The Royal Scots Regimental Association Pipe Band

 

will "Beat Retreat"

 

at

 

the Structural Faults+Repair-2006 Conference Dinner

 

 

 

THE HISTORY OF BEATING RETREAT

 

 

 

Although the "Beating Retreat" is purely a ceremonial occasion nowadays, its origins are founded in the operational necessity and the military routine of the past.

 

In the sixteen century the Drum was the primary means of battlefield communications.  The Drummer would stand close to his commander and simple orders, such as "advance", "assembly", “stand to", would be conveyed by set beating or "rolls" of the drum.  The need to impose special control at nightfall evolved a call to be beaten at last light that signalled the breaking of contact with the enemy and the posting of night sentries.

 

After experience gained in the early eighteenth century where much use was made of fortified towns as bases for operations, the British Army standardised the procedure for Beating Retreat and made it into a daily ritual:

 

"Half an hour before the Gates are to be shut, which is generally at the setting of the sun … the Drummers of the Port-Guard are to go upon the Ramparts and beat a 'Retreat' to give notice to those out with that the Gates are to be shut …

 

…As soon as the Drummers have finished the 'Retreat', which they should do in less than a quarter of one hour, the Officer must order the Barriers and Gates to be shut"

 

The Beating of Retreat developed into an event in routine barrack life.  After the bugle superseded the drum as a method of communication in camp, 'Retreat' came to be sounded daily at 6.00pm or sunset.  In Scottish Regiments, it became the custom for the Retreat Call "Sunset" to be followed by a single piper playing the Regimental Retreat.

 

The 'Ceremony of Beating Retreat' denoted the end of the working day and the start of Guard Mounting.  It retains this function to this day.  Since the formation of pipe bands in the nineteenth century, the Pipes and Drums and Military Bands of Regiments have joined the ceremony to add spectacle, colour and poignancy to an event of ceremonial significance in the lives of all soldiers.