Soldiers

by Richard Holmes

  THE REGIMENTS DEPART

  MOST THINGS ARE much clearer in retrospect than they are at the time. Britain’s post-1945 recession from waning imperial power to dignified penury may now seem predictable, but the scale and pace of her military run-down against a background of small wars, with the constant risk of a major war against the Warsaw Pact, was never simple. In the process the army shrank, and the regimental system that emerged from the Second World War was soon forced, contraction by contraction, into offspring that are never far from our television screens. The second battalions of line regiments disappeared soon after 1945, though the Foot Guards hung on to theirs until 1993. It was evident that single-battalion regiments of the 1950s had all the weaknesses that had marked them a century before. They were rarely strong enough to go on active service without being reinforced by other regiments, and it was seldom easy for them to replace, from within the regiment, gaps torn by combat or sickness.

  Yet, in many cases, they retained the characteristics that had made the regiment such a powerful unifying force in the first place. When Bernard Fergusson took command of 1/Black Watch at Duisberg in March 1948 he found that

  The senior officers were all friends of pre-war days, and many others were sons of officers whom I had known in the past: indeed, at one time in my three years in command out of the thirty-two officers in the battalion seventeen were ‘sons’: and much the same applied in the Sergeants’ Mess … I was delighted to find the names of the eight most senior officers formed … into an elegiac couplet:

  Campbell-Preston, Rose, Rowan-Hamilton, Burnaby-Atkins Fortune, Wingate Gray, Sutherland, Pollok-McCall.

  No fewer than five of these were ‘sons’, and Rowan-Hamilton, whose father had been my first Commanding Officer, had two brothers in the Regiment as well.1

  Fergusson resolutely opposed cross-posting within what was then called the ‘Group System’.

  At one moment I was told that three of my company commanders would be posted away, and three from other regiments posted in to replace them. I said I would accept one and no more: Dugald McFie of the Camerons, who I knew would fit in, as he did: I had to invoke [Field Marshal Earl] Wavell to avert the other two. Later I was told to give command of a company to an officer who had been reported on adversely by his own regiment: he was to be given another chance at our expense. He was a nice enough chap, but not company commander timber. I employed him in some other way, and in due course received the written ‘displeasure’ of the Army Council.

  We can begin to see why, as Fergusson admitted, with regard to another episode ‘Not many people have been put under arrest as a brigadier, and I take a twisted pride in being one of them.’2 When he told his fifty-two warrant officers and senior NCOs that it might be necessary to post some of them to other regiments of the Highland Brigade, forty-eight affirmed that they would rather drop a rank than be posted. When two sergeants, one a bachelor and the other a married man with two children, were indeed posted against their will, both bought their discharge from the army and re-enlisted in the Black Watch as private soldiers.3

  Change was never going to be easy. This was partly because senior officers were reluctant to murder their darlings, and partly because the two world wars had left county regiments deeply entrenched in popular consciousness. Although regional links had never been quite as robust as Cardwell and Childers had hoped, they were certainly strong enough to ensure that the Britain of the 1950s and 1960s was full of men who had worn the local regiment’s cap-badge. Not all the support for a particular regiment was necessarily local, for sometimes, as evidence of durable loyalty to a distant unit, stalwarts steadfastly maintained a branch of the regimental association many miles outside its recruiting area. For instance, in 2010 the Black Watch association had branches in London, Birmingham, Newcastle, and Stoke on Trent – to say nothing of those in Scotland. There was still a visible military presence in the land. Most county towns housed a regimental depot, still in those redbrick Cardwell barracks, with all its comforting undergrowth of a bugler and wreath party on Remembrance Day, officers’ balls, raffles in the sergeants’ mess, jollifications on great regimental anniversaries, and ‘freedom parades’ when the regiment exercised its right to march proudly through the town with bayonets fixed, drums beating and colours flying. Time gilded the military experience, and middle-aged men gathered to talk about their times in the ‘old mob’, compare the ferocity of sergeant majors and beerily assure balding ex-platoon commanders that they had been the finest officer a man could have. Politicians of all persuasions were caught up in the process, and even if there were no votes to be won in defence, there were certainly plenty to be lost by tinkering with sacred icons.

