page_title: British Army during World War I
section_title: Western Front
hierarchical_section_title: British Army during World War I / Western Front
caption_attribution_description: British infantry from the 47th (1/2nd London) Division advancing into a gas cloud during the Battle of Loos
context_page_description: The British Army during World War I fought the largest and most costly war in its long history. Unlike the French and German Armies, the British Army was made up exclusively of volunteers—as opposed to conscripts—at the beginning of the conflict. Furthermore, the British Army was considerably smaller than its French and German counterparts.
  During World War I, there were four distinct British armies. The first comprised approximately 247,000 soldiers of the regular army, over half of which were posted overseas to garrison the British Empire, supported by some 210,000 reserves and a potential 60,000 additional reserves. This component formed the backbone of the British Expeditionary Force, which was formed for service in France and became known as the Old Contemptibles. The second army was provided by the approximately 246,000-strong Territorial Force, initially allocated to home defence but used to reinforce the BEF after the regular army suffered heavy losses in the opening battles of the war. The third army was Kitchener's Army, comprising men who answered Lord Kitchener's call for volunteers in 1914–1915 and which went into action at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
context_section_description: Under the command of Field Marshal Sir John French, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) began to deploy to France within days of the declaration of war. The first encounter with the Germans came at Mons on 23 August 1914, after which the Allies began the Great Retreat, the BEF was involved in the Battle of Le Cateau. The BEF had a small role in halting the German advance at the First Battle of the Marne, before participating in the Aisne counter-offensive, in September which was followed by a period known as the "Race to the Sea" during which the BEF redeployed to Flanders. For the BEF, 1914 ended with "First Ypres" which marked the beginning of a long struggle for the Ypres Salient. British casualties in the fighting between 14 October and 30 November were 58,155 (7,960 dead, 29,562 wounded and 17,873 missing). It is often said that the pre-war professional army died at the First Battle of Ypres. The British Army had arrived in France with some 84,000 infantrymen. By the end of the battle, the BEF had suffered 86,237 casualties, mostly to the infantry.
  Trench warfare prevailed in 1915, and the BEF—as the junior partner on the Western Front—fought a series of small battles, at times coordinated with the larger French offensives, like the Battle of Neuve Chapelle which is always associated with the shell crisis, the Battle of Aubers Ridge, the Battle of Festubert in May and the Battle of Givenchy in June. On 22 April 1915, the German Army launched the Second Battle of Ypres, employing poison gas for the first time on the Western Front and capturing much of the high ground that ringed the salient. By September 1915, the BEF had grown in size with the first of the Kitchener's New Army divisions entering the line, and as part of the Third Battle of Artois, the BEF launched a major attack, the Battle of Loos, utilising its own newly developed chemical weapons for the first time. The resulting failure marked the end for Field Marshal French. On 19 December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced him as Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the BEF.
  For the British Army, the year of 1916 was dominated by the Battle of the Somme which started disastrously on 1 July. The first day on the Somme remains the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army, with 19,240 British soldiers killed and 38,470 wounded or missing, all for little or no gain. The only real success was in the south where, using imaginative tactics and helped by the French, the New Army 18th and 30th Divisions took all their objectives, including Montauban, and the Regular 7th Division captured Mametz. At Thiepval, the 36th (Ulster) Division seized the Schwaben Redoubt but was forced to withdraw because of lack of progress elsewhere. There followed four-and-a-half months of attrition during which the Fourth Army of General Henry Rawlinson and the Fifth Army of General Hubert Gough advanced an average of 5 miles (8.0 km) at a cost of 420,000 casualties.
  In February 1917, the German Army began to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line and it was these formidable defences that elements of the BEF assaulted in the Battle of Arras in April. For this battle, the Prime Minister—David Lloyd George—had placed Haig and the BEF under the orders of new French C-in-C (Robert Nivelle), who planned a major offensive in Champagne. When the battle officially ended on 16 May, British troops had made significant advances, but had been unable to achieve a major breakthrough at any point. Having failed to deliver a breakthrough, Haig now embarked on his favoured plan to launch an offensive in Flanders. In a successful preliminary operation, General Herbert Plumer's Second Army seized the Messines ridge south of Ypres. The Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the Third Battle of Ypres), which began on 31 July 1917, was one of the harshest ordeals endured by British and Dominion troops during the war, with the battlefield reduced to a quagmire. It was not until 6 November that Passchendaele ridge was captured, by which time the BEF had sustained around 310,000 casualties. The year of 1917, for
caption: British infantry of the London Rifle Brigade advancing through gas during the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915.
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