Special Reserve: necessary but not sufficient

[Muerrisch]

I am working on a means of finding to a very close approximation the number of regular reservists available to the RWF on 4 August 1914 ....... much closer to the truth than my crude "1500 or so". Watch this space.

[Guest]

From "Kitchener's Army: The Story of a National Achievement" by Victor Wallace Germains published in 1930;

"... The Special Reserve battalions mobilised at very high strength - on an average about 1,500 men. But most of these were mere boys; the rest were older classes of reservists or else partially trained men. Thus it is doubtful if any of these battalions could actually have produced 800 really efficient men....."

On page 88 he goes on to state;

"... The fighting at Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne and the Aisne was sorely taxing the Special Reserve battalions....the II Corps alone in the retreat from Mons and the Battle of Le Cateau lost 7,182 men ...... On 5th September [1914] the BEF was 20,000 men short of strength despite a stream of reinforcements ....... [page 100]..demands for drafts from the front and the fighting around Ypres at the end of October .... The calls for drafts increased in urgency and frequency.....that men were being sent to the front with less than six weeks training. ......[page 137] The strain on the Special Reserve battalions to replace losses in the field was a very heavy one. The supply of trained or even partially trained officers and men was soon exhausted....."

Germains also goes into some considerable detail on how the TF plugged some of the gaps. TF battalions that satisfied the overseas service obligations were sent out to reinforce some of the regular divisions or relieve regular battalions in overseas garrisons such as Gibraltar (7th and 8th Bns Middlesex Regt TF sent on 3rd Sep) and India (Wessex Div TF departed on 9th Oct, Home Counties Div TF on 29th Oct and 2nd Wessex Div TF on 12th Dec) and Egypt (42nd East Lancs Div TF sent on 10th Sep).

Interestingly there were five TF units including three TF infantry battalions that had already volunteered for overseas service prior to the outbreak of war. In total there were 17,621 men who had accepted liability to serve abroad prior to 4th Aug 1914, but as the men of the 7th and 8th Bns Middlesex Regt TF discovered, this backfired when their early zeal to serve overseas was rewarded by being used as garrison troops in Gibraltar while other units such as the London Scotish were sent to France.

Kitchener sent a note to the Director General of the Territorial Force on 10th August asking to be informed as soon as possible which of the TF units had volunteered for service abroad, or partly volunteered or desired to be part of the Home Defence Force. Five days later on the 15th August 1914 the "request for volunteers for Foreign service was officially promulgated to the Territorial Force" with the proviso that at least 75% of its members needed to volunteer with the remainder to be recruited. By the 25th August 1914 sixty one TF battalions had volunteered. Some units qualified almost immediately and some qualified by taking companies from other TF battalions to make up the numbers. On 31st August, qualifying TF battalions were authorised to form second battalions. On 21st September the number of units volunteering was sufficient for a general authorisation was issued to County Associations to form second line Territorial units.

There is a fair amount of detail in the book, but Germains writes in a rather flowery style. Despite this it seems he had access to some data as the numbers are quite precise i.e. not rounded. For anyone interested in the raising of the Kitchener's Armies there is plenty of detail at battalion level and he manages to clearly illustrate how the huge disparities between the populations of counties made it impossible for the sparsely populated areas to recruit anywhere near enough men, and how the burden was largely borne by the industrial areas.

MG

[Graham Stewart]

So you found it a good read then? - I believe it was the first formative study of Kitcheners Armies during the Great War - possibly dispelling the many myths that had circulated around the 'raising'. All of the 'locally raised' Kitchener Battalions after their raising were given 'inidividual' correspondence files within the War Office, however even to this date I've been unable to find them, but luckily we did find a 'Minute Book' from the Tyneside Scottish Committee, which assisted greatly when John Sheen and I put our book together all of those years ago.

[Guest]

So you found it a good read then? - I believe it was the first formative study of Kitcheners Armies during the Great War - possibly dispelling the many myths that had circulated around the 'raising'. All of the 'locally raised' Kitchener Battalions after their raising were given 'inidividual' correspondence files within the War Office, however even to this date I've been unable to find them, but luckily we did find a 'Minute Book' from the Tyneside Scottish Committee, which assisted greatly when John Sheen and I put our book together all of those years ago.

Graham - I obtained a copy because I had no idea it existed until you mentioned it in passing. An informative read for sure.

I have not yet finished reading it but I find his writing style rather verbose, repetitive, slightly lacking structure and at times quite flowery. To be honest it is about twice as long as it needs to be. Having said that it does have lots of interesting anecdotes supported by numbers (a good thing) - for example one of the 8th (Service) Bn East Surrey Regt - a K2 Battalion - taking in a draft of men which included 300 Suffolk men who thought they were joining the Suffolk Regiment and 200 Norfolk men who thought that they were joining the Norfolk Regiment (and some Welsh miners). This seems to confirm that the system was rather fluid as early as Sep 14 with large blocks of men seemingly being thrust into county regiments way beyond their own county. The comparison of the speed at which the DLI Service battalions were raised against the Suffolk Regt Service battalions was also interesting and it again highlights just how important the heavily populated industrial areas were when raising K1-K5.

Similarly he seems to have tracked the AOs well and despite jumping around a bit the chronological sequence of the raising of the Armies is fairly well laid out. Having read both Peter Simkins book on the Kitchener Armies and Germains book, it seems that Germains certainly was one of the earliest authors to analyse this period. I am re-reading Simkins' book in parallel.

