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Abstract
Scottish military units were strongly represented among the outpouring of unit histories that followed the Great War. A neglected genre, these works stand as cultural as well as military landmarks, expressing the private grief, but also striving to convey the importance and validity of the recent experience of war. The discussion that follows begins by explaining the aims and motivations behind Scottish unit histories. It then considers the mechanics of their commissioning, publishing and writing, before moving on to analyse the style, structure and key narrative themes of these works. It concludes by asking why, unlike the poetry, novels and personal memoirs which addressed the war, these ‘war books’ failed to become part of the common literary currency through which the Great War was later remembered. The article is accompanied by a comprehensive bibliography of these works.
Notes
1 C. Falls, War Books: A Critical Guide (London: Peter Davies Ltd, 1930), vii.
2 See the accompanying Appendix: Bibliography of Scottish Unit Histories of the Great War, 1916–1936. This has been chiefly compiled from A. G. S. Enser, A Subject Bibliography of the Great War (London: Andre Deutsch, 1979) and A. S. White, A Bibliography of Regimental Histories of the British Army (London: Naval & Military Press, 1993).
3 J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 2.
4 K. Grieves, ‘Making Sense of the Great War: Regimental Histories, 1918–23’, Journal for the Society of Military History, 69 (1991), 6–15.
5 Falls, viii.
6 Grieves, 12–13.
7 H. McCartney, ‘Interpreting Unit Histories: Gallipoli and After’, in J. Macleod (ed.), Gallipoli: Making History (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 125–35.
8 T. Cook, ‘“Literary Memorials”: The Great War Regimental Histories, 1919–1939’, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 13, 1 (2002) 167–90.
9 J. Cavell, ‘In the Margins: Regimental History and a Veteran’s Narrative of the First World War’, Book History, 11 (2008) 199–219.
10 E. Spiers, ‘The Scottish Soldier in the Great War’, in H. Cecil and P. Liddle (eds), Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced (London: Leo Cooper, 1996), 314–35.
11 E. W. McFarland, ‘The Great War’ in T. Devine and J. Wormaud (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 563.
12 R. J. Finlay, ‘The Inter-war Crisis: the Failure of Extremism’ in Devine and Wormaud, 578.
13 S. Hynes, A War Imagined (London: The Bodley Head, 1992), 47.
14 Ninth Royal Scots (T. F.) B Company on Active Service, February–May 1915, (Edinburgh: Turnbull and Spiers, 1916), 94.
15 Book of the Sixth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow: Clark, 1918).
16 Grieves, 6.
17 For painstaking discussions of the cover and illustrations of the RSF regimental history, see: Nelson Mss, Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh (CRCUE), 24/2/25 B/12/50-5, J. Buchan to G. Graham, 24, 26 Feb., 3 Mar. 1925.
18 Lt-Col. John Stewart and John Buchan’s Fifteenth (Scottish) Division 1914–1919, (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1926), for example, has 175 pages of appendices, compared with 266 pages of narrative.
19 Maj. John Ewing, The History of the Ninth (Scottish) Division, 1914–1919 (Edinburgh: John Murray, 1921), 5.
20 Scotsman, 27 June 1925, 7.
21 Thomas Chalmers (ed.), An Epic of Glasgow: The History of the 15th Battalion, the Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment) (Glasgow: John McCallum, 1934), viii.
22 Stewart and Buchan, 7.
23 John Buchan, The History of the Royal Scots Fusiliers (1678–1918) (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1925), 458.
24 The Black Watch regimental history, however, apparently had its origins in the trenches, as officers and men discussed suitable memorial projects, including the creation of a home for widows and orphans: Wauchope, i, vii.
25 Thin Red Line, Jun. 1922, 1.
26 Cabar Feidh, Jul. 1922, 6.
27 Scotsman, 16 August 1920, 6.
28 Maj. John Ewing, The Royal Scots: 1914–19, 2 vols (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1925), i, xxxi.
29 Cabar Feidh, Oct. 1924, 8; Highland Light Infantry Chronicle, Jan. 1919, 8–9; The Covenanter, May, Jun. 1924, 111.
30 Falls, viii.
31 S. Allen and A. Carswell, The Thin Red Line: War, Empire and Visions of Scotland (Edinburgh: National Museums of Scotland, 2004), 111.
