Bugles in Military History

[Music] there's a lot of stuff on my set some of it's things that i've collected some are things that have been sent by viewers and they do raise a lot of questions from viewers and one of the items on the set that's kind of spectacular and that has raised a lot of questions is this bugle which usually hangs on the wall behind me probably got more questions about this bugle than any single item on the set this is a british bugle in b flat and the british military has used the bugle in b flat since at least 1855. it purports to come from the world war one era and it has on it a badge of the argyle and sutherland highlanders which is a storied regiment which was formed in 1881 and the court here is of the royal colors it's got a great patina it's a sort of item that's really spectacular to hang above your fireplace or on your wall and it does bring to question the history of bugles and their use by militaries their history is actually ancient and yet they still play an important role in military life today the utility of a bugle on the battlefield is obvious as they are loud enough that they can be heard over the din of battle the middle horn leader an online publication dedicated to celebrating the development of usage of mid-voice instrumentation explains that specimens of ancient trumpet-type devices are documented in nearly every culture including those of the ancient egyptians assyrians israelites greeks etruscans romans teutonic tribes celts as well as asian cultures initially trumpets would have been made from animal horn and in fact the name bugle is derived from the latin buculus meaning a bullock a castrated bowl an example is the shofar an ancient musical horn typically made of a ram's horn used for jewish religious purposes that is still sounded on the occasion of the jewish new year while generally used for religious purposes according to the old testament book of judges the shofar was used to signal the start of a war the use of bugles is mentioned several times in the old testament for example in the book of joshua the israelites bring down the walls of the city of jericho by march around the city blowing bugles later in the book of judges gideon panics the midianites with 300 bugles interestingly a similar tactic was used by british troops in the 1813 battle of chatuguay to iraq american troops during the war of 1812. it's not clear whether the trumpets mentioned in the old testament would have been animal horns or brass instruments both books were likely written in the 7th century bc and described events in the 14th and 15th centuries bc and while there's doubt over whether either event actually occurred the dates are realistic as both wood and metal trumpets were found in the tomb of 14th century bc egyptian king tutan common tuten commons bugles were in fact in good enough shape to still be played according to bbc news one of the trumpets from the tomb was played on the bbc in 1939 early radio broadcasters saw the potential for an extraordinary recording and in 1939 the egyptian antiquities service was persuaded to take part in a bbc broadcast to the world from the cairo museum band's been james tapern sounded the trumpet to an estimated 150 million listeners worldwide one sunday afternoon and world war ii broke out just a few months after that bugle was played the website ancient origin says that that led to the legend that trumpets have a magical power to summon war bugles were used by ancient greeks in battle the instrument of choice was the sal pinks a straight narrow bronze tube with a mouthpiece of bone and a bell of variable shape and size the work the audibilius or on things herald once attributed to aristotle but now thought to be the work of the third century bc philosopher strato of lam sacus explains that the sao pinx was a military tool that was used for summons in war at the games and so on not to make music the 4th century 80 greek author aristidis quintillianis explained that each command to troops was given using specific tones or melodies this action allowed for an entire army to receive a command at once as well as provide a level of secrecy as those salping's calls were specific to a group and would be unknown to an opponent the importance of bugles to greeks is well demonstrated by the fact that buelling or rather a herald and trumpet contest was added to the ancient olympic games in 396 bc winners were chosen by the clarity of the annunciation and the audibility of their voice or hornblast one particular trumpeter herodoros of megara was the winner of the contest a record 10 times professional bugler jerry villeneuve noted in a 2019 edition of the taps bugler that herrera doris's playing was so loud that many in the audience were stunned by the concussion and that he was a giant man who slept on a bearskin and when playing two trumpets at one time forced the audience to move back due to the force of his immense sound roman legions used multiple kinds of trumpets and according to the middle horn leader by 200 a.d had codified some 43 different signals daniel russell a professor of acoustics at the pennsylvania state universities notes that military musicians in the roman army were senior centurions the highest rank of non-commissioned officers indicating the important role that musical instruments played in military communication in fact the trumpet player or courtesan was a duplicary or one of the positions important enough that they were paid double the basic pay of a legionary trumpets were used to sound the alarm to signal attack retreat and formation changes during battle to announce changes of the watch and were played to provide accompaniment for soldiers while marching the 4th century 80 roman writer publius flavius vegetas wrote in the work d military or concerning military matters that the music of the legion consists of trumpets cornets and buccaneer the trumpet sounds the charge and retreat the cornets are only used to regulate the motions of the colors the trump would serve when the soldiers are ordered out to work without the colors but in time of action the trumpets and cornets sound together he suggests that bugle calls were a normal part of military life much as they're used today for reason will convince us that what is necessary to be performed in the heat of action should