THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS
Formerly known as the 75th and 92nd line battalions, the Gordon
Highlanders form a comparatively young regiment. The first battalion was
formed at Stirling in 1788 under Colonel Robert Abercromby, and was sent
to India for fourteen years of active service in Mysore and Southern
India. The "Royal Tiger," worn on the badges of the regiment,
commemorates the part they played at the taking of Seringapatam in 1799.
The great Scottish house of Gordon raised the second battalion of the
regiment near the end of the eighteenth century, and this battalion was
first named "Gordon Highlanders" in 1794, when it was embodied at
Aberdeen, with the Marquis of Huntly as its first colonel. In the
Egyptian campaign of 1801, the Gordons played a conspicuous part in
driving Napoleon out of Egypt, and won the "Sphinx," inscribed "Egypt,"
as a badge, which is now worn on all the officers' buttons. In 1807 the
regiment took part in the expedition to Copenhagen, and a year later
they were with Sir John Moore on the retreat to Corunna. Later, in the
Peninsular campaign under Wellington, the Gordons won the admiration of
their enemies and the approbation of their chief. In one action alone,
that of the Maya Pass, the regiment lost over 320 officers and men
killed and wounded.
On to the end of the campaign the Gordons were in the thick of things,
and then, in 1815, they sailed for Belgium in May, arriving in Brussels
at the end of that month. At Quatre Bras, where they were under the eye
of the Duke of Wellington, the 92nd (now the 2nd battalion of the
Gordons) lost heavily, and then at Waterloo itself the battalion was
reduced to 300 men before the memorable charge took place. The official
account of that charge, as given in the history of the regiment, is
worth quoting in its entirety.
"About two o'clock in the afternoon of that memorable day, the enemy
advanced a solid column of 3,000 infantry towards the position of the
regiment. The column continuing to press forward, General Sir D. Pack
galloped up to the regiment and called out--"Ninety-second, you must
charge, for all the troops to your right and left have given way." Three
cheers from the corps expressed the devoted readiness of every
individual in its ranks, though its numbers were reduced at this time to
less than 300 men.
"The French column did not show a large front. The regiment formed
four-deep, and, in that compact order, advanced till within twenty
paces, when it fired a volley and instantly darted into the heart of the
French column, in which it almost became invisible in the midst of the
mass opposed to it. While the regiment was in the act of charging, and
the instant before it came in contact with the enemy, the Scots Greys
came trotting up in rear of its flanks, when both corps shouted
"Scotland for ever!" The column was instantaneously broken, and in its
flight the cavalry rode over it. The result of this dash, which only
occupied a few minutes, was a loss to the enemy of two eagles and two
thousand prisoners."
The total losses of the Gordons at Waterloo were 119 officers and men
killed and wounded, and what remained of the regiment went on to occupy
Paris, returning to Edinburgh in 1816. In the Crimean campaign the
Gordons had bad luck, as they did not land till after Sevastopol had
fallen. They had their turn in the Mutiny, however, for they fought
their way from Ambala to Delhi, and sat on the "Ridge" under great John
Nicholson from June to September, taking part in the final assault and
storming the Kashmir gate. Later, they marched to the relief of Lucknow,
and then saw general service in the many engagements that took place in
the North-west Provinces before the Mutiny was finally quelled.
Then came twenty years of peace for the regiment, after which it was
again called to action in Afghanistan, and took part in the
ever-memorable march from Kabul to Kandahar. In the Egyptian campaign of
1882, the regiment was included in the Highland Brigade that fought at
Tel-el-Kebir, and then went up with the expeditionary force to the
relief of Khartoum and General Gordon--a fruitless errand. From that
time onward to the end of the century, the Gordons saw frontier fighting
in India. "Chitral" is one of the names emblazoned on the regimental
colours, and in the Tirah campaign the Gordons won undying fame at the
storming of the Dargai heights--which, however, was but one incident in
seven months of strenuous fighting.
In the South African war, the Gordons shared in the privations of the
siege of Ladysmith, and in the fierce attack made by the Boers on the
Ladysmith defences, on the 6th of January, 1900, the Gordons sustained
some of the fiercest of the fighting. Thus one battalion upheld the
credit of the regiment, while the other, in Smith-Dorrien's nineteenth
brigade, placed the name "Paardeberg" on the regimental colours. "During
the four months and a half of its existence the nineteenth brigade had
marched 620 miles, often on half rations, seldom on full. It had taken
part in the capture of ten towns, had fought in ten general engagements,
and on twenty-seven other times, and was never beaten." Up to the end of
the war the Gordons were doing brilliant work. By the end of 1902 the
regiment had thirteen Victoria Crosses to its credit.
