greatest war in history; in the front, under conditions in which they
could never have been expected to exist at all, they have led men to
victory, have rallied them when victory eluded their grasp, and have
marched them back undismayed by the tortures of battle; behind the
lines they have headed the long columns of Scottish troops on their
way up to the furnace in which the fate of nations was cast.
But, everywhere, they expressed the ideal of the race and led men to
follow causes, even causes which appeared lost ones, through to the
end.
When silence fell on the 11th November, 1918, along the blasted line
where rival civilisations had so long struggled for mastery, the
_rôle_ of the pipes changed, and it was no longer the "onset" that
the piper was impelled to play. The consummation of long effort had
been attained--and what instrument more entitled to bear witness
to the fact than the one which had sounded over the blood-stained
slag-heaps of Loos, the shell-swept heights of Vimy?
As the British First Army entered Valenciennes, the pipers of a
historic Scottish division played through the "place" opposite the
Hotel de Ville, and must have awakened in the old gabled houses
memories of the centuries old alliance between the Lilies of France
and the Thistle.
Further east, along the roads that led to Cologne, the pipes played
unceasingly, as befitted the occasion, impressing on the population
that this was indeed the coming of "Scotland the Brave."
And so, over the great Rhine bridge, the pipes of the 9th and
Canadian Divisions led the way, and Germany learnt at last that when
_piob mhor_ sounds "Gabhaidh sin an rathad mor"[5] it generally
attains its objective.
PIPERS IN THE RANKS
The piper is, first and last, a fighting man; and when a regiment is
mobilised it at once loses most of its pipers. Whatever the strength
of the band may have been in peace time, only the "sergeant piper"--a
hideous official term for the pipe major--and five "full" pipers are
normally retained as such. The remainder, while acting as pipers when
opportunity offers--and designated accordingly--serve in the ranks.
During this war, and notably during the early years of it, it was
often found necessary to make use of full and acting pipers in some
purely military capacity, _i.e._ either in the ranks, or as Lewis
gunners, bombers, orderlies, runners or stretcher bearers. This fact
accounts for many of the honours awarded to pipers, and, at the same
time, for the heavy casualties among them.
It is quite impossible to do justice to individuals or units in
regard to the part they played in performing such duties; for those
who obtained official recognition, in some form or other, hundreds
have merely had the satisfaction of playing the game, in accordance
with the rules laid down by all ranks of the British army. The few
examples given in this place are typical of the whole.
At Festubert in June, 1915, the pipers of the 6th Seaforths worked
continuously day and night, and brought 170 casualties from the front
line to the dressing station; at Loos the 9th Black Watch lost nearly
all their pipers when similarly engaged, and at the two actions
of Loos and Neuve Chapelle the 6th Gordons had two killed and ten
wounded.
Again, the 2nd Royal Scots pipers lost heavily on the Somme, and were
on one occasion highly commended for bringing water up to some newly
captured trenches under heavy fire.
The comments of General Sir William Birdwood in a despatch to the
Australian Government, though intended to apply to Australian
stretcher bearers, are very applicable to pipers acting in this
capacity, whether individually or collectively:
"Where all have done so well it is very hard to differentiate, but
as a class the stretcher bearers have been beyond praise. Never for
a second have they flinched from going forward time after time,
absolutely regardless of the fire brought against them; and I so
deeply regret that they should have suffered in consequence."
Another and most hazardous class of duty, which was largely performed
by pipers in some battalions, was that of "runners" or despatch
carriers; this often involved crossing heavily shelled country, and
has resulted in many casualties. Notable cases have occurred of men
carrying despatches through intense barrages, and some have received
rewards; the majority of such cases, however, have necessarily been
unnoticed.
Some men appear to have specialised in this duty, _e.g._ Pipe Major
Matheson, 1st Seaforths, who got the D.C.M. "for gallant conduct
on many occasions in conveying messages under heavy fire," and
Lance-Corpl. Piper Dyce, 13th Royal Highlanders of Canada, who on one
occasion carried a most urgent despatch through artillery barrage
when badly wounded.
In other cases pipers, individually and collectively, have done
admirable service in bringing up ammunition.
