BEF 1914. Marksmanship, Musketry and the Mad Minute

[David Filsell]

Not sure of the relevance of the 7th Inf Div comment. Reservist numbers may have been somewhat higher than some, but certainly not all of the original 6 divisions. That said account after account of the formation regularly and incorrectly said that 7th Div contained no Or few reservists. Strangely, and incorrectly Peter Hart repeats this error in Fire and Movement., his new and otherwise sound about 1914.

Whatever the level of reserves it does not seem to have affected performance of the formation in action, despite the persistence of the divisional commander to deploy on forward slopes both by design and because of circumstances. On thing that the reservists were able to do was to undertake long marches without suffering the problems of the first six divisions because of the amount of route marching dictated by Thompson Cappers whilst the division formed up.

[Terry_Reeves]

I note from Grumpy's post that there war no "mad minute" in musketry training pamphlets, which is fair enough. I may be wrong, but was 15 rounds a minute the standard rate of fire i.e. one aimed round every four seconds? If it was, then was this was cyclical rate of fire, i.e. not taking into account the magazine reload. If it was a cyclical rate, then the actual rate of fire must have been a little slower.

Just out of interest, what was the training speed of the rapid fire rate.?

TR

[Muerrisch]

Terry. The mad minute first appears MR 1909.

It started as target appeared. Man allowed one up spout four in mag. Thereafter reloads from pouch or bandolier so two reloads necessary. Time allowed one minute.

[Guest]

This is part of an article from 1923, but I don't suppose much different from 1914?

Dundee Evening Telegraph - Wednesday 23 May 1923

To Simulate Active Service

" A 'battlefield shot' is defined as one who has a capacity for accurate shooting. This in the case of the Short Magazine Lee Enfield (and this rifle will, for the first time, be exclusively used at the Bisley meeting) should approximate to a 4-inch grouping standard per hundred yards. The marksman must be able effectively to deal with an animated target and to fire approximately fifteen rounds per minute with no reduction of accuracy. The fourth requirement is a capacity for fire with movement-quick, accurate shooting before and after movement. "

Mike

[Muerrisch]

Figure of Merit.

Whereas this refers to the weapon not the rifleman in 1909, and also 1905, it has a different meaning in 1898, which may interest the thread.

MR 1898. The weapon is the magazine Lee-Metford Mk II. Tables A and B retain their meanings as previously understood. Table B for trained men differs in that 200 rounds are allowed, loading is round by round rather than magazine fire, volleys standing and kneeling are included, there is no separate Classification section, and shots are classified Marksman, 2nd class and 3rd class only.

The figure of merit of a company is derived by a complicated formula which I frankly do not yet understand. Practices are "individual" or "collective [sections]". The figure of merit of "individual" x = total points of individuals/number of individuals. The figure for "collective" y = percentage of hits to rounds allotted. To then calculate for a company, sum the values of x for the company and divide by sum of the values of y.

How this esoteric calculation was performed in 1914 I really have no idea. Looking at 1914 results, the perfect score might be seen to converge on 100, but how?

Although I have the earlier editions of MR, there seems little point in back-tracking further.

Edit. see also # 179 below

[Muerrisch]

Not sure of the relevance of the 7th Inf Div comment. Reservist numbers may have been somewhat higher than some, but certainly not all of the original 6 divisions. That said account after account of the formation regularly and incorrectly said that 7th Div contained no Or few reservists. Strangely, and incorrectly Peter Hart repeats this error in Fire and Movement., his new and otherwise sound about 1914.

Whatever the level of reserves it does not seem to have affected performance of the formation in action, despite the persistence of the divisional commander to deploy on forward slopes both by design and because of circumstances. On thing that the reservists were able to do was to undertake long marches without suffering the problems of the first six divisions because of the amount of route marching dictated by Thompson Cappers whilst the division formed up.

The reservists of the later divisions were without doubt the undesirable reservists who were not taken up by the early deployments. First come first served. The people most competent to judge the quality of reservists [the COs] did the judging, took Section A and B men, and left Section D, the SR, and the re-enlistments for the later units. Not all reservists were equal.

