Old Guard

“ There was the dug-out, the Grenadier Guards sergeant-major of sixty, the handsome and melancholy old boy, a Victorian survivor into our little vulgar age, with a careful and dignified manner and mighty memories of a radiant past in London, when all parades, for a good-conduct-man well up in his drill, were over by half-past ten in the morning and he had a permanent midnight pass into barracks and so could act as a super at one of the theatres every night except when doing a guard, and see life and move among genius and beauty, making good money. ”

“ They 797 relieve their guards at night; as soon as they halt the new guard is formed on foot with their carabines, and then marched before the commandant's tent, where the commanding officer of the guard invokes the holy virgin three times; the commanding officer replies, "It is well." They then retire and mount their horses, and are told off, some to act as guard of the horses, as cavalry, others as guard of the camp, as infantry. The old guards are then paraded and relieved, and the new sentinels take post. ”

“ Out of the smoke and mist opposite the English soldiers of the Royal Guard came their Imperial enemies. The waiting British saw the black bearskins of the tall Guard, the imperial insignia on cross-belts and uniforms. They were so near that they could see the grim faces of the old soldiers, their mustaches working, their lips drawn back over their teeth, snarling, sputtering like savage beasts. Here and there mouths were tight shut in a firm line. Here and there men came silently, but mostly they were yelling. ”

“ Every hour of the day and night there keeps watch over it an old soldier. He is armed and equipped as if for battle, in the uniform of the old Fifth Regiment of the Line, somehow temporarily incorporated in the Imperial Guard as a supplementary regiment of the Grenadiers thereof. The black gaiters, the white trousers, the blue and scarlet coat, with its crossed belts and brilliant decorations, the lofty bearskin head-dress, are all strangely in keeping with the relic and its surroundings. ”

“ If any of that guard are alive now, they must be from threescore and ten to fourscore years of age, because they were then all old men, tried and true, and, as our adjutant said, Sir Colin had told him that no other corps except the Ninety-Third could be trusted to supply a guard for such a duty. ”

“ On the right of the Old Guard were the Young Guard and the 6th Corps of Lobau, and then I passed Jacquinot's Lancers and Marbot's Hussars, who held the extreme flank of the line. All these troops knew nothing of the corps which was coming toward them through the wood, and their attention was taken up in watching the battle which raged upon their left. ”

“ No other call to duty is so truly a test of military readiness as that in connection with a fire, coming as it does always without the slightest previous warning. And no other duty, performed as the 1st Regiment performed it in 1872, does so much to win friends for the organization, and for the National Guard of which it forms a part. At no other time does the National Guardsman appear so nearly in his true rôle, as “a soldier of peace.” ”

“ At its farther extremity was the churchyard, surrounded by a low wall, and occupied by two battalions of the old Imperial Guard. Hats off! He who has fought against them will know how to admire them. Like a swarm of bees, my regiment, whose ranks had got disordered during the short fight in the village, dashed forward with lowered bayonets against the cemetery. ”

“ The eighty-four thousand men, who formed the National Guards before the 24th of February, look with contempt on the one hundred and fifty thousand new men thrust into their ranks by M. Ledru Rollin, for election purposes, and call them canaille. The new levies feel that they cannot compete in wealth with the good company in which they so unexpectedly find themselves, and they call the old guards aristocrats. ”

“ Nearly all the men in the country had gone with the army. Indeed, with the exception of a few overseers who remained to work the farms, every man in the neighborhood, between the ages of seventeen and fifty, was in the army. The country was thus left almost wholly unprotected, and it would have been entirely so but for the "Home Guard," as it was called, which was a company composed of young boys and the few old men who remained at home, and who had volunteered for service as a local guard, or police body, for the neighborhood of their homes. ”

“ On this challenge, the soldier, calling out murder, brings the guard to his assistance. The guard being come, the young fellow pressed them to fire upon the warrior, who was returning to his village at his usual pace; a soldier was imprudent enough to fire: the old man dropt down. ”

“ The guard house is in one of these two, but I don’t care to learn of the interior of that place. I’m told that it’s poorly ventilated, having no windows. In winter there’s no heat in the cells. The guards have a fireplace in their area, but the men in the cells have to wear their blankets like Indians from morning ’til night to keep warm. At night there’s no sleeping, it’s that cold. Not many men getting in trouble during the cold months, I’m told.
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Evening Muster. Cavalry troop in formation.
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Old Fort Garland
From an early drawing in Harper’s New Monthly. ”

“ For in spite of everything we were not conquered; the cuirassiers still held their position on the plateau, and from all sides over the thunder of cannon, over all the tumult, the cry was heard, "The Guard is coming!" Yes, the Guard was coming at last! We could see them in the distance on the highway, with their high bear-skin caps, advancing in good order.
Those who have never witnessed the arrival of the Guard on the battle-field, can never know the confidence which is inspired by a body of tried soldiers; the kind of respect paid to courage and force. ”

“ As a rule, there are enough soldiers on garrison duty, who do not go on scouts, to protect the post, but in the mad haste of the morning, and impelled by indignant fury at having the herd swept away from under their very noses as it were, all this home-guard had precipitately left without permission. ”