I find this period absolutely fascinating. I am beginning to better understand just how finely balanced the situation was. The delay in sending two of the regular Divisions, the slow trickle of TF battalions to France and its later acceleration as casualties in the Regulars in the BEF outstripped the Special Reserve battalions' ability to replace men fast enough, and of course the Indian Corps in France making up some of the deficit. The mobilisation and deployment of the TF is another interesting subject closely related to the inability of the Regular Army to stay supplied with sufficient numbers of trained men. I am also beginning to better understand just how short of equipment the Armies were. I see some battalions did not receive a full scale of SMLEs until Dec 1915, by which time K1 had been decimated.

More interestingly I note that some of his anecdotes seem to have appeared in later publications almost verbatim but with no acknowledgement of the provenance - the 600 Bristol men joining the Leinsters Service battalions for example. If he dispelled some myths, they certainly returned as authors of Irish unit histories writing over fifty years later still seemed rather reluctant to admit to the recruiting crisis in Ireland and its dependency on (mostly) English recruits right at the start and continuing throughout the war.

Anyway, thanks for flagging it. An interesting reference book. Sad that it does not have an index. I am writing one in the back of my copy.

As an aside I have built a spreadsheet of the first six regular Division's battalions with monthly casualties (killed) and I am attempting to add the WIA and POW from the War Diaries in order to get a feel of the concentration of casualties and the consequences it had on the available numbers of trained reservists. Some of the figures are quite alarming. Here is the Cameron Highlanders' butcher's bill for 1914:

Battalion......................... disembarkation.........KIA: Aug.......Sep......Oct......Nov......Dec.....Total

1st Bn Cameron Hldrs.............14th Aug 14..............2..........209......118.......186.......69.......584

Assuming WIA: KIA was roughly 2:1 this battalion effectively would have been numerically destroyed at least once in just four months. The War Diary claims that between 14th-30th october 1914 the battalion losses were 38 Officers and 1,000 men. A suspiciously round figure and would suggest WIA: KIA was 9:1 in October - I think an unlikely figure - but even if the casulaty figure is half true it is a disaster. The Camerons were not exactly flush with trained reservists (less than 1,000) and Officers from three other Scottish regiments appear in their Officer ranks by the end of Dec accounting for 8 of the 15 Officers. I have similar data for every Regular battalion from Aug-Dec 1914. I am attempting to get more accurate data rather than guess a WIA/KIA ratio (and SDGW data for KIA obviously clears up the MIA).. I get a good proxy for the WIA from the diaries and histories it might be possible to build the picture bottom-up rather than top down for the whole of the BEF's Infantry (I have done the Guards too). By extension it should be possible to work out when the infantry 'system-wide' ran out of trained men rather than just a single battalion. Everything is pointing towards end October beginning of November, which unsurprisingly is when a dozen semi-trained TF battalions were thrown into the line, most ending up as fifth battalions within regular Brigades.

The depressing thing is that the Cameron Highlanders were not that much of an outlier in the data.

I think we owe a huge debt not only to the TF but to the Indian Army Corps which plugged a rather large gap.

MG

[Muerrisch]

From "Kitchener's Army: The Story of a National Achievement" by Victor Wallace Germains published in 1930;

"... The Special Reserve battalions mobilised at very high strength - on an average about 1,500 men. But most of these were mere boys; the rest were older classes of reservists or else partially trained men. Thus it is doubtful if any of these battalions could actually have produced 800 really efficient men....."

Surely he means the SR battalions soon totalled 1500 men of whom 2/3 were regular reservists and serving regular soldiers, and 1/3 special reservists, a very different picture?

[Guest]

My reading is that there were 800 trained reservists (Army Reservists plus establishment Special Reservists) and another 700 men who would be out of condition Army Reservists, Special Reservists in training, Recruits and ex rankers long past their reserve obligations. His comments are rather broad brushed and given how round the figures are I doubt he is quoting from any official data but rounding off a few anecdotes.

I note he quotes from a few regimental histories (such as the Sherwood Foresters on other subjects) so it is distinctly possible that there is an element of subjectivity in his numbers.

I have mentioned before, but it is worth repeating; I don't think averages mean that much in this debate as the variations of historical recruiting and implications for the number of available Reservists, plus the variations in strengths of the SR battalions produced wide variations in numbers of available trained men across battalions. Similarly there appears to be a wide disparity in the demands within the Home based battalions. When we begin to look at the casualties at battalion level in the first months, there are similar wide variations across the BEF for understandable reasons. Clearly, at the extremes there will be battalions which had higher levels of available trained reservists who saw lower levels of casualties and vice versa.

This is why the 1st Bn Cameron Highlanders are likely candidates for a battalion with a reinforcement crisis. The return data as late as 12th Sep for the Depot and SR battalion (after the first reinforcements had been sent out) would appear to be quite short of the number of casualties suffered in the month of October alone. I suspect that it is highly likely the Cameron Highlanders had reservists from other regiments, but to date I can not find any tangible evidence in other than the fact the battalion had Officers from three other regiments. this certainly suggests the Cameron Highlanders had run out of trained Officers but one can't comfortably extrapolate any conclusions to the ORs. I suspect it is something that the battalion or regimental historian would not be particularly keen to emphasise.

The aggregate data might be revealing from a strategic point of view, but it would be nice to see some document(s) or better still some history that acknowledged any crisis in the reinforcement chain. Sadly the immediately available War Diaries, Return Data and published histories etc do not have consistent quantity and quality of data to draw any broad concrete conclusions yet. I trust your (Grumpy) forensic knowledge of the RWF will bear some fruit. It would be nice to find your replicant in the Cameron Highlanders.

