CHAPTER VI.
“Heroes!—for instant sacrifice prepared;
Yet filled with ardour and on triumph bent
’Mid direst shocks of mortal accident—
To you who fell, and you whom slaughter spared
To guard the fallen, and consummate the event,
Your country rears this sacred monument.”
WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION—SEVEN YEARS’ WAR—AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE—FRENCH REVOLUTION—CRIMEA—ANTICIPATED RUPTURE WITH THE UNITED STATES—1742–1862.
The family feuds which at this time divided the House of Austria once more kindled the flames of continental war. In support of the Austrians, George II. sent a British army into the Netherlands. Assuming himself the command of the allies, he prepared to combat, on this ancient battlefield, the confederacy of France, Prussia, and Bavaria. With the army, the present Scots Fusilier Guards landed in Holland in 1742, under the Earl of Dunmore. They were present at the battle of Dettingen in 1743, where the French were signally defeated. In the following year Marshal Wade assumed the command of the allies. Nothing of importance was undertaken until 1745, when the Duke of Cumberland was appointed to the command;—the Guards were at this period brigaded with the Forty-second Royal Highlanders, (then making their first campaign as the Forty-third Regiment, or “Black Watch,” which latter title has recently been confirmed to them.) At the battle of Fontenoy, fought for the relief of Tournay, this brigade was charged with the attack upon the village of Veson. Here the French, strongly entrenched, made a gallant defence, but were forced to yield to the fierce onset of such a chosen body of troops. The ill success of the Dutch auxiliaries in other parts of the field, and the last and desperate charge of Marshal Saxe at the head of the French Guards, with the Irish and Scottish brigades in the French service, led on by the young Chevalier, speedily changed the fortunes of the day, compelled the allies to retreat, and our brave Guards reluctantly to relinquish the important post their valour had won.
Meantime, Prince Charles Edward having landed in Scotland, set up the standard of rebellion, and summoned the tumultuous and fierce array of the clans to do battle for his pretensions to the throne. The war on the Continent having occasioned the withdrawal of a large body of the regular army, the rebels succeeded in driving before them the few troops which had been left at home. Their progress southward into England promised the speedy downfall of the House of Brunswick, and the restoration of that of Stuart. The timely return of the major part of the army, including the Scots Fusilier Guards, from Holland, at this juncture, arrested the advance of the rebels upon London, and occasioned their precipitate retreat into Scotland. A strong force of the king’s troops, including a portion of the Guards, advanced in pursuit of the prince, whilst the remainder, grouped in positions in and around London, prepared to defend the country from the threatened descent of the French. The bloody defeat of Culloden, as it utterly ruined the rebel army, so it terminated the war, by the dispersion or submission of the clans and the flight of the prince.
Culloden’s moor! a darker scene
Of civil strife thy sons have seen,
When for an exiled Prince ye bled,
Now mourn alas! your “mighty dead,”
The brave o’ bonnie Scotland.
Peace having been restored at home, the Scots Fusilier Guards, with other regiments, returned to Holland in 1747, where the French, in their absence, had made considerable progress. The only event of importance which occurred in the campaign was the battle of Val, in which the immense superiority of the French compelled the retreat of the British, under the Duke of Cumberland. In 1748 peace was concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle.
Disputes arising as to the boundary line of the British and French colonies, and neither party accepting a peaceful solution, war was declared in 1756. Whilst the reputation of the British arms was being gloriously sustained on the distant continent of America and in Lower Germany, the Guards were engaged in frequent descents upon the French coast. At St Cas they specially distinguished themselves. The peace of 1763 secured to our colonists the quiet possession of the fruits of their own industry against the cupidity of the French. Scarcely had this result been attained when difficulties arose with the colonists themselves, by their refusal to be taxed by the home government without an equivalent representation. Our armies were accordingly recalled in 1775 to the American continent, whilst the colonists, preparing for a vigorous defence, allied themselves with their late enemies, the French. The Scots Fusilier Guards formed a part of the British expedition, and under Clinton, Howe, and Cornwallis, upheld their ancient reputation for discipline and valour in the fresh and difficult warfare to which, in the desolate wilds of the New World, they were called. This unfortunate war, fraught with disastrous results, and waged with great fury and bitter hate on both sides, was concluded in 1783, and secured the independence of the colonists, who formed themselves into a Republic, under the designation of the United States.
