What was a "service battalion"

[loujn]

Apologies if this sounds a very basic question - but I am struggling to find an actual definition by Google.

 

Please could someone kindly tell me if I am on the right lines with my description -

 

A service battalion was a battalion formed to bolster numbers at the outbreak of WW1.  The word "service" being taken from the fact that the men enlisted for "general service" for the duration of the war.

 

Does this sound about right? or am I way off! lol

 

Any suggestions much appreciated.

 

Thank you,

 

Louise

[Moonraker]

It sounds right to me.

 

Moonraker

[Gardenerbill]

I stand to be corrected, but in my limited experience regiments generally had 4 regular battalions, then depending on how many TF battalions they had, the new army battalions were raised as 6th (Service) Battalion, 7th (Service) Battalion etc. You can see this in the Long Long Trail. Pick an Infantry Regiment and have a look.

[Chris_Baker]

The infantry battalions raised as part of the New Armies were known as Service Battalions, simply to distinguished them as having been raised for war service only and not as a permanent addition to the Armed Forces of the Crown. In every other respect they were organised and (eventually) equipped in the same way as a regular battalion.  

[loujn]

Thank you all for your comments, much appreciated.  I’m glad I’m on the right lines. 

[Medaler]

Remember the famous poster of Kitchener with the staring eyes and pointy finger? Those posters were aimed at raising enough recruits to form a "new army" which was composed of these Service Battalions. Several of these post declaration of war recruits did however find their way into the "Regular" battalion's of the peacetime "standing army" due to the high rates of attrition that they experienced on active service.

 

Not all the Regiments of the Regular army had 4 "fighting" battalions at the outset, many only had 2. To quote my local Sherwood Foresters, they had .......

1st - Regulars

2nd - Regulars

3rd - Reserve

4th - Reserve

5th - Territorial

6th - Territorial

7th - Territorial

8th - Territorial

Their first "Service" Btn was therefore the 9th, with most of their manpower being recruited in August & September of 1914.

 

Hope that has helped?

 

Regards,

Mike

[loujn]

On 06/07/2018 at 20:00, Medaler said:

Hope that has helped?

Yes, thank you Mike this has helped, thank you for your explanation.  Learning a bit more every day! its taken me years to get to this stage..... still a very much beginner! lol

 

[Tom P-C]

Sorry to chime in on a 2018 post, but does anyone know if the war-raised R Newfound Regt was essentially a Kitchener's New Army unit?  Newfoundland was not yet part of Canada and was a dominion.  The Army List of Nov 1918 shows it as having a 1st (Service) Battalion, a 2nd (Reserve) Battalion and a 3rd (Reserve) Battalion. I am trying to establish whether it was essentially a regular unit or intended for emergency only.  My theory is that since its first battalion was "Service" it was intended to be a hostilities-only unit, like the Pals battalions.  One obvious difference is that the British New Army battalions were added to regular regiments whereas the R Newfoundland Regt was a standalone unit.

Thanks!

Tom

[ss002d6252]

11 hours ago, Tom P-C said:

Sorry to chime in on a 2018 post, but does anyone know if the war-raised R Newfound Regt was essentially a Kitchener's New Army unit?  Newfoundland was not yet part of Canada and was a dominion.  The Army List of Nov 1918 shows it as having a 1st (Service) Battalion, a 2nd (Reserve) Battalion and a 3rd (Reserve) Battalion. I am trying to establish whether it was essentially a regular unit or intended for emergency only.  My theory is that since its first battalion was "Service" it was intended to be a hostilities-only unit, like the Pals battalions.  One obvious difference is that the British New Army battalions were added to regular regiments whereas the R Newfoundland Regt was a standalone unit.

Thanks!

Tom

It was raised for war time service - not technically a new army unit, but formed along the same ideas.

Craig

[Tom P-C]

7 hours ago, ss002d6252 said:

It was raised for war time service - not technically a new army unit, but formed along the same ideas.

Craig

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your reply. 