MG

[Muerrisch]

I think my essential point is that NO SR battalion would be allowed above peace establishment so that puts a top figure for special reservists at about 500 all ranks [from memory, away from my Establishment figures].

We grumble about bean counters these days but they were in the War Office and the treasury then too.

My work on RWF a bit held up for checking but I would hazard a ball-park figure, working from first principles and using rather too many approximations, of 1500 regular reservists reporting, being passed fit, and immediately deployable on the day that 2nd RWF left for France.

Will post chapter and verse after some navel-gazing and checking.

[Guest]

Graham Grumpy- Surely the point here is that once War was declared it was no longer peace-time, so peace-time establishment effectively became meaningless, particularly when there were thousands of men pouring through the gates. The numbers were not foreseen or planned for. With the benefit of hindsight it is no surprise that the regulations are at odds with the reality of August 1914 as it simply was not expected. The evidence in the published histories suggests that Special Reserve battalions absorbed the excess Reservists way beyond the official Establishment of 500 or so. When historians record figures in excess of the establishment I assume they are really just describing what happened in reality rather than what the regulations* stated. They can't all be wrong. Similarly the official Returns from 74 Special reserve units cant be wrong in my view.

A Depot faced with many hundreds of Army Reservists and many hundreds of volunteers arriving every day had to put the men somewhere. In nearly every case (all cases?) these excess men were sent to the Special Reserve battalions simply because the depots were physically not large enough to accommodate the thousands of men and, just as important the Depots didn't have the staff to deal with the thousands. They had to go somewhere. Aside from the Reservists sent to the Regulars to make them up to War Establishment, once the depot was filled, the only other option was the Special Reserve battalion. From an administrative point of view the Depots were processing the men - doing the paperwork and providing equipment - then sending the men on as fast as they could. If I recall correctly there was an ACI or AO specifically ordering this only a few days after mobilisation which in itself was probably just officially recognising best practise already being carried out. The historians merely stated the facts.

From a technical/regulatory point of view I have no doubt that there were 500 or so men on the Special Reserve 'establishment' but there is also no doubt in my mind that there were hundreds of men who were attached/posted/ (whatever word suffices) to these battalions in excess of their establishments from the very start. There is evidence in the histories that these surplus men followed the Special Reserve battalions to their War Stations. The available official returns show this for 29th Aug, 5th Sep and 12th Sep - a period that covers peak recruitment. Every regimental history that covers the subject that I have read so far appears to substantiate the fact that the Special Reserve battalions had more than their establishment.

I assume the later AOs that sanctioned the expansion were effectively just catching up with the situation on the ground. As more K battalions were raised and absorbed the excess numbers (Army Reservists NCOs parked at the Special Reserve Battalions were drawn off as NCOs for the Kitchener battalions) and the numbers stabilised, it is easy to see how the depots and Special Reserve battalions and Kitchener Battalions managed to allocate the excess men more efficiently. To my mind there is little doubt that the surplus men were (at least temporarily) 'parked' with the Special reserve battalions until they were allocated to other battalions being formed in September-October.

As you know, many regimental histories gloss over mobilisation, the Depots and the Special Reserve battalions. Some don't even mention the Special Reserve battalion once. Thankfully more than a few do mention this period. Of those regiments that pay homage to the Special Reserve, in every case where numbers are mentioned (either on mobilisation or immediately after mobilisation), they show numbers significantly higher than 'establishment'. For example the histories of the Border Regiment, Hampshire Regiment, Cheshire Regiment, Black Watch, Suffolk Regiment and the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment all record figures either significantly higher or allude to the battalions taking in large surpluses of men beyond establishment.

In summary, I would say that the establishment of a Special Reserve battalion was overtaken by events and the subsequent AOs and ACIs were essentially playing catch-up with reality. This was an extra-ordinary period where reality far exceeded any prior expectations or planning. I believe the returns and the histories.

MG

* I can think of a few examples where regulations or AOs were completely ignored. In the pre-war period, the Yeomanry (an area of specialist interest for me) often ignored the regulations that they were not to be armed with the arme blanche. Similarly in a period when the lance was no longer to be used in training, three (lancer) cavalry regiments chose to ignore this on manoeuvres. To top that, the South Notts Hussars (Yeomanry) went the whole hog and exercised with lances on manoeuvres three years on the trot - essentially ignoring two orders. On a different subject, AOs and ACIs on Colours and battle honours were ignored by at least fifteen infantry battalions whose colours show their 'own' battle honours rather than the officiallly approved Regimental battle honours and one managed to display eleven Great War battle honours rather than the regulatory ten. The point is that regulations and orders were sometimes ignored for a variety of reasons. MG

[Guest]

Here are the returns for 101 Reserve and Extra Reserve battalions dated 22 Aug 1914. Source: WO 114 [Edit thanks to SPOF for the images]

It is worth noting that virtually all the Special Reserve battalions have more than 606 (I think that is the establishment number: Split of 508 plus 98 regulars) men. The handful of battalions that don't are typically Extra Reserve battalions or Special Battalions miles from their depots (Jersey for example) or the special cases of Irish battalions facing political resistance.

If we just focus on the 74 Special Reserve battalions the average return showing numbers surplus to full establishment is 578 men or a surplus of 676 men per battalion if we only consider the Reservists as the base number.. Outside Irish battalions, the lowest number of men surplus to establishment is 262 (or 360 if only using the Reservists as the base). Either way every Special Reserve battalion reported surplus men to establishment.

Edited for small typos. MG

[Muerrisch]

"... The Special Reserve battalions mobilised at very high strength - on an average about 1,500 men. But most of these were mere boys; the rest were older classes of reservists or else partially trained men. Thus it is doubtful if any of these battalions could actually have produced 800 really efficient men....."

