Our old world diff’rences are dead: the Scottish emigrant military tradition in the First World War
Resource type
Book chapter
Creator (person)
Allan, Stuart
Forsyth, David S
Date published
May 5, 2016
Abstract
Scottish volunteer corps were an established feature of the defence forces of the British Dominions in the decades before the First World War. Displaying and performing the essentials of traditional identity associated with the British army’s Scottish regiments, these military units constituted one form of associational culture for migrant Scots and their descendants. But when, in 1914, the British Dominions joined the imperial war effort, these identities transferred only partially into the expeditionary forces mobilised for overseas service. This chapter considers why it was that, with emigrant Scottish units prominent in the war iconography of Canada and South Africa, the overseas forces of Australia and New Zealand did not similarly embrace the Scottish tradition. The differences are found to lie in administrative arrangements for mobilisation, including conscription, as much as in the relative degrees of Dominion nationalism through which the war was represented and commemorated.
Book title
Global Migrations: The Scottish Diaspora Since 1600
Editor
McCarthy, Angela
MacKenzie, John M
Pagination
138-158
Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Place of publication
Edinburgh, Scotland
Rights statement
In Copyright