as the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava has been reproduced by
the 9th Lancers, so the Scots Greys and 12th Lancers have reproduced the
famous charge of the "Greys" at Waterloo. This is the fight which
aroused the enthusiasm of Sir Philip Chetwode, for his brigade went
through the German cavalry just as circus horses might leap through
paper hoops. "I watched the charge of the Scots Greys and 12th Lancers,"
writes Sergeant C. Meades, of the Berkshires. "It was grand. I could see
some of the Germans dropping on their knees and holding up their arms.
Then, as soon as our cavalry got through, the Germans picked up their
rifles and started firing again. Our men turned about and charged back.
It was no use the Germans putting up their hands a second time. Our
cavalry cut down every one they came to. I don't think there were ten
Germans left out of about 2,000. I can tell you they had all they
wanted for that day." An officer of the dragoons, describing the same
charge, says the dragoon guards were also in it, and that his lads were
"as keen as mustard." In fact, he declares, "there was no holding them
back. Horses and men positively flew at the Germans, cutting through
much heavier mounts and heavier men than ours. The yelling and the dash
of the lancers and dragoon guards was a thing never to be forgotten. We
lost very heavily at Mons, and it is a marvel how some of our fellows
pulled through. They positively frightened the enemy. We did terrible
execution, and our wrists were feeling the strain of heavy riding before
sunset. With our tunics unbuttoned, we had the full use of our right
arms for attack and defense."
Another charge of the Scots Greys is thus described: "Seeing the wounded
getting cut at by the German officers, the Scots Greys went mad, and
even though retreat had been sounded, with a non-commissioned officer
leading, they turned on the Potsdam Guards and hewed their way through,
their officers following. Having got through, the officers took command
again, formed them up, wheeled, and came back the way they went. It was
a sight for the gods."
Another episode was the capture of the German guns by the 2nd and 5th
Dragoons. An officer of the 5th gives an account of the exploit. "We
were attacked at dawn, in a fog," he relates, "and it looked bad for us,
but we turned it into a victory. Our brigade captured all the guns of
the German cavalry division, fourteen in all; the Bays lost two-thirds
of their horses and many men. The Gunner Battery of ours was annihilated
(twenty left), but the guns were saved, as we held the ground at the
end. This was only a series of actions, as we have been at it all day,
and every day. My own squadron killed sixteen horses and nine Uhlans in
a space of 50 ft., and many others, inhabitants told me, were lying in a
wood close by, where they had crawled. We killed their officer, a big
Postdam Guard, shot through the forehead. L Battery fought their guns to
the last, 'Bradbury' himself firing a gun with his leg off at the knee;
a shell took off his other leg. He asked me then to be carried from the
guns so that the men could not hear or see him."
One of the 2nd Dragoons, wounded in this engagement, says the Bays were
desperately eager for the order to charge, and exultant when the bugle
sounded. "Off they went, 'hell for leather,' at the guns," is how he
described it. "There was no stopping them once they got on the move."
"No stopping them." That sums up what every eye-witness of the British
cavalry charges says. The coolness and dash of the men in action was
amazing. Their voices rang out as they spurred their horses on, and when
they crashed into the enemy, the British roar of exultation was
terrific, and the mighty clash of arms rent the air. "Many flung away
their tunics," writes a Yeomanry Officer with General Smith-Dorrien's
Division, "and fought with their shirt sleeves rolled up above the
elbow. Some of the Hussars and Lancers were almost in a horizontal
position on the off-side of their mounts when they were cutting right
and left with bare arms."
Most intimate details of the fighting at close quarters are given by
another officer. "I shall never forget," he says, "how one
splendidly-made trooper with his shirt in ribbons actually stooped so
low from his saddle as to snatch a wounded comrade from instant death at
the hands of a powerful German. And then, having swung the man right
round to the near side, he made him hang on to his stirrup leather
whilst he lunged his sword clean through the German's neck and severed
his windpipe as cleanly as ---- would do it in the operating theater."
And here is another incident: "A young lancer, certainly not more than
twenty, stripped of tunic and shirt, and fighting in his vest, charged a
German who had fired on a wounded man, and pierced him to the heart.
Seizing the German's horse as he fell, he exchanged it for his own which
had got badly damaged. Then, his sword sheathed like lightning, he swung
round and shot a German clean through the head and silenced him
forever."
