Territorial Force
The Territorial Force was a part-time volunteer component of the British Army, created in 1908 to augment British land forces without resorting to conscription. The new organisation was create by the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907, which consolidated the 19th-century Volunteer Force and yeomanry into a unified auxiliary, commanded by the War Office and administered by local county territorial associations. The Territorial Force was designed to reinforce the regular army in expeditionary operations abroad, but because of political opposition it was assigned to home defence. Members were liable for service anywhere in the UK and could not be compelled to serve overseas unless they volunteered to do so.
In the first two months of the First World War, territorials volunteered for foreign service in significant numbers, allowing territorial units to be deployed abroad. They saw their first action on the Western Front during the initial German offensive of 1914, and the force filled the gap between the near destruction of the regular army that year and the arrival of the New Army in 1915. Territorial units were deployed to Gallipoli in 1915 and, following the failure of that campaign, provided the bulk of the British contribution to allied forces in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. By the war's end, the Territorial Force had fielded twenty-three infantry divisions and two mounted divisions on foreign soil. It was demobilised after the war and reconstituted in 1921 as the Territorial Army by the Territorial Army and Militia Act 1921.
The force experienced problems throughout its existence. On establishment, fewer than 40 per cent of the men in the previous auxiliary institutions transferred into it, and it was consistently under strength until the outbreak of the First World War. It was not considered to be an effective military force by the regular army and was denigrated by the proponents of conscription. Lord Kitchener chose to concentrate the Territorial Force on home defence and raise the New Army to reinforce the British Expeditionary Force in France, a decision which disappointed the territorials. The need to replace the severe losses suffered by the BEF before the New Army was ready forced Kitchener to deploy territorial units overseas, compromising the force's ability to defend the homeland. To replace foreign-service units, the Territorial Force was doubled in size by creating a second line which mirrored the organisation of the original, first-line units. Second-line units assumed responsibility for home defence and provided replacement drafts to the first line. The second line competed with the New Army for limited resources and was poorly equipped and armed as a result. The provision of replacements to the first line compromised the second line's home defence capabilities until a third line was raised to take over responsibility for territorial recruitment and training. The second line's duties were further complicated by the expectation, later confirmed, that it too would be deployed overseas.
Territorial units were initially deployed overseas to release regular units from non-combat duties. On the Western Front, individual battalions were attached to regular army formations and sent into action, and the territorials were credited with playing a key role in stopping the German offensive in late 1914. The first complete territorial division to be deployed to a combat zone arrived in France in March 1915. Territorial divisions began participating in offensive operations on the Western Front from June 1915 and at Gallipoli later that year. Because of the way it was constituted and recruited, the Territorial Force possessed an identity that was distinct from the regular army and the New Army. This became diluted as casualties were replaced with conscripted recruits following the introduction of compulsory service in early 1916. The Territorial Force was further eroded as a separate institution when county territorial associations were relieved of most of their administrative responsibilities. By the war's end, there was little to distinguish between regular, territorial and New Army formations.
Background
The British Army of the late 19th century was a small, professional organisation designed to garrison the empire and maintain order at home, with no capacity to provide an expeditionary force in a major war. It was augmented in its home duties by three part-time volunteer institutions, the militia, the Volunteer Force and the yeomanry. Battalions of the militia and Volunteer Force had been linked with regular army regiments since 1872, and the militia was often used as a source of recruitment into the regular army. The terms of service for all three auxiliaries made service overseas voluntary. The Second Boer War exposed weaknesses in the ability of the regular army to counter guerrilla warfare which required additional manpower to overcome. The only reinforcements available were the auxiliaries – nearly 46,000 militiamen served in South Africa and another 74,000 were enlisted into the regular army; some 20,000 men of the Volunteer Force volunteered for active service in South Africa; and the yeomanry provided the nucleus of the separate Imperial Yeomanry for which over 34,000 volunteered.The war placed a significant strain on the regular forces. Against a background of invasion scares in the press, George Wyndham, Under-Secretary of State for War, conceded in Parliament in February 1900 that instead of augmenting the regular army's defence of the British coast, the auxiliary forces were the main defence. The questionable performance of the volunteers, caused by poor standards of efficiency and training, led to doubts in both government and the regular army about the auxiliary's ability to meet such a challenge. The war also exposed the difficulty in relying on auxiliary forces which were not liable for service overseas as a source of reinforcements for the regular army in times of crisis. In 1903, the director of general mobilisation and military intelligence reported an excess of home defence forces which could not be relied upon to expand the army in foreign campaigns. The utility of such forces was brought further into question by British military planning; the Royal Navy formed the primary defence against invasion, and studies in 1903 and 1908 concluded that the threat of invasion was negligible, despite popular perceptions to the contrary.
