British yeomanry during the First World War

The British yeomanry was formed as a home defence force in 1790s. Each yeoman, then mostly farmers or agricultural workers, was expected to supply his own horse and saddle. They were, however, notoriously better known to the population for their involvement in the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 and the Bristol riots in 1831. In the early years, the standard and number of men in a troop or troops in a regiment differed from county to county with no standard formation. By the 1800s, nationally there were only around 1,500 men, but fear of renewed French militarisation saw a large increase in their numbers by the middle of the century. By that time, the yeomanry volunteer had to provide their own weapons and equipment and attend twenty-four days drill a year. However, from 1896, the yeomanry were issued Lee–Metford or Lee–Enfield carbines, which had an effective range of . The Mauser that would be used by their opponents in the Second Boer War had a range in excess of . After the start of the Second Boer War, the British Government called for volunteers and in response 10,000 men enlisted in the Imperial Yeomanry. At the time, the strength of the combined yeomanry regiments was around 8,800 and around 2,200 volunteered for the Imperial Yeomanry. Erskine Childrers was a proponent of 'mounted infantry' such as Yeomanry replacing tradition schools of sword-armed cavalry, and wrote a pamphlet decrying the 'German' school of thinking as un-English; He wrote that during the war, it was Yeomanry and the 7,000 colonial mounted contingent, not the 5,000 regular British cavalry, that led the way in tactical development; if only because they had been correctly trained to use the right weapons and tactics for the conflict. (But this is not to slander the Cavalry. They do not stand condemned; their steel weapons stand condemned. ) Since 1880, British cavalrymen had only been armed with carbines and swords, although some also carried a lance. The regular cavalry regiments were considered so unsuitable for the type of conflict that General Sir Redvers Henry Buller, commanding the advance into Northern Natal, left his six regiments of cavalry behind at Ladysmith, trusting in the Yeomanry and irregular mounted forces to carry out patrolling; in the later stages of the war, the regular cavalry were similarly outfitted to the irregulars, with rifle replacing carbine and sword. After the war, in 1905, the then Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane started a reorganisation of the army and reserves. The Haldane Reforms and the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 gave the British Army the capability of forming an expeditionary force. The act also incorporated regular payment for Territorial Force soldiers and training, which included an annual two-week training camp. As a result, when the Territorial Force was formed it was decided there would be fourteen mounted brigades. Each of these brigades consisted of three yeomanry regiments, one artillery battery from the Royal Horse Artillery or the Honourable Artillery Company, an ammunition column, a transport and supply column and a field ambulance. ==Background==

during the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line. In August 1914, before the start of the First World War, there were fifty-five yeomanry regiments. Together with the thirty-one regular cavalry regiments and three regiments of horse, which were part of the Special Reserve, these formed the mounted troops of the British Army. However, soon after, the yeomanry was greatly expanded; two new regiments, the Welsh Horse and the 3rd Scottish Horse, were raised and all regiments, old and new, formed second line regiments, raising the total to 114. The regiment on the Ypres-Menin Road, October 1914 The British yeomanry regiment of 1914 was composed of twenty-six officers and 523 other ranks. The other ranks comprised one warrant officer, thirty-seven senior non-commissioned officers, twenty-two artificers, six trumpeters and 457 privates. Of these men, forty-eight were part of the regimental headquarters and twenty-seven were in the machine gun section armed, which was armed with two Vickers Machine Guns. The remaining 474 men were in the regiment's three squadrons, four troops per squadron. The regiment had 528 riding horses, seventy-four draught horses, six pack horses, eighteen carts or horse-drawn wagons and fifteen bicycles. British yeomanry were armed with a 1908 pattern sword, and Lee–Enfield rifles, unlike their French and German counterparts, who were only armed with a shorter range carbine. As the war progressed, they were issued with brodie helmets, hand grenades, trench mortars and Hotchkiss light machine guns. Like the infantry, they were dressed in a khaki uniform, with a service dress cap, and instead of infantry webbing, they carried their ammunition in a bandolier. The French cuirassiers, by comparison, would not have looked out of place in the Napoleonic Wars. Still wearing blue and red uniforms, with breast and back metal plates and plumed brass-steel helmets. While the Germans had a standard field grey uniform their uhlans still wore Polish style czapka helmets tunics with plastron fronts, the hussars frogged jackets, and the cuirassiers steel spiked helmets. Yeomanry divisions and brigades On 5 August 1914, the 1st Mounted Division was formed with the Eastern, 1st South Midland, 2nd South Midland and the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, and based in the Bury St Edmunds area. On 2 September 1914 the 2nd Mounted Division was formed, initially at Goring, but moved to Norfolk in November, There was also a 3rd Mounted Division, originally the 2/2nd Mounted Division, and a 4th Mounted Division for the second line brigades. The only yeomanry division to see active service was the 2nd Mounted Division now comprising the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Mounted Brigades. The division served in the campaign at Gallipoli from August 1915. By September, casualties forced a re-organisation, the survivors formed the 1st and 2nd Composite Mounted Brigades, and the division was reinforced by the Scottish Horse Mounted Brigade and the Highland Mounted Brigade. In the following December, the survivors were withdrawn to Egypt and the division was disbanded in January 1916. The regiments now served in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and formed several new brigades. The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 22nd Mounted Brigade. These brigades served in the Imperial Mounted Division, the ANZAC Mounted Division, and after a further re-organisation in the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions. The brigades in the two cavalry divisions consisted of one yeomanry and two British Indian Army cavalry regiments. The 7th Mounted Brigade also served, as an independent unit, with the British Salonika Army on the Macedonian front. Victoria Cross recipients The Victoria Cross is the United Kingdom's highest award for valour in the face of the enemy. Six yeoman were recipients of the award during the First World War. The first was awarded 21 August 1915, to Private Fred Potts of the Berkshire Yeomanry, during the Battle of Scimitar Hill part of the Gallipoli Campaign. Lance-Corporal Harold Sandford Mugford of the Essex Yeomanry attached to the 8th Squadron, Machine Gun Corps was the second recipient 11 April 1917 during the Battle of Arras. Major Alexander Malins Lafone of the Duke of Cambridge's Hussars for his actions on 27 October 1917 in the Battle of El Buggar Ridge. In 1918, there were three awards, first to Private Harold Whitfield, 10th (Shropshire and Cheshire Yeomanry) Battalion, King's Shropshire Light Infantry 10 March 1918 during the Battle of Tell 'Asur in Palestine. A posthumous award to Acting Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver Cyril Spencer Watson also of the Duke of Cambridge's Hussars, while commanding the 2nd/5th Battalion, Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry on 28 March at Rossignol Wood during the German spring offensive in France. The last award was on 31 October 1918 to Sergeant Thomas Caldwell of the 12th (Ayr and Lanark Yeomanry) Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers at Audenarde France during the Hundred Days Offensive.{{London Gazette ==Aftermath==

Casualties The British yeomanry did not have the same huge casualty lists, common among the infantry regiments. The Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars with 215 had the highest total dead, while the 1st County of London Yeomanry (Middlesex, Duke of Cambridge's Hussars) only had eight dead. The greatest loss on one day was ninety-three from the Leicestershire Yeomanry on 13 May 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres. Out of the fifty-four regiments, three had over 200 dead, ten of them over 100 dead, sixteen had fifty or more dead and the remainder less than fifty dead. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission the yeomanry regiments total dead during the First World War was 3,867 men,{{#tag:