'Wellington's Highland Warriors' covers the early history of the British Army's Highland regiments, from the raising of the Black Watch in 1739 to the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Stuart Reid provides an entertaining and thoroughly original study of the circumstances in which the regiments were authorized and recruited, not just in the Highlands but all across Scotland, so that "Highlanders and Scotchmen" became synonymous. It also tells the story of how they acquitted themselves in almost every corner of the globe from the bogs of Ireland to the burning plains of India, and in the process earning for themselves a reputation which is literally second to none.Each chapter follows a theme based around the experiences of one particular regiment and employs extensive but careful use of contemporary correspondence and memoirs to let those involved tell the story in their own words. The story is a fascinating one which reveals the very different expectations and experiences of Highland soldiers; filled with engaging rogues such as Simon Fraser and Allan Cameron of Erracht, with stories of bitter feuds as rival chieftains and Highland proprietors battled each other for recruits, and those recruits themselves who were more than capable of giving as good as they got; demanding and receiving legally binding concessions from their landlords turned recruiters and then like George Gordon from the Cabrach, striding forth "in high dress with his sword by his side to announce his new profession" in a calculated display of swank quite incomprehensible to his English counterparts.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
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This review is from: WELLINGTON'S HIGHLAND WARRIORS: From the Black Watch Mutiny to the Battle of Waterloo (Hardcover)
Stuart Reid's 2010 "Wellington's Highland Warriors" is a highly readable, engaging survey of the Highland infantry regiments of the British Army, from the inception of the Black Watch in 1739 through the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Along the way, Reid does some interesting mythbusting. The title, by the way, is a bit of a misnomer. Arthur Wesley, later Wellesley, still later the Duke of Wellington, started his military career as an ensign in 1787 in the 73rd Highlanders, but his presence in the book is aperiodic; it happens that Highland Regiments were present at his major battles.
The first two thirds of the book is a rather lengthy account of the raising of the so-called Highland Regiments. The people of the Highlands were popularly supposed to have the martial qualities needed by a British Army expanding to fight the various wars with 18th Century France. As Reid makes clear, the Highlands lacked the population density to support the Army's needs, which led to unseemly competition for recruits and to fillers from Lowland Scotland and elsewhere in the British Isles. The last third of the book gets the Highland Regiments finally into battle, in Ireland, India, the Iberian Peninsula, and finally the Waterloo Campaign. Reid's approach to the various battles is anecdotal rather than systematic, but enjoyable nonetheless. Especially interestig is his explanation of the famous "Scotland Forever" charge of the Scottish Greys at Waterloo, with soldiers from the Gordon Highlanders clinging to their stirrups. In a wistful epilogue, Reid notes the fate of the Highland Regiments in the most recent consolidation of British Army infantry battalions. "Wellington's Highland Warriors" is highly recommended to students of the history of the British Army and especially of its Scottish regiments.
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