Frederick Watson

“ At last Napoleon, mounting his white horse, Marengo, started out from the farmhouse, in which he had remained studying his maps, and rode to the spot where his veteran Guard were to march past on their way into action. It was one of the most, if not the most dramatic moment in military history. Standing upon a hillock, a figure beloved by all the war-worn troops of France, he merely pointed his arm towards the distant lines of the enemy, as though he would point to them the place of honour. It was enough. They passed him with thunderous tread and loud shouts of “Vive l’Empereur!” ”

“ The Highland regiments settled down with their customary fortitude to the weary months of trench warfare, months that brought daily losses in officers and men, bitter cold, and ceaseless rain, while overhead screamed and broke the German shell fire.
Never have troops been called upon to endure such a prolonged strain. On land and on sea, in patience and good temper, our soldiers and sailors held on without a murmur.
Of the actual fighting there is little to tell, for little is known. The monotony of trench warfare was broken by occasional frays and night attacks. ”

“ Moving out the cavalry with four guns, Roberts began to shell the outlying villages. Distracted by this manœuvre, the Afghans’ assault exhausted itself, and the moment for a counter-attack arrived. Suddenly the cavalry swept down on their crowded masses, and in a moment the enemy were in confused retreat. The end was come. Once in disorder they scattered far and wide, pursued by every available man and horse. By evening all the neighbouring country was perfectly silent, just as though no battle had ever raged. The Afghans had vanished like smoke. ”

“ Just as the Coldstreams received in silence and flung back again the furious onslaught of the Prussian Guard at Ypres, so Maitland’s Brigade and the British Guards awaited the attack. The Frenchmen passed perfectly steadily across the open, shelled unceasingly by the British guns, and fired upon by the British infantry. They were quite unshaken. When Ney’s horse crashed to the earth beneath him he pointed the way on foot. It was like the tramp of a deathless army. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No light but a faint star; no sound but the slow, measured tread of men on the desert sand. Just as the first tinge of light appeared in the east a few rifle shots fired out of the darkness showed that the enemy’s outposts were reached. The sharp click of the bayonets then answered the word, ‘To fix’—a few minutes more of deep silence, and then a blaze of musketry flashed across our front, and passed far away to each flank, by the light of which we saw the swarthy faces of the Egyptians, surmounted by their red tarbooshes, lining the dark rampart before us. ”

“ It has been narrated, in a former chapter, how General Gatacre—or General ‘Backacher,’ as he was called in the Service—was the first to reach the thorny entanglements of the Dervish camp at the Atbara. He was a man of the greatest bravery, but by no means a skilful general, relying solely upon the courage of the British soldier. In a country like South Africa, where a pound of personal bravery was not always as fruitful as an ounce of strategy, optimism of this kind was only overloading a willing horse. It was magnificent, but it could not stop a rifle bullet at a thousand yards. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Christmas of 1899 was as black as any through which our nation has passed. The repeated defeats of the British forces flung a gloom over the country that for a moment almost paralysed it. More and more troops had been despatched to South Africa, and numbers only seemed to magnify our disasters. At such a moment Britain turned to her sons in this country and throughout the Empire.
But it was necessary to do more than raise new armies: the whole country required reassurance, and the name of one man instantly rose before the public mind. ”

“ Against the dark background of the French Revolution the conflict between England and France had sunk into nothingness. Many are the tales that depict the tragic story of the Reign of Terror, perhaps the most frightful explosion of human anarchy in the history of the world. Innumerable are the instances of heroism, courage, and sacrifice, that have lit up that gloomy period. Were it not for actions so noble and bravery so deathless such a story would be better left untold. ”

“ Without hesitation, but fired by the honour laid upon them, the Highlanders charged headlong at the French cavalry who fell into disorder. The artillery horses had already fallen, but undismayed the 42nd pulled the precious guns home again.
It was a swift, minor incident, but at the moment when the British army was in the heart of a hostile and frost-bound country it stood out of the dreary story like a splash of gold upon a grey sky. Never have the Black Watch refused the call, and very seldom have they failed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hot upon the trail of the British rearguard came the advance guard of the French army, but on no single occasion did our soldiers suffer a reverse. And yet it was a hazardous undertaking.
Moore’s army was in hourly peril. He realised only too well that “it must glide along the edge of a precipice; must cross a gulf on a rotten plank; but he also knew the martial quality of his soldiers, felt the pulsation of his own genius, and, the object being worthy the deed, he dared essay it even against Napoleon.” The pursuit by Napoleon was only less wonderful than the retreat of Moore. ”

