Difference between revisions of "British units in World War I"

Revision as of 10:21, 20 April 2015

See how you can help to find out how you can help collect experiences of those in the First World War in their own words; you can also help by filling in the battalions for each regiment. A good source is the Long, Long Trail's page for the British infantry of 1914-1918 and on The British Divisions of 1914-1918. Chris Baker, the site's owner, has kindly given permission to use information from the site, so populating this page from those is a high priority task. Please feel free to get stuck in if you spot a gap!

Here's a list of REGIMENTS and CORPS of the BRITISH ARMY in 1918 (via the Internet Archive as the site appears to have been down for some years).

If you've got a diary, letters or other personal narratives you want to add now:

• if the page for the author's unit already exists, you can add it straight to the page. See below for which British units do and don't currently have pages.
• if the page for the author's unit doesn't yet exist, you can create it.
• if you don't want to create a page or you don't know which unit the author belonged to, you can add the narrative to Lists of personal diaries, letters, memoirs.

To create a new page:

Type the name of the unit, add ", UK" to the end if it's a British unit, then make it into a wiki link by putting two square brackets around the name of the regiment or battalion, like this:

[[Royal Army Medical Corps, UK]]

This makes it into a red link Royal Army Medical Corps, UK; you can click on any red-linked page name to create that page. You can also create a page by entering its name in the search box. If it doesn't already exist, you can click on the red link in the search results.

Infantry

Regiments

We now have a page for every infantry regiment of the British Army. The table below shows links to the pages and the regiments' full names. It can be sorted by names or order of precedence.

(WARNING: some of these pages are very big and might crash before edits have saved.)

Regiment pages show each regiment's parent record office. Record offices also have their own pages, listed in Category:British Army record offices.

Battalions

'The battalion was the basic tactical unit of the infantry of the British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918. At full establishment it consisted of 1,007 men of whom 30 were officers. It comprised a Battalion Headquarters and four Companies.'[1]

We now have pages for every British infantry battalion that has an official war diary. The Guards regiments, the London Regiment and the territorial cyclist battalions have pages for every battalion that existed, even if it doesn't have war diaries. Other regiments don't yet have pages for battalions that don't have war diaries. Pages for missing battalions will be imported later.

There are too many battalions to list on this page (already more than 1,000), but there are several ways you can find them:

The regiment pages shown in the table above list nearly all battalions known to have been part of a regiment, even if they don't have war diaries or wiki pages. You can use the names given on the regiment pages to create pages for missing battalions.

The following categories list British infantry battalions:

• Category:British infantry battalions: all British infantry battalions that have pages, listed alphabetically by regiment, then in order of battalion numbers. Includes Army, Royal Navy and Royal Marines.
  • Also has sub-categories listing certain battalions by uniform distinctions and special roles, but these are not yet complete.
• Category:British Army infantry battalions by regimental precedence: all British Army infantry battalions, listed in order of regimental precedence as shown in the above table, then in order of battalion numbers.

You can also use the search box to find battalions that already have pages. You don't have to enter the name exactly as it appears in the page title: alternative names will often show up as redirects or part of the page text.

Divisions

We now have pages for every British infantry division. These pages are listed in Category:British divisions.

Brigades

We now have a page for nearly every British infantry brigade that has war diaries. These pages are listed in Category:British infantry brigades.

Cavalry

We do not yet have pages for cavalry or yeomanry.

Administrative hierarchy of the British cavalry:

• Household Cavalry, UK
  • 1st Life Guards, UK
  • 2nd Life Guards, UK
  • Royal Horse Guards, UK
• Canterbury Cavalry Record Office, UK
  • Corps of Dragoons, UK
    • Regular dragoon guards regiments, eg 1st Dragoon Guards, UK
    • Regular dragoon regiments, eg 1st Dragoons, UK
    • Yeomanry regiments classed as dragoons
  • Corps of Lancers, UK
    • Regular lancer regiments, eg 5th Lancers, UK
    • Yeomanry regiments classed as lancers
  • King Edward's Horse, UK (special reserve cavalry; which corps?)
• York Cavalry Record Office, UK
  • Corps of Hussars, UK
    • Regular hussar regiments, eg 3rd Hussars, UK
    • Yeomanry regiments classed as hussars
    • North Irish Horse, UK (special reserve cavalry)
    • South Irish Horse, UK (special reserve cavalry)

Sources:

• Template:RefTLLT lists British regular and special reserve cavalry regiments, with further reading.
• Template:RefTLLT lists British yeomanry regiments (these were the Territorial branch of the cavalry).
• Template:RefTLLT gives details of how yeomanry soldiers were given new service numbers, and also lists which administrative corps each regiment belonged to.

