THE GREATEST WAR
(1914- )
Thus only should it come, if come it must;
Not with a riot of flags or a mob-born cry,
But with a noble faith, a conscience high
And pure and proud as heaven, wherein we trust,
We who have fought for peace, have dared the thrust
Of calumny for peace, and watched her die,
Her scutcheons rent from sky to outraged sky
By felon hands, and trampled into the dust.
We fought for peace, and we have seen the law
Cancelled, not once, nor twice, by felon hands,
But shattered, again, again, and yet again.
We fought for peace. Now, in God’s name, we draw
The sword, not with a riot of flags and bands,
But silence, and a mustering of men.
Alfred Noyes.

Some day when the smoke has lifted from the battlefields of Europe and the tramp of feet has died away down the avenues of Time—when even such a war as this is falling into perspective, and order is disentangled from chaos—then will the story of the Highland regiments be told, and the great part they played in the cause of freedom and liberty become an inspiration for the years to come.

It would be a commonplace to repeat that there is something new and terrible about this conflict—that it resembles in no way the struggles of our earlier chapters. It is not merely the greatest war—the war of nations instead of armies,—it is the most inhuman war. In it none of the laws of the game have been practised. From the sack of Louvain to the wreck of the Lusitania the policy that has controlled the army and navy of the enemy has bowed neither to pity nor to good faith. In this colossal war, regiments, brigades, armies, even nations have been swallowed up into the dense confusion of ceaseless battle. Upon every frontier, every mountain pass, upon the water, under the water, and in the pure air of heaven the grim struggle is waged night and day. When great peoples sway to and fro in their millions the time has passed for speaking of individual battalions.

We have followed the fortunes of the Highland regiments in the days when war was the profession of soldiers. We have recorded the brilliant deeds of one regiment or another, or, on occasions, of one man. But all that has gone. Each regiment has taken to its colours a dozen or two dozen comrade regiments bearing its ancient name, and carrying on, unseen, its proud prestige. To-day the soldier belongs to no particular calling. From the clerk to the dock-labourer—all have become soldiers pro bono publico and pro patria. Every day, in some part of the far-flung battle line, deeds are being performed that we would have proudly recorded in those earlier chapters; day by day, death has been met by amateur soldiers with the unbroken steadiness of veteran troops.

All this is familiar. I only mention it to clear the way for what I am about to say. It is not yet possible to write in any detail concerning the Highland regiments, but at the same time, through the night of conflict some ray of light occasionally pierces—some incident, some letter, some fallen word, or act of bravery so splendid, shows like the faint tracing of feet upon the sand, the way that the Army has passed.

Never in the history of our nation has war been declared with such unanimity of opinion and such absence of idle demonstration. The honour of England was at stake. The neutrality of Belgium had been violated, and her people looked to England, whose word has ever been her bond. War was never less welcome, never less foreseen, but in a moment, once the inevitable burden was accepted, England laid down the things of peace to take up the business of war.

And in that hour of suspense a remarkable thing happened.

In the bitter humiliation of the South African War the Empire had not deserted the Motherland, but all had not been satisfied that the cause was good; in the grave struggle that was about to be opened with the greatest military tyranny in history, every freeman became a bondman in chains of patriotism to an ideal.

From Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and the most isolated outposts of our great Empire, arose like the vast stirring of a sea, the salutation of the Colonies and Dependencies. Germany had relied upon conspiracy in India, instead of which the Princes and Chiefs were amongst the first to offer their services and their wealth. The following remarkable letter, written by an old Indian soldier to a young soldier at the front, was published in an English newspaper: “Praise be to the Guru. Your father Sundar Singh here writes a word to his dear son Sampuran Singh. It is meet for a young man to be in the battle, and on this account I am not taking thought. I am well and happy, and I pray to the Guru for your welfare and happiness. When you receive this letter answer it and relate to me the full conditions of the war.... Take no thought for your life in the battle, for it is right to fight for the King, and great glory will come to Hindustan, and the Sikhs, and fame to the regiment.”

Germany had valued at nothing our amateur Colonial soldiery until their baffled forces reeled back before the charge of the Canadians at Ypres. In our own country, impoverished though many districts have been by emigration, the answer to Britain’s summons was epic. In our Highlands and to those who know their history, it was such as to bring a lump to the throat. Long ago Sir Walter Scott wrote: “In too many instances the Highlands have been drained, not of their superfluity of population, but of the whole mass of the inhabitants, dispossessed by an unrelenting avarice which will one day be found to have been as short-sighted as it is selfish and unjust. Meantime, the Highlands may become the fairy ground for romance and poetry, or the subject of experiment for the professors of speculation, historical and economical. But, if the hour of need should come, the pibroch may sound through the deserted region, but the summons will remain unanswered.”

