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From: "Charles.Clark" <>
Subject: Re: [WW1] Re: GREATWAR-D Digest V00 #338
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 14:43:58 +1300
References: <200011261015.eAQAFJr31059@lists3.rootsweb.com> <3A217654.E2CE01E3@xtra.co.nz> <01f201c057ed$b025b220$d43d893e@default>


Jim Grundy wrote:

> Charlie
>
> I recommend that you read "Shot at Dawn" by Sykes & Putowski for
> clarification about whether Graves was present with the battalion at the
> time of the "crime" or not.
>
> Graves' book is indeed one of the best but it is not Holy Writ!
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jim Grundy
>
>

I take it, Jim, that what you are saying is that Graves's recollections of the
war were known as much for their poetic license as for their historical
accuracy. I'm sure you are right in that; apart from anything else, the prologue
to my Penguin edition begins "I partly wrote, partly dictated, this book
twenty-eight years ago during a complicated domestic crisis, and with very
little time for revision. It was my bitter leave-taking of England where I had
recently broken a good many conventions; quarrelled with, or been disowned by,
most of my friends; been grilled by the police on suspicion of attempted murder;
and ceased to care what anyone thought of me. Reading "Goodbye to All That over
again, for the first time since 1929, I wonder how my publishers escaped a libel
action."
Anyone reading that would have to assume he wrote largely from memory and
personal recollection rather than from long hours at the record office, and I am
sure many of the details are suspect. Nonetheless, at a more personal level,
there is truth in it, and that is borne out by the comment on the back,
attributed to a review in The Times, that "In it the veteran survivors
recognized their own war." As you say, Jim, "indeed one of the best but it is
not Holy Writ!" and that seems an accurate assessment.
Not sure, however, just which "crime" you are referring to; if you mean the
sending off Battalion Parade of a young officer for wearing buttons reading
"Welsh" rather than "Welch", then I assume that the incident is part of
battalion folklore; whether it is a real incident or not is perhaps secondary.
Graves seems accurate enough, however, both in noting that this "defiant
regimental peculiarity" was apparently informal during the war, and only
recognised formally afterwards, and, so far as the "flash" is concerned, in
noting that they "by some mischance never received the order abolishing the
queue."

As for Huw Daniel's
The "Flash" worn uniquely by the 23rd Foot, The Royal Welsh
Fusiliers, is not because of exemplary service by anyone during the
napoleonic wars but is a stylalised representation of the greasbag worn by
all ranks in the British Army during the 17th/18th century to protect the
uniform from the grease used to form the pigtail.

The reason the Royal Welsh Fusiliers are still allowed to wear it, is
because at the time it was removed from general army wear, the Regiment was
on active service in Canada, and according to Regimental histories either
didn`t recieve the army commend to stop wearing it, or, more likely simply
chose to ignore it.

Graves's account is not altogether in conflict with yours, though he would no
doubt object first to the spelling of his regiment as the Welsh! The way he
tells it, the bit about not getting the order to stop wearing it came first,
then the bit about the napoleonic wars came later.
Perhaps I had better give the whole extract, so we have something to argue
about!

"The most immediate piece of regimental history that I met as a recruit-officer
was the flash: a fan-like bunch of five black ribbons, each two inches wide,
seven and a half inches long, and ending in a dove-tail. The angle at which the
fan must be spread has been exactly regulated by regimental convention. The
flash is stitched to the back of the tunic collar, and only the Royal Welch are
privileged to wear it. The story goes that the Royal Welch were abroad on
foreign service for several years in the 1830s, and by some mischance never
received the army order abolishing the queue. When the regiment returned and
paraded at Plymouth, the inspecting general reprimanded the commanding officer
because his men were still wearing their hair in the old fashion. The commanding
officer, angered by the slight, immediately rode up to London and won from King
William IV, through the intercession of some Court official, a regimental
privilege of continuing to wear the bunch of ribbons with which the end of the
queue was tied - the flash. The King made it a distinctive badge to be worn by
all ranks in recognition of exemplary service during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Army Council, which is usually composed of cavalry, engineer, artillery, and
Guards generals, with the Line hardly represented, had never encouraged
regimental peculiarities, and could not easily forget the irregularity of our
direct appeal to the Sovereign. The Army Council did not, at any rate, sanction
the flash on the new khaki ; service-dress. Yet our officers and
warrant-officers continued to wear it. In a pre-war correspondence between the
regiment and the Army Council, Sir Luke O'Connor maintained that the flash,
being a distinctive mark honourably won, should be worn with service-dress, and
not merely with peacetime scarlet The Army Council objected thaat it would be a
distinctive mark for enemy snipers, and particularly dangerous when worn by
officers. Sir Luke retorted by inquiring on what occasion, since the retreat
from Corunna, when the regiment was the last to leave Spain, with the key of the
town postern in the pocket of one of its officers, had any of His Majesty's
enemies seen the back of a Royal Welch Fusilier officer? The Army Council stood
firm; and the matter remained in abeyance throughout the War. Once, in 1917,
when an officer of my company went to be decorated with the Military Cross at
Buckingham Palace, King George, as Colonel-in-chief of the regiment, showed a
personal interest in the flash. He asked: `You are serving in one of the line
battalions?' `The Second Battalion, sir.' So the King gave him the order `About
turn!' for a look at the flash, and then `About turn!' again. `Good,' he said,
`you're still wearing it, I see,' and then, in a stage whisper: `Don't ever let
anyone take it from you!'
After the war, when scarlet was abandoned on the grounds of expense, the Army
Council saw that it could now reasonably sanction the flash on service-dress for
all ranks. As an additional favour it consented to recognise another defiant
regimental peculiarity: the spelling of the word ' Welch' with a c. This
permission was published in a special Army Council Instruction of 1919. The
ignorant Daily Herald commented "Strewth !' as though it were unimportant, but
the spelling with a c was as important to us as the miniature capbadge worn at
the back of the cap was to the Gloucesters (a commemoration of the time when
they fought back to back in Egypt). I have seen a young officer sent off
Battalion Parade because his buttons read' Welsh' instead of `Welch'. `Welch'
referred us somehow to the archaic North Wales of Henry Tudor and Owen Glendower
and Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the founder of the regiment; it dissociated us
from the modem North Wales of chapels, Liberalism, the dairy and drapery
business, slate mines, and the tourist trade.
The regiment insisted strictly on the standard measurements of the flash. When
New Army battalions were formed, and rumour came to Wrexham that in the
Eighteenth Battalion officers were wearing flashes nearly down to their waists,
great consternation ensued. Our adjutant sent off the youngest subaltem on a
special mission to the Eighteenth Battalion, the colonel of which had been
borrowed from some Yorkshire regiment. The subaltem had orders to present
himself at the Orderly Room with a large pair of shears.

It is, of course, of such small and seemingly insignificant incidents as this
that espirit de corps is made, so it is perhaps appropriate that material such
as this is found in Graves' account with its poetic rather than historical
accuracy.
Charlie






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