World War I in Britain

• Teodoru Radu
• Logofatu Teodor Stefan
 Britain went to war in
1914 with a small,
professional army
primarily designed to
police its overseas
empire.
The British Army of 1914
was very small in comparison
with France and Germany. It
The entire force was considered as
consisted of: ‘contemptibly small’.
250,000 Regulars
250,000 Territorials By 1918, the scale, firepower
and tactical sophistication of
200,000 Reservists the army were all very much
700,000 trained greater than in the early days.
soldiers(total)
British Army uniform
and
equipment in World War I
The British Army was armed with: Vickers Machine gun

SMLE Mk III
Lewis gun

Mark I tank
Stokes mortar
Life in the trenches
By the end of 1914, the war on
the Western Front had reached
stalemate and the trench lines
extended from the Belgian coast
to the Swiss frontier.
Soldiers were in the front or
reserve line trenches for about
eight days at a time, before being
relieved.

By September 1915, the length

of the British front line stretched
some 70 mi (110 km).
Daily routine Once the daily tasks had been completed the
men who were off-duty would find a place to
sleep.
Daily routine of life in the trenches began
with the morning 'stand-to'. An hour before
dawn everyone was roused and ordered to
man their positions to guard against a dawn
raid by the Germans.

With stand-to over, it was time for the men

to have breakfast. Once complete, the NCOs
would assign men to do the cleaning of rifles Soldiers also had to take it in turns to be on
and equipment, filling sandbags, repairing sentry duty, watching for enemy movements.
trenches or digging latrines.
 Moving into the
front line

A set procedure was used

by a division that was moving
into the front line.

Once they had been informed that they

were moving forward, the brigadiers and
battalion commanders would be taken to
the forward areas to reconnoiter the
sections of the front that were to be
occupied by their troops.
 For most of the war, the Army's
Communications primary methods of communication
were signal dispatch:
-employing runners
The Royal Engineers Signal -messengers on horseback
-dogs
Service, formed in 1912, was - carrier pigeons
given responsibility for
communications that included:
-signal dispatch
-telegraph
-telephone
-wireless communications,
 conscription
In August 1914, 300,000 men had signed up to fight, and another 450,000 had joined-
up by the end of September. A prominent feature of the early months of volunteering
was the formation of Pals battalions.

The policy ensured that, when the Pals battalions suffered casualties, whole
communities back in Britain were to suffer disproportionate losses. With the
introduction of conscription in January 1916, no further Pals battalions were raised.
Organization
The British Army had been created
after the Kingdom of England and the
Kingdom of Scotland unified under
the Acts of Union 1707.

The Scottish Army was effectively

absorbed into the English Army. It was
one of several regular and reserve
military forces forces.
 The British Army during World War I
could trace its organization to the
increasing demands of imperial
expansion.
The British Army had been prepared
and primarily called upon for Empire
matters and the ensuing colonial wars.

The framework was the voluntary

system of recruitment and the regimental
system, which had been defined by the
World War 1 facts
• Did you know that Boy
Scouts and Girl Guides had a vital
role on the Home Front?
• Children were also used to carry
messages for MI5, the British
Secret Service
• On the 11th hour of the 11th day
of the 11th month in 1918, World
War 1 officially ended
• Gigantic German airships, known
as Zeppelins (below), carried out
52 bombing raids on Britain
during the war