  It was characteristic of successive army boards to seek compromise rather than to press for radical solutions. As a consequence of the 1957 Defence Review which reduced the size of the army, as such reviews generally do, numerous single-battalion regiments were amalgamated with a neighbour to form a new single-battalion regiment. In 1958, for instance, the Devonshire and Dorsetshire Regiments amalgamated as the Devon and Dorsets; in 1959 the Queen’s Royal Regiment (West Surrey), merged with the East Surreys to form the Queen’s Royal Surrey Regiment; the Wiltshire Regiment and the Royal Berkshire Regiment, became the Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire); in 1961 the Buffs and the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent, came together into the Queen’s Own Buffs; and the Seaforth Highlanders and the Cameron Highlanders became the Queen’s Own Highlanders. This process met the desired aim of scaling-down the army by a battalion every time it occurred, but it did nothing to remedy the inherent weaknesses of single-battalion regiments. In the 1960s there was an attempt to restore a measure of flexibility in posting officers and NCOs by grouping regiments into administrative brigades, like the Home Counties Brigade, comprising all the infantry regiments of the south-east, and the Fusilier Brigade, with all the English fusilier regiments. For a period officers and men wore the brigade, rather than a regimental, cap-badge, and I well remember what resentment that caused.

  The Army Board suggested that these brigades might wish to become large regiments, adding helpfully that those who chose to do so would be looked upon favourably in future reorganisations. Some agreed to amalgamate, and the first ‘large regiments’ were children of the sixties. In 1964 the four battalions of the East Anglian Brigade became the Royal Anglian Regiment. In 1966 the Royal Green Jackets were formed from the two rifle regiments and the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry – less perverse than it might seem, for all had served in the Light Division in the Peninsula. The Queen’s Regiment in the same year merged the four regiments of the Home Counties Brigade; in 1968 the Light Infantry swept the four remaining regiments of light infantry into a single regiment; and the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was created from the four English fusilier regiments.4 Bringing together the regiments of the Ulster Brigade was a taxing business, for there were two fusilier regiments (the Inniskilling Fusiliers and the Royal Irish Fusiliers) as well as the Royal Ulster Rifles; one battalion would have to disappear, whatever the mixture. A far-sighted committee decided to create a new regiment, The Royal Irish Rangers. Its bracketed title – (27th (Inniskilling) 83rd and 87th) – was long-winded, but the new regiment, with its green-hackled caubeens and its saffron-kilted pipers, was an engaging and idiosyncratic mixture of old and new.

  The process was made less painful because, except in the case of Ulster, the individual battalions of the new large regiments retained part of the identity of the old regiment from which they were descended. Thus in the Queen’s Regiment each battalion bore a bracketed title – like 3rd Battalion The Queen’s Regiment (Royal Sussex) – that reinforced its old allegiance, and retained the old regiment’s distinctive lanyard, of a striking orange in the case of the Royal Sussex. The comfortable feeling that nothing had really changed did not last for long. When it was time for further reductions of the infantry, the army board of the day did not consider itself bound by the
promises of its predecessors, and it was easier to trim a battalion from a large regiment than to grasp the nettle of amalgamation elsewhere. Fourth battalions went quickly: 4th Battalion The Queen’s Regiment (Middlesex) was reduced to Albuhera Company in 1971, and disbanded altogether in 1973.

  The ‘Options for Change’ defence review of 1990 led to the Grenadier, Coldstream and Scots Guards losing their second battalions – those of the Irish and Welsh Guards had gone already – with The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, Royal Anglians, Light Infantry, and Royal Green jackets losing their third battalions. The Queen’s Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Cameron) were amalgamated with the Gordon Highlanders to form The Highlanders; the Gloucesters and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment came together in the Royal Regiment of Gloucestershire, Berkshire, and Wiltshire. The Royal Irish Rangers not only lost a regular battalion, but subsumed the full-time elements of the Ulster Defence Regiment to emerge as the Royal Irish Regiment.

