The Heat of the Day and the Eleventh Hour
With the 8th Scottish Rifles, 1914 - -1919. By Col. J. M. Findlay, D.S.O. (London : Blackie and Son, Ltd. 5s. net.)
History of the 40th Division. By Lt.-Col. F. E. Whitton, C.M.G.
(Aldersnot : Gale and Polden, Ltd. Price not stated.) t -
HERE, in With the 8th Scottish Rifles, figure Ian Hay's soldiers of The First Hundred Thousand; though the 8th Cameronians was, of course, a Territorial regiment, which at the outbreak of the Great War had just finished its annual training. On a soldier who had repeatedly turned left when he should
have turned right, an exasperated sergeant-major exploded with. "Blast you, I've told you a dizen times which is your right," and received the reply, " Aye, but ye see ah'm left- haundit." • Or again what a wise Scottish economy was shown by a faulty marksman who was asked if he knew what an inch was, and coyly answered, " A widna like to say, sir."
With such human touches Colonel Findlay, who wisely determined not to produce an " official " history, has bright- ened his book. But he has sterner things to tell. The brigade
of which the 8th formed part was attached to the incomparable 29th Division, and shared with it in the tulle acharnée of Gallipoli. Incidentally an injustice to the battalion's conduct there was unwittingly done by Mr. Nevinson in his Dardanellei Campaign—an injustice which was wholly undeserved, but which was amply and honourably put right.
To Gallipoli succeeded Egypt with some fierce fighting at Ramani, and then the dreary trek through the Sinai Desert into Palestine led on to the three battles round Gaza and the capture of Jerusalem. Of the Gallipoli strength only 130 men were left to serve in France and to drive home the German defeat, and the end came with the occupational march into Germany. Colonel Findlay can be heartily congratulated on having, with- the help .of several other hands, produced a lively and picturesque story, which is illustrated by good informative maps and some really remarkable photographs
of desert scenery. . • It is a fine record— F
Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine. ranco, Flanders, and (for a Trench Mortar Battery) Mesopotamia— and the 8th Cameronians can be truly said to have borne. the burden and heat (especially the desert heat) of the day.. Not exactly at the eleventh hour, but as the last Division of the New Armies to leave the shore of England, enters the 40th Division, whose tale is told by a distinguished _soldier who is also a trained military historian. Blended of English,, Welsh, and Scottish units, the 40th was originally designed as a Bantam Division, but there were not enough Itantams, to go round, and accordingly a general sweep-up of'
the, lame. .s
and the halt wa.s set on foot. Very soon, however, it was found, that a Division so constituted was in no state to go overseas, and the 40th was therefore ptirged of its weaklings, and stiffened with four battalions from another source.
After a period of intensive training the Division embarked for France under the command of Major-General Ruggles Brise at the end of May, -1916. Followed eight months of bitting-in, and in March. 1917, the Division first passed from passive to active warfare by pressing on the Germans who were falling back on the Hindenburg Line. From that time the 40th took its full share of the general fighting --at Villers Plouich (which produced for it a V.C.); and all through: the long-drawn-out struggle on the dreary flats round ,Botirlon Wood, when the enemy reported it as " annihilated." But still enough of it was left—lo the 'enemy's surprise - to resist the fate-fraught German push of March-April, 1918, at the end of which the Division was so far depleted as to be of no further immediate use. Reconstruction restored its use- fulness—its entity, its spirit, was never lost—and its history ends on the Escaut. " It came into being to fight. It fought well. And, the fighting being over, the tale is done," are the last words of a well-told story, shot with a pleasant vein of humour, which emphasizes once more what Macaulay has written of—that " unconquerable British courage which is never . so sedate and stubborn as towards the close of a doubtful and murderous day."
" Come one, come all, you stand or fall
By the man who holds the gun."
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