History,
7th Queen's Own Hussars
 Undeniably
the 7th Hussars were the embodiment of dash and panache for which every
cavalry regiment strives. Nicknamed "The Saucy Seventh" they
were rivalled as a fashionable regiment only by the 10th Hussars, and
the 7th attracted most of their Officers from the notability, including
two Princes. The 7th were an exclusively Scottish regiment for some years
after their inception, and a few of the Celtic links remaining today,
especially in the music. The Queen's Royal Hussars still uses the famous
cypher of the 7th Queen's Own Hussars as part of the cap badge and rank
badges, they also proudly wear the "Maid of Warsaw" earned by
the 7th during World War II.
Owing
to the 7th Hussars losing their earliest documents twice within
their first fifty years, their beginning is something of a mystery. It
is certain that a commission was delivered to Colonel Richard Cunningham
in 1690 ordering him to relinquish his foot command and and take over
a regiment of Dragoons. Formed from Eglintoun's Horse and Cardross's Dragoons
to be six troops strong. By February 1691 Cunningham's Dragoons were an
established unit of King William's Army in Scotland. The 7th could always
boast of being one of the only two surviving regiments of cavalry raised
in Scotland.
The
first years of Cunningham's Dragoons service north of the border were
without noteworthy event, all the troops being dispersed among the highlands.
In March 1692 the regiment was brought to Edinburgh to assist in law and
order duties but it was not until 1694 that it was sent to Flanders to
join the King's Army marching and counter-marching for the next three
years and subject to the odd review. They were present at the capture
of Namur in 1695 and fought alongside the 3rd and the 4th periodically.
Two years later the regiment came home to Scotland for a dozen years policing
the lowlands, during which in 1709 the Hon William Ker took over the Colonelcy
and led the regiment onto the continent for the final year before the
treaty of Utrecht in which there were only minor skirmishes, from where
they were ordered to Ireland. In August 1713 Parliament short-sightedly
reduced the Army, The King's Jacobite-Minded political adviser Bolingbroke,
Weeding out the Protestant regiments. Ker's Dragoons, despite their seniority,
were one of the first to go alongside Pepper's Dragoons, later the 8th
Hussars. Within 18 Months George I, the new King, had re-raised the regiment
to help him to deal with the old pretender and the Jacobite Army, adding,
a few months later the first title of the regiment, which was the excessively
cumbersome "Our Dear Daughter Her Royal Highness the Princess Of
Wales' Own Regiment of Dragoons".
At
the end of October Ker's marched up to Scotland billeted alongside the
future 3rd and 4th Hussars. They fought the rebels in November at Sheriffmuir.
The Battle was indecisive and apart from Ker himself having three horses
shot from under him, the regiment did nothing exemplary. The "Fifteen"
died out and for 27 years Ker's did no fighting. When George II took the
throne in 1727 there was no Princess of Wales so the regiment was re titled
"The Queen's Own Royal Regiment of Dragoons". A merciful improvement,
while the six troops were split up around England engaged in nothing more
serious than smuggling control at sundry seaside towns.
In
1742, The Queen's Own mobilised for "The war of the Austrian Succession"
and by June 1743 they were formed up in a disadvantageous position near
the village of Dettingen near the valley of Maine. They spent the morning
of the 27th June, standing next to the 3rd Hussars exposed to the devastating
fire from the French guns, but in the afternoon, stationed with the 4th
and 3rd Hussars they charged, pushing the French Cavalry back and eventually
with the support of the foot, broke the enemy's ranks. Both side withdrew
to lick their wounds until the battle of Fonteroy in 1745. The infantry
performed well but were beaten back by superior numbers at which stage
the British Generals threw in their mounted arm to cover the retreat.
The Queen's Own charged again and again, sustaining fifty casualties but
achieving their task. In 1746 the regiment was caught in the action at
Roucoux, which which developed as Fonteroy had done and Lauffedlt in which
the Cavalry saved the British from a major defeat. By 1748 the impetus
for war had petered out and the Queen's Own Dragoons landed back in England
in 1749.
