THE CHARGE OF THE BLACK WATCH AND THE SCOTS GREYS[ToC]
Sometimes a retreat is in reality a great victory. It has been said that it requires a greater general to direct successfully a great retreat than it does to direct a great attack.
Some marvelous retreats have occurred in the World War, the greatest coming at its very beginning, when the English and French fell back to save Paris and to defeat the Germans at the Marne. This retreat was really a series of battles, day after day, with terrible losses on both sides.
An English private in the Black Watch, named Walter Morton, only nineteen years of age, described for the Scotsmen one of these battles in which his regiment and the Scots Greys made a magnificent charge. His story was as follows:
We went straight from Boulogne to Mons, being one of the first British regiments to reach that place. Neither army seemed to have a very good position there, but the numbers of the Germans were far too great to give us any chance of success. We were hard at it all day on Monday; and on Tuesday, as the French reinforcements which we had been expecting did not arrive, the order was given to retire.
In our retreat we marched close upon eighty miles. We passed through Cambrai, and a halt was called at St. Quentin. The Germans, in their mad rush to get to Paris, had seldom been far behind us, and when we came to St. Quentin the word went through the ranks that we were going into action. The men were quite jubilant at the prospect. They had not been at all pleased at their continued retirement before the enemy, and they at once started to get things ready. The engagement opened briskly, both our artillery and the Germans going at it for all they were worth. We were in good skirmishing order, and under the cover of our guns we were all the time getting nearer and nearer the enemy. When we had come to within 100 yards of the German lines, the commands were issued for a charge, and the Black Watch made the charge along with the Scots Greys. Not far from us the 9th Lancers and the Cameronians joined in the attack.
It was the finest thing I ever saw. The Scots Greys galloped forward with us hanging on to their stirrups, and it was a sight never to be forgotten. We were simply being dragged by the horses as they flew forward through a perfect cloud of bullets from the enemy's maxims. All other sounds were drowned by the thunder of the horses' hoofs as they careered wildly on, some of them nearly driven mad by the bullets which struck them. It was no time for much thinking. Saddles were being emptied quickly, as we closed on the German lines and tore past their maxims, which were in the front ranks.
We were on the German gunners before they knew where they were, and many of them went down, scarcely realizing that we were amongst them. Then the fray commenced in deadly earnest. The Black Watch and the Scots Greys went into it like men possessed. They fought like demons. It was our bayonets against the Germans' swords. You could see nothing but the glint of steel, and soon even that was wanting as our boys got well into the midst of the enemy. The swords of the Germans were no use against our bayonets. They went down in hundreds.