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Remembered Today:

Territorials-not going overseas ?


jim_davies

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It seems that when I read about any territorial units (usually modern day accounts) at the outbreak of war, the impression is given that every man volunteered for overseas service.

I have two questions concerning the above:

1) Does anyone have any idea of what percentage of men did NOT agree to serve overseas ?

2)What happened to those that decided not to serve overseas ? Did they remain at the depot when their fellow TF members left for France etc, or were they allowed to return to their civilan work ? Later would they be liable for conscription ?

Thanks,

Jim

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My understanding is that when war broke out, Territorial regiments were instructed to raise second line battalions, and that those men who declined to serve overseas formed the core of those battalions. The Queens Own Oxfordshire Hussards, for example, had 106 NCOs and men who didn't volunteer to serve overseas, and who formed the nucleus of this second regiment. Those that stayed behind could not return to civilian life as they were still mobilised.

There was of course some pressure for entire units to volunteer for service overseas, and a number did (altough each individual would at least have to sign the overseas service declaration), including for example the Ayrshire Yeomanry. Their second line regiment was presumably raised entirely through recruitment.

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Based on research I have undertaken on Territorial Force units in Staffordshire, as well as Ian Beckett's reasearch on the subject, the enthusiasm of commanding officers to volunteer the services of their units for overseas service was not necessarily universal, and the individual soldiers ultimately decided if they would sign for “Imperial Service”.

On 21st August 1914, those units in which at least 80 per cent of their members had volunteered were allowed to recruit up to their war establishment, but by 31st August this requirement was reduced to 60 per cent. It has proved difficult to determine the level of response across all of the Territorial Force units in Staffordshire to the requests to volunteer for overseas service except for isolated examples. Contemporary newspaper reports are generally positive in their descriptions of the response of Territorials serving with Staffordshire units to the call to volunteer for overseas service, but provide little evidence to make conclusions regarding the overall response of the county’s Territorials to the request. Unit histories are also vague in their descriptions of the subject. The authors of the History of the 6th Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment blandly recorded that when members of the unit were asked to sign on for “Imperial Service” at Luton in September 1914:

“Every man in his turn, and in full knowledge of what he was doing, destroyed the old contract, whereby his services were limited to home defence, and signed the new one, whereby he might be called upon to serve the whole world over.”

More information is available on the level of response within individual sub-units. Within days of the initial War Office appeal, 40 officers and men of the 110 serving with “B” Squadron of The Staffordshire Yeomanry had volunteered, just over third of the total strength. By early September, it was reported that 75 per cent of the members of the Wednesbury-based “H” Company of the 5th Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment had signed the Imperial Service Obligation. Another report noted that 75 per cent of the men serving with the 6th Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment had volunteered for Imperial Service by early September 1914 and that one detachment, “C” Company based at Tamworth, had three officers and 104 other ranks volunteer to serve overseas by late September 1914. A nominal roll for the 2nd North Midland Field Company, Royal Engineers, published in early October 1914 while the unit was stationed at Luton, does provide a more detailed breakdown of the situation as regards one Territorial Force contingent from Staffordshire. The wartime establishment of a Divisional Field Company was set at six officers and 211 other ranks. Of the 269 other ranks listed as serving with the company at the time, 208 had volunteered for Imperial Service. By analysing the regimental numbers of the men listed on the roll and comparing known dates of enlistment, 123 pre-war members of the unit had volunteered for overseas service as opposed to 57 who had not, although some of these men are known to have subsequently served overseas. Ten Officers are also listed but the nominal roll does not specify which of them had volunteered for service overseas or had opted to remain at home, although all but one are known to have served overseas at some point during the war. It is probable that the other units had similar ratios of those serving who had undertaken the Imperial Service Obligation and those who had not, but in the absence of detailed data it is difficult to make any solid conclusions regarding the level of response for the whole of the Territorial Force in Staffordshire, or if there were any local variations between units, as indicated by Beckett with reference to discrepancies between companies recruited from certain occupations.

The outcome of this process was that in order for the Imperial Service contingents to be fully manned, new recruits would have to be found to replace the men who remained at home. The process of separating the Home Service men from the remainder who had volunteered for Imperial Service began in early September 1914 and in the case of the infantry battalions, the men detached accounted for around a quarter of a battalion’s establishment. The 6th Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment were recorded to have sent away a detachment to Dunstable consisting of seven officers and around two hundred men, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel H. Taylor. The 5th Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment sent 250 men back to Walsall on 5th September. Of the 250 men returned, 65 were either under or over-age, 70 men who had failed the medical requirements. The remainder of the contingent were men who had refused to volunteer for overseas service, although 15 later changed their mind and were posted back to the main unit at Luton six days later. A detachment of some 200 men of the 6th Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment had also been sent back to Burton-on-Trent on 5th September. As well as being separated from their comrades serving with the “Imperial Service” units, they were also deprived of much of their equipment and were even made to give up their khaki service dress and don scarlet full-dress tunics instead. Some of those men who had originally opted for Home Service would eventually decide to volunteer to serve overseas, and no doubt by discriminating them from their comrades in this manner assisted with their decision.

