Look at the 31st Huntingdonshire and the 70th Surrey “linked” together at Kingston. Is every Huntingdonshire man who wishes to join his county Regiment to walk all the way to Kingston to enlist? and when he does so, be uncertain whether he is to wear the Huntingdon buff or the Surrey black?
Had only the depôt of the 35th Royal Sussex been localized at Chichester to obtain recruits for that regiment, it would have been perfect; as it is, the “Brigade Depôt” at that city is partly formed of two nominal companies of the 107th Bengal Infantry, which Regiment of course never had the slightest connection with the county of Sussex.
The two depôts, or four nominal companies, form the “43rd Brigade Depôt.” It surely might have been numbered the “35th Brigade Depôt,” and so have kept up a semblance of the old county number.
It follows, therefore, that a man of Sussex wishing to enlist in his county Regiment, first has to go into the “43rd Brigade Depôt,” and then may find himself in the 107th Bengal Infantry, which Regiment he never intended to serve in at all!
But the above examples of ill-matched couples will suffice.
Is it wonderful that soldiers with the least gleam of esprit de corps desert?
The fact is, that the glorious old Regiments of the British Army are in process of being improved off the face of the martial world, and if the system of “Brigade Depôts” is persevered in, the Regiment must eventually disappear.
Let anyone read the “General Order” of the 17th March 1873. It says—
“The single Battalion Regiments, which are linked together to form the Line portion of a sub-district Brigade, will, so far as regards the Sub-Lieutenants thereto appointed, and the soldiers therein enlisted, after the date of this order, constitute one corps for all military purposes.
“All first appointments to the Line, and all enlistments for Line service, will be for the particular Brigade, instead of as heretofore, for particular Regiments.”