Two
years later George II signed a warrant numbering Regiments, thus the 7th
Queen's Own Regiment of Dragoons, who were also given the right to bear
the Queen's Cypher, still used today. In 1756 the 7th moved back up to
Scotland and had a light troop added to the establishment, who distinguished
themselves in 1758 with raids on St Malo, where they destroyed over one
hundred French ships, and at Cherbourg. During the Seven Years War the
Queen's own were sent in 1760 to the continent, fighting at Warburg and
then tediously marching and skirmishing for three years before coming
home.
For
the next thirty years the regiment soldiered quietly at home, north and
south of the border. Another titular change took place in 1783 when the
7th were converted to the (Queen's Own) Light Dragoons. A decade later,
after the French Revolution, Britain was at war once again with her old
enemy in the Netherlands. April 1794 brought the battle of Beaumont which
was a cavalry victory glowingly reported by the Fortescue as "the
greatest day in the history of the British horse" because the British
mounted mounted regiments routed 25.000 French troops with their flanking
attacks. A fortnight later the British repeated their success in much
the same manner at Willems, charging the French squares nine times until
they broke and then massacring the fleeing enemy. It was the same story
at Mouvaux some days later when the 7th rescued their Colonel who had
been captured during the fray by the enemy. The campaign ended a year
later and the regiment went home for four peaceful years, during which
their most celebrated patrons joined, Lord Henry Paget, Later the Marquis
of Anglesey and John Gaspard Le Marchant, the founder of the Royal Military
College at Sandhurst. There was a minor campaign on the continent in 1795
to rescue Holland which failed and thus closed the eighteenth century.
Back
in England George, the Prince of Wales, was the arbiter of all fashion
and as such he decided to bestow first on his own regiment, the 10th,
the distinction of being Hussars in in 1806. Lord Paget, now Colonel of
the 7th Hussars was a friend of the Prince and thus the 7th were the second
regiment to be granted the magnificent uniforms in the same year. In October
1808 the 7th Hussars embarked for Corunna to reinforce Sir John Moore's
Army. A bleaker could not have been foreseen. Moore had started the retreat
before the 7th Hussars had reached the Army. Two minor conflicts brought
the cavalry some renown during the retreat, the first at Sahagun in which
two regiment of French Cavalry were overwhelmed, the second at Benavente
when the over-enthusiastic leading elements of the French advance were
pushed back into the river they had just crossed.
The
remainder of the retreat over the mountains in the January snow and ice
were disastrous, 150 effective soldiers were left of the 749 Queen's Own
who had landed two months before. The Coup-de-Grace was delivered to the
regiment when one of the troopships was wrecked on the way home, drowning
sixty more of the regiment. The remainder reconstituted and served in
Ireland for three years before being recalled to London for ceremonial
duty owing to the Life Guards being overseas, and proceeding from there
to the Peninsula as part of the Hussar Brigade arriving in September.
The 7th crossed the Pyrenees and wintered near Bayonne, not fighting until
Orthes in February 1814 when they mauled the retreating French infantry
and were the only Cavalry regiment mentioned by Wellington in his dispatches.
In June the regiment arrived home for service along the south Coast and
an interlude keeping order during the Corn Law Riots in London.
A
year later the 7th were hurriedly mobilised on hearing the news that Napoleon
had escaped by the Elba. Their Brigade Commander was the late Commanding
Officer, Maj General Sir Hussey Vivian and their regimental Colonel, Henry
Paget, Lord Uxbridge was commander of the whole British Cavalry. On the
eve of the Battle of Waterloo the 7th were Honoured by Uxbridge by being
given the charge on the advancing enemy in Genappe, who were Polish Lancers.
