British Guards

“ You who have only seen the British soldier at his worst, that is, when he is buttoned into a tunic little removed in design from a strait-waistcoat, or when the freedom of the man has been subordinated to the lick-and-spittle polish of the dummy,—you who glory in [135] tin-casing for your Horse Guards, and would hoot the Guardsman bold enough to affect a woollen muffler,—would have opened your eyes with amazement if you could have sat on the slopes of the Houwater drift with the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade and watched the arrival of the co-operating columns to their common camping-ground. ”

“ The true Scottish Guard enjoyed an independent existence till the Revolution, and to claim its privileges for Hepburn's regiment is as absurd as though a corps raised to-morrow, and officered by half a dozen gentlemen of the Grenadier Guards, should claim precedence of all British infantry. ”

“ Men come and go in war. The regiment remains. Its battle honours are the symbol of what it was, the promise of what it will be.
No body of troops in the British Army has redeemed the promise of its battle honours more illustriously in this war than the Guards. Marlborough, Wellington, Raglan, who saw in their careers, each in his turn, that the Guards were true to the promise of their colours, must look down from the Elysian Fields [Pg 246] in proud admiration of the way in which the Guards in this war have once more maintained the untarnished splendour of their name. ”

“ The Garde Nationale will perform police duties, and the garrison, composed of the Allied troops, occupying the great centres of the town, will remain in reserve. In case the latter have to act, for the Garde Nationale may refuse to quell disturbances, guns will be fired, when the regular forces will assemble at their alarm posts. The British brigade will form up in the Avenue de Neuilly, one battalion in Place Beauveau, and another at the junction of the Boulevard de la Madeleine and Rue St. ”

“ The Brigade had now been for more than four years in North America, and the time had been passed pleasantly and profitably by all ranks. Seldom have the Guards had an opportunity of observing for themselves the life of a thriving British colony, and the development of our national energy across the ocean. ”

“ They inculcated a stiff and rigid discipline into the British army, and they endowed the rank and file with a moral stamina sufficient to enable them to maintain themselves on the field of battle in line, and thus develop to the fullest extent the fire of their muskets. Our enemies, not so highly trained, could only fight in column ”

“ This admonition of the rules which prevail in war time among civilized nations, was not indeed needed by the seasoned troops of British origin, who had been trained in the humane usages invariably adopted by England, to respect the liberties and the property of the people over whose lands war has to be waged. It was rather addressed to the Anglo-allies (Dutch, Belgians, and Germans) , to enforce the maxim that hostilities are not conducted against the population, and that ill treatment of peasants only exasperates the enemy, and does nothing to secure his final subjugation. ”

“ Ground was broken on the 3rd of July, and three days later an assault was delivered on the lines of Bouge. As usual, the hardest of the work was given to the British, and the post of greatest danger was made over, as their high reputation demanded, to the Brigade of Guards. On this occasion the Guards surpassed themselves alike by the coolness of their valour and by the fire of their attack. They marched under a heavy fire up to the French palisades, thrust their muskets between them, poured in one terrible volley, the first shot that they had yet fired, and charged forthwith. ”

“ An armistice was soon agreed to between the belligerents, during which the army, now commanded by Sir Evelyn Wood, consisted of the 6th Dragoons, 15th Hussars, and a squadron of the King’s Dragoon Guards, 14 guns, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 60th, the relics of the 58th, the372 83rd, 92nd, and 97th, together with a naval brigade and some mounted infantry. Finally peace was declared, and the beleaguered garrisons were relieved.
No war of such small magnitude, as far as the numbers engaged are concerned, has left more grave results. ”

“ Upon notice of the approach of the enemy, the main body of the British force concealed itself in the wood, and formed an ambush; and the advance-guard retiring, the French advanced boldly forward, and were nearly every man killed or taken prisoner. ”

