repeating form the current <about> tab
notes on possible Scottish Regimental association:
The 1/5th (Renfrewshire) Battalion landed at Cape Helles as part of the 157th Brigade in the 52nd (Lowland) Division in June 1915; the battalion was evacuated to Egypt in January 1916 and then landed at Marseille in April 1918 for service on the Western Front. >perhaps pertinent as Dr. Perry Mclaughlin eventually left Europe from Marseilles.
11th Battalion (New Army) https://www.theroyalscots.co.uk/ww1-battalions/
Raised in Edinburgh in August 1914. Joined 9 (Scottish) Division and moved to France in May 1915. Spent the remainder of the war on the Western Front. Moved into Germany after the armistice and was reduced to cadre strength at Cologne in November 1919 before being disbanded.
12th Battalion (New Army)
13th Battalion (New Army)
15th (1st City of Edinburgh) Battalion (New Army) (Cranston’s Battalion)
16th (2nd City of Edinburgh) Battalion (New Army) (McCrae’s Battalion)
the battalion performed with great dash during the offensive at Arras in 1917, stoically endured
the muddy horrors of Passchendaele later that year, and then held the line
unbroken in a desperate rearguard action on the Lys in the spring of 1918.
When one young soldier, a Partick Thistle supporter, was told that he was to be
transferred to the 16th Royal Scots he wrote home that it was a ‘feather in my cap’
to become a member of the famous Edinburgh footballers’ battalion. The
action on the Lys was to be McCrae’s final battle. The battalion was disbanded
shortly after through lack of replacements. The butcher’s bill had been paid in
full. The 16th Royal Scots had suffered 1,400 dead during the war—including,
among its fallen officers, Lieutenant Cuthbert Lodge, the son of the Professor of
History at Edinburgh University. Only thirty of the ‘originals’ were still on the
strength at the end. Fittingly, the piper played ‘Flowers of the Forest’ as the men
were drawn up for the last time. It was a lament for lost friends.
The 11th, 12th, 13th, 15th, & 16th battalions were the Scottish ones of the New Army.
It seems that many or all were all part of the 5th BEF (New) Army
