No great mischief.

My post on the likelihood of the 2014 Independence Referendum falling on or near the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Ypres, provoked a few comments and a lot of off-line conversation, particularly with a friend who blogs under the name Fergus.

The following is a mixture of the factual and family recollections from Fergus. The images are selected from the fantastic National Library of Scotland Flickr account. These were the photos deemed suitable to show the concerned public back home, what their sons and daughters were going through, therefore they are supposedly positive and mask the negative. Ahh propaganda...

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I will just quote from Tom Devine's book, The Scottish Nation. page 309:

"Of the 157 battalions which comprised the British Expeditionary Force, 22 were Scottish regiments...

Of the 557,000 Scots who enlisted in all services, 26.4 percent lost their lives. This compares with an average death rate of 11.8 percent for the rest of the British army between 1914 and 1918. Of all the combatant nations, only the Serbs and the Turks had higher per capita mortality rates, but this was primarily because of disease in the trenches rather than a direct result of losses in battle. The main reason for the higher-than-average casualties among the Scottish soldiers was that they were regarded as excellent, aggressive shock troops who could be depended upon to lead the line in the first hours of battle."

A long line of soldiers from a Highland Regiment marching along a road. They are all wearing kilts and steel helmets, and are carrying rifles.

In 1881 there was a restructuring of the British Army which included the creation of four distinct Highland Regiments; The Gordon Highlanders, The Queen's Own Highlanders, The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and The Seaforth Highlanders. They were collectively known as The Highlanders.

 

As any military historian will tell you, the Canadians were also outstanding (Vimy Ridge, for example): just list some of their regiments: the Cameron Highlanders of Ottowa, the Black Watch of Canada, the Canadian Scottish, the Calgary Highlanders, the Toronto Scottish, the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders of Canada, the Lorne Scots, the Cape Breton Highlanders - I could go on, but you get the idea. And that is aside from Scottish emigrants and their descendants in other Canadian formations, and, of course, in the Newfoundland Regiment, almost wiped out on the first day of the Somme (Newfoundland then being a separate Dominion in its own right).

Two of my great-uncles were killed in Gallipoli (thank you, Winston Incompetent Churchill). My grandfather fought in the Royal Naval Division. I remember well my great uncle Jock, who was gassed on the Somme. In the Second World War, my father was in the RAF, of his two brothers, one was in the RN (including Russian convoys), the other in XIVth Army in Burma. His sister was in the Queen Alexandria's Nursing Service. I think you could say we have more than paid.

Just as a little aside, when "England expected every man to do his duty" at Trafalgar, one-quarter of Nelson's captains and one-third of his crews were Scots (and a substantial percentage of the rest of the crews were Irish rebels from the 1798 Rising, whose only choice was the Navy or the hangman). Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, known to the French as "the Sea Wolf" was a brilliant Naval officer, as was Admiral Duncan, victor of Camperdown.

 

Before the Union, as far as external enemies were concerned, we only fought the English, and usually only when they left us little option. We did, of course, deal with the Vikings, at Largs and Ronaldsway, but they had come here looking for trouble. We contributed to the Crusades, but all Christendom was involved in that - Bruce's heart and the Douglas, you remember.  Since 1707, we have shed Scottish blood the world over. The Kingdom of Scotland never fought the French, the Dutch, the Germans, the Russians, the Japanese, the Indians, the Afghans, the Zulus or whoever, and never would have, provided they left us alone - but Westminster decided that they were the enemy. I remember a glorious quote from a history book I read at school, on the Seven Years' War in North America: "Fort Duquesne, at the head of the Ohio Valley, was taken for England by a charge of Highlanders and Americans". Well done the Highlanders and Americans, I am sure the English are eternally grateful!

I heard some Labour numpty say that an independent Scotland would not have been involved in overthrowing Gaddaffi, as if that was a bad thing.* I should  *(&%! well hope not! What goes on in Libya is the Libyans business, not ours. If you think that the lot who have taken over are any more saintly than the late, unlamented scumbag, Gaddaffi, then you probably also believe in the Tooth-fairy, and I can offer you a really good price on the Forth Road Bridge.

* It was another Unionist stooge  numpty, Michael Moore, the Secretary for the State of Scotland. Link

TD's figures certainly are shocking, especially since they are generally unacknowledged. Over a quarter died! Try Googling Scottish First World War casualties, and you will not easily get these statistics.  I don't know how many were wounded, but, given how the Scottish troops were used, the figure must be horrendous.

