[Illustration: ATROCITIES
THE LECTURER: “From a comparison of the two subjects, gentlemen, you
will perceive that there is very little difference between Germany and
the Allies.”]
“Is it You, Mother?”
Since the opening of hostilities in the present war the Scottish
regiments have given repeated proofs of a valour which adds new lustre
to the great traditions of Scottish soldiership. Through all the early
operations--on the retreat from Mons and at the battles of the Marne
and the Aisne--the Royal Scots Guards, the Scots Greys, the Gordon,
the Seaforth and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the King’s
Own Scottish Borderers gained many fresh laurels by their heroism and
undaunted spirit. The London Scottish Territorials, too, have shown a
prowess as signal as that of the Scots of the Regular Army; while the
mettle of men of Scottish descent has made glorious contribution in
France and elsewhere to the fine records of the Overseas armies.
It is the inevitable corollary that death should levy a heavy toll
on Scottish soldiers in the field. Thousands of kilted youth have
suffered the fate which Raemaekers depicts in the accompanying cartoon.
It is not, of course, only the young Scot whose thought turns in the
moment of death to the hearth of his home with vivid memories of his
mother. But the word “home” and all that the word connotes often makes
a more urgent appeal to the Scot abroad than to the man of another
nationality. There is significance in the fact that, far as the Scots
are wont to wander over the world’s surface, they should, under every
sky and in every turning fortune, treasure as a national anthem the
song which has the refrain:--
“For it’s hame, an’ it’s hame, fain wad I be,
O! it’s hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie!”
The German soldier in this war would seem to have lost well nigh all
touch of humanity. Yet the draughtsman here suggests that even the
German soldier on occasion yields to the pathos of the young Scot’s
death-cry for home and mother. There is grim irony in the dying man’s
blurred vision, which mistakes the hand of his mortal foe for that of
his mother.
Of such trying scenes is the drama of war composed.