) marching to the trenches on the Doullens-Amiens road at Pas-en-Artois, 26 June 1916. On the outbreak of war in August 1914 the division's units had just left for their annual training camps, the 1st and 3rd London brigades around
Wool, Dorset, and the 2nd at
Eastbourne,
Sussex. They immediately returned to their drill halls to mobilise, and then proceeded to their initial war stations guarding railways in Southern England. The TF was now invited to volunteer for Overseas Service, and most units did so; those men who had signed up for Home Service only, together with the floods of volunteers enlisting, were formed into reserve or 2nd Line units and formations with a '2/' prefix, while the parent unit took a '1/' prefix. 1/1st London Division immediately began supplying reinforcements to the
Regular Army overseas. On 1 September the whole of 1/1st London Brigade, with its associated signal and medical units, set off to relieve the regular garrison of
Malta; individual battalions joined the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the
Western Front. By early January 1915 the 1st Line division had ceased to exist and its remaining units had been attached to its 2nd Line duplicate, the
2/1st London Division. On 7 January 1916 the
Army Council authorised the re-formation in France of the division as
56th (1/1st London) Division. As many as possible of the original units or other London units were assembled and by 21 February the bulk of the division had concentrated around
Hallencourt between
Abbeville and
Arras under the command of Major General
C. P. Amyatt Hull, an experienced officer who had until recently commanded an infantry brigade. Although the division was effectively a new formation, its constituent units were now experienced in trench warfare. After shaking down it took its place in the line in the
Hébuterne sector. The 56th Division's first operation as a complete formation was the
attack on the Gommecourt Salient on 1 July 1916, the
first day on the Somme. Extensive (and obvious) preparations were made for this attack, which was a diversion from the main
Somme Offensive. The leading battalions gained a lodgement in the German front line with comparatively light losses, but they came under heavy counter-attack and were cut off from reinforcements and ammunition resupply by an intense
barrage laid down in
no man's land by the German artillery. At nightfall the survivors made their way back to British lines, the division having lost over 4,300 casualties, mainly among the seven attacking battalions. ), in a reserve trench in Chimpanzee Valley between Hardecourt and Guillemont, 6 September 1916. of the 56th Division on a track running east of Maricourt-Montauban Road, with wounded on stretchers just arriving, September 1916. The 56th (1/1st London) Division served on the Western Front for the rest of the war, taking part in the following operations: After the armistice the division was engaged in road-mending
etc. The first parties left for
demobilisation in mid-December and the division gradually dwindled. Divisional headquarters left for England on 18 May 1919 and the final
cadre followed on 10 June. The division began reforming in
London District in April 1920. ==Interwar years==