“Heroes!—for instant sacrifice prepared;
Yet filled with ardour and on triumph bent
’Mid direst shocks of mortal accident—
To you who fell, and you whom slaughter spared
To guard the fallen, and consummate the event,
Your country rears this sacred monument.”
WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION—SEVEN YEARS’ WAR—AMERICAN
INDEPENDENCE—FRENCH REVOLUTION—CRIMEA—ANTICIPATED RUPTURE WITH THE
UNITED STATES—1742–1862.
The family feuds which at this time divided the House of Austria once
more kindled the flames of continental war. In support of the Austrians,
George II. sent a British army into the Netherlands. Assuming himself
the command of the allies, he prepared to combat, on this ancient
battlefield, the confederacy of France, Prussia, and Bavaria. With the
army, the present Scots Fusilier Guards landed in Holland in 1742, under
the Earl of Dunmore. They were present at the battle of Dettingen in
1743, where the French were signally defeated. In the following year
Marshal Wade assumed the command of the allies. Nothing of importance
was undertaken until 1745, when the Duke of Cumberland was appointed to
the command;—the Guards were at this period brigaded with the
Forty-second Royal Highlanders, (then making their first campaign as the
Forty-third Regiment, or “Black Watch,” which latter title has recently
been confirmed to them.) At the battle of Fontenoy, fought for the
relief of Tournay, this brigade was charged with the attack upon the
village of Veson. Here the French, strongly entrenched, made a gallant
defence, but were forced to yield to the fierce onset of such a chosen
body of troops. The ill success of the Dutch auxiliaries in other parts
of the field, and the last and desperate charge of Marshal Saxe at the
head of the French Guards, with the Irish and Scottish brigades in the
French service, led on by the young Chevalier, speedily changed the
fortunes of the day, compelled the allies to retreat, and our brave
Guards reluctantly to relinquish the important post their valour had
won.
Meantime, Prince Charles Edward having landed in Scotland, set up the
standard of rebellion, and summoned the tumultuous and fierce array of
the clans to do battle for his pretensions to the throne. The war on the
Continent having occasioned the withdrawal of a large body of the
regular army, the rebels succeeded in driving before them the few troops
which had been left at home. Their progress southward into England
promised the speedy downfall of the House of Brunswick, and the
restoration of that of Stuart. The timely return of the major part of
the army, including the Scots Fusilier Guards, from Holland, at this
juncture, arrested the advance of the rebels upon London, and occasioned
their precipitate retreat into Scotland. A strong force of the king’s
troops, including a portion of the Guards, advanced in pursuit of the
prince, whilst the remainder, grouped in positions in and around London,
prepared to defend the country from the threatened descent of the
French. The bloody defeat of Culloden, as it utterly ruined the rebel
army, so it terminated the war, by the dispersion or submission of the
clans and the flight of the prince.
Culloden’s moor! a darker scene
Of civil strife thy sons have seen,
When for an exiled Prince ye bled,
Now mourn alas! your “mighty dead,”
The brave o’ bonnie Scotland.
Peace having been restored at home, the Scots Fusilier Guards, with
other regiments, returned to Holland in 1747, where the French, in their
absence, had made considerable progress. The only event of importance
which occurred in the campaign was the battle of Val, in which the
immense superiority of the French compelled the retreat of the British,
under the Duke of Cumberland. In 1748 peace was concluded at
Aix-la-Chapelle.
Disputes arising as to the boundary line of the British and French
colonies, and neither party accepting a peaceful solution, war was
declared in 1756. Whilst the reputation of the British arms was being
gloriously sustained on the distant continent of America and in Lower
Germany, the Guards were engaged in frequent descents upon the French
coast. At St Cas they specially distinguished themselves. The peace of
1763 secured to our colonists the quiet possession of the fruits of
their own industry against the cupidity of the French. Scarcely had this
result been attained when difficulties arose with the colonists
themselves, by their refusal to be taxed by the home government without
an equivalent representation. Our armies were accordingly recalled in
1775 to the American continent, whilst the colonists, preparing for a
vigorous defence, allied themselves with their late enemies, the French.
The Scots Fusilier Guards formed a part of the British expedition, and
under Clinton, Howe, and Cornwallis, upheld their ancient reputation for
discipline and valour in the fresh and difficult warfare to which, in
the desolate wilds of the New World, they were called. This unfortunate
war, fraught with disastrous results, and waged with great fury and
bitter hate on both sides, was concluded in 1783, and secured the
independence of the colonists, who formed themselves into a Republic,
under the designation of the United States.
In 1782 the Duke of Argyll had been promoted to the colonelcy of the
Scots Fusilier Guards.
