Download Fact sheet The King`s Own Regiment in the Great War

Fact sheet
The King’s Own Royal Regiment in the Great War
This fact sheet has three main purposes:
 To give an overview of the activities of the
Regiment during the Great War.
 To explain the structure of a British
regiment from the period 1914-18.
 To give teachers sufficient background
information to enable them to confidently
deal with pupil’s enquiries during the
museum visit and the ICT sessions.
On the 4th of August 1914 the King’s Own Royal
Regiment consisted of two Regular Battalions,
two Territorial Battalions and one Special
Reserve Battalion. Each battalion would have
comprised approximately 900 officers & men.
The 1st battalion was mobilised on the 4th
August 1914. It was made up to strength with
recalled reservists and on the 22nd August set
sail for France. They arrived in Boulogne the
next day and were to spend the entire war on
the Western Front. Like all Regular battalions it
was heavily used & suffered the highest losses
of any of the battalions of the Regiment.
The other regular battalion in the Regiment, the
2nd Battalion, was in India when the war broke
out. It sailed home and arrived back in Britain in
late 1914. In January 1915 it sailed for France. It
stayed on the Western Front until October
when it was transferred to Salonika. The men
remained there, fighting for very little gain, until
the end of the war. Of all the British troops who
died in Salonika half were killed by disease.
The 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion was
mobilised in August 1914 and during the war
processed thousands of trained men for the
Regular and Service Battalions overseas. This
included men returning to the front after
recovering from wounds. By the middle of 1915
the 3rd Battalion was based near Plymouth,
where it stayed until the end of the war.
The 4th and 5th (Territorial Force) Battalions
were also mobilised in August. Initially, they
fulfilled the role of ‘home defence’ (see poster1
from lesson 5). However, the majority of the
officers and men volunteered for overseas
service when asked to do so. The two Battalions
left, separately, for France in 1915. They were
reunited in the 55th (West Lancashire) Division
in 1916.
In time of war the Territorial Force was capable
of being rapidly expanded. Consequently,
second and third line Battalions were raised.
When this happened, the original Battalions
were renumbered the 1/4th and the 1/5th. The
new battalions were numbered 2/4th, 3/4th, 2/5th
and 3/5th. Of these only the 2/5th Battalion
fought in France. The other three battalions
were amalgamated to from the 4th (Reserve)
Battalion. This unit trained men for service
overseas in the battalions on active service.
As a result of Lord Kitchener’s appeal for
100,000 men, the Regiment rapidly formed four
Battalions for the New Army. These were the
6th, 7th, 8th and 9th Battalions. Initially raised in
Lancaster, they were quickly dispersed to the
south and south-west of England to be trained.
The 6th (Service) Battalion sailed for Gallipoli in
June 1915. It was transferred to Mesopotamia
and fought there until the end of the war.
The 7th (Service) Battalion served on the
Western Front from July 1915. After the terrible
losses suffered in the 3rd Battle of Ypres the 7th
Battalion was one of several units disbanded in
February 1918. The men were transferred to
other battalions to make them up to strength.
The 8th (Service) Battalion fought in France
from September 1915 until the end of the war.
The 9th (Service) Battalion fought, briefly, in
France before being transferred to the Salonika
front.
In June 1915 the Regiment raised its last
Battalion for active service. This was a ‘Bantam’
battalion, formed from men who in peacetime
would have been too short for the Army. Many
of the men were Lancashire miners. The
battalion was little used & disbanded in early
1918.
During the Great War over 4,000 officers and
41,000 other ranks served in the various
battalions of the regiment. Out of these totals
298 officers and 6,143 other ranks were ‘killed in
©2000 'Remember!' was written and developed by Steve Irwin for the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster.
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action’, ‘died of wounds’ or ‘died’ of other
causes.
The men of the Regiment received many
awards for gallantry during the war. Amongst
these were eight Victoria Crosses, three of
which were awarded posthumously.
©2000 'Remember!' was written and developed by Steve Irwin for the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster.
Email:[email protected]
Fact sheet
The BEF in the Great War
This fact sheet has two main purposes
 To give staffs sufficient background
information to enable them to confidently
deal and the ICT sessions.
 To give an overview of the activities of the
British Army during the Great War.
At the outbreak of the Great War the British
Government sent its army to fight in France in
accordance with the conditions of the ‘Entente
Cordiale’. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF)
consisted of six infantry divisions, each of
10,000 men, and a cavalry division. By
continental standards it was a tiny army. The
German Army in the west had 72 divisions and
the French Army slightly fewer with 68.
This fact had several consequences