I think my essential point is that NO SR battalion would be allowed above peace establishment so that puts a top figure for special reservists at about 500 all ranks [from memory, away from my Establishment figures].

I fear I am not making the point well enough. This thread is about the Special Reserve. The 1500 men mentioned in the first quotation were not all Special Reservists, they were mostly regular soldiers and regular reservists. Among the former were under-age, unfit, and the 1914 recruits as yet not fully trained. The latter would not be first choice of any CO warned for war. These categories could easily amount to 1000 men, no problem. The other 500 [maximum] were special reservists.

the lowest number of men surplus to establishment is 262 (or 360 if only using the Reservists as the base). Either way every Special Reserve battalion reported surplus men to establishment.

Note the returns are now called Reserve not Special Reserve. This is in accord with the function of 3rd battalions after declaration of war in that immediately however many or few special reservists they had up to their maximum of 500, they would be swamped by regulars and regular reservists, and later by returning sick injured and wounded.

Once Kitchener began to offer terms of 3 years or the duration I believe few would enlist in the 6-year speciaal reserve conditions, and the SR men [not the 3rd battalion men] faded away in the smoke and the flames of the western front.

[Guest]

Grumpy - That does clarify things: Special Reservists v Special Reserve Battalions. A subtle but important difference.

If you can track down a copy of "The General Annual Report on The British Army for the Year ending 30th September 1914" I think it should provide the split in the Special Reservists (men) between trained men and recruits undergoing training. It will also provide the number (and per cent) of the men under the age of 19. My copies only go from 1902-1912 and as the data lags the publication date by one year, the nearest granular data I have is only 1911. Interestingly the number of men joined in the previous 12 months exceeds the number of men under 19 which suggest to me that an extremely high per cent of recruits would have been under 19. This should not be surprising.

The 1911 data shows that there were 18,487 enlistments in the Special Reserve (Infantry) in the year ending 1st Oct 1911. Some must have been 19 or Over as the data shows only 14,743 men under the age of 19. The strength of the Special Reserve (infantry) on 1st Oct 1911 was 48,522 implying 38.1% of total infantry Special Reservists were recruited in the previous 12 months. If a similar proportion were recruits in 1913-14 the challenges for the already undermanned Special Reserve would be considerable.

Special Reserve (Infantry) Establishment....................... 63,178

Special Reserve (Infantry) Strength................................48,522

...less

Special Reserve (Infantry) Recruits................................18,487

..leaves

Special Reserve (Infantry) Trained.................................30,035

The point here is that the number of available trained Special Reservists (30,035) would probably be less than half of the Establishment (63,178). Doubtless there will be some that had already passed through training during the year, however as recruiting was ongoing throughout the year and the historical annual data 1902-1911 indicates a similarly high proportion of recruits. I strongly suspect the 1913-14 data will have very similar characteristics in the Special Reserve battalions' proportion of recruits. I hope to have the hard data for 1913-14 very soon which might help to get a more accurate feel of the aggregate data.

MG

[Muerrisch]

HEALTH WARNING ......this analysis comes up with the wrong conclusion, see post 39 for the true figure. I will re-examine my work!

The regular reservists of RWF on 4^th August 1914

This is not about Special Reservists, they are specifically excluded. The methodology may fail to include some relevant factors. The estimates of numbers may be based on false assumptions and in any case are drawn from a variety of sources, almost all secondary. I have necessarily used totals for “the army” to derive percentages, “the army” regulars assumed to be at 228,000 strength. The purpose of posting this work now, without the necessary references, is to invite constructive criticism and to attract further information. Where I can provide references after checking is indicated with an asterisk thus *.

The note attempts to estimate how many Regular Reservists [RR], serving out their Section A and B reserve time after colour service, were available on 4^th August 1914. The Terms of Engagement for these men were either three years’ colour and nine reserve from May 1902 enlistments, nine years’ colour and three years’ reserve from November 1904, and seven years’ colour and five years’ reserve from September 1906.

Additionally, soldiers could opt to join Section D of the Reserve after completing their normal Section B commitment, a further four years at half pay, even after a lapse of three years after leaving Section B, thus extending the potential date of enlistment back to 1895. Section D was not always offered as an option. The literature supports the assumption that the oldest and the longest “out” were rejected by some COs during mobilisation, and were sent to train recruits.

Any soldier who enlisted in the regiment on or after 5^th August 1902 would have a reserve liability and have to serve as required on mobilisation unless:

1. he had died.

2. he had extended his service and was therefore still serving.

3. he failed the medical on reporting for duty.

4. he had deserted [still liable but highly unlikely to present himself although at least two did so].

5. he had bought himself out, beyond the means of most.

6. he had been discharged for a variety of reasons including invalidity and incorrigibly bad character, or was in prison.

7. he had enlisted on or after 5^th August 1907 and was still serving [and could be held to serve an extra year under his Terms].

8. He had been commissioned in the interim

Taking first the main source of RR, the post-August 1902 men, a known regimental number issued in that month was 7199 according to Paul Nixon’s* analysis. Number 11508 was issued on 11^th August 1914 so 11500 is taken as a good estimate for 4^th August. It is necessary to deal here with the complication of the Volunteer Force Service Companies raised by this regiment for the South Africa [boer] War 1899-1902. During that war the Royal Welsh Fusiliers raised three Volunteer Service Companies and, obeying Army Orders, allocated these numbers 1000 ahead of sequence [Paul Nixon]:

1st VSC: numbers within the range 7301 to 7517
2nd VSC: numbers within the range 7343 to 7593
3rd VSC: numbers 8000 to 8039

These are all pre-August 1902 enlistments [for one year obligation only] but are clearly post- that date in the strict numerical sequence. They total 505 men, and the true total may be a little greater or less but no attempt will be made to quantify this. These numbers were not to be re-used.

