Special Reserve, 1914

[Chris_Baker]

Does anyone have an authoritative number for men who were serving in the Special Reserve at the declaration of war? Of these, how many were mobilised?

[Muerrisch]

In a word, no, but I do not believe there was any procedure for a partial mobilisation of the SR.

[Max]

Chris

It may be merely coincidental but it seems that large numbers of SR units were on their annual camp when war was declared.

Andy

[Moonraker]

Chris: the following figures probably won't add up, but I searched "The Times" archive:

In the issue of August 29, 1913 the Duke of Bedford claimed that the Special Reserve had a strength of 58,912 against an establishment of 75,832.

On March 16, 1914, deficiencies of 400 officers and 13,000 men were reported, though another figure given was a shortfall the previous October of 16,540 men against an establishment of 63,178.

On May 26, 1914 a deficiency was reported of 14,629 men as of May 1.

On July 10, 1914 it was reported that on June 1 there had been 2,512 officers and 63,559 men on the strength.

Do check the figures for yourself, and read some of the context, and you may get partly what you want!

Moonraker

[Chris_Baker]

That's a great start - thank you.

[Hoplophile]

The General Annual Report of the British Army for the Year ... : with Abstracts for the Previous years

has lots of figures for the Special Reserve, as well as figures for the Territorial Force, Regular Army and Army Reserve. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the last pre-war edition of this report seems to have come out in October of 1913.

I suspect, however, that monthly returns were collected in one place in anticipation of the publication of the annual report for 1914.

The most likely place for these is the records of the Adjutant General at the National Archives.

WO 114/25, for example, has weekly returns that show the strength of various reserve units, but do no distinguish between the regular and reserve personnel of those units.

[Hoplophile]

PS: The Statistical Abstract of Information Regarding Armies at Home and Abroad, which was recently republished, has lots of figures on the pre-war Special Reserve. I would do a look up, but am 250 miles away from my copy!

[Graham Stewart]

"British Mobilization 1914" was covered in Stand-To(Summer 1984) in an article of that name, which was taken directly from the papers of the Mobilzation Branch(WO162/23) and published in full.

Special Reservists

The Special Reservists were called up by individual notices issued to the men by the various officers as follows;-

Mounted Units - By the Officers Commanding the respective units.

Infantry Units - As for Mounted Infantry units.

Artillery - By the Officer Commanding Training Brigade to which the men were affiliated.

Engineers - By Officers Commanding the unit.

A.S.C. - By the Officer in charge of Records.

R.A.M.C. & A.V.C. - By the Officer in charge of Records.

"Men belonging to the Extra Reserve which did not mobilize at Depots were ordered to join at once. The Reserve Battalions mobilizing at Depots were purposely delayed until the fourth day, to avoid congestion at the Depots; the men of these units were therefore ordered to join on the fourth day. These Reserve Battalions moved to War Stations on the fifth day and the details left by Regular battalions were sent to join them at War Stations".

Graham.

[Retrac]

Not wishing to knock this sideways but a linked question. My grandfater rejoined his old regiment (R Fus) in August 1914 at the advanced age of 35. He had served with them in the Boer War. He was enrolled as 10368 in 7th. RFus, a Reserve Training Battalion, which sent drafts to other units until it joined the RND in July 1916. No SR or other designation on his number in MiC

To the question. Under what arrangement would he have rejoined? By being recalled or by volunteering, and if th elatter then presumably as this was the early days of the war he could have volunteered direct to the regiment, although he was living in Nottingham at the time.

Any comments and information gratefully received.

David

[andyspiller]

David

My understaning was that when you joined up pre 1914 you did a numbers of years in service and then another number in the reserve. I have 2 g-uncles who fall into this category, one rejoined his regiment 5th August 1914, the other Nov 1914.

Rgds

Andy

[Muerrisch]

7RF were an 'Extra Reserve' battalion, that is, one of the regiment's three Special Reserve battalions. It existed from 1908. The soldiers were Special Reservists except for a regular cadre. A soldier who fought in the Boer War would, unless he had extended his service beyond the x plus y [where x is colour service and y is regular reserve liability, and x = 3 or 7 or 9 and y = 9 or 5 or 3 and x+y always = 12 years] current 1898 to 1903, have ended all liability by 1914.

It is highly likely that 10368 enlisted in the SR on the outbreak of war under the arrangements which encouraged old soldiers to do just that.

A regimental expert can tell if this number was his old one from c. 1900, or a new SR number. If my hypothesis is correct, it will be a new number because, when one left the service, one's number 'died'. Many regiments did not prefix their SR numbers, although, under the rules as I understand them, 10368 should have had a 7/ prefix.

[andyspiller]

Grumps (if I may be so bold)

Thanks for putting real numbers into the equation. I know that we have discussed this before, but just could not remember the real numbers.

Rgds

Andy

[Graham Stewart]

Agree with Grumpy, that it was down to when your time expired on the "1st Class Army Reserve", which is not to be confused with the Special Reserve. Anyone who had completed their terms of service as a regular soldier, which totalled 12years prior to 1914 received a complete Discharge and was a free agent, with no liability to be recalled to the Colours. Those who came back having completed their term of service would be regarded as a "re-enlistment", even if his term of service ended the day before war was declared.

Graham.

[Retrac]

Thanks Grumpy and Graham. There was no mention of 7/ or any other prefix on any of the limited documentation that I've seen. His is not among the burnt papers collection so no help there. I suspect that it was just good old patriotism that recalled him to the colours in August 1914.

David

[Joe Sweeney]

Chris,

In section 10 part III of the "Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire ..." lists the establishment of the SR at 80120 and the SR actual strength on 1 Aug 1914 at 63933.

Further--(includes Ofc and OR) of the 63933 the breakdown is as follows:

Cav. 1367

RA, 4730

RE, 1933

RFC, 32

Foot Guards, 39

Inf, 49616

ASC, 4502

RAMC, 1689

AVC 34

Joe Sweeney

[Max]

Hello Joe

Thanks for that.

Do you know if the number includes the regular presence within the SR.

Andy

[Muerrisch]

Max: a good question. Logical NOT to include the regular cadre, because all SR men other than Xtra Reserve were intended to be used as individual drafts to reinforce the line, and obviously the regulars would be needed to train the next batch. Short of hard evidence, best to assume no regulars.

[Joe Sweeney]

Andy,

The "Statistical..." did not break-out or otherwise say one way or another.

So I went to look at a copy of the Army estimates for 1914--which closed on 31 March 1914--and the numbers for the SR establishment was 79905 of which 1191 were the regular establishment.

Note sure if this helps at all.

Joe Sweeney

[Max]

Thanks Chaps

[Graham Stewart]

What you require as regards Regulars in the SR are(i) the Peacetime Establishment and (ii) the War Establishment. As far as I'm aware I have them for 1915, but not 1914, but will look among my archive to see if I have something.

I take it you're also looking at ex-regulars serving as SR's, which will be harder to follow up as these would only be known by looking at men's service records. Any ex-regulars would have been given new S.R. regimental numbers on enlistment. The exception being those of the permanent staff i.e. Colour Sgt Instructors etc, who are on secondment and therefore retain their regimental numbers.

What I do know is that it seems in the case of the many Territorial Bn's that went overseas in April 1915, many of their Sgt Majors were infact C.S.I.'s on secondment, who were promoted to this rank by the C.O.'s of these battalions.

Graham.

[Muerrisch]

Off the top of my head, I believe the regular cadre was as much as 50 in about a total of 550 .... I have the facts somewhere, somewhere ....