For King and Country

Usually on Memorial Day, I highlight an ancestor who fought and gave his or her life in service to our country. This year, I am going to highlight a cousin whom I only recently found out about. This ancestor died in World War I in service to Great Britain. While Memorial Day is technically an American holiday, it is through a newly-found living American cousin that I found out about our shared ancestor and his sacrifice.

John Grierson, whose relationship to me is 2nd cousin 3X removed, was born in 1880 in Maryhill–a neighborhood in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Sometime after his twenty-first birthday, John enlisted and served his country in the South African War.

Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914. Sometime thereafter, John enlisted for the second time. He was sent to Northern France with the 8th Seaforth Highlanders.

The Highlanders were an infantry regiment in the Scottish Division of the Royal forces. The Highlanders and the Royal Irish Regiment were the only regiments in the British army with Gaelic mottos. The Highlanders’ motto was Cuidich ‘n Righ: “Help the King.”

I’m taken by the Seaforths’ intriguing uniforms and the fact that each unit of the Scottish division had its own bagpiper. The piper was the first one out of the foxhole. He played a stirring tune to rally the troops–and scare the Germans at the same time. Later, he played a more mellow tune in a somber serenade to those that had been lost that day.

In order to better visualize the MacKenzie tartan that the Seaforths wore, here is a black and white photo of soldiers in the trenches and the same photograph later colorized.

John was part of a large contingent of Scottish soldiers sent to assist the French in their attempt to push Germany out of Northern France. One of the bloodiest battles in this particular theater of war was the Battle of Loos.

Detailed accounts of this “Big Push” describe a first wave of soldiers leaving trenches, bayonets attached to their weapons, and literally running for the safety of other trenches closer to “No Man’s Land” and the German line. The Battle of Loos was the first time in its history that the British army used gas (chlorine) in warfare. They did so in spite of their own objections to the Germans’ use of chemical warfare. Germans exchanged fire and bloody hand-to-hand combat in the trenches themselves ensued.

John was obviously one of the very first wave of soldiers. He died on the very first day of battle–September 25, 1915. The Battle of Loos raged until October 13, 1915.

Although John Grierson was fighting for the British, he died in service to the Allies. The U.S. declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, over a year and half after his death. On this Memorial Day, I remember John Grierson’s honorable service to the Allies–a cause that my own country would ultimately support and join as well.