CHAPTER IIIMOBILIZATION

No one in the present generation is likely to forget Tuesday, August 4th, 1914. A greater complexity of emotions was crowded into the twenty-four hours which ended at 11 p.m. (midnight by mid-European time) that day than was known before or has been known since. We moved from war to peace in 1918-19 through a gradual series of experiences: relief from fear, even from anxiety, growing hope, moral certainty, real conviction, the armistice, the surrender of ships, the peace conference, civil unrest, the return of troops, and so forth. We moved from peace to war in the space of a single night’s experience. Who slept in the night of August 4th awoke the next morning to war. The more sanguine might hug the dream of a quick walk-over for the Allied Armies; of France, with England’s assistance, fighting victoriously on the West, while Russia, the ‘steam-roller’ as they called her, crushed the soil of the enemy on his Eastern frontier. But not even the most credulous was immune from that sense of something new and unexpected which all the circumstances of the hour conspired to create. The extended holiday, the swollen bank-rate, the moratorium, the sessions of the Cabinet, the balance of responsibility which made Sir Edward Grey’s least utterance an oracle; the contrast between the dead tissue of domestic politics—Ireland, the House of Lords, the Welsh Church—and the living body of Belgium, already shaking at the thunder of German guns; the quickened interest in foreign history, foreign policy, foreign naval and military resources; the strange names of Treitschke, Nietzsche, and the vision of Professor Cramb; above all, the sudden, overwhelming rush on respectable, commonplace minds of new, strange facts and ideas, and the haunting fancies which they evoked, in the midst of that August procession of harvest, foliage and heat, combined to produce an effect of change which no effort of ‘reconstruction’ can unmake.

It fell least heavily on the Royal Navy and the Regular Army, which proceeded to or were found at their appointed stations, in calm reliance on the traditions behind them and without fear of the ordeal in front; and next only to the service-men, who turned from peace to war as from one day’s work to another, and changed their habits of life as quickly as a man might change his clothes, were the citizen-soldiers of the Territorial Force: landowners and tillers of the soil, doctors, lawyers and business-men, clerks, warehousemen and factory-hands, all the components of a great country’s complex mechanism, united by the Haldane scheme to serve side by side in a ‘people’s army.’

The evidence may be sought from many quarters, but it is the source not the stream which varies. Take, summarily, General Bethune’s tribute to the Force which he directed from 1912 to 1917[17];

‘A few days after mobilization, the Territorial Force were asked by telegraph the number that would volunteer for foreign service. Ninety-two per cent. responded within a few weeks, and the complete total, I think, rose to ninety-six per cent.... Before the end of September, we had doubled the Territorial Force, and were proceeding to form 3rd Lines.... Recruits from August 4th, 1914, to January 19th, 1916, amounted in round numbers to 732,000.... The Territorial Force Associations, composed, as they are, of representatives of every class in a County, were eminently adapted for the work which they undertook and carried out so well.... They relieved the War Office of an enormous amount of work which would not have been done in any other way.’

We shall have occasion to return to this official document.

Take, summarily, again, Lord French’s tribute to the Territorial Force, based on his experience in Command at the front, in his book,1914(pages 293-94):—

‘It is true that by the terms of their engagement, Territorial Soldiers were only available for Home Defence;... The response to the call which was subsequently made upon them shows quite clearly that, had they been asked at first, they would have come forward almost to a man.‘However, as it turned out, they were ignored.... Officers and men alike naturally made up their minds that they were not wanted and would never be used for any other purpose than that for which they had originally taken service, namely, the defence of the United Kingdom.‘But the time for the employment of troops other than the Regulars of the Old Army arrived with drastic and unexpected speed.... It was then that the Country in her need turned to the despised Territorials.‘The call came upon them like a bolt from the blue. No warning had been given. Fathers and sons, husbands and brothers left their families, homes, the work and business of their lives, almost at an hour’s notice to go on Active Service abroad.‘It seems to me we have never realized what it was these men were asked to do. They were quite different to professional soldiers, who are kept and paid through years of peace for this particular purpose of war; who spend their lives practising their profession and gaining promotion and distinction; and who,on being confronted with the enemy, fulfil the great ambition of their lives.‘Equally distinct were the Territorials also from what has been called the New Army, whose Officers and men had ample time to prepare themselves for what they were required to do. I wonder sometimes if the eyes of the country will ever be opened to what these Territorial soldiers of ours have done. I say without the slightest hesitation that, without the assistance which the Territorials afforded between October, 1914, and June, 1915, it would have been impossible to have held the line in France and Belgium, or to have prevented the enemy from reaching his goal, the Channel seaboard.’