The soldiers' letters throb with such stories, and the swiftness, vigor,
and power of expression revealed in them is astonishing. Most of them
were written under withering fire, some scribbled even when in the
saddle, or when the writers were in a state of utter exhaustion at the
end of a nerve-shattering day. "'Hell with the lid off' describes what
we are going through," one of the 12th Lancers says of it. But the men
never lose spirit. Even after eighteen or nineteen hours in the saddle
they still have a kindly, cheering message to write home, and a jocular
metaphor to hit off the situation. "We are going on all right,"
concludes Corporal G.W. Cooper, 16th Lancers; "but still it isn't
exactly what you'd call playing billiards at the club."
VI
WITH THE HIGHLANDERS
The Highlanders have been great favorites in France. Their gaiety, humor
and inexhaustible spirits under the most trying conditions have
captivated everybody. Through the villages on their route these brawny
fellows march with their pipers to the proud lilt of "The Barren Rocks
of Aden" and "The Cock o' the North," fine marching tunes that in turn
give place to the regimental voices while the pipers are recovering
their breath. "It's a long way to Inveraray" is the Scotch variant of
the new army song, but the Scots have not altogether abandoned their own
marching airs, and it is a stirring thing to hear the chorus of "The
Nut-Brown Maiden," for instance, sung in the Gaelic tongue as these
kilted soldiers swing forward on the long white roads of France.
A charming little letter published in _The Times_ tells how the
Highlanders and their pipers turned Melun into a "little Scotland" for
a week, and the enthusiastic writer contributes some verses for a
suggested new reel, of which the following have a sly allusion to the
Kaiser's order for the extermination of General French's "contemptible
little army":
"What! Wad ye stop the pipers?
Nay, 'tis ower soon!
Dance, since ye're dancing, William,
Dance, ye puir loon!
Dance till ye're dizzy, William,
Dance till ye swoon!
Dance till ye're deid, my laddie!
We play the tune!"
This is all quite in the spirit of the Highland soldiers. A Frenchman,
writing to a friend in London goes into ecstasies over the behavior of
the Scots in France, and says that at one railway station he saw two
wounded Highlanders "dancing a Scotch reel which made the crowd fairly
shriek with admiration." Nothing can subdue these Highlanders' spirits.
They go into action, as has already been said, just as if it were a
picnic, and here is a picture of life in the trenches at the time of the
fierce battle of Mons. It is related by a corporal of the Black Watch.
"The Germans," he states, "were just as thick as the Hielan' heather,
and by weight of numbers (something like twenty-five to one) tried to
force us back. But we had our orders and not a man flinched. We just
stuck there while the shells were bursting about us, and in the very
thick of it we kept on singing Harry Lauder's latest. It was terrible,
but it was grand--peppering away at them to the tune of 'Roamin' in the
Gloamin'' and 'The Lass o' Killiecrankie.' It's many a song about the
lassies we sang in that 'smoker' wi' the Germans."
According to another Highlander "those men who couldn't sing very well
just whistled, and those who couldn't whistle talked about football and
joked with each other. It might have been a sham fight the way the
Gordons took it." With this memory of their undaunted gaiety it is sad
to think how the Gordons were cut up in that encounter. Their losses
were terrible. "God help them!" exclaims one writer. "Theirs was the
finest regiment a man could see."
But that was in the dark days of the long retreat, when the Highlanders,
heedless of their own safety, hung on to their positions often in spite
of the orders to retire, and avenged their own losses ten-fold by their
punishment of the enemy. Private Smiley, of the Gordons, describing the
German attacks, speaks of the devastating effects of the British fire.
"Poor devils!" he writes of the German infantry. "They advanced in
companies of quite 150 men in files five deep, and our rifle has a flat
trajectory up to 600 yards. Guess the result. We could steady our rifles
on the trench and take deliberate aim. The first company were mown down
by a volley at 700 yards, and in their insane formation every bullet was
almost sure to find two billets. The other companies kept advancing very
slowly, using their dead comrades as cover, but they had absolutely no
chance.... Yet what a pitiful handful we were against such a host!"