“ The red regiment of English Guards, lying behind the hedges, rose up; a shower of grape riddled the tricolored flag. All hurled themselves forward, and the final carnage began. The Imperial Guard felt the army slipping away around them in the gloom and the vast overthrow of the rout. There were no weak souls or cowards there. The privates of that band were as heroic as their general. Not a man flinched from the suicide.
The army fell back rapidly from all sides at once. A disbanding army is a thaw. The whole bends, cracks, snaps, floats, rolls, falls, crashes, hurries, plunges. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Cruel country, cruel fate, that compel Lieutenant Algernon Percy Plantagenet, of the Royal Life Guards, the handsomest man in his regiment, and heir to £9,000 a year, to be mounting guard at eight o’clock in the morning! He is mounting guard at present by smoking a cigar (one of Milo’s best) on the Mall. By and by he will go into his barrack-room and draw caricatures in charcoal on the whitewashed wall. He will smoke a good deal, yawn a good deal, and whistle a good deal during the day, and will give a few words of command. ”

“ As Guard regiments we form one whole, and, therefore, what affects one casts its shadow on the others likewise, for people do not say such and such a thing happened in the 'Golden Butterflies,' but simply 'in the Guards.' Such a thing is frightful, for more than all the other regiments we must maintain outwardly, at any rate, a good reputation. ”

“ Every time I have been there an old man—I am told an ex-professor in a girls' school—has got up, and with great unction blessed the National Guards—the "heroic defenders of our homes." Sometimes he is encored several times ”

“ There are guards in the city by day and by night, and they are placed at the four gates, and outside the walls of the seventh ring, above the breastworks and towers and inside mounds. These places are guarded in the day by women, in the night by men. And lest the guard should become weary of watching, and in case of a surprise, they change them every three hours, as is the custom with our soldiers. At sunset, when the drum and symphonia sound, the armed guards are distributed. Cavalry and infantry make use of hunting as the symbol of war, and practise games and hold festivities in the plains. ”

“ His young men, he shouted, at dawn had attacked the guard at the wood camp, and the scalps of every man, still warm and bloody, hung at the belts of his braves, even now galloping back to swell the ranks of their brothers. He urged the young white chief to make no such error as had the sub-chief, the sergeant, at the camp, who had fired upon his warriors when offered mercy. ”

“ I know the sentiments the Guards cherish towards me. I repose perfect confidence in their courage and fidelity. I constantly see, with renewed pleasure, companions in arms who have escaped so many dangers, and are covered with so many honourable wounds. I experience a sentiment of satisfaction when I look at the Guards, and think that there has not, for the last fifteen years, in any of the four quarters of the world, been a battle in which some of them have not taken part. ”

“ In the French army was a regiment of soldiers who were called guards; they were all dressed alike, in blue coats and white pantaloons, trimmed with crimson and gold: they were terrible fellows to fight, and their enemies were very much afraid of [Pg 2] them, or they were always in the thickest of the battle, clearing their way with the points of their bayonets. While this regiment was pursuing the Austrians, near the burning village, one of the Guards, an old man, saw a sweet little girl who could scarcely walk ”

“ He was not himself a guardsman, but there was no trace of jealousy in his voice. I have noticed the same thing again and again. There are people who dislike the Guards, accusing them of conceit or resenting certain privileges. I never met any one who refused to give the Guards first place in battle, on the march, in camp. It is a magnificent record to have established in an army like ours, a wonderful record to have kept through a long-drawn war like this, when every regiment has been destroyed and remade of new material half a dozen times. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I talk to an 'officer' of the National Guard—I, who have lost my wife, my children and all in this flood no man has yet described; we, who have seen our dead with their bodies mutilated and their fingers cut from their hands by dirty foreigners for a little gold, are not afraid to talk for what is right, even to an officer of the National Guard. ”

“ On the march they take the form of advance guards, rear guards, and flank guards. At a halt they consist of outposts.
3. Interior guards are used in camp or garrison to preserve order, protect property, and to enforce police regulations. In time of war such sentinels of an interior guard as may be necessary are placed close in or about a camp, and normally there is an exterior guard further out consisting of outposts. In time of peace the interior guard is the only guard in a camp or garrison. ”

“ Troops advancing to assault a town, flushed, indeed, with victory, but uncertain whether that victory may not be wrenched the next minute from their grasp, have no time to deliberate. Some of the French Guard sought a vain refuge in bursting open the houses and ascending the chimneys, but their enemies were too close at their heels for them to succeed. ”

“ Guard of Honor, Fatigue Guard, and the General’s Guard. That was called a guard of honor in which the officers and men were most exposed to danger; for the quintessence of military honor is to be often in peril, and either to fall courageously in the discharge of duty, or to return from the field after having exhibited proofs of valor, prudence and perseverance. A fatigue guard belonging to a garrison or to a camp. A general’s guard was mounted before the door or gate of the house in which the commanding officer resided. ”

“ The Civil Guard were sent, at the request of the ecclesiastical authorities, to assist the friars in their projected self-defence and to instil courage into the trembling nuns, and the garrisons were everywhere kept in barracks in readiness for attacks which nobody dreamed of making. A Civil Guard told me, with a twinkle in his eye, that he and his companion had sat up all night in the portal of a convent, knowing all the time that they might just as well have been in their beds for all the danger the convent was in. ”