  Most controversially, the Queen’s Regiment was amalgamated with the Royal Hampshires to form the two-battalion Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment. For some officers and men this could mean a third change of cap-badge within a long career, and it was noticeable that although the young embraced change with enthusiasm (as they generally do), there were those, grown grey in the monarch’s service, who saw the whole business as a monstrous betrayal. It is painful to recall that the colonels of the Queen’s and the Royal Hampshires, distinguished and widely admired officers, were no longer on speaking terms by the time of amalgamation. Major General Mike Reynolds of The Queen’s made his own position very clear:

  To the utter disbelief of the Regiment we learned that not only were we to lose a battalion but, in addition, we were to be amalgamated with a single battalion regiment with which we had nothing in common and no associations. Despite many requests to ministers, including the Prime Minster, the Chief of the General Staff and other members of the Army Board, no explanation was ever given for this unwarranted treatment … At the stroke of a pen the vision and faith of our founding colonels had been betrayed and the agonies endured over a quarter of a century to create one regiment from four had proved in vain. The older members of the Regiment realised that we would have been no worse off, and probably much better off, to have remained ‘small’ in 1966.

  He concluded that his regiment had been sacrificed simply ‘so that others should survive and a government and an army board could claim that no regiment had been disbanded.’5

  This latest battle in the long war of administrative attrition meant that large regiments, founded with such innocence in the 1960s, were now rather small. A two-battalion ‘large’ regiment representing, as it might, at least four old regiments of the line, was bound to look askance at a single-battalion regiment that had declined the army’s board’s amalgamation suggestion and soldiered on with an unbroken thread to Cardwell and beyond. The Cheshire Regiment still saw itself as the 22nd Foot, and the equally pure-blooded Royal Welch Fusiliers recalled following Colonel James Webster over the first rail fence at Guilford Court House in 1781 (‘Come on, my brave Fusiliers’) and arriving with the fusilier brigade just in time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat at Albuhera.

  This account necessarily marches briskly past some of the more complex twists and turns in the story. There were brief reprieves as some regiments were reduced to company strength, reconstituted as regiments, but then amalgamated anyhow. In 1968 the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), product of the 1881 union between the 26th Cameronian Regiment and the 90th Perthshire Light Infantry, chose disbandment rather than amalgamation with another regiment in the Lowland Brigade. The York and Lancaster Regiment similarly decided to disappear rather than amalgamate. The infantry was now grouped into administrative divisions – Guards, King’s, Prince of Wales’s, Queen’s, Scottish, and Light, each composed of regiments with regional or historical links. In the Queen’s Division, for instance, were the Queen’s Regiment, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, and the Royal Anglian Regiment.6 Within these divisions a good deal of effort was made to cross-post officers and warrant officers between regiments, to ensure that vacancies that could not be met by a particular regiment were filled from within the division. This process meant there were no log-jams of talent or, for that matter, black holes of inadequacy. Regimental depots, for so long a visible link between regiment and community, disappeared to be replaced by divisional depots, and then in turn by army training regiments. Then finally, in 1995, they were replaced by the Infantry Training Centre at Catterick in North Yorkshire, which trains all adult infantry soldiers in its two infantry training battalions, each of them containing companies aligned with the divisions of infantry, the Foot Guards or the Brigade of Gurkhas. Colonels of regiments, such significant figures at the beginning of our army’s history, had been gradually losing their importance, although they remained influential, chairing the boards that interviewed potential officers at Sandhurst and keeping a watchful eye on officers’ careers. They did their best to raise the regiment’s profile within its area, worrying about recruiting (for the sounder a regiment’s manning the greater its chance of survival), and in the great tradition of tribal chieftains, congratulating, commiserating, lamenting, applauding, advising, and warning. They were almost always senior officers, serving or retired, of the regiment concerned, appointed for a five-year period. The regiment’s council made its recommendation, and the officer concerned was notified by the military secretary once his appointment had been approved by the queen. In my own case the military secretary emphasised that

  the Army Board recognises the need to foster the regimental system to ensure that it remains robust and secure to face whatever the future holds; and the Army Board appreciates the contribution made by Colonels of Regiments who provide such valuable guidance, support and continuity.7

