The French General Cambronne, surprised and captured at Waterloo, was reputed to have answered a call to surrender with his men was first reputed to have replied in French “The Guard may die but never surrender” – a phrase which begins with the letter “M”
Forgive my French, but sceptical commentators believe the General used the soldierly expression “MERDE” or “Shit” to you and me.
The Irish General Michael Collins, with a bullet in his head at Beal na Blath was immediately credited with the last words “Forgive Them” about his assailants.
What a man can say in such circumstances is doubtful. Collins of all Irish leaders was renowned for what a neighbour of ours called “upstream language” and was regarded by some of his comrades as uncouth.
The London Times report of Beal na Blath was that Collins’s party was attacked by 200 assailants. That definitely was MERDE. The incident was a small scale skirmish and Collins was the only casualty. Had there been 200 ambushers they would have killed or captured all of Collins’s party.
(But MERDE has long been the medium of the British Press which in 1920 reported the capture and destruction of Roscarberry RIC Barracks by a huge IRA force led by Michael Collins on a White Horse. Imagine attacking a fortified building by night on a white horse.
In 1916 Collins was in the GPO acting as an aide to one of the leaders. In the years following he dressed unobtrusively in a suit and never carried a gun. He was an organiser of genius and courage but was not a field commander. Beal na Blath was his only gunfight. THE TIMES today is no improvement on that of 1922, and the BBC is no better)
And MERDE da’Or , Shit Go Leor has been written about Michael Collins for the past century. He was a great hero and a great patriot but a young, impulsive character who should never have been sent to negotiate with the British.
But that’s another story.
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