British Army
In the British Army (as well as Commonwealth armies) each regiment and corps has its own cap badge. The cap badge of the Queen's Royal Lancers is called a motto by those within the regiment, that of the Royal Horse Artillery is known as a cypher and that of the Coldstream Guards is known as a Capstar.
The concept of regimental badges appears to have originated with the British Army. The Encyclopædia Britannica's 1911 Edition notes that although branch badges for infantry, cavalry and so on were common to other armies of the time, only the British Army wore distinctive regimental devices.
Read more about this topic: Cap Badge
Famous quotes containing the words british and/or army:
“When a man wants to write a book full of unassailable facts, he always goes to the British Museum.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)