France, too long enslaved but now suddenly emancipated from the galling
tyranny of “the privileged orders,” writhing under all the miseries of
Revolution, had ruined every vestige of righteous government, and
consigned the nation to the more cruel bondage of a despot mob. At
length these evil influences were incarnated in the demon rule of the
“Reign of Terror.” Bankrupt in every sense, to feed the starving crowd
who daily clamoured for bread, proved a task too hard for the wretched
creatures who had been elevated to power through the blood of their
predecessors, and who called themselves the Government, whilst the whim
of the people continued them in favour. As they were but the Government
of a day, so they cared little for the consequences beyond their own
time. To maintain their popularity, and if possible avert the fate which
ever threatened them from the blind fury and unbridled passion of the
mob, they gladly entered upon a universal crusade against the
governments and liberties of neighbouring nations, hoping thereby to
direct the merciless wrath of the people into this new channel, and so
save themselves. Soon the ranks of the armies were recruited by a fierce
and undisciplined multitude. But the very magnitude of these armaments
proved their ruin, and but for the spasmodic efforts of the
Revolutionary tyrants in the national defence, which achieved marvels,
the Revolution must have been crushed at this early stage. A small
British force, including the Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards, was
sent over to the Netherlands, under the Duke of York, who vainly
endeavoured to stem the torrent of aggression in that direction. Equally
fruitless were the attempts of the British Cabinet to patch up an
alliance amongst the nations, so as effectually to unite them in
defending the liberties of Europe. Although the victory of Lincelles
graced our arms, still, alone, our troops could not hope for success
against the immense armaments that continued to emerge from France. The
British were therefore compelled to recede before the advancing tide,
and postpone “the day of reckoning.”
Amongst the many ruthless and reckless, yet bold and able men which the
Revolution produced, none claims such a space in history, none so suited
his times, none was so equal to the crisis, as Napoleon Bonaparte. His
brilliant achievements in Italy under the Consulate had already taken
the public mind by storm, when in 1801 he invaded Egypt, crossed the
sterile desert, overthrew the feeble cohorts of the Sultan, and
threatened to add Syria to the empire of the French. At Acre his legions
were for the first time arrested by the firmness of British valour. In
1801 a British army, including the present Coldstream and Scots Fusilier
Guards, was sent to Egypt, under Sir Ralph Abercromby, to expel the
invader. Thirsting for some new field of conquest to feed his ambition,
Napoleon had returned to France, leaving General Menou to make good the
defence. The defeats of Mandora and Alexandria effectually broke the
already sinking spirit of the French, and resulted in their abandonment
of Egypt. In consideration of their efforts in this service, the
Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards have been allowed the distinction
of “the Sphinx,” with the word “EGYPT.”
[Illustration: NAPOLEON]
The cloud which for a moment dimmed the lustre of his arms, as this
province was wrested from his sway, was soon dispelled in the glories
that elsewhere crowned his efforts, especially in Spain, which, by the
foulest perfidy, he had virtually made a portion of his vast empire.
Frequent expeditions had been contemplated—some had sailed, two at least
had landed on the shores of the Peninsula—still nothing decisive had
been accomplished towards aiding the Spanish and Portuguese in the
expulsion of the French. In 1809, however, a powerful British force
under Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards “the Great Duke,” was sent out,
including the Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards. It is unnecessary at
present to follow them throughout the glories of the war, as we shall
have occasion to do so in after chapters; enough for our purpose to
mention the battles of Talavera (1809) and Barrosa (1811), in which they
specially distinguished themselves.
Having delivered Spain, Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Lord Wellington,
advanced into France, and sorely pressed the retiring foe. It needed all
the ability of Marshal Soult to hold together the shattered remnant of
his broken and disspirited army. With masterly tact and skill he
preserved a seeming order in his retreat, so as to save the army from
the ignominy of a flight. Meanwhile, France having exhausted her
resources, her people became tired of the yoke of the Emperor, who,
whilst fortune smiled upon his arms, had been to them a very god, but
now that the spell of victory was broken, was revealed in truer colours
as the ambitious yet mighty despot. Martial glory, as the ruling passion
of the nation, had bewitched the people, and received in ready sacrifice
the best blood of the land. Long, too long, had the power of Napoleon,
like a dark shadow, rested upon one-half of the known world, whilst the
empty vanity of unhappy France was charmed by delusive visions of
victory. The times were sadly changed. With a melancholy joy Europe had
witnessed the utter ruin of the splendid and countless host which the
fiat of the mighty chief had pressed into his service. Buried beneath
the snows of a Russian winter—hurled in confusion back upon his own
land—
“The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”
This appalling catastrophe, combined with British successes in the
Peninsula, had revived the spirit of the nations, allied them in a holy
crusade, and marshalled the might of Europe in array to crush the
tyrant. One by one, they wrested from his sway the kingdoms he had
engulfed, and which groaned beneath a cruel bondage. Step by step, their
hosts converged, as the tide of war rolled, towards France. All but
alone, with his brave and devoted Guard driven to bay, he made a
desperate but unavailing stand on the plains of France. In vain he
addressed the patriotism of the people; already the fountain had been
dried up by his incessant wars and the unremitting demands he had made
upon the blood and treasure of the land. Surrendering, at length, the
hopeless contest, abdicating the throne, he passed into honourable exile
in Elba.