Many instances of acts of heroism by individual men are detailed
below.
PIPERS ON THE MARCH
Playing the pipes in action, though essentially the most important,
is, for obvious reasons, only one of the duties of the soldier
piper. Every unit of an army is not always in close touch with the
enemy, and every battalion puts in a good many miles of marching in
a year in conditions which are rarely ideal and very often acutely
miserable. It is here that the pipes have rendered such conspicuous
service as the marching instrument _par excellence_; and the cult
of the bagpipe has spread to units and nationalities which, before
the war, would never have thought it possible that the company piper
would become one of their most cherished institutions.
That Irish regiments should again adopt the national instrument that
had played their ancestors on to the battlefields of France in 1286
is so natural as to need no comment; but when we find English and
Australian units, battalions of the United States army, and ships of
His Majesty's Navy, to say nothing of field ambulances and transport
units, adopting the bagpipe, no further evidence is required to
substantiate its claim to be a highly important feature of modern
military organisation.
It is indeed to a recognition, in the very early days of the war, of
the great value of the pipes in "exciting alacrity and cheerfulness
in the soldier" that is due the fact that so many units have
deliberately tried to keep their pipers out of harm's way, and have
only allowed them, under protest, to accompany their companies into
action, and then only in limited numbers. Commanding officers have
appreciated that, as a stimulus to tired men, to men marching weary
miles to take up a position, to men returning worn out from a spell
of duty, the music of the pipes has proved invaluable.
Instances of this stimulating effect are too numerous to mention, but
a few, taken from contemporary accounts of the war, may be regarded
as typical.
The following incident in the retirement from Mons has frequently
occurred elsewhere. "I shall never forget how one General saw a
batch of Gordons and K.O.S.B. stragglers trudging listlessly along
the road. He halted them. Some more came up, until there was about
a company in all, with one piper. He made them form fours, put the
piper at the head of them, 'Now lads, follow the piper and remember
Scotland,' and they all started off as pleased as Punch, with the
tired piper playing like a hero."[6]
The Rev. Dr. Maclean, C.M.G., describes a case of the effect of the
pipes on tired men:
"It was a sweltering hot day, and the road was deep with dust. The
long snaky khaki column came marching steadily down the hill, silent
under the weight of their accoutrements with the grinding heat of an
April sun.... As the Scots came by he gave the sign to the piper. He
stepped forward and struck up one of the great battle marches of our
race. The scene that followed baffled description. A roar of cheering
burst from the ranks."
Another instance,[7] by one who was himself in the ranks, may
be regarded as typical. The regiment concerned was the Glasgow
Highlanders, but the description is applicable to every Scottish
regiment in the Army List:
"Kilometre after kilometre we marched, through the hottest hours of
the middle day, and our feet and backs ached under the weight of
all we carried, our faces were dabbled and streaked with dust and
perspiration, and in our mouths was only dust to chew....
"Walking had become a purely mechanical exercise, our limbs
controlled, as it seemed, by some power outwith us; our brains were
numb and dazed with fatigue and the maddening persisting pain that
was our every step. Blindly, dumbly, helplessly we staggered on ...
in infinite weariness we dragged ourselves to the beginning of the
street, and then--
"Then the pipes suddenly set the heavens and the earth dancing to the
strains of 'Highland Laddie,' the regimental march of the Glasgows.
And at the skirl of the pipes, and before the eyes of those critical
spectators, every man braced himself, his step assumed as much of
jauntiness as he could put into it, and he had a laugh and a jesting
answer ready on his lips for every outsider who spoke to him....
It was something more potent than wine that put the boldness into
their step, it was the sense of the tradition and honour of their
regiment: the feeling that on no account must they present other than
a brave front to the world, that the one unpardonable offence would
be to let the battalion down."
Examples could be multiplied indefinitely, but the best tribute to
the value of the pipes as a marching instrument and in keeping the
men cheery is, after all, the fact that regiment after regiment felt
constrained to keep them out of action entirely--whether as pipers
pure and simple or in other military capacities.
