"Considering the Spanish invented bagpipes" Topic

Are there any instances of the Spanish using bagpipers in any of their units during the Peninsular War?

From what, little I know, IF there was any usage it would be in Galician units, as bagpipes were used within the general "Gaelic" population running from North Western Spain, through Gaul, into Ireland (Gael) and Scotland.

I've heard Galician music and it is not un-like Irish/Gaelic music at all, quite lovely in fact.

Hope that helps a bit.

There are a range of bag-fed wind instruments found in Iberia. While generically similar, these are all quite distinct from Highland bagpipes.

Traditional bagpiping in Spain apparently fell out of favour after the Middle Ages only enjoying a folkoric revival in the late C.19th and then on and off during the C20th. So, in answer to your question, while bowing to those with deeper knowledge, probably not.

Bagpipes were not invented in Galicia or Scotland- their use in varying forms still exists Europe-wide (and beyond), possibly originating in the Middle East (like everything else). The three-drone Great Highland bagpipes, however, are unquestionably of Scots origin- like the military feather bonnet (Please don't tell the Boston Police or FDNY).

My very first uniform book, written by by Preben Kannick, has a plate showing a Poland-Saxony Foot Guards bagpiper from 1732.

The English invented "traditional" Scottish tartans. The Black Watch tartan is as authentically Scottish as bratwurst or Mom's apple pie.

The use of bagpipes by the British Army arises from a different tradition from that of their Iberian cousins. In the Highland clans of Scotland, the bagpipes were not only a musical instrument to entertain but they were also an adjunct to war. (After the '45 they were banned as 'instruments of war'.) The chief's piper would encourage his clan before battle and then 'play them in' before handing his instrument to his 'boy', drawing his own sword and joining the fighting. This is the spirit which accompanied the bagpipes into the British Army when the Highland regiments were formed.

In other places, the pipes were no more 'special' than other musical instruments and had no particularly martial association and therefore no special place on the battlefield. (If someone knows of a different instance I would love to know.)

As an aside, when pipers were included in the British Army, originally it was proposed that they be paid as drummers. There was much objection to this with one notable piper complaining 'To be paid such as him! And me a musician and he simply a churl who beats upon a sheepskin!'

Also, on tartans, the Cuirassier has it basically correct. Clan tartans were a late invention. Though a chief's household may have all dressed in the same tartan, it was not seen as a clan symbol. The average highlander would wear what he could buy or his wife could weave.

The first, mass produced tartan with group symbology was for the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment, the Black Watch. And this was more a matter of economy of effort and budget. Other Highland regiments followed the practice.

It was not until the 1820s that the idea of a clan tartan really came about. This was primarily due to Sir Walter Scot who was put in charge of the celebrations for the visit of George IV to Edinburgh, the first by a Hannoverian monarch. It was the former who came up with the idea that all Scots should be in kilts and the romantic idea that clans had their own tartan. Subsequently, Prince Albert took up the idea and the rest, as the tourist office would say, is history (or (mythology).

You will find post '45 paintings of clan chieftains wearing different plaids at different years. In some cases wearing two different plaids in the same sitting.

4th Cuirassier- As Artilleryman points out the notion of clan or family tartans was promulgated in the early C19th, notably in connection with the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in 1822.

This was nothing to do with the English, therefore. Scottish "Tartan" could eventually be mass produced in any weaving mill in the north or south but the original handweaving skills and the knowledge of local setts reposed in Scotland. Indeed, Colonel David Stewart, Sir Walter Scott's partner in managing the 1822 'King's Jaunt,' had sincerely been working to garner information on traditional setts from Highland gentry for his encyclopedic work " Sketches of the Character, Manners, and Present State of the Highlanders [etc]" published the same year, although in his enthusiasm he did tend to jump to conclusions or fill gaps when convenient.

So with regard to the plaids worn by the 'Highland Watch' formed in 1725, there is no question of authenticity since this did not pretend to be anything other than what it was, an economical product to enable the independent companies to clothe themselves in traditional manner and as uniformly as possible; General Wade's instructions to the Captains being to "take Care to provide Plaid Cloathing and Bonnets in the Highland Dress for the Non-Commission Officers and Soldiers belonging to their Companies, the Plaid of each Company to be as near as they can of the same sort and Colour."

Although it has been posited that the Munro or Campbell companies were the source of the original 'Black Watch' tartan, evidence suggests that plaids were supplied in a job lot by weavers on the Speyside estate of another of the Captains, Grant of Ballindalloch; a blue and green sett framed in black that supposedly inspired the Gaelic epithet of am freiceadan dubh that famously attached to the Highland Watch.

This became the basis of the 'Government' or '42nd' sett as it later came to be known, following the embodiment of the Watch companies as a regiment of the line in 1739.

Strathspey district tartan

Grant 'Hunting tartan'

The Military Sett tartan is most certainly Scottish, 4th. It's not who paid for them that decides the point, but who goes to battle wearing them.

Beer, bratwurst and pretzels, however, are my ethnic heritage--almost as German as forms, checklists and regulations.

What's fascinating is how the humble weavers of Scotland somehow settled on a series of patterns that all just happen to use the British military palette and nothing else. Rifle green, garter blue, British scarlet, crimson, facings yellow.

Odd, that.

It's as though they were channelling the Humbrol Military Colour range 250 years ahead of its time.

The Scots are a canny and farsighted people, 4th. Look at the way they held critical historical events where they'd be convenient to tourists arriving by rail.

Artilleryman, with regard to the pipes having a "special place on the battlefield"&c., this is one of many ways in which there's a certain kinship between the Scots and the Irish. About a century ago,

"The Piper of Crossbarry, boys, he rose ere morning-tide,
He walked up to his Captain bold, his warpipes laid aside;
Says he, I'm through with piping, I'll fight for Liberty,
Today, please God, we'll hold the sod and set old Ireland free.

"Now, Piper lad", the Captain said upon that fateful day,
"Today you'll stride between our lines and martial music play,
For when we hear our Irish pipes we'll strive for victory,
And maybe at Crossbarry we will set old Ireland free." . . .

A health to brave Flor Begley, boys, who raised the chant of war,
Who strode among the fighting men while his warpipes droned afar,
For the music of his warlike tunes it cowed the enemy,
''Twas the Piper of Crossbarry, boys, who piped old Ireland free".

Three verses quoted from "The Piper of Crossbarry" by the Kerry poet, Bryan MacMahon. I believe contemporary British newspapers mentioned the "audacity" displayed in the deployment of the pipes.

(With regard to the tangential issues raised about the kilt – never "kilts", please – the arrival of the two Sobiewski-Stuart brothers in Scotland might be worth mentioning, and, 4th Cuirassier, I do think there are some tartans with russet hues in addition to the basic "palette" you mix up before us. By the way, following recent developments related to Un Singe Maritime, I remember a certain post of yours from October 11th last year. Be wary of what ye wish for….).

""*[//]) { > ::::

Which thread was that? Was it the Himmler / Spear of Destiny one?

No, something about a Kennel being without benefit of Beagle (or any other breeds), "The D-------- is empty!"
Now to check what the HH one is about.

Now to check what the HH one is about

It's about a handful who suffer from what is being described as "Napoleon Derangement Syndrome" endlessly banging their heads against the wall repeatedly and thinking they're making a difference. It'd be more amusing if one wasn't forced to step over the steaming piles of their "objective" historical observations.