Another officer writes, concerning the time on the Aisne: "The way the Germans treat property is disgusting. While passing through a village not long ago the greater part of the furniture of all the houses had been dragged out and broken up, all the crockery smashed, all the bedding dragged out into the open street, and there left to be soaked by the rain. It is awful to see the poor peasants wandering about, homeless and starving.
"Everywhere is the fearful smell of dead horses. It seems to saturate the atmosphere, and one marches through miles of it."
Carrion and ruin! And "one splendid German," who stands out from among his fellows because he exercised the simple instincts of humanity! Surely in this one incident is as great accusation against the German race as in the other and worse accounts.
Meanwhile the Camerons fight on, with the courage that their regiment has shown from the time of Abercrombie's campaign in Egypt unto this day.
CHAPTER IX THE ARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS
The threat against Britain by the French Republic in 1794 led to the raising of the 1st battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the battalion having been formed in that year by the then Duke of Argyll, under the title of the 91st Regiment of Foot. The present 2nd battalion was raised by the Earl of Sutherland six years later, and numbered the "93rd Foot." These two battalions were united under their present title in 1881.
Active service was first seen by the 2nd battalion at the Cape, where its men played a prominent part in the defeat of the Dutch army of 5,000 men engaged in the defence of Capetown. The turn of the 1st battalion came during the Peninsular campaign, when the Argylls formed the rearguard at Corunna and were seven times engaged with the enemy. Later, they joined Wellington in Spain, and were conspicuously engaged at the Nivelle, at the crossing of the Nive, and on to the siege of Toulouse. The 2nd battalion formed part of the force that courted disaster at New Orleans in 1814, and no less than 520 officers and men fell in that fatal attack—futile as fatal.
Missing Waterloo, the regiment next won distinction in the Kaffir wars at the Cape, where it underwent five years of active service. There were "91st" men on the Birkenhead in 1852, and though the name of the ill-fated vessel is not borne on the colours of any regiment it might well be inscribed on those of the Argylls. Their next active service was in the Crimean campaign, where the 2nd battalion formed part of Sir Colin Campbell's Highland Brigade, and took the heights beyond the Alma under as destructive fire as a British regiment has ever faced. At Balaclava the Highlanders were in deadly peril, but their coolness saved them for work in the trenches before Sevastopol, and for a share in the final assault.