After a spirited and fearless succession of charges only nineteen of the
120 men of the 7th Hussar squadron were left in the saddle. For the Battle
of Waterloo itself, the 7th were on the extreme right of the allied line,
300 yards north of the Chateau of Hougoumont. Until 5pm they were not
used, but then they were charged more than twelve times.
"And having charged every species of troops,
infantry, artillery and cavalry we halted about half a mile in the
rear of the French position and there found, tho' of the 7th and 15th
there remained only 35 men, Colonel Kerrison and four Officers".
In
24 hours the 7th Hussars had lost two Officers killed, and eleven wounded,
sixty two other ranks killed and 109 wounded, not to mention Uxbridge
losing his leg to gain a marquessate.
For
three years the regiment was part of the Army of Occupation around Paris
with no shortage of entertainment. In October 1818 the Duke of Wellington
held a final grand parade before the regiment sailed to England in January
and back up to Scotland by July after a forty year absence. They were
to have two generations of peace during which the Marquis of Anglesey
remained their indulgent Colonel up to 1842. Until 1838 the 7th moved
from billet to billet around Britain before being sent with the King's
Dragoon Guards to Canada to punish the French republicans who were in
minor rebellion. The 7th were not given the chance of action as the revolt
petered out but they were kept on until 1842 in Canada. For the next fifteen
years the regiment soldiered on quietly in England when once again an
uprising in the Empire called them far from home, this time to India.
In
the six months that it took for the 7th Hussars to reach the subcontinent
the mutinous sepoys had been pushed back into the province of Oudh. Fierce
fighting raged along the approaches to Lucknow and the regiment were continually
in action. At Musa Bagh in March 1858 the 7th won their first Victoria
Cross when a troop was engulfed by drug crazed natives and despite the
overwhelming odds, Cornet William Bankes, the only officer left, rallied
the troops and drove off the attackers receiving eleven wounds of which
he later died. Lucknow fell to the British who then rounded up the remnants
of the mutineers. There were numerous fierce little actions which combined
the intolerable heat to cause casualties. In one of these battles by the
river Rapti the 7th won their second Victoria Cross when as the regiment
were pursuing a band of rebels over the river, they came under heavy fire
from the far bank and not withstanding the peril Major Charles Frasier
dived into the river to save three non-swimmers stranded in the middle
of the sandbank.
In
April 1859 the regiment arrived at Amballa. The mutiny was over and they
spent eleven years in India containing only one notable skirmish at Shabkadr
on the North West frontier when the 7th charged the tribesmen three times
before the enemy took flight. In 1871 The Queen's Own moved back to Aldershot,
and three years later had an infusion of royal blood when Prince Arthur,
Duke of Connaught, was given a Captain's Commission. Son of Queen Victoria,
he was a great character, well-liked by the regiment. The regiment did
a short stint in South Africa in 1881 and provided two Officers and forty
four soldiers for the socially elite camel corps three years later. 1886
found the complete regiment back in India for a decade during which they
excelled at polo then a spell in England preceded the 7th Hussars being
sent to "Drives" to herd up the boers with a new type of operation
which exhausted the horses, even after they were finished the 7th were
kept on in South Africa until 1905. Then they had six quiet years in England
before another tour in India drew them to the subcontinent.
They
were stationed at Bangalore and were left there at the start of world
war I, moving to Secunderabad with detachments keeping order in Delhi.
It was not until 1917 that the frustrated regiment sailed to the river
Tigris near Basra to fight against the Turks. They moved to Baghdad from
where the first attack was launched in March 1918 against a division of
the enemy in Khan Baghdadi; the 7th in their Brigade had the role of cutting
off the enemy retreat which they managed very efficiently, first destroying
the baggage column, then routing the enemy division in fifteen minutes.
Six months of stagnation around baghdad took place as the Turks had withdrawn
until another offensive was mounted by the British and they again encircled
the enemy at Sharquat. The 7th executed a brilliant piece of fire and
withdrew. On the 30th October, as they were preparing to attack again,
news came through that Turkey had surrendered but the 7th were to remain
as an occupying force not arriving home until May 1919.
