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Pre-War Regular, Reserve and Territorial Force Infantry Battalions.
Immediately prior to the outbreak of the
Great War, the Regular Infantry of the British Army consisted of four
Guards Regiments and sixty-nine Infantry Regiments. Infantry
Regiments normally consisted of two active regular Battalions, with one
Battalion serving overseas and one in the UK. Each Regiment
would normally have one Reserve Battalion, based at the Regimental
Depot, which trained new soldiers and supplied reinforcing drafts to the
two active Battalions. In the case of the Somerset Light
Infantry, as with most Infantry Regiments, the active Battalions were
numbered the 1st and 2nd, and the Reserve Battalion was numbered the 3rd
(Reserve).
Many of the Infantry Regiments, including
the Somerset Light Infantry, also had Territorial Force (TF) Battalions. These
were made up of part-time officers and soldiers who had signed up for
Imperial or Home Service, and each of these Battalion trained its own
personnel so there was therefore no requirement for the TF to be
established with Reserve Battalions. The TF Battalions were
usually numbered after the Regular and Reserve Battalions of the
Regiment and often had a second title linking them with their home city
or town. In the Somerset Light Infantry there were two TF
battalions, the 4th and 5th. In 1917 a further TF Battalion,
the 11th, was raised.
Each of the active Battalions, overseas
and UK based, were grouped with a Brigade and/or Division and
immediately prior to the outbreak of war, Battalions of the Somerset Light Infantry were deployed as follows:
- 1st Battalion (Regular).
Based at Colchester, part of 11th Brigade/4th Division.
- 2nd Battalion (Regular).
Based at Quetta, India.
1st (Quetta)
Brigade/4th (Quetta) Division, Indian
Army
- 3rd (Reserve) Battalion.
Based at Taunton.
- 4th
Battalion (TF). Based at
Bath. Part of the South Western Brigade, Wessex Division (TF).
- 5th Battalion (TF).
Based at Taunton. Part of the South Western Brigade,
Wessex Division (TF).
The Re-Organisation at the Outbreak of
War.
The Regular and Reserve Battalions saw
little change at the outbreak of war, only their reinforcement to War Establishment by Regular
and Special Reservists and the deployment to mobilisation locations.
In the TF Battalions, those personnel who had signed up for Imperial
Service were formed into the First Line of the Battalion, designated the1/4th
and the 1/5th Battalion (TF), for service
overseas. Those who had signed for Home Service (and could
not or would not sign up for Imperial Service) were formed up into the
Second Line of the Battalion designated the 2/4th and the 2/5th Battalions. These
TF Battalions continued
to recruit and train their own personnel.
Service Battalions.
On the outbreak of war, The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener,
saw that the UK must be prepared for a war lasting three to four years,
requiring an Army of at least 70 Divisions. On 7th August
1914, he started a campaign to recruit an initial 100,000 men, but the
response was overwhelming and 500,000 were signed up. He
decided not to use the framework of the TF to expand the Army, but to
create a "New Army", separate from the current Regulars and
Territorials. More than 500 New Army Battalions were raised
forming the basis of three New Armies, known as K1 (9th - 14th
Division), K2 (15th - 20th Division) and K3 (21st- 26th Division).
The New Army Battalions were numbered consecutively after the existing
Regular and Territorial Battalions and they were distinguished by the
word "Service", in brackets, after their number. In the Somerset Light
Infantry, the Service Battalions raised were:
- 6th (Service) Battalion.
Raised at Taunton, in August - September 1914. K1.
Allocated to 43rd Brigade, 14th Division.
- 7th (Service) Battalion.
Raised at Taunton, in August - September 1914. K2.
Allocated to 61st Brigade, 20th Division.
- 8th (Service) Battalion.
Raised at Taunton in September 1914. K3.
Allocated to 63rd Brigade, 21st Division.
- 9th (Service)
Battalion. Raised at Plymouth
in October 1914. K4. Became a Second Reserve Battalion,
on the break-up of 4th New Army in late 1914/early 1915, to train and
supply reinforcements to Somerset Light Infantry Service Battalions of K1, K2
and K3.
Locally Raised Service Battalions.
Apart from the formal Service Battalions being raised as described
above, local Citizen's Recruiting Committees were raising their own
Battalions independent of the War Office. The expense of
raising, clothing, feeding, housing and training of these Battalions
were met by the Recruiting Committees until they were formally taken
over by the War Office in 1915 and added to the Army Establishment.
At this time all previous expenses were refunded to Committees and
further costs borne by the War Office. These Battalions were
to become known as Locally Raised Battalions and provided the majority
of the infantry for the 4th New Army (K4). The Battalions
were numbered consecutively after the Service Battalions in a Regiment
and had an additional title showing the connection with the city, area
or organisation which raised them. There were no the Locally
Raised Battalions in the Somerset Light Infantry.