Even after the declaration of war, recruits still had the option of enlisting for home service only in Territorial Force units and this situation that was not resolved until the abolition of home service enlistments in March 1915. There is evidence that this anomaly did prove attractive to some recruits for Territorial Force units in Staffordshire. In December 1914 one non-military member of the Territorial Force Association, Molyneaux Seel, felt obliged to complain to Major Green, the Recruiting Officer at Stafford, that recruiting for one home service unit, the Reserve Regiment of The Staffordshire Yeomanry, was bringing in all eligible recruits to the detriment of the Imperial Service units.

Hope this helps!

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Jim

I have not come across any precise figures of Territorials who did not volunteer for overseas service in 1914. However, it was laid down that a unit would be available for overseas service if 80% of its men volunteered. In some cases, however, amalgamations took place in order to make a unit eligible. In one or two instances, complete units did not volunteer – 5th East Yorks, a Cyclist bn – was one. The TF also mounted a recruiting campaign to help bring units up to strength. One can therefore deduce that some 30% did not volunteer.

As for what happened to these men, they were initially formed into home service companies which were absorbed by 2nd line units as these were formed. Then, in summer 1915, all those who had not taken the imperial service obligation or who were medically unfit to serve overseas were placed in Provisional bns. 108 of these were formed, together with Provisional artillery batteries, Field Companies RE, etc. Their role was guarding the East Coast.

As you rightly surmise, the Military Service Acts of 1916 removed the right of Territorials to refuse to serve overseas and those who were medically fit were posted to 59th, 60th and 61st Divisions. The Acts also removed the right of the Territorial to return to civilian life after his four year term of active duty.

Charles M

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Stunning erudition. Just wish I had known of this website from the outset. Herewith my meagre contribution.

'A Nation in Arms' by Beckett and Simpson, ISBN 1-871085-06-3. has a very good overview on the subject of the usability [?] of the TF, and deals substantially with the Imperial Service [iS] conundrum. Incidentally, the IS option was brought in well before 1914, I can dig out when if needs be.

Army Order 399/14 21 Sep 1914 authorised formation of Home Service [HS] TF units, one for each TF unit accepted for IS. The HS unit to act as a feeder [but how, if the individual was having none of it?], and would be composed of men from the IS unit who cannot [their word] go abroad, and both IS/HS recuits.

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Although the opportunity for TF men to sign the IS obligation existed before 4 Aug 14 there was not a great take up. I extracted the following for units in the north of Scotland from PRO WO 32/7101. Figures are for officers/ORs

Numbers elected to serve abroad as at Dec (?) 1912:

4 Seaforth 7/140

5 Seaforth 4/30

6 Seaforth 10/130

4 Camerons 5/50

4 Gordons -/25

5 Gordons 3/121

6 Gordons 3/151

7 Gordon -/21

Looking at other infantry battalions the lowest I noted was -/3 and the highest 23/837

Jock

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In mid September 1914, the 1/4th K.S.L.I. were asked to volunteer for service abroad, 85 per cent came forward, 31 officer and 805 other ranks embarked on 28th October for Bombay. The 2/4th was formed in September 1914, and I geuss the 15 % who did not volunteer formed the core of this battaion. The 2/4th sent a draft of 460 men to the 1/4th in May 1916 but I do not know if these men had the choice to volunteer or had to go like it or not.

Regards

Annette

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Thanks so much for all the great answers, the level of knowledge (and willingness to share it) is quite amazing.

I can imagine the peer pressure to join with one's comrades made it a difficult choice.

Munce-I wonder which other units volunteered "on masse" like the Ayrshire Yeomanry.

Andrew-It helps a great deal. The research you've done on the Staffs really took my breath away. Volunteering fo a "home service" unit doesn't seem like a bad idea to me !

Charles-would it be correct to assume that prior to the Military Service Act that men could return to civilan life after their fourth year ? then what occured if this was later in the war, did the guy get to join up again ?

Langley-I seem to remember reading (where, is a different story) that the second-line or home service units were not exactly well thought of by some of their peers when the parent divisions (ie 58th, 59th, 60th & 61st) first went to France.

Jock-could a man change his IS declaration ? For example of those men who in Dec 1912 had signed, did the outbreak of war in 1914 mean that they had to serve overseas, or were they given a chance to change their mind ?

Annette-from the other contributions I would imagine the 2/4th men sent out in May 1916 wouldn't have had much choice.

