Scots Guards (1914)

This article details the history of the Scots Guards from 1914 to 1945. The Scots Guards (SG) is a regiment of the Guards Division of the British Army. The Scots Guards trace their origins back to 1642 when, by order of King Charles I, the regiment was raised by Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll for service in Ireland, and was known as the Marquis of Argyll's Royal Regiment.

See Scots Guards (1805).

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Countess Sophie were assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. This event triggered the First World War that would eventually lead every major power on the continent and the United Kingdom into war by August, a war that would affect much of the world.

The 3rd (Reserve) Battalion was re-formed in August, though would not see service abroad, and would remain in the UK for the duration of the war, and was disbanded in 1919. Also in August, the 1st Battalion, part of the 1st Guards Brigade of the 1st Division, departed for foreign shores, arriving in France as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). The first engagement of the war came at Mons where British forces successfully defended against the Germans, inflicting very heavy casualties on them, so much so that they believed the British Army had used far more machine-guns than they had actually used. Despite the victory, due to overwhelming Germans number, as well as the retreat of the French, the British had to withdraw from Mons which the 1st Battalion took part in. The retreat effectively saved the BEF and the French and kept the British in France to continue the fight against the Germans.

In September the 1st Battalion took part in its second major engagement, at the First Battle of the Marne, which saw the Germans advance halted after much bitter fighting, with the Germans eventually going into retreat. The sides soon dug-in, the trenches that would be made would become one of the defining symbols of the First World War. The battalion subsequently took part in the Battle of the Aisne where the battalion saw heavy fighting, including at the Aisne Heights and Chivy. In November, the 2nd Battalion landed in France as part of the 20th Guards Brigade of the 7th Division. Both battalions as part of their respective divisions, took part in the First Battle of Ypres which took place between September and November. Both battalions saw very heavy fighting at Ypres and in the surrounding area, which eventually saw over 50,000 British soldiers of the Regular army become casualties, though the British Army held the line against seemingly overwhelming German attacks, stopping the final German attempt to break the Allied line in 1914.

...
Wikipedia