Thus we have 11508 minus 7199 minus 509 as the likely total of enlistments within twelve years of Declaration of War, which is 3800 men. As war broke out these 3800 men represent the maximum possible strength of serving soldiers plus RR excluding Section D reservists. With a few exceptions, serving soldiers comprised those of the 1^st battalion [1^st RWF] in Malta, the 2^nd battalion [2^nd RWF] at Home, and the regular component of the 3^rd [special Reserve battalion]. For the moment, the assumption will be that none were unfit, untrained, or under-age.

We can estimate the strength of 2^nd RWF as it was the War Establishment minus the number needed to bring it to that figure, 1067 [the battalion completed slightly short of Establishment] minus 489, which is 578 men, including the RSM, before mobilisation. This figure excludes the unfit, under-age, untrained of the battalion who were [under Mobilisation Regulations] to be left with the 3^rd battalion and will be accounted for separately.

A month later 1^st RWF arrived post-haste from Malta where they had been on the Colonial Establishment of 777 men. They are said [Regimental History]* to have needed an additional 342 men for War Establishment, which implies that their actual strength had been 1070 minus 342 or 728 which, if true, is highly creditable and will be accepted in the absence of contrary evidence. A battalion on Colonial duty may be supposed to have very few unfit, no untrained, and very few under-age soldiers [under-age for active service at that time was below 19 years except for drummers, who could be younger].

The regular component of 3^rd RWF should have been 80 men, and I shall assume that this was the case.

Thus those men in uniform on mobilisation comprised 578 plus 728 plus 80, or 1386 men passed fit, trained and eligible for active service. We know from Dunn and other sources that 2^nd RWF had men unfit, untrained and under-age before mobilisation, not included in the above. An attempt will now be made to estimate this number. The annual intake of men into the RWF regular battalions had been running at some 360 per annum since 1881, but 1914 had been an unusually good year so that 435 men signed on between 29^th December 1914 and about 4^th August. Training was officially a six-month syllabus, so that, pro rata, we may say that about 370 men [and boys] were not yet trained, although some might well be very soon.

We now have the following enlisted since 1902 and not passed to the reserve: 1386 deployable, and 370 not deployable, that is 1750 men and boys. The balance of 3800, thus 2050 men, is the maximum possible total of reservists other than some Section D men enlisted between the year 1895 and 1902. Section D was not negligible, indeed Pte. Frank Richards was a D man, and he describes others mobilising, but the numbers are hard to estimate. In any case they were the most likely to be rejected on medical grounds, calculated below, and will assumed to be next to zero to avoid double accounting.

Of these 2050 potential reservists, we can make estimates of some of the factors. Numbers of paragraphs as above.

1. Death rates of soldiers in service averaged over the army as a whole were about 4 or 5 men per 1000* per annum, and the higher figure will be taken for men on the reserve, being older and not necessarily benefiting from regular food, accommodation and medical attention. The regiment averaged 367 men going to the reserve or extending their service in the relevant years. Regardless of their terms, those who left in 1905 were at risk for nine years, in each year about 5/1000 x 367 were likely to die, or 9 x 5/1000 x 367 deaths which is about 16 men. Next year’s leavers could similarly be expected to lose 15 men in the period to 1914, the next to lose 13, then 11, 9, 7, 5, 4 and 2 to the grim reaper. These total 82 men.

2. Extensions of service. The number of soldiers extending service beyond 12 years averaged over the army as a whole ran at about 1 or 2 men per 100*. The RWF was a well-regarded regiment with a demonstrably paternal attitude so the retention is likely to be the higher figure, giving 9 years’ worth of 2/100 x 367 or 8 men every year for 9 years, some 72 men. These would be serving in 1914 and thus not available as reservists. I have ignored deaths in this calculation.

3. Medical rejection. The number of reservists likely to fail the mobilisation medical is difficult to estimate. The incidence of STDs alone among soldiers was about 5%* [having been much higher], and likely to ensure rejection. There is no reason to suppose that reservists had a lower incidence, indeed, those returned recently from overseas may well have had a higher proportion. Rejections of potential recruits for all medical reasons ran at about 20%*: a reservist had already passed this weeding out on enlistment years previously. A figure of over 5% and below 20% seems likely, therefore, and for this exercise 10% will be taken. Paragraphs 1 and 2 above not taken into account, although a dead soldier was clearly not a candidate for medical rejection.

4. Desertion among serving soldiers was about 1.5%*. Whereas reservists were not included in this figure, it is an indication of the number of reservists unlikely to answer the call to active service. I have taken it as such.

5. Other factors diminishing the number of reservists. These included soldiers leaving the colours before the end of colour service by virtue of discharge without further obligation. These discharges were many and various in nature, including “buying out”, incorrigibility, civil imprisonment, and ill-health. Whereas examples of each can be found among the RWF the numbers appear small and statistics are difficult to obtain. Statistics for the army as a whole are difficult to find as these causes tend to be swept up together. Pending more accurate information a figure [all causes] of 10% is assumed, of which ill-health is likely to be the biggest component.

Likely total of available RR.

The starting figure is about 2050 men. Of these, the wastage likely, using the numbered paragraphs above, appears to be:

1. 82 dead

2. 72 extended service.

3. 205 rejected medically.

4. 30 failed to report, a form of desertion.