The fighting went on all through the night and again next morning, and
the British force was compelled to retreat. In the dark, Private Smiley,
who was wounded, lost his regiment, and was picked up by a battery of
the Royal Field Artillery who gave him a lift. But he didn't rest long,
he says, for "I'm damned if they didn't go into action ten minutes
afterwards with me on one of the guns."
Some fine exploits are also given to the credit of the Black Watch.
They, too, were in the thick of it at Mons--"fighting like gentlemen,"
as one of them puts it--and the Gordons and Argyll and Sutherlands also
suffered severely. In fact, the Highland regiments appear to have been
singled out by the Germans as the object of their fiercest attacks, and
all the way down to the Aisne they have borne the brunt of the
fighting. Private Fairweather, of the Black Watch, gives this account of
an engagement on the Aisne: "The Guards went up first and then the
Camerons, both having to retire. Although we had watched the awful
slaughter in these regiments, when it was our turn we went off with a
cheer across 1,500 yards of open country. The shelling was terrific and
the air was full of the screams of shrapnel. Only a few of us got up to
200 yards of the Germans. Then with a yell we went at them. The air
whistled with bullets, and it was then my shout of '42nd forever!'
finished with a different kind of yell. Crack! I had been presented with
a souvenir in my knee. I lay helpless and our fellows retired over me.
Shrapnel screamed all around, and melinite shells made the earth shake.
I bore a charmed life. A bullet went through the elbow of my jacket,
another through my equipment, and a piece of shrapnel found a resting
place in a tin of bully beef which was on my back. I was picked up
eventually during the night, nearly dead from loss of blood."
Perhaps the most dashing and brilliant episode of the fighting is the
exploit of the Black Watch at the battle of St. Quentin, in which they
went into action with their old comrades, the Scots Greys. Not content
with the ordinary pace at which a bayonet charge can be launched against
the enemy these impatient Highlanders clutched at the stirrup leathers
of the Greys, and plunged into the midst of the Germans side by side
with the galloping horsemen. The effect was startling, and those who saw
it declare that nothing could have withstood the terrible onslaught.
"Only a Highland regiment could have attempted such a movement," said an
admiring English soldier who watched it, and the terrible gashes in the
German ranks bore tragic testimony to the results of this double charge.
The same desperate maneuver, it may be recalled, was carried out at
Waterloo and is the subject of a striking and dramatic battle picture.
Though all the letters from men in the Highland regiments speak
contemptuously of the rifle fire of the Germans, they admit that in
quantity, at least, it is substantial. "They just poured lead in tons
into our trenches," writes one, "but, man, if we fired like yon they'd
put us in jail." The German artillery, however, is described as "no
canny." The shells shrieked and tore up the earth all around the
Highlanders, and accounted for practically all their losses.
Narrow escapes were numerous. An Argyll and Sutherland Highlander got
his kilt pierced eight times by shrapnel, one of the Black Watch had his
cap shot off, and while another was handling a tin of jam a bullet went
clean into the tin. Jocular allusions were made to these incidents, and
somebody suggested labeling the tin "Made in Germany."
Even the most grim incidents of the war are lit up by some humorous or
pathetic passage which illustrates the fine spirits and even finer
sympathies of the Highlanders. Lance-Corporal Edmondson, of the Royal
Irish Lancers, mentions the case of two men of the Argyll and
Sutherlands, who were cut off from their regiment. One was badly
wounded, but his comrade refused to leave him, and in a district overrun
by Germans, they had to exist for four days on half-a-dozen biscuits.
"But how did you manage to do it?" the unwounded man was asked, when
they were picked up.
"Oh, fine," he answered.
"How about yourself, I mean?" the questioner persisted in asking.
"Oh, shut up," said the Highlander.
The truth is he had gone without food all the time in order that his
comrade might not want.
Then there is a story from Valenciennes of a poor scared woman who
rushed frantically into the road as the British troops entered the
town. She had two slight cuts on the arm, and was almost naked--the
result of German savagery. When she saw the soldiers she shrank back in
fear and confusion, whereupon one of the Highlanders, quick to see her
plight, tore off his kilt, ripped it in half, and wrapped a portion
around her. She sobbed for gratitude at this kindly thought and tried to
thank him, but before she could do so the Scot, twisting the other half
of the kilt about himself to the amusement of his comrades, was swinging
far along the road with his regiment.
