All this is familiar. I only mention it to clear the way for what I am about to say. 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. The neutrality of Belgium had been violated, and her people looked to England, whose word has ever been her bond. War was never less welcome, never less foreseen, but in a moment, once the inevitable burden was accepted, England laid down the things of peace to take up the business of war.
And in that hour of suspense a remarkable thing happened.
In the bitter humiliation of the South African War the Empire had not deserted the Motherland, but all had not been satisfied that the cause was good; in the grave struggle that was about to be opened with the greatest military tyranny in history, every freeman became a bondman in chains of patriotism to an ideal.
From Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, and the most isolated outposts of our great Empire, arose like the vast stirring of a sea, the salutation of the Colonies and Dependencies. Germany had relied upon conspiracy in India, instead of which the Princes and Chiefs were amongst the first to offer their services and their wealth. The following remarkable letter, written by an old Indian soldier to a young soldier at the front, was published in an English newspaper: “Praise be to the Guru. Your father Sundar Singh here writes a word to his dear son Sampuran Singh. It is meet for a young man to be in the battle, and on this account I am not taking thought. I am well and happy, and I pray to the Guru for your welfare and happiness. When you receive this letter answer it and relate to me the full conditions of the war.... Take no thought for your life in the battle, for it is right to fight for the King, and great glory will come to Hindustan, and the Sikhs, and fame to the regiment.”
Germany had valued at nothing our amateur Colonial soldiery until their baffled forces reeled back before the charge of the Canadians at Ypres. In our own country, impoverished though many districts have been by emigration, the answer to Britain’s summons was epic. In our Highlands and to those who know their history, it was such as to bring a lump to the throat. Long ago Sir Walter Scott wrote: “In too many instances the Highlands have been drained, not of their superfluity of population, but of the whole mass of the inhabitants, dispossessed by an unrelenting avarice which will one day be found to have been as short-sighted as it is selfish and unjust. Meantime, the Highlands may become the fairy ground for romance and poetry, or the subject of experiment for the professors of speculation, historical and economical. But, if the hour of need should come, the pibroch may sound through the deserted region, but the summons will remain unanswered.”
The summons has not remained unanswered. The Highland regiments have been doubled and quadrupled, while from over the seas the Highlanders have come back under Canadian Colours. There is not a man with the old Celtic fire who has not, if he were able, delivered a blow for the sake of the women and children of Belgium. Why did they come? “Me no muckle to fight for?” said Edie Ochiltree, the old beggar. “Isna there the country to fight for, and the burn-sides that I gang daundering beside, and the hearths o’ the gudewives that gie me my bit bread, and the bits o’ weans that come toddling to play wi’ me when I come about a landward town?”
The swift progress of the German advance guard upon Belgium, the fall of Liége and Namur, and the horrors that befell the Belgian peasantry, brought one thing home to us very painfully, and that was the need for a large army. What was done was done quickly. Lord Kitchener was given a free hand to raise new armies, and until these should be trained he relied upon our Regulars, Territorials, and the drafts of troops from Canada and India to withstand the German arms. It was more than a handful of men should have been asked to do. What concerns us is how they did it. The German advance came on swiftly, relentlessly; and in the darkness of a summer night, without confusion, without a qualm, our little advance guard crossed the Channel.
It is certain that amongst the first to cross to France were the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Black Watch, the Camerons, the Seaforths, and the Gordons. An eye-witness of those early days has written: “Hurrying into Boulogne, I was in time to see the Argyll and Sutherlands marching through the streets of the town to the camps which had been prepared for them upon the neighbouring hills. The population of Boulogne rushed to the unaccustomed sound of the bagpipes, and it was through lines of the old Boulonnais fishwives, who had that morning bade tearful farewell to their fisher-sons off to the depot, that our men stepped gaily along, with a cheery grin and a smile for the words of welcome shouted out to them.”[[13]]
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.