Reform efforts
The first reform efforts were undertaken in 1901 by William St John Brodrick, Secretary of State for War. They were designed to improve the training of the auxiliary forces and transform the yeomanry from cavalry to mounted infantry. Brodrick's efforts were met with opposition from auxiliary interests in the government, and the yeomanry in particular proved resistant to change. A royal commission on auxiliary forces concluded in 1904 that the volunteer organisations were not fit to defend the country unaided and that the only effective solution would be to introduce conscription. This option, regarded as political suicide by all parties, was immediately rejected. Brodrick's successor, H. O. Arnold-Forster, also failed to overcome opposition to his reform efforts. In December 1905, a Liberal government took office, bringing in Richard Haldane as the Secretary of State for War. His vision was for a nation that could be mobilised for war without resorting to conscription – a "real national army, formed by the people". His solution was the Territorial Force, financed, trained and commanded centrally by the War Office and raised, supplied and administered by local county territorial associations.Haldane was able to overcome opposition and pass the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 which created the force, though not without compromise. His plan to give civic, business and trade union leaders a major role in running the county territorial associations was significantly reduced in the face of opposition to civilian encroachment in military affairs. Instead, the associations were chaired by Lord Lieutenants and run by traditional county military elites. Militia representatives refused to accept Haldane's plans to allocate a proportion of the militia as a reserve for the regular army and incorporate the remainder into the Territorial Force. After three attempts to persuade them, Haldane abolished the militia and created the Special Reserve.
Crucially, Haldane's efforts were based on the premise that home defence rested with the navy and that the imperative for army reform was to provide an expeditionary capability. His reorganisation of the regular army created a six-division Expeditionary Force, and his plan was for the Territorial Force to reinforce it after six months of training following mobilisation. Representatives of the existing auxiliary forces and elements within the Liberal party opposed any foreign service obligation. To ensure their support, Haldane declared the Territorial Force's purpose to be home defence when he introduced his reforms in Parliament, despite having stressed an overseas role eight days previously. The last-minute change caused significant difficulties for the force throughout its existence.
Formation
The Territorial Force was established on 1 April 1908 by the amalgamation of the Volunteer Force and the yeomanry under the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907. The Volunteer Force battalions became the infantry component of the Territorial Force and were more closely integrated into regular army regimental establishments they had previously been linked to; for example, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Volunteer Battalions of the regular army's Gloucestershire Regiment became the regiment's 4th, 5th and 6th Battalions. The infantry was organised into 14 territorial divisions, each of three brigades. The yeomanry regiments became the mounted component of the Territorial Force, organised into 14 mounted brigades. Brigades and divisions were equipped with integral supporting arms along regular army lines, comprising territorial units of artillery, engineers and signals, along with supply, medical and veterinary services. Each territorial unit was assigned a specific role either in coastal defence, supplementing 81 territorial companies of the Royal Garrison Artillery manning fixed defences, or as part of the mobile Central Force. Training was managed by a permanent staff of regular army personnel attached to territorial units.Recruits to the Territorial Force had to be aged between 17 and 35. They enlisted for a four-year term which could be extended by an obligatory year in times of crisis. Members could terminate their enlistment on three months' notice and payment of a fine. Recruits were required to attend a minimum of 40 drill periods in their first year and 20 per year thereafter. All members were required to attend between eight and fifteen days of annual camp. The force was liable to serve anywhere in the UK. Members were not required to serve overseas but could volunteer to do so. Haldane, who still regarded the force's primary function to be the expansion of the Expeditionary Force, hoped that up to a quarter of all territorials would volunteer on mobilisation. The Imperial Service Obligation was introduced in 1910 to allow territorials to volunteer in advance. It was illegal to amalgamate or disband territorial units or transfer members between them.