Guest Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 (edited) Among the plethora of books on the Somme there is an emerging consensus that Kitchener's Army was first used en masse on 1st July 1916. There also seems to be a misconception among some authors that Kitchener battalions at the Somme were all 'Pals' battalions. The first Kitchener battalions to see front line trenches were elements of the 13th (Western) Division and 11th (Northern) Division at Helles, Gallipoli in the second and third weeks of July 1915 respectively. They and the 10th (Irish) Division took part in combined offensive action in the first week of August 1915 at Suvla and ANZAC with disastrous consequences. They were effectively destroyed in just 14 days. None took part in any further offensive actions in the Dardanelles. This was of course more than a year before the Somme campaign. The other three K1 Divisions met a similar fate at Loos (Sep 1915) along with significant elements of the K2 and K3 - some nine Kitchener Divisions in total. One might argue over the meaning of en masse, but idea that the Somme was the baptism of fire for Kitchener's Army is a little misleading given at least 12 Kitchener Divisions had already seen some horrendous fighting. My perceptions are that many of the Kitchener formations seemed to be inadequately trained in 1915 and again in 1916 close to two years into the war. I have often wondered why this was so? Any criticism of Kitchener's Army at Gallipoli was essentially subordinated to higher priorities of who to blame for the whole sorry campaign. They were also operating in the vicinity of some even more poorly trained troops in the shape of some of the TF Divisions that were hastily thrown into the line. Criticism of the 21st Div and 24th Divs at Loos is perhaps far better documented in the Official Histories. Delays in the training schedules due to the knock-on effects of clothing and equipping the infantry battalions are well understood but would only explain part of the 'delay' in training these units. The evolving tactics might also partially explain the lag....but still, it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for Kitchener's Army to become fit for purpose. What was the underlying problem? MG Edited 15 September , 2016 by Guest 1916 for 1915 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nigelcave Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 (edited) Lack of experienced NCOs and command experience from there upwards - not a sufficient 'leaven' of experience throughout the army in all arms, despite the excellent potential of the manpower of Kitchener's army. Compare and contrast, so to speak, with the the huge number of conscripts in 1918 filling up the ranks of severely depleted formations post the German spring offensives - the 21st Division would be a good example of this: hammered on the Somme, the Lys/Ypres and the Aisne but then able to operate very effectively in the 100 Days, more or less continuously in action from the second half of August until the end of hostilities. By comparison, it took the Americans a long time to play a significant military role post their entrance to the war - possibly September 1918 is when they became an effective player? Edited 14 September , 2016 by nigelcave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 19 minutes ago, QGE said: Among the plethora of books on the Somme there is an emerging consensus that Kitchener's Army was first used en masse on 1st July 1915. MG 1916? As Nigel says, but also not only lack of experience, but out-of-date experience. I recall reading somewhere of men who, when standing at ease, clenched their hands in front of themselves as was the rule in the old Victorian army. Additionally many officers were dug-outs, or elderly chaps who rejoined the Colours at the outbreak (as were many NCOs and men). Would it be possible that some of the Indian Army officers snaffled by Kitchener were perhaps a little out of touch with the latest developments in industrialised warfare? The father of my late father's late second wife (sorry - as they were in their 70's when they married, 'my step mother' sounds silly) had been born in 1859; had joined the 43rd Light Infantry in the late 70's, been discharged to the Reserve before the 1899-1902 SA War (and recalled). he enlisted in 1914 and (allegedly) helped train the Grimsby Battalion, although too old for overseas service. I can only wonder what he trained the men to do when he was nearly 60 and hadn't served for 12 years. Equipment, too - although 9for example) the Lewis gun was around, there were far fewer than later on, and I suspect the ability of the New Armies to train on them was somewhat limited, so another example of where on the job training trumped everything. regarding your thoughts, I'd say there is a general consensus of utter bo££ocks in much of the plethora. And as I'm reading P Hart's Fire and Movement at present, it is pretty obvious that the Comptemptibles weren't all supermen, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMeech Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 Hi As Nigel mentions there was a great shortage of experienced officers and NCOs to train the 'New' Armies. It was the battles of 1916 that created the experienced men who could both command and train the troops in 'modern' warfare. We see this with the expansion of the training schools in France and Britain during 1916 and later being manned by officers and NCOs with experience of the 1916 battles. This is in conjunction with an increasing number of 'instruction' (SS) pamphlets based on the experience of 1915/1916 to aid 'training' (which continued throughout the rest of the war). Along with this the shortage of Staff Officers was also being tackled with courses and getting officers to experience staff work, which still took time. On the whole 'younger' officers who experienced the combat conditions in 1916 were replacing the older/dug-out commanders in the New Armies by the end of the year. The massive expansion of the British Army along with the losses the pre-war army suffered in 1914-1915 goes a long way in explaining the inadequate training of the New Armies. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry_Reeves Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 (edited) Nothing new in all this course, Peter Simkins covers the problems in his book, Kitcheners Army. He also cover the problems of The RE Field Companies and RA units raised under the same system, which are rarely mentioned. Several RE Army Troops Companies were also locally raised in March-April 1915, most of whom had limited training. TR Edited 14 September , 2016 by Terry_Reeves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 On 1/7/16, the British infantry, advancing according to the plan of attack, were decimated by MG fire and shellfire. I'm at a loss to see how better training could have avoided that situation. It has always seemed odd to me that generals use lack of training as one of the explanations for failure when they were responsible for that training and for devising an attack plan that takes into account the training state of the men. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brummell Posted 14 September , 2016 Share Posted 14 September , 2016 Quite. As has been shown, the infantry used a variety of formations, moved at rates of advance ranging from a walk to a sprint, carried light scales up to heavy scales, and started their assaults from places ranging from their own front line up to the edge of German wire. All to no avail in the face of overwhelming firepower. I think ink we could most usefully consider areas where this wasn't the case, for example from Fricourt eastwards, where the infantry achieved more and thus affords us more to analyse. Yes they were successful, but at a great cost. Could the cost have been less if the men were better trained in how to fight once across no man's land? - brummell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 (edited) All - many thanks for your informed thoughts. T E Lawrence allegedly wrote: " Mankind has ten-thousand years experience of fighting and if we must fight, we have no excuse for not fighting well" I have often thought that the shortage of NCOs for Kitchener's Army has been slightly mis-understood. Re-enlistment created a massive pool of NCOs (see below) albeit of varying quality. To my mind (and I may well be misguided here) it was direct experience of modern warfare that was the critical shortfall; something that T E Lawrence does not consider. It raises critical questions on how the BEF transferred experience and lessons from the front line to the Kitchener Armies that were being trained. . More organised ways of consolidating lessons from the war and enshrining them in new tactical doctrine appears to have largely been done after 1915. The evolution of the SS instructional series is an interesting benchmark in this sense and I would be interested in exploring this. I recently read a diary account from a Kitchener man who claimed they were trained for a Victorian Army which might resonate with Steven's example. While the diary may have been part hyperbole, there might be some truth here. I have not yet seen any evidence that the Kitchener's Armies' training in 1914-15 was adapted from pre-war assumptions. Is it remotely possible that they were still training for the wrong war? This is not to point a finger of blame. Clearly modern trench warfare was largely new and evolving rapidly. Regardless of how well trained they were, tactics had not evolved sufficiently to utilise this massive pool of manpower in an efficient way. It is very telling when one compares the fates of the three K1 Divisions at Gallipoli with the three K1 Divisions on the Western Front in 1915: despite radically different local conditions, the results were frighteningly similar. K1 might have been the most unlucky of all cohorts; launched into the line with tactics and training that had not yet adapted to modern warfare. As has been pointed out, the critical lack of Staff experience is another factor. When one reads the diaries of K1 and K2 in the early months, the standard of Divisional, Brigade and Battalion orders seems exceptionally low. This improves in a markedly stepped way by 1916. If is sometimes difficult to imagine these were the same formations. In some ways they were not, having learned through hard experience in battle. Training & Experience. The lack of trained Officers and NCOs is well understood. On paper, K1 battalions would have three regular Officers and ten NCOs, often supplemented by a (British) Indian Army Office and some 'dug-outs' of varying quality and usefulness. A very high proportion of COs for K1 were dug-outs. A few were regulars, often the Major (promoted to Temp Lt Col) from the Depot. His place being taken by a dug-out; The remainder of the officers being OTC trained schoolboys and undergraduates, mostly (in 1914-15) public school educated. The reality meant that often one and sometimes two of the regular Officers and some of the regular NCO were diverted to form K2 battalions. It is unclear how many Regular Officers were sent to raise K3 and K4. The Army List would indicate very few, so it is reasonable to assume that the allocation of 'experienced' regular Officers varied considerably across the Kitchener formations. One regular Officer (an Adjutant in a Kitchener battalion) in