The Scots Guards (1914-1915) and The
Immortal Eighty A Sketch.
The Ypres Times.
227
As Mons recedes, so does the memory of the famous retreat lose some of its tragic
note. In the early days of the war Mons seemed very terrible, but the momentous
happenings which followed, if not so poignant as the historic withdrawal from Belgium,
had all their dreadful and critical periods, and, in comparison, the long retreat is reduced
to its proper proportions. Mons is seen to be not the only time the British Army has been
in peril. One gets a dependable picture of the struggle of the first fourteen months of
the war from the experience of-the Guards, who time after time have been called upon to
redeem the forlorn hopes which seem fated to be the lot of British soldiers in the opening
stages of any war. The Guards can claim with every justification to have figured in the
hardest of the fighting, and their story is the most vivid narrative of the part that the
khaki line played in Belgium and France during this period. To tell what all the regiments
of the Guards did in the early part of the war is not possible within the compass of a
short article, and in confining the record to that of the Scots Guards alone, even then
no more than a sketch is attempted.
The Scots Guards were mobilised on August 4th, 1914, and were ready to move by
August 7th. They were taken across the Channel and were glad to find themselves on
land again, so crowded had they been in the ship. The forced march all day to Mons
scarcely prepared them for the horrors that were to followthe continuous retreat, the
constant marching that made their feet so painful that each day a fresh cut was made
in their boots to ease the pressure. If one asks what became of the boots in which the
terrible retreat was made, the answer is forthcoming. You would have found them on
some road in France utterly worn out, or if not on any road in some ditch."
The desperate fighting from Mons to the Seine did not occupy the mind of the
Guardsman so much as incidental details. hat was first seen of the battle was the attack
of the German guns on the English aeroplane seeking to discover the enemy's positions.
Then it all seems to have been a fierce effort of alternative regiments to hold up the
enemy while first one and then another part of the line fell back. At one point the
pursuing enemy were so close that their guns were only too yards away and the British
rearguard could plainly see them.
For the first time we saw German prisoners." This was the leading impression of
the battle of the Marne that the Guards had. They had forgotten mostly what happened
in that battle. For the first time they saw German prisoners. On October 16th the
Scots Guards were in position near Ypres, and took part in the fighting in the Bixschoote
district. On the 26th they were in action at Gheluvelt, where five days later the line of
the First Division was broken and subsequently rallied. Of these critical moments
little was remembered, excepting that it was a rough house." October the 29th was
recorded as a day of hard fighting.
The Scots Guards did well on October 31st, which Sir John French regarded as the
most critical moment in the whole of the great battle of Ypres. They rushed the Germans
out of the village of Gheluvelt, and the 1st Battalion made a magnificent charge against
the German attack on the Ypres-Menin road, which was thereby checked, and the pressure
on the sorely-tried lines relieved. Early in November the regiment again distinguished
itselfa battalion supported by another battalion retaking some trenches from which
the Germans were unable to dislodge them. Later they were to have their first real
baptism of fire at the hands of the Prussian Guard, who attacked and took the first British
trenches, the Guards holding on till all the trenches on either side of them were occupied
by the enemy. The Prussian success was a costly one, for until the Jocks withdrew they
«did terrible execution with their rapid rifle fire.
