influence because, although the Clan system with its chieftainship
had broken down, the influence of the great landowners was still
powerful enough to attract attention, although the devotion of
the people had to be reinforced by bounties on a scale unknown in
our day, and by all sorts of practical recognition, such as the
adjustment of rents and the enlargement of holdings; for, although
the armies thus raised had strong affinities with the levies
organised under the feudal system, the Clan system was infinitely
more democratic, and gave scope for greater individuality. This is so
true that it often happened that the men raised in one glen declined
to march to the rendezvous with the men of another glen who happened
to be their hereditary enemies, and trouble arose over the demands
of particular groups to be led by their local officers, some of them
even believing that they should go forth to battle by Clans, as in
the old days.
Of all the personal potentates interested in recruiting in Scotland,
none was more powerful than the fourth Duke of Gordon who, although
long in possession of vast tracts of Highland territory, was in no
sense a Highlander, his family having migrated from Berwickshire
to the north, and the trouble which existed for centuries between
him and his Highland tenants, like the Macphersons, was due to the
inability of his ancestors, or their representatives, to understand
the true nature of the Celt. More motives than one urged His Grace
forward as recruiter. In the first place, his immediate ancestors had
played a very dubious part in the Jacobite risings, and the fourth
Duke was anxious to remove the last doubts as to the loyalty of his
house. Later on he married an extremely clever and ambitious woman,
the famous Jane Maxwell, who had a great desire to play a big part in
the State, and do something for her sons.
Whatever the motives, the recruiting achievements of His Grace
were splendid, for from first to last he raised no fewer than four
complete regiments, besides contributing two companies to corps
raised by others, and he also played a very active part as Lord
Lieutenant of his county. The forces organised by the Duke were as
follows:
1759-65 89th Regiment.
1775-83 Company for the Fraser Highlanders.
1778-83 Northern Fencibles.
1790-1 Company for the Black Watch.
1793-9 Northern Fencibles.
1794 Gordon Highlanders.
The sole remnant of this mighty effort, which must have cost the
Duke a fortune, is the regiment of Gordon Highlanders, which we have
seen blossom out into eleven battalions, to say nothing of certain
reserves; and although the regiment has not continued to be recruited
on the ducal estates, its connection with the House of Gordon has
all along been maintained, and has actually been strengthened in
recent times. That connection of course has always been symbolised
by the wearing of the clan tartan, but the links with the north were
strengthened by the rearrangement of 1872, when infantry regiments
were allotted to definite Territorial areas for the purpose of
recruiting. About the same time the Gordon family motto, "Bydand,"
and the familiar crest were placed upon the bonnet in lieu of the
hard-won Sphinx.
What is of much more importance is the fact that the genius of the
family, admirably described in the alliterative phrase the "Gay
Gordons," which inspired the original regiment, has passed into all
its subsequent accretions, so that the 75th Regiment added to it
in 1881, although actually of earlier origin, has been completely
absorbed. The same can be said of the old Aberdeenshire Militia,
which became the 3rd Battalion, and also of the various Volunteer
Corps which were gradually absorbed, while the Service Battalions
raised by Lord Kitchener displayed exactly the same spirit as the
cradle corps. This continuity and identity of tradition are also
emphasised, not only in the Gordons, but in all the Scots regiments,
and especially in the kilted units, by the fact that they alone
maintained during the War at least, part of their Peace equipment
in the shape of the kilt--even if it was camouflaged with khaki
aprons--and the trewsed regiments had their glengarries replaced by
Kilmarnock and other braid bonnets.
Who can doubt that such a continuity of outward traditions is but the
symbol of a spiritual identity which links up the Scots regiments of
the present day with the Corps who did such splendid work of old from
Fontenoy to Waterloo, from the Crimea to South Africa. True, when you
come to define it, it is difficult to say what it precisely consists
in. Nearly every Regiment of the Line has its own peculiarities,
but the Scots regiments have them in even greater abundance, for
with them they are reinforced by marked racial characteristics.