With regard to their work in France in the very early days, the men of
the Gordons have shown some reticence--that is, as regards the alleged
cutting off and cutting up of the regiment. It may be, so curious is the
information that reached this country in September, that the men of the
regiment had not heard of this cutting off and cutting up. Certain it is
that they were in several tight corners in the first actions of the
great retreat--but then, so were other units, and there is plenty of
evidence to prove that Gordons came through to the Marne and the Aisne,
though, unfortunately, they came without their colonel and some of their
officers. Round about Mons the Gordons were heavily engaged, and found
the German infantry firing weak, but their artillery work not to be
despised. The greatest damage was done by the shrapnel, and not by rifle
fire--a statement which concurs with practically all accounts of
engagements on the great retreat. "The losses of the Allies," said a
wounded corporal of the Gordons, "were nothing to those of the Germans,
who came on in a solid mass and were mowed down like sheep--close
formation was their method of attack all along. The men themselves said
they were driven to it by their officers at the point of the revolver,
and they simply tried to be taken prisoners by the British. We passed
through plundered villages, and saw windows smashed, furniture thrown
out on the streets, and churches and other buildings destroyed."
Another wounded non-commissioned officer speaks of "what was left of the
battalion after Mons" being in the firing-line, when an order was given
for a general retreat. A dispatch rider gave the message to a part of
the division to which the Gordons belonged, but on his way to them he
was killed by a shell, and the Gordons, not having received the order,
stuck to their position. "The Germans advanced in such force that we
were at last compelled to retire, and lost a lot of jolly good fellows.
I doubt if any of us would have been left if it had not been for the
135th Battery of Field Artillery. They covered our retreat, sending out
such a terrible fire that the enemy were afraid to approach any nearer."
This stands as the most circumstantial account of the cutting-off of
the Gordons that has come to hand among personal letters and accounts of
the men who were there, and, unlike so many letters purporting to be
from "the front," it bears the stamp of authenticity. A piper of the
regiment corroborates it by saying that "the Germans came on in great
masses, driving us back all the time." He tells of being left only with
a revolver, his sword having snapped, after which he crossed a river,
and made a stand in a church. "Eight hundred of us entered that church,
the majority never to come out again, for the Germans' big 'Jack
Johnsons' shelled us out." There was, apparently, an officer in charge,
and when he saw how the shells were causing fatalities he gave the order
for all men who could to bolt for the road and save themselves. "The
people at home will not think any the worse of you, lads, for it," he
is alleged to have said. According to the piper's account, some sixty
or more got away to safety in one rush, in which he himself was wounded
in the arm.
The work of signallers has not come into much prominence in the fighting
in France, but one of the signallers of the Gordons, at least, has had
occasion to use his flags. It happened that his battalion had been in a
tight corner for some time, and was running short of ammunition, in
consequence of which the signaller was ordered by his company officer to
signal to the Army Service Corps for a further supply. He stood up
facing to the rear, and, raising his flags, signalled--"From
Captain----" when the message was cut short by his arm being wounded in
two places. As he was trying to bind up the wounds, another piece of
shrapnel came along and lodged in the same arm.
A good general account of the fighting is given by one non-commissioned
officer who went out at the end of August, and was first engaged in the
fighting which took place immediately before the advance from the Marne
to the Aisne. Here the Gordons were engaged near a village held by the
enemy, and under very hot fire. The British troops had a hard job in
getting the Germans to leave their trenches, but eventually the
artillery fire from the British guns proved too much for the Germans,
who got up and ran. The Gordons reached the village after the enemy had
fled, and were billeted there for the night--and in this connection the
non-commissioned officer responsible for this account remarks that the
German rifle fire is almost useless, though their machine-gun fire is
good. "Besides, when once they think they are beaten they are off, and
one can scarcely get at close quarters with them. Our party never got
within half a mile of them."
In this last sentence, it must be remembered, the writer refers to the
German troops who had come down on the tremendous advance which ended at
the position of the Marne. Official reports leave it beyond doubt that
these German troops had undergone three weeks of the severest strain
that has ever been imposed on fighting men, and that their _moral_ was
so far impaired that, after the wheel made by von Kluck's army away from
Paris, the whole of them had to be drawn back and replaced by other
troops. Since they had been reduced to this state by their exertions, it
is hardly to be wondered at that they would not face their enemies at
close quarters.
The narrative, proceeding, states that on the advance of the British to
the trenches the enemy had occupied, it was difficult to estimate the
number of German dead, for the trenches, filled with bodies, had been
covered in with earth. One German was found by the Gordons still
standing in his trench, with his rifle to his shoulder, quite dead. He
had evidently been shot while in the act of taking aim, and had been
left by his retreating comrades. On the advance, it was noted that the
work of the British artillery had been particularly deadly, especially
among the woods through which the men advanced. The part of the regiment
to which the narrator of these events was attached was sent back to
headquarters in charge of several hundreds of prisoners, their places in
the firing line being taken by others for the time being; and, after a
turn at headquarters duty, the Gordons were sent on to Lille and La
Bassée, opposite to a part of von Kluck's force, which had in the
meantime moved out to the north-west to keep pace with the extension of
the Allied line. While the Gordons were lying in an open field, taking
part in an attack, the order was given to retire; but it was unheard by
the men of some sections, and the enemy advanced so near that the
position of some of the men became very critical. But the wretched fire
of the German infantry proved their salvation, for sixteen of the
Gordons made their way across perfectly level, boggy ground, with the
Germans less than 1,000 yards away, and only two were wounded.
