[THE PIPES IN THE WAR, 1914-1918]
THE WESTERN FRONT
During the autumn[2] and winter of 1914-15 pipers, for obvious reasons, had few opportunities of attracting much attention, still less of performing their highest duty, viz. playing their companies into action. They were necessarily, on account of the extreme shortage of men, for the most part employed in the ranks; and in many of the old Regular battalions pipe bands disappeared altogether.
For a time it seemed that the critics were right, and that in warfare in the twentieth century there was no longer a place for a class of man which was destined to disappear, as the bard and the harper had done in days lang syne.
This view was widely held, and in some regiments was never modified.
But gradually, as attacks became more frequent and movements set in, and as the British Army grew stronger in numbers, the position changed, and the piper became more than an invaluable marching instrumentalist or performer at ceilidhs in billets.
The first occasion on which pipers played, or tried to play, their companies into action was at Cuinchy on 25th January 1915, when the 1st Black Watch suffered such heavy casualties in advancing through deep mud up to their knees.
It was at Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 that the company piper really had his first chance of showing what he could do, as a piper, in action. On this occasion the 20th Brigade had to carry the stronghold of Moulin du Piètre, and lost very heavily; the 2nd Gordons were in the main attack and the 6th Gordons, a Territorial unit, in reserve. The 6th Gordons were called upon to support their comrades of the old Regular Army, and advanced, headed by their pipes and drums, with a rush which carried many of them beyond their objective.
From that time onwards, right up to the end of the war, pipers have repeatedly played their units into action, in spite of the unfavourable conditions resulting from modern rifle and artillery fire and gas, and have established the standard of gallantry in this respect which has been at once the admiration of all observers and an incentive to their successors to emulate them.