The summons has not remained unanswered. The Highland regiments have been doubled and quadrupled, while from over the seas the Highlanders have come back under Canadian Colours. There is not a man with the old Celtic fire who has not, if he were able, delivered a blow for the sake of the women and children of Belgium. Why did they come? “Me no muckle to fight for?” said Edie Ochiltree, the old beggar. “Isna there the country to fight for, and the burn-sides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o’ the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o’ weans that come toddling to play wi’ me when I come about a landward town?”

The swift progress of the German advance guard upon Belgium, the fall of Liége and Namur, and the horrors that befell the Belgian peasantry, brought one thing home to us very painfully, and that was the need for a large army. What was done was done quickly. Lord Kitchener was given a free hand to raise new armies, and until these should be trained he relied upon our Regulars, Territorials, and the drafts of troops from Canada and India to withstand the German arms. It was more than a handful of men should have been asked to do. What concerns us is how they did it. The German advance came on swiftly, relentlessly; and in the darkness of a summer night, without confusion, without a qualm, our little advance guard crossed the Channel.

It is certain that amongst the first to cross to France were the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Black Watch, the Camerons, the Seaforths, and the Gordons. An eye-witness of those early days has written: “Hurrying into Boulogne, I was in time to see the Argyll and Sutherlands marching through the streets of the town to the camps which had been prepared for them upon the neighbouring hills. The population of Boulogne rushed to the unaccustomed sound of the bagpipes, and it was through lines of the old Boulonnais fishwives, who had that morning bade tearful farewell to their fisher-sons off to the depot, that our men stepped gaily along, with a cheery grin and a smile for the words of welcome shouted out to them.”[13]

The Highland regiments took part in the retreat from Mons, the most terrible in history, and throughout that awful action, when officers could not ride their horses for fear of sleeping and falling to the ground, when fighting never ceased for days on end, and our soldiers held at bay a German force many times their superior in numbers—the Highlanders fought sternly, heroically, giving way with an utter disdain for their own safety, and a longing for the day when the retreat would end.

The unconquerable British Infantry have never displayed the qualities of dogged endurance so finely as in that eventful rearguard action. The Germans could neither outflank, pierce, nor crush the thin khaki line. It was the supreme test of a veteran regular army. It is of interest to recall that, on his return from the march to Kandahar, Lord Roberts, at the Mansion House, stated that he would never have undertaken the risk of covering 300 miles of country unless he had been accompanied by veteran troops. “The characteristics of young soldiers,” he said, “are to win a winning game; to attack with dash where success seems probable; or even to stand up to superior forces where courage has not been damped by previous reverses and faith in their leader remains unimpaired. Under such conditions they may even surpass their older comrades. But in times of danger and panic, when the bugle sounds the Retire, when everything seems to be going against us, and when danger can only be avoided by order and presence of mind; then it is that the old soldier element becomes of incalculable value; without it a commander would indeed be badly off.”
Troops in town

The Argyll and Sutherlands Entering Boulogne August 1914

During the retreat from Mons the Highland regiments lost very heavily in officers and men, and amongst them there fell the Master of Burleigh, a very gallant and popular officer in the Argyll and Sutherlands. “He was too brave for anything,” related a Highlander, “he simply wanted to be at ’em, and at ’em he went. I don’t know where his sword was, but he hadn’t it when I saw him—he had a rifle with the bayonet fixed, just like the rest of us. I saw him at the time he was wounded, and he just fought on gamely till he and his party of brave fellows were cut off and surrounded.”

We learn that the Camerons were in close touch with the Black Watch at Mons, and at one point in the retreat when the 42nd were in danger of being surrounded, the 17th Battery R.F.A. and the Camerons staved off an outflanking movement of the Germans.

The 1st battalion of the Gordons were practically annihilated in their first battle. For long they had the melancholy reputation of being the most badly hit regiment in the Army, until Neuve Chapelle and the losses of the Cameronians and the Seaforths, while in the first week in February 1915 the Black Watch fared no better.

