WW1 CEF 173rd Overseas Battalion sweetheart. By ELLIS BROS.

173rd Overseas Battalion, CEF, Enamel and gilt sweetheart badge.Nicely maker marked.

History:

• Authorized 15 July 1916 as the “173rd Overseas Battalion, CEF,” it was raised and recruited out of Hamilton, Ontario during the winter of 1915/16, one of several Canadian “Highlander” battalions formed at that time .

• It sailed for England on 14 November 1916 aboard the RMS Olympic, with 32 officers and 950 other ranks — though only 741 of those men had actually attested with the 173rd itself, the rest coming from the 213th Battalion and 23 other units .

• On 17 January 1917 it arrived at Bramshott, and two days later was absorbed into the 2nd Reserve Battalion of the 6th Reserve Brigade, which fed reinforcement drafts into the 125th and 116th Battalions . So the 173rd itself never fought as a unit in France — like many of the later-raised battalions, it was broken up on arrival in England to reinforce battalions already at the front.

• The battalion was formally disbanded on 1 September 1917, and was awarded the battle honour “The Great War 1916–17” in recognition of the men it sent forward .

• Its only commanding officer was Lieutenant-Colonel W.H. Bruce, and the men who went through it apparently weren’t thrilled about being broken up for reinforcements rather than serving together as a battalion .

• Its lineage lives on: it became the 3rd Battalion (Reserve) of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada from 1920 until the reserve units were disbanded in 1936 .

So the badge represents a unit that trained and sent men overseas but was dissolved for reinforcements rather than seeing action as a cohesive fighting battalion — a common fate for the CEF’s numbered battalions raised in 1916.