The 1st Battalion was a Regular Army unit and was serving with the 6th Brigade, part of the 2nd Division and served with the British Expeditionary Force when it was sent to Belgium in 1914. They fought in the Battle of Mons, the Marne and the First Battle of Ypres, where the old regular British army was virtually wiped out and could have been said to have found its grave there. In 1915 during the Battle of Loos, 2nd Lieutenant Alexander Buller Turner of the 3rd Battalion, attached to the 1st, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. In 1916 Lance corporal James Welch, also of the 1st Battalion, was awarded the Victoria Cross as well.