27 / 44
battle of loos
25
My darling sweetheart, Betty
first objectives. ‘The enemy’s machine guns got to work and our
men dropped right and left, but they never wavered for a second,
on they went, line after line, into and over the German front
line trenches, on into the second and third lines and bang into
Loos itself, nothing stopped them; it was a perfectly magnificent
show but alas, alas, it was only a remnant of a Regiment’.
36
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir John Burnett-Stuart, serving with the
General Staff, described the advance of 9th Black Watch as the
finest sight he had ever seen.
37
‘It seemed impossible to realize
that these lines of disciplined soldiers had been, twelve
short months before, almost all civilians. Perfect steadiness
prevailed, regardless of the heavy fire which swept the ground
over which they had to cross. There was no shouting or hurry;
the men moved in quick time, picking up their “dressing” as if
on a ceremonial parade’.
38
33 Black Watch Castle and Museum, BWA 0171 Major J. Stewart, Diary, 21 September 1915
34 The Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Herald, Wednesday,16 February 1916, 3.
35 A.G. Wauchope, A history of the Black Watch in the Great War, Vol. III(London, 1926), 124.
36 Black Watch Castle and Museum, BWA 0171 Major J. Stewart, Diary, 30 September 1915.
37 A.G. Wauchope, A history of the Black Watch in the Great War, Vol. III (London, 1926), 124.
38 Ibid