Statements to this effect have been received from nearly all the
regiments whose views have been asked, commanding officers being
almost unanimous in their opinion that, only where it is imperatively
necessary, should a pipe band be exposed to the chances of
annihilation inseparable from modern shell fire.
And in just the same manner as the pipes have helped battalions
along the "via dolorosa" into action so they have, time and again,
played them back to rest and comparative security. In some cases they
had shared in the action itself, in others they waited until their
services were required. Many commanding officers and observers have
referred to this as one of the most important of their duties. In
describing the return of a battalion, or what remained of it, from
Longueval, Philip Gibbs writes:
"There was a thick summer haze about, and on the ridges the black
vapours of shell bursts.... It was out of this that the Highlanders
came marching. They brought the music with them and the pipes of war
playing a Scottish love song, 'I lo'e na a laddie but ane.' Their
kilts were caked with mud, they were very tired, but they held their
heads up, and the pipers who had been with them played bravely ...
and the Scottish love song rang out across the fields."
An officer of an Argyll battalion, writing of the days of trench
fighting, says: "They have done much to hearten us on long marches.
They came out of Bethune after Loos and played what was left of us
back to billets." Another, in the Royal Scots, referring to the
return of the battalion from Kemmel, says: "I shall never forget the
effect on the men; as they struck up they fairly shouted themselves
hoarse with delight."
"Wonderful pipes! The men get tired and would fall out, but the
pipes make a unity of them. Invisible tendons and muscles seem to
connect the legs of all files, and all move as one, mechanically,
rhythmically, certainly. The strong are reduced to the step, the weak
are braced up to it. All bear the strain and share the strain. So we
go on, and the miracle is in the power of the music."[8]
A final quotation--one of a very great number received--reflects the
opinion of all ranks:
"I have often seen a company just out of the trenches straggling
along the road too weary to think of keeping in formation, let alone
in step. On the first sound of the pipes these same men would double
up to their place and march along with the best of them."
The ubiquity of the pipes on the Western front has been remarked by
all observers. "The music of the pipes is now as much a part of the
great orchestra of this war as the incessant rumbling of distant
guns, as the swirl of traffic along the transport lines, as the
singing of birds above No Man's Land.... And where there are pipes
there are Scotsmen--Scots everywhere from the sea to St. Quentin, in
old French market towns, and in Flemish villages ... and in camps
behind the fighting line not beyond the reach of long range shells,
and up in the trenches where death is very near to them.... As long
as history lasts the spirit of France will salute the memory of these
kilted boys and of all the Lowland Scots who have gone into the
furnace fires of this war to the music of the pipes, and have fallen
in heaps upon her fields. A thousand years hence, when the wind
blows softly across the ground where they fought, old Scottish tunes
will sound faintly in the ears of men who remember the past, and all
this country will be haunted with the ghosts of Scotland's gallant
sons."[9]
Nor has it been on the Western front alone that the value of the
pipes has made itself appreciated. In every other theatre of war
as well has "the tune with the tartan of the clan in it" been
heard at the head of columns toiling through the dust and heat, or
through pitiless rain. In Egypt and Gallipoli and the Holy Land, in
Mesopotamia and the Balkans, the pipes have been the prelude to
great happenings. "Bundle and Go" in the early dawn of an Eastern
day, "Soldier lie down" at night--these have been the preliminaries
which led up naturally to "Cabar Feidh" in a hail of machine gun
fire, or "Horo mo nighean donn bhoidheach" in the streets of captured
Bagdad.
"Many a soldier sadly misses his pipe, which of course may not be lit
on a night march; but to me a greater loss is the silence of those
other pipes, for the sound of the bagpipes will stir up a thousand
memories in a Highland regiment, and nothing helps a column of
weary foot soldiers so well as pipe music, backed by the beat of a
drum."[10]
When the British army advanced into German territory the pipers had
an opportunity to play with an abandon that had never been felt
before.
