The Divisional artillery came out of action in the neighbourhood of Famars on 2nd November, but returned to the line on 6th November under orders of the C.R.A. 56th Division. They remained attached to the advancing Divisions until the declaration of the armistice at 11 A.M. on 11th November, within forty-eight hours of the second anniversary of the battle of Beaumont Hamel.

With the armistice ends the real history of the Highland Division, and it is well to leave the story of the gradual fading away of the Division during the period of demobilisation untold. Suffice it to say that the last commander who finally hauled down the Divisional flag was Brigadier-General L. Oldfield, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., the C.R.A., who had joined the Division on July 1916, and had served longer with it than any other of its Brigadiers.

The last of the battalions that had served with the Division left in Belgium or France was the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who remained at Charleroi under the command of Major Andrew Lockie. Attached to this battalion were a number of non-demobilisable Jocks from many different battalions, and it in consequence came to be known as the 8th Argyll and some other Highlanders.

No history of the Highland Division would be complete without a word spoken about both the incomparable Jock and his adversary the Boche.

That the Boche was such a magnificent fighter reflects more to the credit of the Highland Division probably than any other factor. The picture of the Boche as a fat, crop-eared, spectacled, middle-aged gentleman, holding up his hands and crying “Kamerad,” was a libellous portrait of him that appeared almost daily in the illustrated press, and sickened the men who had to fight him.

The German was, in fact, a magnificent worker in trenches, a rifle-shot full of initiative, a machine-gunner whose courage did not fail him up to the last days of the war, an accurate gunner, a skilful and at times very aggressive airman, an infantryman capable of great skill and initiative in his attacks, of prolonged resistance in the defence, and of occasional bursts of great enterprise in raiding.

That the Jocks should have defeated him in every department of the game from 13th November 1916 until 29th October 1918 would not have been so praiseworthy a feat were the military qualities of the Germans less.

As regards the Jock, the men of the Highland Division, while Scotland had men to give, were difficult to equal. Of splendid physique, and with their fine characteristic open countenances, they compared favourably in appearance with the Guards Division.

At Arras in 1916, as one walked round the vast hollow square of Highland soldiers within which the Divisional band of 100 pipers used to play, one felt that one would never be privileged to see the manhood of a nation better expressed, or a nation that could provide a better exhibition of manhood.

Here were men from all those various callings which by their nature tend to give men physical strength—miners, fishermen, farm-servants, gillies, stalkers, all in their prime of life. Later, particularly in 1918, when the Highlands had nothing further to give but her boys, the physique and general appearance of the Division naturally deteriorated. However, though called upon to shoulder a man’s burden before their physical development was complete, these same boys, in Champagne and in the last phases of the war, showed that they had at least inherited the spirit of their fathers and elder brothers.

The past records of the Highland regiments had afforded ample proof that the Highlander was well endowed by nature for any form of warfare that he had taken part in prior to the Great War. From the time that they were raised there has hardly been a battle of first importance in which some act of gallantry on the part of one or other of the kilted regiments has not become proverbial. But experience had already proved that this war was not one in which the arme blanche, Élan, and physical courage, unassisted by considerable tactical skill and the power of prolonged endurance of nerve-shattering things, could hope for success.

Modern conditions of war have, however, only added lustre to the reputation of the Highlander as a fighting man. The Jock soon learned to temper his natural courage and dash with skill and intelligence. He regarded the war not as a sport, but as a business. He took his training seriously, and in consequence was easily trained. In battle his great virtue was that he did not “see red” or lose his head, but coolly and intelligently put into practice what he had learnt in his training. The men had thus the necessary aptitude to be moulded by their commanders into a highly-perfected fighting machine.

According to their own statements, the Germans feared the Highland Division more than any other Division on the Western Front. This was not because it was the most savage, for the Jock was a clean fighter, if anything over-kind, but because, after the evil days of High Wood, the Division never knew failure.

One of the great factors on which the reputation of the 51st Division rested was its intense esprit de division, which continuously increased as success followed success. No matter in what arm of the service he might be, the Jock was proud of the 51st. As a result, the various arms were all animated by the common ideal of enhancing the reputation of their Division.

This feeling dominated the whole Division from its commanders down to the cook in the Divisional soup kitchen, and the old warrior, some sixty years of age, who drove the Foden disinfector.

Proud of their Division and proud of their record, the morale of the Jocks was always maintained at a high pitch throughout the war, with perhaps the exception of the period after the two heavy German attacks with the consequent enormous losses in March and April 1918.

During this period the Division was so decimated and so exhausted that a fear existed that it might never regain its old fighting efficiency. However, a quiet tour of trench life on the familiar Vimy Ridge soon dispelled this fear, and the Division was able to give as good an account of itself as ever when fighting alongside the French in Champagne in the following July and August.

In billets the Jock was as good a soldier as he was in the field; crime, apart from the most minor offences, was almost non-existent. The periods of rest, which were seldom long, were ungrudgingly devoted to restoring uniform and equipment to an almost pre-war standard of smartness and to training for further encounters.

The inhabitants of France and Belgium had a deep affection for les Écossais and the 51st. This, no doubt, was in a measure due to the Highland dress, but more particularly to the natural courtesy and kindly disposition of the Jocks.

It will always remain a mystery how the Jock understood the patois of the natives, and how the natives understood the mixture of broad Scots and bad French which the Jock employed. The fact remained that their disabilities in respect of language apparently placed little restriction on their intimacy with one another.

For many years to come the inhabitants of the erstwhile British lines in France and Belgium will regard the 51st (Highland) Division not only with admiration for their fighting qualities, but also with deep affection for that gallant gentleman, the Jock.