HISTORY OF THE BLACK WATCH IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918

The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders), 42nd/73rd Foot, entered the Great War with two Regular, one Special Reserve (the 3rd) and four Territorial Force battalions (4th to 7th); by the end of the war the total had grown to twenty-two battalions (Becke), twenty-five according to the History’s Foreword. Thirty thousand served in the Regiment in France, Belgium Salonika, Palestine and Mesopotamia and of these 8,390 died. The Regiment was awarded 69 Battle Honours, three VCs were won and a fourth was awarded to a BW officer in 1917 while he was commanding 1st Lincolns. This three-volume history is outstanding – Vol 1 deals with the Regular and the Special Reserve battalions, Vol 2 the TF battalions and Vol 3 the New Army (Service or Kitchener) battalions. Common to all three volumes are the Preface, Foreword (by the Colonel of the Regiment) and the page listing the Regiment’s Battle Honours. In each volume the battalions are treated separately and for all the front line battalions, following the narrative describing their war service there are the same six appendices: Record of Officers’ Service, Summary of Casualties, Officer casualty list, Other Rank casualty list, Honours and Awards and finally the list of Actions and Operations. In Volume 1 there is a seventh appendix to the 1st and 2nd Battalion narratives – a list of Other Ranks of each battalion who were commissioned during the war. In the case of the TF the second and third line battalions, which did not leave the UK, all are dealt with together. There is a bonus in Volume 2; at the end there is a section on the Royal Highlanders of Canada represented by the 13th, 42nd and 73rd Canadian Infantry Battalions, giving a brief account of their actions with appendices showing for each battalion a summary of killed, list of Honours and Awards and list of Actions and Operations. I believe this has got all you can hope for in a regimental history.