correspondence with an OH historian claimed that the regular Adjutants effectively ran the battalions as the dugouts were simply not up to the task. The NCOs were far more more difficult to assess. Time-expired ex NCOs could re-enlist with their former rank. Between Aug 1914 and Sep 1915 slightly more than 117,000 ex-NCOs re-enlisted. Of these some 92,000 joined the infantry. If we consider the 33 Kitcheners' Army Divisions each had 13 battalions (plus Army Troops), would get us to around 440 battalions. This would suggest, possibly somewhere in the region of 200 re-enlisted NCOs per battalion. Clearly some would be unfit for front line duty and some would be required for other duties (Depots etc) and some would be sucked into the BEF as reinforcements for the Regular battalions. Even if half met these criteria, there would still be a large pool of ex-NCOs for the Kitchener Armies to draw upon. It is extremely difficult to deconstruct the cohorts of these old soldiers, but clearly some would have only left the Reserves maybe 1,2, 3 etc year before and might have still been fairly familiar with basic drill etc. More importantly they would have known something about controlling soldiers as NCOs. The point here is that Kitchener's Army was not as short of NCOs as one might think. Some evidence can be found in the service records NCOs with low (early) Kitchener recruit numbers, aged in their 30s and 40s whose attestation forms show prior service. Clearly past knowledge and familiarity with the latest weapons and tactics falls over time, and it is again difficult to assess how 'current' these NCOs were. One might argue that 'half-life' of some skills is much longer: does a natural 'leader' lose those skills? Would an old NCO be any worse at training raw recruits in drills that had not changed? These are difficult factors to measure but the sheer numbers available might suggest K1 and K2 had access to a body of experienced men. Added to this was the possibility that regulars from the BEF who had recovered from wounds or sickness could be diverted to Kitchener battalions to stiffen the ranks of the NCOs. While the BEF casualty rates were high, a very significant proportion were cases of sickness rather than wounded, and the recover ratios were extremely high. This 'transfer' of skill, experience and knowledge is difficult but not completely impossible to trace. They are factors that might also change the perceptions of the shortage of NCOs. Any mistakes are mine. MG Edited 15 September , 2016 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 42 minutes ago, QGE said: Any mistakes are mine. MG I suspect quite a few were made by GHQ and others. Interesting to read the recent(ish) biography of Haking and the Horlicks that was made over the deployment of his XI Corps at Loos which is due to a mixture of poor control by French and downright inadequate staff work by pretty well everyone - plus a touching belief in the ability of raw, unseasoned troops to win the war in an afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 (edited) 3 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said: I suspect quite a few were made by GHQ and others. Interesting to read the recent(ish) biography of Haking and the Horlicks that was made over the deployment of his XI Corps at Loos which is due to a mixture of poor control by French and downright inadequate staff work by pretty well everyone - plus a touching belief in the ability of raw, unseasoned troops to win the war in an afternoon. French lost his job of course as a consequence so at least some 'blame' for Loos was apportioned to Command and Control. A heap of criticism was aimed at 21st and 24th Div's alleged failure at Loos - probably largely perpetuated by Edmonds in the 'OH France and Belgium 1915 Vol II.' If memory serves this is what triggered the breaking up of the Divisions' Orbat, forcing the seeding of New Army formations with regular battalions pour encourager les autres. It is difficult to establish if this made a blind bit of difference. Edmonds, Loos - Retrospect: page 393 - 400 "... the divisions of the New Army were improvised, had received only hasty and imperfect training, were handicapped by great disadvantages as regards instructors and the late arrival of weapons and equipment and possessed only a sprinkling of Regular officers... ....The staff work before and during the battle was very far from perfect......Lord Roberts' s warning to the Royal Commission on the War in South Africa - "Staff officers cannot be improvised; nor can they learn their duties like the rank and file in a few weeks or months, for their duties are as varied as they are important" had been ignored ...Nor was the inadequacy of the training of the staff and regimental officers and men compensated by the assignment to the new formations of a special proportion of first-class war material. Half-trained troops should be supported by more than the usual allotment of artillery; yet even the normal pre-war number of field guns per division was lacking [64 per new division as against 76 in the 1914 divisions]... ... The 21st and 24th Divisions were imperfectly trained, had never been in the line, far less in battle and did not know the ground; but given the opportunity which had been offered with the German infantry on the run and guns limbering up and going, they were probably adequate to take a certain advantage of it. Indeed the Commander in Chief selected the 21st and 24th divisions because he shared the opinion expressed at the time by some officers who had been in the Ypres salient that divisions long engaged in trench warfare had got out of the way of attacking and manoeuvring in the open, and that therefore it was preferable