AS PROMISED - SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM SCOTTISH MILITARY DISASTERS - > Book Extract
* He was an Eighteenth Century Scottish Forrest Gump - Stobo
** Here's one that combines Canadian and Scottish themes - Tunnelling for Victory
*** Those who enjoyed reading about the Royal Scots’ Armistice Day battle with the Bolsheviks in 1918might be interested in the same fight as seen from a Canadian viewpoint - Canada’s Winter War
***** Read about the blunder that made Canada an easy target for invasion from the United States - Undefended Border
****** Read about the Second World War's Lord McHaw Haw
******* Serious questionmarks over the official version of one the British Army's most dearly held legends - The Real Mackay?
********** It's been a while since I posted a new article. This one's called Temptation
********** Read about how the most Highland of the Highland regiments during the Second World War fared in the Canadian Rockies - Drug Store Commandos.
************* We now have a Guide to Scottish military museums on this site.
************** Just weeks before the outbreak of the First World War one of Britain's most bitter enemies walked free from a Canadian jail - Dynamite Dillon
*************** Click to read - - Victoria's Royal Canadians - about one of the more unusual of the British regiments.
*************** Read an article about the Royal Scots and their desperate fight against the Bolsheviks on Armistice Day 1918 - Forgotten War A second article, looks at the same battle but through a Canadian lens .
***************No-one has got back to me with a German source for the claim that the kilties during the First World War were known as The Ladies from Hell . See My Challenge to You
***************** A map showing the old Scottish regimental recruiting districts can now be seen by clicking Recruiting Area Map .
****************** The Fighting Men 1746 article now includes the estimated strengths of the Jacobite clan regiments which marched into England in 1745 See Clan Strengths
****************** **I've posted a fresh article - Scotland’s Forgotten Regiments. Guess what it's about.
******************** The High Court Hearing in London in May 2012 attracted a lot of visitors to this site. See Batang Kali Revisited
Whose Story?
Those parasites on the public purse, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, are telling me that "It's About Whose Story It Is To Tell". Oh no it ain't. Stories belong to everybody. No-one owns a story. There is something to be said for the version from those involved in events. But sometimes they bring there own biases, conscious and unconscious, and agendas. And if five people see the same road accident you will get five differing accounts. There is also something to be said for an outsider's take on events. Where the nonsense peddled by the CBC gets nasty is when one group decides only their version should be allowed. A Canadian film maker, originally from India, wanted to make a documentary about the singer Nat King Cole. She was warned to steer clear of the project because she wasn't black. She decided it wasn't worth the hassle and dropped the idea. I wonder if she's still allowed to listen to Cole's music.
Centurion Vs Chieftain
I recently came across an American book for people who collect old military vehicles, as in tanks. The 1994 book gave details about how to refurbish and maintain your tank. It turned out that about the cheapest tanks to buy at the time were British Centurions and Chieftains. Both were being sold off in some numbers by the Ministry of Defence around 1994 for $10,000 a piece. But the book advised going for the older Centurions, originally designed during the Second World, as the Chieftains were a little more complex and difficult for the enthusiast to maintain. I seem to remember when I was younger a lot of ex-Polish Army T-34s were being imported into the UK by collectors. I believe the customs forms described them as "agricultural vehicles", as in heavy duty tractors.
Shameless Plug #9 - With Wellington was among the books recommended as an excellent Christmas present by the prestigious The Society for Army Historical Research. There was another mysterious surge in sales of With Wellington last summer. At the end of May it was the third best selling book about the Peninsular War on the website of one of Britain's biggest booksellers and Number Eighteen in the table for all Napoleonic books. Last December's sales surge turned out to be a combination of the venerable Scots Magazine declaring it Book of the Month in its January 2015 edition and a highly favourable review in the Napoleonic Association's newsletter. Scots Magazine's reviewer, nature writer and author, Jim Crumley, declared "I don't much care for military memoirs, but I could not put this one down". Other reviewers have been equally enthusiastic - "If you are interested in the memoirs of British soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars this book is a MUST!... You don't get many Napoleonic memoirs as good as this" and "It is the most candid memoir of the British Army I have ever read... does not pull any punches ... highly entertaining, but also thought provoking..." To have a look at the full reviews check out more about With Wellington
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