Ambition, still the tempter, assailing, soon prevailed. Eluding the
vigilance of the British fleet, he succeeded in escaping into France,
accompanied by a few of his old Guard, who had shared his exile. The
mind of the people, which for more than twenty years had lived amid a
wild delirium of excitement, still lingering upon the threshold of the
mighty past, had not yet learned to submit to the more benignant rule of
peace. The army, unwisely disbanded, or despoiled of those symbols of
glory which their valour had so nobly won—trophies which, to a soldier,
must ever be dear as life itself—were being consumed by the ennui of
idleness, longed for new employment. Hence the return of Napoleon
paralysed resistance as recalling the military glory of the Empire;
awakening new hopes, promising revenge for the past, employment for the
present, and glory for the future, it stirred within the bosom of the
soldier and the lower classes of the people a reverence and adoration,
almost amounting to idolatry. Rapidly advancing from stage to stage, as
on a triumphal march, Napoleon found himself once more at Paris—hailed
Emperor—it is true, doubted by the better classes of the people, but
worshipped by the army. His desperate efforts soon enabled him to take
the field, at the head of a powerful and well-appointed army, with which
he proposed to meet in detail, and so destroy, his numerous and
returning enemies. Unfortunately for him, he chose the Netherlands to be
the scene, and Britain and Prussia the objects, of his first, and, as
the result proved, his last attack. For a moment a gleam of sunshine
shone upon his path, as he attained the victory of Ligny, over the
Prussians under Marshal Blucher. Luring him to destruction, this flash
of success was only the precursor to the dread thunder of Waterloo.
Alarmed by the disastrous intelligence of the Prussian defeat and the
rapid advance of the French, Wellington, who commanded the British and
other auxiliaries, quickly concentrated his army near the village of
Waterloo. But ere he could accomplish this, Marshal Ney, at the head of
the second French division, had surprised and fallen upon, with great
fury, the British, as they advanced upon Quatre Bras, on the same day
that Ligny was won. The action was honourably sustained by a few British
Regiments, especially the Twenty-eighth, and the Forty-second,
Seventy-ninth and Ninety-second Highland Regiments. The heroic stand
made by these gave time for the arrival of other corps, including the
Guards—the Scots Fusilier Guards—who succeeded, after a desperate
struggle, in effectually checking the progress of the French Marshal,
and thus depriving him of a most favourable opportunity of cutting to
pieces in detail our army. Two days later, on the 18th of June, the Duke
had successfully accomplished the concentration of his forces, which,
drawn up in battle array at Waterloo, waited the arrival of the
Prussians, to begin the fight. But Napoleon, perceiving his advantage in
the absence of such an important succour, rushed eagerly to battle, put
forth every effort to achieve victory, ere Blucher, impeded by the
disorders of recent defeat, could afford any assistance. The Scots
Fusilier Guards, with the Grenadiers and Coldstreams, were stationed in
the chateau and grounds of Hougomont, where they were soon fiercely
assailed by the French, who repeatedly forcing the gateway, drove the
British into the house. Again and again the enemy were repulsed, but
still anew they returned to the assault. The combat was resolutely
maintained, and it was not until the close of this eventful day, when
the French, repulsed at every point, and gradually relaxing their
efforts, were ultimately driven from the field, that our Guards found a
release from the incessant toils of the fight. The victory achieved by
the British was now completed by the Prussians, who continued the
pursuit—a pursuit which may be said only to have ceased at the gates of
Paris, when, Napoleon abdicating, the war was terminated by the
restoration of the old Monarchy.