to employ untried ones. " My underlining. It is strange that Edmonds does not begin to question why, after more than a year of training these formations were still 'half-trained' and why, if they were 'half-trained' they were used at all. They would have been aware of the catastrophic failure of K1 in the Dardanelles. If, as Edmonds claims they were 'half-trained' no-one appears to have taken responsibility for this. I find his last argument difficult to comprehend. At a more tactical level, the 21st Div failed to capture Hill 70. As did the Guards Division, yet no criticism is levelled at the Guards Division which went into action with some equally raw inexperienced troops in some of their newly formed battalions (2nd Bn Irish Guards, 1st Bn Welsh Guards, 4th Bn Grenadier Guards) whose soldiers had largely not seen action before; the evidence is in the Army Numbers of their fallen and their 1915 Star medal rolls. . Any mistakes are mine (and possibly GHQs). MG Edited 15 September , 2016 by Guest typos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steven Broomfield Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 Well you'd hardly criticise the Guards, would you? Also, of course, the Division was newly-formed, so even the experienced units had little experience of working together under unified command, and I imagine the Staff of the Division were equally inexperienced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Steven Broomfield said: Well you'd hardly criticise the Guards, would you? Also, of course, the Division was newly-formed, so even the experienced units had little experience of working together under unified command, and I imagine the Staff of the Division were equally inexperienced. Indeed. The implication is that the Guards were capable of successfully training raw recruits in exactly the same time as the New Army failed to train new recruits, despite facing similar shortages in trained NCOs. I don't subscribe to this view, but it is an inescapable conclusion if one believes Edmonds' 'explanation' for Loos. 21st, 24th and Guards Divs (all XI Corps) all failed to achieve their objectives, yet the Kitchener formations took a disproportionate amount of the blame. MG Edited 15 September , 2016 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brummell Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 About a quarter of the strength of the Welsh Guards on formation were serving soldiers from other Guards regiments who transferred in (303 men, including 40 NCOs, out of 1347 all ranks). A number also transferred from other Welsh regiments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 (edited) 2 hours ago, brummell said: About a quarter of the strength of the Welsh Guards on formation were serving soldiers from other Guards regiments who transferred in (303 men, including 40 NCOs, out of 1347 all ranks). A number also transferred from other Welsh regiments. It might be a reasonable assumption that these 303 men on the Welsh Guards roll were given numbers 1 to 303. If we look at the 1915-16 CWGC data we find that 9 out of every 10 fatalities has a higher number. By March 1915 the Army was running out of fully trained and effective men. Some line battalions were down to zero. If follows that after this date the vast majority of reinforcements were post Aug 1914 recruits. It is slightly more difficult to establish with the Welsh Guards as the men transferred in would have new numbers. Edit. One needs to remember that the 4th Bn Coldstream Guards, 4th Bn Grenadiers and 2nd Bn Irish Guards were all formed from their own Reserve Battalions, thereby draining the pool of available trained men within the Guards. At the same time they were providing reinforcement drafts for the senior battalions in France and Flanders. on 6th Feb 1915 when Kitchener verbally authorised the raising of the Welsh Guards (later confirmed by Royal Warran) there were only 3,253 fully trained and effective Foot Guards in the Reserve Battalions along with 5,047 recruits at various stages of training which had to fulfill the requirements of reinforcements and the expansion of the Foot Guards by four battalions. Edit 2. On 5th April 1915 the Foot Guards had only 850 fully trained and effective men in their reserve battalions (combined).At the time they were supporting nine battalions in the Field, meaning there were 94 men per battalion or almost exactly one standard reinforcement draft. While men transferred from the invalid list the flow was a trickle, however the inflow of recruits in late 1914 were beginning to turn into trained men (6 months' training) and the maturing of these recruits allowed for the numbers of trained men to slowly rebuild. One of the factors behind the dates for the formation of the Guards Division and its assembly in July 1915 was this shortfall in trained men. The inescapable truth remains that a significant majority of the Welsh Guards at Loos would have been 'fully trained and effective' recruits *. The point here is that the Guards could train men in the allotted time, yet the Official Historian's view is that the New Armies couldn't, which is something worth exploring. MG * The Army kept weekly data on this so it would be easy to establish. Edited 15 September , 2016 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Black Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 Fascinating stuff gentlemen, but what's a dug-out officer? Derek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 14 minutes ago, Derek Black said: Fascinating stuff gentlemen, but what's a dug-out officer? Derek An Officer 'dug-out' of retirement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Black Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 (edited) Thank you Martin. Edited 15 September , 2016 by Derek Black Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 3 hours ago, QGE said: Clearly modern trench warfare was largely new and evolving rapidly. Of course modern trench warfare was, by definition, largely new but trench warfare had been around for a long time and the perils were clearly demonstrated at Cold Harbour of which the generals would or should have been fully aware? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 (edited) 29 minutes ago, PhilB said: Of course modern trench warfare was, by definition, largely new but trench warfare had been around for a long time and the perils were clearly demonstrated at Cold Harbour of which the generals would or should have been fully aware? I would not disagree in the general point (and the asymmetry of Cold Harbour) but I would have thought the Russo-Japanese war was a more relevant benchmark in terms of potential influences on British doctrine. British Army observation of the Russo-Japanese war generated plenty of literature and was well attended on both sides by British observers. The extent to which these lessons influenced British military doctrine is a matter of debate. The Exchequer and Britain's Imperial priorities sometimes got in the way of reform. The inter war years (Boer War to Great War) saw a revolution in British Army doctrine and tactics (Spencer Jones and Peter Hart have both written excellent appraisals f this period), however it is questionable if anything could have prepared them for the magnitude and intensity of the Great War. None could prepare them for the challenge of raising and training the New Armies. Your earlier point that even the best of training might have been inadequate is I think very relevant. If ,for argument's sake,we agree that the Kitchener Armies were inadequately trained, could this also apply to the highly trained regular Divisions? There is little evidence that the regular Divisions managed any better in achieving objectives at Gallipoli 1915 or in France and Flanders in 1914-15-16 than the Kitchener Divisions. While their individual, platoon, Company and battalion level training might have been a demonstrably higher standard and efficiency it might well have meant little if we look at the outcomes. 29th Div at Gallipoli, 7th Div and Guards Div in France and Flanders might be useful benchmarks for Regular formations that were seen to be first class divisions. Any mistakes are mine. MG Edited 15 September , 2016 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 It seems to make the point that no amount of training will compensate for a poor tactical plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 Just now, PhilB said: It seems to make the point that no amount of training will compensate for a poor tactical plan? A point rather deftly circumvented by Edmonds in his "Retrospective" chapters for some of the British failures of 1915 and 1916. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clive_hughes Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 In looking at the Welsh Army Corps and other "K" troops, I come across remarks such as that no trench-warfare training would be necessary - they would get plenty once they were overseas! There are also asides about the limitations of the "dug-outs" and their penchant for training men as if to fight the Boers (coupled with the terminology, eg. "we are going to practise capturing that kopje!"). Some formations simply couldn't get enough scheduled time for everyone to fire a full range course before they were sent over; and the artillery spent ages practising limbering and unlimbering & fire commands using telegraph poles mounted on bus wheels. One senior officer advised the Welsh National Executive Committee not to raise artillery - as they wouldn't be anything like ready for two years. Clive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveMarsdin Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 A few points: I think we have to identify what we mean by "better trained". If it isn't training in the right methods and tactics, then it is of limited consequence as to how much training you have. Training is much more than education: writing a policy in a pamphlet doesn't mean it will be practised (referring back to the telephone interception thread: despite countless requests, instructions and orders telephone security was abused on widespread scale). Relating to the Somme: it would be difficult to predict a scenario where an enemy that held the high ground with better positions and who had heavily fortified that ground both above and below, could be ousted without significant casualties (yes, the 19,640 may have been reduced but to what level ?). Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muerrisch Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 To inform discussion, a New Army battalion at War Establishment needed 91 WOs and NCOs of full rank, plus as many LCpls as was deemed necessary. This gobbles up, at a stroke, the assumption of half of 200 ex-NCOs re-enlisting and joining a unit. I have a shrewd idea that a close look at 1915 War Diaries of Kitchener units might expose shortfall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 15 September , 2016 Share Posted 15 September , 2016 22 minutes ago, SteveMarsdin said: A few points: I think we have to identify what we mean by "better trained". If it isn't training in the right methods and tactics, then it is of limited consequence as to how much training you have. Steve Edmonds described the 21st and 24th Divs as 'half trained' in the OH. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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