The Army would have to expand
enormously, recruiting large numbers of
men.

The British would not be able to mount a
major offensive for several years, until
those men were trained. Kitchener
predicted that the army would not attain its
full potential until the third year of the war.

The small size of the pre war army meant
that the Generals, and their staffs, who
would command the new army lacked
experience. As a consequence the ‘learning
curve’ for the BEF would be a bloody one.
The British Army of 1914 consisted of two types
of soldiers, Regulars & Territorials. In the CWGC
register those men who were already soldiers in
1914, can be identified by their four figure
regimental numbers. Regular soldiers were
liable for service overseas and because their
units were under strength, many Reservists
(men who had served in the army in the past)
were recalled in 1914. The Territorial Army was,
in theory, for ‘home defence’. However, soon
after the outbreak of war these men were
asked to volunteer for service abroad and the
majority did so.
Kitchener, as the Secretary of State for War,
foresaw that the war would be a long one and
that the British Army would have to grow
rapidly. In theory the Territorial force was
capable of expanding to meet the need.
However, Kitchener did not trust the ‘part time’
soldiers of the Territorial Army and so he
appealed for volunteers to form his New
Armies. The response was staggering, over
1.1million men by the end of 1914. These men
were talented, highly motivated & often middle
class. These men were formed into
units, variously called ‘Kitchener’s’, the ‘New
Army’ or ‘Service’ Battalions. Offshoots of
Kitchener’s appeal were the various units
formed by local civic committees and offered to
the War Office. These were the ‘Pal’s
Battalions’.
In 1915 the depleted British Army hung on in
France. It was reinforced by the Territorial
Force & by the first of the new Service
Battalions. The BEF undertook limited attacks
such as Loos & Aubers Ridge. Unknowingly, at
Neuve Chapelle in March it had hit upon what
would prove to be the winning formula for
breaking into the German lines. However, it was
on the Somme in 1916 that the BEF undertook
its first offensive. It is important to look beyond
the first day to understand what happened to
the BEF on the Somme. The BEF gradually
gained expertise; it learnt lessons and showed
itself to be flexible & innovative.
Sadly, at 3rd Ypres in 1917 the BEF’s skills
counted for little in the face of the worst
weather in Flanders in living memory. On the
few dry days British attacks showed that the
German Army was struggling to cope with the
BEF’s tactical expertise. However, failures of
political control meant that the British troops
suffered appalling losses.
As a result of those losses, early 1918 saw the
initiative pass to the Germans who sought to
use their clear numerical superiority to destroy
the BEF. By the end of ‘Operation Michael’ they
had gained no strategic advantage. With the
exception of a few specialist units, they
displayed tactical naiveté in the attack &
suffered crippling losses that undermined their
morale.
©2000 'Remember!' was written and developed by Steve Irwin for the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster.
Email:[email protected]
From August onwards the Allies began a series
of ‘concentric’ attacks on the German Army.
The BEF & Dominion forces were in the
forefront of these attacks. To these attacks the
German Army could make no effective
response. Facing collapse the German Army had
no alternative but to ask for an armistice.
©2000 'Remember!' was written and developed by Steve Irwin for the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster.
Email:[email protected]
©2000 'Remember!' was written and developed by Steve Irwin for the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum, Market Square, Lancaster.
Email:[email protected]