Assigned to the 9th Brigade, 3rd Division, the Liverpool Scottish occupied trenches in the Kemmel area, five miles south of Ypres. The 1/10th suffered its first fatality on 29 November: Captain Arthur Twentyman, killed while attempting to return to British lines. The combination of severe winter and trench warfare soon depleted the strength of the Liverpool Scottish. From an establishment of 26 officers and 829 men recorded in November, the battalion had dwindled to 370 able-bodied men by January 1915. Within weeks of the battalion's arrival, Major Blair, Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholl's successor, was replaced by J.R. Davidson due to ill-health. Davidson would command the battalion, albeit interrupted by wounds sustained during the Somme Offensive, until 1917, when he returned to Liverpool to become the city water board's Chief Engineer.