IAN BRUCE,
Defence Correspondent
The Herald
July 26 2005
THE formation of the controversial Royal Regiment of Scotland may have to be delayed because of growing doubts among senior officers that individual traditions and historic identities can be preserved, according to military insiders.
The army had hoped to stage the mass amalgamation of the six existing Scottish infantry battalions into the super-regiment in a ceremony on St Andrew's Day, November 30.
General Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the general staff, promised the honorary colonels of the Black Watch, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, King's Own Scottish Borderers, Royal Highland Fusiliers, Royal Scots and the Highlanders that the "golden thread" of their historic ties would be maintained.
It has since emerged that every soldier in the RRS will wear the same uniform, tartan and cap-badge and that the Lowland regiments will don the kilt rather than their traditional trews.
Campaigners opposed to the move predict such as Glengarry or Tam o' Shanter headgear, hackles, trews and kilts will swiftly fall by the wayside in the pursuit of an amorphous unit of interchangeable infantry.
A meeting of the Scottish council of colonels broke up in disagreement last week over the way the merger is being handled and the implications for their units.
A source close to the council said: "There is a growing sense of disillusionment among the senior officers who effectively voted their own regiments out of existence last year. It is now hitting home that forming the new super-regiment means disbanding everything that went before. It would seem that General Jackson has already snapped the golden thread he promised as a sop to 300 years of history.
|
"Given that there is little consensus and that the RRS cannot be formed until a set of agreed proposals are submitted to the army's executive board, a St Andrew's Day parade looks increasingly unlikely."
The army said the colonels had met to consider "routine business", but no statement would be made.
A second complication is the legal action by veterans of the King's Own Scottish Borderers to prevent the additional merger of their regiment with the Royal Scots into a single battalion.
The final version of the RRS as announced last year will contain five battalions rather than the six which currently exist. The colonels voted reluctantly to sanction the shotgun wedding of the KOSB and the RS to meet the demands of the new structure.
The KOSB's Edinburgh association now claims that a Westminster government has no constitutional right to disband or amalgamate a unit raised by an independent Scottish parliament seven years before the Act of Union brought the UK into existence.
The Ministry of Defence's lawyers have asked for an extension of the case at Edinburgh Sheriff Court until late September to allow them time to prepare a counter-argument.
Jeff Duncan, campaign manager for the Save the Scottish Regiments organisation, said that "we hear the honorary colonels are squabbling" and added that if the plan "is not stopped, there will be no Black Watch red hackle or any other regimental insignia a decade down the line".
Colonel Stuart Crawford, a former tank officer and now military consultant, said: "It's common knowledge things are not going according to plan and that the very officers who voted by a 5-1 majority for the formation of the super-regiment are now less than happy."
|