5,6. 205 discharged or deserted during service.

Total all causes 594 men.

Therefore the number of regular reservists reporting and immediately deployable and not included in the mobilisation totals was likely to be 2050 minus 594, or 1456 men. This agrees very well with the regimental history’s account of 1300 reservists arriving within a few hours of the call to arms, and pouring in during the subsequent days.

555 men, a mixture of regular reservists [the great majority] and special reservists [only 1^st RWF] had left Home for the Base Depots in France [ and eventually the battalions] before the end of September, by which time the regiment had sustained only a handful of war casualties.

All the many errors are probably mine.

Feel free.

HEALTH WARNING ......this analysis comes up with the wrong conclusion, see post 39 for the true figure. I will re-examine my work!

[Guest]

Grumpy - Extremely interesting analysis. The official returns are slightly lower..

Something that might be of use: The official returns for the number of Army Reservists for each Regiment is in WO 114/25 . The figures for the RWF as at 31st Jul 1914 are:

.............Section A.......Section B....Section D......Total...

RWF..........54................914............383..............1,351

This does not make any adjustments for the unfit, sick etc, merely the number of Army Reservists (not SR) theoretically liable for service with this battalion at the end of Jul 1914. MG

P.S. Here is the data. Checked twice against the original returns which I was typing up as you were posting....

Edit. The RWF had the 6th largest number of Army Reservists when measured on a paired battalion basis (i.e adjusting for the RF, Worcestershires, KRRC, Middlesex and Rifle Bde four battalion structure)

[Scalyback]

Just to say thank you Grumpy and Martin G. Enlightening information, trying to get my grey matter around the figures but will get there in the end.

[Muerrisch]

Martin, that's great, what is really surprising is the small number of B men for RWF. This can only be the mortality and sickness rate I think ........ my percentages were meant to be conservative but were clearly too much so.

[Guest]

In a week or so I will have some more data from the relevant returns. There are weekly returns for all Special Reserve battalions which, if added to the data above should provide a high quality database of the highest possible number of Army Reservists plus Special Reservists on a battalion by battalion basis. Clearly some educated guesses such as unfit, etc would then need to be made, but it will be a big step forward.

Your analysis above was very impressive and goes to show that some (very) informed assumptions can get an excellent approximation.

The other thing from the data above is that it is possible to identify the Regiments that had historically been good at recruiting. There is a very large range of numbers of avaialable Army Reservists across the 69 Regiments (adjusted for the 4 battalion Regiments). I mentioned the RWF was the 6th highest in available reservists but interestingly the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) are way down the list. This would not sit well with the idea that they were well recruited in previous years. Similarly the Irish regiments are all lingering at the bottom of the list which might challenge the view that the Irish formed a disproportionate per cent of the British Army's recruiting base. These are tangential to this thread but might generate some interesting side debates.

I also have a return showing 7,967 Army Reservists given "permission" to serve out their reserve obligations overseas in a long list of British Empire outposts. This equated to 5.48% of Army Reservists. Of these, 3,560 were Infantry of the Line, enough to easily fill three battalions, and if the 460 Foot Guards are added, enough to fill a Brigade of 4,000. I thought this was interesting since recently discovering that Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry had been formed from British Army veterans living in Canada. The list shows Canada as the country with the largest number of British Army Reservists living overseas with 3,232 of which 1,485 were Line Infantry.

It is interesting as there are anecdotes of a small number of Reservists coming from abroad, often Canada, and also the fact that a large proportion of the AIF was British by birth (second after Canada on the overseas Reservist list). If Reservists overseas had local options, this again might challenge perceptions that floods of overseas reservists returned. The point being that a significant proportion of this pool of overseas reservists might not have been available to the British Regiments that they originally served with. Incidentally these men are not in the numbers in the table above.

It raises a few questions; Did a man with Army Reservist obligations who had served in the RWF but lived in London have to report to Wrexham, or could he choose to do his Reserve obligations with the Royal Fusiliers for example? Was the man tied to his original Regiment or the last Regiment he served in? Given that there were frequent transfers of men between regiments in the Edwardian Army, it seems to be a distinct possibility that the alleged well recruited Black Watch might have had reservists that did not choose to live in Perthshire on leaving the Army.

It is noticeable that the industrial towns are high on the list of Army Reservists. Does this reflect available manpower for past recruiting or does this reflect where the men settled after serving in the Army? my base assumption is that a man had an obligation to the last regiment he served in, unless given permission to live and serve out his obligations overseas, such as the 20 men who joined the Black Watch in India. Just a thought.

MG

Edit. See image attached.

[Guest]

Martin, that's great, what is really surprising is the small number of B men for RWF. This can only be the mortality and sickness rate I think ........

Grumpy - the RWF had the 5th highest number of Section B men out of 69 Regiments and 38% more than the average. In the great scheme of things the RWF was doing pretty well.

If we look at the split between Sections A, B and D the average split is 5%, 66%, 29% which suggests Section D was quite important in terms of numbers.

Separately I have been reading "The Devil's Carnival" which covers the 1st Bn Northumberland Fusiliers between Aug-Dec 1914. There is some interesting detail on the 621 Army Reservists who were sent to the 1st Battalion. Of these, 201 Army Reservists were sent back from the battalion to the depot because they were not fit enough. This is interesting as the returns show 1,290 1,793 Army Reservists available. If 201 out of 1,290 1,793 were unfit, that would represent 15.5%. Correction: 11.2%. The CO specifically requested the Depot sent and additional 100 Reservists who had most recently left the Regular Army who would replace a further 25 old Reservists weeded out from each of the four companies. Adjusting for a further 100, that would make 301 of 1,290 or 23.3%. 1,793 or 16.7%. Given the Northumberland Fusiliers had the single largest pool of Reservists per battalion, I imagine it would be fairly representative and a figure in this area would be a good proxy.

