WINSTON Churchill was undoubtedly a great war leader ("Myth of reckless egoist who was last of the imperialists", The Herald, January 21, and Letters, January 22 & 23). The 51st (Highland) Division was an infantry division of the British Army that fought on the Western Front in France during the First World War from 1915 to 1918. General Rommel accepted the surrender of the 51st Highland Division, at Saint-Valéry-en-Caux. If you continue to use this website then you must agree to the terms set out in our Privacy Policy. So far at least, Churchill has not been blamed. The 51st Highland Division and the 1st Armoured Division, with Infantry Battalions were fighting a rear guard action. The men from the 51st Highland Division, Black Watch and Argyll and Suther-land Highlanders, as well as the Seaforths had to engage the Germans as the rest of the British Expeditionary Force evacuated from Dunkirk in June 1940. Some managed daring escapes. The 51st Highland Division was a sector of the British Army which fought in the First world War from 1915 to 1918. In Operation Plunder the British 2nd Army (The 51st Highland Division and the 15th Scottish Division) and the US Ninth Army (30th and 79th Division) crossed the River Rhine in an amphibious assault. Not only was this not an “English invasion,” the majority of War Cabinet members present at the meeting at which it was agreed to provide troops to the Sheriff, if he needed them, were themselves Scots, and the discussion took place in a room where the majority of politicians and civil servants present also were Scots. Other elements include claims that: • All of the troops sent were English. Other widely followed bloggers also posted it, and the lie went off round the world. Perhaps his political objectives were even more important. 3. By the time I took the screenshot, seventeen people had “liked” it. St. Valery was forgotten about, an embarrassment. There have been some fine memoirs from survivors, a book or two, a poignant song from the Battlefield Band. The myth that “Churchill persuaded the Cabinet that troops, machine guns, and tanks should be deployed” seems to have been invented by the Labour politician (and a leader of the Forty Hours Strike) Emanuel Shinwell in his 1973 memoirs I’ve Lived Through It All. In 2014 I wrote an article describing the creation and political use of the “abandon Scotland” myth. 32–62. In the end, one-third of the force did manage to escape through Le Havre. But the game was up. The Fighting 51st deserves better. Third, the elaborate mythology is not subject to even the most basic critical analysis. It's hard not to recall General Wolfe's assessment of the worth of Scottish soldiers: "No great mischief if they fall.". Seaforths from the 51st Highland Division in northern France in 1940 Together they formed a unit of about 20,000 men. The 51st was a firstline Territorial Army Division comprising nine Scottish infantry battalions and (usually ignored in the narrative of grievance) Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, and other units, some of which were English. The evacuation of ten thousand men from there, a major international port, would have been a relatively simple matter. Much is being made of the 75th anniversary of the Dunkirk 'Miracle'. Both articles were published in print-only Scottish editions of the respective papers, but the Mail on Sunday article is now available on-line.2. The battle of Saint-Valery-en-Caux is being remembered by three Scots armed forces charities, and pipers are being asked to play a leading role. On social media, their rhetoric can cross the line into something like hate speech. Three years later, I was passing long days beside my wife’s hospital bed revising that article, and, while searching for recent occurrences of the first myth, I came upon many social media posts about two others.4 These were, first, that in 1919 “Churchill sent English troops and tanks to George Square, Glasgow to crush a strike,” and, second, that in June 1940, after the end of the Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill “abandoned” or “sacrificed” the men of the 51st Highland Division at St. Valéry-en-Caux “because they were Scots and expendable.”, The first of these two is not as mythological as the “abandon Scotland” story, in that it is, to some extent, based on real events, but the “Battle of George Square” is perhaps the most mythologised event in twentieth-century Scottish history. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community. The 51st Highland Division had originally been the 1st Highland Territorial Division when it was raised at the general creation of the Territorial Force in 1908. Objections to the post on Facebook were answered, “it is a matter of record that a number of historians believe 51st Div. On 28th March they were deployed into the defensive line relieving the French 21st Division between Bailleul and Armentiéres. And rightly so. The 51st (Highland) Division was an infantry division of the British Army that fought on the Western Front in France during the First World War from 1915 to 1918. Never forget the 51st Highland Division, and those brave soldiers who marched all night and fought all day until their eventual death or capture, dumped after Dunkirk by Churchill. The International Churchill Society expands with two new chapters in the US. Others descend to cruder levels: an office-bearer in an organisation affiliated to the Scottish National Party has recently promoted a newly popular and peculiarly unpleasant variant of the mythology, that Scots and Irish troops were selectively abandoned on the beach at Dunkirk, in favour of Englishmen. Either way, for military or political reasons, Churchill abandoned the Highlanders. His Division was outnumbered and outgunned in every aspect, particularly tanks. It's easy too to be wise after a war. “Another successful escapee was Corporal Malcolm Straughan who, by a twist of fate, was a member of the reformed 51st Highland Division, … It is these three that I discuss here. The story was picked up and repeated in the Daily Express the next day. His most recent book The Fortification of the Firth of Forth 1880–1977: “the Most Powerful Naval fortress in the British Empire” (with Ron Morris) was published in 2019. The third of the myths is more complex. On Friday, 31 January 1919, a demonstration, part of what was known as the “Forty Hours Strike,” descended into violence between demonstrators and Glasgow police. We use cookies to ensure that we are able to give you the best experience on our website. Oddly, at both extremes, these positions can often be characterised as “nationalistic.” In much of this rhetoric, “Churchill” often seems merely to be a personification of Britain, England, or