STARLIGHT
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Copyright ' La reproduction de tout article sous quelque forme que ce soit est sujette au consentement de l'�diteur par �crit.
Probably the most treasured nicknames for military forces are those bestowed by an enemy, sometimes as a token of respect, other times as a sneer, which the recipients turn gleefully to their own use, and occasionally as simple description.
At the start of England's Civil War, King Charles I's skillful cavalryman routinely trounced the inferior quality Parliamentary horse, but Oliver Cromwell soon brought brilliant success to the cavalry he raised. After the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, the defeated Royalist cavalry leader, Prince Rupert, termed Cromwell "Old Ironsides" for the impenetrable ring his troops formed around him. It was more a tribute to the troops themselves and the nickname was taken over by them, then broadened till eventually the New Model Army became known as "Ironsides."
In 1885, Canadian government forces quickly suppressed the uprising of Metis and Indians under the charismatic Louis Riel. One captured Metis puzzled over the dark green uniforms of rifle regiment troops, which appeared black at a distance. More familiar with the scarlet coats of the rest of the infantry, he asked , "Who are those little black devils?" A correspondent played up the story, and the delighted 90th Winnipeg Rifles, predecessor of today's Royal Winnipeg Rifles, adopted "Little Black Devils" as their nickname, along with a Latin motto saying "Named By The Enemy," and incorporated a pitchfork toting, naked, ebony devil into their badge.
Indian nicknames tended to be simply descriptive of a distinctive feature in an enemy force, like calling the U.S. Cavalry "Long Knives" for their sabres. The U.S. cavalry employed all Negro units, which the Indians dubbed "Black Buffalos" or "Buffalo Soldiers." One account suggests this was from the curly hair of the soldiers, another explains it as referring to buffalo robes in which they garbed themselves one winter. In the Second World War a U.S. army division of Negro troops took on the tradition, with a buffalo head on the divisional badge.
References to evil, supernatural powers appear in other nicknames originating from an enemy. In the First World War the Germans began calling Britain's kilted Highland troops "The Ladies from Hell," and a quarter century later the German army on one sector of the Easter Front was harassed nightly by Soviet female fighter pilots whom disgruntled soldaten dubbed Night Witches. Did World War Two German troops in Italy ever actually call the combined Canadian-U.S. 1st Special Service Force "The Devil's Brigade", as in the 1968 movie, or was this a later invention of the publicist's art?
No respect for a foe was intended in Kaiser Wilhelm's 1914 reference to "General French's contemptible little army." Some think he only meant it was too small for the task, others say he never said any such thing in the first place, but it was in keeping with the Kaiser's notoriously loose lips. The men of the British Expeditionary Force, the old time regular army soldiers who held up the Kaiser's advance, soon gloried in calling themselves "Old Contemptibles."
The vaunted Erwin Rommel did not learn from the Kaiser's back fire, for as the prolonged campaign between the Africa Corps and the Eighth Army got underway, German army radio quoted him calling his opponents "desert rats." The Brits turned it into their nickname, with a desert rat symbol appearing on two divisional and two brigade badges.
It was not precisely an enemy, but the civil populace they were patrolling as a sort of gendarmerie, that dubbed a regiment of Highland troops "The Black Watch," from the drab tartan they wore. The troops took it up as a nickname. Eventually the term was incorporated into the unit's official name. And "Black Watch Tartan" has long been the better known name for what has always officially been called "Government Tartan."
Again it was not an enemy, but an unfriendly force on their own side, that sneered at the World War Two Commonwealth troops in Italy as "D-Day Dodgers." The notoriously sharp tongued Lady Astor later denied ever saying it, but the story made the rounds and the troops turned the slur into a nickname, expressing their views of its author by a hostile verse in a song under the same name.
The irony of name calling is that it can often have the exact opposite effect to that intended, especially if it is aimed at a fighting force. Intended to degrade, it may have the effect of glorifying their actions and become part of their campaign honors.