Scots bid farewell to part of their military past

EDINBURGH, Mar 30: A chapter in Scotland's colourful military history closed this week when its six remaining infantry units, whose forebears served Britain in wars down the centuries, were merged into a single regiment.

The new Royal Regiment of Scotland was launched at a low-key ceremony under grey skies at Edinburgh Castle on Tuesday, with representatives of its five battalions receiving their new cap badges from the divisional commander, Major-General Euan Loudon.

Two regiments, the Royal Scots -- the oldest infantry regiment in the British Army -- and The Highlanders, received their badges in Iraq, where they were on deployment. Other units were serving in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, England and elsewhere in Scotland.

Over the centuries, Scottish regiments have participated in virtually every war on every continent, from the 17th-century battlefields of Europe and the American Revolution, to the Napoleonic and Crimean wars of the 19th century through two world wars in the 20th century, and now in Iraq.

The merger of the Royal Scots, the King's Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB), the Black Watch, The Highlanders, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the Royal Highland Fusiliers provoked bitter opposition from veterans and Scottish nationalists.

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders earned the nickname ''The Thin Red Line'' for confronting a Russian cavalry attack at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 during the Crimean War.

The skirl of the bagpipes as kilted infantrymen went into battle provides a colourful legacy and Loudon, himself a former commanding officer of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, insists the ''golden thread'' of the regiments' history and tradition will continue to run through the new unit's five regular battalions and two Territorial Army (civilian reserve) battalions (Highland and Lowland).

He noted that March 28 had been chosen to inaugurate the new regiment on the anniversary of the raising of the unit that became famous as the Royal Scots in 1633.

COMMONWEALTH AFFILIATIONS

The regiments have affiliations with ''Highland'' regiments in other Commonwealth countries.

The army says the new regiment is being forged to meet the changing needs of the 21st century, including more short-notice deployments, peacekeeping duties and the need to operate alongside allies -- as with US forces in Iraq.

Four of the old regiments will constitute individual battalions with the Royal Regiment, but the Royal Scots and the KOSB will be combined into one battalion over the next few months. The army is also losing three regiments in England.

A group of KOSB veterans went to court to challenge the right of the Defence Ministry in London to dissolve a regiment created by the Scottish Parliament before the political union of Scotland and England in 1707. They withdrew their petition just days before the new regiment was born.

The leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in Scotland's Parliament, Nicola Sturgeon, said the party would like to see the merger reversed, ''but obviously, regrettably, it's moving forward at the moment''. Historian Tom Devine of Edinburgh University told Reuters military tradition and the regiments had played a vital role in Scotland, particularly in Highland society in the 17th and 18th centuries, providing employment and income to poor families.

He noted, however, that Scotland's militarist past appeared to have faded with the end of the British empire and overseas commitments, and as a result of radical social changes at home.

He said army recruitment had also been hit by the high level of employment in recent decades.

Loudon said the new super-regiment had emerged from a review of defence policy in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War.

What emerged, he told Reuters in an interview, was that ''we would have to be prepared to fight across a broad spectrum of operations and, of course, peace support and peacekeeping missions, and to go to these operations at quite short notice and plug in effectively with allies''.

COLD WAR LEGACY

He said that a legacy of the Cold War had left the army unbalanced, with a preponderance of ''heavy forces that were pretty immobile,'' and ''light forces that had relatively light combat power''.

''The big idea was that we would re-balance that structure into three areas of capability: light, which would be beefed up; medium, which would be created; and heavy, which would be made as mobile as we could in the future.'' He said the traditional system where units changed locations and roles every three years or so also failed to meet these needs and meant that about 25 per cent of infantry in the British Army could be unavailable for operations at any one time as they moved to new locations and retrained for new roles.

In the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the merged Royal Scots and KSOB will constitute the 1st battalion, the Royal Highland Fusiliers the 2nd battalion, the Black Watch the 3rd battalion, The Highlanders the 4th battalion and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders the 5th battalion.

The Royal Scots and KOSB have traditionally worn tartan trews (trousers) rather than kilts, but the Royal Regiment of Scotland will be kilted, wearing the Black Watch, or ''government'' tartan.

The battalions will, however, retain their distinctive coloured feathers behind their cap badges, known as the ''hackle'', and the pipe and drum bands will keep the regimental tartans and accoutrements.

Loudon said history and tradition were integral to the new regiment, but added: ''A tradition is only relevant if its legacy, when it is handed down to the next generation of people inspires, them to soldier as their forebears have done.'' He said the spiritual homes of the old units would remain at their old bases in Scotland in the form of regimental museums and associations covering past and present members.

''The memories are terribly important things, aren't they, because they tell you who you are, who you were and, with luck, will help you understand who you might be in the future.''

REUTERS