How big was the British army at its peak?

[John_Hartley]

Wikipedia quotes a figure of 4 million in 1918. Does that sound about right?

[Guest]

It depends on how you define it. British Army or British Empire? i.e are you includind the Colonies and Dominions and the India Army etc....

[IPT]

For the Western Front, the LLT has a figure of 1,850, 967 as of 1/1/1918 which includes 274,150 dominion troops. - http://www.1914-1918.net/manpower.htm

It then has;

From 21 March to 31 August 1918 another 544000 troops were sent to France, of which 419000 were A-grade fighting troops. This does not include another 100000 who came through movement of Divisions from Italy and the reduction in force of Divisions in Egypt, Palestine and Salonika.

There are also peak strength figures for each theatre here - http://www.1914-1918.net/faq.htm

[John_Hartley]

So, taking the LLT figure of 1.8 million, plus the 544k added in 1918, that's around 2.4 million in France & Belgium. Then taking the LLT figures for the other active theatres at around another 1.4 million, we don't seem too far short of Wiki's 4 million.

[Guest]

The total numbers served and the peak numbers in any month are completely different for the simple fact that men served over 5 years. The accumulated numbers of total served is a contentious issue as the Govt didn't keep sufficiently accurate stats before Nov 1916. From this date onwards the bean counters managed to tabulate the numbers. The 'Peak' or the highest numbers serving in any month happened in March 1918 (see below).

British..............................3,858,750

Colonial..............................504,746

Indian Native......................558,655

African Native.......................20,762

Egyptian.................................9,273

Volunteers (India)................25,918

Local Forces....................... 4,150

Natives other than troops...577,319

Grand Total......................5,559,573

Source: Statistics 1914-1920 page 35 Table (ii) Estimated Strength of the Forces at Home and Abroad etc... since Nov 1916

[Ron Clifton]

One of the reasons that the peak figure was reached in March 1918 was the formation of the RAF on 1 April, amounting to about 150,000.

The total of c. 5.6 million is for the whole Army, including Dominion and Indian forces and native labour. It seems not to include local forces in the dominions and colonies, but it does include the Indian Army in India.

Ron