It seems that the flow of Reservists in the early days was two-way. MG

Edited with correct figures. Prev figs were for Section B only.

Edit. Some more useful big picture stats. Note that the shifts in the combined Army Reservists and Special Reservists of the Infantry of the Line is 125,374.

[Guest]

The "General Annual Reports on The British Army for the Period from 1st October 1913 to 30th September 1919" arrived today. I have extracted some data on the Army Reserves. Please note this is for the whole Army, not the Line Infantry which accounted for 55.9% of the Army Reserves in Oct 1913. The trends and flows in the numbers are nevertheless relevant and the 30th Sep Year End provides a convenient early snapshot of an Army less than four weeks after general mobilisation.

[Muerrisch]

Martin thank you very much ............... my conclusions are more wrong than you suppose because the true values of regular reservists included the unfit ....... whereas mine attempt to remove them before presenting my conclusion.

Woe woe thrice woe!

The true figures are terrifyingly low, even after adding the special reservists, and indicate a degree of irresponsibility in the authorities who knew that [their assumption] 80 to 85% of infantry would need replacing in the first year. That is 85% of 2 x 1100 give or take, which is 1870 men. That is the entire reserve:

RWF........A..54...............B.914............D 383..............= 1,351 plus say 500 special reservists plus say 300 men under training as war broke out. And as you say RWF were better supported than most!

I also have the new NF book ........ very patchy but some gems as you describe.

Post 44 "decrease" does put numbers on the factors such as discharge dead or sick and I will look at those at leisure ....... better than my assumptions because they are up-to- date even if not infantry alone.

[Guest]

Last post of data... from the same source: This is the Special Reserves "Category (a)" which is defined as "..composed of men enlisted direct for service in the Special Reserve". It does not include regular staff or the TF. Note this is ALL the Special Reserve. The Infantry represented 79.0% of this data. MG

[Guest]

The true figures are terrifyingly low, even after adding the special reservists, and indicate a degree of irresponsibility in the authorities who knew that [their assumption] 80 to 85% of infantry would need replacing in the first year. That is 85% of 2 x 1100 give or take, which is 1870 men. That is the entire reserve:

RWF........A..54...............B.914............D 383..............= 1,351 plus say 500 special reservists plus say 300 men under training as war broke out. And as you say RWF were better supported than most!

I suspect Kitchener knew this on 4th August and is why he launched the appeal for another 500,000 (in parliament) and 100,000 in the press. I would suggest he realised immediately that the Regular Army would be destroyed in less than a year (six months maybe) and threw in the TF and the Indian Army Corps simply to buy time. The critical decision was whether to keep high proportions of the regulars back to train the New Armies or risk their destruction, but I think events overwhelmed even his worst expectations. He must have been throwing in every last trained man. I would be interested to see a re-calc with some of the hard data above. I would stress that the RWF had one of the highest pools of reserves. Spare a thought for those battalions with low reserves and high casualties.There has to be an extreme case there somewhere....I suspect the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment is worth a look with the 7th lowest number of available Army Reservists and the second highest number of casualties (271 killed by end of Oct 14 and 443 killed by end Dec). The wounded:killed ratios appear to be 3:1 for this period if the diaries are any guide, rather than the 2:1 for the whole war, perhaps suggestive of the terrible fight they had and a reflection of the overwhelming numerical odds. On 3:1 the Loyals would have easily used up their Reservist by end Oct and seen close to two battalions worth in 'wastage' - a unfortunate word that seems to have been used at the time by the planners. I don't have the Loyal's history but I would be interested if anyone reading this does. War Diary on its way.

On K1 - I have studied the 10th, 11th and 13th Divs in minute details from their actions at Gallipoli (I have transcribed every diary and published history to read in parallel) and the more I understand this part, particularly the paucity of regulars to train the New Armies, the more I realise how badly trained the K1 must have been. The private diaries allude to this, but it is a very unpalatable truth that one of the consequences of an insufficient reserve was the destruction of the Regulars before a New Army could be trained. None of the New Army divisional or battalion histories really acknowledges this. Just a tangential thought MG

I have rebuilt the casualty stats month by month of the BEF battalions for 1914 (thanks to Geoff and his excellent search Engine). Kitchener must have been having a crisis of confidence in Nov 1914.

[ulsterlad2]

Martin. I think perhaps the Royal Irish Rifles is another example of a regiment having a lower number of Army Reservists and how quickly they were used.

In Falls' "History of the Seven Battalions..." he states that on the 26th August the 3rd Bn sent out a draft consisting of 2/Lt Magennis and 42 rank & file of the Army Reserve and 2 Sergeants and 49 rank & file of the Special Reserve which joined the 2nd Bn in France as its second reinforcement. The War Diary records them as arriving on 7th September.

Pal Jimmy Taylor's "The 2nd RIR..." says that the 2/Lt Magennis actually arrived with 60 men.

The thing that struck me was, even taking into account that only 2/3s of the draft arrived, at the very least 30% of them had to be Special Reservists. I was actually quite surprised to see SR men going to the front so soon. Was this a normal occurance or is it perhaps an indicator of the regiment having one of the lower number of AR men?

Using the ratio 3:1. According to SDGW the 2nd Bn Royal Irish Rifles lost 267 (all causes) men to end October. Add to that 800 wounded it appears that there was cause for their reserves being used up at a very quick rate.

