The Manchester Evening News of 8 February 1915 supports this assertion, noting that the entertainer Mr Harry Lauder had organised a group of pipers to tour around Scotland to aid in ‘stimulating recruiting’.Īnd in December 1914 the Liverpool Scottish reported that the music of the pipers echoed up and down the promenade as men were trained for the war. Robert Burns stated in a newspaper letter that the sound of the bagpipes had been used to rally men to the recruitment. The pipers also entertained the soldiers and provided music while the officers dined. In September 1916 a Canadian contingent bound for WW1 were ‘roused’ out of their beds and boarded the Andania to ‘the skirl of the bagpipes’. The tune ‘Highland Laddie’ was played to warn the Royal Scots to dress for parade. The pipes also called the men to meals, sick parade, call quarter, tea and last post – which was played at ten o’clock in the evening. For the Gordon Highlanders’ piper the morning tune was ‘Greenwoodside’. Each regiment would have their own tunes like ‘Johnny Cope’ or ‘Bannocks o’ Barley Meal’. Soldiers became family the piper and his music were a part of that family – with a special role. The writer Clive Cussler states that his father, who was a soldier in the German army in WW1, claimed that the ‘French as fighters were second rate, English hard as bulldogs and Americans really ever ready to wrestle’ – but ‘only when we heard the pipes of those ones with the short skirt we took cold sweats and understood that many of us will never go home for Christmas’. ….when we heard the pipes of ‘those ones with the short skirt’ we took cold sweats and understood that many of us will never go home for Christmas’…… German soldier in WW1
They witnessed the effect the music had on the attitudes and emotions of those they fought against and it made them afraid. Early in the Battle of the Somme the tune, ‘The Campbells are Coming’, was said to put terror in the German soldiers.
They believed ‘taking them out meant taking out something spiritual’. Recognising the power of the music to inspire the enemy, the Germans began to try to target all officers and pipers. The Germans had been slow to realise ‘the military value of the piper’ but soon learned to link the pipes and their music to a certain type of fighting man – the dreaded Scots. On the coin was the likeness of Laidlaw as the ‘piper of death’ doing the ‘dance of death’. He grabbed his pipes, mounted the parapet and marched back and forth playing the men into the fight until he was wounded. Laidlaw noticed that his company was unnerved by the British gas that was being blown back at them none of the soldiers were moving.ĭanial Laidlaw VC inspired the KOSB in Battle of Loos In 1915 Germany put out a commemorative coin which showed their awareness of the heroics of the ‘Piper of Loos’, Daniel Laidlaw. Yet there were others still did not understand the piper and his music and what it meant to their men. They understood the importance and difficulty of trying to replace fallen pipers and that is why they were held back from the front. The order was obeyed, but after landing at the Cape in South Africa, other officers sent home for replacement sets.įor some commanding officers the pipers in their battalions were only to play while on marches and when going and coming back from the front, but not into action. In the Boer War, an inspecting officer, Major-General Browne, told the pipers departing the UK to leave their pipes behind. The symbolism of bagpipe music, as understood in the soldier culture, was also understood by most of the officer corps, though sometimes they took longer to convince.
The music embraced the life of all soldiers from the excitement of signing up to being laid to rest.Įach battalion had its own tunes that bonded men to each other to create a unified fighting force and invigorated them when their spirits flagged. There can be no doubt of the importance to the men of their company pipers. When pipers jumped over the top of the trenches and played the pipes with no thought of their own mortality, they harkened back to the ancient warriors of Scotland’s mythology. Seeing the piper on the front lines of the First World War had the effect of energising the soldiers and lifting moral. The piper with his bagpipes has been understood for years to be a symbol of Scottish patriotism, fierce, a brave fighter, and a cultural icon.
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