31 October – 1 November, 1914

LONDON SCOTTISH BEFORE MESSINES
A Territorial Battalion and its near anihilation

by Private Herbert de Hamel

1/14th (County of London) Battalion (London Scottish) was the first infantry Territorial battalion to engage the enemy when it came into action near Messines during the first battle of Ypres. It bore the brunt of the fiercest German attacks, surrounded on three sides the men fought to the limits of their endurance, losing 345 of their number. The story was written by a survivor who, though wounded, succeeded with his officer and eight other ranks in eluding capture.

Shortly after the battalion had marched out of the Belgian village of St. Eloi it left the highroad and went across country until it reached a long, low-lying hill, with its steep side covered with trees, bracken and brambles. Here we halted and were told to lie down. The air was full of a drowsy rumbling and muttering of guns. The sound was a distant one, but full of a strange uneasiness. Personally, I found myself wishing that it were either a long way farther off, or a long way nearer.

Pipers of the London Scottish Battalion marching past Buckingham Palace, September 1914.

London Scottish soldiers marching to Watford Station, 15 September, on their way to the fighting in France.

Now in France, these men of the London Scottish having a bite to eat.

I rolled over and went to sleep. I was awakened by my right ankle sliding down the slope, followed by the rest of my anatomy. The banging of the guns sounded far closer. I don’t know if I had been dreaming of Germans, but I was by no means sorry to hear a cheery voice cry, ‘Wake up, old son, we’re falling in’. We marched down a grassy road between trees stripped of their bark and with their trunks strangely fluted and grooved by bullets. Then on past a prosperous-looking farm tenanted by incongruously ragged folk who reaped a harvest of discarded articles at our next halt.

From this a German aeroplane drove us to the cover of a wood. No sooner had I settled down for another sleep than we were off again, followed by the aeroplane, till we reached the village of Wytschaete. The battalion passed through, I believe, in safety, all save the last company. On our right were houses. On our left was a steep bank above which rose the church tower. Big shells began to fall round us. The first two pitched beyond us, the next three crashed among the houses, throwing up clouds of dust, smoke and debris, the next one hit the church tower.

The sight of the peasants rushing away down the main street in a panic brought home the tragic side of the bombardment.

A second shell struck the church tower, or part of the roof, and the fragments flew over us. Matters were becoming unpleasantly warm, when a staff officer was struck by an idea – and he waved us to advance. As we marched up the street a house was shattered with a deafening noise close to the section in front of us. At this point occurred, I believe, the first casualties the regiment sustained. Some were carried into the cellars of the houses and others handed over to a section of native stretcher-bearers that had waited by us.

Then on went the company across fields, where picks and shovels lying on the grass spoke of a hasty scattering under shrapnel in the open, till we reached the rest of the battalion, standing close in by a hedge-bordered wood, waiting motionless every time a Taube scout plane sailed over us.

Behind the shelter of a hill we adopted column formation. The companies extended one by one and marched over the brow. Bullets began to fly pretty thickly over us, and they and the shrapnel grew more and more frequent as company after company breasted the ridge.

As our company, the last one, came over the top, we could see our battalion ahead of us. The first two companies had closed and were lying down behind the next ridge. The others advanced in extended lines below us. The distance and the dressing were more perfect than at any field-day inspection at home. The lines marched steadily onwards through the roots.

At last we reached dead ground, closed-up, and lay down. Once again the companies rose, extended, and passed over the brow of this second hill into what must have been a very blizzard of bullets. In front of us sat Colonel Malcolm [Col. G. A. Malcolm, DSO, Commanding 1st Battalion London Scottish] chatting calmly to a staff officer. Every now and then he glanced half-anxiously along our line to see how we were taking it.

London Scottish moved up to the line near Hooge, the first step in their move to Messines.

Near him sat two burly Life Guardsmen keeping watch and ward over a condemned man, a surly, black-bearded peasant who had worked the sails of a windmill, and so brought down the big shells on Wytschaete. This little attention had, I am told, been intended for the Lincolns, who passed through the village ahead of us.

I cannot say concerning the man’s guilt, but what I can vouch for is that the shells were duly delivered.

Just as our turn came to follow on over the hill a staff officer ran up on our left and pointed back in the direction whence he had come. Wherefore the senior subaltern took his half company off to this new quarter. At first we were under cover. Then shell holes appeared in the ground and bullets began to pass us. One man sat down and commenced to bandage his legs – his expression one of surprised indignation.

Eventually we came to an open road and lay down in the ditch on the near side. It was a very shallow ditch, and we started to dig ourselves in. A sudden increase in the output of shrapnel puzzled me, till I realized that the senior subaltern had strolled along to our end of the ditch. He lay down and told us he wanted ten men to come with him to occupy a small trench in front of us. It had been held by natives [Indian troops] till their officers had been killed.

When the noise had quieted down he took the end ten men with him. We jumped up and started to double forward. ‘I think we’d better walk. It looks better,’ he remarked. So we walked towards a haystack that gave us some cover from sight. Once past this, things became more lively and our OC [the officer commanding this section in the field] took us on at the double.

