Told in gallant deeds : $b A child's history of the warLowndes, Marie Belloc
History
Told in gallant deeds : $b A child's history of the war
Lowndes, Marie Belloc
World War, 1914-1918 -- Juvenile literature
There were at least two Frenchmen in this historic charge. The Vicomte
de Vauvineux, a French cavalry officer, who rode with the brigade as
interpreter, was killed instantly—a gallant officer whose death many in
England mourned. Captain Letourey, the French master at Blundell’s
School in Devon, rode by the side of de Vauvineux, but escaped death as
by a miracle. His horse was shot under him, but he caught another,
riderless, and rode off unscathed.
While the bulk of the brigade swerved to the right, riding for a hundred
yards across the face of the machine guns, a few rode desperately on,
bearing charmed lives. But only for a few yards. The trap, baited by the
desultory fire of the artillery, was complete. Wire entanglements were
buried in the grass thirty yards in front of the guns. Riding full tilt
into these, the few who kept their line to the guns fell, and were made
prisoners.
Of the 9th Lancers, not more than forty gathered that night in a village
hard by. Others came in next day, and finally some two hundred and
twenty in all mustered out of the entire regiment.
A trooper of the 9th Lancers in writing home mentioned a fact which I
thought very touching, and the admission of which showed that he was
really a brave man. He said that when going into action he found himself
crying out “Mother!” “Mother!” and then suddenly he felt courage, as he
strikingly put it, “loom” up in him.
I think, without boasting, we may say that it is characteristic of both
armies that whereas the German soldiers are played into action by a
band, the British march into action singing. During the present campaign
they seem to have preferred “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” and it is on
record that an Irish regiment sang that stirring old song “God save
Ireland.” The Manchester Regiment sing “Killaloe,” the Rifle Brigade are
fond of that fine old ballad “Colonel Coote Manningham’s a very good
man.” The Fusiliers have their own song, “Fighting with the Royal
Fusiliers.”
We must not allow ourselves to forget that other regiments of our
cavalry were also engaged in this great battle, among them the 18th
Hussars and the 4th Dragoons, who performed noble feats of valour and
suffered severely.
Another historic “scrap” was that between a regiment of Irish infantry
and three regiments of German cavalry splendidly horsed, equipped, and
armed. The Irishmen, who had been joking and smoking, rose up to meet
the oncoming rush of horsemen, and one who was there said they looked
like a bristling bulwark of giants, holding weapons of steel in steel
grips.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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