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The Right Men in the Wrong Tartan
Now that all the Scottish infantry battalions, with the exception of the Scots Guards, have donned the kilt it seems odd to discover that around 130 years ago senior Scottish officers regarded it as a drag on recruiting and actually wanted to cut the number of kilted regiments.
The debate in the run-up to the 1881 re-organization of the British army was every bit as heated as the one surrounding the recent amalgamation of all six regular Scottish infantry battalions into one super-regiment. In the immediate run up to the 1881 changes, the only Highland regiment stationed in Britain was the Black Watch.
Its colonel was the only Highland regimental commander consulted about the proposals to double the number of kilted battalions from the five that existed prior to 1881.
Colonel Duncan MacPherson said those five kilted regiments already had enough problems recruiting Scots, never mind true Highlanders, into their ranks.
He suggested it would be better to create one regiment, “The Highland Brigade”, which would recruit from the whole Highland area.
He, like the other Highland colonels, was anxious not to dilute the Highland character of the regiments any further.
Camerons Say No
The colonels were even prepared to give up their regimental tartans if it meant keeping their recruiting grounds in the Highlands - only the Camerons refused to surrender their distinctive Cameron of Erracht tartan. This scuppered a proposal to put them in Government tartan as the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch.
One former commander of the Gordon Highlanders took a less dramatic line. General J.C. Hay declared more than 120 years ago that he’d worn the Gordon tartan for 30 years and would be sad to see it go.
“But I would rather have the right men in the wrong tartan, than the wrong men in the right tartan,” he said
Up until 1881, the Gordons regarded themselves as an Inverness-shire unit. The regiment had been recruited in 1794 from the Duke of Gordon’s Highland estates, which stretched all the way to Lochaber at the time
But despite this, by 1881 only about half the regiment came from homes in the Highlands and Islands.
Since the early 1870s the Gordon’s base had been at Aberdeen. They shared a depot with the Sutherland Highlanders as part of a scheme drawn up by Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell to link different regiments for recruiting purposes.
Under Cardwell’s scheme, while one of the linked battalions was overseas policing the British Empire, the other would be recruiting and training reinforcements for it. Every few years the two battalions would switch duties.
The new Secretary of State for War Hugh Childers decided the system of linking could be improved if the one battalion regiments were welded together into two battalion regiments. Each of the new regiments would be assigned a specific recruiting area.
Shotgun Marriage
These shotgun marriages created some disappointing combinations for the Highland purists.
The Gordons were “married” to the 75th Stirlingshire Regiment in 1881. The 75th had previously been linked for recruiting and training purposes to the Dorsetshire Regiment.
The only possible justification for the union was that the 75th had been raised as a Highland Regiment in 1787 but when the flow of Highland recruits dried up around 1809 it was decided to abandon the kilt in a bid to recruit more Lowlanders, English and Irishmen into its ranks.
For the same reason, three other Highland regiments were deprived of the kilt in 1809. Childers re-organization would put all three back into the kilt. The Duke of Albany’s Own Highlanders, who had reclaimed at least part of their Scottish identity in 1825 by donning tartan trews, became the 1st Battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders; the 73rd Perthshire Regiment put the kilt back on as the 2nd Battalion of the Black Watch; and the 91st Argyllshire Highlanders became the 1st Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
The controversy over the future of the Highland regiments became a major sore point for Childers. The powerful Anglo-Scottish community in London were ignorant of the serving officers' proposal to form one kilted regiment, and were lobbying to “save” all five.
Childers, in a humorous letter to Lord Reay, joked about the London Scots’ campaign.
“The tartan question is one of the gravest character, far more important, as your friend suggests, than the maintenance of the union with Ireland,” he wrote.
“All the thoughts of the War Office are concentrated upon it, and the patterns of tartans -past and present - fill our rooms.
“We are neglecting the Transvaal and Ashanti for the sake of weighing the merits of a few threads of red, green, or white.”
New and Slightly Improved
Scottish Military Disasters has been launched as an e-book. And it’s been improved.
Preparing the book in e-book format offered the chance to correct some minor errors.
“I wouldn’t say it’s worth someone who has the print version going out and buying the e-book,” said author Paul Cowan.
“But in preparing the e-book we’ve corrected a couple of little irritating misprints and one mistake that probably only annoys me and a couple of my relatives.”
The book is one of the first from the Neil Wilson Publishing catalogue to be released as an e-book.