[Guest]

Ref Reservists and 7th Div. The peace establishment of these battalions varied as they came from a number of pre-war station both at Home and Overseas. As one example the 2nd Bn The Queen's Royal West Surrey Regt (22nd Inf Bde) took in 253 Reservists in the days following its arrival in England from Pretoria, South Africa. This is around 40% of the number of reservists required for mobilising the Home based battalions that formed the 1st-6th Divs of the BEF. The reasons are two fold: firstly, Overseas battalions' peace establishments were in the 840-940 range (depending on location) while Home based peace establishments were 720. The second reason is that Overseas based battalions were kept at establishment or very close to it. Both Overseas and Home based battalions needed to come up to War Establishment. It follows that the Home based battalions, starting from a lower base needed significantly more Reservists than Overseas based battalions.

The Monthly returns are available for each battalion of the British Army and it is therefore possible to calculate the exact number of men required by each battalion to come up to War Establishment. 8 of the 12 battalions in 7th Div were based Overseas (Gib (1), Egypt (1), South Africa (2) and Malta (4) - the others were London, Warley, Pembroke Dock and Guernsey) so it is almost impossible for any of these 8 battalions to have required more Reservists than any of the battalions that formed the 1st-6th Divs.

I have the data somewhere and will dig it up, but on average Home based battalions required around 590 Reservist to come up to War Establishment and Overseas based battalions requited around 250 (see Queen's example above)

Clearly the 4 Home based battalions will drag the average number upwards, but I am quite sure there were fewer Reservists in the 7th Div than the 1st-6th Divs on deployment. As casualties mounted, more reservists would arrive and the tilt towards Section D men will increase the number of Boer War veterans, but it is worth remembering that all these battalions had their sister battalions in theatre drawing on the same limited number of Reservists.

Separately, there are very detailed tables of the split of Section A, B and D men for each infantry Regiment. For quite complex reasons the number of Reservists and the proportion of Section D men varied considerably. The window for Section D was not always open, which further complicated things. At the extremes 45% of the R Warwickshires Regt's Reservists were Section D men, compared to only 15% of the Border Regiment's.

The draw-down of reinforcements (including Section D men) during Ypres would have been most pronounced in the 1st and 3rd Divs as they had already been in threatre for a month and seen casualties, and they also saw higher casualties than 7th Div in Oct-Nov 1914

MG

Edit. The return for Aug 1914 below shows the peace establishments and actual strengths for battalions. The example of the Queen's is highlighted. The Home based battalion was at 87.2% of peace etsablishment of 740 and the overseas battalion was at 99.9%. The additional factor would be that the Home based battalion would have significantly higher proportions of men under 19 who would be ineligible for active service.This was a significant factor.

[4thGordons]

Figure of Merit.

Whereas this refers to the weapon not the rifleman in 1909, and also 1905, it has a different meaning in 1898, which may interest the thread.

MR 1898. The weapon is the magazine Lee-Metford Mk II. Tables A and B retain their meanings as previously understood. Table B for trained men differs in that 200 rounds are allowed, loading is round by round rather than magazine fire, volleys standing and kneeling are included, there is no separate Classification section, and shots are classified Marksman, 2nd class and 3rd class only.

Just by way of technical information:

The Lee-Metford MkII was officially approved on April 12 1893. The main change from the MkI was that it had a 10rnd magazine, the earlier Lee-Metford MkI/MkI* had an 8rnd Magazine. As the drills were to be conducted with single round loading this may not be relevant.

The rear sight bed is marked from 200-500yards, the leaf (if the rear sight is elevated) is marked up to 1800yards in 100yard increments (with short lines indicating 50 yard intervals) and the volley sight (on the left side of the rifle) is marked from 1600 to 2800yards.

The Metfords did not have the capacity to load from chargers (although some were converted to CLLM after 1907) and ammunition was not issued in charger clips at this point but loose (in brown paper packages) This is reflected in the difference (for example) between Boer War vintage bandoliers which hold single rounds, and P1903 Bandoliers or P1908 Web pouches which are designed to hold rounds in chargers of 5.

Just one other note viz accuracy - the sights on these rifles were not windage (left/right) adjustable - on the SMLE MkI and MkIII, they were (although the adjustable rear-site was done away with on later wartime production MkIII* rifles).