I do not think (perhaps, wrongly) that the fact that a unit was "raised for war time service" stops it from being a regular unit.  There were at least 13 war-raised independent units (that were definitely not Special Reserve, Territorial Force or Volunteer Force) and of them I would classify the following as regular units:

• the Household Battalion 1916-18
• the Welsh Guards 1915-
• the Machine Gun Guards battalion (later the Guards Machine Gun Regiment) 1918-20
• the Army Cyclist Corps 1915-20
• the Machine Gun Corps 1915-22
• the Tank Corps (later the Royal Tank Regiment) 1916-
• the Labour Corps (arguably the forerunner of the Royal Pioneer Corps) 1917-21
• Women’s (later Queen Mary’s) Army Auxiliary Corps 1917-21

I suppose my question is really "what is the precise definition of a service battalion" (especially outside of the UK).  If the Royal Newfoundland Regt - and indeed the British West Indies Regt - only contained service and reserve battalions, does the very definition of "service battalion" mean that neither of them had regular battalions and cannot have been regular units?

I apologise if the Kitchener's New Army point was misleading.  It's just that my original view was that a service battalion was a New Army battalion.  Maybe in Newfoundland and the West Indies it meant something slightly different.

Thanks and best wishes,

Tom

[FROGSMILE]

On 11/08/2021 at 16:57, Tom P-C said:

Hi Craig,

Thanks for your reply. 

I do not think (perhaps, wrongly) that the fact that a unit was "raised for war time service" stops it from being a regular unit.  There were at least 13 war-raised independent units (that were definitely not Special Reserve, Territorial Force or Volunteer Force) and of them I would classify the following as regular units:

• the Household Battalion 1916-18
• the Welsh Guards 1915-
• the Machine Gun Guards battalion (later the Guards Machine Gun Regiment) 1918-20
• the Army Cyclist Corps 1915-20
• the Machine Gun Corps 1915-22
• the Tank Corps (later the Royal Tank Regiment) 1916-
• the Labour Corps (arguably the forerunner of the Royal Pioneer Corps) 1917-21
• Women’s (later Queen Mary’s) Army Auxiliary Corps 1917-21

I suppose my question is really "what is the precise definition of a service battalion" (especially outside of the UK).  If the Royal Newfoundland Regt - and indeed the British West Indies Regt - only contained service and reserve battalions, does the very definition of "service battalion" mean that neither of them had regular battalions and cannot have been regular units?

I apologise if the Kitchener's New Army point was misleading.  It's just that my original view was that a service battalion was a New Army battalion.  Maybe in Newfoundland and the West Indies it meant something slightly different.

Thanks and best wishes,

Tom

At that time none of the dominions or territories were considered by Britain to have ‘regular army units’.  However, Canada had a small, standing militia intended for defence of that Dominion, that had taken over from the old British regular garrison when it departed by mutual agreement of both governments.

 Malta had a standing force of Artillery for its fortress installations, and both West India and West Africa Regiments existed for a while as standing forces, but these were all localised units.  The Channel Islands Militias also fell into that category for a period.  These were all paid for by the British government.

Nova Scotia was in peacetime the same as Canada, as far as I know, and so the wartime raised Service battalion of its regiment was for hostilities-only imperial service (i.e. overseas), with the reserve battalions providing it with reinforcement drafts.  After the war the regiment would/did revert to its home defence role, just as Canadian units did for a time.  It wasn't until 1940 that Canada had an Army in the traditional sense of being capable of mounting overseas operations on a permanent footing, and this was as a direct result of WW2.

The term "service" when applied to military units in a British (and by association Dominion) military context was a very old one, and in past centuries an infantry battalion was divided into “service companies”, for service on operations wherever and whenever required, and "reserve", or "depot companies" (the terms used alternated for a period).  These latter provided reinforcing drafts as a matter of routine and at various points in history were used as the basis to form additional battalions that were sometimes retained, but usually stood down as soon as possible.  When established as new battalions then new depot or reserve companies had to be created at the same time.  The term “service battalion”, when used in that context during WW1, fell into a similar category.  Ergo it was a battalion raised for general, wartime service, that crucially included overseas deployment.

Edited 16 August , 2021 by FROGSMILE