Machine Gun Units

Machine Gun Corps, UK consisted of Machine Gun Companies attached to infantry brigades, and later Machine Gun Battalions attached to infantry divisions. Many Machine Gun Companies are listed on the pages of their parent brigades. See Category:British infantry brigades.

Other machine gun units:

• Motor Machine Gun Service, UK
• Guards Machine Gun Regiment, UK (formerly Machine Gun Guards):
  • 1st Battalion Guards Machine Gun Regiment, UK
  • 2nd Battalion Guards Machine Gun Regiment, UK
  • 3rd Battalion Guards Machine Gun Regiment, UK
  • 4th Battalion Guards Machine Gun Regiment, UK

Artillery

Royal Artillery, UK was an arm of the British Army, divided into two corps:

• Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery, UK; divided into two distinct identities:
  • Royal Horse Artillery, UK
  • Royal Field Artillery, UK
• Royal Garrison Artillery, UK

The basic unit of the Royal Field Artillery was the brigade, which was roughly equivalent to an infantry battalion.

Other regiments, corps and departments

This is a list of other regiments, corps and departments of the British Army.

• Army Chaplains Department, UK
• Army Cyclist Corps, UK (administratively part of the infantry)
• Army Ordnance Corps, UK
• Army Pay Corps, UK
• Army Service Corps, UK
• Army Veterinary Corps, UK
• Labour Corps, UK
• Military Police, UK divided into:
  • Military Foot Police, UK
  • Military Mounted Police, UK
• Non-Combatant Corps, UK
• Royal Army Medical Corps, UK
• Royal Defence Corps, UK (administratively part of the infantry)
• Royal Engineers, UK
• Tank Corps, UK

Officer Cadet Battalions

These battalions were set up to train new officers. They all have pages, listed in Category:British officer cadet battalions.

Higher Formations

These are tactical formations above division level:

• Category:British army corps (tactical) has pages for every corps except Cavalry Corps, UK, Desert Mounted Corps, UK and Tank Corps headquarters. These were the next level above divisions.
• Category:British armies has pages for all the armies on the Western Front and at Salonika. These were the next level above corps.
• Category:British Empire GHQs contains expeditionary forces and other formations that had the general headquarters in a theatre of war. Some pages have been added but several theatres are still missing.

Colonial units

These are units which were legally classed as colonial units, not part of the British Army, or whose status is currently uncertain.

• British West Indies Regiment: more information needed.
• Chinese Labour Corps
• Egyptian Labour Corps
• Gold Coast Regiment
• King's African Rifles: more information needed.
• Macedonian Mule Corps
• Maltese Labour Corps
• Nigeria Regiment
• Royal Militia of Jersey and Royal Guernsey Light Infantry: Channel Islands militia usually treated as colonial by the Army Act, but some units taken over by British War Office during First World War.
• Royal Newfoundland Regiment: not part of Canadian Expeditionary Force because Newfoundland not part of Canada until 1940s.
• West India Regiment: stated by 1907 Manual of Military Law to be colonial, not British.
• Zion Mule Corps

Women's organisations

More information is needed about the legal and administrative status of these organisations in relation to the British Army.

• Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS)
• Territorial Force Nursing Service
• Women's Hospital Corps
• Scottish Women's Hospitals
• The Women's Volunteer Reserve
• The Women's Legion
• Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (originally the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps)
• Almeric Paget Military Massage Corps
• First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY, now the Princess Royal’s Volunteer Corps)
• The Voluntary Aid Detachments
• Women's Auxiliary Force
• Women's Auxiliary Agricultural Corps
• Women's Forage Corps
• Women's Forestry Corps
• Women's Land Army

Other Organisations

• Volunteer Training Corps, later Volunteer Force. Similar to Home Guard in WW2. Probably unofficial at first but later brought into the British Army.
• British Red Cross
• Friends Ambulance Unit: set up by Quakers and operated with the British Red Cross and Order of St John. More information.