1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards

1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards
Cap badge of 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards
Active	1 January 1959-
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Line cavalry
Role	Light Cavalry
Size	One regiment
Part of	Royal Armoured Corps
Garrison/HQ	RHQ - Cardiff Regiment - Robertson Barracks, Norfolk
Nickname(s)	The Welsh Cavalry
Motto(s)	Pro rege et patria (For King and Country) (Latin)
March	Quick - The Radetzky March and Rusty Buckles Slow - 1st Dragoon Guards and 2nd Dragoon Guards Slow March
Engagements	Combined battle honours of 1st King's Dragoon Guards, and 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays) Wadi al Batin 1991
Commanders
Current commander	Lieutenant Colonel D B Duff
Colonel-in-Chief	HRH The Prince of Wales KG KT GCB
Colonel of the Regiment	Lieutenant General Sir Simon Mayall
Insignia
Tactical Recognition Flash
Arm Badge	Royal Cypher of Queen Caroline From the Queen's Bays (2nd Dragoon Guards)
Abbreviation	QDG

1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards (QDG) is a cavalry regiment of the British Army. Nicknamed The Welsh Cavalry, the regiment recruits from Wales and the bordering English counties of Herefordshire, and Shropshire, and is the senior cavalry regiment, and therefore senior regiment of the line of the British Army. The regiment is part of the Royal Armoured Corps and is paired with the Royal Yeomanry.

The current regiment was formed in 1959 by the amalgamation of 1st King's Dragoon Guards (raised in 1685 by Sir John Lanier as Lanier's or the 2nd Queen's Regiment of Horse in response to the Monmouth Rebellion) and the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays) (raised in 1685 by the Earl of Peterborough as Peterborough's or the 3rd Regiment of Horse, also in response to the Monmouth Rebellion).

The regiment has spent much of its history based in Germany at various times. It served during the Aden Emergency in 1966 and 1967 and its squadrons were dispersed throughout the Middle East during that time. Perhaps the best known member in the 1970s was Captain Mark Phillips, one-time husband of The Princess Anne: they married in 1973.

In 1983 the regiment was deployed to Lebanon in support of the allied Multinational Force, in 1990 it was sent to the Middle East for the Gulf War and in 1996 it was deployed to Bosnia as part of NATO peacekeeping forces during the Yugoslav Wars.