Appendix I: Extra Reserve Battalions
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Appendix I: Extra Reserve Battalions As part of Haldane's army reforms, 23 regiments of the line were ordered to form a total of 27 Extra Reserve battalions. All eight Irish regiments formed such battalions; four of these regiments each formed two battalions. They became the 4th and 5th Battalions of their regiment. These 12 battalions were intended to perform a similar service in Ireland as Territorial units did on the mainland. The two Extra Reserve battalions of the Royal Irish Rifles maintained a separate existence for the duration but both Extra Reserve battalions of the Leinster, the Royal Munster Fusiliers and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers were absorbed by their 3rd Battalions in May 1918. The 4th Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment remained a discrete unit but those of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers and the Royal Inniskilling Fusi!iers were absorbed by their 3rd Battalions in April and May 1918. In Scotland, the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), Highland Light Infantry and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders formed Extra Reserve battalions. The three battalions were part of the Forth or Tay Garrisons and survived the war. Eleven English regiments formed a 4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion while the Royal Fusiliers, which had four Regular and two Reserve battalions, formed the 7th (Extra Reserve) Battalion. Five of these twelve Extra Reserve units fulfilled their original purpose and went overseas as fighting infantry. Four of the remaining battalions served in garrisons alongside their regiments' 3rd (Reserve) Battalions. The remaining three battalions also served as coastal garrison units. The seven battalions which spent the war in the UK were part of the home army but con tinued to function as draft finding units. 4th (Ex.Res.) Royal Warwickshire Dover Garrison 7th (Ex.Res.) Royal Fusiliers France May 1916 4th (Ex.Res.) King's France March 1915 4th (Ex.Res) West Yorkshire Tees Garrison 4th (Ex.Res) Bedfordshire France July 1916 4th (Ex.Res) Lancashire Fusiliers Severn Garrison 4th (Ex.Res) East Surrey Harwich Garrison 4th (Ex.Res) S. Staffordshire France October 1917 4th (Ex.Res) Manchester Humber Garrison 4th (Ex.Res) N. Staffordshire France October 1917 4th (Ex.Res) Durham L.l. Tyne Garrison 4th (Ex.Res) Sherwood Foresters Tyne Garrison 205 Appendix II: Home Defence Scheme, July 1914* Central Force GHQ: Hotel Metropole, London Independent Mounted Division HQ: Bury St Edmunds 4 Mounted Brigades 2 Cyclist Battalions First Army HQ: Bedford Highland Division Welsh Division (if ordered) West Riding Division (if ordered) 2 Mounted Brigades Second Army HQ: Aldershot 1st London Division Home Co. Division Wessex Division (if ordered) 2 Mounted Brigades 3 Cyclist Battalions Third Army HQ: Luton East Anglian Division North Midland Division South Midland Division 2nd London Division 2 Mounted Brigades 1 Cyclist Battalion * Excluding garrisons of Defended Ports. 206 Appendix II 207 Local Forces Divisions Mounted Brigades Cyclist Battalions London District 1 Scottish Command 1 2 Northern Command 2 1 3 Western Command 1 1 Southern Command 1 2 Irish Command 2 1 Total Central Force and Local Forces Divisions Mounted Brigades Cyclist Battalions 14 14 14 Appendix III: Provisional Units In June 1915 the 56 recently formed and numbered Provisional battalions were grouped into Provisional brigades. Similarly, the home service field companies, artillery brigades and field ambulances were also numbered and brigaded. The brigades fell under the command of the GOCs of the six Home Commands and as such constituted elements of the home army. By mid-1916, probably 17 of the original 56 had been disbanded and the remaining 41 were serving in 10 Provisional brigades. Apart from 3 Provisional Brigade, which had five battalions, the formations each had four battalions. ACI 2364 and 2426 of 1916 allocated all Provisional units to Territorial Force County Associations with effect from 1 January 1917. The infantry battalions quickly, but not immediately, dropped their numbered designations and became Home Service Territorial battalions of their county regiment. In late 1916, the 6th, 8th and 9th Provisional brigades were transferred to the three new Home Service divisions, the 71st, 72nd and 73rd. Their brigades were numbered from 212 to 220 and each contained three battalions of the now reg imentally named and numbered former Provisional units. Six Home Service bat talions were scattered amongst the formations and each division contained a third brigade of what were nominally Second Line Territorial battalions. The remaining seven of the original ten Provisional brigades became 221-227 Brigades, each of four battalions. By 1918 they were known as Mixed brigades. These remained as part of XXIII Army Corps, Northern Command or Eastern Command until the end of the war. However, those Provisional units which had gone to the three Home Service divisions were, in 1917, replaced by the Graduated battalions and disbanded. 