In about 1910 a new "High Velocity" round (the MkVII with a spitzer(pointed) bullet was introduced, which meant the sights had to be recalibrated. This was to be the standard round of the Great War however the MkVI (round nosed bullet) ammunition was produced in the UK until about 1912 and obviously large stocks were on hand at the outbreak of the war. Using Mk VII rounds in a rifle set up for MkVI (and vice versa) would have an adverse effect upon both accuracy and reliability of feeding.

Chris

[Muerrisch]

Martin, I don't doubt your figures for the take -up of reservists by 7 Div, but the men were clearly those who were left after the Home sister battalions gobbled up not only the majority [by your figures] of regular reservists available, but also the more desirable ones.

I cannot think that you believe "never mind the quality, feel the width" applies?

As a separate issue, are we not startled at first blush by the "up to Establishment" overseas units needing 250 reservists? These units officially had no under age soldiers except drummers etc, no untrained [by definition] so they seem to have had a vast proportion of unfit old sweats swilling beer, bashing natives and whoring in the Outposts of Empire.

[Guest]

Martin, I don't doubt your figures for the take -up of reservists by 7 Div, but the men were clearly those who were left after the Home sister battalions gobbled up not only the majority [by your figures] of regular reservists available, but also the more desirable ones.

I cannot think that you believe "never mind the quality, feel the width" applies?

As a separate issue, are we not startled at first blush by the "up to Establishment" overseas units needing 250 reservists? These units officially had no under age soldiers except drummers etc, no untrained [by definition] so they seem to have had a vast proportion of unfit old sweats swilling beer, bashing natives and whoring in the Outposts of Empire.

Grumpy - I was responding to the point on the number of Reservists rather than the quality. I would agree in principal on the order of draw-down with Section D being the least desirable of the Army Reservists.. It becomes more complex when two (or more) battalions are involved from the same Regiment as there is at least one example of Section A & B men being held back to bring the Overseas battalion to War Establishment, meaning the Home based battalion did not have the complete pick of the crop. I think it was the Queen's. I will revert with the evidence. It surprised me.

I would agree that Section D men would be close to the bottom of the pile. For an Overseas battalion in 7th Div, clearly they would have been at the end of the queue and likely had received a higher proportion of Section D men...but overall a lower number of Reservist for Mobilisation.

It is semantics. If the Black Watch is to be believed every trained man as in F&F by mid October. They were not particularly flush with reservists and if this is any indication it suggests the draw-down was rapid. The recent work on the 2 RSR corroborates this. Anyone wanting to dig into this simply needs to download the 1914 and 1914-15 Star medal rolls for any line regiments and look at the distribution of disembarkation dates for men against the distribution of Army Numbers.

On your last point, War Establishment needed 100 95 men for the 1st reinforcements, - total War Establishment around 1,100 1,084 ORs (Some overseas garrisons were 840 904 peace establishment (the non-Indian stations such as Malta, Gib, South Africa - the very places where 7th Div Battalions came from) so 250 does not surprise me at all (Edited: Calc:: 1,084-904 = 180) in fact we should expect it. As you know there would always be a number of unfits too. Edit and COs took the opportunity to swap out the least fit with some Reservists. MG

Edited for ORs rather than R&F and exact rather than approximate War Establishment for ORs

[Muerrisch]

Martin your figures are in error a little regarding my one firm example.

Malta establishment was 904 O.R. 1st RWF were at 877 on return to UK Sep 1914. They actually needed 342 men to complete to WE of 1070, almost double the theoretical top-up figure. This implies 149 unfits. Were they atypical?.

[Guest]

Martin your figures are in error a little regarding my one firm example.

Malta establishment was 904 O.R. 1st RWF were at 877 on return to UK Sep 1914. They actually needed 342 men to complete to WE of 1070, almost double the theoretical top-up figure. This implies 149 unfits. Were they atypical?.