‘However, as it turned out, they were ignored.... Officers and men alike naturally made up their minds that they were not wanted and would never be used for any other purpose than that for which they had originally taken service, namely, the defence of the United Kingdom.

‘But the time for the employment of troops other than the Regulars of the Old Army arrived with drastic and unexpected speed.... It was then that the Country in her need turned to the despised Territorials.

‘The call came upon them like a bolt from the blue. No warning had been given. Fathers and sons, husbands and brothers left their families, homes, the work and business of their lives, almost at an hour’s notice to go on Active Service abroad.

‘It seems to me we have never realized what it was these men were asked to do. They were quite different to professional soldiers, who are kept and paid through years of peace for this particular purpose of war; who spend their lives practising their profession and gaining promotion and distinction; and who,on being confronted with the enemy, fulfil the great ambition of their lives.

‘Equally distinct were the Territorials also from what has been called the New Army, whose Officers and men had ample time to prepare themselves for what they were required to do. I wonder sometimes if the eyes of the country will ever be opened to what these Territorial soldiers of ours have done. I say without the slightest hesitation that, without the assistance which the Territorials afforded between October, 1914, and June, 1915, it would have been impossible to have held the line in France and Belgium, or to have prevented the enemy from reaching his goal, the Channel seaboard.’

Take, in detail, the War Diaries of Officers Commanding Territorial Force units in the West Riding; and first, for the sake of completing the record followed in the last chapter, that of the 4th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment. On July 26th, we read, they left Halifax for their Annual Training at Marske-by-the-Sea:

‘The times were very unsettled, there were rumours of war, and it was thought that at any moment the order for mobilization would come. The training proceeded amidst intense excitement, and finally word came that Germany and Austria had declared war on England, France and Russia. The Special Service Section of the Battalion, consisting of two officers, Captain R. E. Sugden and Lieut. H. N. Waller, and 100 men were at once despatched to Grimsby. On August 3rd, the Battalion was ordered to return to Halifax, and at 7 p.m. on August 4th the order to mobilize was received.... At about 1-30 p.m. on August 5th, the Battalion marched down Horton Street to the station, and took train to Hull, their allotted station, where the men were billeted.’

Among the officers who left Halifax with the Battalion were Lieut.-Col. H. Atkinson (the Lieutenant Atkinson of South Africa days[18]) and Major E. P. Chambers.[19]A few days were spent in making ready, and

‘On August 13th, the Battalion marched to Great Coates, where the men were billeted in the village. The training was now commenced, and the days were spent in route-marching, Company and Battalion training, special attention being paid to musketry. The weather during the whole stay at Great Coates was absolutely perfect, glorious sunshine day after day.’

So the news reached Headquarters at Halifax.

Take the evidence of the 6th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. On August 5th, at 6 p.m., there were present at Headquarters in Bradford 575 members out of a total strength of 589.Before the close of that day 215 men had re-engaged and re-enlisted. On August 8th the Commanding Officer was in a position to telegraph to York that his Battalion was up to War Establishment; 29 officers, 979 other ranks, 57 horses and the necessary transport: not bad going in August, 1914, for a unit of the Force, which, through its administrative council, had waited on the Prime Minister as recently as November, 1913, to discuss grave deficiencies in its numbers.

