Investigations of a Dog

Last night I went to see Stewart Lee, who was recently voted the 41st best stand-up comedian ever. Little did he know that in the audience was the 3rd most popular military history blogger, but anyway. The gig was in Lincoln Drill Hall, now an arts venue but once the home of 4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. 4th Battalion was the Territorial Battalion recruited in the city of Lincoln and the south of the county, and during the First World War it formed part of 138th Brigade along with 5th Battalion (my great-grandfather’s battalion, recruited in the north of the county) and the two territorial battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment.

Although I connected drill halls with the Territorial Force, I wasn’t sure before whether this was the hall that 4th Lincs used during the First World War. But in what’s now the bar of the venue I saw a large stone memorial to the glorious dead of 4th Battalion. It’s described on the National Inventory of War Memorials but I can’t find a photo of it online. The thing that most struck me was the carving of the regimental cap badge on the top of the plaque: a sphinx sitting on a plinth bearing the word “EGYPT”, over a scroll bearing the name of the regiment. It was the “EGYPT” that I found surprising in this context. But why? Isn’t that exactly what you’d expect to find on a Lincolnshire Regiment badge?

Not for the Territorials in the First World War. When the Territorial Force was formed in 1908, the TF battalions were not considered to have earned the battle honours that the regular battalions of their regiments were entitled to. The Lincolnshire Regiment’s badge is based on the honours that the regiment won in Egypt during the Napoleonic Wars. The original TF version had the sphinx, but the the plinth was left blank rather than bearing “EGYPT” because the Territorials weren’t entitled to the battle honour. This is the badge that the men of 1/4th and 1/5th Lincs (including my great-grandfather) would have worn when they went to France in 1915 as part of North Midland (later 46th) Division. Discussions on the Great War Forum have suggested that this badge might initially have been seen as an insult, but that later it might have been worn with pride - later in the war conscripts would have been issued with the normal Lincolnshire badge, so the old TF version came to denote pre-war territorials or early war volunteers. You can see a reproduction of this kind of badge on eBay.

Being enough of a nerd to know about this, I was surprised to see the “proper” cap badge on a memorial to 4th Battalion, but of course by the end of the war all battalions were entitled to wear the regular badge. Whether or not they were technically entitled to old battle honours, the battalions of 46th Division proved themselves with their famous breaking of the Hindenburg Line in September 1918 (ironically the division also spent a few weeks in Egypt in early 1916 but didn’t fight there, instead enjoying a pleasant break from the Flanders trenches). However, by that time it’s difficult to make a distinction between Territorials, Regulars and New Army. TF battalions seem to have been under strength in 1914 and took on many new recruits - the same kind of men who joined the New Army (for example, my great-grandfather joined up in September 1914). Furthermore, many pre-war regulars and territorials would have been wiped out in the early years of the war. Just how many original members of a battalion were left at the end of the war is a surprisingly difficult question, which is slowly being answered by amateur researchers compiling battalion databases. This kind of meticulous empirical work isn’t being done by academics, who are understandably more interested in ideas and analysis than collecting names and service numbers, but it promises to be useful to everyone with an interest in the Great War. Meanwhile, academic historians don’t seem to have written much about the Territorial Force during the war, and even less about the pre-war TF and its predecessors, despite 46th Division being a perfect illustration of the learning curve.

I’ve used an observation about a cap badge as a device to structure this post around, but knowing about cap badges can be more useful than that. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: the amazing depth of knowledge about badges and uniforms at the Great War Forum is frequently put to good use in identifying photographs. Even (perhaps especially) the most traditional academic military historians wouldn’t be interested in this kind of thing. Debates about traditional military history (strategy and tactics) versus new military history (society and culture) don’t tell the whole story of how military history is perceived by people outside the discipline. When I was at Leeds, John Childs complained with some justification that people think military historians are only interested in badges and buttons (he cited examples from his own experience of being asked to identify buttons and not being able to because his work has absolutely nothing to do with buttons). If people think that we’re only interested in badges and buttons, that’s a serious problem which we need to address. However, I don’t think the right way to fight that prejudice is to completely disown badges and buttons, constructing the military history nerds as an Other against whom our own collective identity is confirmed. I want to see a more inclusive military history. That means including the unfashionable alongside the fashionable. I’m interested in culture, society, and gender, but I’m also interested in strategy and tactics, and I’m also interested in badges and service numbers. All of these things can tell us something useful.

Now, can anyone guess where I’ve got an interview next week?