page_title: British home army in the First World War
section_title: Mobilisation
hierarchical_section_title: British home army in the First World War / Mobilisation
caption_attribution_description: English: H Company, 8th Battalion (Territorial Force), Nottingham and Derbyshire Regiment, mobilising on 7 August 1914.
context_page_description: The British home army in the First World War served the dual purpose of defending the country against invasion and training reinforcements for the army overseas. Initial responsibility for defending the nation lay with the Territorial Force, a part-time auxiliary designed in 1908 as a means of expanding the army in a major foreign conflict but, as a result of political compromise, implemented as a home defence army. It was supported in this role by 42,000 regular army troops, primarily belonging to the Royal Garrison Artillery and the Royal Engineers. The 14 infantry divisions and 14 mounted brigades of the Territorial Force were mainly allocated either to the Local Force, stationed near the coast and tasked with disrupting an invasion at the point of landing, or the Central Force, a mobile element tasked with defeating the invading force as it marched on London. The Local Force was augmented by units of the Special Reserve and Extra Reserve, which were the third battalions of the regular army line infantry regiments established to recruit and train replacements for their regiments' two combat battalions.
context_section_description: As international relations deteriorated in July 1914, the United Kingdom entered the Precautionary Period. The Royal Navy replaced its normal annual exercises with a test mobilisation, and its ships were at their war stations by the end of the month. Territorial Special Service Sections were ordered to their war stations on 28 July. By 2 August, strategic locations such as Harwich, the Tyne estuary, Thanet and Ipswich wireless stations, the cable landing point at Dumpton Gap, Grimsby docks, Kinghorn Fort and the Tay defences were manned. On 3 August, the 1st London Brigade entrained, and 18 hours before the declaration of war the stations, tunnels and signal boxes of the rail network between London and Southampton, the port of embarkation for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), were under guard.
  After the declaration of war on Tuesday 4 August 1914, coastal fortifications were placed on alert, reservists were called up and the Territorial Force embodied. The regular army was mobilised, and the decision was taken to retain two of the BEF's six divisions in the UK, though they soon followed the rest of the BEF to France. The notification procedure had been well established, but for most territorials it was largely unnecessary because they had already gathered for annual camp the previous weekend. Returning to their depots, many under-strength battalions – some as low as 500 strong, or around half a normal infantry battalion – were soon brought up to establishment by a flood of ex-territorials re-enlisting and new recruits joining. Depots became swamped, and initially those territorials not immediately required to man war stations were issued with their equipment and then sent home. They were recalled after an invasion warning was issued on 7 August, and thereafter remained at or close to their drill halls.
  Some territorial battalions marched immediately to nearby locations designated to be defended by the end of the first day of mobilisation. Elements of the Wessex Division were concentrated at Plymouth, those of the Northumbrian Division took up positions in the east coast defences, two battalions of the Highland Division occupied the Forth defences, and elements of the Welsh Division were gathered in the area of Pembroke Docks. Five days after mobilisation, units of the Special Reserve and Extra Reserve began to relieve them. Other territorial formations assembled close to their bases before moving on to their war stations; the Highland Division, for example, gathered at various locations north of Edinburgh before proceeding to Bedford, north of London. Defence duties resulted in some divisions being dispersed; a brigade of the West Riding Division, for example, was deployed to watch the east coast while the rest of the division guarded railways and munitions factories further inland, and the brigades of the East Anglian Division were widely scattered about East Anglia.
  As a part-time institution with limited peacetime training, it was always intended that the territorials would undergo six months of training on mobilisation, and they faced a number of difficulties as they did so. It proved difficult for those formations that were widely dispersed as part of their defence duties, and was complicated for all by the need to reorganise the territorial battalions' outdated eight-company structure to the army's standard four-company battalion. Many of the regular-army training staff attached to territorial units were recalled to their parent regiments, and those professionals who still remained were transferred to territorial reserve units in January 1915. For some artillery units, their first opportunity to practise with live ammunition did not come until January 1915. Rifle practice, already complicated by the variety of weapons issued to the territorials, suffered due to lack of rifles, practice ammunition and ranges on which to use them. Shortages and the competing demands of the rest of the British land forces meant that territorials often began their duties without the necessary equipment. Uniforms were in short supp
caption: H Company, 8th Battalion (Territorial Force), Nottingham and Derbyshire Regiment, mobilising on 7 August 1914.
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