Chapter VI: Serving in Reserve

The intensive training of a 2nd Line Division, which was to take a conspicuous part in the battles of 1917 and 1918, is the subject of the present chapter.

The military confusion at home during the period prior to the passing of the first National Service Act, and prolonged to some extent through 1916, though it never affected the keenness and enthusiasm of the 2nd Line troops themselves, has yet to be taken into account in any impression which may be given of the conditions under which training was carried out. Reference to this factor will be found in the Memorandum on the Territorial Force written by General Bethune at the War Office, of which mention has been made before.[41] The then Director-General remarked: ‘Great difficulty was experienced in training, as, with so many new Armies to be formed, the majority of capable instructors went to them, and our 2nd Line Territorial Force had to train themselves as best they could. The result,’ he added, ‘was extraordinarily good and surprised anyone who had anything to do with it.’ We shall reach the element of surprise in due course. Here, for the moment, we are concerned with the ‘great difficulty’ which was encountered, and more particularly with those aspects of the difficulty which lay outside the cognizance of the Territorial Force personnel, or, at any rate, outside their control.

Let us go back to first principles. The idea of a voluntary Army, despite the wastage of war and the unequal distribution of patriotic sentiment, or of the capacity to respond to it, was still, late in 1914, a sacred article of British faith. Another accepted article, if not of faith, at least of British practice, was the enlistment of that voluntary Army on a County basis. This procedure, which was laid down in