From Mr Carter’s interesting work on “The Medals of the British Army,”
we, by permission, quote the following refutation in regard to an
alleged sum of £500 having been accorded to a Waterloo veteran:—“A
statement has frequently appeared in the newspapers, which was repeated
after the decease of General Sir James Macdonell, G.C.B., on the 15th of
May, 1857, that five hundred pounds had been bequeathed to the bravest
man in the British army, and that the two executors called upon the late
Duke of Wellington, to give him a cheque for the money. As the story
went, the Duke proposed that it should be given to Sir James for the
defence of Hougomont, and that upon the money being tendered to him, he
at first declined to receive it, but that ultimately he shared it with
Sergeant-Major Fraser of the 3d Foot Guards, now the Scots Fusilier
Guards.
“Having recently seen this statement again in print while these pages
were in preparation, and Sir James Macdonell having about ten years ago
mentioned to me that he had never received the money, I made further
inquiries, from which I ascertained that Sergeant-Major Ralph Fraser is
now a bedesman in Westminster Abbey. Considering that the above legacy
might possibly have been since received, I called upon the
sergeant-major, who lives at 18 West Street, Pimlico, and is now in his
79th year, in order to ascertain the fact, and found that it had not.
This gallant and intelligent veteran is in the full possession of his
faculties, and, in addition to his having aided in closing the gate at
Hougomont, can look with becoming pride on his having shared in the
following services:—He was enlisted in the 3d Foot Guards in 1799, and
was embarked for Egypt in 1801. In the landing at Aboukir Bay, on the
8th of March of that year, the boat in which Corporal Fraser was
contained sixty persons, officers included; all except fifteen were
destroyed by the resistance of the enemy. He was present at the battles
of the 13th and 21st March; and in the expedition to Hanover, 1805;
bombardment of Copenhagen, 1807; and from 1809 to 1814 in the Peninsula,
being present at the capture of Oporto, battles of Talavera, Busaco,
Fuentes d’Onor (wounded in the leg and thigh), sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo,
Burgos (again wounded in the leg), Badajoz, and St Sebastian; battles of
Salamanca, Vittoria, passage of the Nivelle and Nive. He received, in
addition to the Waterloo medal, that for the Peninsular war, with bars
for Egypt, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca,
Vittoria, Nivelle, and Nive. Sergeant-Major Fraser was discharged in
December, 1818.”
This account, doubtless, may be traced to the following circumstance
mentioned by Colonel Siborne in his valuable History of the Waterloo
Campaign:—“Early in August of that year, and while the Anglo-allied army
was at Paris, the Duke of Wellington received a letter from the Rev. Mr
Norcross, rector of Framlingham, in Suffolk, expressing his wish to
confer a pension of ten pounds a year, for life, on some Waterloo
soldier, to be named by his Grace. The Duke requested Sir John Byng (the
late Lord Stafford) to choose a man from the second brigade of Guards,
which had so highly distinguished itself in the defence of Hougomont.
Out of numerous instances of good conduct evinced by several individuals
of each battalion, Sergeant James Graham, of the light company of the
Coldstreams, was selected to receive the proffered annuity, as notified
in brigade orders of the 9th of August, 1815. This was paid to him
during two years, at the expiration of which period it ceased, in
consequence of the bankruptcy of the benevolent donor.”
From the heroic character of the battle, our people have been prevailed
on to credit many incidents, which, savouring of the romantic, suited
their tastes, have been accepted as truisms, but which facts fail to
corroborate. “One very prevailing idea that Wellington gave out the
words, ‘Up, Guards, and at them!’ is not borne out by fact, for it was
afterwards ascertained from the Duke himself that he did not; and
another, the meeting of his Grace and Marshal Blucher at La Belle
Alliance, after the battle, is equally apocryphal. This, however, is to
be one of the designs of the House of Lords, and will therefore be
handed down to posterity as a fact.” For nearly forty years the Scots
Fusilier Guards had been retained at home, in or around London.
In 1853, the storm which had been long gathering in the north—presaging
wrath to Liberty and to Man—at length burst forth, and descending with
rapacious might upon the dominions of the Turkish Sultan, threatened to
overwhelm in utter ruin the crumbling remnant of the empire of
Constantine. The impatient covetousness of the Czar of Russia had put
forth the hand of the spoiler, intending to appropriate the realms of
the Sultan, and make Constantinople the southern gate of his colossal
empire. Justly alarmed at the already gigantic power of Russia, which
promised further to enlarge itself at the expense of the feebler Powers
around, France and Britain took up arms, and threw the weight of their
potent influence into the contest on behalf of the oppressed Turks,
whose single arm had hitherto proved equal to the struggle. Accordingly,
France, Turkey, and Britain, ultimately aided by Sardinia, entered the
lists of war, to sustain the liberty of Europe against the despotism of
the North, adopting as their watchword the memorable words of Lord John
Russell, “May God defend the right.”
