The West Riding Territorials in the Great War

by Laurie Magnus

Still, the Territorial Force grew. Its foundations were well and truly laid on that old inexpugnable spirit which, as we saw above, was already alive in Chaucer’s England, and which, when the new summons came, flared up through disappointment to success. The six and a half years’ record of the West Riding Territorial Force Association, from its inaugural meeting on January 17th, 1908, till the outbreak of war in 1914 is typical of the experience of other counties, alike in the obstacles which were encountered and in the resolution which partially overcame them. It derives special interest from the fact that the population of the West Riding is much more than twice as large as that of any county outside London, except only Lancashire; but the chief interest of the record lies in the after-history of the Association. The achievement of its units in the field is a final, triumphant vindication of the confidence of those who helped to raise them, a complete reward for the courage they displayed, and a proof, if proof were wanted, that the nation’s need is the measure of the nation’s power. Hence, if we dwell more particularly on some of the difficulties which confronted that Association during the epoch of preparation, the true merits of the Territorial Army scheme, when tried by the supreme test of action, will be more abundantly manifest.

First, as to personnel, H.M. Lieutenant for the Riding since 1904 had been Colonel the Earl of Harewood, A.D.C., of the Yorkshire Hussars, and formerly of the Grenadier Guards, who, accordingly, became first president of the Association. With him were united as chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, Colonel the Earl of Scarbrough, A.D.C., commanding the Yorkshire Mounted Brigade, and formerly of the 7th Hussars, and Sir William Clegg, J.P., sometime Lord Mayor of Sheffield. These formed a powerful triumvirate, and ‘had done their best,’ as Lord Harewood remarked on January 17th, 1908, ‘to set matters on a preliminary footing.’ The president and chairman were still in office in 1920, but in February, 1917, Lord Scarbrough had received the appointment of Director-General of the Territorial and Volunteer Forces at the War Office, with the temporary rank of Major-General, and was thereafter compelled to interrupt his closer supervision at the Association. ‘Our loss,’ the president said at the next quarterly meeting, ‘is a great gain to the country,’ and the compliment paid to Lord Scarbrough by this appointment was appreciated by the Association as a whole. Sir William Clegg continued in office till the end of 1915, when, to his colleagues’ great regret, his election as chairman of the Appeal Committee under Lord Derby’s scheme and the pressure of other duties caused his necessary resignation. He was succeeded as vice-chairman of the Association by Brig.-General (Sir) R. C. A. B. Bewicke-Copley, (K.B.E.), C.B., in April, 1916.

It will be no derogation from the importance of the military members of the Association appointed by the Army Council, of the representative members similarly appointed on the recommendation of the West Riding County Council, the County boroughs of Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Rotherham, Sheffield and York, and the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, and of the members co-opted by the Association to complete its statutory establishment,[3] if we turn next to the person of the secretary. The right choice of a candidate for this post was properly regarded as an essential condition of success, and at the inaugural meeting of the Association (January 17th, 1908), no other name was proposed but that of Brig.-General Horatio Mends, C.B., formerly of the 60th Rifles, at that time Brigadier General-in-charge of Administration, Northern Command. To the immense benefit of the Association, General Mends’ term of office as secretary, except for a short interruption due to ill-health in 1909, continued right through the twelve years under review, and, alike in peace and in war, he has amply and fully sustained the confident belief expressed at the time of his appointment, that ‘he combined every requisite which Mr. Haldane had laid down as essential for the secretary of an Association.’ His assistants came and went according to the claims of other duties. They have included Captain J. U. M. Ingilby, Captain M. L. Porter, Major A. B. Boyd-Carpenter (later, Deputy Assistant-Director under Lord Scarbrough at the War Office, and, since December, 1918, M.P. for East Bradford), Major H. C. E. Smithett and Captain W. Mildren, M.B.E., of the T.F. Reserve, formerly Staff Q.M.S. in the Army Pay Corps, York, who was appointed superintending clerk at the beginning, and who has rendered admirable service.

Second only in importance to a secretary was a place of meeting for the Association. It would need the powers of an epic poet to invoke the muse to sing the rival claims of Leeds and Sheffield as headquarters of the West Riding, and the historian who is not a Yorkshireman must be content to set the fact on record that York was finally selected for reasons which seemed sufficient to the high contracting parties. Once in York, there was no hesitation in approving premises at 9, St. Leonard’s as a permanent local habitation.

We need not set out in detail the obvious necessary business of the appointment of committees, the distribution of duties, the drafting of regulations, and so forth. It was new work, and not very easy work, but the Association commanded the services of men of experience and affairs, and some spade work had been done in advance. One point particularly occurs to a reader of the Association archives: the concentration on the magical word, Mobilization. This event governed the deliberations of all concerned: not as a shadowy abstraction, which superior authority set them to work at in the dark, still less as a haunting terror, created by a jingoistic press, but as a real, present and an urgent duty, and as the test of validity for all their acts. This idea so constantly before them lent actuality to their proceedings. They spent no time in discussing if and when a state of war might arise. Their practical function was to assume the war and to prepare for it.

