The First World War is perceived by many today as static, with no real tactical development.
However, all of the armies fighting underwent major evolutionary steps between 1914 and
1918 and we’re covering them in a series of specials, and today I’m talking about Britain.
I’m Indy Neidell; welcome to a Great War Special episode about the evolution of the
British Infantry in the First World War.
Britain entered the war with an army that had been shaped by the Boers Wars and other
colonial wars.
British infantry tactics in 1914 emphasized rapid, accurate rifle volleys and finding
cover by means such as entrenching.
The average British private at the time, in contrast to those of the other warring armies,
was a professional soldier who had served over four years.
He was part of a platoon, which was part of a company.
That company of around 150 men was the basic tactical unit, meaning that companies were
given tasks and objectives, not platoons, and there was very little room for initiative
or deviation at the platoon level or lower.
The trained British regulars were well equipped and many could accurately fire a “mad minute”,
15 rounds at 300 yards with his Lee Enfield rifle.
This was just about the only weapon the British infantry used in 1914.
The spaced but tightly controlled, highly trained British formations were very effective
in defensive actions against exposed, close-knit attacking formations, like the German ones
they faced at the Battle of the Mons, the first British encounter with Germans during
the war.
The Germans were taken aback by the skill of the outnumbered British, who they had seriously
underestimated.
British tactics were not, however, so effective on offense, against artillery, machine gun
fire, and an entrenched enemy.
Indeed, it was clear early on in the war that defense was king on the western front, and
new equipment, weapons, and tactics must be developed to break the stalemate.
One change that was fairly unwelcome in the British army was the change in the soldier
himself.
The British regulars had been arguably the best soldiers in the world in general, but
there had only been 100,000 or so of them, and by the end of 1914 most of them were either
dead, missing, prisoners of war, or too badly wounded to fight.
The four types of soldiers Britain used over the course of the war were described by Professor
Richard Holmes as “old, new, borrowed, and blue”, as in something of each that a bride
should have at her wedding.
Old as in the professionals at the beginning of the war, followed by Borrowed when soldiers
were “borrowed” from the British Territorial Army - the reserves for home defense, New
was the army of volunteers that came after them, and finally the Blue conscripted men.
The Territorials were first used to replace the regulars in places like Gibraltar or Egypt
to free up regulars for fighting in Europe, though as 1915 rolled on they themselves were
fielded in ever-larger numbers on the Western Front.
These men had volunteered to go to the front instead of serving at home and did not have
the training, the fitness, or the experience of the regulars.
There were more of them, though, and soldiers also poured in from all corners of the British
global empire.
But the war that these men turned up for was rapidly changing, as new weapons, sub-unit
tactics, and leadership training developed.
You had the widespread introduction of poison gas, aerial reconnaissance and combat, and
platoon technologies like light machine guns, the mills bomb, rifle grenades, and trench
mortars.
Grenades were great for clearing out trenches and dugouts without exposing yourself.
They had begun use at the front as just a locally made weapon, but the “jam-tin”
bombs were unpredictable and quite likely to kill the thrower instead of the enemy.
The Mills bomb #5 became the standard grenade in 1915 and the rifle grenade variant, the
#23, in 1917.
The trench mortar, which the Germans brought to the war at its beginning, was another big
innovation.
Mortars themselves were old weapons, but their steep angle of fire was ideal for trench warfare,
and the Stokes mortar was simple, lightweight and portable, and was the infantry’s artillery.
With 1916 came Kitchener’s Army.
These were the volunteers asked for by British Secretary of State for War Lord Herbert Kitchener
in his iconic poster campaign.
These men often served in platoons or companies with their friends from school or work.
The pals’ battalions were great for morale, sure, but an entire generation of men from
a single town could be lost in one morning if that unit had a disaster in battle.
And disasters to the New Army certainly happened in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.
Thing is, senior British leaders did not really trust the new army with having the initiative
to move and fight in small units, so there was a kind of a return to 1914 thinking.
The plan at the Somme was to destroy the German defenses with artillery, walk across No-mans
land in battalion formation, and occupy the destroyed positions as the cavalry exploited
the breakthrough.
As we’ve seen in the regular episodes, this did not happen.
But the march of progress continued.
The tank first saw battle in September 1916, as the British premiered it to the world.
They were not very effective, but they did have enormous potential and showed that at
least somebody was forward thinking, and from the battles of 1916 came the innovations of
1917.
Specifically - the men were learning to coordinate arms, weapon systems, and branches of service
to make a cohesive fighting force.
But those men were no longer the old, the new, or the borrowed.
Volunteers were drying up so in 1916 Britain passed the Military Service Act, which introduced
conscription, and by 1917 conscripts were being sent to the front with no experience
and little training.
Front line training, though, had seriously improved; brigades and divisions had organized
training regimens, and soldiers spent a good part of their “rest” days training.
The platoons were re-organized into a self-contained fighting unit, with its own specialized troops
- grenade throwers, machine gunners, snipers, and so forth.
These would now all work together under a junior officer or sergeant on their own specific
objectives.
By the Battle of Cambrai in late 1917, infantry and tanks were even coordinated, with three
tanks and a platoon working together, even as the infantry as a whole coordinated with
the artillery.
From then on it was clear- especially in battles like Hamel and Amiens- that all of the branches
of the army must work together with objectives designated all the way down to the smallest
of units.
So the British soldier of 1918 was likely a conscript, but with a lot of experience.
He worked in a small team that featured a variety of weapons specialists as opposed
to just riflemen, he knew his unit’s objectives and he knew the ground he had to cover since
vastly improved communications, improved reconnaissance, and intelligence analysis allowed for a detailed
knowledge of the enemy positions.
He knew what to expect from the artillery, he knew what the tanks were going to do and
how to work with them, and initiative was expected and often encouraged at all levels,
even down to the individual.
Now, you may wonder why this episode is just about the British.
This is part of a series of specials about the tactics and the development of the various
nations’ armies.
If you know or would like to research something like that from a nation or a branch of service
that we haven’t covered yet, please get in touch with Flo, our producer and social
media guy.
We would like to thank Mike Hayes for the research of this episode.
If you want to know more about the British uniforms and equipment, check out our special
episode right here.
And to learn more about the British soldier, like us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram.
See you next time.