It is perfectly true that the Highland regiments are no longer
confined to Highlanders, or even to Scotsmen, although the idea
industriously propagated some years ago that they were originally
composed largely of Irishmen, is a fallacy, completely disproved by
War Office Records. Even if it were otherwise, the fact remains that
the _esprit de corps_ which all these idiosyncracies help to form has
a remarkably proselytising influence, very subtle and difficult to
define, but very potent in actual practice.
The early history of the Gordons is full of curious little incidents
which sometimes run counter to popular notions. For example, it used
to be commonly supposed, especially in support of the now exploded
theory that we have become "degenerate," that the first recruits of
the Highland regiments were gigantic men. This is far from being the
case. From the Description Book of the Gordons, one of the very few
regiments which possess such data in an early form, it is proved that
the average height of 914 men composing the greater part (940) of the
original regiment, was only 5' 5½", only six of them being 6' or
upwards--the tallest, a Morayshire man, scaling 6' 4". Similar facts
can be cited about the heights of other groups of men at the same
period.
There were only 16 men actually named Gordon, against 39 Macdonalds,
35 Macphersons, and 34 Camerons. As to the occupations of the men, it
is interesting to note that 442 were described as "labourers," and
as most of them came from the Highlands, they were presumably farm
servants. Of skilled artisans, 186 were weavers. Inverness-shire,
where the Duke had vast estates, supplied 240 men, Aberdeenshire 124,
Banffshire 82, Lanark 62, Ireland 51, England 9, and Wales 2.
There was a solitary German in the regiment, a musician named C.
Augustus Sochling, hailing from Hesse Cassel. There was another
German in the regiment later on, also a musician, named Friederich
Zeigher (or Zugner) who fell at Quatre Bras. The appearance of these
Germans was in its way a sort of return for the fact that the House
of Gordon had given many good soldiers of its name to what we now
call Germany, although most of them really took post in Poland.
The descendants of at least four of these soldiers still exist in
Germany, and have risen to the dignity of a von, including the
founder of the von Gordon-Coldwells, of Laskowitz, in West Prussia,
the von Gordons of Frankfort, and the family of Dr. Adolf von Gordon,
the well-known Berlin lawyer, whose motto is "Byid Dand." Although at
the beginning of 1914 he told a Berlin newspaper that he knew nothing
more about it than that it was an "altschottischer Spruch," it is, of
course, nothing more or less than the historic word "Bydand."
With regard to the pipe history of the regiment not very much is
known. I fancy this is due to the fact that so much that has to
do with the art of piping generally rests on oral and not written
tradition. In the second place it must be remembered that pipers
were not originally recognised by the State. They were purely a
regimental, and not an Army, institution, and had no separate rank as
the drummers had. Indeed, it was not till about 1853 that they got
the same rank and pay as drummers. Thus, in May 1805, a piper named
Alexander Cameron was taken on the strength of the Grenadiers as
drummer, probably to get him drummer's pay, to which, as a piper, he
was not entitled.
The rivalry of the two is brought out in a story told in Carr's
_Caledonian Sketches_, of a dispute as to precedence between a piper
and a drummer of a Highland regiment. When the Captain decided in
favour of the latter, the piper expostulated with the remark, "Oh,
sir, shall a little rascal that beats a sheepskin take the right
hand of me that am a musician?" The differentiation of the two is
still reflected in the fact that a piper is always a piper, whereas a
"musician" returns to the ranks in time of war.
The first direct mention of pipers in the Gordons occurs in a
regimental order of October 27, 1796, when the regiment was at
Gibraltar, and when it was ordained that pipers were to attend all
fatigue parties. An interesting sidelight on the use of the pipes
occurs in a regimental order of November 12, 1812, when the regiment
was at Alba de Tormes in Spain:
"The pibroch will never sound except when it is for the whole
regiment to get under arms; when any portion of the regiment is
ordered for duty and a pipe to sound, the first pipe will be the
warning, and the second pipe for them to fall in. The pibroch only
will, and is to be considered, as invariably when sounded, for every
persons off duty to turn out without a moment's delay."