Apologies - I gave R&F rather than ORs. will amend. Regardless the arguments remain that Overseas battalions required fewer Reservists. MG

The calcs are about 70 adrift of theory, but we know COs took the opportunity to replace less fit/desirable serving men with Reservists. Prev post amended. MG

[David Filsell]

Interesting points, although I regard undesirable as an intemperate and I'll chosen comment . Quite a number number of those who went to the division for instance were returnees from Canada who arrived swiftly in the Uk but late. And certainly from from my research on 7th Div the battalions of 7 the Division served and died as 'well' as those of the better quality reservists and regulars in the battalions of the first two divisions - which by October would have absorbed ''undesirables' themselves. Martin's point about the lower percentage of reservists is almost certainly correct. I will try to check the figures that I have.

[Guest]

Interesting points, although I regard undesirable as an intemperate and I'll chosen comment . Quite a number number of those who went to the division for instance were returnees from Canada who arrived swiftly in the Uk but late. And certainly from from my research on 7th Div the battalions of 7 the Division served and died as 'well' as those of the better quality reservists and regulars in the battalions of the first two divisions - which by October would have absorbed ''undesirables' themselves. Martin's point about the lower percentage of reservists is almost certainly correct. I will try to check the figures that I have.

There is very strong evidence of COs returning hundreds of Reservists and specifically asking for Reservists who had most recently left the Regiment. Some snippets.

Northumberland Fusiliers,

11th Aug 1914. 100 NCOs and men arrived from depot to replace unsuitable reservists.

90 NCOs and men who were considered unsuitable left for depot.

East Surrey Regt:

6th Aug 1914. 2nd Day of Mobilization. 402 Reservists arrived from Depot about 4:00 pm. Posted to Coys and instructed in fitting equipment and Line Discipline at one began. About half these men had left the Colours as long as 6 and 8 years, many having only done 3 years with the Colours. Programme for the day completed.

7th Aug 1914. 3rd Day of Mobilization. 242 Reservists arrived from Depot about 6:00 am. Most of these men having left the Colours more recently were better trained and as far as possible replaced the 3 years men posted to Coys the previous day.

8th Aug 1914. 4th Day of Mobilization. 50 Reservists arrived from Depot about 10:00 am. These men had only recently left the Colours and with the inclusion of them enabled the Battalion to mobilize with but few 3 years men in the ranks.

The 1st Reinforcements however which were formed today under Capt J K T WHISH with 99 other ranks were chiefly composed of these men.

Ref Canada - do you have figures?. There were only 1,727 Infantry reservists serving out their Reserve obligations in Canada (they needed permission) in total which equates to around 24 men per regiment [source: WO 114]

[Guest]

Evidence of Overseas Battalion being allocated Reservists prior to the Home based battalion; From the war diary of the 1st Bn Queen's Royal West Surrey (Home based) commenting on 2nd Bn (my underlining)

"...the first draft after 31st October which joined us on the 9th November was a good one, consisting of reservists almost entirely. After that we fell off sadly in quality as well as quantity. The 2nd Battalion was also short of personnel and was filled up prior to the 1st Battalion owing to the latter being in Corps troops.

It was only in January 1915 that a C Company could be formed from a draft which joined the Battalion at Hinges. D Company was formed about February 1915. The men who joined us in January-February were very untrianed and any sprikiling of trained NCOs and men amongst them were mostly medically unfit.

I remember one dratf in particular which joined us at Chocques in March 1915 and 75 per cent of whom were returned to the Base within a week as medically unfit. I should say that the majority of our drafts after 1st December were only partially trained.

I think this was rare, as the key factor was that the 1st Bn was originally designated as Corps troops. MG

Source: Correspondence with OH.

[David Filsell]

Martin

No precise details. Will post on reservists tomorrow from my 7th div research from my account of the Division forming up at lyndhurst.

Davis

[Muerrisch]

Interesting points, although I regard undesirable as an intemperate and I'll chosen comment . Quite a number number of those who went to the division for instance were returnees from Canada who arrived swiftly in the Uk but late. And certainly from from my research on 7th Div the battalions of 7 the Division served and died as 'well' as those of the better quality reservists and regulars in the battalions of the first two divisions - which by October would have absorbed ''undesirables' themselves. Martin's point about the lower percentage of reservists is almost certainly correct. I will try to check the figures that I have.

