Steady the Buffs!: A Regiment, a Region, and the Great War

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The writer then goes on to add: “ ‘Steady, The Buffs,’ a not unfamiliar caution to many an English soldier.”

The official date of the raising of the Holland Regiment for His Majesty's service was the 31st May 1665 the day of the Colonel's commission but the other officers received their commissions 3 weeks later on 23rd June. These 21 officers included Major Alexander Bruce who was the only officer of the Scots regiments to refuse the oath of allegiance to the Netherlands. The establishment was fixed at 6 companies of 106 NCOs and men each. The field officers acted as captains to the first 3 companies so that, as an example of the organisation the 1st Company had Colonel Sidney as captain, a lieutenant, an ensign, 2 sergeants, 3 corporals, one drummer and 100 private soldiers. Cannon, Richard (1839). Historical Records of the Third Regiment of Foot or the Buffs formerly designated the Holland Regiment containing an account of its original in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and of its subsequent services to 1838. CIHM/ICMH Collection de Microfiches; no. 48340. Longman, Orme & Company and William Clowes & Sons. ISBN 9780665483400.Naval and Military Intelligence". The Times. 13 September 1890. p.7. The regimental colours will in future be buff instead of white; and the Commander-in-Chief has directed that the facings of the regiment be described in the Queen's Regulations and the Army List as buff. Bernard George Ellis was awarded the Albert Medal in 1918. This was transferred to a George Cross in 1971. [82] So in the mouth of a British soldier, “Stiffen the Prussian Guard (or Guards)!” would have been a rousing call to arms. He turned off to the left, and I followed him as well as I could. Squish—squash! This was a sort of exercise in which I did not excel. Oh, why had I not brought my goloshes? But steady, the Buffs, what had become of my leg! Down a drain, or something, by all that was ludricrous. I pulled it out as fast as I could, but only to find I was minus a shoe.”

Gander, Leonard Marsland (1945). "Long Road to Leros" (PDF). Macdonald & Co. p.174 . Retrieved 30 December 2015. The regiment had a tour of service from 1821 until 1827 in the British colony of New South Wales. For the duration of their service, The Buffs was divided into four detachments. The first was based in Sydney from 1821. The second arrived in Hobart in 1822. The third, entitled "The Buffs' Headquarters", arrived in Sydney in 1823. The fourth, arrived in Sydney in 1824, but variously saw service throughout the colonies, being stationed at Port Dalrymple, Parramatta, Liverpool, Newcastle, Port Macquarie and Bathurst. The regiment reunited and was transferred to Calcutta in 1827. During their service in New South Wales, The Buffs was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel W. Stewart and Lieutenant Colonel C. Cameron. [35] The regiment also saw action at the siege of Sevastopol in winter 1854 during the Crimean War. [4] The Buffs arrived in Portugal on 1st Sep 1808 and sailed up the Tagus. Sir Arthur Wellesley had returned to England leaving Sir John Moore to advance into Spain with two thirds of the British army. The Buffs brought up the rear, escorting supply wagons, so that when Moore beat a hasty retreat towards Corunna the Buffs were left behind. The grenadier company, however, were with Moore and suffered the horror of the winter schlep over the mountains to Corunna. They fought with the rearguard, attached to the 20th Foot, and were evacuated to England where they arrived 'some 70 barefoot scarecrows' to join the 2nd Battalion. The remaining 9 companies of the Buffs stayed behind, guarding a large amount of money destined for Moore's troops. Lt-Col Richard Blunt managed to keep his regiment, and the money, safe from Napoleon and his marauding soldiers.The Spaniards sued for peace in November 1762 and in June 1763 the Buffs sailed to Minorca which had been returned to the British. The French had occupied the island since 1756 when it was taken from the British and Admiral Byng was executed for failing to prevent it. The Buffs remained there for 8 years during which time they absorbed the men from the disbanded 91st Regiment. The Military Commandant of Minorca was John Crauford who governed in the absence of Governor Sir Richard Lyttelton. Crauford had become Colonel of the regiment in May 1763. The regiment returned to England in 1771 spending 4 years in the West Country. The 1st Buffs were mobilised to join Wolseley's Egyptian expedition but it was all over by the time they reached Malta and they went to Ireland instead. In 1885 they were sent to Singapore while the 2nd Buffs were returning from Hong Kong. The 2nd were sent to Egypt for the Nile Expedition. They went up river to Aswan but the Dervishes had been defeated at Ginnis so after two debilitating months in the desert they returned to England, in April 1886. Colonel Morgan, as he is referred to at this point of the history, was recalled to England with 700 men of his regiment. They were reviewed by Queen Elizabeth at St James's Palace and then 400 of them were sent to Ireland to deal with Popish insurgents. They were 'the first good harquebusiers seen in England, and their activity and dextrous use of fire-arms brought the musket and harquebus into more general use in Her Majesty's dominions.' For service in the First World War, ten additional battalions were raised. [48] Regular Army [ edit ]