It is worth while to piece together this Unit’s record, which may fairly be taken to typify that of the Territorial Force as a whole, within the West Riding or beyond, in these early weeks of the Great War. There is the detail of the horses, for example, insignificant, of course, in the perspective of a history of the Great War, but significant as an item of preparation in the sum of the country’s enormous effort. The 57 horses were all purchased locally, 10 for officers, 16 pack, and 31 draught; ‘the latter being a good, heavy stamp from carters’ wagons.’ There is evidence of foresight in that touch. On August 11th the Battalion went by rail to its war-station at Selby, where Captain Anderton, billeting officer, had been making arrangements since the 9th. Ten men were discharged as undesirable, and it is observed that the enlisting was done at such high speed during mobilization, ‘that it was impossible to inquire into the characters of many of the men.’ About a hundred National Reservists, Class II, had been enlisted into the Battalion on August 8th, who proved ‘a boon to the Battalion,’ and repaid the hard work of General Mends and his assistants in this department. As old soldiers they served, despite their age, to steady the recruits. Recruit-training had to be started at once, in view of the many enlistments, and a special staff was organized for this purpose in order that the main business of training might be interrupted as little as possible. A welcome move from billets to camp (near Selby) was made on August 19th, and on the 24th they moved by rail and road to the Knavesmire Common, York, where Brigade Orders were received that the Battalion had been selected as the Service Battalion of the 1st West Riding Infantry Brigade: on the whole, a cheerful account of twenty days’ experience of war conditions.

The newly selected Service Battalion was formed into complete Companies, which consisted entirely of personnel volunteering for service overseas, and in which the men from each Company were kept as far as practicable together. The remaining Companies were made up from Units, kept together in the same way, provided by the 5th, 7th and 8th Battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment. After some practice in night-entraining and other exercises, the Battalion moved on August 31st, and marched with 1st Line Transport to take its place in the Brigade: ‘a great change for the better,’ it is added. Next day, the Brigadier-General addressed the Territorial troops of the Brigade on the subject of voluntary active service abroad, and bySeptember 15th the Battalion mustered 800 strong for overseas. Some strenuous weeks of training followed. On November 3rd, when the men were back in York, sounds of heavy firing in the North Sea raised a temporary alarm of German Dreadnoughts and Cruisers working North. ‘In two hours,’ we are told, ‘the Battalion was ready to move off with transport loaded’; so, down South, we might sleep o’ nights. At this date, too, we read of an ‘enormous improvement in the general behaviour of the N.C.O.’s and men. Conduct excellent in the town.’

We come to November 22nd, 1914. Half the Battalion moved to Redcar, complete with transport, ammunition and tools, on trench-digging duty. Their place was taken by five Home Service Companies, who arrived, it is observed, without greatcoats or equipment. On December 2nd, the Machine-Guns with their detachments were ordered to Redcar, and proceeded under Captain R. G. Fell. On the 10th, an exchange was effected between the four Reserve Companies and the half-battalion at Redcar, which returned accordingly to York. A new programme of training was arranged, which lasted through January, 1915, and on February 1st came a welcome leave for twenty per cent. of officers and other ranks. At the end of February, the Battalion moved to Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire, to relieve the 4th Battalion K.O.Y.L.I., and were billeted on the inhabitants, four men in each dwellinghouse, ‘a change for the better’, remarks the diarist, ‘after being a platoon in a hired empty house at York’. The Battalion remained at Gainsborough till April 15th, when they proceeded in two trains to Folkestone, reaching Boulogne at 10-45 that night. Their transport and machine-guns, which had left Gainsborough the day before, and which travelled via Southampton and Havre, joined them at Boulogne. There for the present we may leave them to spend the night of the 15th in a Rest Camp, eight months and ten days after the order to mobilize had been received at Bradford.

Take the evidence of a unit in a different arm. Colonel A. E. L. Wear,[20]C.M.G., of the Army Medical Service, was in camp at Scarborough on August 4th, 1914, with the cadre of the 1/1st West Riding Casualty Clearing Station, later the 7th C.C. Station. The unit returned at once to its Headquarters at Leeds, where mobilization to war strength was completed, with the exception of the full complement of officers. Great care was taken to select men for the sake of their skill in special trades: joiners, tailors, boot-repairers, First-Aid experts, and so forth; and the wisdom of this foresight was fully justified by events. Intensive training was started forthwith, in the French language, the duties of cooks and orderlies, field work by means of week-end bivouacs, and other practical departments, with the resultthat Colonel Wear was able to inform the War Office as early as October that his unit was ready for overseas. Orders were received to proceed to France, and the officers scheduled on a waiting-list were enrolled, clothed and equipped. On November 1st, the passage was made to Boulogne, and on the 6th a detachment was employed in dealing at Poperinghe with the wounded from the first Battle of Ypres.