I regard the criticism

of the use of "undesirable" as rather over the top. Intemperate it was not.

On checking the word "undesirable" with any number of on-line dictionaries and the odd Thesaurus, I find that some but not all of the modern meanings fit precisely what I was trying to say. These are the meanings, including "unsuitable" as per NF, that I wish to be understood.

I do not want a rush of 7 Div-defending blood to the head of Mr Filsell spoiling a good thread so will, if he is willing, draw a line under the matter.

[phil andrade]

The word " undesirable " is to be abandoned, then.

Good.

Let's stick to " unfit old sweats swilling beer, bashing natives and whoring in the Outposts of empire."

How I wish I had used that !

Phil (PJA)

[nigelfe]

Field Service Pocket Book 1914 (an official WO Publication) gives the following WE:

Brit Inf Bn - 30 Offrs & 977 ORs

Brit Inf Bn in India - 28 Offrs & 810 ORs

The other issue that can cause a bit of numerical confusion in 1914 is the change in battalion organisation from 8 small coys to 4 large ones and various dates the change was made.

[Stoppage Drill]

Figure of Merit.

Whereas this refers to the weapon not the rifleman in 1909, and also 1905, it has a different meaning in 1898, which may interest the thread.

The figure of merit of a company is derived by a complicated formula which I frankly do not yet understand. Practices are "individual" or "collective [sections]". The figure of merit of "individual" x = total points of individuals/number of individuals. The figure for "collective" y = percentage of hits to rounds allotted. To then calculate for a company, sum the values of x for the company and divide by sum of the values of y.

How this esoteric calculation was performed in 1914 I really have no idea. Looking at 1914 results, the perfect score might be seen to converge on 100, but how?

Although I have the earlier editions of MR, there seems little point in back-tracking further.

Establish mean point of impact by measuring vertical and horizontal divergence of each shot from a fixed datum point (usually intersection of axes drawn from leftmost shot and lowest shot). Add together, divide by two, divide by number of shots. This now gives MPI.

Now measure radial distance of each shot from MPI and calculate average. FoM.

It's a means of expressing grouping consistency, and can be used as a measure of the rifleman, or cumulatively the riflemen, the rifle, or the ammunition batch depending on the way the test is conducted.

You're right about apparently complicated calculations though - my course notes from Shrivenham (whence I checked this information) show formulae with sigmas and exponents and God knows what.

KISS - Keep it simple, Stupid.

[Guest]

Field Service Pocket Book 1914 (an official WO Publication) gives the following WE:

Brit Inf Bn - 30 Offrs & 977 ORs

Brit Inf Bn in India - 28 Offrs & 810 ORs

The other issue that can cause a bit of numerical confusion in 1914 is the change in battalion organisation from 8 small coys to 4 large ones and various dates the change was made.

Nigel, the Peace Establishments in India, South Africa, and the UK were all different from each other and all lower than War Establishment. For understandable reasons the Home based units had the lowest Peace Establishments and in every single case the reported Strength of these battalions were lower than Peace Establishment, particularly for Home based battalions. The 2nd Bn Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders (Fort George) had just 533 ORs in Aug 1914 compared to 995 ORs with the 1st Bn in Dinapore, Bengal. On mobilisation the 2nd Bn battalions took in 700 Reservists to make numbers up to War Establishment, suggesting replacement of serving men.

All three types of Peace Establishment were below War Establishment which included a 1st Reinforcement.

Grumpy has addressed War Establishment before in another thread. Also worth noting that the number of Officers was reduced by 3 in early Aug 1914, although by the time the 7th Div deployed this appears to have been largely abandoned. The other big swing factor is that fully trained and effective ORs under the age of 19 were barred from active service. From the small amount of analysis I have done so far it seems distinctly possible that in early November this may well have been relaxed as the number of young soldiers with Army Numbers dating from 1914 started to increase sharply in the reinforcement drafts.

For complex historical reasons the number of available Reservists (Army Reservists and Special Reservist) varied greatly across Regiments. The Regiments with the highest number of Reservists per paired-battalion were those that had been four-battalion structures reduced to two-battalion structures. The reduction left them with a surplus of Army Reservists. Some of these Regiments had double the number of Reservists of other Regiments.

