Crusader “… the deeds that were done.”
(Republished from the 20 May 1970 issue of The Voxair)
“… the deeds that were done”
On the 6th of June in Winnipeg the regimental guidon of The Fort Garry Horse will be laid up in the Legislative Building, on the occasion of that Regiment ceasing to be part of the regular land forces. It may be that some readers would appreciate some description of the background, origins and legends surrounding the colours and guidons carried by combat regiments of the land element.
The origin of colours can be traced to the days of early man who fixed his family badge to a pole and held it aloft in battle for the purpose of indicating his position and thus acting as a rallying point for his family. Medieval chivalry followed the same idea when they placed armorial bearing on banners. In the late sixteen hundreds when the regimental system was adopted, each company carried a flag but in 1751 regiments were permitted a total of only two, one of which was based on the Union flag and the other on the particular colours of that unit. This is how they have come to be known as the Queen’s colour and the regimental colour, or collectively as “the colour”.
A leader of horse carried a pennant, with a tail or point, called a “GUYD-HOMME”. When a knight became a baronet the point of his ‘guidon’, which is the word still used, was cut off transforming it into the standard appropriate to that rank. A calvary regiment therefore today carries only one guidon and the squadron and troop leaders in tanks or scout vehicles still properly display Pennants.
Colours and guidons are the outward symbol of the spirit of a regiment, for on these are borne battle honours and badges commemorating their deeds. Before taken into use they are laid on the drums and consecrated in a special religious ceremony an example of which still exists in an old manuscript dating from 14th century.
Chaucer’s Canterbury tales tell how knights hung their banners in the temples when worn out or no longer required, but any public place is now acceptable and in the case of the Garrys preferable in that greater numbers of the public will have a chance to view it than would be the case if placed in the nave of a church of a Particular persuasion.
Because the loss of a colour usually led to or resulted in the defeat or annihilation of a unit, they are guarded carefully and never carried at the head of a unit but behind the leading element or in the centre when in parade order. When carried in public, colours always have their own escort of armed NCO’s for protection.
In infantry units they are carried by a junior officer, which is where the rank of Ensign (or second Lieutenant) came from. In Calvary regiments they are always carried by a warrant officer, and while the reason for this is lost in the mists of obscurity it is generally thought to have been a signal mark of respect and trust given by the officers to their subordinates.
Rifle regiments carry their battle honours on their drums and have no colours since their duty is to skirmish ahead of the main force which requires speed and concealment. Lancers and Hussars are also in this category.
The colours of the Artillery are their guns which symbolize their motto “Everywhere”. This is why you will get distinctly black looks and perhaps a quiet rebuke if you lean on or smoke in proximity to a gun, be it howitzer, anti-aircraft or medium.
Respect is always accorded colours and guidons and unless one wishes to appear ignorant or ill-mannered, one should always salute uncased colours or guidons or stand when they pass if seated as a spectator at & parade. This happens when colours are trooped, or in other words, paraded through the ranks in slow time so that all may see it and recognize it if ever called to rally.
The origin of the word trooping comes from the custom when after a day’s parade or fighting, the company colour was placed for safe keeping in the Ensign’s quarters. The music played during this “Lodging of the colour’ was called a ‘Troop’ so ‘trooping’ was already two centuries old when tacked on to routine guard mounting in 1755 to lend some extra interest.
The legends surrounding colours are legion. Once when a relieving force that arrived too late was burying the bodies of a regiment that had been annihilated they found the unit’s colour wound round the body of the Ensign under his tunic. It is preserved to this day with bayonet slits, bullet holes and the dark blood stains of the long dead but never forgotten young officer.
Another occasion was when the officers of a unit to be disbanded dismissed the servants at their last dinner and with armed guards on the doors cut the colour into pieces. Each was eventually buried with a piece of it, the story of the missing colour only coming to light after the last officer died.
Proper colours have not been taken into battle since 1881, although the PPCLI carried in World War I a Camp colour embroidered and presented by Lady Patricia herself. After the war she decorated the colour by augmenting it with a laurel wreath a custom also observed by Queen Victoria, dating back into antiquity. This same regiment is the only one in the Canadian Forces to carry the blue streamer of a United States Presidential unit citation for its participation in the battle at Kapyong, Korea in 1951.
Military Man is a strange animal by nature, as the non-military always remind him. His colours have always been a lasting physical symbol of the brotherhood he needs and experiences with his comrades, They have been lost and rewon, carried by earthquakes along with their guardians who refused to leave them for their own safety and defended to the end of life by boys in their teens. They have been burnt, buried, captured, torn to shreds, blown to pieces and laid up in tattered ruins of silken thread in churches and museums.
So when the guidon of the Garrys is laid up next month it will mean something to those who stormed ashore on the beaches of France on that same day 26 years ago. Older eyes may seek the names of the little French towns where they fought twenty-seven years before D Day while younger men will recall blue helmets, white jeeps and then blazing sands of the Sinai Desert. Only ghosts will be there to silently attest to the buffalo guns of Fish Creek and Batoche but the “Deeds not words”, will suffice for their absence.
To the cynical it will be an old flag put away with unnecessary formality, but those with a sense of history may muse on Sir Edward Hamley’s Poem:
A moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole,
It does not look likely to stir a man’s soul
‘Tis the deeds that were done ‘neath the moth-eaten rag,
When the pole was a staff, and the rag was a flag.