As this Medical unit from the West Riding preceded the Divisions to France, it will be convenient in this place to follow its fortunes a little further. Towards the end of November, 1914, it took over the Monastery of St. Joseph, which is situated just North of Merville, and which had been used in turn by German, French, English and Indian troops. A Casualty Clearing Station needs quiet and cleanliness, among the major virtues, and a perfect economy of minor details in order to ensure them. Colonel Wear proved equal to these demands. He apportioned the building into wards, stores, operating-theatre, dispensary, offices, etc., cleaned it all up and made it ready, and, after a little discussion with the Church authorities, turned the roomy main chapel of the Monastery into a serious case ward. Members of the unit (observe here the C.O.’s foresight in his selection of personnel) installed the heating-stoves, and concreted the paths, and built a large destructor to hold a 400-gallon iron tank, which supplied hot water to a bath-hut. They also did the washing for some time, but, later, arrangements were made for French female labour, and a regular laundry was fitted up. This feature was novel and successful. The work, seldom light, came in rushes, when day and night shifts (at times, even four-hour shifts) were organized, so as to carry on with the minimum of fatigue by means of a limited personnel. The unit numbered at full strength eight Medical Officers, a Quartermaster, a Dentist, two Chaplains, seven Nurses, eighty-four rank and file, nine A.S.C. and seventeen P.B. men. Perhaps its own simple statement gives its record in the most effective language: ‘No man ever left the station without having his wound examined and dressed, and receiving a meal and a smoke.’ From frost-bite, La Bassée, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers and Festubert, came the first streams of clients to this station.

A CASUALTY CLEARING STATION.

We return to the centre of war activity at the Territorial Headquarters in York.

In a little book, written chiefly for America and published early in 1918, Major Basil Williams, later employed under Colonel Lord Gorell on educational Staff Duties, described in adequate terms theRaising and Training the New Armies[21]. We are not immediately concerned with the decision which called those Armies into being. Lord Kitchener was Secretary of State for War, and on August 8th, 1914, he called for that ‘first hundred thousand’ whose spirit was so brilliantly conveyed in Mr. Ian Hay’s volume of that name. He got them overand over again, and it is no part of our purpose to discuss the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee’s output of speeches, posters and ‘literature,’ by which, partly, under the grace of England’s effort, the result was obtained. Nor shall we examine the evidence on which Mr. Churchill, as Secretary of State for War, based his expression of opinion, already quoted above, that, had the Territorial Force organization ‘been used to build up the War Army, as originally intended and conceived by Lord Haldane, we should have avoided many of the difficulties that confronted us at the outset, and we should have put a larger efficient force in the field at an earlier stage.’ What Lord Haldane intended in 1908 and what Lord Kitchener demanded in 1914 might well be corrected in the light of what Mr. Churchill knew in 1919. But even without the wisdom which is garnered after the event, we are entitled to quote one sentence from Major Williams’ account of the New Armies. Towards the close of his review of ‘the great awakening of the nation by the recruiting campaign,’ 1914-1915, he wrote:

‘All this time the Territorial Force, the original home defence force, nearly the whole of which had originally volunteered for service overseas, had been quietly raising recruits for itself, supplementary to the recruits raised by these different methods’.

‘All this time’ and ‘quietly’ are themots justes. The ‘time’ as we have observed, dated back through the Volunteer movement of 1859 to the immemorial tradition of shire-loyalty; the ‘quiet’ was that of boroughs and countryside, of mayors’ parlours and manorial halls, of town-marts and village-greens in England—

‘Grave mother of majestic works,From her isle-altar gazing down,Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,And, King-like, wears the crown.’

‘Grave mother of majestic works,

From her isle-altar gazing down,

Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,

And, King-like, wears the crown.’

Her possession of the trident was first definitely challenged[22]since Trafalgar on August 4th, 1914, and in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as elsewhere, the means of defence were swiftly organized.