Being used as the shock troops against the formidably brave and highly-professional German Army, which was very effectively dug in in excellent defences, is sufficient explanation for the carnage. However, don't forget we won. On top of the Clearances, it helps explain the sad emptiness of so much of rural Scotland, both Highland and Lowland. How many widows and unmarried girls must have left the countryside, as there were no men left for them, and how many led a lonely and childless existence? Again, if I may let my own family intrude here, my mother's cousin, a lovely women, never married. Her fiancé died in the defence of Calais in 1940, preventing the Germans pushing along the coast and cutting off Dunkirk before the evacuation could begin. This sad story was replicated so many more times in 1914-18.

 Captured German soldiers en masse.

By the way, my great uncle Jock's younger brother, Owen, joined the KOSB in 1918, and had just completed his training when the War ended. I remember him telling me that the Kaiser heard he was coming, and jacked it in! Jock was in the Cameronian's, but I have no idea why they were in different regiments - possibly to replace these horrific casualties.

The Scottish contribution to the armed forces in World War I was way above its population size, compared to England. That is even more striking when you consider how important Scottish mining, steelmaking, shipbuilding, engineering and munitions production were to the War effort, and, of course, farming, fishing and forestry, and how demanding all these were on the labour force. The merchant navy, as in the Second World War the unsung lifeline for British survival in the face of the U-boat offensive, had a very large Scottish contingent, not least in the engine rooms. There were still important Scottish shipping lines operating then. Even Star Trek took the formidable reputation of the Scottish engineer to heart!

One thing that should not be overlooked in all the gloom, is the unfailing humour of the Scottish and English soldiers in war, no matter how horrific the situation. In 1914, the Old Contemptible's shot the army of the felicitously named von Kluck to bits at Mons and Le Cateau with their rapid aimed fire from Lee Enfield rifles. You can't help admiring their typical reponse to the vast forces facing them - that wonderful ditty, "We don't give a f--- for old von Kluck and all his f---ing great army!" Likewise the song the Germans just could not understand such a good army singing "Send my mother, my sister and my brother but for God's sake don't send me!"

It was just the same in WWII. When Churchill was reviewing the victory parade in Tripoli, he burst into a huge grin when the 51st Highland Division marched past, singing the "Ball o Kirriemuir"!

Many years ago, I watched a film about Arnhem with my late father. At the end, the director had the British paratroops singing "Abide with me", as they realised they had no option but surrender. My father laughed, and said he did not believe that at all. They were much more likely to sing "Twas on the good ship Venus"...   Fergus.


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On the statistics of Scottish fatalities and injuries in WWI. I think a lot of this has to do with the wha's like us' machismo that somehow still survives in Scottish culture, the same national flaw that's been abused through the centuries of Union. Needing some mad loonies for a gallant effort against overwhelming forces or great difficulties, who you gonna call? That's right wee angry red faced men in kilts. Cynic that I am, I reckon, that British military commanders have always viewed Scottish forces as expendable. There's no finer example of this than that of Major General James Wolfe at the 'Battle of the plains of Abraham' in Quebec. Needing to knock out a garrison on top of a great bloody cliff, which the French considered unscalable, he called on his Scottish troops and ordered them to drag two cannons up the cliff, knock-out the French garrison thus allowing the rest of his army to march unscathed onto the battlefield. He told his officers of the Scots; "They are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall."

Look around Scotland, there's barely a village, town or city without a memorial to the fallen. I remember reading that the Isle of Lewis, with a population of 30,000 souls in 1914, lost roughly 1,000 sons. Lewis' loss was the greatest per head of population than any other town in these isles. Is it any wonder that we're underpopulated in comparison with similar geographically sized countries? 

Intrigued by Fergus' songs, I looked around and found the von Kluck which goes as follows:

Kaiser Bill(Tune: 'Pop goes the Weasel')

Kaiser Bill is feeling ill,

The Crown Prince, he's gone barmy.

We don't give a cluck for old von Fluck

And all his bleeding army.

Far Far From Wipers(Tune: 'Sing me to sleep')

Far far from Wipers, I long to be,

Where German snipers can't get at me,

Damp is my dugout, cold are my feet,

Waiting for whizzbangs to put me to sleep.

The above is a heart wrenching recording of the old boys reminiscing at the now closed down Flanders Home in Glasgow.