Further Re-Organisations.
Territorial Force (TF).
By June 1915 most of the First Line Battalions of the TF had been
deployed to active service locations overseas and the Second Line
Battalions were preparing for future overseas service. A Third
Line Battalion was
formed to be the Depot to train and supply reinforcements to the First Line and later to the Second Line Battalions.
- 3/4th Battalion (TF).
Formed at Bath in March 1915 and moved to Bournemouth to guard local
installations and to train recruits and provide drafts for 1/4th and
2/4th Battalions. Became 4th (Reserve)
Battalion TF on 8th April 1916, part of the Wessex Reserve Brigade TF.
Absorbed the 5th (Reserve) Battalion in September 1916 at Winchester. The
unit was later billeted at Bournemouth, before being based at Sutton
Veney in March 1917, at Larkhill in late 1917 and in Oswestry in
April 1918 where it remained to the end of the war as part of West
Lancs Reserve Bde.
- 3/5th Battalion (TF).
Formed at Taunton in March 1915 and moved to the Bournemouth area to
guard local installations, to train recruits and provide drafts
for 1/5th and
2/5th Battalions and became 5th (Reserve)
Battalion TF on 8th April 1916, part of the Wessex Reserve Brigade
TF. Absorbed by 4th (Reserve) Battalion TF in
August 1917 at Winchester.
Those TF personnel of the Somerset Light
Infantry who were unfit for any overseas service were transferred from
the Second and Third Line Battalions to the non-Regimentally affiliated
Provisional Battalions TF.
Other
Battalions.
By late 1916 the SLI had raised a
further battalion from personnel of
the Regiment deemed unfit to serve
overseas.
Service Battalions.
By spring 1915 it had become clear
that voluntary recruitment was not
going to provide the numbers of men
required. The Government
passed the National Registration
Act on 15th July 1915 as a step
towards stimulating recruitment and
to discover how many men between the
ages of 15 and 65 were engaged in
each trade. The results
of this census became available by
mid-September 1915 and on
11th October 1915, Lord Derby was
appointed Director-General of
Recruiting. He brought
forward a scheme five days later,
always called the Derby Scheme, for
raising the numbers. It was
half-way to conscription.
Disappointed at the results
of the Derby Scheme, the Government
introduced the Military Service Act
on 27 January 1916. All
voluntary enlistment was stopped as
all British males were now deemed to
have enlisted - that is, they were
conscripted - if they were
aged between 18 and 41 and resided
in Great Britain (excluding Ireland)
and were unmarried or a widower on 2
November 1915.
Conscripted men were no longer given
a choice of which service, regiment
or unit they joined, although if a
man preferred the navy it got
priority to take him.
This act was extended to married men
on 25 May 1916.
The
Training Organisation, based on the
Regimental Reserve Battalions could
not cope with the sheer number of
conscripted men now available and a
new system was put in place on 1st
September 1916 to deal with these
numbers. All New Army
Regimental Reserve Battalions would
lose their Regimental identity and
become a Battalion of the Training
Reserve. The role of
these Battalions was to train new
recruits for active service and
despatch drafts to Service
Battalions overseas. The
Reserve Battalion of the SLI was
reorganised as follows:
-
9th (Reserve) Battalion.
Based at Swanage, formed the
45th Training Reserve Battalion,
part of 10th Reserve Brigade.
More Reorganisations.
Training Reserve Battalions.
In 1917 the Training Reserve was
re-organised to provide better and
more specialised training for
recruits and a total of 14 TR
Battalions were designated "Young
Soldier" and "Graduated" Battalions.
This system saw these new Young
Soldier Battalions take in and
train 18 year olds recruits and
train them step by step until the
recruits could be posted , in
Company strength, to Graduated
Battalions for further training
until ready to be sent to active
service units. In
October 1917, these Battalions were
affiliated to Regiments of the Line.
The SLI, however, were not included
in this re-organisation.
Service Battalions.
-
13th (Home
Service) Battalion.
Formed at Wrentham, Suffolk, in
April
1918 to replace the 11th Battalion
TF in Home and Coastal Defence duties in
227th Brigade,
-
1st Garrison Battalion.
Formed at Plymouth in
January 1917 and posted to India
in February 1917 for Internal Security
and Garrison
duties.
Territorial Force (TF).
-
11th Battalion (TF).
On 1st January 1917 the 85th Provisional Battalion TF was
re-designated 11th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry TF.
The Battalion proceeded to France on 6th May 1918 and was posted to
177th Brigade, 59th Division.
-
12th
(West Somerset Yeomanry) Battalion (TF). Formed
at Ismailia, Egypt on 4th January 1917 from the dismounted 1/1st West
Somerset Yeomanry in 229th Brigade, 74th Division.
The unit with Division moved
to France in May 1918.
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