32 Capt. D. Sutherland, War Diary of the Fifth Seaforth Highlanders, 51st (Highland) Division (London: John Lane, 1920), 3.
33 The regimental breakdown is: HLI (6); Seaforths (4); Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) (3); Argylls (3); KOSB (3); Gordons (3); Cameron Highlanders (2); Royal Scots (2); Yeomanry and other non-infantry units (5).
34 Maj. David Martin (ed.), The Fifth Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) 1914–1919, (Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Co., 1936), xv.
35 James Smith, History of the 206th Field Company (1st Glasgow) Royal Engineers, 14th Infantry Brigade, 32nd Division, British Expeditionary Force, France: Belgium: Germany, 1915–19 (Paisley: W. A. Lochhead, 1931), 7.
36 Thomas Chalmers (ed.), Preface by the 16th HLI Association Committee, A Saga of Scotland: History of the 16th Battalion the Highland Light Infantry (City of Glasgow Regiment) (Glasgow: John McCallum, 1930).
37 I. Beckett, ‘Frocks and Brasshats’, in B. Bond, The First World War in British Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 95; Nelson Mss, CRCUE, B/13/65, Financial Statement, 18 March 1926; B/14/91, J. Buchan to G. Graham, 28 Oct. 1928.
38 John Murray Archive, National Library of Scotland (NLS), Edinburgh, MS 14966, J. Murray to W. Hamilton, 10 Sep. 1921; Blackwood Collection, NLS, MS 30355, G. W. Blackwood to J. S. Nicholson 18 Feb. 1921.
39 The KOSB history had a print run of 1350, of which 935 were sold within 6 months of publication: Borderers’ Chronicle, 31 Dec. 1930, 128.
40 John Murray Archive, NLS, MS 14966, J. Murray to A.F.L. Bacon, 10 Jun. 1921; Nelson MSS, CRC, B/9/200, J. Buchan to G. Graham, 3 Mar. 1921.
41 D. Mackenzie, The Sixth Gordons in France and Flanders (with the 7th and 51st Divisions) (Aberdeen: Rosemount Press, 1921).
42 Red Hackle, Jan. 1926, 5.
43 One obvious exception was John Buchan, but his involvement in the RSF and 15th Division projects was a ‘labour of love’ following the death of his brother Alastair who had served with both units: Stewart and Buchan, 1.
44 Lt-Col. M. M. Haldane, A History of the Fourth Battalion, the Seaforth Highlanders. With Some Account of the Military Annals of Ross, the Fencibles, the Volunteers and of the Home Defence & Battalions (Eastbourne: Anthony Rowe Ltd, 1927); Imperial War Museum, London, IWM 47668, A history of the 4th Battalion The Seaforth Highlanders 1914–1918 [drafts and typescripts].
45 The Black Watch Museum, Balhousie Castle, Perth, J. Stewart, War Diary, Sep. 13 1915, 1024, 2A, 43.
46 ‘On the Writing of “Unit” War Histories’, The Army Quarterly, 6, 2, (1923), 386
47 Wauchope, i, viii.
48 Mackenzie, v.
49 1/8th Battalion Royal Scots, 3–4.
50 Maj. F. W. Bewsher, History of the Fifty-First (Highland) Division, 1914–1918 (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1921), x.
51 Ewing, Royal Scots, i xxxi; Mackenzie, vii.
52 Lt-Col. R. R. Thompson, The Fifty-Second (Lowland) Division, 1914–1918 (Glasgow: Jackson, Son & Co., 1923), vii.
53 The Black Watch Museum, Balhousie Castle, Perth, Correspondence Concerning the Writing of Wauchope’s History of the Black Watch in the Great War, 2015.150, J. Stewart to A. G. Wauchope, 9 Jan. 1925.
54 Black Watch Museum, 2015.150, A.P. Wavell to F.E.G. Talbot, 23 Jun. 1924; see also: Thompson, vii; Haldane, 10.
55 Cook, 179-80.
56 J. W. Arthur and I. S. Munro (eds) The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion): Record of War Service, 1914–1918 (Glasgow: David J. Clark, 1920), 39.
57 Maj. The Honourable R Pomeroy, Col. W. F Collins, Col. W.M. Duguid-McCombie, History of the Royal Scots (The Second Dragoons), August 1914–March 1919, 1932, 173.
