Let us go back to first principles. The idea of a voluntary Army, despite the wastage of war and the unequal distribution of patriotic sentiment, or of the capacity to respond to it, was still, late in 1914, a sacred article of British faith. Another accepted article, if not of faith, at least of British practice, was the enlistment of that voluntary Army on a County basis. This procedure, which was laid down in Section IX. (I.) (a) of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act, followed a similar provision in the Militia Act of 1882, and, tracing it back to that source, we discover that its primary cause was ‘to estimate the extent of the County’s liability in the event of the ballot being enforced.’[42] The tradition survived the ballot, and the rule of County enlistment was incorporated, as we have seen, in the organization of the Territorial Force. This rule worked well enough in peace-time, and might conceivably have continued to work well if it had been the only rule to be applied when war broke out on a scale not dreamed of by the authors of the Act of 1907.[43] But, historically speaking, and without attempting to judge the issue, it was decided very early in the war to vary that rule, and to raise recruits for the new Armies on a system which crossed the method handed down to the Territorial Force by the old Militia and Volunteers. The Counties were reaped of their best men by a Secretary of State who knew not Lord Haldane. The first hundred thousand disappeared into the vast abyss of war from every town and village in the country. Members of Parliament came down to recruit for Kitchener’s Army, and forgot, or were not reminded by the Mayor, of the claims of Haldane’s Force. Bonds of brotherhood in arms, by trades, professions, even by height or religion (e.g., ‘Bantams,’ ‘Jewish’ Regiment, etc.) drove their wedges through the County bond; and under these new and distracting conditions, the old rule of enlistment by Counties became to a large extent a pious memory of peace, and enlistment by hook and crook, by picture-posters, white feathers, and worse devices, became the feverish rule of war.
This was the 2nd Line problem viewed through the spectacles of Territorial Force County Associations. The men themselves did not see it from the same angle. Their great desire, with insignificant exceptions, was to prepare themselves for service overseas with the utmost possible expedition. In their camps or billets or drill-halls, they were probably as unconscious of as they were indifferent to the serious administrative difficulties created for their County chiefs by the constant changes of policy on the part of the Army Council. Nor is the Army Council unduly to be blamed. The pace of the war itself was quicker than anyone had anticipated, and social and industrial conditions at home did not readily adapt themselves to its imperious needs. If we refer to these forgotten problems, out of which the successive National Service Acts were forged, as a partial solution, we shall be understood to refer to them solely in explanation of the ‘great difficulty’ which was experienced, and not in the least in derogation of the great zeal with which that difficulty was surmounted to the ‘surprise’ of everyone concerned.
We have further authority as to the difficulties. In a Memorandum kindly prepared by Major-General Sir James K. Trotter, K.C.B., who was appointed to command the West Riding 2nd Line Division[44] in February, 1915, he writes as follows of the early days of his Command:
‘The difficulties affecting training were at this stage very serious. The troops were not all provided with uniform. They were without equipment; the Infantry had no arms, except a few d.p. rifles; the Artillery no guns; the Mounted Troops, Artillery and Engineers no horses, and the Transport nothing but a few hired carts. But the want most sorely felt was that of the young, active, trained N.C.O. to instruct and to give life to the movements of the young soldiers. Competent instructors were not to be had. Every available N.C.O. was taken up by the 1st Line Territorials and the New Service Army units, and this Division was at this time left to its own very limited resources. The Regimental Officers were in the main new and untrained, and though the Command Schools of Instruction gave short courses to as many as possible, it was very remarkable to observe the time necessary to convert the raw recruit into a trained soldier under these conditions.... What was lacking was the atmosphere. Nevertheless, some real progress in elementary training was made in the early Spring (1915), and some young officers displayed considerable energy and initiative.’
