Ammunition Columns
The Mobilization of a Field Artillery Regiment (Part 2)
On 2 August 1914, the first day of mobilization, the 47th Field Artillery Regiment formed a depot. The rough equivalent of the Ersatz Abteilung of a German field artillery unit of the same era, this depot provided a framework for the immediate assembly of, among other organizations, seven units that faute de mieux, might well be described as ‘batteries without guns’. In particular, when moving along a road, each of these formed a column that, at first glance, could easily be mistaken for a field artillery battery on the march.
Five of these units took the form of ‘artillery ammunition sections’ (sections de munitions d’artillerie = SMA). Bearing numbers that began with ‘ten’ and ended with ‘fourteen’, these units performed the same sort of services as the ammunition columns of the British and German Empires. That is, each artillery ammunition section provided ammunition to a battalion-sized unit of three field batteries. However, while each British (or German) ammunition column belonged to the brigade (or Abteilung) it supplied, the ten sections de munitions d’artillerie of a standard French army corps hung their képis in the artillery park of that formation.