Quote:
Originally Posted by High Wood
Does anyone know the reason why the facing colours were changed? Or was it change for the sake of change?
|
In the 1881 reorganisation, all old and valued facing colours had to go. From then on:
Royal regiments: blue;
English and Welsh regiments: white;
Scots regiments: yellow;
Irish regiments: green.
This probably to avoid endless quarrels over what all the merged regiments should have.
From that point in time many regiments tried to revert to their old colours. The Buffs were the first that succeeded: someone invented a brew that could be used to make the white into buff. To be applied at regimental costs.
More were to follow (I have somewhere a list, when people are interested I will type it down in a post here).
As the facing coulor was also used on the regimental colours, some regiments even, more or less, refused to be provided with new colours until after they succeeded in restoring.