In 1782 the Duke of Argyll had been promoted to the colonelcy of the Scots Fusilier Guards.
France, too long enslaved but now suddenly emancipated from the galling tyranny of “the privileged orders,” writhing under all the miseries of Revolution, had ruined every vestige of righteous government, and consigned the nation to the more cruel bondage of a despot mob. At length these evil influences were incarnated in the demon rule of the “Reign of Terror.” Bankrupt in every sense, to feed the starving crowd who daily clamoured for bread, proved a task too hard for the wretched creatures who had been elevated to power through the blood of their predecessors, and who called themselves the Government, whilst the whim of the people continued them in favour. As they were but the Government of a day, so they cared little for the consequences beyond their own time. To maintain their popularity, and if possible avert the fate which ever threatened them from the blind fury and unbridled passion of the mob, they gladly entered upon a universal crusade against the governments and liberties of neighbouring nations, hoping thereby to direct the merciless wrath of the people into this new channel, and so save themselves. Soon the ranks of the armies were recruited by a fierce and undisciplined multitude. But the very magnitude of these armaments proved their ruin, and but for the spasmodic efforts of the Revolutionary tyrants in the national defence, which achieved marvels, the Revolution must have been crushed at this early stage. A small British force, including the Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards, was sent over to the Netherlands, under the Duke of York, who vainly endeavoured to stem the torrent of aggression in that direction. Equally fruitless were the attempts of the British Cabinet to patch up an alliance amongst the nations, so as effectually to unite them in defending the liberties of Europe. Although the victory of Lincelles graced our arms, still, alone, our troops could not hope for success against the immense armaments that continued to emerge from France. The British were therefore compelled to recede before the advancing tide, and postpone “the day of reckoning.”
Amongst the many ruthless and reckless, yet bold and able men which the Revolution produced, none claims such a space in history, none so suited his times, none was so equal to the crisis, as Napoleon Bonaparte. His brilliant achievements in Italy under the Consulate had already taken the public mind by storm, when in 1801 he invaded Egypt, crossed the sterile desert, overthrew the feeble cohorts of the Sultan, and threatened to add Syria to the empire of the French. At Acre his legions were for the first time arrested by the firmness of British valour. In 1801 a British army, including the present Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards, was sent to Egypt, under Sir Ralph Abercromby, to expel the invader. Thirsting for some new field of conquest to feed his ambition, Napoleon had returned to France, leaving General Menou to make good the defence. The defeats of Mandora and Alexandria effectually broke the already sinking spirit of the French, and resulted in their abandonment of Egypt. In consideration of their efforts in this service, the Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards have been allowed the distinction of “the Sphinx,” with the word “Egypt.”
NAPOLEON
The cloud which for a moment dimmed the lustre of his arms, as this province was wrested from his sway, was soon dispelled in the glories that elsewhere crowned his efforts, especially in Spain, which, by the foulest perfidy, he had virtually made a portion of his vast empire. Frequent expeditions had been contemplated—some had sailed, two at least had landed on the shores of the Peninsula—still nothing decisive had been accomplished towards aiding the Spanish and Portuguese in the expulsion of the French. In 1809, however, a powerful British force under Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards “the Great Duke,” was sent out, including the Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards. It is unnecessary at present to follow them throughout the glories of the war, as we shall have occasion to do so in after chapters; enough for our purpose to mention the battles of Talavera (1809) and Barrosa (1811), in which they specially distinguished themselves.
Having delivered Spain, Sir Arthur Wellesley, now Lord Wellington, advanced into France, and sorely pressed the retiring foe. It needed all the ability of Marshal Soult to hold together the shattered remnant of his broken and disspirited army. With masterly tact and skill he preserved a seeming order in his retreat, so as to save the army from the ignominy of a flight. Meanwhile, France having exhausted her resources, her people became tired of the yoke of the Emperor, who, whilst fortune smiled upon his arms, had been to them a very god, but now that the spell of victory was broken, was revealed in truer colours as the ambitious yet mighty despot. Martial glory, as the ruling passion of the nation, had bewitched the people, and received in ready sacrifice the best blood of the land. Long, too long, had the power of Napoleon, like a dark shadow, rested upon one-half of the known world, whilst the empty vanity of unhappy France was charmed by delusive visions of victory. The times were sadly changed. With a melancholy joy Europe had witnessed the utter ruin of the splendid and countless host which the fiat of the mighty chief had pressed into his service. Buried beneath the snows of a Russian winter—hurled in confusion back upon his own land—
“The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.”
