Story of the Bugle Horn
taken from Semper Paratus
(History of The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry)
by Brereton Greenhous)
Armies have always had to adapt their methods of fighting and their equipment to the type of country in Which they might be required to operate. On the plains and along the river valleys of Europe, where visibility could be measured at least in hundreds of yards, battles for several centuries after the introduction of firearms tended to be fought by infantry in close order. This allowed them to develop a concentrated fire and afforded protection against the shock action of the enemy's cavalry, and when the human voice could not be heard above the din of battle, signals were given by tap of drum. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century it was under conditions such as these that the British Army had gained most of its campaigning experience.
When, however, the Army found itself fighting against the French and their Red Indian allies in the wilderness of North America conditions were very different. The country was normally too close for cavalry, fields of fire were very limited, and the enemy adapted their own tactics to this state of affairs with such effect that too rigid an adherence to European methods invited disaster, and not infrequently found it. It was clearly necessary to meet and beat the enemy at his own game, and to this end one company in each regiment was organized on a lighter, more mobile scale than the rest. These light companies were the first light infantry, and from 1770 onwards every foot regiment included one in its establishment.
Two of the regiments raised at the beginning of the Seven Years War, the 85th and 90th Foot, were also designated Light Infantry, but they were disbanded in 1763. When these numbers returned to the Army List early in the French Revolutionary Wars their new owners, as will be seen, were not slow in claiming their light infantry antecedents.
For the new kind of dispersed, mobile tactics practised by the light companies the drum no longer provided an adequate means of inter-communication; it was a cumbersome thing to carry about in rough country, and its sound did not carry very far. Something better was needed.
Our forces in America included contingents of Hanoverian and Hessian troops, and some of them had adopted the Prussian practice of organizing special units of Jaeger, consisting of men from the German and Austrian forests skilled in the arts of the chase. No doubt some of them fufilled Lord Wavell's later vision of the perfect infantryman: the poacher turned game-keeper. Their ancestors had succeeded in extracting huntsman like sounds from the horn of the bugle, the wild ox that at one time abounded in the forests of Europe. As time went on "bugle horns" were shaped from metal (those with silver in them gave the sweetest note), and the bugle horn also became a badge to identify those connected with hunting in its various forms. The British Army probably had its first experience of both horn and badge from the German troops sent out to North America during the Seven Years War.
The bugle horn, easily carried, and sonorous and penetrating in sound, was the ideal replacement for the drum, and it was unofficially adopted to an increasing extent in the light companies. One instruction that has survived lays down that "the stoutest of drummers is to be taught to sound these instruments", courage rather than girth presumably being the essential criterion. By the end of the century a number of "Field Sounds" were in use, among them "March", "Extend", "Run", "Lie Down", "Arise", "Form Indian File", "Skirmish", "Pursue the Enemy," and so on. Indeed there were so many Sounds that the unmusical must have been hard put to it to remember them all.
Thus the bugle horn became by degrees a distinctive feature of the light companies, and increasingly it was used as a sign or badge to distinguish them from the other companies in the regiment. This did not always make for harmony, because sometimes the members of the light company tended to give themselves airs. It is on record that when the 32nd Foot (later to become the 1st Battalion, The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry) landed at Lisbon in 1811 to come under the Duke of Wellington's command, some of the officers of the light company, sporting their bugle horn badge, were asked by the local inhabitants if they belonged to the band, a misapprehension that the remainder of the regiment did not allow the light company to forget in a hurry.
As the Army became more and more deeply committed in the struggle against Napoleon it became evident to the more farsighted that the time had come to establish a separate Corps of Light Infantry. The first regiment selected for this role was the 52nd Foot, of which Sir John Moore was Colonel, and in July, 1803 the 52nd Light Infantry joined a brigade of troops, which also included the 95th (Rifle) Regiment, that was being assembled at Shroncliffe to receive light infantry training under the direction of Sir John Moore himself. The brigade was joined a year later by the 43rd, whose application to convert to light infantry had been approved by the Commander-in-Chief. It was these three regiments, the 43rd, the 52nd and the 95th , that formed the hard core of the Light Division that so distinguished itself during the Peninsular War under the Duke of Wellington. They are today all incorporated in The Royal Green Jackets.
