British Infantry Divisions 1914-1915 (II)
Armies of the First World War
The second series of British infantry divisions to be formed for service on the Western Front in 1914 (the 7th, 8th, 27th, 28th and 29th Divisions) were, like the six infantry divisions of the original Expeditionary Force, formations of the Regular Army. However, as few preparations for their creation had been made before the outbreak of war, these divisions had to be improvised from whatever elements the War Office could lay its hands on: the small number of home-based units that had not crossed the Channel with the original Expeditionary Force and a somewhat larger number of units recalled from India, South Africa and other overseas postings.1
There were a sufficient number of infantry battalions in this pool of unallocated units to create five infantry divisions of the type provided to the original Expeditionary Force. Providing a sufficient number of artillery units, however, proved more difficult. The formation of the original Expeditionary Force had used up the entire supply of batteries armed with 4.5-inch howitzers. The improvised Regular Army divisions would therefore have to go to war without any of these weapons. Batteries armed with 18-pounder field guns were available, but not in the numbers needed to fill out the establishments of full-strength infantry divisions. Instead, each of the five improvised divisions had to make do with two-thirds of the 18-pounder field guns (thirty-six rather than fifty-four) allocated to the infantry divisions of the original Expeditionary Force.2
The first two of the improvised divisions to be formed, the 7th and the 8th Divisions, got some compensation for their missing field pieces. In addition to their two standard field artillery brigades, each was provided with a brigade of Royal Horse Artillery.3 (In 1914, a horse artillery brigade consisted of two batteries, each of which was equipped with six 13-pounder field guns. It was thus substantially smaller than a contemporary field artillery brigade.)4 The three other improvised divisions(the 27th, 28th, and 29th Divisions) received no additional batteries at all.5
In addition to reducing the firepower of the improvised divisions, the shortage of 18-pounder field guns posed a danger to the system of affiliation that linked each infantry brigade to a field gun brigade. The 7th and 8th Divisions solved this problem by treating their horse artillery brigades as if they had been proper field gun brigades.
Lacking these supplementary horse artillery brigades, the 27th, 28th, and 29th Divisions had to find a different solution to the shortage of field gun batteries.6 They therefore divided the thirty-six field guns allotted to each of them among three cut-down field gun brigades.7 Like a standard field gun brigade, each of these units consisted of a headquarters, an ammunition column and three batteries.8 However, as each battery had but four field guns and the ammunition columns had far fewer wagons, the field artillery brigades of the 27th, 28th and 29th Divisions were substantially smaller than those of the first eight Regular Army divisions mobilized in 1914.9
This article belongs to a series, the other installments of which can be found by means of the following links.
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (I)
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (II)
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (III)
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (IV)
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (V)
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (VI)
British Infantry Divisions (1914-1918) (VII)
In August 1914, approximately half of the infantry battalions of the British Regular Army were serving in the British Isles. The rest were either assigned overseas garrisons or attached (at a rate of one British battalion for each infantry brigade) to the Indian Army. For details, see Bruce I. Gudmundsson, The British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1915, (Oxford: Osprey, 2005), pages 24-26.
In December 1914, the War Office had a small number of 4.5-inch howitzers available for issue to the 27th, 28th, and 29th Divisions. However, as ammunition for these weapons was in short supply, those formations were deployed without them. Minutes for the meeting of the Military Members of the Army Council of 9 December 1914, TNA, WO 163/46 and Minutes on Decisions, 1914, TNA, WO 162/1.
The 7th and the 8th Divisions were also provided, at a rate of two batteries per division, with 4.7-inch guns.
The Royal Horse Artillery of 1914 was disproportionately large for the British Army of the time. That is to say, while each horse artillery battery was designed to work closely with a single brigade of cavalry, there were far more horse artillery batteries (twenty-six) than cavalry brigades (nine). Indeed, even when one makes allowance for the batteries needed by the eleven cavalry brigades of the Indian Army, mobilization still found a number of horse artillery batteries without a suitable assignment.
An overview of the structure of the eleven Regular Army divisions formed by the British Army in 1914 can be found in Archibald F. Becke, Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 1, (Newport, Gwent: Ray Westlake, 1989). Details of the formation of the 7th and 8th Divisions can be found in Christopher T. Atkinson, The Seventh Division, 1914-1918, (London: John Murray, 1927) and J.H. Boraston, The Eighth Division in War, 1914-1918, (London: The Medici Society, 1926.)
The two-battery horse artillery brigades assigned to the 7th and 8th Division should not be confused with field brigade of the 29th Infantry Division that was composed of three batteries of horse artillery that had been re-armed with 18-pounder field guns and re-organized to resemble, in all details, ordinary field batteries. In other words, these three batteries were field batteries in all but name. R.M. Johnson, 29th Divisional Artillery, War Record and Honours Book, 1915-1918, (Woolwich: Royal Artillery Institution, 1921), page 161
The elements formed into the field gun batteries of the 27th, 28th, and 29th Divisions arrived in the divisional assembly areas as a jumble of brigade headquarters, partial batteries, and unmanned guns. Details of how these were formed into twenty-seven four-gun batteries can be found in Becke, Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 1, pages 100-101, 108-109 and 120-121.
Early plans for the 27th and 28th Divisions called for the provision of four four-piece batteries to each of the three field gun brigades. These plans were altered, however, by the decision to form the 29th Division. War Office, War Establishments of the 27th Division (7 December 1914) and War Establishments of the 28th Division (19 December 1914), TNA, WO 24/900.
Initially formed for service on the Western Front, the 29th Division was diverted to the Mediterranean shortly before its scheduled departure for France. War Diary, First Army, Archives Canada, RG 9 (III-D-3), Volume 5068, Reel T-11132.