208 Appendix IV: The Home Army in November 1918* XXIII Army Corps (Lieutenant-General Sir W.S. Pulteney) HQ: Bury St Edmonds 64th (2/Highland) Division: 191, 192, 193 Bdes (all Graduated bns). 67th (2/Home Co.) Division: 201, 202 Bdes (all Graduated bns). 214 Special Bde: 16/R.W. Surrey; 2/lst Herts; 2/1st Warwickshire Yeo. 68th (2/Welsh) Division: 203, 204, 205 Bdes (all Graduated bns). (These formations had the usual divisional troops attached). 1 Cyclist Bde: 2/1, 2/2 Lovat Scouts; 2/1 Pembroke Yeo; 2/1 Gamorgan Yeo; 2/1 Montgomery Yeo; 2/1 Denbighshire Yeo. The following Mixed brigades were attached to the divisions: 223 Mixed Bde: 27 (HS) King's; 14/Suffolk; 17/Essex; 9/N'hants. 224 Mixed Bde: 24/Ches; 23/RWF; 4/Monmouth. 225 Mixed Bde: 19/R.W. Surrey; 11/Beds; 18/Essex; 32/Middlesex. 226 Mixed Bde: 17/Gloucester; 28/DLI; 29/London; 30/London. 227 Mixed Bde: 35/N.Fus; IS/Devon; 17/Hants; 13/Somerset L.l. The following Territorial Force Cyclist battalions were attached to the Mixed brigades or the 67th Division: 2/ZSth London; l/6th Suffolk; 2/8th Essex; 2/7th Welsh; 2/7th Devon; 2/9th Hants. The following Heavy Batteries RGA were attached to the Mixed brigades: 2/lst Fife; 2/lst Kent; 2/lst Carnavon; 2/lst Essex; 2/lst London; 2/2nd London. No.2 Armoured Train. XX!II Corps Signal Company. Kent Force: (Major-General A.G. Dallas) HQ: Pall Mall, London. Cyclist Division: 5 Cyclist Bde: 2/lst S. Notts Hussars; 2/lst Derby Yeo; 2/1st City of L.Yeo. 11 Cyclist Bde: 2/lst R. Bucks Hussars; 2/lst Notts Yeo; l/7th Devon (Cyclist). * Excluding Irish Command. 209 210 Appendix IV 12 Cyclist Bde: 2/1st Staffs Yeo; 2/lst Leics Yeo; 2/lst Lines Yeo. 2/lst Kent Cyclist Bn and divisional units were attached. 221 Mixed Bde: 13 (HS) R.Sco.Fus; 15/Sco.Rifles; 21/HLI; 16/A&SH. 222 Mixed Bde: 37 (HS) N.Fus; 18/Yorks; 26/DLI; 27 /DLI. 393rd and 396th Independent Batteries. 2/lst Warwickshire Heavy Battery RGA. 2/2nd Lancashire Heavy Battery RGA. Northern Command HQ: York. 69th (2/East Anglian) Division: 206, 207, 208 Bdes (all Graduated bns). Cyclist battalions: 1/Northern; 2/1st Northern; 1/1st Hants; 2/lst Hunts; 2/6th Norfolk; 1/Sth E. Yorks; 2/6th Suffolk; 1/7th Welsh 2/lst North Riding Heavy Battery RGA. 2/lst West Riding Heavy Battery RGA. Additional troops 28 garrisons on the coast with RGA and RE and some attached infantry. 7 Special Reserve bdes. 14 Reserve Infantry bdes TF. 6 Training Reserve bdes (all Young Soldier bns). 23 Infantry Cadet units. 6 Recruit Distribution bns. Appendix V: Coastal Fortresses and Garrisons 1 The size and extent of Britain's coastal defences and garrisons had evolved through the centuries. A few Martello towers, built to defend the coasts against Napoleon, were still used by naval and military personnel in the early twentieth century, but most of the fortresses had been built in the 1860s. In the 1890s, the growing awareness that the threat might come from the east, rather than the south, caused a limited amount of improvement work to be carried out on defences at the Firth of Forth, the Tyne, Humber, Tees and at Leith. In 1903, a Joint Military and Naval Committee, known as the Owen Committee, reclassified cer tain ports in view of the enhanced threat by cruisers coming from across the North Sea. Coastal defences were weakened, however, in the following year when responsibility for mining shallow waters was removed from the Royal Engineers and given to the Royal Navy. Believing that friendly vessels had more to fear from mines than enemy ones, the navy did virtually nothing. Rather more determined work to improve the East Coast's forts and ports was conducted between 1910 and 1914, largely at the expense of those in Ireland and those on the West Coast. By 1914, responsibility for manning the fortresses was divided between the Regular Army and the Territorial Force. For example, during the Precautionary Period, Falmouth Fortress, with its fixed armament of two 6-inch Mark VII bat teries and seven machine guns, was garrisoned by a total of eight officers and 204 ORs, a figure which included 41 Regulars of the RGA and 26 Regular RE. On the first day of mobilization the garrison would expand to 95 officers and 2107 ORs, of which 48 and 1322, respectively, were Territorials. By the fifth day, when three Special Reserve battalions had arrived to replace most of the Territorial infantry, the total was to reach 143 officers and 3989 ORs. Territorial RGA units were divided into Garrison Companies and had a full establishment of a little over 400 all ranks.