constantly be practiced in the leisure of peace although such codified vehicle calls may have faded some after the fall of rome bugles seemed to have remained an important component of medieval battles for example trumpets are mentioned prominently in several contemporary accounts of the july 1214 battle of buvine where the combined forces of holy roman emperor otto iv and king john of england were defeated by french forces commanded by king philip ii trumpets were apparently used for many purposes during the battle for example phillips chaplain wrote the trumpets sounded terrifyingly inviting the warriors to promptly charge the enemy various accounts note trumpets sounding to signal charges retreats to call nobles who have been out hunting back to camp and to announce the victory in fact phillips chaplin wrote that trumpets started the battle as the king hurries towards the enemy while the terrifying din of the trumpets is heard all around him a verse written 26 years after the battle reads as soon as they heard the trumpet sound they turned around as they much feared the king let's pause a moment to talk about the difference between bugles and trumpets says the two terms seem to be being used interchangeably in many of these accounts you might think in a modern sense that a bugle has no keys or vowels and a trumpet has keys there is some truth to that in general a bugle does not use keys or vowels to change pitch pitch is instead controlled by embouchure that is the control of the lips inside the mouthpiece this limits a bugle within a single harmonic series and thus standard bugle calls are limited to five notes but the difference is both more complex and simpler the difference is more complex because bugles actually can today come with valves and in fact commonly do along the instrument we played in different keys although bugle calls will be played within a single key and in fact historically trumpets also came without vowels such an instrument being called a natural trumpet the difference between a natural trumpet and a bugle is in the shape of the bell and the shape of the mouthpiece a bugle will be conical that is it will taper from bell to mouthpiece and uses a funnel-shaped mouthpiece a trumpet on the other hand will be cylindrical for at least two-thirds of its length culminating in a bell and will have a cup shaped mouthpiece a trumpet will thus tend to have a brighter clarion tone and a bugle or more somber tone both instruments have come in different keys and of course over time were coiled to make them easier to carry in fact both eventually became valved instruments with trumpets of course becoming the valved instrument we know today and bugles gaining vowels to become the cornet it is however simpler as well in that militaries have generally blurred the lines between the two instruments and in fact bugle calls today are often done with a valved trumpet one valve may be depressed to set the key but the trumpet is used in a single key controlled by ambusher this is why the term trumpets and bugles are often used interchangeably in military parlance despite the long history of the bugle however by the 18th century drums were the instrument most commonly used on the battlefield to help control troop movements bugles were still being used including various natural bugles and a half moon shaped instrument pitched in sea often called the henovarian bugle horn but bugles became associated with a particular type of troops well various forms of skirmishers were used on the battlefield since antiquity the modern concept developed in the 18th century light infantry troops carried lighter equipment were used in roles like skirmishing scouting or raiding the role was often played by irregular troops but by the mid-18th century it was common for european infantry regiments to each maintain one light company the light company would be made up of faster runners and marksmen would be expected to avoid skirmishes and harass flanks as opposed to fighting in discipline ranks like the heavy infantry or line infantry at least since the 1740s the light infantry became closely associated with the bugle there are two explanations one is that the curved bugle is associated with hunting and some of the earlier versions of light infantry were called hunters or in german jaegers but also because the drum was too cumbersome for these fast-moving troops and was a less effective means of controlling troops in the field than the bugle horn but due to the association the bugle horn became a common theme in badges and insignia for light infantry regiments rifle regiments and fast mounted infantry called dragoons bugles are still commonly part of the insignia for modern light infantry bugles started to be used more commonly on the battlefield during the 19th century terry villanueva explains that the smoke tumult and noise of the napoleonic battlefield could be easily confused with drum beats and the bugles used by light infantry started to replace drums for infantry signaling bugles were used in the american army from the revolutionary war although only authorized for rifle regiments and cavalry in that war but were more commonly used in the us civil war in that war that union general daniel butterfield composed a more melodic 24 note tune for the bugle call indicating lights out a short time after an artillery captain used the bugle call to commemorate a funeral for a fallen soldier as his battery was camped near confederate lines and he feared the traditional three-gun salute would give away his position that is how the bugle called taps came to be used at military funerals taps was also the call that general john pershing ordered bugler hartley hot lips edwards to play on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 1918 signaling the end of the great war bugles were actually used extensively in the great war not just to regulate camp life but to give battlefield instruction including attackers using them to signal a charge and defenders use them to call troops to arms when an attack was coming at the battle of lucato in 1914 german buglers tried to confuse british troops by playing the british call for cease fire although the ruse failed buglers would also be expected to take on other work as ammunition or water carriers or as stretcher bearers this could be dangerous work