BOERS TO B.E.F.
THE KAISER’S
“CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE ARMY”
When it happened (1899-1902), the Boer War shocked the British Military establishment. In the Victorian Age, the British Army had generally been a colonial police force, and the occasional local difficulties with the natives meant facing enemies whose technology was vastly inferior to the weapons and firepower of the Imperial soldiers.
The Boers were a well-armed, motivated citizen army whose strategy and tactics caused a fundamental re-organisation of the structure of the British Army. The use of modern artillery and the marksmanship and field craft of the Boers gave the British Army a salutary lesson in the reality of modern warfare. As a consequence, the Army was re-organised to reflect the realities of modern weapons and tactics. The art of musketry was taught and retaught and the lessons of fieldcraft and the effect of rapid accurate rifle fire were well-learned.
The Black Watch
The period following the Boer War i.e., between the Boer War and the Great War, was significant. In the Victorian age the British Army had generally been a colonial police force, and the occasional local difficulties with the natives meant facing enemies whose technology was vastly inferior to the weapons and firepower of the Imperial soldiers.
At the beginning of the century man wishing to join the British Army could do so providing he passed certain physical tests and was willing to enlist for a specified number of years. The recruit had to be taller than 5 feet 3 inches and aged between 18 and 38 (although he could not be sent overseas until he was aged 19). He would join at the Regimental Depot or at one of its normal recruiting offices. The man had a choice over the regiment he was assigned to, and he would join the army for twelve years, typically for a period of 7 years full time service with the colours, to be followed by another 5 in the Army Reserve.
When he was of age a recruit generally signed up for the 7 years with the Colours and 5 years with the reserve. After 7 years the soldier would be transferred to the reserve and, as a reservist, in the event of war he became a member of the B.E.F. (British Expeditionary Force), committed to rapid deployment of troops onto the continent of Europe.
The British Army’s main role was the defence of the UK, but its practical and enduring role was defending the various stations of the Empire. The Cardwell reforms of 1874 created a two-battalion system of overseas postings and home service stations so at least half the Army’s battalions would be stationed in the Britain, although the home service battalions were not necessarily up to strength. The other half at full strength served where required around the world, but more often than not posted to India.
The British Army in 1914 was ready to a degree to deal with the challenges that Great Britain saw for itself: the defence of India against a Russian invasion via Afghanistan or in response to domestic insurrection (the mutiny of the Indian army in 1857 still cast a long shadow), given lesser but numerous commitments elsewhere.
The B.E.F. was however vastly outnumbered by the conscript armies of the states of Europe, and at the end of the day, the blood price of learning the ways of war on an industrial scale meant death on an industrial scale.
The British Army was designed for imperial defence, not European war, and it was thought more likely to fight Russia than Germany. The B.E.F. was a relatively small force of six divisions, and neither its structure nor its size matched the standards for continental war: it had no corps headquarters (the all-arms higher command in European armies), having to create them from scratch in 1914. When it went to France in 1914 it initially took only four of its six divisions and so mustered less than 100,000 men. And it was short of heavy artillery.
The B.E.F. had a limited reserve and almost half of its strength on mobilisation was made up of time-expired regulars recalled from civilian life.
When Haldane reshaped the part-time auxiliary forces as the Territorial Force in 1908, it was optimised for the same role, i.e. to secure Britain if and when the BEF went overseas. By July 1914 it had failed to recruit to its establishment of 300,000, and only five complete units had made themselves available for service outside Britain. In the event, many Territorial Force Battalions helped bridge the gap between the exhausted B.E.F. and reservists and the advent of Kitchener’s Armies in 1916.
On 4th August, following the German invasion of Belgium, war was declared on Germany and its allies.