The
inter war years the regiment had a short and uneventful tour of India
Up to 1923, then a period at Aldershot before sailing to Egypt in 1935.
The present generation of armoured cavalrymen can have little conception
of the impact of mechanisation as it was announced to the regiment in
May 1936. training with their mark II tanks filled their next years and
proved valuable practice as the Second World War started and the 7th were
called into battle against the Italians in North West Africa in June 1940.
The first action was taking the fort of Capuzzo which they had to capture
twice in a month. In January 1941 the 7th were involved in the fighting
around Bardia and Sidi Barrani then came the attack on Tobruk, which earned
the regiment high praise from the Australian infantry. At Bedda Fomm came
the final destruction of the Italians and the 7th fought alongside the
3rd Hussars for 36 hours helping to capture 20,000 prisoners and 112 tanks.
A
far sterner enemy took over from the Italians when Rommels Africa Korps
with it's superior tanks started to push the allies back into Egypt. On
21st November 1941 the 7th Hussars were ordered to a blocking position
north of Sidi Rezegh, where they encountered the might of the German advance
in the shape of fifty panzers, whose armament completely outclassed the
mark VI. For four days the regiment carried out its mission, holding off
a German armoured division until by the 28th November, the 7th had only
two surviving tanks, had lost their Commanding Officer Killed among many
other casualties, missing and prisoners. They went back to Abassia to
refit until embarking in January 1942 for Rangoon in Burma, where again
they were part of 7th Armoured Brigade.
The
situation was desperate and the 7th moved straight up to Pegu to fight
the marauding Japanese. Pegu was untenable so the British began their
historic retreat northwards using the 7th Hussar Stuart Tanks to smash
road blocks, cover the withdrawal and carry the wounded. There were countless
acts of heroism by the 7th in the face of the inhumanity of the Japanese,
and epitomised in Field Marshall Alexander's words about the 7th Hussars:
"Without them we should never have got
the Army out of Burma; no praise can be too high for them"
Soon
the British had been pushed back beyond Prome and the start of
May 1942 when they crossed the river Chindwin, the regiment had to destroy
their tanks, and became pedestrians for the final 150 miles of the retreat.
On 17th May the remnants of the division staggered into Imphal. The 7th
had covered nearly one thousand miles in three and half months losing
forty six killed and fifty wounded, and earning the highest regard from
all who had met them.
The
regiment moved back to Egypt, were equipped with Sherman tanks but spent
two years idle until May 1944 when they joined the advance up Italy seconded
to the 2nd Polish corps. They fought first for Ancona, a hard forty eight
hour battle; and then in August for the gothic line earning the praise
of the Polish who granted the 7th Hussars the privilege of wearing the
Maid of Warsaw for their "Magnificent work - fine examples of heroism
and successful action". By October the allies were nearing Bologna,
prepared to sit out the winter which provided the Queen's Own time to
practice in new swimming tanks and conduct foot reconnaissance into enemy
territory. Both these factors proved vital in the battle for the Po plains
and ensured that by 2nd May 1945 the German Army in Italy had had to surrender.
The
7th stayed on in Italy for a while then marched north ending up in June
1946 at Soltau, in Northern Germany, as part of the occupying Army. They
spent a year becoming friendly with the 4th Hussars, their neighbours
before sailing back to Yorkshire, after twelve years abroad in December
1947. Two years of sorting out in England, with a large change in personnel,
renewed the 7th for a five year tour in Fallingbostel near Soltau, before
they were sent as the first armoured regiment in Hong Kong in 1954.
It
was a quiet tour and on the boat home in August 1957 the 7th Queen's Own
Hussars found that they were to be amalgamated the following year. It
was heartbreaking news to the regiment, many of whom had fought all three
of Britain's enemies in World War II and felt fiercely proud of the exploits
of their regiment which had for so long epitomised the elan and flair
of a cavalry regiment.
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