Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 2, 1894

•:i6
THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
Part I.
" Tlie last time France stood British fire
The Brigade gained glory att its cost,
At (^)uatre Bras and Waterloo
Three dreadful days they kept their post ;
Two thousand there, who formed in squares
Before the close, a handful grew.
But the little phalanx never flinched
Till " Boney" fled at Waterloo."
Soldier's Ditty.
'■ AgincoiU't may be forgot
And Cressy be an unknown spot
And Blenheim's name be new.
But still in storj' and in song
For many an age remembered long
Shall live the towers of Hougomont
And held of Waterloo.
Scott.
Waterloo, like Inkennan, was essentially a
soldiers' battle. Never on the plains of the
Peninsula, had the British soltlier better shown
with " what a majesty he could fight." The
Great Moltke said that Waterloo was one of the
finest instances of defensive warfare in all
history, and no other than the British soldier
could have withstood the fiery assaults of the
French for so long without tlinching. The
Highland Brigade was decimated on the Pyrenees
and the fields of Orothes and Toulouse, and its
itinks, on its return home in IM I, were filled
with the newest of recruits, wlio for the most
part had scarcely emerged from tlu'ir teens,
when sent to Flanders to form the immortal
.squai'e.s, upon which the Gallic fury broke like
waves of foam upon their native coasts.
Yet young as they were in tliis eaujpaign,
which terminated so gloriously at Waterloo,
the martial youths of Scotland evinced a
steadiness, a courage, and audacity worthy of
the best days and deeds of their country.
No country in Europe is so proud of its
gallant national regiments as Scotland. No
country manifests so much pleasure and delight
in receiving into its midst, one or other of its
gallant corps, on returning from a campaign, or
long foreign service. The Metropolis of Scotland
has never forgotten nor neglected its sense of
the duty owing to the brave warriors she sends
forth to defehd the rights, and vindicate the
honour of their country. Happily for Scotland
her soldier sons are easily distinguished in the
field or in garrison by their national uniform,
■which attracts attention, and spreads terror.
It was at Waterloo Najioleon for the first time
saw this warlike uniform before him in martial
array. He knew who wore it. He heard too
for the first time the wildly animating pibroch
notes that sounded that fearful charge which
confounded a whole division of his grand soldiers,
inured to warfare and vastly superior in numbers,
drawing from him the appreciative exclamation,
" Ceg braves Ecossais," but he did not know that
those other grand soldiers mounted on gallant
grey steeds, were also "J'Jcossais" who, when their
kilted countrymen by their furiously sustained
charges threw his division into disorder, came
galloping up from the rear, and fell like a thun-
derbolt into the disordered ranks, ploughing
through them, cutting, slashing, stabbing,
jiiercing them through and through, annihilating
or taking prisoners the whole division. The
sight was terrible; Napoleon winced, saying,
"Qui soul terribles, ces clievratix gris" (How
terrible are these grey liorses), yet these infantry
and cavalry corps were both " Kcossais." The
one had a distinctive uniform, the other had not.