RETURN OF “THE GREYS"

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 260, 24 January 1928, Page 14

RETURN OF “THE GREYS"

FAMOUS SCOTS REGIMENT FOUGHT UNDER MARLBOROUGH The arrival of The Greys at Edinburgh ■ from a tour of foreign service coincided almost exactly with the 246th anniversary of the birth of the It was on November 25, ibai, that a commission was issued to Thomas Dalyell, authorising him to raise a regiment of dragoons, later to be known by the name of The Scots Greys, says the, London “Observer/’ Since then the service of the regiment has justified its challenging motto, “Second to None,” in itself a neat play on the regiment’s alternative title of "2nd Dragoons.” The Greys fought under Marlborough at Blenheim, Bamillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet. On their standards are borne also the battle honours “Dettingen,” “Warburg,” and “Willems.” They played a noble part at Waterloo. Xn the Crimea. The Greys formed the bulk of “Scarlett’s Three Hundred” in the ever-memorable charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaklava. Another long spell of peace soldiering was broken by the South African War, in which The Greys took part in the brilliant cavalry movements under French, which led to the relief of Kimberley and the surrender of Cronje at Paardeberg. In the Great War the regiment served throughout the whole ' struggle in France, gaining 26 honours, beginning with Mons, in 1914, and concluding with the pursuit to Mons. in 1918, which was the fitting “curtain” to the greatest war drama ever staged. Jemmy the Angel At Bamillies, The Greys distinguished themselves in the pursuit, when two battalions of the Regiment flu Roi were overtaken by the Scotsmen, who “broke in a la hussarde, sword in hand, at a gallop, killing or taking nearly all.” After Malplaquet, Orkney wrote of The Greys in a curious strain of admiration: "Jemmy Campbell, at the head of the grey dragoons, behaved like an angel, and broke through both lines.” Breathes there a man with soul so dead as to gaze without a thrill on Elizabeth Thompson’s "Scotland for Ever”? It shows The Greys charging at Waterloo, in the Union Brigade, against Ney’s columns just checked by Pack and Picton. "On went the horsemen,” wrote Creasy, “amid the wrecks of the French columns, capturing two eagles and 2,000 prisoners: onward they galloped and sabred the artillerymen of Ney’s 74 advanced guns; then, severing the traces and cutting the throats of the artillery horses, they rendered these guns totally useless to the French throughout the remainer of the day.” The impetuosity of the attack cost The Greys and the other regiments dear, for when far beyond the British front and disordered by success, they were charged by a large body of French lancers and driven back. The eagle displayed on the appointments of The Greys commemorates the part played by them at Waterloo. “Rally, The Greys!” A more desperate achievement was the charge made by the Heavy Brigade at Balaklava, against a mass of over 2,000 Russian cavalry. The Greys were in the front line with a squadron of their old comrades, The Inniskillings. The Irishmen went in with ringing cheers, The Greys “with a low moan of outbursting desire,” which rose to a yell of exultation when the Russian mass was pierced. How the regiment rallied actually in the midst of the enemy’s thick-set squadrons was a wonderful cavalry achievement. But the shout, “Rally, The Greys!” vociferated by the adjutant, a man of gigantic stature, and with a voice the range of which was wont to be computed not by yards, but by the mile, wrought the impossible. “Men tried to gather the best way they could in a throng, and, by facing toward the adjutant, as the thunder of his voice had enjoined, began to show the rudiments of a front.” After the action -Colin Campbell galloped up. Uncovering, he thus addressed the regiment: “Greys! gallant Greys! I am sixtyone years old, but were I young again I should be proud to be in your ranks.” A humbler tribute, but no less real, is one revealed in a letter from an infantry officer, during the Retreat from Mons in the Great War: "During the evening The Greys came by, after covering the retreat of the brigade throughout the day. They had experienced much fighting and they looked war-worn, though in fine trim, as they filed by, their horses scrubbed with some wash to give them a khaki appearance and thus lessen their visibility. As they passed, with many empty saddles showing the sacrifices they had made, the men of the battalion leaped to their feet, lined the roadside, and cheered The Greys again and again.” This spontaneous tribute, from tired infantry in retreat, to the cavalry that had been covering them, means more than a whole official dispatch can ever convey.