“ I have been all but choked by the sour odour which the breeze has wafted over from the marching men, and have been only too glad to follow the advice of the old hands to put the wind between them and me. But these British Guardsmen, grimy and travel-stained though they were on the outside, were clean of body, and the air about them was pure. Looking at them closer, I saw that under the dust their haversacks were neatly packed and fastened, their uniform well-fitting and whole, their puttees beautifully tied. ”

“ Many officers and men had fallen. To go farther would be absolute death. The troops on the right had been utterly held up. The Guards were “up in the air” with an exposed flank, open to all the fire that was flung upon them from the enemy’s lines. The temptation to go farther was great. The German infantry was on the run. They were dragging their guns away. There was a great panic among the men who had been hiding in trenches. But the German machine gunners kept to their posts to safeguard a rout, and the Guards had gone far enough through their scourging bullets. ”

“ Guards are peculiarly a monarchical and despotic institution, having no real existence in a Republic or similar form of government. We would esteem this force as a chosen band of faithful, stalwart, and splendidly-equipped soldiers, specially charged with the defence of the throne, and calculated, by their imposing 42array, to add lustre and dignity to the Crown. Apart from this holiday display, the history of Guards is pre-eminently distinguished by the most splendid achievements of heroism and devotion. ”

“ On the 24th of July a celebrated review of the Anglo-allied army, which had just been reinforced by several regiments who had come to France from America—where peace had been concluded—took place near Paris, before the Emperor of Russia and the other Allied Sovereigns. There were as many as 60,000 British soldiers present, the whole of the troops being under the command of the Duke of Wellington. ”

“ The First Guards, Royal Scots, and the Twenty-third suffered most severely, every battalion of them having lost two hundred men or more, while the Guards at the close of the day could count but five officers unhurt out of seventeen. Of these five, wonderful to say, were Mordaunt and Munden, the one with three bullets through his clothes, the other with five through his hat, but neither of them scratched; but of eighty-two men whom they led to the assault only twenty-one returned. ”

“ In the British service constitute in time of peace the garrison of London, and the guard of the sovereign at Windsor. The Guards compose what is called the Household Brigade, and include in cavalry the 1st and 2d Life Guards, and the Royal Horse Guards; and in infantry the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, and the Scots Fusilier Guards. The officers of the regiments of Foot Guards hold higher army rank than that they bear regimentally,—that is, ensigns rank with lieutenants of other regiments, lieutenants with captains, and so on. ”

“ The Germans defended themselves to the death. They bombed our men, who attacked them with the bayonet, served their machine guns until they were killed, and would only surrender when our men were on top of them. It was a very bloody hour or more. By that time the Irish Guards had joined the others. All the Guards were together, and together they passed the trenches, swinging left inevitably under the machine-gun fire which poured upon them from their right, but going steadily deeper into the enemy country until they were 2,000 yards from their starting place. ”

“ But the Guards pressed on abreast, and claimed, with the 33rd, the honor of capturing a cannon. The Second and Light Division crowned the heights. The French turned the guns on the hill against the flying masses, which the cavalry in vain tried to cover. A few faint struggles from the scattered infantry, a few rounds of cannon and musketry, and the enemy fled to the South-east, leaving three Generals, three guns, 700 prisoners, and 4000 killed and wounded, behind them. ”

“ The principal duty of the home Battalion was naturally at this moment to train and supply men to the 1st Battalion in the Crimea, and we have already seen something of the quality of the drafts that were sent out to the East. [345] But as the ordinary 268recruiting was not sufficient to maintain the forces at the seat of war in a proper state of efficiency, the militia—the true reserve of the British army at that time—was called upon to perform its functions in the emergency. ”

“ Suffice it to say that two Battalions of the Brigade (1st Grenadiers and 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards, under Major-General Lord F. Paulet) were shipped to British North America, December 19th, and remained there until the autumn of 1864. Fortunately peace was preserved, and the expedition, while watching proceedings during the civil war that was then raging 305in the States, assumed the character of a movement of troops from one part of the British Empire to another, for ordinary purposes. ”