This is not the only Scot who has lost his kilt in the war. One of the
Royal Engineers gives a comic picture of a Highlander who appears to
have lost nearly every article of clothing he left home in. When last
seen by this letter writer he was resplendent in a Guardsman's tunic,
the red breeches of a Frenchman, a pair of Belgian infantry boots, and
his own Glengarry! "And when he wants to look particularly smart," adds
the Engineer, "he puts on a Uhlan's cloak that he keeps handy!"
As another contribution to the humor of life in the trenches and,
incidentally, to the discussion of soldier songs, it is worth while
quoting from a letter signed "H.L.," in _The_ _Times_, this specimen
verse of the sort of lyric that delights Tommy Atkins. It is the work of
a Sergeant of the Gordon Highlanders, and as the marching song in high
favor at Aldershot, must come as a shock to the ideals of would-be army
laureates:
"Send out the Army and Navy,
Send out the rank and file,
(Have a banana!)
Send out the brave Territorials,
They easily can run a mile.
(I don't think!)
Send out the boys' and the girls' brigade,
They will keep old England free:
Send out my mother, my sister, and my brother,
But for goodness sake don't send me."
It is doggerel, of course, but it has a certain cleverness as a satire
on the music-hall song of the day, and the Gordons carried it gaily with
them to their battlefields, blending it in that odd mixture of humor and
tragedy that makes up the soldier's life. The bravest, it is truly said,
are always the happiest, and of the happy warriors who have fallen in
this campaign one must be remembered here in this little book of British
heroism. He died bravely on the hill of Jouarre, near La Ferte, and his
comrades buried him where he fell. On a little wooden cross are
inscribed the simple words, "T. Campbell, Seaforths."
VII
THE INTREPID IRISH
"There's been a divil av lot av talk about Irish disunion," says Mr.
Dooley somewhere, "but if there's foightin' to be done it's the bhoys
that'll let nobody else thread on the Union Jack." That is the Irish
temperament all over, and in these days when history is being written in
lightning flashes the rally of Ireland to the old flag is inspiring, but
not surprising.
Political cynics have always said that England's difficulty would be
Ireland's opportunity, but they did not reckon with the paradoxical
character of the Irish people. England's difficulty has indeed been
Ireland's opportunity--the opportunity of displaying that generous
nature which has already contributed thousands of men to the
Expeditionary Force, and is mustering tens of thousands more under the
patriotic stimulus of those old political enemies, Mr. John Redmond and
Sir Edward Carson. The civil war is "put off," as one Irish soldier
expresses it; old enmities are laid aside and Orange and Green are
fighting shoulder to shoulder, on old battlefields whose names are writ
in glory upon the colors.
No more cheerful regiments than the Irish are to be found in the firing
line. Their humor in the trenches, their love of songs, and their dash
in action are manifested in all their letters. An English soldier,
writing home, says that even in the midst of a bayonet charge an
Irishman can always raise a laugh. "Look at thim divils retratin' with
their backs facin' us," was an Irish remark about the Germans that made
his fellows roar. And when the Fusiliers heard the story of the Kaiser's
lucky shamrock, one of them said: "Sure, an' it'll be moighty lucky for
him if he doesn't lose it"; adding to one of three comrades, "There'll
be a leaf apiece for us, Hinissey, when we get to Berlin."
In the fighting the Irish have done big things and their dash and
courage have filled their British and French comrades with admiration.
Referring to the first action in which the Irish Guards took part, and
the smart businesslike way in which they cut up the Germans, Private
Heffernan, Royal Irish Fusiliers, says they had a great reception as
they marched back into the lines: "Of course, we all gave them a cheer,
but it would have done your heart good to see the Frenchmen (who had a
good view of the fighting) standing up in their trenches and shouting
like mad as the Guards passed by. The poor chaps didn't like the idea
that it was their first time in action, and were shy about the fuss made
of them: and there was many a row in camp that night over men saying
fine things and reminding them of their brand new battle honors."[D]
A fine story is told of the heroism of two Irish Dragoons by a trooper
of that gallant regiment. "One of our men," he says, "carried a wounded
comrade to a friendly farm-house under heavy fire, and when the retreat
was ordered both were cut off. A patrol of a dozen Uhlans found them
there and ordered them to surrender, but they refused, and, tackling the
Germans from behind a barricade of furniture, killed or wounded half of
them. The others then brought up a machine gun and threatened the
destruction of the farm: but the two dragoons, remembering the kindness
of the farm owners and unwilling to bring ruin and disaster upon them,
rushed from the house in the wild hope of tackling the gun. The moment
they crossed the doorway they fell riddled with bullets." Another story
of the Irish Dragoons is told by Trooper P. Ryan. One of the Berkshires
had been cut off from his regiment while lingering behind to bid a dying
chum good-by, when he was surrounded by a patrol of Uhlans. A troop of
the Irish Dragoons asked leave of their officer to rescue the man, and
sweeping down on the Germans, quickly scattered them. But they were too
late. The plucky Berkshire man had "gone under," taking three Germans
with him. "We buried him with his chum by the wayside," adds Trooper
Ryan. "Partings of this kind are sad, but they are everyday occurrences
in war, and you just have to get used to them."