Don't know if this adds anything but again from Falls, the number of men sent from the Reserve and Extra Reserve RIR Battalions

1914: 3rd 1098. 4th 153. 5th 380

1915: 3rd 2469. 4th 577. 5th 582

1916: 3rd 1878. 4th 439. 5th 569

1917: 3rd 1243. 4th 561. 5th 206

1918: 3rd 1381. 4th 458. 5th 197

Totals .... 8069 ... 2188 ..... 1934

[Guest]

Ulsterlad2

Thanks for highlighting the experiences of the Royal Irish Rifles. The mix of Army Reservists and Special Reservists is particularly interesting. I have the history but can't find the quote...which page is it on?

Whilst scanning the pages I noticed that the 1st battalion arrived from Aden with 19 Officers and 990 men on 22nd October in Liverpool yet still received 200 reservists from the 3rd battalion, which is consistent with other returning overseas battalions. these would mostly be trained men under the age of 19 sent back to the Depot and then redeployed with the Reserve battalions. A footnote on page 22 states that the "Casualties of the 1st Battalion to end 1914 were Captain B Allgood killed and 102 casualties in other ranks, four fifths wounded" which seems to corroborate the high wounded:killed ratio for this period. Using the numbers in Appendix IV that you quoted above showing 1,631 reinforcements sent out in 1914, assuming the 1st Battalions' casualties were made good, would imply the second battalion took 1,529 reinforcements before the end of 1914.

On the 2nd battalion I see on page 10 it refers to the first reinforcement arriving on 5th Sep 1914 and on page 12 it refers to the arrival of 2nd Lt Magennis and the second reinforcement on the 7th September, but does not mention the numbers. I suspect all 93 arrived over these three days. Interestingly one sees reinforcement drafts of multiples of one officer and 93 ORs in a number of diaries and histories (I think this equates to 10% of the Companies' combined rifle strength), so there is a possibly this draft started as a 1 officer and 93 ORs (mixed AR and SR) but managed in the chaos to get split into two ....just a thought

The history makes no mention of further reinforcements for the 2nd Bn until November which seems possible but unlikely. I note on page 23 that the history states that on the 5th Nov "the fighting strength of the [2nd] Battlion was about 250" and the following day there were 18 casualties and after an attack by the Prussian Guard astride the Menin Road, the battalion was reduced to "no more than 130 all ranks in the line". After the actions of the 16th the battalion was "exactly 40 strong". On 21st Nov 1914 its received a draft of three officers and 463 ORs and the following month another draft of "nearly 350". Added to the August draft of 93 that would make at least 906 ORs.... Which is still 623 short of the total number of reinforcements sent out. Presumably these were absorbed between the last recorded date and the end of Dec, or the history missed a draft in October. Either way, the numbers are tragically high.

The official returns show that the Royal Irish Rifles had 912 Army Reservists in July 1914, and the returns for the Special Reserve and Extra Reserve battalions for 22nd August show 1,973 trained men on the books. This is after the 2nd Bn had taken in Reservists, so I think it reasonable to assume the total pool of trained reservists was 1,973. From the numbers above, 1,973 less 1,631 leaves only 342 men. This calculation makes no reduction for unfit men or men returned to the SR battalion as being too young.

We know the 1st battalion returned roughly 200 men under age or unfit as they received a draft of this size despite being nominally at full strength .... The 2nd Bn Effective strength on 31st Jul 1914 was 614 Rank and File, implying it needed at least 183 men to come up to War Establishment before any unfit or underage men were weeded out. So I think if we also take out an additional 20% equivalent* of under aged men of the 2nd Bn men returned to the SR battalion, one can easily see that the residual trained men would quite likely have all been under aged or unfit. The bottom of the barrel. Put simply, if both the 1st Bn and 2nd Bn had 200 men each as under age (less than 19 years old) this would make 400 trained but under-age men and a number in excess of the calculated residual trained men in the SR and ER battalions of 342. Again this assumes there was no wastage in these men and all reservists were fit, which is extremely unlikely. MG

* Typical numbers from other regimental histories and diaries.

Edit: Note the Royal Irish Rifles had the 3rd Special Reserve Battalion and the 4th Extra Reserve Battalion and 5th Extra Reserve Battalion.

Edit 2: According to SDGW the 2nd battalion suffered 343 killed between Aug-Dec 1914. a non-fatal casualty : killed ratio of 3:1 would imply 1,372 total casualties, which is in a similar order of magnitude as the implied number of reinforcements of 1,529....157 short in fact.

More disturbingly the implied non-fatal casualty: killed ratio well over 4 : 1 which is exceptionally high by any standard of the Great War.

Edited: substituted "non fatal casualty" for wounded in order to capture the reality of POWs WIA and non-battle casualties. and edited for small errors in the calcs.

[ulsterlad2]

Martin.

Many thanks for taking the time to respond with this very detailed reply.

The quote about 2Lt Magennis and the 42 AR and 49 SR reinforcement draft is on paper page 87 but pdf page 75. Hope that makes sense. I'm using the electronic version of Falls' book.

I see on page 1 (pdf 7) that on the 6th August that the 3rd Bn sent 224 men to the 2nd Bn at Tidworth.

Pages 36 - 37 of Jimmy Taylor's book "The 2nd" mentions the reinforcements: First (150 men from St Nazaire 5th Sep) and second (60 men under 2Lt Magennis 7th Sep).

[Graham Stewart]

Just to add fuel to the fire and although not directly related to the Special Reserve, as early as 16th January 1915, This ACI came into being in an effort to get T.F. personnel to transfer to the Regular Reserve Bn's.