A History of the 9th (Highlanders) Royal Scots

Book excerpt: This regimental history chronicles the Dandy Ninth Battalion Royal Scots from its first forays in the Boer War through the brutal fighting of WWI. After suffering the disastrous Black Week of the Second Boer War, the British Army formed a new Highland battalion, the kilted 9th Royal Scots, which became affectionately known as the Dandy Ninth. It sent volunteers to South Africa and established itself as Edinburgh’s kilted battalion, part of the Territorial Force of part-time soldiers. Mobilized in 1914 as part of the Lothian Brigade, the Dandy Ninth defended Edinburgh from the threat of invasion, and constructed part of the landward defenses around Liberton Tower. They were part-time soldiers and new recruits, drawn from the breadth of society, from lawyers to rugby players and artists, such as the Scottish Colorist F.C.B. Cadell, and William Geissler of the Edinburgh School. In the Great War they mobilized to France and Flanders and served in many of the major actions: in Ypres and on the Somme; at Arras and Cambrai in 1917; and during the 1918 German Spring Offensive at St Quentin. In the Advance to Victory, they were with the 15th (Scottish) Division.