The Dragoons also went to the assistance of a man of the Irish Rifles
who, wounded himself, was yet kneeling beside a fallen comrade of the
Gloucester Regiment, and gamely firing to keep the enemy off. The
Dragoons found both men thoroughly worn out, but urgency required the
regiment to take up another position, and the wounded men had to be left
to the chance of being picked up by the Red Cross corps. "They knew
that," says the trooper who relates the incident, "and weren't the men
to expect the general safety to be risked for them. 'Never mind,' said
the young Irishman, 'shure the sisters 'll pick us up all right, an' if
they don't--well, we've only once to die, an' it's the grand fight we've
had annyhow.'"
One of the most stirring exploits of the war--equaled only by the
devotion and self-sacrifice of the Royal Engineers in the fight for the
bridge--is that of the Irish Fusiliers in saving another regiment from
annihilation. The regiment was in a distant and exposed position, and a
message had to be sent ordering its retirement. This could only be
accomplished by despatching a messenger, and the fusiliers were asked
for volunteers. Every man offered himself, though all knew what it meant
to cross that stretch of open country raked with rifle fire. They tossed
for the honor, and the first man to start-off with the message was an
awkward shock-headed chap who, the narrator says, didn't impress by his
appearance. Into the blinding hail of bullets he dashed, and cleared the
first hundred yards without mishap. In the second lap he fell wounded,
but struggled to his feet and rushed on till he was hit a second time
and collapsed. One man rushed to his assistance and another to bear the
message. The first reached the wounded man and started to carry him in,
but when nearing the trenches and their cheering comrades, both fell
dead. The third man had by this time got well on his way, and was almost
within reach of the endangered regiment when he, too, was hit.
Half-a-dozen men ran out to bring him in, and the whole lot of this
rescuing party were shot down, but the wounded fusilier managed to crawl
to the trenches and deliver the order. The regiment fell back into
safety and the situation was saved, but the message arrived none too
soon, and the gallant Irish Fusiliers certainly saved one battalion from
extinction.
In one fierce little fight the Munster Fusiliers (the "Dirty Shirts")
had to prevent themselves from being cut off, and in a desperate effort
to capture the whole regiment the Germans launched cavalry, infantry and
artillery upon them. "The air was thick with noises," says one of the
Munsters in telling the story, "men shouting, waving swords, and blazing
away at us like blue murder. But our lads stood up to them without the
least taste of fear, and gave them the bayonet and the bullet in fine
style. They crowded upon us in tremendous numbers, but though it was
hell's own work we wouldn't surrender, and they had at last to leave
us. I got a sword thrust in the ribs, and then a bullet in me, and went
under for a time, but when the mist cleared from my eyes I could see the
boys cutting up the Germans entirely." The losses were heavy, and the
comment was made in camp that the Germans had cleaned up the "Dirty
Shirts" for once. "Well," said an indignant Fusilier, "it was a moighty
expensive washin' for them annyway."
How Private Parker of the Inniskilling Fusiliers escaped from four
Uhlans who had taken him prisoner is an example of personal daring. His
captors marched him off between them till they came to a narrow lane
where the horsemen could walk only in single file--three in front of him
and one behind. He determined to make a bid for liberty. Ducking under
the rear horse he seized his rifle, shot the Uhlan, and disappeared in
the darkness. For days he lay concealed, and on one occasion German
searchers entered the room in which he was hidden, yet failed to find
him.