"Next day, with the skies still streaming, we made the longest
continuous march, some 36 kilometres, and by that effort got well
into Germany. The roads improved as we got farther on, but the tramp
through the forest of Zitter was long, marshy, and melancholy. Our
company was first after the pipers, and had the full benefit of the
music all the way. And we wandered inward; inward, with our seeking
and haunting Gaelic melodies, into the depths of the hanging, silent
wood. It was strange how aloof nature seemed to these melodies. In
Scotland, or even in France, all the hills and the woods would have
helped the music. But in this German land all were cold toward us,
and those endless pine trees seemed to be holding hands with fingers
spread before the eyes to show their shame and humiliation. There was
a curious sense that the road on which we trod was not our road, and
that earth and her fruits on either hand were hostile.
"And how tired the men became, with half of them through the soles
of their boots and with racking damp in their shoulders and backs
from their rain-sodden packs. But we listened still whilst voluminous
waves of melody wandered homeless over German wastes and returned to
us,
I heard the pibroch sounding, sounding,
O'er the wide meadows and lands from afar.
or to the stirring strains of the 'March of the Battle of Harlaw,'
or to the crooning, hoping, sobbing of 'Lord Lovat's Lament,' and
so went on from hour to hour through the emptiness of Southern
Germany. When we thought we had just about reached our camping ground
for the night, we came to a guide post which showed it still to be
seven kilometres on. But that was at the top of a long hill, and
the road ran gently down through woods the whole way. The colonel
sent a message to play 'Men of Portree.' The rain had stopped, and
an evening sky unveiled a more cheerful light. So, with an easy
inconsequent air, we cast off care and tripped away down to the
substantial and prosperous bit of Rhineland called Hellenthal, well
on our way to Cologne."[11]
The interminable marches are over and their goal has been attained;
and the instrument which has a tune for every human emotion can now
play "The Desperate Battle" in German towns with a safety which has
been long unknown. To many a man, however, as he fingers his chanter,
the feeling will come, as he thinks of the good men and true who
never reached the 11th November, 1918, that the tune that is most
appropriate is "Lochaber no more."
PIPE TUNES
Pipe tunes--as every piper knows--have local associations,
associations with particular incidents, particular emotions; and
in military piping this is never overlooked. In war everything has
changed--everything but the elemental courage and passions of the
men who are engaged in it; and, as _piob mhor_ is essentially the
instrument on which those elemental passions can be best expressed,
it is not uninteresting to observe how individual pipers have
resorted to particular tunes, to suit particular occasions. In
many, perhaps in most, cases there were traditional or regimental
reasons for playing one tune rather than another, and such tunes
were often in the highest degree appropriate; but in other cases the
individuality of the performer determined the choice.
Of a selection based on tradition the best authenticated instance is
that of the Gordon piper who played Cogadh na Sith, "War or peace,"
during the Somme fighting. The tune itself, a piobaireachd composed
by the great M'Crimmon some 400 years ago, was played by the Gordons
at Waterloo and by a Cameron piper, Kenneth M'Kay, at Quatre Bras.
"[12]About the middle of June a draft of about a hundred and twenty
men arrived in camp for the Gordons--the finest draft the commanding
officer declared he had ever seen. On the 18th, they were ordered to
the front. I found they had a piper with them, and immediately laid
hold on him to play the men down to the station. I brought him up to
my tent and provided him with a set of pipes which I had reserved for
my own particular work.... I found something more interesting than
that. His great-grandfather had been a piper in the regiment in the
days of the Napoleonic war, and at the Battle of Waterloo he stood
within the square and played the ancient Highland challenge-march
'Cogadh na Sith,' as the French cuirassiers hurled themselves upon
the immovable ranks in vain.
"'John,' I said, 'this is the anniversary of Waterloo, and you will
lead the men out to that very tune which your great-grandfather
played on that great day.' I told the colonel, and his eyes gleamed
as he said to me, 'Ah! padre, we'll do better than that. You will
tell the men about it, and I will call them to attention, and your
piper will play his tune in memory of the men of Waterloo.'
"And so it was done, and a thrilling incident it was as the men stood
rigid and silent in full marching order, and the piper strode proudly
along the ranks, sounding the wild, defiant challenge that stirred
the regiment a hundred years before."
