Uniform.—Regular and Reserve Battns., scarlet with yellow facings.
[1st Battn. (Argyllshire Highlanders): raised in 1794 by the Duke of Argyll. 2nd Battn. (Sutherland Highlanders): raised by the Duke of Sutherland in 1800. The 1st Battn. formed the bulk of the heroes of the wreck of the Birkenhead. The 2nd Battn. were the celebrated "thin red line" at Balaclava. The regiment won great distinction during the Indian Mutiny. It formed part of General Wauchope's force at Magersfontein (1899).]
THE DUBLIN FUSILIERS
("The Old Toughs")
The Dublin Fusiliers had a large share in writing the red history of India. Their prestige has been drawn mainly from the East. Indeed, although they have been in existence 246 years, they never set eyes on the white cliffs of Dover until the other day, so to speak, in 1871. On their colours stand the Royal Tiger of Bengal, and the Indian Elephant, together with the honours—Plassey, Mysore, The Carnatic, Buxar, and many others gained in India which are unknown to any other regiment. In the conquest of India they were Clive's men, Warren Hastings' men, and "their names are the names of the victories of England." It is scarcely too much to say that Indian territory was made British by the Dublin Fusiliers. The story of how India would have become part of the French Empire but for the daring genius of an obscure youth and the indomitable valour of the Dublin Fusiliers makes thrilling reading.
The French had laid siege to Trichinopoly, knowing that, with its fall, fell India into their hands; but Clive, a young man of twenty-five years, a born genius, without any further acquirement in the way of special training, evolved as if by a heaven-sent inspiration—a sudden plan—the consummate daring of which has not been equalled in the history of any other nation. It was, in brief, to raise the siege of Trichinopoly by dealing a sledge-hammer stroke upon Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic—a city whose population was 100,000, and whose garrison consisted of 1,100 trained men. Clive proposed to subdue this strongly defended city with 200 Dublin Fusiliers and 300 Sepoys. This unheard-of intention must have had something unseen and undreamt of behind it, as the shadow of the coming event. The issue proved this. With his handful of men, tuned to his own pitch of enthusiasm, he marched boldly on Arcot during the night. He was not alone. His allies were the elements. As he neared the gates of the city, they broke loose. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and the rain descended in torrents. In the midst of this, he and his little band entered the city as if at the head of an unknown mighty army. These men, who came attended by the artillery of the storm gods, by the lightning's flash and search-light, seemed all too many for the garrison. Terrified, they fled in tumult and disorder, and Clive by this master-stroke, aided by That which has aided Britain many times in a moment of daring extremity, seized Arcot, and held it.
But this master-stroke required confirmation before it was effective. It yet remained for Clive, and his brave band to display the endurance and patience necessary to hold what was won. The besiegers of Trichinopoly gathered reinforcements, and beleaguered Arcot. Ten thousand men enforced that place. In the course of days four officers, nearly 100 Dublin Fusiliers and over 100 Sepoys were lost. Says an eye-witness who describes the place, "The ramparts were too narrow to admit the guns, the battlements too low to protect the soldiers." In this siege, which lasted fifty days, elephants were used by the besieging hosts. With the battering-rams slung between them, they were pushed forward against the walls, but the "Dubs" sent such a fusilade against them that the beasts turned tail, and trampled hundreds of the enemy to death.
The little body of Dublin Fusiliers and Sepoys—it was the first, but not the last time that Indian troops have fought bravely by our side—held out, and finally the enemy, after a fierce attack, in which they were worsted, retreated. Clive followed them up remorselessly. In that pursuit Pondicherry and Tanjore were taken, and now, at Plassey, were 100 British, and 2,000 Sepoys, who, in a decisive action, defeated 60,000 of the enemy under Surajah Dowlah. This superiority of a cause which, reinforcing an inferiority of men, has proved, through thick blood and thin, to be at the behest of civilisation, is not without its far-off echo in the present day.
It needs to be added that the whole of the honours of the Dublin Fusiliers, until "South Africa, 1899-1902," and "Relief of Ladysmith," were won by the Madras Fusiliers and Bombay Fusiliers (East India Company's regiments). It was only in 1881 that they were given the name "Royal Dublin Fusiliers," and as such, our English, Scotch and Welsh have never a fault to find with them.
It was at Arcot that Lieutenant Trewith, of the Madras Fusiliers, saved Clive's life at the expense of his own, and so, indirectly, yet practically, saved India. At a moment when Clive was unaware of danger Trewith saw one of the besiegers taking a long, steady aim at him through a small breach. There was no time to do anything in the way of warning. There was merely time to thrust his own body between the bullet and Clive's heart—between another Power and India. That was a moment as heroic for an individual as it was critical for a nation.
From the battle of Plassey onwards, wherever there was fighting, there were the Dublin Fusiliers. At Condore and Wandiwash, at Buxar and Sholingur, they were present—not in numbers but in force. It has ceased to be a strange thing regarding the Dublin Fusiliers that their greatest victories were those in which the odds were against them.