The ebb and flow of reinforcements (and Section D men) varied greatly across Regiments and was subject to many factors. Without scrutinising scores of medal rolls I think it would be impossible to state exactly when the bulk of Section D (and by extension South African veterans) arrived in each Battalion.. I have done this analysis for the Royal Sussex Regiment and aside from a very small number of serving men with Boer War service, the vast majority of Section D men started filtering through in mid Sep 1914 when they made up 81% of the 4th Reinforcement draft. By early Nov 1914 they were only 16% of the 6th Reinforcement draft - see post #78

Separately, the monthly returns also show in minute detail the number of serving men who had more than 12 years service. The numbers are very small. In the 2nd Bn Royal Sussex only 36 men had served more than 11 years.

MG

[David Filsell]

Line drawn. Thank you.

This piece was written some ten years ago and may well be subject to some correction and addition

RESERVISTS IN THE RANKS

On embarkation the 7^th Infantry Division's strength was 17,948 officers and men, 231 less than the War Establishment strength of each of the six original divisions of the B.E.F[ii]. The popular contemporary view, which quite inaccurately has been repeated many times subsequently, was that “no single infantry division has ever been composed of more splendid fighting men”, and that the division “took the field with comparatively few additions to its ordinary strength”. To underline division's competence, an unnamed, but “distinguished” military authority, is cited stating that the addition of reservists reduced the fighting ability of a unit by some 25 per cent[iii].

Over the years the belief that since most of the units had returned from overseas service they needed few reservists to bring them up to strength, has been supplemented by the statement that there were no reservists in the division[iv]. It certainly contained a lower proportion than its predecessors and most units from overseas contained a large establishment of fully trained men over the age of 19. The War Establishment of an infantry battalion was 31 officers and 1,013 other ranks. Some battalions of 7^th Infantry Division embarked with rather fewer.[v] Typical were the Queens with 30 officers and 988 other ranks[vi]; the Scots Guards 31 officers and 972 men[vii] and the South Staffordshire Regiment which was two officers short of establishment.[viii] Most battalions had only been able to complete establishments with reservists. The 20^th Infantry Brigade's UK based Grenadier Guards contained nearly two thirds reservists, over 600 men; the battalion had provided drafts when the 2nd battalion joined the B.E.F[ix]. Of the 1,222 Scots Guardsmen under canvas, some 748 were reservists. 2nd Border Regiment provides the best documented set of figures. Before leaving regimental depot, Pembroke Dock, on August 27^th, 603 reservists had reported for duty. The battalion arrived at Lyndhurst on September 5th with 27 officers, 1,068 other ranks where a further draft of 62 reservists arrived later. The battalion embarked 27 officers, a warrant officer, 16 drummers and 910 rank and file; the 665 reservists represented 58 per cent of the battalion’s strength.[x]

In 22^nd Infantry Brigade's three battalions had reported at Lyndhurst considerably below War Establishment. The Royal Welch Fusiliers, which arrived from Malta with 850 other ranks[xi] needed some 250 men (39 per cent) to bring it up to strength (allowing for a first reinforcement of 100). The Royal Warwickshires returned with 874 troops, requiring 226 (25 per cent) to complete establishment[xii]. The Queens, who claimed to have returned at “full strength” from South Africa with 28 officers and 954 other ranks received a draft of 253 men from its 3rd Battalion, “some of whom were serving soldiers, but mostly reservists”.[xiii]

A considerable number of officers were also reservists. At Lyndhurst the Grenadier Guards received five from the Special Reserve of Officers, the Bedfordshire Regiment four and the Wiltshire Regiment three.[xiv] Another six joined the Royal Welch Fusiliers[xv], the same number went to the Staffordshire Regiment[xvi], and three were posted to the Queens[xvii] Other units were similarly affected. Number 5 Field Company Royal Engineers returned from South Africa with four officers and 150 other ranks, requiring two officers and 62 rank and file to reach strength.[xviii] The Divisional Train received reserve officers and the piecemeal arrival of other ranks to the unit and to the Field Ambulances, implies that a considerable number of reservists, and even recruits joined their strengths.[xix] The overall proportion of reservists in 7^th infantry division may have been as high as 25 m- 30 percent, considerably fewer than the estimated figure of over 50 per cent who embarked for France the first six divisions of the B.E.F.

