Artillery Command and control is often a strange concept to grasp. The chain of command for the infantry was hierarchical, from C in C BEF down to the Private in the trench, direct orders would be passed from commander to commander.

As outlined in the post: GHQ Artillery , the Royal Artillery was different. The Commander's function was the allocation of resources. So Army level resources were allocated to Corps, the allocation being based upon the Army commanders plan. Similarly at Corps level, resources would be allocated to Divisions and Heavy Artillery Groups. Again, the criteria being based upon the plan.

Once allocated, the "Commander" may actually have no troops in direct command !!!!!

On 13/02/2011 at 12:50, nigelfe said:

On 12/02/2011 at 21:05, Piorun said:

Artillery Command published some very interesting directives on how to use artillery. Even the Americans circulated them. Forty years later, we were still trained on 'em (pardon the pun). Antony

There wasn't any such thing as an 'Artillery Command' of any sort above corps level (and initially not even at that level). The senior artillery officers there were not commanders and not general staff officers. Like any other British senior officer position if the position title didn't have 'commander' in it then you weren't one. Very simple really. Command at GHQ and Army level command of artillery was legally vested in the C-in-C BEF or Army Commander with the detail handled by their general, A and Q staff officers (not forgetting military secretaries of course). What command of artillery at these levels meant was the authority to assign artillery resources to subordinate commanders, including Commanders RA at corps and division.

There was an artillery branch in GHQ where the Major General Royal Artillery (MGRA) was the artillery advisor to the C-in-C and principal staff officers (CGS, AQ, QMG). The same applied at the Army HQs where there was a MGRA. The role of the MGRAs evolved and in Sep 15 these 'Artillery Advisors' were formally authorised to deal with certain artillery matters, including ammo, design matters, defective ammo, accidents to guns, hows and trench mors and any user problems related to equipment.

However, in Nov 1915 the MGRA at GHQ (Headlam), in collaboration with the Army MGRAs, started a program to have selected artillery officers (who may or may not have been artillery staff officers somewhere) who were recognised as experts to draft various policy directives. The GHQ Artillery Notes series (1 to 7, some with 2 editions), which started to appear in early 1916, is the best known and some were re-published by the War Office as official publications. But there were also many other circulars, notes and memoranda. In fact the amount of stuff being issued led in early 1918 to a monthly summary of what had been issued!

Source: GHQ Artillery