Lack of atmosphere is the burden of this complaint, and a brief map of the conflicting winds which were blown across the path of Territorial Force organization may account, in part, at least, for these disturbed atmospheric conditions. Summarily, the war policy of the Army Council in regard to the Territorial Force may be marked by the following five steps: (1) They decided to raise Reserve or 2nd Line units behind the Imperial Service Units of the original or 1st Line. The practical distinction between the two was based on their state of preparedness to fulfil the overseas obligation. Thus, the distinction was always fluid. It varied, that is to say, according to the degree of training reached by the individual personnel, and there were always frequent exchanges between the 2nd and 1st Lines. The only constant element in the Reserve units were the men, who, owing to age or health or other conditions, would never be fit for Imperial Service. Divisional and other military organization was the same in both Lines, but the 1st was composed of Officers and other Ranks ready for service abroad, the 2nd was composed partly of surplus Imperial Service personnel, partly of troops prepared, so far, only up to Home Service, which still formed the statutory function of the Territorial Force. (2) The next stage occurred when the 1st Line units went overseas. Then a 3rd Line, or 2nd Reserve, was authorized for formation, behind the Home Service units composed partly, as we have seen, of men ready, in a military sense, to go overseas, and this 3rd Line was presently constituted into a series of (3) Draft-producing Depots, with establishments varying from time to time according as their corresponding 1st Line units were stationed at home, or on garrison duty abroad, or with an Expeditionary Force. A little later (4) steps were taken to weed out the Home Service personnel still remaining with the 2nd Line units and to distribute them into newly-constituted Home Service units, and finally (5) the National Reservists were formed into Supernumerary Territorial Force Companies, with a fixed establishment of about 120 all Ranks, for the protection of Lines of Communication and Vulnerable Points at home. To complete a brief account of a long process which was not worked out with a very clever perception of its intention from the start, we may add that these Supernumerary Companies were transformed by Royal Warrant, in 1916, into the Royal Defence Corps, when they passed out of the County administration. But all through 1915 the position was extraordinarily complex from an administrative point of view. Territorial Force Associations were responsible for maintaining their 1st Line units overseas, their 2nd Line units at home, their 3rd Line Draft-producing Depots, their Provisional Home Service units and their Supernumerary Territorial Force Companies.
In justice to the West Riding Association, which was hard put to it to keep an even keel in this welter of conflicting currents, we may examine the policy which they pursued, in somewhat more detail. From the first they declined to be hustled. As early as October, 1914, the Chairman, Lord Scarbrough, remarked in his Quarterly Report to members of the Association, that ‘In consequence of the great difficulty of obtaining supplies of clothing, boots, necessaries, etc., and the lack of Officers and qualified Instructors, it was considered best not to push recruiting for the Reserve units, but to endeavour to raise them very gradually as Instructors and clothing and equipment could be provided. By so doing,’ he pointed out, ‘the efficiency of these units is not likely to be retarded, and the waste of time and discouragement entailed by collecting large numbers of men without Officers, Instructors, arms, uniform, boots, or any provision for their well-being, has been to a large extent avoided.’ But his policy, however sound at the outset, could not be indefinitely maintained. The time came, and it came more quickly than some even of the shrewdest of observers had foreseen, when the Reserve, or 2nd Line, units had to be allowed to recruit up to full establishment, despite those deficiencies in equipment which so seriously embarrassed their Commanding Officers, in the urgent work of training them for service overseas. So the ‘large numbers’ continued to come forward, and might not be refused. As early as November, 1914, for example, the 2/6th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment had a strength of over 1,400, and this splendid record was not unique in the 2nd Line Division. The real problem faced by General Trotter in the Spring of 1915 was not shortness of numbers, though this, too, became a source of some anxiety at County Headquarters, when the new Armies were competing with the Territorial Force; it was still less lack of keenness for foreign service, but it was always the old problem of Israel in Egypt—how to make bricks without straw. We quoted just now the General’s own account of the problems which he had to face in this regard. We may quote here his further account, by no means too rosy in certain aspects, of the progress in elementary training which was made in the early Spring of 1915. It will be remembered