The interest of Sir John Moore in light infantry manoeuvres is said to have been first aroused in 1797 when watching the 90th Foot drilling in Minorca. This regiment, known at this stage of its existence as the Perthshire Volunteers, had been freshly raised (like the 85th for the third time) in 1794 and started to train as light infantry in the same year. It therefore had some claim to regard itself as the oldest light infantry regiment in the Army, although its absence ~n active service in Egypt, and later in the Caribbean, robbed it of the chance of joining the regiments under training at Shorncliffe. In 1815 the Regiment was redesignated the 90th (Perthshire Volunteers) Light Infantry and in 1881 it became the 2nd Battalion, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), thus accounting for the bugle horn that thereafter appeared in the badge of that Regiment.
Sir John Moore was a great trainer of troops, and that he set store by the use of the bugle is shown from an instruction that he issued when commanding troops in Ireland at an earlier date:
"The same sounds must he taught to the bugles of the three battalions - and the men made familiar with them - for tho' in common the voice is, I think, to be preferred, yet in many cases the bugle alone can be used."
Later he wrote:
"At present buglers are not allowed upon the Establishment of Regiments, so the Light Companies have drums, the same as the Battalion. The Buglers, which many have, are by sufference, not by order."
The official attitude towards the new-fangled notions of commanding officers has not changed much through the centuries!
Five years later the 68th (later the 1st Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry) and the 85th (later the 2nd Battalion, The King's Shropshire Light Infantry) were converted, "His Majesty having taken into consideration that the Proportion of Light Troops was much too small for the Extended Scale of the British Army and that the utility of this Description of Force has been most eminently displayed on every occasion when they have been employed....."
Before the end of the Napoleonic Wars two more regiments had submitted requests to become light infantry: the 71st Highlanders and the 51st Foot. A letter from the Horse Guards written in 1810 stated that there was "no objection to the Seventy-First being denominated Highland Light Infantry Regiment or to their retaining their pipes, and the Highland garb for their pipers". The remainder were permitted to retain "such portions of the highland dress as would not interfere with light infantry duties". A second letter stated that "His Majesty had been pleased to approve of the 51st Regiment being immediately formed into a Light Infantry Corps upon the same plan as the 43rd , 52nd , 68th , 71st and 85th Regiments". This was a particularly happy choice because it was in the 51st that Sir John Moore had obtained his first commission and from 1790 to 1796 he had commanded the Regiment as its Lieutenant-Colonel. Later it became the 1st Battalion, The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
In 1814 came official recognition of a practice by then well established "by sufference" if not "by order":
"His Royal Highness the Prince ~t having been pleased to command that the Caps of the Rifle and Light Infantry Corps and the Rifle and Light Infantry Companies of Regiments shall have a Bugle Horn with the number of the Regiment below it instead of the Brass Plate worn by the rest of the Infantry. The Commander-in-chief has directed that the same shall be established throughout the several Companies and Corps of Riflemen and Light Infantry in his Majesty's Service."
This order shows how close are the historical ties that link the Light Infantry and the Rifle Corps (now the Royal Green Jackets), and it is fitting that the two should once more be joined in partnership in the new Light Division.
There is some evidence that the first design of bugle horn badge owed much to the influence of Baron de Rottenberg, who raised and was the first Lieutenant-Colonel of the 5th Battalion of the 60th (later The King's Royal Rifle Corps) and had the 68th under his brigade command at the time when they converted to light infantry. Earlier in his service he had written a treatise on light infantry organization and tactics that greatly influenced Sir John Moore. Be this as it may, the badges adopted by the 43rd , 52nd and 68th Light Infantry bore a striking resemblance to each other, and they evolved with little change into the badges of The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and The Durham Light Infantry. The 85th Light Infantry followed suit, as can be seen in the later badge of The King's Shropshire Light Infantry. The leopard's face in the badge, the emblem of Shropshire, records the union, in 1881, of the 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment and the 85th (then The King's Light Infantry). The 71st and, a few years after their conversion to light infantry, the 51st , fell to the rival attractions of the French hunting horn, as is apparent from the badges of The Highland Light Infantry and The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.
The light infantry family received several additions during the following century. In 1822 the 13th Foot applied to become light infantry and when, in 1842, they were authorised to bear on their colours and appointments "a Mural Crown superscribed Jellalabad" the Bugle Horn and Crown were combined in one badge, afterwards that of The Somerset Light Infantry.
