TO my mind one of the chief distinguishing features of the British Army is its
recognition of the personal equation which is, indeed, inherent in the individualism
of our race. Under it, soldiers are not regarded merely as troops to be moved
about like pawns on a chessboard, and then forgotten on the cease fire. They are human
beings with rights as citizens and a fine set of intensely personal military traditions.
The Gordon Highlanders
THE YPRES TIMES
73
By John Malcolm Bulloch.
Battle Honours
"Mysore," Seringapatam," Egmont-op-Zee," Mandora," "Corunna," Fuentes d'Onor," Almaraz,"
Vittoria," Pyrenees," Nive," Orthos," Peninsula," Waterloo," South Africa, 1835," Delhi, 1857,"
Lucknow," Charasiah," Kabul, 1879," Kandahar, 1880," "Afghanistan, 1878-80," Tel-el-Kebir," Egypt,
1882, 1884," "Nile, 1884-85," Chitral," Tirah," "Defence of Ladysmith," Paardeberg," "South Africa,
1399_1902."
The Greit War21 Battalions.Mons," Le Cateau," Retreat from Mons," Marne, 1914, '18," Aisne, 1914,"
La Bassée, 1914," Messines, 1914," Armentières, 1914," "Ypres, 1914, '15, '17," Langemarck, 1914," Gheluvelt,"
Nonne Bosschen," Neuve Chapelle," Frezenbarg," Bellewaarde," Aubsrs," Festubert, 1915," Hooge, 1915,"
Loos," Somme, 1916, '18," Albert, 1916, '18," Bazentin," Delville Wood," Pozières," Guillemont," Flers-
Courcelette," Le Transloy," Ancre, 1916," "Arras, 1917, '18," Vimy, 1917," Scarpe, 1917, '18," Arleux,"
Bullecourt," Pilckem," Menin Road," Polygon Wood," Broodseinde," Poelcappelle," Passchendaele," Cambrai,
1917, '18," St. Quentin,"" Bapaume, 1918," Rosières," Lys," Estaires," Hazebrouck," Béthune," Soissonnais-
Ourcq," Tardenios," Hindenburg Line," Canal du Nord," Selle," Sambre," France and Flanders, 1914-18,"
Piave," Vittorio Veneto," Italy, 1917-18."
UniformScarlet. FacingsYellow. TartanGordon.
This personal equation aspect of our army is seen at its best in the case of Infantry,
divided as it is into regiments representing different districts, especially when those
districts are the areas in which the units were originally raised. The method is to be
found in a very marked degree in the Scots regiments, and especially the kilted ones, which
were raised in the eighteenth century by Highland lairds to meet the national emergency
caused by the long war with France, and which retain, in spite of the tendencies to
standardise uniforms, the picturesque tartans of their corps as originally raised.
The Gordon Highlanders form a striking example of such a corps. They were raised
in 1794 by the 4th Duke of Gordon, assisted by his very unconventional consort, Jane
Maxwell. In his time his Grace raised four different corps, and supplied a company each
to two others, the Fraser Highlanders and the Black Watch. His own regiments were
the 89th Foot (1759-65) which fought in India under Sir Hector Munro the Northern
Fencibles (1778-83) a second corps of Northern Fencibles (1793-99) and the Gordon
Highlanders, raised in 1794, as the 100th, and then in 1798 renumbered as the 92nd, by
which they were known for nearly a century.
Legend says that the men were recruited by the Duchess with a guinea and a kiss.
Her Grace, a very capable woman, who managed to annex three dukes and a marquis for
her daughters, for one of whom she even, tried to get Napoleon's stepson, Eugene
