The Scottish soldier and Empire, 1854-1902 - Reenactor.ru

192 The Scottish Soldier and Empire
infantry. It was now willing to pay the second contingent of Imperial
Yeomanry at colonial rates of pay (five shillings a day), and accept
men without the two to three months’ training in Britain undertaken
by the first contingent. Many of these untrained recruits arrived in
South Africa unable to ride, shoot or care for their horses, and earned
widespread criticism from regulars at the front (hence the insistence
upon three months’ preliminary instruction for the third contingent).
The Scottish Horse was an exception. Conceived as an idea by its
future commanding officer, the Marquis of Tullibardine, and approved
by Kitchener in December 1900, the nucleus consisted of Scots
who were resident in South Africa. Within a month the marquis had
raised, equipped and taught to ride and shoot 500 men, ‘but it was
not play’, he informed his father, the Duke of Atholl. He raised further
squadrons of scouts and cyclists in South Africa and sought support
from Caledonian societies in Australia and London, as well as from
contingents raised in Scotland by his father. So popular was the
notion of Scots from across the empire serving together that the corps
eventually consisted of two regiments, numbering 3,252 NCOs and
men, of whom 1,250 enlisted in Britain. The Scottish Horse earned
an excellent reputation for its gallantry and tenacity in several hardfought
engagements, losing thirty-nine officers killed or wounded and
237 men in its first year (of whom only one officer and twenty-two
men were taken prisoner). The success of this unique imperial voluntary
unit based on the ‘spirit of Scottish nationality’ persuaded the
marquis to advocate its retention after the war. 51
In the interim, Scots persevered in fruitless de Wet hunts and the
destruction of Boer farmsteads. The harrying of the various commandos
remained immensely frustrating. In January 1901 Trooper
John J. Macmorland (Ayrshire Yeomanry) conceded that ‘the whole
Company is awfully sick of this harassing and trekking’. 52 Yet
Sergeant William McLanachan maintained that the Ayrshire
company was ‘pretty well up to this sort of game now, and will hold
their own with any in the service’. 53 Sergeant J. Easton (Royal Scots
Mounted Infantry) agreed; he observed that by April 1901, the
‘Scottish Yeomanry . . . have been continually on the trek after De
Wet this last six months, with never a single day’s rest. They have a
splendid way of working, and seem to be better disciplined than the
majority.’ 54 In addition, Scots were engaged in the burning of farms,
the destruction of crops and livestock, and the rounding up of Boer
families. Many soldiers found this work distasteful but recognised
its utility: slaughtering hundreds of cattle, sheep and goats, noted