THE MEANING OF REGIMENTAL COLOURS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1938, Page 26

THE MEANING OF REGIMENTAL COLOURS

The Regimental Colour may be just another flag to you, but to those who know army lore it is a page of history going back centuries, and revealing a proud record of great deeds in many parts of the world, says a writer ia the "Daily Express."

All infantry battalions carry two colours (flags), the King's Colour and their Regimental Colour. The Guards* King's Colour is made of crimson silk, with the badge of the regiment on it (bursting grenade under a crown for the Grenadier Guards, the Garter Star for the Coldstream Guards, and so on). Their Regimental Colour is a Union Jack with the names of all the battles In which the regiment distinguished itself.

In line regiments the King's Colour is a Union Jack with a crown and the name of the regiment. The Regimental Colour is the same shade as the regimental facings, with its badge, motto, and battle honouES. Rifle regiments have no colour at all. This is Unfortunate, because the King's Royal Rifles, who have been in 40 battles, could carry a record number of names on their flag if they possessed one.

All cavalry flags are crimson. Dragoon Guards carry square standards. Dragoons pointed flags called guidons. A white horse appears on all. It is the-White Horse of Hanover, to show that tiiese regiments saved the Hanoverian Succession by defeating the Stusirt rebellions in 1715 and 1745.

The first white horse standards wereJ carried in England by the Anglo-! Saxon invaders, about 400 years after Christ. A white horse was their battle emblem.

Lancer and Hussar regiments have no tcolours. Their battle, polpurs • are emblaizoiied on the saddle cloth instead. They have appeared here,. as on- flags;- ever since the; Peninsular War, No battle before Minden (1759); was recorded on them at first, but the rule relaxed with the' years, and battle honours now go back to the end of the seventeenth century. - * - The colours have, ceased to he carried in' battle. British regiments last carried their standards into action against the Zulus at Isahdhlwana in 1879. xt. So many brave lives were thrown away trying to save them that day that it was decided to leave them at •ihe depots in future.

*Fhe "earhest armed force was the feudal levy. . Barons used to hold their land from the King on condition of following him to battle, and tenants held land from the barons on condition of following their landlords tb battle. Every baron carried his own standard emblazoned with his crest, so that his men should know from a distance the point where they must rally in thie confusion of the conflict. That was the beginning of flags.

The. Lancashire Fusiliers wear roses in their hats on the first of August to recall the Battle of Minden, where the 20th Foot, East Devonshire Regiment (Which became the Lancashire Fusiliers in 1881), fought in rose gardens. The Royal Welsh Fusiliers wear the "flash," a black silk rosette. It once protected the red coat from the powdered pigtail.

The Gloucestershire Regiment, the old 28th, wear their regimental badge on the back as well as the front of their caps. ■' - -

This is because in the Peninsular War they were once attacked both from the front and the rear and had to. face about to repel the enemy.

The Royal Fusiliers, Buffs, and Royal Marines have the exclusive right of marching with bayonets fixed through the City of London, because they were formed in the 17th century out of the City's trained bands of militia. "

But it is generally on the regimental colours that the regiment writes its history. For instance; the King's Colour of the South Wales Borderers still bears *a silver wreath in memory of the lives that were given to save it from capture at Isandhlwana. The Queen's, Royal West Surrey, have a Paschal lamb on the "Regimental Flag. It was the crest of Queen Catherine of Braganza, in whose honour the regiment was raised by King Charles II to garrison Tangier.

Regiments with a, record of service in Egypt have a sphinx on their flag; a tiger means that the unit fought in Bengal; a castle surmounting a key represents the fortress of Gibraltar; the regiments with it on their flag served through the four years' siege of 1779-83.

A rose below a crown denotes the six British regiments which fought in the Dutch service in the seventeenth century. . In fact, the regimental colour is the regiment's record and pedigree.