38 / 44
36
battle of loos
63 N. Lloyd, Loos 1915 (Stroud, 2006), 156.
64 Ibid, 157.
65 Ibid, 157.
66 Ibid, 156; G. Corrigan, Loos 1915: The Unwanted Battle (Stroud, 2006) 77.
67 T. Royle, The Flowers of the Forest (Edinburgh, 2007), 92.
68 Black Watch Castle and Museum, BWA 0171 Major J. Stewart, Diary, 30 September 1915.
69 Dumfries and Galloway Saturday Standard, Saturday 6 November 1915, 8.
70 Ibid, 92.
71 I. Hay, The First Hundred Thousand (Edinburgh, 1915)
THE DEATH TALLY
The battle would continue until 13 October 1915, but any hopes
for a major breakthrough had long since evaporated. Scottish
regiments would participate in the later stages of operations,
but it was their disproportionate contribution to the ‘great
advance’ on 25 September that sees Loos justifiably ranked as
a Scottish battle.
This is clearly reflected in the extensive casualty returns.
Official sources record some 470 officer and 15,000 other rank
casualties on the first day of the battle, although it has been
suggested that the figure could have been as high as 19,000.
63
Because Scottish Divisions were making the main attacks, they
suffered particularly heavily.
64
The 9th (Scottish) Division
sustained some 5,868 casualties, while 15th (Scottish) Division
lost 6,606 men killed or wounded.
65
Both 9th and 15th Divisions
lost more men on 25 September 1915, than the average number of
deaths per division on the first day of the Battle of the Somme,
the worst day in the history of the British army.
66
Of the twelve battalions which lost more than 500 casualties,
eight were Scottish.
67
Major John Stewart, second-in-command,
9th Black Watch, left a detailed account of the battle’s impact
on his battalion.
‘We stayed at Mazingarbe all the 27th, a few men dribbled
in from Hill 70 where they had been with other units,
but it was a mere remnant that was left. In all, counting
transport, details on other jobs etc., we mustered 8
officers and 326 men; out of the officers only two came
back (Lloyd and myself) the other six we had were made
up of the 4 we had left behind, the Q.M. and the Transport
Officer, and out of our 326, about 250 had been through the
battle, and about 60 of these had slight wounds; we went
into action about 20 officers and about 900 other ranks,
but though our losses were heavy, we did our job all
right and the K Battalion of The Black Watch well upheld
the traditions of The Regiment.’
68