The first days on the Aisne, according to another of the Gordons, must
be counted as one of the fiercest examples of warfare under modern
conditions. For days the Gordons were subjected to such a hurricane of
shrapnel fire that they were compelled to lie in their trenches, merely
awaiting developments; and many of the men who were wounded by shrapnel
never fired their rifles, for the enemy was too far off for rifle fire
to have any effect. One man was struck fourteen times by the shrapnel
fire, and still came out from the trenches to recover. It was not until
the British artillery was reinforced that the infantry were able to
advance.
"We were kept so busy," says one man of the Gordons concerning this
time, "that for three days and nights we had no time to issue the mail.
The men felt the want of a smoke more than of food, and I have seen more
than one man trade away his last biscuit for a cigarette or a fill of
tobacco. When the heaviest of the shelling was going on, our men were
puffing away at 'fag-ends.'"
From such accounts as these one may glean some idea of what the Gordons
underwent up to the time of the transference of the main battle to the
Flanders area. As for this last, one non-commissioned officer states
that the men were hardly ever out of canals and wet ditches. One day a
section of men lay waist deep in water from nine in the morning till
three in the afternoon, patiently waiting for dusk to come, that they
might get a chance to dry their clothes. "The Germans generally cease
operations at dusk, and on these occasions the same old order comes
along the line--"Dig yourselves in, men." And, on the day that they lay
in water so long, no sooner had they dug themselves in than the order to
advance was given!"
Apparently authentic is the account of the death of Captain Ker of the
Gordons, who, it is stated by eyewitnesses, was in command of men whom
he led up in face of the enemy's fire at Béthune. The men gained the
shelter of a natural rise in the ground, but before they reached this
point Captain Ker was struck in the head by shrapnel, and was killed
instantly. The men lay for some time in the position they had won, but
eventually found that it was too dangerous to retain, and risked the
enemy's fire in place of capture. They doubled back across a couple of
fields to their old position, and eighteen of the twenty-one in the
party got safely back--but only seven of them escaped being hit. Captain
Ker was later picked up and buried on the field.
With regard to Colonel Gordon, V.C., it appears from one account that he
was taken into a barn after having been wounded, but almost immediately
afterwards the barn caught fire, and it was thought that he had been
trapped in the flames. It seems, however, that the wound was only a body
one, and the colonel was able to get clear, though he was afterwards
taken prisoner.
"Keep your heads up, men!" one of the officers of the Gordons shouted to
his men on one occasion. "They can't hit you"--pointing to the snipers
up a tree; and with that remark he showed his own head above the trench.
"None of us cared to follow his example, but his cheery way bucked us
up," says one of the men present at the time. Yet again the same officer
inquired--"Any man wanting to earn a glass of claret?" and received
several enthusiastic affirmatives. "Well," he said, "catch me that hen
running across the road." The offer was not accepted, for the German
fire was hot at the time.
Another account refers to a battle which took place about the middle of
October, the 2nd battalion being the one referred to. "I left the
trenches on Saturday night for hospital," says the writer. "On Friday
afternoon we had a terrible battle with the Germans, who turned all
their artillery and machine guns on our trenches in an attempt to break
through them. It was hell while it lasted, but we gave them more than
they wanted. About three hundred yards in front of our trenches was a
ridge running parallel with them, and every time the Germans mounted
this ridge in mass they were blown into the air. Ten times they were
blown away, losing battalions each time--it was sickening to see them.
Towards night they retired; and my company lost pretty heavily, five men
being killed and thirteen wounded. Our captain and lieutenant were also
wounded. Throughout all that battle I never got so much as a scratch--I
have been very lucky on two or three occasions."
This man went into hospital at the finish with a poisoned hand and head,
caused by a graze sustained three weeks before the fight of which he
writes. In his letter, as in all the accounts quoted here, is noticeable
an absolute lack of doubt as to the final result of the titanic
struggle. Not that any one of the men actually voices confidence, but
from the way in which they tell of the doings of their regiments one may
gauge their spirit, and understand that they see only the one end to
this war of world-forces; that there is no fear of defeat, no thought of
other than a steady driving on to a fixed end--the overthrow of German
militarism. Many of them--many Gordons, without doubt--have never given
the matter a thought, for they fight, as the Gordons and as the whole
British Army always fights, with a belief in themselves and their
leaders that amounts to such conviction as needs no words for its
expression--a settled knowledge that in good time their task will be
accomplished. For behind all these men are the traditions of those who
cried "Scotland for ever!" men who knew not the meaning of defeat.