In 1859 the 32nd Foot was, by order of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, directed to be "clothed, equipped and trained as a Light Infantry Regiment" in consideration "of the enduring fortitude and persevering gallantry displayed in the defence of the Residency of Lucknow" during the Indian Mutiny. Their Bugle Horn found its way in due course into the badge of The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, backed by the red patch which is stern to be seen in the cap badge of The Light Infantry, and about which there will be more to say later.
There were two European regiments of light infantry in the armies of the East India Company and after the Indian Mutiny these were transferred to the service of the Crown as the 105th (Madras Light Infantry) Regiment and 106th (Bombay Light Infantry) Regiment. In 1881 they became respectively the 2nd Battalion of The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and the 2nd Battalion of The Durham Light Infantry. The tale was now complete. At its peak the light infantry numbered seven regiments, each of two regular battalions and numerous territorial ones, but in their existing form they could not all survive the reorganization that was initiated in 1957. In the regrouping of regiments that then took place The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, appropriately in view of their earlier history, joined forces with the King's Royal Rifle Corps and the Rifle Brigade to form The Royal Green Jackets, and The Highland Light Infantry joined the Lowland Brigade HQ be amalgamated with a sister Lowland regiment. The Somerset Light Infantry amalgamated with The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry to form The Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry, and this left four regiments to take their place in the new Light Infantry Brigade. It was these that merged in 1968 to become The Light Infantry that exists today.
When The Light Infantry was formed as a single regiment the choice of a badge presented no difficulty because already, in 1933, a Light Infantry Club had come into existence which had adopted as its badge "A Bugle Horn, stringed, in silver." In design this badge closely followed the light infantry originals, and it was necessary to look no further for an emblem worthy of the new Regiment. When worn on the cap the badge is backed by a red patch, the descendent of the two red feathers first sported by the light company of the 46th Foot during the War of American Independence. The story behind these feathers provides a striking example of how traditions, once established, endure.
After the rebel defeat at Brandywine Creek in September, 1777 news reached the British camp that a raid was being planned against their baggage train, and that the raiders were bivouacing for the night in the woods near the Paoli Tavern, some six miles to the right rear of the British positions. A column was quickly organized to deal with the raiders, and it included a battalion formed from the light companies of a number of the regiments in the force, including the 46th Foot. By the successful application of light infantry tactics, but certainly without the sounding of any bugle horn, the column succeeded in completely surprising the rebels, and inflicted heavy casualties on them. As often happens with those who suffer from the consequences of their own negligence the rebels indignantly proclaimed that they were the victims of an underhand and ungentlemanly trick, and they vowed vengeance on those who had so discomfited them. The light company of the 46th, together with their comrades of the 49th (later the 1st Battalion, The Royal Berkshire Regiment) went out of their way to draw this challenge onto themselves by changing the white features, that were a prominent feature of the headdress at that time, for red ones, so that they could be the more easily recognized. There after two red features always formed part of the badge of the 46th. It survived as a red patch behind the cap badge when the 46th linked with the 32nd to form The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. It was preserved in the badge of the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry and it remains with The Light Infantry.
The Memorial Silver Bugles
of the
Royal Hamilton Light Infantry
In the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s) which became allied with the Regiment in 1910, silver bugles, whose music means so much to a light infantry regiment, commemorate commanding officers, having been presented by them on their retirement. The first Regimental silver bugle was presented to the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry by the Officers of the 1st battalion, Somerset Light Infantry in 1929 in honour of the formation of the alliance of the two regiments. Following the presentation of the first silver bugle The Royal Hamilton Light Infantry adapted the regimental custom of the Somersets by deciding to obtain silver bugles for the Regiment "in memory of former commanding officers and also in memory of officers of distinguished service, of those who died in the Great War, and of those of any rank who had made contribution toward the cause of country". The silver bugles were presented on parade on the night of November 8, 1930, with two additional bugles being presented by the Somersets during the Second World War, one in 1941 and the other at the conclusion of the War.
The beautiful silver bugles treasured by the Regiment are kept in a special case in the Memorial Room of the Officers’ Mess and are carried by the Bugle band on inspections and special occasions only. When they are taken out by the Bugle Sergeants, or returned, the Mess stands to attention. The bugles of a light infantry regiment are noted for the forcefulness of their sound and the particular timbre of the Memorial Silver Bugles is most noticeable.