“ They advanced in heavy column through the pouring rain and the blackness of the night, holding their fire and drawing nearer and nearer, confident that the harassed and worn-out British could make no long stand against them.
The 4th British Brigade, consisting of the 2nd Grenadiers, the 2nd and 3rd Coldstreams and the 1st Irish Guards, held Landrecies. ”

“ When he gives you his friendship, the British soldier is a good friend. Between some Regular and Territorial battalions bonds of the closest affection have been formed in the field. Thus, the gallant Hertfordshire Territorials, who wear the Hart badge of the Bedfordshire Regiment, are sworn brothers to the Guards, by reason of their being brigaded with the Guards in the famous Guards Brigade—the only non-Guards battalion in the Brigade—for many months. ”

“ Out of the 30,000 men which composed the Allied force, but 7000 were British, and these were the 3rd Dragoon Guards, the 3rd, 7th, 23rd, 28th, 29th, 31st, 34th, 39th, 48th, 57th, 60th, and 66th Regiments; and of them only 1800 men were unwounded when the fire ceased.
The Spaniards on the right were first attacked, and soon gave way, and for the rest of this short four hours’ fight, the brunt of battle lay with the British contingent. The men behaved with valour extraordinary even in those days of hard, continuous fighting ”

“ The British during the whole day had not more than 8,000 men engaged. The Russians climbed up the heights, but again and again were driven back, till the French, at last coming up, put them to flight. The Guards, who had a great deal of the fighting, behaved most bravely, and lost a great many officers and men. The British army on that morning had 43 officers and 416 men killed, and 101 officers and 1332 men wounded, while 200 were missing, mostly made prisoners. ”

“ The brigade of Guards, and that of the Highlanders, consisting of the Forty-second, Seventy-ninth, and Ninety-third, under their favourite chieftain, Sir Colin Campbell, were closely allied in all the dangers and glories of the war in the First Infantry division, commanded by his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge. ”

“ We had invaded an enemy’s country without means of transporting the sick and wounded, beyond a few stretchers in the hands of bandsmen and drum-boys! The sick and wounded of 27,000 British soldiers were to be carried bodily over burning steppes, where water was not, by drummers and fifers! These lads being physically unequal to the duty expected of them, we endeavoured to supply their places with files of the heavy-weighted soldiery: but of course this hard expedient broke down too; the work could not be done by human muscle, in fact ”

“ Nor was the fortune of the attacks upon the British right any better. The defence of Landrecies by the Guards Brigade forms one of the most heroic episodes of the war. Before it was evacuated the village had become a German charnel-house. Hard pressed as they were at both extremities of their line, the British [Pg 36] during these two days fought to a standstill an army still nearly three times as large as their own. ”

“ During this short but eventful campaign the British troops had maintained their ancient reputation; but the army was not of sufficient numbers to cope with the enormous masses of the enemy, which darkened the land like a gloomy tempest. In the retreat through Holland, and in the distresses and privations of the winter campaign amidst snow and ice, the Fifth Dragoon Guards took part, and in the early part of 1795 they arrived in Germany. ”

“ They were formerly mounted on horses of superior weight and physical power, and few troops could withstand a well-directed charge of the celebrated British Horse. The records of these corps embrace a period of 150 years—a period eventful in history, and abounding in instances of heroism displayed by the British troops when danger has threatened the nation,—a period in which these Regiments have numbered in their ranks men of loyalty, valour, and good conduct, worthy of imitation. ”

“ The occasion of the Fifth Dragoon Guards proceeding abroad at this period, was the attempt made by that tyrannical power which had risen out of the French revolution, of which Napoleon Bonaparte had become the head, to subjugate the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal: the inhabitants of those countries were in arms against the usurper; a British force commanded by Lord Wellington had been sent to their aid; and this regiment was one of the corps selected to reinforce the army under his lordship's command. ”