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
********************* Why not have a look at Book of the Year
Medal Muddle
I heard something on the radio about a controversial bravery award in Afghanistan. Putting aside the allegations of dishonesty involved, some, if not all, of the blame lies at the door of the battalion of The Rifles involved. In their rush to get a gallantry medal credited to the unit, the officers failed to investigate the claim properly. I doubt if many in the medal winner's platoon applauded the highly dubious award. Sadly, the number gallantry awards credited to a battalion is as good an indication of military value and combat effectiveness as a body count of dead Vietnamese is a guarantee of ultimate victory. I understand in the early days of the SAS the unit subscribed to a more traditional regimental ethos that scorned bravery award applications because very high standards of conduct were par for the course in the unit. I know of at least one Crimean War Victoria Cross winner who was chosen through a vote by his whole battalion. Either approach would have saved The Rifles a great degree of ridicule. I can't be alone in thinking that an out and out popularity contest is just, if not more, likely to produce a deserving recipient than the way things are apparently done at the moment.
Don't Condemn Me
If I said only Scottish people should be permitted to play in pipe bands, I would quite rightly be condemned. Even if I started throwing around claims of "cultural appropriation". And I don't fancy facing off against a group of outraged Gurkhas. By the way, does the Royal Tank Regiment still have a pipe band? And yet the taxpayer funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation gives a platform to people who come away with similar highly racist nonsense. Stupidity crosses the Atlantic at the speed of sound these days, so no longer does the time lapse measured in years you guys used to enjoy exist. Remember the Australian break dancer Rachael Gunn at the last Olympics and ridicule she endured? Well, CBC's Commotion programme got hold of an American who announced that she should never have been allowed to compete because she wasn't from New York. In fact the guy seemed to be saying that no-one who wasn't from Harlem should be allowed to compete in Olympic break dancing. Putting aside an ignorance of what the Olympic Games are, what riled me was that the presenter/host failed to challenge this obnoxious pap. This was far from the first or only time the CBC has acted as an amplifier and platform for highly obnoxious racism or sexism; Commotion being a prime culprit thanks to its preference for American contributors over Canadian ones (Good to see Canadian tax money being funnelled to US hate mongers). Though it has to be said that so far the BBC is more outrageously sexist than racist.
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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