that the 1/1st West Riding (49th) Division went abroad in the middle of April. The 62nd Division was then appointed to take over its duties. The Infantry, it is reassuring to find, were now in possession of rifles, which had been obtained from Japan, and the Artillery, about the same time, received an armament of French guns, made in 1878, and ‘evidently discarded,’ writes General Trotter, ‘for many years. The tangent scales were graduated in metres, and the shells were provided with a graduated time-fuze. But no one could be found to connect the graduation with the range scales, and no book of instructions existed.... No ammunition was available for practice, and the whole time this weapon was in the hands of the Artillery, i.e., till December, 1915, it was only used for training purposes, and then only to a limited extent, the breech action and sights being of obsolete pattern. If,’ adds the General, ‘the Artillery had, according to the plans in force, been called upon to take part in the defence of the coast, the casualties it would have caused would have been at the breech-end of the guns’. There were other interruptions to training, as seen from a Commanding Officer’s point of view. The competition in recruiting, to which so frequent reference is necessarily made at this period, produced, in places, almost humorous results. Thus, a Divisional Commander of the Territorial Force units would be pressed in some places by the local authorities to supply bands for recruiting-meetings held for the purpose of enlisting men in units of the New Armies. Again, industrial conditions created unforeseen anomalies. It often happened that the first men to enlist were the key-men in their respective factories, and these men, after having been put through a course of military training, and having become efficient soldiers in the comparatively shorter time corresponding to their superior capacity, had eventually to be returned to the works from which they came, or to other works engaged in producing war-materials. Another increasing source of embarrassment to the Divisional Commander and his subordinate Officers lay in the calls which were made on the 62nd Division, during 1915, to supply drafts for service overseas. Even the extraction from 2nd Line units of the men fit only for Home Service upset the composition of those units, and interrupted the continuity of training and the growth of an esprit de corps. Take, merely as an example, the experience of the 2/8th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. On March 8th, 1915, ten of their men were drafted to the 1/8th. Sundry other exchanges of personnel between the 2/8th and 1/8th, before the latter went to France, in April, resulted in a numerical loss to the unit remaining at home. On May 17th, 4 Officers and 188 other Ranks were transferred to the 26th Provisional Battalion for coast defence, and were followed at subsequent dates by a further 17 men. On August 15th, 54 men went out to the 1/8th Battalion. On the 27th came the gratifying news that Lieut. E. F. Wilkinson, formerly of the 2/8th Battalion, had been awarded the Military Cross in France: sic vos, non vobis. In October, orders arrived that the Battalion was to be reduced to 600 all ranks, that unfit men were to be posted to the 26th Provisional Battalion, and the remaining surplus over the new establishment, to the 3/8th Battalion West Yorkshires. It is obvious that changes of this kind, which may be paralleled in any other unit, were no light drawback. The success of the training of the Division during the period, May to October, 1915, when it was in camp in Sherwood Forest, might have been even more seriously affected except for the loyal co-operation of Officers, N.C.O.s and men in carrying out the programmes arranged for them. They were moved by an increasing resolve to prepare themselves for the call for embarkation, the hope of which, though renewed from time to time, seemed always so slow to materialize.[45] Meanwhile, work was carried on with this object always in view. Particular attention was devoted to the duties of the Platoon Officers and Company Commanders, and General Trotter bears witness that ‘during the summer and autumn months, the Division made remarkable progress in training, administrative work and discipline.’ In October, they left their encampments, and were stationed, at the end of November, in the Northern Command, with Headquarters at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where the Brigades were allotted to the Tyne defences, and the units were occupied in making and improving the trenches. About this time the Artillery at last had received a serviceable weapon; 18-pounder, breech-loader guns were issued to three Brigades, and 5″ Howitzers to the fourth. In December, news arrived that the Division had been selected as the first of the 2nd Line Territorials Divisions for service in France, and orders were issued to move to Salisbury Plain. Sir James Trotter, whose organizing ability had so well and truly laid the foundations of the military efficiency of the Division, was succeeded in its Command, on December 24th, by Major-General Walter Braithwaite, C.B.,[46] who took over the Division at Newcastle.
