The tribute event, held this weekend, on Saturday 10th October 2015, was organised by local officials as part of a series of events commemorating the 1915 Battle of Loos.
The town of Auchy-les-Mines, in north east France, was the site of a strongly fortified German position known as the Hohenzollern Redoubt – which saw heavy fighting, in both September and October 1915.
This weekend’s commemoration started at 2pm outside the Auchy-les-Mines town hall, and included a procession of local French veterans, and soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, marching with pipes and drums.
The Royal Regiment of Scotland was formed in 2006, and is made up the regiments whose battalions played a major role in the Battle of Loos – including the Black Watch, The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons), and The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
More than 8,000 British soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of Loos, many of them from Scottish regiments.
Of the 20,598 names on the Loos war memorial, which lists soldiers with no known grave, a third are Scots.
Saturday’s procession went through the streets of Auchy-les-Mines – and ended outside a sports centre, next to the 46th (North Midland) Division Memorial (dedicated to those who served and fell in the October 13th 1915 Hohenzollern Redoubt battle).
A number of wreaths were laid at the monument.
A plaque was then unveiled to commemorate the death of Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon, the brother of the late British Queen Mother (he would have also been an uncle to the current Queen). Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon died on the morning of September 27 1915, during an attack on the Hohenzollern Redoubt. He was serving in the 8th Battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders).
The unveiling of the plaque commemorating Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon. Photo Copyright Centenary News.