ABOUT A FAMOUS REGIMENT.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2147, 13 May 1914, Page 3

ABOUT A FAMOUS REGIMENT.

AND OUR COLONIAL FORCES. 1 On December 22 the London "Oa- |j otto" stated that the battle honour of M iorth America lind been awarded, for |j hoir services against tire Hod Indians, 1 m o the Black Match (Uoyal Highland- (M i's) and tin; King's Koyal ttifli! Corps g the iiUth Royal The hit- |b or sounds like n United States rcgi-|.J iit-nt. The official designation of the I | {esimoiit is the King's Jioyal lliile jj ,'orps. It is with tlie history of this ? amous regiment that Lieutenant-Gen- } ■nil Sir Edward Rutton, JUL, l| v.C.11.G. (formerly Commanding the 1 Australian Forces), deals with in brief, J nid concludes with a reference that is f listincily Mattering to tho colonial j orces. He says:— ,jj "The GOili Uoyal American Regiment, •;. •aised from the settlers of the North f Vmerican colonies of Massachusetts f. S*e-w York, Maryland, North Carolina, .f; ?euusylvania, and Virginia in 1756, f, argciy from Gorman and Swiss Protest- j mts, was brought into being to re* jj brieve that disaster that had befallen § Drnddock and his army in the savage jj forests ami swamps of the, Ohio Val- j ley. It was forced upon the reluctant h intelligence of tho military leaders of Jl that ova by the grim tragedy of tire -J massacre of Braddock and his army on M July 8, 1755,: that the European met!}- fj ods of war, their, tactics, and their [$ equipment, wore quite unfit to deal sue- ja cessfuily with tlie French soldier of the |j woods and liis Red Indian ally—tho mi- ffl tiring and savage warriors of the vrikls gj in the primeval forests of tho now M world. Led an<3> trained by two able. | Swiss colonels, Henri Bouquet and Fred- | erick Haldimancl, the Royal Americans || from their inception played a command- g ing i rolo in the forest warfare which followed, and which culminated in the woll-fought and blood-stained field of Bushy Run on August 0 and fi, 1763, where Colonel Henri Bouquet defeated with groat slaughter a Hod Indian fores upon a battle-ground of their . own. shoosimi, not far from tlie site of the Braddock disaster. "The lessons to the British Army, till then restricted to the methodical and pedantic teaching of the European school of war, and hidobmind to an obsolete system of collectivist tactics and tiro surrender of all individuality in warlike formations, were thus for the first time taught by the American settler or colonist soldier with his nbred instinct for war, and were forced upon military opinion by tho success ; which was achieved. In this respect, our colonial readers, wlki have- had the experience of war in recent times, may sec a similarity in the military methods of to-day. It is an unquestioned fact that the professional British Army has learnt in modern days, from their colonial comrades sometime; at least of what partly trained, but wholly cntttnsj'astic itiul determined troops can do if properly led; and then when the conditions of war are abnormal and rudely unlike tho test-book imitation, success does not follow upon the barrack-square exactitude and Germaii collectivism practised by the Continental armies. "Tlie nst! of mounted troops in nuwL oirn warfare is better realised in. many respects by our comrades across tlie was than % the stereotyped followers of the cavairy idealist of to-day. It may well prove to lie a matter of regret, when the tocsin of war is next sounded, that the lessons taught by our colonial comrades in South Africa— worthy successors to those who played so noble a part in the arena of Ame-ri-«Ui'w;r.-is in the eighteenth century— were not better realised, and more ef- I foctivcly taken to heart tliau lias been the case," In utiicr words. Sir Edwar<F ttnttoH deprecates the 'manner in which tlie Homo and Continental army authorities art hypnotised by the text-books, which eoutain the rules and regulations of \yar as it would probably be fought wore two European nations to. fall out with each other, forgetting that there are nations farming oversMs, who fight not by the book, but who arc guided largely by instinct, a profound knowledge of the topography <if the "disturbed area." and are cheered and encouraged to do their utmost by an unquenchable- enthusiasm thai is something bettor than the stolid courage- of professional "bf-thf-hook" soldiers. Though tho wars of North America are said to have taught England a lesson, that feF-nji seemed to have been lost when tho Smith African, war broke out, and the . toxt-bonks were rent in twain by the extraordinary mobility and daring -;'.f the Boers' guerrilla trwnw. under capable loaders, Das. the lesson of South Africa been lost, too? Tho lasfc sentence in Sir Edward Hntton's article seems to suggest something of the kind. " "