THE KILT IN WARFARE

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 108, 8 May 1916, Page 2

THE KILT IN WARFARE

ROMANCE AND TEUTONIC PLEASANTRY. in German caricatures now John Bull is almost invariably depicted as a wearer of the kilt and the diced Glengarry bonnet (says a writer in The Times). However, the veritable John may regard it, Scotland looks on this new convention of the German satiric artist as a compliment, possibly unintended, but significant, to the race which an English Parliament div-ested of those same garments under prescriptive law 170 years ago. Doubtless the Teutonic artist misses the point of his own pleasantry, and has no intention of being historically subtle or complimentary by implication. He puts John Bull in the philabeg because that article of dress so markedly distinguishes a great body of British warriors from those of any other nation in the field, and has possibilities piquant and grotesque which the jaded draughtsman can no longer so readily find in Europe's otherwise universal breeches. Even our Gallic Allies, though quick enough to see some romantic charm and aesthetic features in the feminalia and cruralia (really philabeg and hose) of Caesar's legionaries, discern but a certain laidur in all live bare knees that are not feminine, and comedy in Scotland's continued. usage of Gaul's old garb. Scotland, however, naturally refuses to look upon Germany's present investment of John Bull with the Highland uniform as anything else than a proof that she knows our Highland army best and hates it most. No Caledonian but will cock his bonnet at the thought! And indeed the kilt may well have impressed the Germans now ranked against its wearers, for kilts in France and Flanders are as conspicuous in numbers as they are in character. So inordinate is the demand for kilts that a year ago the difficulty of procuring adequate supplies of tartans prompted Whitehall to experiment with pbilabegs of khaki. It was apparently ill-advised by its tailors; a garment was evolved which was less like a kilt than a loin-cloth, and instant shrieks of indignation from insulted Gaeldom compelled its discreet withdrawal. A FIGUEE OF ROMANCE. The recent advertising campaign in aid of our Army's recruiting was doubtless suited to England, but so faa- as Scotland is concerned there is no more compelling kind of advertisement than the Highland garb, for the Scottish heart still warms to the tartan. A garb no longer, strictly speaking, national even above the Grampians, the kilt is yet evocative of national fervour, martial spirit. .There are Lowland Scottish regiments with battle honours a« lustrous as any blazoned on the flags of " gil-lean-uan-fheilidh," but the popular corps in Scotland, the easiest to recruit, are now, as they have always been, the corps which wear the kilt. It has a lure, not only for true Celts, but for Irish, Lowlanders, and even English, and not without reason is the mess cognomen for one battalion at least, the " Carlisle and Suffering Highlanders." If our French friends cannot see in the " jupe" artistic merits, then are they singularly blind to the aesthetic effect of what in the stress of war and winter has become the most astonishingly picturesque uniform now worn on any of the fields of battle. No observant artist, seeing a well-made Highland soldier come from the Folkestone tradn this winter, with the mud of the trenches on his accoutrements, could but gasp at the pictorial and romantic effect of such a figure. The sinewy, weather-beaten legs, the swinging kit, the goatskin doublet, the flat brown bonnet, pulled down on the brow (more true to tradition that the Glengarry), the rifle vertically slung as the Spanish muskets of the clansmen were in olden times, the strappings, and the general silhouette and hue—exactly so would look a man of the' Forty-five on the morning of Cullcden or Macdonald trudging with Montrose through the snows of the Highlands. This, surely, is the trim for warfare—rough, wild a little, and loose and all harmonious; not the red-coat and the feather bonnet, neither of them true to Highland history, though worn with honour by Highland regiments in later England's bloodiest battle. THE APRON COMPROMISE. The theme has some intoxicating elements to a Scot, and tempts to lyricism; a sober Sassenach may naturally interpolate with the question, "Is the kilt an appropriate garb for modem war?" How does it suit with winter trenches or the ardent summers of Gallipoli ? Who best understands the Scot will readiest understand how this should be a question meanwhile difficult to settle. The more porfervid Highlanders who have gone through the present campaign, in either field of action protest that the garb is an ideal one at any season under any circumstances, and the kilt, with its thick, many-plyed body-belt is unquestionably a greater protection to the abdominal organs than are breeches. In Gallipoli, the men who put off their; kilts and wore but the khaki apron were speedily in hospital. But more disinterested wearers of the tartan (possibly from Carlisle) are by no means so en-* thusiastic about the. kilt for Flanders mud or Oriental sunshine. That ticklish question apart, however, we may safely take it that the tartan, is now being worn for the last time ia war. Childers, when Secretary for War in 1881, made Scotland furious by a proposal to abolish individual regimental tartans, and clothe all the Highland corps in kilts of a uniform pattern. There was a' gathering of the clans at Stafford House, where a Scottish lord, tete montee, kissed his dirk and swore thereon that such a degradation should not come to pass. But much water has gone under bridges since then; the uncovered tartan kilt has become dangerous to its wearer in an age of protective coloration, and the all-round khaki apron now worn by our men on active service is a characteristically stupid British compromise between sentiment, economy, and common-sense. If we are ever to take the field again, the kilt itself will probably be of a uniform inconspicuous line and the apron abolished, though tartan may bo preserved for times of peace.