The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Fighting in the Frontline Michael Alexander spoke to the author
The distinguished, often tragic, story of Black Watch soldiers in the 20th Century is being explored in the new official history of Scotland’s oldest Highland regiment.
With its traditional recruiting grounds in Tayside and Fife, The Black Watch is the army regiment with the closest links to Courier Country. And those connections may be strengthened further if recent talk of returning the current wearers of the red hackle – now the 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland – to Leuchars prove correct.
However, it is the history of the famous regiment in the 20th Century and early years of the 21st that forms the basis of a new book by British author and military historian Victoria Schofield.
The Black Watch: Fighting in the Frontline, 1899-2006, looks at the heroic and inspiring story of the regiment, whose soldiers distinguished themselves in theatres of war across the world but also suffered more than their fair share of losses.
Originally raised to keep “watch” over the Anglo-Scottish border, The Black Watch formed into a regiment in 1739, taking its name from the dark tartan of its soldiers’ kilts.
Its members have gone on to fight in almost every major British conflict between 1745 and the present day.
In this latest instalment in the regiment’s record, Victoria recounts the modern history of The Black Watch from the Boer War onwards, tracing its service in two world wars, the Korean War, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Drawing on diaries, letters and memoirs, plus interviews with veterans, she weaves the many strands of the story into an epic account of a heroic body of officers and men over a tumultuous century.
Speaking to The Courier from London ahead of promotional events in Perth and Fife this month, Victoria revealed it was her service family background and interest in Pakistan – the home of her close friend and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto – that got her involved in the project.
The Oxford University history graduate said: “I have written a lot about Pakistan and India and I had completed a book on Kashmir in the 1990s.
“One of the things that kept coming back to me was what we British did in the run up to India and Pakistan becoming independent 70 years ago. People had written on Mountbatten, but no one had really written properly on Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, who was, of course, Black Watch, and the Viceroy before Mountbatten when these important decisions were being taken.”
She wrote a biography titled Wavell: Soldier and Statesman, which was published in 2006, around the same time the Black Watch and other regiments were being merged into the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Soon after, she was approached by the trustees of The Black Watch Museum with an invitation to write the regimental history.
Victoria spent months travelling to and from The Black Watch Castle and
The old and bold were very vociferous about the merger but ultimately the younger ones just wanted to be soldiers... VICTORIA SCHOFIELD
Museum in Perth, as well as Fort George, near Inverness, where 3 Scots are currently based.
In addition to researching letters and diaries, she interviewed around 100 former Black Watch soldiers, ranging from a 100-year-old Palestine veteran to those who have served more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The book, which gives an insight into the functioning of the regiment and the thoughts of its officers and men, finishes with the Laying Up of the Colours in 2012.
Victoria describes The Black Watch identity as “hugely important”, in the modern age, as much as in centuries past.
As the oldest Highland regiment, she was not surprised to find there was some upset within The Black Watch family when the merger was first proposed.
“The old and bold were very vociferous about the merger but ultimately the younger ones just wanted to be soldiers so they just had to make the best of what they were being offered,” she said.
“But what was interesting – and has to be remembered – is it wasn’t just The Black Watch marching through history. They were marching alongside other brigades. So it was the Scottishness as well as the individual identity of the regiment that was being talked about.”
Victoria also interviewed veterans of the 2003/2004 Iraq War and said she was struck by the view among the younger soldiers that “a life is a life” – that every sacrifice involves the loss of a friend and comrade, however high the death toll mounts.
She added: “The fact that these guys lost six members in Iraq during two tours – 2003/2004 – meant as much to them as the thousands that were lost in the First World War.
“Off the top of my head, the official regimental figure for losses in the First World War is 8,960. They say 50,000 passed through the ranks, of which 20,000 were wounded.
“Particularly coming in these First World War commemoration years, that was a very emotional statistic to acknowledge.”
Victoria will be signing copies of her book next Tuesday from 10.45am to 11.45am in Waterstones, Perth; from noon to 3pm at The Black Watch Museum, Perth; and from 6.30pm at Waterstones in St Andrews.