For several hours there was an almost incessant din and concussion of shells. Through that inferno I was held by the pluck of the man next to me. In the very worst moments he was as bright and as cheery as was his usual habit of life. He must have felt afraid, as, of course, we all did, but he showed no sign of it. After one particularly lively outburst of assorted shells, he remarked, ‘I suppose that after a couple more days we shall go back into a reserve trench’. ‘Probably this is a reserve trench,’ I said, ‘and tomorrow we shall get into the real thing.’ ‘You always were a cheery blighter,’ replied Bugler Dunlop, and we both laughed. Two days later I was told of his death.

About five o’clock the shelling ceased. The unnatural calm was broken only by the sound of occasional British shells and their distant explosion. An officer in a native regiment came up to me and asked where he could find the officer in command. I directed him to our senior subaltern. In the dim light he must have mistaken the star for a crown, as he saluted our OC most respectfully and urged him to retire to a position in rear of our trench – which latter he described as the worst shell-trap in the entire line.

Our OC. replied that he had orders to hold the trench till the last possible moment, and that he intended so doing.

The captain shrugged his shoulders.

‘Very well, sir, of course if you insist on staying on here I can do nothing except hold my ground to support you.’ He saluted and turned away.

We had deepened the trench and had scooped out hollow caves, but there was no cover in the event of enfilade fire. I was soon hard at work with the 229 others in hewing a traverse at right angles to the end of our trench. It was very slow work, and after a long spell, with only room for one man to work at a time, we had progressed about four or five feet to a depth of five feet, and from that point the traverse ran up to ground level in a gentle slope.

Then I ceased digging to take my hour spell at looking out. Two of us stood, side by side, peering into the patchwork of moonlight and shadow, straining our eyes for the least movement. Bullets ‘phitted’ over us, past us, and between us. I felt heartily thankful when my spell came to an end. Our OC, who could have rested comfortably under cover, shared the whole watch of each successive pair of look-outs. I debated whether to enlarge my little cave or to enjoy my oft-postponed sleep. I decided on the latter course. I was no sooner curled up than the order came to stand-to. A terrific rattle and crackle of rifle and maxim fire broke out. Away in front of us a line of dim figures advanced ghostlike in the moonlight. The OC told us to prepare to fire, but to wait for his command.

‘Who are you?’ shouted the OC.

There was no answer, and he repeated the question. As this met with no reply he sang out to us to open fire.

We blazed away into them and I wondered why they lay down in twos and threes to fire back at us. Then it struck me suddenly that they were tumbling over.

They made no attempt to rush us, but still advanced at a steady walk, falling as they came. Flashes spat out along their line, but there was no sound of shout or cry, only the crackling of rifle shots.

The bullets cut through the hedge in front of us and slapped into the bank behind us as the line came on – and all the while our new rifles jammed and stuck. It might be after one shot or after five shots that we dropped to the bottom of the trench and tugged and banged at the bolt to get it free. Then, as often as not, it would foul the next cartridge from the magazine and refuse to click home. And all the while the dim line was advancing. I am told that all the rifles in the battalion were condemned and exchanged for new ones very shortly afterwards.

After a while there were no more Germans walking towards us, though the heavy firing continued somewhere in the near neighbourhood. Our casualties were a sergeant and a lance-corporal – each, I believe, hit in the eyes. They were taken to the rear in the lull which followed.

At the time I imagined this silence to mean that the German attack had been repulsed, but, according to the journal The Fighting Territorials, the British line had retired under orders to take up a new position, and the message did not reach the Carabineers or the ‘Scottish’ cavalry, who were consequently surrounded and cut off and had to fight their way through.

I can speak only of what occurred to our own little party.

‘GET READY TO CHARGE!’

To our left a light showed in the window of a house in the village. Other lights appeared in other windows, grew into a blaze and turned red. Flames poured out and burst through the roof. This happened in several houses, until the village was in flames. There was still firing going on, and we waited to see if anything else would happen. It did. There came a sound of great cheering. ‘We’re charging!’ shouted the OC, ‘Get ready to join in!’ Some way behind the trench a building blazed brightly. Silhouetted against this, a crowd of dark figures ran past with a curious shambling gait, each man made in the same mould, bent forward under the weight of a heavy pack and crowned with a spiked helmet. It was not our men charging. Those men were advancing in the wrong direction.

A German artist’s version of the night fighting at Messines, with the famous windmill prominent.

‘They are after the Carabineers,’ said the OC, ‘Double out and open fire on them. We’ll try to draw them off, to give our poor beggars a chance of making a stand.’

I stopped behind long enough to grab an extra couple of bandoliers, and doubled out after the others. Moonlight is a deceptive form of illumination, and I lay down in careful alinement with a row of turnip-tops and opened fire. After a while it occurred to me that I might be masking the fire of the man next to me. I jumped up and ran back (instead of crawling), and as I was lying down again the old proverb about more haste and less speed hit me a bang in the ribs and thigh with a red-hot poker, and I sat over backwards instead.

