Infantry Training

[mhifle]

I found this syllabus in a 1914 Battalion Diary yesterday.

Mark

I found this syllabus in a 1914 Battalion Diary yesterday.

Mark

Page 2 and 3

[bushfighter]

Thanks Mark

That was well-worth scanning-in & posting. Which Bn & regiment was it?

Harry

[mhifle]

Thanks Mark

That was well-worth scanning-in & posting. Which Bn & regiment was it?

Harry

Hi Harry,

It was the 5th Service Battalion The Connaught Rangers 1914/15.

Regards

Mark

[delta]

fascinating - thanx Mark

Stephen

[Guest]

And STILL a key piece of info seven years later - many thanks,

KJM

[jegmouse]

Thanks Mark, I have been trying to find something like this for ages, and when I came across this post I was over joyed as this gives great detail on what the recruits training schedule was.

Thanks so much for posting.

Emma

[Guest]

The pages are based on the original Army Order 324 dated 21st Aug 1914 authorising the raising of the first six New Army divisions. The AO included the syllabus, as did AO 388 dated 14th Sep 1914 authorising the next six Divisions that formed K2 published

Not all Kitchener recruits managed to get through the six months training before being sent to the front. The syllabus allocated 3 months to training the recruits and the other 3 months to platoon, Company, Battalion and Brigade level training. Some regiments started reclassifying their 'recruits' as 'fully trained and effective' from early November onward. This reclassification rippled through the weekly returns for New Army battalions in a rather uneven way. It seems that the speed at which men were reclassified varied from Regiment to Regiment.

The earliest raw Kitchener Recruit arrival on the Western Front I can find was in November 1914, barely 3 months after enlistment. It is worth noting that over 117,000 Kitchener men were time-expired men who re-enlisted, and arguably would not have needed the same amount of training. As all these men were given new numbers it is extremely difficult to differentiate them from raw Kitchener recruits.

Kitchener men started to arrive on the western front in large numbers from late Dec 1914.

The 5th Bn Connaught Rangers was highly unusual. The first official return on the 19th September 1914 shows the battalion had 600 'fully trained and effective' men and a further 754 recruits. This is at a time when the other 79 battalions of K1 averaged just 9 'fully trained and effective' men each. It is a real out-lier. The reasons for this are complex and may reflect an exceptionally high proportion of re-enlisted men. The regular Connaught Rangers were the weakest infantry regiment in the British Army in terms of historical recruiting and the number of available Army Reservists. It had less than half the number of Army Reservists than the strongest regiment in the Army. This largely reflected historical recruiting patterns. The Connaught Rangers' story is full of conflicting thematics; Irish battalions in K1 generally struggled to recruit for complex political reasons, yet the 5th Bn Connaught Rangers appears to have been the best recruited battalion in the whole Army in Sep 1914. Contrast this with the fact that the 1st and 2nd Battalions were forced to amalgamate in Dec 1914 due (mainly) to a shortage of fully trained reserves. This was the only permanent merger of two regular battalions during the whole war. The contrast between the 5th Bn and the 1st and 2nd Regular battalions is a story worth exploring more.

MG

[jegmouse]

Can anyone give me an idea as to what happened after enlistment.

Ie The solider goes to enlist and is accepted, does he have chance to go home say goodbye etc etc or is he whisked away to his basic training camp?

I need to establish some time frame.

Also, would enlistment offices be open on a Sunday?

[Guest]

Can anyone give me an idea as to what happened after enlistment.

Ie The solider goes to enlist and is accepted, does he have chance to go home say goodbye etc etc or is he whisked away to his basic training camp?

I need to establish some time frame.

Also, would enlistment offices be open on a Sunday?

It depends on the date that the man enlisted. In Sep 1914 there were simply too many men to deal with and some were sent away and asked to return at a later date.

Recruiting Offices were definitely open on Sundays. The official stats show numbers for every day and date starting Saturday 8th Aug 1914. Country-wide 2,843 men enlisted on Sunday 9th Aug 1914, and 3,215 on Sunday 16th Aug 1914. The data shows a very distinct saw-toothed profile each week. Sunday lows are followed by sharp peaks on Mondays which in turn are followed by steady declines through Tuesday-Saturday.

MG

[Ron Clifton]

Interesting stats but I wonder if some recruiting offices returned combined figures for Sundays and Mondays, or operated only part time on Sundays?

Ron

[Guest]

Interesting stats but I wonder if some recruiting offices returned combined figures for Sundays and Mondays, or operated only part time on Sundays?

Ron

I assumed the pulpit was a recruiting office. MG