Germany Army itself.

Casement was a former British diplomat, who had since devoted himself to the cause of Irish independence. He was inspired by John MacBride's success in forming the Irish Transvaal Brigade, during the Boer War. Casement traveled to Germany by way of the United States, shortly after the outbreak of World War I, with the aid of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Clan na Gael.

On December 27, 1914, Casement signed an agreement in Berlin, authorizing the brigade, with German Secretary of State Arthur Zimmermann. Only 56 Irishmen volunteered and they were brought together at a POW camp at Limburg an der Lahn. At its peak the brigade's Irish personnel consisted of 1 Feldwebel-Leutnant (lieutenant sergeant or commissioned sergeant-major Robert Monteith who was maybe later promoted to a German major in the brigade), 1 Feldwebel (colour sergeant), 1 Vizefeldwebel (quartermaster sergeant), 3 Sergeanten (sergeants), 3 Korporale, 3 Lane Korporale (lance corporals) and 43 Gemeine (privates). The brigade received training in machine guns and were assigned German officers. They were attached to 203rd Brandenburg regiment and divided into two companies comprising ten Machine-Gun-Corps. They also received their own Irish Brigade uniform that was a standard German army uniform, adapted to include Irish symbols such as the shamrock and the harp.

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