A pathetic little story about this function of the pipers is told
by James Hope in his forgotten little book, _Letters from Portugal,
Spain and France_, printed in 1819:
"At ten o'clock (on the evening of the day of Quatre Bras) the piper
of the 92nd took post under the garden hedge in front of the village,
and, tuning his bagpipes, attempted to collect the sad remains of
his regiment. Long and loud blew Cameron, and, although the hills
and vallies (_sic_) re-echoed the hoarse murmurs of his favourite
instrument, his utmost efforts could not produce more than half of
those whom his music had cheered in the morning on their march to the
field of battle."
At the battle of St. Pierre in the Peninsular, December 13, 1813, two
out of the three pipers of the Gordons were killed while playing the
pibroch "Cogadh na sith" (with which they were to charm the ears of
the Czar of Russia in the great Review at Paris in July, 1815). As
one fell, another took up the tune, and it was suggested to Sir John
Sinclair, as President of the Highland Society, that this "should
be made known all over the Highlands." It may be noted that the
Colonel, the gallant, if martinet, Cameron of Fassiefern, who fell at
Quatre Bras, gave great encouragement to his pipers, especially as
regards the specially Highland airs and the high-class music (Ceol
Mor). Colonel Greenhill Gardyne attributes to this the fact that "all
pipers in the Gordons are still taught to play Piobaireachd," and
that the ancient and characteristically Highland class of pipe music
is still played every day under the windows of the officers quarters
before dinner.
The Gordons have enjoyed the services of one particular family of
hereditary ear-pipers, the Stewarts. They came from Perthshire,
where one of them was a piper to the Duke of Atholl, while his
brother, known as "Piper Jamie," crossed the hills into the Parish of
Kirkmichael, Banffshire--the cradle of a remarkable military family,
the Gordons of Croughly--where seven sons were born to him. All of
these strapping fellows entered the Aberdeenshire Militia, now the
3rd Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders, six of them becoming pipers.
The best known of these was the eldest, Donald (1849-1913), who
migrated to New Deer, Aberdeenshire, and was known all over Scotland
as a champion piper. The family has been supplying pipers to the
Gordons for more than half a century.
No doubt modern battles are not won by deeds of individual daring
such as these pipers have achieved, but they are won in terms of the
spirit which makes such conduct possible, for it is just the little
things, the train of tradition, the idiosyncracies of uniform, and
the rest of it, which go to form that _esprit de corps_ which has
made the kilted regiments famous the world over.
TO THE LION RAMPANT
By ALICE C. MACDONELL of Keppoch
Did ye hear the light feet marching,
Marching down the birchclad glen?
Did ye see the pipers' streamers,
Floating free behind the men?
Did ye hear the brave tunes ringing,
As they swung the drones on high?
Did ye watch the rythm of the kilt,
Did ye hear the war march die?
Behind the sharp bend of the road,
Beyond the wild Ben Nevis range:
The strains of Donald Dubh again,
Bore out the clans to battles strange.
But, it's O! our tears ran sorely,
As they left the Scottish shore;
For who'd come back, and who would see
Lochaber's wooded braes no more?
Only the Lord of Hosts could tell,
And the wae heart's own prophetic knell.
Did ye see the brave lads smiling,
As they drew their bonnets' down,
With the shortened breath indrawn and tight,
The flashing eyes, the steadfast frown?
Did ye hear the whistling shot and shell,
That swept the kilted foremost ranks
Like the snow wind's call before its fall,
As clouds lie piled in fleecy banks?
Ah! no, t'was not the keen gust bite,
That reddens cheeks with healthful glow,
Nor the hissing as the shrapnel fell
The sound of melting driving snow.
Did ye hear the war pipes calling,
Like the mavis, in the van,
'Mid the thunder of the battle storm,
To the valour of each Scottish man?
The blood call of the march they knew,
With bayonet charge was answered true.
_O! Piper lads! O! Piper lads!
What magic woven spell
Amergin breathed within your reeds,
Is not for mortal voice to tell.
The wizard winds thro' reed and drone,
The soul draws on to follow after
To splendid heights of hero fame,
Or, spellbound, led to grim disaster.
