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The Daily Telegraph War Books
WITH THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT
At the Front Series
* * * * *
Cloth 1/-net each
The Daily Telegraph
WAR BOOKS
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HOW THE WAR BEGAN
By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M. KENNEDY
THE FLEETS AT WAR
By ARCHIBALD HURD
THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN
By GEORGE HOOPER
THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIÈGE
By J. M. KENNEDY
IN THE FIRING LINE
Battle Stories told by British Soldiers at the Front
By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK
GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD
By STEPHEN CRANE
Author of "The Red Badge of Courage"
BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT
The glorious story of their Battle Honours
THE RED CROSS IN WAR
By M. F. BILLINGTON
FORTY YEARS AFTER
The Story of the Franco-German War. By H. C. BAILEY
With an introduction by W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.
A SCRAP OF PAPER
The Inner History of German Diplomacy
By E. J. DILLON
HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR
A companion volume to "How the War Began," telling how the world faced
Armageddon and how the British Army answered the call to arms
By J. M. KENNEDY
AIR-CRAFT IN WAR
By ERIC STUART BRUCE
HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM
By EDMUND DANE
FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE REGIMENTS
By REGINALD HODDER
THE RETREAT TO PARIS
By ROGER INGPEN
THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE
By MARR MURRAY
THE SUBMARINE IN WAR
By C. W. DOMVILLE-FIFE
MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR
By HORACE WYATT
THE SLAV NATIONS
* * * * *
WITH THE SCOTTISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT
by
E. CHARLES VIVIAN
Author of "Passion Fruit," "Divided Ways," etc.
Hodder and Stoughton
London New York Toronto
MCMXIV
Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE GUARDS AND THE GREYS 1
CHAPTER II
THE ROYAL SCOTS 17
CHAPTER III
THE ROYAL SCOTS FUSILIERS 36
CHAPTER IV
THE KING'S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS 48
CHAPTER V
THE BLACK WATCH 73
CHAPTER VI
THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS 93
CHAPTER VII
THE SEAFORTH HIGHLANDERS 114
CHAPTER VIII
THE CAMERON HIGHLANDERS 138
CHAPTER IX
THE ARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS 157
CHAPTER X
THE HIGHLAND LIGHT INFANTRY AND THE CAMERONIANS 169
CHAPTER I
THE GUARDS AND THE GREYS
If one should ask any man, of any regiment of the British Army, what was
the quality of the regiment to which he belonged, the answer would be to
the effect that his was the best regiment in the service, without any
exception. If any other answer should be returned to such a query, it
might be assumed that there was something wrong with that particular
man; he ought not to be a soldier, for every soldier worthy of the name
firmly believes that his regiment is the best.
The Scottish regiments are not exempt from this belief, and surely,
judging by their regimental histories, they have good cause. Certain
peculiar honours are theirs, too: they form the only kilted force of
regular troops in the world, for one thing; and for another thing the
oldest regiment of the British Army is Scottish--for the Royal Scots,
with definite history dating back to 1625, lay claim to direct descent
from the Scottish archers who were kept for centuries as guards for
French kings. Putting legend and tradition aside, it is certain and
beyond dispute that John Hepburn led the Royal Scots under Gustavus
Adolphus, the great Swedish champion of liberty, as early as 1625; and
in 1633, with eight years of hard work on Continental battlefields to
season their ranks, the Royal Scots were definitely and officially
included in the British Army, seeing service under Marlborough at
Blenheim, Ramillies, Malplaquet, and Oudenarde. There is a story of
Blenheim to the effect that the Commander-in-chief of the French Army,
taken prisoner by Marlborough, congratulated the latter on having
overcome "the best troops in the world." The Duke caustically requested
him to "Except those troops by whom you have been conquered." Prominent
among these were the Royal Scots.
But, although senior in point of age, the Royal Scots is not "the right
of the line" in the British Army. This proud distinction is held by the
Royal Horse Artillery, which probably numbers as many Scotsmen in its
ranks as men of any other nationality. The Artillery, however, knows no
nationalities in its nomenclature. One is first a gunner, and then
either English, Scotch, Welsh, or Irish--the guns count before
territorial distinctions. Next to the R.H.A., if ever the line of the
whole Army were formed, would come the Brigade of Guards, and here the
Scots Guards find a place, very near the right of the line, when the
length of that line is considered.