Swift forethought in County areas, it should be noted, did not invariably lead to sound action at the executive centre. A trivial example will suffice. Three weeks after the outbreak of war, a letter was written to the Army Council suggesting that the West Riding Association should make provision for cardigan jackets, warm drawers, and other articles of clothing, which the troops would require in the winter months. The Army Council sent a dignified reply, thanking the Association for their offer, but stating that these articles would be provided by the Army Council itself. Later, on October 9th, the Army Council intimated its inability to supply cardigan jackets, warm drawers, and other articles of winter clothing for the Troops, andrequested the Association to make provision. So far the experience was merely funny, but the sequel had a Gilbertian touch. When the Association made inquiry at the contractors, they were informed that all manufacturers of the articles in question had been forbidden by the Army Council to supply anyone else than the War Office. ‘These facts are brought before the Association’, remarked the Chairman in his quarterly report, ‘in order that members may know that everything possible was done to anticipate the requirements of the Troops, and that any failure in this respect is due to causes beyond its control.’ It was well and temperately said.

The heavy increase of work in the secretariat was fairly met by the voluntary help of the Hon. G. N. de Yarburgh-Bateson, Mr. Talbot Rice, Mr. Peter Green, some eighteen or twenty volunteers from the close of their day’s work till late at night, two clerks from the North Eastern Railway Company, a clerk from the York Probate Office, twenty-six additional full-time clerks, Boy Scouts and other useful helpers. The County Director was assisted by Col. Sir Thomas Pilkington, Bt.,[23]and Lieut.-Col. Husband, whom the G.O.C. had appointed as officers superintending the Lines of Communication and the arrangements for the care of the sick and wounded. Advisory Boards were formed for the 2nd and 3rd Northern General Hospitals at Leeds (Training College, Beckett’s Park) and Sheffield (Collegiate Hall) respectively, which as early as the end of August had already many patients from France and Belgium. These Boards, consisting, at Leeds, of the Lord Mayor, Alderman F. Kinder, Lt.-Col. Shann and the Matron of the Infirmary; and, at Sheffield, of the Lord Mayor, Lord Wharncliffe, Col. Hughes, Lt.-Col. Sinclair White and the Matron of the Infirmary, were intended to relieve the Commanding Officers of the Hospitals of some portion of their administrative functions, leaving them freer for professional work and discipline.

We omit the long figures and many Army Forms with which General Mends and his Staff had to wrestle. The 5,000 blankets and 2,000 sets of saddlery, the 32,887 complete suits of service-dress, the 16,803 water-bottles and 4,242 bandoliers; these requisitions and the rest of them are as tiresome and uninteresting in retrospect as they were absorbing and urgent at the time. There is one feature of their work, however, familiar by the mystic letters S/A, which cannot be passed over without notice, for it imposed a very severe strain on the Association’s capacity for expansion. S/A stands for separation allowance, and the regular issue of this grant to the wives and dependents of serving soldiers had been assigned by the Act of Parliament as part of an Association’s duty. It was by no means an easy task. Allowance has to be made for an inconvenient distribution of functions. A soldier, whether Regular or Territorial, drew his pay from hisCommanding Officer out of the monies supplied on vouchers presented to the Regimental Paymaster. In the Regular Army the same Paymaster kept the soldier’s domestic account with his wife and children or other dependents; and, though errors inevitably occurred even when the accounts were thus linked, they could be checked and more readily adjusted, inasmuch as all the information was available in the same office. For the domestic account, it should be observed, was extremely sensitive to variations in the soldier’s rate of pay, and was affected by the soldier’s ‘casualties,’ whether major ones of death or desertion, or minor ones of leave, punishment and so forth. In the Territorial Force, however, the soldier’s domestic account was kept by his County Association, presumably owing to the fact that they were more likely to be in touch with the personnel of the units which they administered. In peace-time this worked very well. When a Territorial soldier went into camp for a week or fortnight in the summer, it was comparatively a simple matter for the local Territorial Force Association to pay the corresponding days’ allowances to those whom he left at home. But the immense expansion of the Force in 1914, and the extraordinarily complicated system of accountancy, added to the distribution of pay-duties between the Regimental Paymaster for the man and the County Association for his dependent, overtook these heavily burdened bodies at a time when they were least well qualified to discharge the work effectively. They did not understand it. It was difficult to engage clerks. The Army Pay Department of the War Office could not spare sufficient trained instructors; and, generally, the urgent problems of the mobilization, equipment and (as we shall see) the duplication of the Force, tended to postpone attention to what seemed less pressing domestic matters. The early war annals of the West Riding Association are full of evidence to these conditions:

‘The duty devolving on the Association of paying Separation Allowances and Allotments of Pay to the wives and families of the Territorial Troops entails very heavy work and responsibility.... The first payment was due to be made on the 9th August, and consisted of Separation Allowance only up to the 31st of the month. The September payment was duly made on the 31st August. The number of Money Orders sent out up to and for that date was 13,328, and on 3rd September, orders were received to also pay a compulsory Allotment of Pay for each married soldier.’

Though they split an infinitive in doing so, this payment, too, was duly made on September 11th; but it involved a further 5,430 Money Orders with the corresponding, inevitable Army Forms.

It is no part of our present purpose to enquire into the possibilities of simplifying Army Pay; least of all, to suggest the simplest method of a flat rate like the wage of a civilian. But it is within our province to point out the almost infinite possibilities of mistakes (even of the fraud which is so elaborately excluded) in the family registerfor each soldier of the number, sex and age of his children, in the paraphernalia of coupons, Postal Draft-books and Money-Orders, in the calculation and readjustment of rates owing to information advised from the soldier’s unit or to domestic changes reported or detected, in the grading of ‘unofficial wives’ and other official relationships, and, summarily, in the invention of a system which seems expressly designed to squeeze out of the officers administering it the last drop of the milk of human kindness without any compensating gain in the civil virtues of economy and efficiency.

In January, 1915, nearly 15,000 books of Postal Drafts, representing approximately £210,000, were issued to Postmasters by a directing staff at York, which consisted entirely of voluntary workers. In the following April, steps were taken to regularize the position of these gentlemen, in anticipation of the approval of the Army Council, in which connection notice was drawn to the ‘unjustifiable system of differential treatment as between the clerical staff in Regular and Territorial Pay Offices,’ clerks in the former being engaged at 35s. a week and in the latter being offered only 23s. In June, the number of cases in pay and in action for payment amounted to 36,538, while the Pay Department was working with 41 per cent. below the equivalent establishment of the Regimental Paymaster’s Office. At last, on August 18th, 1915, more than a year after the outbreak of war, the War Office appointed an expert Paymaster to take charge of this heroic band of amateurs, a Government audit was instituted, and the Association was thankful to report that the department ‘is now working in as satisfactory a manner as the complicated and constantly changing regulations will permit.’ We shall leave the present branch of our subject on this note of moderate transport. That the Association had carried on so well is a proof of the continuity of function which won through to quicker results in other branches of its manifold activity.

We followed one or two units from the sudden hour of mobilization to the sea-ports of France and beyond. We may now look at this achievement, ‘quietly’ performed, as we are aware, in the midst of the recruiting for the New Army, through the spectacles of the County Association. Thus, the Chairman’s Progress Report, dated August 14th, 1914, referred to the confusion which was caused by the Division being in Camp when the fateful hour struck, but added that the task of mobilization ‘may be considered as satisfactorily carried out.’ A month later, he reported, in view of ‘the present grave emergency,’ that every West Riding unit in the Mounted Brigade, the Division and the Army Troops had qualified as a ‘General Service’ unit, which meant service overseas. Consequently, the Association became responsible—this gives us a glimpse through its spectacles—for raising Reserve units in each case, which meant a duplication of the Force, or, roughly, another 18,000 of all ranks. Note here the‘which meant’ in each context. The plain meaning of the situation within a few weeks of the outbreak of hostilities, was that the pre-war units would be sent to France at full Establishment, and that the West Riding would have to supply equivalent units in their home-stations. The rapid march of events soon caused names to be given to these facts. In January, 1915, the Chairman stated in his Report that ‘the first Reserve units are about to be organized as a Division,’ and that ‘as soon as the Imperial Service Division leaves for abroad, the first Reserve Division will take its place and a second Reserve Division will be raised. Orders have now been received to commence recruiting for the latter up to 30 per cent. of its Establishment.’ Meanwhile, more than 7,000 National Reservists had rejoined the Colours in the West Riding, of whom about 2,000 had been mobilized for duty on Lines of Communication and in Prisoners of War Camps. This force was organized by Colonel G. E. Wilkinson, D.S.O., and ‘the clothing and equipment,’ it is added, ‘have been provided by the Association.’ In other directions, too, the energies of the Association were fully engaged. The 2nd Northern General Hospital at Leeds and the 3rd at Sheffield had treated over 4,000 and 3,000 cases respectively; twenty-eight Auxiliary Hospitals had been approved, of which seventeen had been mobilized up to date, the whole of the staffs, except professional Trained Nurses, being provided free by the Voluntary Aid Detachments, whose beginnings we read of in the last chapter. Further, the West Riding Branch of Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild had sent 91,866 articles for the use of the Troops abroad and at home.