Great Fingal heard beyond the hills
Your quivering grace notes heavenward soar;
Old Ossian followed in a dream
The "Broom of Peril"[28] Oscar bore.
Blow softly, then, O! Piobaireachd's wail,
Or loud and bold, to stir the heart;
No music stirs as yours can stir,
Wild glamour of the fairies Art._
Did ye hear the war pipes shrilling,
Out beyond the German lines,
Where the gallant soldiers pressing on,
Drove home their charge, despite the mines?
Did ye see yon brave lad casting
His broken pipes aside,
As he plunged among the German lines
To do his part what'er betide?
Did ye watch the tartans pouring down
From hill, and trench, and sweep
The cruel Teuton from the field,
Like herds of driven sheep?
Did ye hear the shot that echoed,
Till it reached a woodland lone?
Did ye see the mother's auld grey plaid,
Wrapped round her mourning head?--Ochone!
Did ye see the tears that dropped like rain,
For the lads we ne'er may see again?
_O! Piper lads! O! Piper lads!
What magic woven spell
Amergin breathed within your reeds,
Is not for mortal voice to tell.
The wizard winds thro' reed and drone,
The soul draws on to follow after,
To splendid heights of hero fame,
Or, spellbound, led to grim disaster.
Great Fingal heard beyond the hills,
Your quivering grace notes heavenward soar;
Old Ossian followed in a dream
The "Broom of Peril" Oscar bore.
Blow softly, then, O! Piobaireachd's wail,
Or loud and bold, to stir the heart;
No music stirs as yours can stir,
Wild glamour of the fairies Art._
True hearts, as ever ready, to guard their native land,
O! Scotland's sons are bonnie, and Scotland's sons are grand.
True hearts that never failed her yet, to-day as yester year,
O! Scotia rouse thine echoes, with one resounding cheer.
Let the Lion Rampant proudly raise his head on cloth of gold,
For the deeds of valour done to-day, in pages yet untold.
Gay Gordon lads, brave Seaforths, Black Watch and Camerons tell,
What steeled your dauntless hearts to face that living screen of hell!
The pipes of Loos, of Mons, of far and distant Dardanelles,
That spake in Gaelic tones to each who dared those deadly shells.
The old time slogan of the race, the spell that cannot fail,
"_À chlanna nan gaidheal! À chlanna nan, Gaidheal!
Guillain ri Guillain a chèile!_"[29]
THE MUSIC OF BATTLE
By PHILIP GIBBS
Through all the days and the years in which I served as a
war-correspondent on the Western Front, it was seldom that I did
not hear, from near by or from afar, the music of the pipes. It was
a sound which belonged to the great orchestra of life in the war
zone, rising above the deep rumble of distant guns, travelling ahead
of marching columns up the long roads to Arras or Bapaume, wailing
across the shell craters of that desert which stretched for miles
over the battlefields of Flanders, and coming to one's ears like
elfin music through the dead woods above the Somme. Before every big
battle the skirl of the pipes went with the traffic of war and guns
surging forward to the fighting-lines. For in every big battle there
were Scottish troops and their pipers played them on to the fields of
honour, and played them out again when their ranks had been thinned
by heroic sacrifice. This music had an inspiring influence not only
on the Scottish troops themselves, whose spirits rose to the sound
of it when, after long marching, their feet were leaden on the hard
roads and their shoulders ached to the burden of their packs, but
also on English troops who were in their neighbourhood, and on their
way to the same battlegrounds. For though an Englishman cannot, as a
rule, distinguish one tune from another--does not indeed believe that
the pipes play any tune--there is something in the rhythm, in the
long drawn notes, in the soul singing out of those "wind-bags," so he
calls them, which in some queer magic way, stirs the blood of a man,
whoever he may be, and stiffens the slackening fibre of his heart,
and takes him out of the rut of his earth to some higher plane of
thought, and gives him courage. It is an Englishman who writes this,
but I am sure of it, for many times in dark days of war I have been
taken up by the sadness and the gladness of the pipes, borne by the
breeze across the fields of war.