especially considering that often buglers were children too young to be soldiers john cook a bugler for battery b of the fourth u.s artillery regiment was just 15 years old when his battery came under enemy fire during the september 17 1862 battle of antietam cook carried a wounded officer to an aid station and when he returned to the battery found that many of the crew had been killed he took over servicing the guns in action for which he was awarded the medal of honor private league gillstrop bugler of company b of the 142nd regiment of the 36th infantry division became the youngest ever recipient of the us army's distinguished service cross for removing wounded under fire in france in 1918. his actions included capturing several german soldiers and impressing them into service as stretcher bearers private calvin pearl titus a musician bugler of the us 14th infantry regiment was awarded his medal of honor for being the first to climb the city walls under fire in the battle of peak king during the 1900 boxer rebellion his brave action not only freed his regiment from fire that had pinned them down but also won him an appointment to the united states military academy at west point buglers were also commonly used to carry messages under fire on june 25 1876 lieutenant colonel george custer sent bugler giovanni martino of company h u.s seventh cavalry with an urgent message calling for ammunition and reinforcements despite coming under fire and having his horse wounded martino managed to deliver the message to captain william benteen because he was sent to deliver the message he was the only survivor of the five companies that custer led into battle that day buglers did show courage actually bugling william j carson of the 15th united states infantry regiment received the medal of honor for rallying routed troops by playing the call to the colors during the september 1863 battle of chickamauga his commanding officer said of his action as a soldier his standing was perfect his name was a synonym of bravery and his patriotism of the highest order in battle he was apparently lost to fear and his every action heroic his acts of heroism on the 20th september 1863 that came under my personal observation i believe are without a parallel of individual bravery of that memorable battle in an odd twist bugler william sutton of the 1st battalion of the 60th rifles was awarded the victoria cross not for bugling but for breaking up a charge by killing an enemy bugler who was in the process of sounding the charge during the indian rebellion of 1857 and of course the sounding of a bugle can have historical importance for example a dispute over which bugler sounded the charge of the light brigade at the 1854 battle of baloclava perhaps the single most remembered event of the crimean war raged for more than a century dispute came to a head when the bugle once owned by trumpet major william britton was sold at auction to an american tv personality ed sullivan the controversy was not just over the sale of the british heirloom to a yank who promptly donated it to the museum of the 17th lancers but also because a descendant of trumpet major henry joy claimed that it was he and not william britton who had blown the charge joy's bugle is down the possession of the national army museum research by the auction house sotheby's discovered that britain had in fact blown the charge of the light brigade joy rather had blown the much less well-known but much more successful charge of the heavy brigade in the same battle britain's so-called balaclava bugle an artifact that has come to symbolize a costly war was sounded again at a charity event in 2011. but what about this specific bugle well i'm sorry to say it's actually a cheap reproduction your first hand is actually this fancy badge of the argyle and sutherland highlanders well that's really cool it makes the bugle seem really cool actually a military used bugle would never weld a big heavy metal object on the end of the bell it throws off the bugle's weight it's something that could catch on when you're trying to pull the bugle up it's something that would decrease its utility on the battlefield that's actually a hat badge which can still be relatively commonly acquired in the united kingdom that's been crudely welded to a bugle that was probably made in india and is pretty clearly fake it also lacks for example the broad arrow stamp which is used to indicate all military items that are owned by the crown in the united kingdom and also it has the queen's colors on the braids but the argyle and sutherland highlanders despite being a storied regiment are not a royal regiment like say the royal marines or the royal horse artillery and therefore they wouldn't use the queen's colors i knew exactly what this was when i bought it i just thought that they'd given it a really cool fake patina it would look great on my wall but this is a warning for collectors actual military used bugles really don't come up for auction very often and you're not going to find them on sites like ebay and the vast majority of the stuff that you see out there is going to be a cheap fake or reproduction in fact you can get a bugle that looks exactly like this one the same design often from settlers who are people who sell supposedly military accurate items to people at u.s civil war reenactments despite the fact that the british bugle and b flat was never used in america and there's no record of it ever being used in the american civil war the era of bugles on the battlefield really really ended with the era of electronic communications but bugles are still used in military brass bands there are some bugle calls in classical music and of course bugles are still used to play a commemoration at military funerals and beyond their role on the battlefield bugles have long at least for many centuries been used to regulate military life from first call to lights out bugle calls tell soldiers when to rise when to assemble when to eat and when to rest it's a role for which bugles are still used by militaries throughout the world i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 98,748

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, bugle, military history, bugles, musical instrument history

Id: gOxuoJHPCJA

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2021