This appalling catastrophe, combined with British successes in the Peninsula, had revived the spirit of the nations, allied them in a holy crusade, and marshalled the might of Europe in array to crush the tyrant. One by one, they wrested from his sway the kingdoms he had engulfed, and which groaned beneath a cruel bondage. Step by step, their hosts converged, as the tide of war rolled, towards France. All but alone, with his brave and devoted Guard driven to bay, he made a desperate but unavailing stand on the plains of France. In vain he addressed the patriotism of the people; already the fountain had been dried up by his incessant wars and the unremitting demands he had made upon the blood and treasure of the land. Surrendering, at length, the hopeless contest, abdicating the throne, he passed into honourable exile in Elba.
Ambition, still the tempter, assailing, soon prevailed. Eluding the vigilance of the British fleet, he succeeded in escaping into France, accompanied by a few of his old Guard, who had shared his exile. The mind of the people, which for more than twenty years had lived amid a wild delirium of excitement, still lingering upon the threshold of the mighty past, had not yet learned to submit to the more benignant rule of peace. The army, unwisely disbanded, or despoiled of those symbols of glory which their valour had so nobly won—trophies which, to a soldier, must ever be dear as life itself—were being consumed by the ennui of idleness, longed for new employment. Hence the return of Napoleon paralysed resistance as recalling the military glory of the Empire; awakening new hopes, promising revenge for the past, employment for the present, and glory for the future, it stirred within the bosom of the soldier and the lower classes of the people a reverence and adoration, almost amounting to idolatry. Rapidly advancing from stage to stage, as on a triumphal march, Napoleon found himself once more at Paris—hailed Emperor—it is true, doubted by the better classes of the people, but worshipped by the army. His desperate efforts soon enabled him to take the field, at the head of a powerful and well-appointed army, with which he proposed to meet in detail, and so destroy, his numerous and returning enemies. Unfortunately for him, he chose the Netherlands to be the scene, and Britain and Prussia the objects, of his first, and, as the result proved, his last attack. For a moment a gleam of sunshine shone upon his path, as he attained the victory of Ligny, over the Prussians under Marshal Blucher. Luring him to destruction, this flash of success was only the precursor to the dread thunder of Waterloo. Alarmed by the disastrous intelligence of the Prussian defeat and the rapid advance of the French, Wellington, who commanded the British and other auxiliaries, quickly concentrated his army near the village of Waterloo. But ere he could accomplish this, Marshal Ney, at the head of the second French division, had surprised and fallen upon, with great fury, the British, as they advanced upon Quatre Bras, on the same day that Ligny was won. The action was honourably sustained by a few British Regiments, especially the Twenty-eighth, and the Forty-second, Seventy-ninth and Ninety-second Highland Regiments. The heroic stand made by these gave time for the arrival of other corps, including the Guards—the Scots Fusilier Guards—who succeeded, after a desperate struggle, in effectually checking the progress of the French Marshal, and thus depriving him of a most favourable opportunity of cutting to pieces in detail our army. Two days later, on the 18th of June, the Duke had successfully accomplished the concentration of his forces, which, drawn up in battle array at Waterloo, waited the arrival of the Prussians, to begin the fight. But Napoleon, perceiving his advantage in the absence of such an important succour, rushed eagerly to battle, put forth every effort to achieve victory, ere Blucher, impeded by the disorders of recent defeat, could afford any assistance. The Scots Fusilier Guards, with the Grenadiers and Coldstreams, were stationed in the chateau and grounds of Hougomont, where they were soon fiercely assailed by the French, who repeatedly forcing the gateway, drove the British into the house. Again and again the enemy were repulsed, but still anew they returned to the assault. The combat was resolutely maintained, and it was not until the close of this eventful day, when the French, repulsed at every point, and gradually relaxing their efforts, were ultimately driven from the field, that our Guards found a release from the incessant toils of the fight. The victory achieved by the British was now completed by the Prussians, who continued the pursuit—a pursuit which may be said only to have ceased at the gates of Paris, when, Napoleon abdicating, the war was terminated by the restoration of the old Monarchy.