It is interesting to dovetail the accounts of the retiring and succeeding Divisional Commanders. General Braithwaite notes that ‘the Battalions were commanded mostly by Territorial Force Officers of a certain age and standing, with personal knowledge of the men in their units, and with experience, in many cases, of Territorial Force conditions as they existed before the war, but, naturally, with no experience of war as it was being waged. The material was excellent, and all that was lacking was to adapt it to the conditions obtaining at the Front.’ Accordingly, at Lark Hill Camp on Salisbury Plain, where the Division arrived in January, 1916, application was at once made to the War Office for men with fighting experience to fill posts on the Divisional Staff, and for the appointment of Brigade Majors of the Infantry Brigades in order to set to work to make the Division completely war-worthy. The response was prompt and satisfactory, and perhaps the most satisfactory feature from the Divisional Commander’s point of view was the loyal readiness of individual Officers who felt themselves and were too old for the strain of active service to make way for younger men, who had either been wounded or invalided from France. An ideal General Staff Officer, 1st Grade, was found in Lieut.-Colonel the Hon A. G. A. Hore-Ruthven, V.C. Lieut.-Colonel R. M. Foot, to the great benefit of the Division, was appointed Q.M.G.; Brig.-General A. T. Anderson arrived from France to take command of the Divisional Artillery, with Capt. W. J. Lindsell as his Brigade Major, and these Officers, with Lieut.-Colonel Gillam in command of the Royal Engineers, made, we are assured, ‘an excellent beginning.’ Mention is also due to the arrival at this date of the Rev. C. M. Chavasse as S.C.F., and we may add here that he served with the 62nd Division for the whole period of its active service, with the exception of a very short time when he was promoted to be Senior Chaplain of the Corps. The Brigadiers of the 185th, 186th and 187th Infantry Brigades, respectively, who were also appointed about this time, were Generals V. W. de Falbe, who had commanded a Battalion in France; F. F. Hill, who had been invalided from Gallipoli, and R. O’B. Taylor, who happened to be home from leave in Egypt, and who had also been in Gallipoli. These arrivals, as might be expected, added immensely to the strength of the Division. Its efficiency, from February onwards, increased by leaps and bounds, and the Division was fortunate, too, in receiving from time to time the latest ‘tips’ from Officers serving in or invalided home from France, and anxious to place their experience at the disposal of those about to proceed there.
Still, it was not all smooth sailing. In May, 1916, after service rifles had been issued, and when training was in full swing, orders were suddenly received for the Division to find a draft of over 4,000 men for France, and it looked as if the Division was to be turned into a mere draft-producing unit, and its fighting efficiency to be impaired accordingly. Happily, this order, like so many others, was cancelled. A further and more actual disappointment ensued a month or so later, when the Division was sent to the East Coast to be employed in reserve for the defences, with the intimation that it was likely to stay there. We are left to imagine the consternation of the troops, already straining at the leash, and the difficulty of the Divisional Commander and his subordinate Officers in accommodating their programmes and policy to these shifting counsels from above. Certainly, the East Coast was not as convenient for training, and did not provide the same facilities as were available on Salisbury Plain. The Brigades were separated by some distance: the Headquarters of one Brigade and the bulk of the Artillery being round about Bungay, another group being at Henham Hall (Lord Stradbroke), and a third at Somerleyton (Lord Somerleyton, formerly Sir Savile Crossley), near Lowestoft. But once more the prospects changed. Fresh orders presently arrived, stating that the Division was selected for service in France. On July 26th, the King came down to inspect the Division prior to embarkation, and His Majesty expressed himself extremely satisfied with all that he saw.
Time went on, however, and no embarkation orders came. Drafts for Service units abroad and for Service units definitely allotted to home duties continued to be called for throughout this Summer and Autumn, and still the Division was in doubt as to its ultimate use and destination. Still the Divisional Pelican waited to put his foot down on German soil. The men now enjoyed opportunities, of which they gladly availed themselves, of working on training instructions which had been received direct from the front. Trench-digging, air-raid duty, rifle-practice with Charger-Loading Lee Enfields, gas-drill, concentration-marches, musketry and Lewis-gun courses, assaults-at-arms, aquatic sports, and other martial exercises and recreations, were all included in the preparation for battle. The whole life of the soldier in France was, so far as was possible, copied as faithfully as it could be during this strenuous period. Officers on light duty in England, who had been wounded, were sent down in batches and distributed among the Battalions, which were eager, as we saw above, to take advantage of the benefit of their experience. Young Officers, with a war record behind them, were appointed to command Battalions, Batteries and Companies. Sketches of the latest types of trenches were received and re-produced in practice; and, briefly, except for the actual atmosphere of active service, the Division became during these months a living organism capable of assimilating all the lessons which experience could teach it, and likely, with its splendid material, to give a good account of itself at the Front.