It is possible, to a certain extent, to trace the history of each unit
of the Army, as far as the present European war is concerned, by means
of the letters sent home by the men of each unit. Such histories are
necessarily brief and scrappy, but they afford some idea of what the
various regiments are doing on the field; and the object of this book
is, to some extent, to show how each Scottish regiment has contributed
to the glory of Scotland and the fame of the British Army since August
of 1914. Some reference to the earlier exploits of Scots on other fields
may perhaps be pardoned, for there are some stories--like that already
quoted regarding the Duke of Marlborough--that never grow old.
Of the Scots Guards, few records have as yet come to hand, beyond those
that are common knowledge. The regiment has nearly three hundred years
of history, having been raised as the "Scots Fusilier Guards" in 1641.
Nineteen years later they became the "Scots Guards," and in the closing
years of the seventeenth century they fought in Flanders, subsequently
serving with distinction under the Duke of Marlborough. From "Dettingen"
through the Napoleonic and Crimean wars up to "Modder River" the battle
honours on their colours range, for like the great majority of British
regiments they had their share of South Africa in the last campaign
there.
Personal records of their deeds in the early stages of this present war
are scarce, but certain it is that there were Scots Guards at the battle
of the Marne, although the official dispatches are chary of mentioning
the names of regiments engaged in definite actions or at definite
points. For, previously to the battle of the Marne, there was a
Guardsman of Kilmarnock of whom a story is told. He was on duty with a
comrade when two mounted men approached, and on challenging the riders
the Scots found that one of them was a Uhlan--who made off with all
speed. The Kilmarnock man advanced on the other rider, whom his comrade
had covered with his rifle, but the horseman made a motion with his left
hand toward his revolver. Thereupon the Kilmarnock man, being tall and
powerfully built, struck out with his fist and knocked the man from his
saddle, ascertaining subsequently that he was a German scout officer,
and that he carried a diary which gave particulars of the movements of
the brigade to which the Scots Guards were attached, from the time of
its leaving Havre almost up to the time of the officer's capture. There
were in the diary frequent allusions to "those hellish British"--which
comment speaks for itself.
Later, along the position of the Aisne, the first battalion of the
Guards were busy. On a certain Sunday afternoon the Guards and the
Black Watch were in the thick of the fighting, and that night they were
ordered to the trenches--and the Germans had the position of the
trenches ranged to a nicety, so that they were able to drop shells with
wicked precision all night. Next morning the German infantry retreated
for a matter of a mile, uphill, and there waited for the inevitable
advance of the Guards and the Black Watch. The retreat was a trap, for
on the advance the two British battalions were subject to shell as well
as rifle fire, and out of one section of fourteen men only one was left.
This one, a corporal, was badly cut about the face, and had one knee
severely damaged, but with a field dressing tied round his leg he
remained in the firing line all day, going over to the Black Watch,
since he had drifted too far away from his own battalion to rejoin it at
once. "I had to stick it in the field all day," he says, "and the
fighting was awful. The Germans had all their big guns firing at us, and
we could not get our own guns up to fire back at them. I never expected
to get out of it alive. Well, after lying half the night wet in the
open, among the dead Germans and our own dead, I got strength enough to
crawl back, and managed to find a hospital about twelve o'clock at
night, nearly dead. I never got any sleep that night, but guess what the
Germans did in the morning! They blew the hospital up in the air. I
happened to be near the door, so I got away all right; but I got another
bit in the back that flattened me out for awhile. I missed all the
ambulances through this. The next carts that came along were the
ammunition ones. The driver helped me on to the back of one, but I had
hardly enough strength to hang on. The Germans shelled all these carts
for miles, and the horses of the one I was on got hit with a shell, and
I had not the strength to climb on to another one. The drivers were
hurrying away for their lives, so I had to scramble along for two miles
on my own to a big barn, which they called a field hospital."
And there the record ends. It makes a scrap of history of the Guards,
though when the regimental histories of this war come to be written it
will be found that such stories as these are only scraps of the whole,
for the battles of the Aisne and of the coast do not mark the end.
With regard to the Scots Greys, their work in the early days is well
known now, for from Mons down through the three weeks of the great
retreat they upheld the honour of Scotland so well that on the 8th of
September Sir John French addressed the regiment in words that officers
and men alike will remember. He came on them while they were resting,
and these were his words, as given by a man of the regiment:
"I am very sorry to disturb you from your sleep, Greys, but I feel I
must say a few words to you. I have been watching your work very
closely, and it has been magnificent. Your country is proud of you, and
I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is not the first time I have
had the pleasure of thanking you, and I hope it will not be the last.
