British Infantry Divisions (1914-1915)(VI)
Armies of the First World War
Shortages of such things as formed units, artillery pieces and experienced officers, as well as the need to get formations to the front as soon as possible shaped the form taken by the artillery establishments of improvised Regular Army divisions. The same was true of New Army divisions and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Canadian Division and the two divisions of the Indian Corps. The divisional artilleries of Territorial Force divisions, on the other hand, were shaped by decisions taken at leisure well before the start of the war. Because of this, they provide useful means of separating those organizational features that resulted from wartime pressures and those that reflect other influences.1
The Territorial Force had been created in 1907, a time when the Regular Army had started to take delivery of the first 18-pounders and was beginning to test the competing prototypes for the 4.5-inch howitzer. It is thus not surprising that the divisions of the Territorial Force, which were designed to serve as second-line formations, were equipped with artillery pieces made redundant by the re-armament of the Regular Army: the 5-inch howitzer and the 15-pounder field gun. The first of these weapons, which dated from 1896, was issued in its original state. The second, which had originally been designed in the 1880s, was greatly improved by the addition of a modern ‘on carriage’ recoil mechanism. 2
The peacetime Territorial Force, with 168 field batteries, had more field artillery units than the pre-war Regular Army, which had begun the twentieth century with 151 field batteries and, by 1914, possessed but 135 such units.3 As a result of the relatively small number of Regular Army field batteries, the number of obsolescent field pieces on hand was insufficient to provide each Territorial Force division with field artillery on the same scale as a division of the original Expeditionary Force. The field batteries of the fourteen Territorial Force divisions were therefore organized with only four pieces in each battery and the number of batteries in the single howitzer brigade of each division was limited to two.4
Though it greatly reduced the number of field pieces in each Territorial Force division, this organizational scheme was not without its advantages. In addition to making the batteries less awkward for amateur officers to handle, the low number of guns and howitzers reduced both the need for horses and men skilled in the management of such animals. At a time when the mechanization of transport was progressing rapidly, this was an increasingly significant consideration.5
Territorial Force divisions did not begin to arrive on the Western Front until the spring of 1915. Thus, neither the 15-pounder field gun nor the 5-inch howitzer played any appreciable role in the first winter of position warfare. By the late summer of 1915, moreover, Territorial Force divisions in France and Flanders were beginning to exchange their obsolescent weapons for 18-pounder field guns and 4.5-inch howitzers. As the new weapons replaced their predecessors on a one-for-one basis, the rearming of the Territorial Force divisions had the effect of reducing the diversity of armament within the Expeditionary Force without reducing the number of different organizational schemes in use. 6
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)
For a thorough description of the peacetime Territorial Force see Hippolyte Langlois, L’Armée Anglaise dans un Conflit Européen, (Paris: Berger- Levrault, 1910.)
Headlam, The History of the Royal Artillery Volume II (1899-1914), pages 93-94 and Len Trawin, Early British Quickfiring Artillery, (Hemel Hempstead: Nexus Special Interests, 1997)
Headlam, The History of the Royal Artillery, Volume II (1899-1914), page 5
Number of Guns Possession at Outbreak of War, TNA, WO 79/84.
Officers of the Territorial Force carried out some of the earliest experiments in the use of automobiles to pull field pieces. Headlam, The History of the Royal Artillery, Volume II (1899-1914), page 231. See also Reduction in Peace Establishment of Royal Artillery, TNA, WO 32/6778, WO 32/6779 and WO 32/6780.
Becke, Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 2A, pages 65, 73, 81, 89, 97, and 105.