page_title: Haldane Reforms
section_title: Creation of the Territorial Force
hierarchical_section_title: Haldane Reforms / Haldane's reforms / Creation of the Territorial Force
context_page_description: The Haldane Reforms were a series of far-ranging reforms of the British Army made from 1906 to 1912, and named after the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane. They were the first major reforms since the "Childers Reforms" of the early 1880s, and were made in the light of lessons newly learned in the Second Boer War.
  The major element of the reforms was the creation of an expeditionary force, specifically prepared and trained for intervening in a major war. This had existed before, but it had not been well-prepared for overseas service; the newly organised force was to have a permanent peacetime organisation and a full complement of supporting troops. At the same time, the reserve forces were restructured and expanded so as to ensure that overseas forces could be efficiently reinforced and supplied with new recruits. To ensure that home defence would not suffer from sending the regular forces overseas, part of the Militia was formed into the Special Reserve, and the Volunteer Force and the Yeomanry were reorganised into a new Territorial Force; these latter two reforms were grouped together in the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907.
context_section_description: Once the Regular Army had been organised as a continental Expeditionary Force, it would be necessary to provide forces for home defence. Haldane's proposal anticipated that the existing tripartite division of the Army - the Regular Army, the Volunteers/Yeomanry and the Militia - should be changed into a two-part structure, with an Expeditionary Force and a home-defence Territorial Force administered by County Territorial Associations.
  These changes were embodied in the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907, which passed the Commons with little opposition save for a dispute over the future status of Militia regiments. It essentially abolished the existing Volunteers and Yeomanry, and used them to create a new Territorial Force of fourteen infantry divisions, fourteen cavalry brigades, and a large number of support units, all raised, organised and financed by local organisations but liable for service under War Office command. The Militia provided the Special Reserve, which would contain men who had not served in the regular Army but agreed to be liable for service with the regular forces in wartime.
caption: A company of the Liverpool Scottish, a Territorial unit, on parade after mobilisation in September 1914
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