After Ireland they assembled at Woolwich from where they marched through the City of London in full splendour, but were then given the unglamorous task of escorting convicts on the long voyage to the other side of the world. They left in detachments one after the other until the whole battalion was in Australia by August 1823. They were mostly in New South Wales, not only guarding prisoners but hunting escapees and other outlaws. Their CO William Stewart was the Governor of the state briefly in December 1825. The dispersed detachments came together in 1827 and those who chose to were then shipped off to India. Some chose to stay as settlers including Major Archibald Innes who founded the town of Glen Innes. Green’s has examples of this use of “stiffen” (as in “Stiffen the brute!”) dating from the 1890s. The OED has a single example, from an 1888 issue of the Daily News in London: “Mr. Burgess threatened to blow my brains out and to ‘stiffen’ me.” The Irish were encouraged by the Catholic Spanish king in their rebellion against England, and the Earl of Tyrone and other chiefs became enough of a threat to alarm Elizabeth. She sent the Earl of Essex, with hardy veterans from the war in the Netherlands, to 'reduce the insurgents to obedience'. Their place in the Low Countries was taken by new recruits from London and the Home Counties. Sir Humphrey then laid siege to Ter-Goes in which action Morgan's Company distinguished themselves. The siege failed, however, because a force of Spanish and Wolloons marched 7 miles through water from Bergen-op-Zoom to relieve the town. The Duke of Alva advanced on Holland and besieged Harlem which was garrisoned by 3,000 men including 200 English and Scots. Reinforcements arrived in the form of 10 newly raised companies from England now commanded by Sir Thomas Morgan. But Harlem was forced, through hunger, to surrender in August 1573 and the Spaniards executed 2,000 inhabitants. Morgan's men were also engaged at Delft.The struggle between the Protestant Low Countries of Holland and Flanders, the Habsburg Netherlands, and their Catholic overlords in Spain lasted many years and involved soldiers from several European countries. The men who formed Thomas Morgan's company in 1572 were the forefathers of the unit that was officially incorporated into the English Army in 1665. This account is a short version of Richard Cannon's book Historical Record of the Third Regiment of Foot or The Buffs published in 1839. The Army in South Africa – Troops returning Home". The Times. No.36893. London. 8 October 1902. p.8. Raob.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/raob.

In 1961, the regiment was amalgamated with the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment to form the Queen's Own Buffs, The Royal Kent Regiment, which was later merged, on 31 December 1966, with the Queen's Royal Surrey Regiment, the Royal Sussex Regiment and the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) to form the Queen's Regiment. This, in turn, was amalgamated with the Royal Hampshire Regiment, in September 1992, to create the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires). [65] Regimental museum [ edit ] For the remainder of its existence as a separate entity, both dragon badge and buff facings remained as primary distinctions of the regiment. This was the case even on the simplified dark blue "No. 1 Dress" worn by most of the British Army as full dress after World War II, although the buff colour was here reduced to piping edging the shoulder straps. [91] Alliances [ edit ] An angler named Samuel Harwood used it in his “Thames Reminiscences,” which appeared in an April 1886 issue of Fishing, a journal published in London:

Origins

Bibliography for Introduction to Military History (Part1)". University of Kent . Retrieved 6 May 2016.