“ Too often has victory been bought with a great national loss, and just as the conquest of Quebec brought with it the pathetic end of Wolfe, the success in Egypt the loss of Sir Ralph Abercromby, Corunna the tragedy of Sir John Moore, so this glorious victory carried with it that greatest of all calamities, the death of Nelson. But Trafalgar was the last supreme event in the naval struggle between Napoleon and England; henceforth he must confine his conquests and his hopes to the army and the Continent. ”

“ But the truth of the matter is that Napoleon was beaten here as his troops had been beaten in the Peninsular simply by the dogged front of the British infantry. We have seen how the Highlanders withstood the cavalry at Quatre Bras, how they stormed the French position at Toulouse, how they were the better men at Fuentes de Oñoro. They were not alone in that quality of endurance and nerve. Throughout the whole British Army there was a confidence in itself that has remained till this day, and which is possessed by no other soldiers in the world. ”

“ Fortunately the Highland Regiments have earned by more than glamour the admiration of Britain. In campaigns extending over the last hundred and fifty odd years the Highlanders have borne their share of the fighting, and whenever the call has come have proved themselves ‘second to none.’
It was in the eighteenth century that the Jacobites rose for the last time against the King of England, and whatever the rights or wrongs of the rebellion, the loyalty and bravery of the clans will for ever remain undimmed by time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here are spread promiscuously, heaps of mangled bodies—some without head, or arms, or legs: others lie stretched naked, their features betraying no mark of violent suffering. The population of Brussels, prompted by a justifiable curiosity, approach the field to see the remains of the strangers who fell to save their spoil-devoted city, and to pick up some fragment as a memorial of the battle, or as a relic for other days. ”

“ It was just through this love of adventure that cattle-raiding continued during the first half of the eighteenth century, and that is why people on the border line paid ‘blackmail.’ In modern life one of the most valuable resolves to make is never, under any circumstances, to pay blackmail; never, that is, to allow freedom of action or will to pass into the hands of another person. Payment of blackmail once, invariably means payment for always. ”

“ The fine strategy of Kitchener forcing an engagement at this point was now apparent. The enemy were faced with thirty miles of waterless desert, at the end of which it was probable they would encounter the British gunboats. It was more than a victory in arms; it struck the first devastating blow at the power of the Khalifa.
In answer to Kitchener’s despatch, Queen Victoria replied: “Anxious to know how the wounded British and Egyptians are going on. Am proud of the gallantry of my soldiers. So glad my Cameron Highlanders should have been amongst them.” ”

“ One can picture the Highlanders, ill at ease, cautiously feeling their way up the silent gorge, their pack-horses stumbling along the narrow track, a strong body of the Black Watch ahead, and every man awaiting from one moment to another the attack that never came, while each step towards the centre of the defile magnified the prospect of annihilation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have seen men behave with courage and resolution before now, but so much determined bravery can hardly be equalled in any part of the history of ancient Rome. Even those that were mortally wounded cried aloud to their companions not to mind or lose a thought upon them, but to follow their officers, and to mind the honour of their country. Nay, their ardour was such, that it was difficult to bring them off. They paid dearly for their intrepidity. The remains of the regiment had the honour to cover the retreat of the army, and brought off the wounded as we did at Fontenoy. ”

“ It would be foolish to praise one Highland regiment above another, for prowess is largely a matter of opportunity. In the action at Quatre Bras both the Gordons and the Black Watch were beyond praise, while at Waterloo the former took romance as it were by the stirrup iron, and added a new glamour to the old tale of Scotland’s glory. ”

“ It is difficult for us to realise how bitterly the Americans abhorred the very sight of an Indian, while on the other hand, an unwritten page in history is the strange alliance that bound many Royalists to their merciless allies, and the brutal instincts such a fellowship aroused in some of the Highlanders, particularly those of the older, wilder generation, the scourings of the ‘45. On one occasion, for instance, a Highlander with the honest name of Donald M’Donald, led a party of Redskins against a block-house called Shell’s Bush. ”

“ It is said Donald Cameron of the Camerons was “the first man to mount the trenches, and the second man to fall.” A minute, and whole companies of men were swarming and pouring like waves of the sea over the Egyptian defences, and rushing down upon their defenders. Although taken by surprise the enemy made a stubborn fight, but after half an hour’s fierce conflict the battle of Tel-el-Kebir was over, and the morning sun rose to pour its rays down upon the flying Egyptian army. Without delay Sir Garnet Wolseley pushed forward the cavalry to advance upon Cairo. ”