Then somebody discovered that the Germans were coming up in a solid mass behind us – so the others doubled back to hold the trench. The people we had fired on had turned on us and were also advancing – and a third lot were bearing down to enfilade us. I got on my feet and proceeded to hunt diligently for a clip of cartridges which I had dropped. I was festooned with bandoliers and my pouches were full of ammunition, but that clip was the one thing which mattered. Had I hunted about for my sporran, which contained all my worldly wealth, there would have been some sense in the proceedings; but I had not then realized that the bullet which tore away my water-bottle had also robbed me of my sporran, leaving in place of the former an enormous charred hole in my greatcoat.

When I returned to the trench, I sat on the floor. Fortunately there was not room to lie down, or I should, perforce, have remained in that position. The others were firing over both sides of the trench. The Germans blazed away at us from three sides.

There was just one solid sound of bullets, a steady wail of changing notes. The junior subaltern, looking back from the ridge, saw a ring of fire round the trench and gave us up for lost.

The other sergeant’s rifle jammed permanently. He took mine, but it had jammed also. Then, good fellow that he was, he cut off my greatcoat and my serge to get at my side. Thereby I lost many treasured possessions in exchange for a small avalanche of sand.

Before he could get at my first-aid bandage the garrison began to evacuate the position. Matters had been hopeless a second before. Then – so I am told – the smoke from a burning stack blew over the trench and hid it from sight after the most approved mythological fashion. I groped for my coat; I groped for my serge, but could not find them. They were very precious to me, but time was more precious still. Wherefore I left them sadly and, holding on my kilt, climbed the easy slope of the thrice-blessed traverse and joined the OC, who had stopped to make quite sure that all his men were out.

MY OC SAVED ME

We then made for a high hedge in front of us. The party scattered a little. The sergeant and some of the men found a sunken road and reached our lines in safety.

When we reached the fence the fire opened again. I found a gate and shouted to the others. We went through it and ran into another party of advancing Germans. Turning sharply back along the other side of the fence, we passed through a farmyard unseen by the men who were inside the house, setting fire to it. Then we reached a nine-foot fence with barbed wire strung through it. The others went over it like a troop of professional monkeys. The OC, hailed me softly from the far side and refused to go on without me. I cursed him inwardly, because the muscles in my right side were not intact, and I had not even considered the question of gymnastic effort. I managed to climb up the wires with two feet and one hand, reached the top and took a header down into the dark. The OC fielded me, and we sat down together in a heap.

A photograph of the kilted warriors taken after the fighting.

The roll call taken at Wulverghem after the fighting at Messines. Only 150 officers and men answered it. In the following days stragglers turned up and the final casualty count was 394 men dead or missing.

A group photograph taken following the battle. With minimal training and time at the front; lacking maps and with mal-functioning rifles and without support of their machine guns, this Territorial battalion put up a strong fight.

In the next field we ran across a company of Germans advancing in line upon our left. On our right hand was a hedge, so we were forced to keep straight on. The moonlight was brilliant. We could see their uniforms and their faces and their Pickelhaubes, and could hear them talking together. Our men’s bayonets were gleaming on the ends of their rifles and we must have been as plainly visible to them as they to us.

They made no attempt to rush us, and let us reach a road about 200 yards away; then they opened fire on us. I can only conclude they deliberately waited until they were out of reach of our bayonets before molesting us. Our OC was so indignant about it that he was with difficulty restrained from hurling himself and his nine able-bodied followers at them with the bayonet. He left the place with the utmost reluctance, but although a sudden charge might have thrown that company into confusion, the place was crawling with additional Germans.

We walked down a road between small trees and struck out again across country. In front of us lay a village. An enormous shell came rattling and snoring over us just as we approached the village. It burst in a blaze of light, and the houses became instantly a mass of flames. Three more shells followed, and two minutes later the whole place was a furnace.

We turned back. After a while we found ourselves on a road with high banks and walked along it. I had dropped back a little behind the others, and so first heard a wild rattle of hoofs on the road. I shouted a warning that there was an Uhlan coming. They promptly took up ambush positions. A cloaked figure galloped round the corner and pulled his horse back on its haunches as he suddenly found himself looking down nine rifle barrels, and at two bayonets which had jammed and refused to come unfixed.

I think we were all both relieved and disappointed when he turned out to be a corporal in the Household Brigade, riding for reinforcements. He told us that the Germans had simply poured over his regiment and broken through, and that the day was lost. He pointed out the direction of Ypres, set spurs to his charger, and galloped on again.

Following his instructions, we struck out across a dreary, open plain, intersected by water dykes, for all the world like the Norfolk marshes. As we approached the high road on the far side of the marshes we saw a signal lamp winking from the base of a windmill, but as we knew not if the place was held in force by the enemy, or if the flashes were the work of a spy, or if they owed their being to one of our own signallers, we decided to make inquiries before we entered the village beyond.

Accordingly we halted on the road a little way out. We had not long to wait before a motor car approached us. We stopped it and found it was driven by an English soldier, who told us that there was a staff officer and a dressing-station close by. The OC turned me over to the dressing station and then hurried to report to the staff officer. From there he and his nine men joined in, I believe, with the force that stormed Messines a few hours later.

A London Scottish lance-corporal in full marching order.