Once again, thank you all very much for replying to my question. Its a subject I don't know much about so I really appreciate any help.

Jim

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Jim

Correct. Up to the passing of the second Military Service Act in May 1916 time-expired Territorials could return to civilian life and a number did so, claiming that they had done their bit and that it was someone else's turn. Alternatively, they could re-enlist, in which case they were granted a bounty and a month's leave. After May 1916, they were all deemed to have joined up for the duration of the war.

Charles

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I have similar findings for the 19th London Regt. which I am in the process of writing up.

The extent to which units had signed the Imperial Service Obligation was one of the big stumbling blocks in the deployment of the TF overseas - and was one of the reasons for Kitchener's distrust of the TF.

There were also legal reasons preventing the deployment of individual TF men overseas rather than as formed units - the so-called 'pledge' by which a TF man was obliged to serve with the unit of which he was a member, and could not be redeployed against his will. Parliament did consider scrapping the pledge and posting individual men individually into New Army units. There were several heated debates in Parliament in 1915 on this topic, but this was not taken uap because the legal grounds for doing so were pretty dubious. (See an excellent article Mitchinson, Kevin W; "The 'Transfer Controversy': Parliament and the London Regiment" in Stand To! Dec 1991 [no. 33] pp. 29-32)

It certainly does appear that some TF units were polled as to whether they would serve overseas as individuals or as a complete unit. Below this commentary is an extract from the War Diary of 180 Bde (2/2nd London or 60 Div) in which such an exercise was carried out in Jan 1915. Not surprisingly, few were prepared to serve overseas with a New Army unit. I dont blame them (speaking as ex-TA myself) - would you want to be ripped out of a local unit you had joined and bunged in willy-nilly wherever some remote bureaucrat wanted, possibly without your mates in a unit from another part of the country? It was after all a betrayal of whet they had joined the TF for.

However, when asked if prepared to serve overseas with their present TF unit they were much more positive by about 2-3 times. (The data below is a mix of absolute counts of officers/or ORs, and for three of the battalions a %age of the ORs.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Willingness to accept Imperial Service Obligation in 180 Brigade, 16 January 1915

Number "signed for Foreign Service with Service Battalions"

2/17th 7 Officers 106 Other Ranks (Poplar & Stepney)

2/18th 3 Officers 13 % of Other Ranks (London Irish)

2/19th 22 Officers 42 % of Other Ranks (St. Pancras)

2/20th 10 Officers 26 % of Other Ranks (Blackheath & Woolwich)

Total 42 Officers

Number "prepared to undertake Imperial Service Obligation for service with present unit"

2/17th 26 Officers 600 Other Ranks

2/18th 21 Officers 46 % of Other Ranks

2/19th 27 Officers 74 % of Other Ranks

2/20th 22 Officers 52 % of Other Ranks

Total 96 Officers

(Source: 180 Brigade War Diary PRO WO95/3031 16 January 1915)

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Charles

Some most interesting statistics. The Territorial's right not to be transferred to another unit without his consent was scrapped by the Army Transfer Act of May 1915. Under Army Orders 186 and 188 of 1915 his commanding officer mrely had to note his objections.

Charles M

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I would add to this erudite and extremely informative thread the point that the Imperial Service obligation carried with it no perks or rewards other than a handsome white metal badge ['tablet'] with words 'Imperial Service', and crown above, to be worn over the right breast pocket. So the authorities were indeed getting something for nothing in an era when patriotism was not a dirty word.

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My understanding is that before August 1914 men signed for the IS obligation on an annual basis. I have found a couple of service records of men who joined the TF in 1908 which show that the individual signed for it every year in April. Thus he would have had the opportunity to not sign in a given year as his family and work circumstances changed (e.g. after starting a family).

The 4 year TF obligation was automatically extended by a year on the outbreak of war. I believe this was part of the contract and was to prevent men whose time ran out in say Sept 1914 from quitting there and then when they would be most needed. The earliest a time expired man could have left would have been in August 1915, and the absolute latest before the second Military Service Act of May 1916

I have been looking at time expired men in the 19th Londons. From the medal roll of the 1914/15 Star 959 Other Ranks arrived in France with the 1/19th battalion. Of these the roll shows that a total of 37 men left the bn when their ‘term of engagement’ had expired, with thirty alone leaving between December 1915 and May 1916.

Six of them had already been wounded so may have been invalided out of the Army. I do not yet know what happened to the other 31 men, and it is possible that some were later conscripted and ended up in other regiments. However, some were certainly discharged on account of age, for example CSM Dillingham who was 51 when his service finished on 10 April 1916. (He was instrumental in setting up the Old Comrades Association on his return to Battalion HQ in Camden in late 1916.)

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