the Empire for those whose nationalism either idolises or denigrates what they stand or stood for. On 12 June 1940, more than a week after the last British troops had been evacuated from Dunkirk, the 51st (Highland) Division was forced to surrender to General Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division at St Valery-en-Caux. After St Valery, the 51st Highland Division was reconstituted and fought at El Alamein in Africa and defeated Rommel and his troops. Gordon J. Barclay, If Hitler Comes: Preparing for Invasion, Scotland 1940 (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2013). If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can contact IPSO here, By Second, I have been struck by the ways in which people are willing to invent new “facts” or fabricate circumstantial detail to support their own version. The observant reader will have noticed the flaw: how could sailors on, at the latest, 4 June 1940 threaten to mutiny about an event that would not happen until 11 June? More than 10,000 members of the Division were driven into … Lance Coporal Colin Chisholm was captured at St Valery when attached to the 51st Highland Brigade. But St. Valery remains a minor footnote in Scottish history. An almost completely mythical version of the event, English troops, tanks in the square and all, continues to appear in Scottish school textbooks. It was said to have been the darkest day in the history of that famous regiment. The French were already starting to blame the British for the disaster befalling their country. Churchill was accused in 1919 of ordering tanks into the “Battle of George Square” and in 1940 of leaving the 51st Highland Division at St. Valery because it was Scottish. The Lothians and Border Yeomanry supported the 51st Highland Division after they were cut off by the Germans and left behind following the evacuation of Dunkirk. 75–100. 1. At 10 p.m. on 25 March a scan of the Daily Express article was posted on the Facebook page for “Yes to an Independent Scotland” (see image above). The rest retreated towards St. Valéry-en-Caux. With the further 1,000 or so taken on the Somme and in the Saar, a total of over 11,000 soldiers of the Division were marched into 5 long years of captivity. It appears to have little connection to the real man in the context of the times he lived through. Historical grievances are being resurrected, exaggerated, or just invented. Some 3,300 men were, however, lifted from a beach at the eastern end of the St. Valéry perimeter. 20,000 men of the 51st (Highland) Division arrived in France in January 1940 as part of the 500,000-strong British Expeditionary Force sent to help defend the country against a possible German invasion. “Truth” has become no more than “what I want to you to believe.”. The ancillary force sent with the 51st also contained three English infantry battalions.7. The tamer version of this kind of social media post merely states, for example, “Churchill abandoned the fighting Scots of the 51st (Highland) Infantry Division June 1940.” This not only particularises the loss of Scottish troops by ignoring the shared fate of non-Scots, but also promotes the myth of “abandonment,” and implies some sort of deliberate act of malice by Churchill. It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. In the freezing last winter of the war, as the Red Army advanced from the east, the POW camps were abandoned and the starving prisoners condemned to stagger hundreds of miles through the snow - the so-called Death Marches, another insufficiently recognised feat of courage and endurance. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . Winston Churchill greets an officer of 51st Highland Division during his visit to Tripoli to thank the 8th Army for its success in the North African campaign, 4 February 1943. Men of the Durham Light Infantry, 49th (West Riding) Division ‘advance’ past a knocked-out German Panther tank during Operation ‘Epsom’, 27 June 1944. The International Churchill Society expands with two new chapters in the US. 291–93, and Peter Scott, In the Eye of the Storm (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1966), pp. Over the winter, nine individual infantry brigades had gained this experience; at the end of the winter, it was decided that a whole division at a time would henceforth be posted to the French on rotation. Here, they would be directly facing the German Army and could gain experience in front-line conditions, for example, undertaking offensive patrolling. After a week of further retreat, with the French close to surrender and the collapse of its armies evident to all, Fortune was finally given permission to evacuate his Division. The Luftwaffe had total command of the skies. Join to automatically receive a subscription to BOTH. The Highland Division was knocked for six. Mobilised at the start of the First World War, the 1st consisted of brigades drawn from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Seaforths, Gordons and Camerons. Most of all, we should remember the valour of the Fighting 51st in France. The commonly employed narrative of grievance about the 51st is not, however, a subtle consideration of Churchill’s realpolitik, but a series of claims that the 51st was treated worse because they were Scots and therefore expendable. Ill-equipped and out-gunned, they fought with outstanding discipline and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. L. F. Ellis, The War in France and Flanders 1939–1940 (London: HM Stationery Office, 1954), p. 366. Jock Morrison. I started challenging the mythology as soon as I discovered it, but it continues to appear frequently, even now. But … The real, complex, and historically important Churchill is increasingly disappearing behind crudely mythologised versions erected by those who wish to defend a political position or a series of values, and those who wish to attack them. He was an enthusiastic advocate of the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915. 2. https://www.pressreader.com/ uk/the-scottish-mail-on-sunna/20130324/282106339089564. The narrative has developed from one of “oppression of the workers by capitalists” into one of an “English invasion.” The reality is that the army was called in by the city’s own authorities; the army decided to use mainly Scottish troops; in such situations the army decides what force it needs and, fearing perhaps a re-run of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, took six tanks along, which were not used. In particular, there are what I have termed the four twentieth-century “military myths,” and it will perhaps come as no surprise to the reader that Churchill features in three of them. 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