  A regimental colonel had to appreciate that he had substantial influence, but little real power. In the not too distant past, if the regiment’s preferred candidate for command of the 1st Battalion scored badly on the Command Board – which graded officers for appointments at this level – then the colonel might wear out goodwill in pressing well-placed senior officers (who were likely to be old friends) to ensure that his paragon got command despite the blip. He would be rash to try that now, although if there was no suitable candidate for command within the regiment, he could certainly expect to interview candidates from outside it who had scored highly on the Command Board. Though it would be made very clear that the ultimate decision was the military secretary’s and not his, there might well be a pleasing congruence between the colonel’s views and the eventual outcome.

  The colonel of a regiment worked through his Regimental Headquarters. This was run by the regimental secretary (typically a retired colonel), and contained a small staff, usually a handful of retired officers with a little clerical support. They would look after the colonel, develop his policies, plan and run regimental events, dispense charity, publish the regimental journal, and maintain contact with museums and old comrades’ organisations.8 RHQs were also part-responsible for recruiting. Regiments were formally established to provide Regimental Information Teams, busy at shows and public events in the home area. Most also had a ‘black economy’: NCOs filched unofficially from the regular battalions. It made a real difference if RHQ could, by fair means or foul, get an NCO into every Army Careers Office in its area. Recruits are famously suggestible, often showing a mysterious preference for the cap-badge of the first man to interview them.

  RHQs were also responsible for finding officers, and the best (the Winchester-based Royal Green Jackets had few equals) had long adhesive tendrils running deep into the community, and into schools with a tradition of helping to officer the regiment. Regimental officers were expected to keep their eyes and ears open, and tell RHQ if they found a suitable candidate. In 1969 Richard Dannatt, of Essex farming stock and with a loose preference for the Royal Armoured Corps because he had a school friend destined for the caval
ry, was asked by a brigadier at the Regular Commissions Board whether he would like to know more about the infantry. He said that he would, and the Green Howards, conveniently stationed in Colchester, duly invited him to visit the battalion. Shortly afterwards he was told by RHQ ‘that if I would like to join the Green Howards then they thought they could find me a place’.9

  Headquarters were co-located with regimental depots and then, as these closed, scratched a living as best they could in a climate where it was increasingly hard to persuade officials bent on savings that there was any value added by what they did. They are now usually isolated, with no serving elements of the regiment at hand, striving to maintain those local contacts upon which so much still depends. In 2009–10 the process of drawing together most of the British-based units into ‘super garrisons’ – in Aldershot, the east of England, North Yorkshire, and Salisbury Plain – was completed. As Bob Ainsworth, Minister of State (Armed Forces) put it in 2009, these were to provide ‘a sustainable military community better integrated with the local civilian community and the local civilian authorities. These will be places where people will want to work and live.’ When asked whether this structure ‘broadly reflects’ where the army was recruited, he acknowledged, in the finest minster-speak:

  It can never do that in its entirety. The garrison in this country reflects historic decisions that have been made and facilities that have been located in different parts of the country. Of course it would be sensible, to the degree that is practical, to align the garrison of the army in Great Britain with the locations in which its members are recruited, and we should try to do that. However, we cannot simply change our footprint and an extensive estate that has existed for a long time.10

  The truth is blunter. The super-garrisons are generally not where soldiers come from. The government’s respectable desire to make economies of scale and to establish robust military communities pulls in precisely the reverse direction to maintaining a wider military presence in the country as a whole. RHQ the Royal Anglian Regiment shares the last remaining building of Gibraltar Barracks in Bury St Edmunds with the Suffolk Regiment Museum and an Army Careers Office. This building was once the Suffolk Regiment’s depot and, predictably, one of those Cardwell keeps. RHQ The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment is in Howe Barracks, Canterbury, though there has not been a battalion of the regiment in the barracks for many years and is not likely to be one in the foreseeable future. The regiment has a regular battalion in Woolwich, and another in Paderborn, Germany. Neither is deep in the regimental heartland.