page_title: British home army in the First World War
section_title: Late war
hierarchical_section_title: British home army in the First World War / Late war
caption_attribution_description: English: Territorial divisions deployed in the home army between 1914 and 1918. Over the winter of 1917/1918, territorial units in the divisions still allocated to the home army were replaced by Graduated battalions of the Training Reserve. The divisions remained part of the home army, but lost their territorial afilliation.
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: In early 1917, the home army comprised five second-line territorial divisions, three Home Service divisions, six independent brigades, a mounted division, ten former-yeomanry cyclist brigades, twenty-one territorial cyclist battalions, three regiments of reserve cavalry, five reserve Guards battalions, one battalion of the Honourable Artillery Company and numerous 'extemporised' units of the Training, Territorial and Special Reserves. These formations were divided mainly between the Northern Army, concentrated in East Anglia, and the Southern Army, straddling the Thames estuary. The 1st Mounted, 65th (2nd Lowland) and 72nd Divisions were allocated to the General Reserve. A number of cyclist units and the extemporised units were distributed throughout the army as part of the Local Force. Total strength was 400,000 men, but only 150,000 were fully fit regular or territorial troops, and they were mainly yeomanry, cyclists and men of the Royal Garrison Artillery and Royal Engineers. The main fighting component, the infantry, numbered 230,000 troops, but 180,000 were in the early stages of training or under 19 years old.
  French regarded a considerable proportion of his divisions to be of poor quality, leaving him 60,000 troops short of the number he believed necessary to conduct a successful defence. In the event of invasion, infantry numbers would be boosted by the mobilisation of the VF, and he planned to attach one or two volunteer battalions to each brigade of the home army. In September, he allocated 84 battalions to line of communication duties, 71 to mobile defence, 70 to the reserve, 45 to garrisons and 42 to the defence of London. However, of the 293,000 volunteers in March, little more than 136,000 belonged to those sections able to respond immediately to the call, and only 10,000 of those had, by July, reached a satisfactory standard of musketry. French was pessimistic about the ability of the home army to defeat an invasion, going so far as to inform the War Office in February that the loss of so many of his troops to the field army overseas absolved him of the responsibility for home defence.
  Admiral John Fisher, a former First Sea Lord, was concerned about the increasing U-boat menace, and believed that the German war leader, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, would be willing to risk the High Seas Fleet in an invasion attempt. The Admiralty regarded the risk as possible rather than probable, and guaranteed to be able to disrupt an enemy fleet within 32 to 36 hours of its sighting. The area between Aldeburgh and Lowestoft on the Suffolk coastline was considered at most risk to an invasion force up to 160,000 strong. Raids of up to 20,000 men were considered possible anywhere from north of the Wash to Cromarty in the Scottish highlands. The War Office, on the other hand, believed that while Germany was heavily engaged on the Western Front it did not have the resources to pose a serious threat.
  Based on its assessment and regarding the volunteers as inefficient, expensive and of no military value, the War Office recommended in September that the VF be reduced from its existing 312 battalions to 117 and the savings re-allocated to training the remainder to a better standard. With the VF enjoying considerable political support, a compromise figure of 274 infantry battalions, totalling some 267,000 all ranks, plus supporting engineer, fortress and signals units, was reached in December. It remained, however, an auxiliary of suspect reliability, poorly trained and insufficiently equipped. Even French, long an advocate of giving the volunteer movement a role in home defence, doubted its utility. In January 1918, at the same time as recognising improvements to training, efficiency and equipment, he characterised the VF as still essentially a body of amateurs and echoed the War Office's earlier call for a smaller, better trained auxiliary.
  At the end of 1917, the huge losses suffered by the BEF during the Third Battle of Ypres, the implications of the October Revolution in Russia, the Austro-German success in the Battle
caption: Changes in the number and composition of the territorial divisions allocated to the home army between 1914 and 1918
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