Apart from the recruiting problem proper, the provision, that is to say, of the full number of officers and other ranks required to complete the establishment of the units to be raised in the West Riding, there was an immense amount of work to be done, military as well as administrative, before the Association could say to the War Office: press the button, and the troops will march out. The Haldane Act had created the machinery, and the Association had been formed to make it work; and, since, at any moment from that date, the crisis of 1914 might have been precipitated, the new local authorities were well advised in aiming at instant readiness. But if we project ourselves back into the chaos of 1908, out of which Lord Harewood and his colleagues were entrusted with the task of evoking order, if we sympathize with their sense of responsibility, and recognize how gravely it was increased by lack of knowing when the crisis would occur; in other words, if we look at the problem through the spectacles of the West Riding Association, we must be equally just to other aspects. The Haldane Act set up ninety-four Associations: ninety-four engines wanting fuel, ninety-four skeleton organisms awaiting breath and articulation, ninety-four committees hard at work as if each was solely responsible for building the Territorial Force. Translate this conception into the terms familiar to official routine in the placid years before the war. Imagine the accumulation of papers, the multiplication of minutes, and the comparative unexpectedness of the call to decide a series of questions which lengthened with the life of the Associations. True, a Central Council of Associations was formed at an early date,[4] which served as a kind of clearing-house between the counties and Whitehall, and which, while it did not preclude the independent access of Associations, submitted as many as thirty-two recommendations from November, 1908, to July, 1909. A few of these topics are worth recalling. On November 9th, 1908, the Central Council recommended ‘that travelling grants be given to individuals coming to Section, Company and Battalion drills over a distance of two miles.’ A deputation waited on the Secretary of State on the following February 27th. In May, an intimation was sent that a circular Memorandum might be issued on the subject. In July, the matter was raised again, and another deputation was received on the 23rd of that month. On August 7th, the War Office decided not to make any grant for the payment of men in towns coming to drill. ‘In rural corps, in which the companies, etc., are recruited over a scattered area, the War Office will consider an extra grant based on the cost of bringing in men of outlying sections for Company drill two or three times a year, and will shortly issue a letter asking for the necessary information on which a grant should be based.’ That letter was issued on September 9th. On the 13th of the next month, the Central Council expressed the opinion that, ‘if the Territorial Force is to be made of real value, ... this can only be done ... by giving financial assistance to men to enable them to come into drill.’ On March 16th, 1910, a War Office letter was issued, granting a small allowance towards the cost of bringing in outlying sections to enable them to carry out squadron, battery or company training, but refusing to authorize as a charge on Association public funds, any expenses incurred by individual officers or men in travelling from their homes to their local troop or section headquarters to carry out their ordinary drills. A wise decision, no doubt; certainly, a carefully considered one; but, perhaps, a little disheartening in its extreme regard for the public purse and in the consumption of sixteen months during which voluntary recruits were not told what their patriotism would cost them. Sometimes the decisions came more quickly, but then they were usually in the negative. A proposal in February, 1909, ‘that boots other than lace-up be supplied for wear by mounted men with overalls when walking out’ was refused in the following May. A recommendation during that May ‘that a special grant of 6d. a head be allowed to Associations for provision of refreshments to men who are detained on parade, or on actual military duty, for not less than four consecutive hours,’ was turned down on August 7th.

The general tendency should be clear from these examples. At the one end, in Yorkshire and elsewhere, throughout the ninety-four headquarters, were brand-new Associations, eager to sweep clean and to sweep swiftly. At the other end, in Whitehall, were the War Office and the Treasury, fast bound by the traditions of their code, and tied particularly by a Government committed to retrenchment on Army estimates. We hardly know which to pity more, the Minister responsible to the House of Commons or the Territorial Force Associations which his Act had called into being.

Meanwhile, for historical purposes, it is essential to remember that, during this period of preparation, the Territorial Force was the Associations. It depended on them for recruits, premises, ranges, arms, equipment, clothing (even to ‘boots other than lace-up for wear by mounted men with overalls when walking out’), everything that makes an Army; and they depended in turn, far more closely than they had anticipated, on the decisions of a harassed Army Council and the resources of a depleted Treasury. Happily, this period was protracted by the repeated postponement of war. In 1908 and, again, in 1911, the threat of war was averted, as we are now aware. Time was given, accordingly, if not for the complete fulfilment, at least for the partial satisfaction of the means devised for the fulfilment of the chief object of the Haldane Act. This was, as we saw,

‘To provide for the reorganization of His Majesty’s military forces, and for that purpose to authorize the establishment of County Associations, and the raising and maintenance of a Territorial Force.’