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Brigadier Nelson Russell CB DSO MC
Nelson Russell was born in Lisburn on 7 July 1897 and educated at Campbell College, Belfast. He was gazetted into the Special Reserve of Officers of the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion The Royal Irish Fusiliers as a Second Lieutenant (on probation) with effect from 3 April 1915. He then joined the 1st Battalion in July 1915 for service in France and Belgium.
Rowland Brinckman was born on 19 November 1861 and commissioned as an Ensign in the 89th Princess Victoria's Regiment on 22 January 1881, the same year that the 89th would become the 2nd Battalion The Princess Victoria’s (Royal Irish Fusiliers) as a result of the Childers Reforms of the British Army. Brinckman was promoted to Lieutenant in the same year.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire's forces invaded Serbia on the same day that Great Britain and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
The following day, 6 November 1914, the British invaded Mesopotamia (Iraq) with the 6th Indian Division's 16 Brigade landing at Fao on the Faw Peninsula ( شبه جزيرة الفاو) where Fort Fao was captured by 8 November. This denied the Ottomans any control over the Persian Gulf (Gulf of Arabia).
The official declaration was published in the London Gazette, dated Friday 7 August 1914:
FRIDAY, 7 AUGUST, 1914
A STATE OF WAR.
Following the invasion of Poland by Germany on 1 September 1939, the United Kingdom and France declared war on Germany.
Below: The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, raising his hat to the crowd as he left 10 Downing Street on the day that Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939.
The British East India Company landed Royal Marines at Aden on 19 January 1839 and established the Aden Settlement. British influence then expanded to develop an 'Aden Protectorate' in southern Arabia into the hinterland of the port of Aden and the Hadhramaut territories. In 1940 it was divided for administrative purposes into the Western Protectorate and the Eastern Protectorate, and today forms part of the Republic of Yemen.
On 23 April 1800, the War Office issued a directive stating that every non-commissioned officer and private was to be provided with a greatcoat. This followed the army's severe losses during the winter retreat through Holland. Prior to this time, cloaks and overcoats were retained on a scale of around four per company and were known as 'watch-coats' as they were only for use on guard or sentry duty. Prior to this, many soldiers had worn a waistcoat under their jacket, often made out of an old jacket and procured at their own cost.
In 1916, during the First World War, the post-war division of the area in the Middle East, that was ruled by the Ottoman Turks, was agreed under the Sykes-Picot Agreement. This was a secretly conceived treaty drawn up between Britain and France marking out which country would have control, and where across the region, with little consideration given to the indigenous populations and therefore eventually provoking widespread discontent.
This bugle, which belonged to The Royal Ulster Rifles, was presented by former members of that Regiment to The Royal Irish Rangers. It is decorated with the cap badge of The Royal Irish Rangers and bears an inscription which reads 'Presented to 2nd Bn The Royal Irish Rangers by Ex Members, The Royal Ulster Rifles. Sept 1981. Quis Separabit'. To this day bugles are used in The Royal Irish Regiment. Most evocatively they will always be heard playing Last Post and Reveille at the funeral of a soldier and at Services of Remembrance.