58 Sotheby, xvii.
59 Bewsher, 410.
60 G. F. Scott Elliot War History of the 5th Battalion Kings Own Scottish Borderers, (Dumfries: Robert Dinwiddie, 1928), 68.
61 War Record of the 4th Bn. Kings Own Scottish Borderers, 19–21.
62 Sutherland, 9.
63 Chalmers, Preface, Saga of Scotland.
64 B. Bond, ‘British ‘Anti-War’ Writers and Their Critics’, Cecil and Liddle, 817–30.
65 D. Duff, Scotland’s War Losses (Glasgow: the Scottish Secretariat, 1947), 44.
66 Chalmers, Preface, Saga of Scotland.
67 J. M. Mackenzie, ‘Heroic Myths of Empire’ in Popular Imperialism and the Military: 1850–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 109–37.
68 Chalmers, Preface, Epic of Glasgow, vii.
69 Stewart and Buchan, 1.
70 Col. J. W. Sandilands and Lt-Col. Norman Mcleod, History of the 7th Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (Stirling: E. Mackay, 1922), 20.
71 J. W. Arthur and I. S. Munro (eds) The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion): Record of War Service, 1914–1918 (Glasgow: David J. Clark, 1920), 21.
72 Martin, 20.
73 Thompson, 49.
74 Ewing, Ninth (Scottish) Division, 396.
75 McCartney, 130.
76 Col. J. W. Sandilands and Lt-Col. Norman Mcleod, History of the 7th Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders (Stirling: E. Mackay, 1922), 33.
77 Capt. J. Goss, A Border Battalion. The History of the 7/8th Service Battalion King’s Own Scottish Borderers (Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis, 1920) 105; Bewsher, 409.
78 Ewing, Ninth (Scottish) Division, 61,
79 Book of a Glasgow Battalion, 8.
80 Cavell, 205.
81 Sandilands and Macleod, 83.
82 Thompson, 176.
83 Goss, 25.
84 F. L. Morrison, The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914–18 (Glasgow: Maclehose, Jackson & Co., 1921), 470.
85 Ewing, Ninth (Scottish) Division, 316.
86 The Tenth Battalion. The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). A Record and a Memorial (Edinburgh: The Edinburgh Press, 1923), 155.
87 Chalmers, Epic of Glasgow, vii.
88 J. W. Arthur and I. S. Munro (eds) The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion): Record of War Service, 1914–1918 (Glasgow: David J. Clark, 1920), 77.
89 Bewsher, 409.
90 For positive reviews of the Black Watch regimental history: Morning Post, 18 December 1925, 8, and Scotsman, 14 December 1925, 2.
91 It is suggested that Bewsher’s 51st Division history helped to provide the outline for the protagonist’s war service in William Faulkner’s short story ‘Victory’ (1931): T. M. Towner and J. B. Carothers, Reading Faulkner: Collected Stories (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 2006), 247.
92 Grieves, 11.
93 Ninth Royal Scots, 38; 7th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, 9–53.
94 Smith, 97.
95 Ewing, Ninth (Scottish) Division, 20, 91, 211.
96 National Archives, London, WO95/4318; R. R. Thompson to C. F. Aspinall, 7 July 1915; Thompson, 125.
97 Maj. D. D. Ogilvie, The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry and the 14th (F & F Yeo.) Batt. RH, 1914–1919, (London: John Murray, 1921), 144.
98 Smith, History of the 206th Field Company, 96.
99 ‘General Pinney was a cheery optimist if ever there was one’: Martin, 127.
100 H. Cecil, ‘British War Novelists’ in Cecil and Liddle, 801–16.
101 Bond, 817.
102 Hynes, 47, 166-7, 215.
103 M. McCulloch, Modernism and Nationalism: Literature and Society in Scotland 1918–1939 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies: Edinburgh, 2004).
104 Bond, 823.
105 R. P. Irvine, ‘The Scottish Soldier in Literature’ in E. M. Spiers, J. A. Crang and M. J. Strickland (eds), A Military History of Scotland (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh, 2014) 637–5.
106 See: Appendix: Bibliography of Scottish Unit Histories of the Great War.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Elaine McFarland
Elaine McFarland is Emeritus Professor of History at Glasgow Caledonian University. She is the author of A Slashing Man of Action: The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir Aylmer Hunter-Weston MP (2014).