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Establishment and Strength of the British Army (excluding Indian native troops stationed in India) prior to August, 1914. By the First World War, the British military forces (i.e., those raised in British territory, whether in the British Isles or colonies, and also those raised in the Channel Islands, but not the British Indian Army, the military forces of the Dominions, or those of British ...
The Oxford History of the British Army. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285333-3. Edmonds, J. E. (1993) [1932]. Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916: Sir Douglas Haig's Command to the 1st July: Battle of the Somme. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial ...
The British Army was different. Its divisions consisted of three brigades, with each brigade having slightly over 4,000 men in four battalions, plus support troops, under the command of a brigadier general. [13] The 1914 British infantry brigade comprised a small headquarters and four infantry battalions, with two heavy machine guns per battalion.
On 6 August 1914, less than 48 hours after Britain's declaration of war, Parliament sanctioned an increase of 500,000 men for the Regular British Army, and the newly-appointed Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You', urging the first 100,000 volunteers to come forward.
The British soldiers went to war in August 1914 wearing the 1902 Pattern Service Dress tunic and trousers. This was a thick woollen tunic, dyed khaki.There were two breast pockets for personal items and the soldier's AB64 Pay Book, two smaller pockets for other items, and an internal pocket sewn under the right flap of the lower tunic where the First Field Dressing was kept.
"Pals" departing from Preston railway station, August 1914. The pals battalions of World War I were specially constituted battalions of the British Army comprising men who enlisted together in local recruiting drives, with the promise that they would be able to serve alongside their friends, neighbours and colleagues, rather than being arbitrarily allocated to battalions.
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was the six divisions the British Army sent to the Western Front during the First World War.Planning for a British Expeditionary Force began with the 1906–1912 Haldane Reforms of the British Army carried out by the Secretary of State for War Richard Haldane following the Second Boer War (1899–1902).
During the First World War the British Armed Forces was enlarged to many times its peacetime strength. This was done mainly by adding new battalions to existing regiments (the King's Royal Rifles raised a total of 26 battalions). Although sometimes identified by shoulder titles, generally the new battalions could not be identified from appearance.