There are no soldiers in the world that could have done what you have
done."
This, it must be pointed out, is as it is told by a soldier of the
regiment; it is worth while to make the contrast between it and a letter
said to be from a man of the Greys to his wife, in which he says:
"I was in the retreat from Mons. We were told to go out and draw the
enemy, and before going all our officers and generals said, 'Good-bye,'
so you can bet we felt all right."
"A couple of chaps in my troop went through the South African war, but
after the Mons fighting said the medals they got in Africa were not
worth the keeping. They saw more shot and shell in one day here than
they saw in three years in South Africa.
"The inhabitants go fairly mad when they see us, as they know they will
be cared for by us."
The writer of that letter _may_ have heard a German shell in the
air--and he may not. Queries rise in one's mind as to whom the "officers
and generals" said good-bye to, and also a query rises as to how many
generals the Scots Greys have in their ranks--these points come up
automatically. It is not the custom in the British Army, after the order
for an advance has been given, to give time even for the "officers and
generals" of a regiment to wander round with last messages; and, if
ever the Greys played this game in the fighting in France, there can be
little doubt that the inhabitants of the country went "fairly mad" over
the regiment. The letter looks like a fraud, but it is typical of some
that are finding their way into print nearly every day.
Circumstantial and bearing the impress of truth is the account of the
doings of the regiment given by one Private Ward, who came home wounded
from the Aisne. He tells, all too briefly, how from the second day after
landing in France the regiment was continually in action. The work for
the most part, however, was in the nature of a grand artillery duel, and
the Greys were mainly employed in scouting, with an occasional charge
"thrown in." In the battle of the Aisne the Greys supported the King's
Own Scottish Borderers and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the
crossing of the river; and, after the infantry had all crossed, the
Greys went in single file, with sixteen feet between man and man, over a
pontoon bridge that was under shell fire from the German guns, placed on
the heights in front. Many of the horses were killed, and Ward himself
was struck in the leg with a piece of shell, causing so severe a flesh
wound that he had to be taken to the field ambulance, and thence home.
And thus the story of the Greys ends, so far as this record is
concerned.
It is a regiment of great traditions, as British cavalry regiments go.
Alone among the cavalry the Greys wear the bearskin in place of the
metal helmet in parade dress, and they are nearly as old as the Scots
Guards, having been raised as a regiment in 1678, and forming the oldest
regiment of Dragoons in the service. Originally they were known as the
"Royal Regiment of Scots Dragoons," a title that was subsequently
changed to "Grey Dragoons," from which their present title of "Scots
Greys" was evolved. Unto this day the sergeants of the regiment wear the
badge above their chevrons that commemorates the taking of the French
eagle of the famous Régiment du Roi; and at Waterloo they charged with
the Gordons clinging to their stirrup leathers, while cavalrymen and
Gordons alike yelled--"Scotland for ever!" To Napoleon they were known
as "_ces terribles chevaux gris_," and out of the charge of the Heavy
Brigade in the Crimea they brought back two Victoria Crosses.
No record of the doings of Scottish regiments in this present war can be
compiled without mention of the Scots Guards and the Greys, but their
history properly belongs to that of the Guards Brigade and of the
cavalry respectively--and in these two counts they must be reckoned for
a full recital of their doings. The foregoing mere incidents will serve
as compromise, lest it should be thought that the two regiments had been
overlooked. As for the Royal Artillery, it knows no more of territorial
distinctions, as already mentioned, than it does of battle honours--for
every battle in which a British Army has fought might be inscribed on
the colours of the gunners, if they had colours. It is probable that,
when the relative populations of the four nationalities are taken into
account, Scotsmen will be found to preponderate in the R.A., for the
Scot is always a little mechanically inclined, and the working of the
guns needs most mechanical knowledge of any of the three arms.
Of infantry of the line, there are ten definitely Scottish regiments,
and an effort will be made to trace their histories in the great
European campaign--or rather, in the first days of that campaign, as
far as personal narratives will admit. Blanks and gaps there must be,
but the stories that officers and men have to tell will, when collated
and set down in some sort of order, enable us to conceive of the nature
of the work in which Scots are well maintaining the honour of their
regiments.