The battle of the Aisne inflicted heavy casualties on the Highlanders, particularly the Black Watch, losses which after the battle of the Marne brought the following unforgettable tribute from Sir John French: “The Black Watch—a name we know so well—have always played a distinguished part in the battles of our country. You have many well-known honours on your colours, of which you are naturally proud, but you will feel as proud of the honours which will be added to your colours after this campaign. At the battle of the Marne you distinguished yourselves. They say that the Jaegers of the German Guard ceased to exist after that battle. I expect they did. You have followed your officers, and stuck to the line against treble your numbers in a manner deserving the highest praise. I, as Commander-in-Chief of this Force, thank you, but that is a small matter—your country thanks you and is proud of you. The Russians have won great victories, but you, by holding back the Germans, have won great victories as well, as if you had not done this the Russians could not have achieved their successes. I am very glad of this opportunity of addressing you, and thanking you personally for your splendid work.”

One member of the battalion has written: “We lost heavily in taking up position, and the men were saddened by the loss of so many officers.... Then later, the men had to deplore the loss of their commanding officer, Colonel Grant Duff—one of the bravest and best officers the regiment ever had. He died bravely. He was hard pressed, and doing execution with one of his men’s rifles when he fell with a mortal wound.”

The melancholy fate of one battalion of the Gordons has yet to be revealed, but from various accounts there is little doubt that in the confusion of the swift retreat, and the overwhelming force of the Germans, the message for a withdrawal did not reach them, and acting up to the gallantry of their records, they and their distinguished Colonel remained at their posts until surrender was the only course left to them.

The battles of the Marne and the Aisne were the turning of the scales before the German retirement. On September 13 Colonel Bradford of the Seaforths was killed. One account of his end runs: “It was in the battle of the Aisne, when the Seaforths had taken up a position near a wood, that the Germans began a heavy fire. The Colonel was standing with two other officers surveying the field of operations, when he was struck by a shell and killed instantly.”

Another affecting passage runs: “We laid him with two other officers to rest on their field of honour, on a hill-side overlooking a valley of the river. It was a sad but glorious moment for us to stand and hear the padre tell us that they had not shrunk from their duty, and had fallen for the sake of their comrades. The next day I found some Scotch thistles growing close by, and I plucked the blooms to form a cross over the dead chieftain’s grave.”

A doctor who was appointed to the Seaforths has recorded: “At present (on the Aisne) we are entrenched. Our first day in this place, where we have been for five days, was awful, for we were under fire the whole of the day, with practically no protection, and our total of killed and wounded amounted to seventy. The men never wavered, and gaps were always filled. Grand are the Highland men, and grander still will be the account they will render; I am lucky to be with such men.”

What simple words, and yet what a tale of sacrifice and heroism lies behind them. Well might General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien write from the front to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families Association: “Never has an army been called on to engage in such desperate fighting as is of daily occurrence in the present war, and never have any troops behaved so magnificently as our soldiers in this war. The stories of the battle of Mons and Le Cateau are only beginning to be known, but at them a British force not only held its own against a German army four times its own size, but it hit the enemy so hard that never were they able to do more than follow it up. Of course our troops had to fall back before them, an operation which would demoralise most armies. Not so with ours, however; though they naturally did not like retiring for twelve successive days, they merely fell sullenly back, striking hard whenever attacked, and the moment the order came to go forward there were smiling faces everywhere. Then followed the battles of the Marne and the Aisne. Tell the women that all these great battles have, day by day, witnessed countless feats of heroism and brave fighting. Large numbers will be given Victoria Crosses and Distinguished Conduct Medals, but many more have earned them, for it has been impossible to bring every case to notice. Tell the women that proud as I am to have such soldiers under my command, they should be prouder still to be near and dear relations to such men.”

About this time the 2nd Highland Light Infantry lost a gallant young officer in Sir Archibald Gibson-Craig. He bravely offered to lead his platoon against a German machine gun that was doing considerable damage amongst our men. At the head of his Highlanders he fell, but the gun was taken, and another hero added to the long list of those who counted death less than life. Upon the same day Private Wilson of the same battalion won the V.C. for capturing, single-handed, a German machine gun and killing six of the enemy. Very fortunate have the 2nd H.L.I. been, and very richly have they deserved such honours. Upon November 11, for relieving a dangerous situation, Captain Brodie of the same regiment was awarded the V.C.

In October Lieutenant Brooke of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders was awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry, and Drummer Kenny of the 2nd Gordons the V.C. for rescuing wounded men under fire.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has truly said that “from October 25 to the second week in November Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig were like engineers holding up a dam of water visibly giving way.” The great German advance towards Calais established the most critical situation of the war, and the ultimate success of our troops at the battle of Ypres, when 150,000 British and Indians wi............