From Mr Carter’s interesting work on “The Medals of the British Army,” we, by permission, quote the following refutation in regard to an alleged sum of £500 having been accorded to a Waterloo veteran:—“A statement has frequently appeared in the newspapers, which was repeated after the decease of General Sir James Macdonell, G.C.B., on the 15th of May, 1857, that five hundred pounds had been bequeathed to the bravest man in the British army, and that the two executors called upon the late Duke of Wellington, to give him a cheque for the money. As the story went, the Duke proposed that it should be given to Sir James for the defence of Hougomont, and that upon the money being tendered to him, he at first declined to receive it, but that ultimately he shared it with Sergeant-Major Fraser of the 3d Foot Guards, now the Scots Fusilier Guards.
“Having recently seen this statement again in print while these pages were in preparation, and Sir James Macdonell having about ten years ago mentioned to me that he had never received the money, I made further inquiries, from which I ascertained that Sergeant-Major Ralph Fraser is now a bedesman in Westminster Abbey. Considering that the above legacy might possibly have been since received, I called upon the sergeant-major, who lives at 18 West Street, Pimlico, and is now in his 79th year, in order to ascertain the fact, and found that it had not. This gallant and intelligent veteran is in the full possession of his faculties, and, in addition to his having aided in closing the gate at Hougomont, can look with becoming pride on his having shared in the following services:—He was enlisted in the 3d Foot Guards in 1799, and was embarked for Egypt in 1801. In the landing at Aboukir Bay, on the 8th of March of that year, the boat in which Corporal Fraser was contained sixty persons, officers included; all except fifteen were destroyed by the resistance of the enemy. He was present at the battles of the 13th and 21st March; and in the expedition to Hanover, 1805; bombardment of Copenhagen, 1807; and from 1809 to 1814 in the Peninsula, being present at the capture of Oporto, battles of Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onor (wounded in the leg and thigh), sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo, Burgos (again wounded in the leg), Badajoz, and St Sebastian; battles of Salamanca, Vittoria, passage of the Nivelle and Nive. He received, in addition to the Waterloo medal, that for the Peninsular war, with bars for Egypt, Talavera, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Salamanca, Vittoria, Nivelle, and Nive. Sergeant-Major Fraser was discharged in December, 1818.”
This account, doubtless, may be traced to the following circumstance mentioned by Colonel Siborne in his valuable History of the Waterloo Campaign:—“Early in August of that year, and while the Anglo-allied army was at Paris, the Duke of Wellington received a letter from the Rev. Mr Norcross, rector of Framlingham, in Suffolk, expressing his wish to confer a pension of ten pounds a year, for life, on some Waterloo soldier, to be named by his Grace. The Duke requested Sir John Byng (the late Lord Stafford) to choose a man from the second brigade of Guards, which had so highly distinguished itself in the defence of Hougomont. Out of numerous instances of good conduct evinced by several individuals of each battalion, Sergeant James Graham, of the light company of the Coldstreams, was selected to receive the proffered annuity, as notified in brigade orders of the 9th of August, 1815. This was paid to him during two years, at the expiration of which period it ceased, in consequence of the bankruptcy of the benevolent donor.”
From the heroic character of the battle, our people have been prevailed on to credit many incidents, which, savouring of the romantic, suited their tastes, have been accepted as truisms, but which facts fail to corroborate. “One very prevailing idea that Wellington gave out the words, ‘Up, Guards, and at them!’ is not borne out by fact, for it was afterwards ascertained from the Duke himself that he did not; and another, the meeting of his Grace and Marshal Blucher at La Belle Alliance, after the battle, is equally apocryphal. This, however, is to be one of the designs of the House of Lords, and will therefore be handed down to posterity as a fact.” For nearly forty years the Scots Fusilier Guards had been retained at home, in or around London.
In 1853, the storm which had been long gathering in the north—presaging wrath to Liberty and to Man—at length burst forth, and descending with rapacious might upon the dominions of the Turkish Sultan, threatened to overwhelm in utter ruin the crumbling remnant of the empire of Constantine. The impatient covetousness of the Czar of Russia had put forth the hand of the spoiler, intending to appropriate the realms of the Sultan, and make Constantinople the southern gate of his colossal empire. Justly alarmed at the already gigantic power of Russia, which promised further to enlarge itself at the expense of the feebler Powers around, France and Britain took up arms, and threw the weight of their potent influence into the contest on behalf of the oppressed Turks, whose single arm had hitherto proved equal to the struggle. Accordingly, France, Turkey, and Britain, ultimately aided by Sardinia, entered the lists of war, to sustain the liberty of Europe against the despotism of the North, adopting as their watchword the memorable words of Lord John Russell, “May God defend the right.”
DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. COLONEL Of THE SCOTS FUSILIER GUARDS.
The first battalion of the Scots Fusilier Guards, brigaded with a battalion of the Grenadiers, and another of the Coldstreams, were embarked for the scene of action, which ultimately proved to be the Crimea. They sailed from Portsmouth, in H.M.S. the “Simoom;” and passing successively from Malta, Gallipoli, and Varna, arrived at length in the Crimea. 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. The long peace which had preceded the outbreak of hostilities, and the cry for “greater public economy,” which it had induced from a people long accustomed to look only at the arithmetic of pounds, shillings, and pence, in such vital questions, had in consequence brought all that magnificent machinery of war, possessed by our country, to a standstill. It followed, as a necessary result, when our Cabinet failed to achieve a peaceful solution of the matters at issue, as had been fondly anticipated, and we were unexpectedly called to a declaration of war, it was found impossible at once to set in motion the vast machinery of war, which had so long been “laid up in ordinary.” Hence our gallant troops were doomed to pay the penalty of our ill-judged economy, and endure many and sore privations—privations which were the more keenly felt, inasmuch as they were to be endured, amid the snows of a Crimean winter, by men, too, whose previous life had been comparatively one of comfort, in no way calculated to fit the soldier to encounter the pitiless horrors and fatigues of war. Disease and want, like armed men, entered the camp, closely followed by their master, the grim King of Terrors—Death; and thus we have been called to lament, with a truly bitter sorrow, the loss of our brave countrymen, who, alike in the hospital as in the battle-field, displayed all the grand and noble qualities of the soldier and the virtues of the true man. The conduct of the Guards in their first engagement at the battle of the Alma is described by Marshal St Arnaud as altogether “superb.” Lieutenants Lindsay and Thistlethwayte, were especially distinguished for their heroic defence of the colours of the Scots Fusilier Guards. At the battle of Inkermann, the Guards, having driven the Russians out of a battery, named the Sandbag Battery, of which they had early possessed themselves, sustained with desperate gallantry the impetuous assaults of the enemy, and, although forced for a moment to give way, were soon again enabled to retrieve themselves, and maintain possession of the battery, around which and for which they so bravely contended. Although stunned by these repeated disasters in the field, yet with that “dogged obstinacy,” which has characterised the Russians, conceiving themselves secure behind the battlements of Sebastopol, they still held out. Strengthened in the idea of impregnability, from the fact that this vast citadel of Southern Russia had already withstood six successive bombardments, defied the combined efforts of the Allies by sea and land, and yet no sensible impression had been made, or aught of decided success attained by the besiegers, they hoped that what their valour could not achieve in the battle-field, the snows of winter or the stroke of the pestilence would effect—the destruction of our armies, and their consequent deliverance. The successive fall of the Mamelon, the Malakoff, and the Redan, dispelled this illusion, and prudence, rightly esteemed the better part of valour, induced a timely evacuation ere our Highland Brigade returned to the assault. Sebastopol no longer defensible, the enemy sued for peace, which was granted, and this stronghold of tyranny, dismantled and abandoned, was assumed to be converted into a haven for fishermen and traders, rather than the mighty arsenal, whence had so long issued the formidable fleets which had inspired terror among weaker and neighbouring states—at least so the treaty required. Meanwhile our gallant Guards, returning to England, were welcomed by a grateful country.
MONUMENT TO THE GUARDS, LONDON.
It is only now, when the audacious impudence of “Brother Jonathan” had dared to insult our time-honoured flag—
“Which braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze,”
and thought to bully us out of the glorious charter which has conferred upon us the “dominion of the seas,” that our Scots Fusilier Guards were once more called to prepare for action; and, having gone across the Atlantic as the van of our army, anxiously waited the signal to avenge, if need be, such unprovoked insult and aggression. Happily our firm demeanour has effectually quelled the storm, and impressed wiser and more wholesome measures, whereby peace has hitherto been continued.
One sentence only shall express our feelings, as we look back upon the history of our Scots Fusilier Guards, which we have here attempted to sketch—Every man has nobly done his duty.