And still the war went on. We are to imagine this machine, invented in an epoch of peace to raise 18,000 men for mobilized service at home, stretched now to more than twice its capacity and creaking under unexpected burdens, operated by a shifting personnel of recalled officers, part-time clerks, and inexperienced, however enthusiastic, voluntary workers, overwhelmed with Army Forms and Returns and the necessary business of accountancy, storing trousers by tens of thousands in a space provided for a quarter of the supply, yet vexed that ‘certain articles, such as greatcoats, still come in very slowly, and boots, puttees, and gloves are extremely difficult to get,’ and always overtaken by the demands of the inexorable German advance, which did not wait upon decisions by the Army Council. The essential letter was issued by the War Office, from the Adjutant-General’s branch, on February 24th, 1915. It was numbered 9/Gen. No./4747, and it directed that the Imperial Service, first Reserve and second Reserve Units of the Territorial Force should be designated respectively, 1st, 2nd and 3rd Line. The organization of the West Riding Territorial Troops was altered, accordingly, to the West Riding Division, 1st Line; the West Riding Division, 2nd Line; and a 3rd Line on a Depot basis, with a strength temporarily limited to two-thirds ofWar Establishment. The Yorkshire Mounted Brigade was similarly re-organized. The 3rd Line was eventually to furnish drafts for the 1st and 2nd Lines, and until it should be in a position to do so the 2nd Line was to provide drafts for the 1st, which went overseas, April, 1915.

So, we reach along another route the same point to which we followed certain units through their months of training at home. Many details have necessarily been omitted: that the Association’s extra expenditure ‘due entirely to the war’ between August 4th, 1914, and April 17th, 1915, amounted to £349,902; that 551 men of the 2nd Line Units responded to an appeal for volunteers to transfer to the Reserve of the Regular Battalions of the West Yorkshire, West Riding, K.O. Yorkshire L.I., and York and Lancaster Regiments; that a Sanitary Section was added as a new unit to each 1st and 2nd Line; that Territorial Depots were henceforth to be known as Administrative Centres, and to be manned by Home Service members of the Territorial Force[24]; that up to March 31st, 1915, nearly 2,000 patients had been admitted to the Auxiliary Hospitals in the West Riding; and so on, and so forth. For the local machine had many wheels, and every wheel was kept moving all the time. It revolved as smoothly as it might, but the motive force was not in York, nor in London, but, in the German Headquarters on the Western Front, and in the hate, which, reversing Dante’s cosmogony, seemed, through those fateful months, ‘to move the sun and other stars.’

Only one more change need be recorded before we follow General Baldock abroad. In May, 1915, his Division was re-entitled the 49th (West Riding) Division. At the same time its Infantry Brigades (the 1/1st, 1/2nd and 1/3rd) were re-named the 146th, 147th and 148th Infantry Brigades respectively.[25]A few months later, the 2nd Line Division, which was still in training at home, and to some features in whose early history we shall come back, was re-entitled the 62nd (West Riding) Division.[26]Under these names they won renown in the Great War.

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