. Edmonds, op cit.

[ii]. Becke, op cit

[iii]. Corbett-Smith (Major A), The Marne and After", London, Cassell and Company Ltd, 1917.

[iv]. Ascoli (David), The Mons Star, London, Harrap Ltd. 1981.

Carew, (Tim) Wipers, London, Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London, 1974.

The accuracy of parts of Carew’s work is of concern and I have used his book with very considerable care. Not least, he appears to quote what are presented as verbatim conversations quotations which appear to come from the script of a BBC radio dramatization of the battle. I have been unable to locate any relevant primary sources from which the material was drawn and the book contains no bibliography, nor sources.

[v]. Atkinson, op cit

[vi]. Wylly (Queens), op cit

[vii]. Ewart, Petre and Lowther, op cit

[viii]. Jones, op cit

[ix]. CAB 45/140

[x]. Wylly (Colonel H.C., C.B., The Border Regiment in the Great War, Aldershot, Gale and Polden. Hereafter Wylly (Gordons).

[xi]. Dudley Ward, (Major C.H., D.S.O., M.C.) Regimental Records of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, (23^rd Foot), Vol. 111, France and Flanders 1914-1918, London, Foster Groom & Co Ltd, 1928.

[xii]. WO 106.17.871

[xiii]. Wylly, (Queens), op cit

[xiv]. Atkinson, op cit

[xv]. Analysis of officer drafts prepared by the author.

[xvi]. Jones, op cit

[xvii]. Wylly, (Queens), op cit

[xviii]. Atkinson, op cit

[xix]. WO95/1649, various entries.

[Guest]

Army Reservists available to each Regiment (per paired battalion) end July 1914. Note the Northumberland Fusiliers had over two-and-a-half times as many Army Reservists as the Connaught Rangers. The Royal Warwickshire Regt had over four times as many Section D men as the Border Regiment. All these Regiments were serving two battalions, so the theoretical amount of individual South African experience would have varied enormously across Regiments.

As mentioned before, I think the South Africa angle is a red herring. I have posted the data simply to eliminate speculation on numbers etc. I think that the South Africa experience was more efficiently transferred via revised training standards such as the new musketry regulations. Clearly the individual experience counted for something, but I believe the training was more important as it raised standards and set uniform benchmarks for the whole Army. . MG

[Guest]

RESERVISTS IN THE RANKS

On embarkation the 7^th Infantry Division's strength was 17,948 officers and men, 231 less than the War Establishment strength of each of the six original divisions of the B.E.F[ii]. The popular contemporary view, which quite inaccurately has been repeated many times subsequently, was that “no single infantry division has ever been composed of more splendid fighting men”, and that the division “took the field with comparatively few additions to its ordinary strength”. To underline division's competence, an unnamed, but “distinguished” military authority, is cited stating that the addition of reservists reduced the fighting ability of a unit by some 25 per cent[iii].

David - Thank you for this detailed analysis. It is largely consistent with some research I have done, much of which used the same sources (unsurprisngly). What is the source of the two quotes in the opening paragraph?

Ascoli's comments are interesting and I think partly inaccurate as far as the Line infantry is concerned.

I note on page 108 of Atkinson's "The Seventh Division" he also states that the Division "...contained...not many Reservists". If 1 in 4 men were Reservists, this sounds very slightly misleading. If one is to add the reinforcement drafts the proportion of Reservists would of course increase too. MG

[David Filsell]

Sadly I am not at all sure now. This is old work for my the uncompleted work on 7th Inf Div. - it didn't occur to me to reference them as I was disputing them. I will see if I can check them out. They are pukka - after all I put them in quotes!

Ascoli - like Peter Hart in Fire and Movement - did not check it out carefully enough, and Pete now admits it. The interesting account is Carew's. Both of his books on the BEF are riddled with errors, and although they contain some interesting accounts I just don't trust them.

Glad we are largely in accord.