The Royal Welch Fusiliers is a British army regiment, founded in 1689 as the 23rd Regiment of Foot or Royal Welch Fusiliers. It is one of the oldest regiments in the regular army, hence the archaic spelling of the word Welch instead of Welsh. The archaic method was officially restored to the Regiment's title in 1921 though the it had maintained the usage of the archaic spelling unoffcially. As of 2004, it was one of five line infantry regiments never to have been amalgamated in its entire history, the others being:

• The Royal Scots
• The Green Howards
• The 22nd (Cheshire) Regiment
• The King's Own Scottish Borderers

Soldiers of this regiment are distinguishable by the unique feature of the "flash", consisting of five overlapping black silk ribbons (seven inches long for soldiers and nine inches long for officers) on the back of the uniform jacket at neck level. This is a legacy of the days when it was normal for soldiers to wear pigtails. In 1808, this practice was discontinued, but the RWF decided to retain the ribbons with which the pigtail was tied, and was granted this special concession by the King. As a fusilier regiment, the RWF wears a hackle, which consists of a plume of white feathers worn on headress and mounted behind the cap-badge.

The light infantry and grenadier companies of the Fusiliers saw bloody action at the Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War. The regiment saw particularly notable service during World War I, becoming forever associated with the terribly destructive action at Mametz Wood in 1916. During this war, several writers served with the regiment, including the poets, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and David Jones and Hedd Wyn. Their memoirs have resulted in the activities of this regiment being vividly recorded for posterity. Ford Madox Ford wrote movingly of the Welsh soldiers he commanded in his four-volume novel Parade's End.

The regimental museum is located in Caernarfon, Wales, and the official headquarters are at Wrexham.

In 2004, it was announced that, as part of the restructuring of the infantry, the Royal Welch Fusiliers would amalgamate with the Royal Regiment of Wales to form a new large regiment, the Royal Welsh.

See also

• Fusilier

External links

• The Regiment's home page
• The regimental museum home page