Regimental tunes appeal enormously to the men who hear and know them;
it was probably as much the sound of "Blue Bonnets over the Border"
as the sight of Piper Laidlaw piping along the parapet that made the
men, shaken with shell fire and gas, go straight forward; and red
hackles have followed "Highland Laddie" in circumstances when another
tune might have failed to exert the same extraordinary influence.
But, having played his regulation onset, the piper has an opportunity
of suiting his own taste and selecting a tune appropriate musically
and emotionally, as well as in name, to the occasion.
On many occasions when the choice of a tune has not been restricted
by regimental custom or tradition, individual performers have made
selections which indicated the remarkable mentality of the British
soldier.
At Loos, where Pipers Simpson and M'Donald of the 2nd Black Watch
played their company over the top and through the attack, the tune
they commenced with was "Happy we've been a' thegither,"--only later
changing into the ceremonial onset "Highland Laddie." To men in a
trench who have suffered untold nerve strain waiting for Zero and who
happen--as do most men in Highland regiments--to know one tune from
another, no more appropriate combination of "onsets" could have been
selected.
At Beaumont Hamel, when the 17th H.L.I. took the German trenches and
had an opportunity of bombing out the occupants, Pipe Major Gilbert
played another popular and very suitable tune, "The muckin' o'
Geordie's Byre," and greatly encouraged the men in their task. This
same tune has done duty on many similar occasions.
It was to "We'll tak the guid auld way" that the 16th Canadians
attacked at Vimy, and many Cameron pipers have played the
"Piobaireachd Dhomhnuill Duibh" in similar circumstances.
Another very favourite tune was "The Macgregor's Gathering" which was
played with great effect in the capture of many villages during the
Somme fighting.
A curious coincidence was the selection by the pipers of the 1st
H.L.I. of "I'll gang nae mair tae yon toun" as they marched out of
Marseilles on 1st November, 1914, on their way to the front. During
the first six months they lost seven pipers killed, eight wounded and
two taken prisoner, and the band ceased to exist.
"Baile Inneraora,"--otherwise "The Campbells are Coming"--was the
tune to which the first Highland regiment of the Expeditionary
Force, the 2nd Argylls, landed in France; from that time onward it
has immortalised on every front, if that were necessary, the town of
which Burns wrote:
"There's naething here but Highland pride
And Highland scab and hunger.
If Providence has sent me here,
'Twas surely in his anger."
The Argylls long ago took Burns' song and treated it with the
contempt it deserves when they adopted "Baile Inneraora" as their
"onset." It was played at the taking of Longueval, in the attack at
Loos, and at the subsequent rally after that glorious disaster, and
in many other actions.
During the fighting on the Somme for the heaps of ruins which had
once been a French village, an incident occurred which takes us back
to the legend connected with the pibroch "A Cholla, mo run." Long
ages ago, when the Campbells heard they were going to be attacked by
Coll Kiteach at Dunivaig, they set an ambush and captured the advance
guard. All were hanged except the piper, who was given permission
to play a lament over his comrades. The piper at once started the
warning, which was heard and understood by his comrades,
"Coll of my love avoid the strait, avoid the strait, avoid the strait,
Coll of my love, go by the Mull, gain the landing place."
The poor piper was instantly stabbed by the infuriated Campbells.
It is a far cry from those days, when men could converse to each
other in pibroch, to 1916; but another tune--not "A Cholla, mo
run"--was played by another piper in a French village when his party
was cut off. Two officers, a sergeant, and a piper of an Argyll
battalion, got separated from the main body, and found themselves
unable to get away when the village was again attacked by our men.
The small party at once started bombing the enemy from the rear,
but the piper, appreciating the unpleasant possibility of their
own presence not being recognised, struck up the regimental onset.
This alarmed the Germans, who thought they were being attacked from
a fresh quarter, and materially contributed to the success of the
operation.
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENTS.
"Agus bha iad am measg uam fear treuna 'n an luchd-cuideachaidh
's a' chogadh."
To attempt to compile a complete record of the achievements of
individual pipers or of the pipe bands of units is an impossible
task; it would involve a review of the whole course of the war.
A long time must elapse before the histories of battalions are
completed, and even then we shall probably never know fully the
extent to which their pipers have contributed to the attainment of
success.