[Illustration: DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. COLONEL Of THE SCOTS FUSILIER GUARDS.]
The first battalion of the Scots Fusilier Guards, brigaded with a
battalion of the Grenadiers, and another of the Coldstreams, were
embarked for the scene of action, which ultimately proved to be the
Crimea. They sailed from Portsmouth, in H.M.S. the “Simoom;” and passing
successively from Malta, Gallipoli, and Varna, arrived at length in the
Crimea. The brigade of Guards, and that of the Highlanders, consisting
of the Forty-second, Seventy-ninth, and Ninety-third, under their
favourite chieftain, Sir Colin Campbell, were closely allied in all the
dangers and glories of the war in the First Infantry division, commanded
by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. The long peace which had
preceded the outbreak of hostilities, and the cry for “greater public
economy,” which it had induced from a people long accustomed to look
only at the arithmetic of pounds, shillings, and pence, in such vital
questions, had in consequence brought all that magnificent machinery of
war, possessed by our country, to a standstill. It followed, as a
necessary result, when our Cabinet failed to achieve a peaceful solution
of the matters at issue, as had been fondly anticipated, and we were
unexpectedly called to a declaration of war, it was found impossible at
once to set in motion the vast machinery of war, which had so long been
“laid up in ordinary.” Hence our gallant troops were doomed to pay the
penalty of our ill-judged economy, and endure many and sore
privations—privations which were the more keenly felt, inasmuch as they
were to be endured, amid the snows of a Crimean winter, by men, too,
whose previous life had been comparatively one of comfort, in no way
calculated to fit the soldier to encounter the pitiless horrors and
fatigues of war. Disease and want, like armed men, entered the camp,
closely followed by their master, the grim King of Terrors—Death; and
thus we have been called to lament, with a truly bitter sorrow, the loss
of our brave countrymen, who, alike in the hospital as in the
battle-field, displayed all the grand and noble qualities of the soldier
and the virtues of the true man. The conduct of the Guards in their
first engagement at the battle of the Alma is described by Marshal St
Arnaud as altogether “superb.” Lieutenants Lindsay and Thistlethwayte,
were especially distinguished for their heroic defence of the colours of
the Scots Fusilier Guards. At the battle of Inkermann, the Guards,
having driven the Russians out of a battery, named the Sandbag Battery,
of which they had early possessed themselves, sustained with desperate
gallantry the impetuous assaults of the enemy, and, although forced for
a moment to give way, were soon again enabled to retrieve themselves,
and maintain possession of the battery, around which and for which they
so bravely contended. Although stunned by these repeated disasters in
the field, yet with that “dogged obstinacy,” which has characterised the
Russians, conceiving themselves secure behind the battlements of
Sebastopol, they still held out. Strengthened in the idea of
impregnability, from the fact that this vast citadel of Southern Russia
had already withstood six successive bombardments, defied the combined
efforts of the Allies by sea and land, and yet no sensible impression
had been made, or aught of decided success attained by the besiegers,
they hoped that what their valour could not achieve in the battle-field,
the snows of winter or the stroke of the pestilence would effect—the
destruction of our armies, and their consequent deliverance. The
successive fall of the Mamelon, the Malakoff, and the Redan, dispelled
this illusion, and prudence, rightly esteemed the better part of valour,
induced a timely evacuation ere our Highland Brigade returned to the
assault. Sebastopol no longer defensible, the enemy sued for peace,
which was granted, and this stronghold of tyranny, dismantled and
abandoned, was assumed to be converted into a haven for fishermen and
traders, rather than the mighty arsenal, whence had so long issued the
formidable fleets which had inspired terror among weaker and
neighbouring states—at least so the treaty required. Meanwhile our
gallant Guards, returning to England, were welcomed by a grateful
country.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO THE GUARDS, LONDON.]
It is only now, when the audacious impudence of “Brother Jonathan” had
dared to insult our time-honoured flag—
“Which braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze,”
and thought to bully us out of the glorious charter which has conferred
upon us the “dominion of the seas,” that our Scots Fusilier Guards were
once more called to prepare for action; and, having gone across the
Atlantic as the van of our army, anxiously waited the signal to avenge,
if need be, such unprovoked insult and aggression. Happily our firm
demeanour has effectually quelled the storm, and impressed wiser and
more wholesome measures, whereby peace has hitherto been continued.
One sentence only shall express our feelings, as we look back upon the
history of our _Scots Fusilier Guards_, which we have here attempted to
sketch—Every man has nobly done his duty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FIRST ROYAL REGIMENT OF FOOT;
or,
ROYAL SCOTS.
----------