THE "FIGHTING FIFTH"
("The Shiners")
The "Fighting Fifth" (Northumberland Fusiliers) have a peculiar paradox in their history. They were first raised in 1674 by Prince William of Orange, the Dutchman, and, in the last Boer War, they were fighting against the Dutch themselves. But even stranger things than that have come to pass in these later days when we have good cause to call our old allies our enemies, and our old enemies our allies.
The "Fighting Fifth" derived their regimental name, the Northumberland Fusiliers, from Hugh, Earl Percy, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, who commanded the regiment during the American War of Independence. For their fighting in the seventeenth century Prince William assembled them before the whole army, and publicly rewarded them for their services. It must be remembered that there were still services to come, for, when the Prince returned to England, fourteen years later, to deprive his father-in-law of his throne, the "Fighting Fifth" had not forgotten his kind offices. On this occasion they were regarded by the English with pride and admiration. "Even the peasants," says Macaulay, "whispered to one another as they marched by: 'There be our own lads; there be the brave fellows who hurled back the French on the field of Seneffe!'"
The "Fighting Fifth" gained many laurels in Portugal and Spain, where, on more than one occasion, they drove the enemy before them in utter confusion. It is in this war that their fighting traditions are chiefly founded.
At Ciudad Rodrigo it was the "Fighting Fifth" who stormed the approach. Afterwards they fought their way with fusil and steel through Salamanca, Nivelle, Vittoria, Orthes, and Toulouse, right up to Paris.
One of their greatest achievements was the successful defence of Gibraltar, when the Spaniards made their first attempt to recover it. Since that time there is scarce a page of fighting history up to the time of the Napoleonic Wars that contains no deed of this bull-dog regiment.
Their nickname is almost as old as their regiment. It was at the siege of Maestricht in 1676, when the regiment was only two years old, that a section of these men, only 200 strong, assaulted the Dauphin bastion—an affair out of which, after the most sanguinary combat, no more than fifty emerged. Yet maddened, rather than daunted, these fifty, with some few reinforcements, made a further attack on the bastion; and this time they took it, but only to meet with disaster. The place was mined, and a terrible explosion killed a large number, and covered others in wreckage. Many, however, emerged, and these proceeded to hold the position.
The tale of how they entered Badajoz stirs the blood. The 2nd Battalion led the storming party. Their way led over a narrow bridge. Here, under a terrible fire, the foremost fell in heaps; but their comrades pressed forward over their prostrate bodies, and planted ladders against the beetling walls of the castle. For a time the "Fighting Fifth" suffered heavily. Again and again the desperate attackers reached the summit of the walls, only to be hurled back by the enemy. Here they swarmed up like bees, to be swept down again by a raking fire; there, another ladder broken, another overturned, with men everywhere falling and climbing, climbing and falling. The chance of scaling those walls seemed hopeless, and at length the Fifth paused, and looked at one another. Then, at that psychological moment, the cheering of the enemy above broke the spell. Their cheers were answered by a fierce shout from our men, who rushed to the attack with a never-give-in determination that finally gained the ramparts, and drove the garrison out of the castle, out of the town, and into the distance, not without great slaughter. It was at Badajoz that the Fifth lost their brave colonel, who struck in at that psychological moment, and led the final victorious onslaught. He fell, shot through the heart, at the very moment that victory was assured. "None that night," says Napier, "died with more glory; yet many died, and there was much glory." The taking of Badajoz was indeed a piece of work which required all the dogged tenacity of purpose to be found in such fearless heroes as the "Fighting Fifth."
THEIR BADGES AND BATTLE HONOURS, ETC.