The 15th (Scottish) Division were special friends of mine, and I
remember, years ago now, how I saw them marching through Bethune on
their way to the battle of Loos, where they fought their first big
fight in September of '15. Through the Grand-Place of Bethune, not
yet wrecked by shell-fire, they came marching with their guns. Snow
was falling on the steel helmets of the men and clinging to the long
hair of their goat-skin coats. It was a grim scene, and away beyond
the city of Bethune there was the ceaseless thunder of bombardment
over the enemy lines. But above this noise, like a heavy sea breaking
against rocks, rose the music of the Scottish pipers playing their
men forward. One pipe band stood in the Square, and its waves of
stirring sound clashed against the gabled houses, and I remember how
all our English gunners, riding with their heads bent against the
storm, turned in their saddles to look at the pipers as they passed
and seemed warmed a little by the spirit of that Scottish march.
The 15th Division went into battle with their pipers, while the
Londoners of the 47th had to be content with mouth-organs and sing
"Who's your lady friend?" on the way to Loos through storms of
shell-fire. The 10th Gordons were the first into the village of Loos,
and some of them went away to the Cité St. Auguste--and never came
back. It was an unlucky battle and cost us dearly, but it proved the
immense valour of our men, who were wonderful. The pipers played
under fire and some of them were badly wounded, but there were enough
left to play again when the Scots were relieved and came out, all
muddy and bloody, with bandaged heads and arms, to small villages
like Mazingarbe and Heuchin, where I saw Sir John French, then
Commander-in-Chief, riding about on a white horse, and bending over
his saddle to speak to small groups of Jocks, thanking them for their
gallant deeds.
In the early battles of the Somme there were many Scottish battalions
of the 3rd and 9th and 15th Divisions, fighting up by Longueval
and Bazentin and Delville Wood, where they suffered heavy losses
under the frightful fire of German guns. The South African Scottish
were but a thin heroic remnant when they staggered out of the
infernal fire of "Devil's Wood," and the men of the 15th Division
who captured Longueval left many of their comrades behind. That was
one of the finest exploits of the war, and they were led forward by
their pipers, who went with them into the thick of the battle. It
was to the tune of "The Campbells are Coming" that the Argyll and
Sutherlands went forward, and that music which I had once heard up
the slopes of Stirling Castle when the King was there, was heard
now with terror by the German soldiers. The pipers screamed out
the Charge, the most awful music to be heard by men who have the
Highlanders against them, and with fixed bayonets and hand grenades
they stormed the German trenches, where there were many machine-gun
emplacements, and dug-outs so strong that no shell could smash them.
There was long and bloody fighting, and in Longueval village, across
which the Highlanders dug a trench, the enemy put down a barrage,
yard by yard, so that it was churned up by heavy shells. On that day
of July 20, 1916, I met the Scots marching out of that place. They
came across broken fields where old wire lay tangled and old trenches
cut up the ground, and there was the roar of gun-fire about us. Some
of our batteries were firing with terrific shocks of sound which made
mule teams plunge and tremble, and struck sharply across the thunder
of masses of guns firing along the whole line of battle. At the time
there was a thick summer haze about, and on the ridges were the black
vapours of shell bursts, and all the air was heavy with smoke. It
was out of this that the Highlanders came marching. They brought
their music with them, and the pipes of war were playing a Scottish
love-song:
I lo'e nae laddie but ane,
An' he lo'es nae lassie but me.
Their kilts were caked with mud, and stained with mud and filth,
but the men were splendid, marching briskly with a fine pride in
their eyes. Officers and men of other regiments watched them pass,
as men who had fought grandly, so that the dirtiest of them there
and the humblest of these Jocks was a fine gentlemen and worthy of
Knighthood.
Many of them wore German helmets and grinned beneath them. One brawny
young Scot had the cap of a German staff officer cocked over his ear.
One machine-gun section brought down two German machine-guns besides
their own. They were dog-tired, but they held their heads up, and the
pipers who had been with them blew out their bags bravely, though
hard-up for wind, and the Scottish love-song rang out across the
fields--whatever its words, it was, I think, a love-song for the dear
dead they had left behind them.