PREFACE
While this book has been at press, the Territorial Force has passed into the Territorial Army, thus closing another chapter in the history of the British citizen-soldier. That closed chapter has still to be written, as a complete history of the Territorial Force, called into being by Mr. (Lord) Haldane, when Secretary of State for War, in 1907, struggling against adverse circumstances for existence and recognition from 1908 to 1914, and approving itself from 1914 to 1919, by the testimony of Mr. Secretary Churchill and Field-Marshals Earl Haig and Viscount French, as a saviour of the Empire in the Great War.
The present volume may supply material for one chapter of that history. In Book I, I try to trace the early annals of the Force within the confines of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and in Books II and III, I follow the Troops which were raised in that Riding to their war-stations overseas. As far as possible, I have observed the limits set by the scope of my narrative. General history before the war has been subordinated to the experience of the West Riding Territorial Force Association, and the history of the war has been told in relation to the part of the 49th and 62nd (West Riding) Infantry Divisions, which went to France in 1915 and 1917.
Principally, then, this book is concerned with the work of the Infantry. A brief account of the experience of the Yeomanry is given in Chapter XIV, and one or two other units (notably, a Company of the R.E., which served with the 29th in the Dardanelles, and a Casualty Clearing Station in France) are included in the main narrative. Another volume might well be filled with the doings of West Riding Territorials attached to other units during the war, but these records seem to belong to the units concerned more appropriately than to the present narrative. The story of the 2nd and 3rd Northern General Hospitals is likely to be fully told in the Medical History of the war, and will be found to reflect the utmost credit on the responsible authorities. These Hospitals were freely used by wounded men of all units from the front, and became the radiant centres of a large number of War Hospitals in the county. From the parent institutions in Leeds and Sheffield, Auxiliary Hospitals sprang up throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire, as many as 6,500 beds being affiliated to the 2nd Northern General Hospital alone. From August, 1914, till late in 1919, this splendid work, of which the foundations were laid in peace-time, was in full swing, and should form an important chapter in a complete history of the Territorial Force.
Special mention is also due to the uniformly brilliant record of the West Riding Divisional Artillery, which was employed throughoutthe war in all parts of the field. It has not proved possible in this volume to select its Brigades and Batteries for special treatment: the effect would have been too much disjointed; but, wherever they covered the Infantry, their work always won the highest praise, and their skill under arduous conditions is one of the marvels of the war. Something, too, should be said about Mechanical Transport, re-organized, like so much else, at the hour of trial in March, 1918, and of other Arms of the Service, subordinate to the Infantry Divisions. I must be content, however, with this passing reference to their exploits, and with such tributes to them as occur in the course of the main narrative.
My own connection with my subject is very slender. It happened that, in 1917, I was lent to the War Office by the Royal Defence Corps in order to do some special work in a branch then known as T.V.I. (in the Territorial and Volunteer Forces Directorate). The Director-General, Major-General the Earl of Scarbrough, had been Chairman from the start of the Territorial Force Association of the West Riding; and it happened again, in 1919, when the History Committee of his Association had been disappointed of the services of Professor G. S. Gordon, of Leeds University, a Captain in the 6th West Yorkshire Regiment, 62nd Division, and now Official Military Historian of the war, that Lord Scarbrough recommended me to write this local history in his stead. In the earlier chapters of the book, I had the advantage of Professor Gordon’s assistance, and I gladly take this opportunity of thanking him for his valuable help. My work is also much indebted to the care of several of the General Officers Commanding the two Divisions; particularly, of Major-General Sir James Trotter in connection with Chapter VI, and of Lieut.-General Sir Walter Braithwaite, in connection with the important period of his Command of the 62nd in France. Lord Scarbrough’s personal interest in all that concerns his Association has been extended, with great benefit, to this book in all its stages, and I have also to thank Brig.-General Mends, Secretary of the Association, and Captain Mildren, his assistant, for their unremitting trouble. The list of Officers from the Riding, who have placed at my disposal diaries, photographs, letters, notes, and valuable advice, is too long to enumerate. I should like specially to thank Major E. P. Chambers, Captains Tom Goodall, R. M. Robinson and J. C. Scott; but I will ask all, comprehensively, to accept the expression of my gratitude, and of my hope that I have not altogether failed to do justice to the praises which they have united in bestowing on the men whom they led.
For this, when all is said and done, is the beginning and the end of any instalment of a history of the Territorial Force. ‘This wonderful force,’ as Lord French has called it in his book,1914, wasfounded on the ‘patriotic spirit which has always been the soul of the Volunteers. It was reserved for Lord Haldane,’ adds the Field-Marshal, ‘to devise the scheme which was to make the fullest use of the Volunteers and bring them to the zenith of their reputation.’ How high in military ardour and achievement that zenith proved during the Great War, may be judged, I hope, from this record, however incomplete and at second-hand, of the Territorial Troops from the West Riding, which it has been my privilege to compile.
L.M.
London,March 23rd, 1920.