“Neil’s stable of authors includes such giants as Nigel Tranter, so this is a real honour for me,” said Cowan.
“This will make the book far more accessible to readers in Scotland and around the World – and also in certain countries far more affordable.
“I’ve found where it is reasonably priced overseas, it’s been selling like hotcakes.”
Glasgow-based Neil Wilson said the move into e-books was as a result of public demand.
Wilson teamed up with the respected e-book team at the Faber Factory for the conversion to the new format which will make Scottish Military Disasters available on a variety of devices, including most e-readers and mobile phones.
“We will also go online with Apple soon,” he added.
For details of how to buy the e-book version –
Do us both a favour: Only order from a well established reputable retailer. I wouldn't even risk trying to see if any of the numerous sites offering a supposedly free version do more than download something malicious.
Book Briefing
563. England's Pride
by Julian Symons
After a promising start, this look at failed attempt to rescue Victorian icon Charles Gordon from the Sudanese city of Khartoum settles into a rather pedestrian account. Symons was a successful crime writer who on occasion turned his hand to history. Gordon, for me at least, failed to come alive in this book. Though Symons neither lionises him nor mocks him. The key figure in the book is Sir Garnet Wolseley, the inspiration for Gilbert and Sullivan's Model of a Modern Major General. The failure of the relief expedition ruined Wolseley's reputation as Our Only General. Symons argues that Prime Minister Gladstone determination not to let Gordon's refusal to leave Khartoum force his hand meant the relief expedition was dispatched too late. In war, it is said, error is the rule, not the exception. Mistakes, big and small, were made at all levels and Symons is probably correct when he asserts that it was a miracle that the expedition came so close to success as it did.
562. The Third Front
by Douglas Liversidge
Journalist Douglas Liversidge does an excellent job of capturing the starkness of life in Arctic during the Second World War in this account of one of least known theatres of conflict. Both the Allies and Germans set up crucial weather stations in the Far North and hunted the other side through the ice and snow wastelands. Men died, planes crashed and ships were crushed. Courage and fortitude counted for much. Liversidge gives no clue as to how he uncovered a lot of the fascinating detail he gives in this well written and evenhanded account which gives due credit to both sides. This is a definite contender for the 2021 Book of the Year.
561. Hawkwood: Diabolical Englishman
by Frances Stonor Saunders
I'm afraid I can't share others enthusiasm for this account of 14th Century warfare in Italy. The Hawkwood of the title is mercenary leader John Hawkwood. But there is surprisingly little about the Essex man beyond what can be gleaned from official records. I got no feel for the man. There was far more insight from Ms Saunders into the various Italians involved in the bitter warfare between various city states for supremacy in the peninsula, with the added complication of rival popes also seeking dominance. Hawkwood fought for nearly all of them. This is an interesting account of late medieval warfare in Italy but not really much of a biography of Hawkwood. Saunders's stodgey writing style also made it hard for me to digest much of the book at each sitting.
Paul's News
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I was asked by the Dorchester Review to write an article about how part of Edinburgh Castle is officially part of Nova Scotia in Canada due to a legal loophole dating back to the 1620s. That turned out not to be quite true and it might be just as valid to say that Nova Scotia is part of Edinburgh. Anyway, I found a court case from 1831 which involved this legal fiction - Selling Nova Scotia
Canadians Invade Russia
An article I wrote about the 1918 Armistice Day battle against the Bolsheviks in Northern Russia has been published in the Spring/Summer edition of Dorchester Review. It’s a companion piece to “Archangel” but focuses on the role of the 67th Battery of the Canadian Field Artillery rather than the 2/10th Royal Scots. The new article is called - Canada’s Winter War
The Defenceless Border
The Canadian - United States border is said to be the longest undefended frontier in the world. The latest Dorchester Review, Canada's best history magazine, carries an article I wrote about a time when though American invasion seemed highly likely, Scottish troops found themselves with useless rifles in their hands. The article is called Undefended Border
Historic Capture
The September/October edition of History Scotland magazine included a two page article I wrote looking at who really captured a French general in 1808 and why the credit might have been given to another member of the Highland Light Infantry. The official version of General Brennier's capture by the HLI at Vimeiro has gone down in British Army legend, "We are soldiers, Sir, not plunderers", but what ordinary members of the regiment had to say, or did not say, about the episode paints a less flattering picture of it and its aftermath. As the November/December issue is now available, here is the article The Real Mackay?
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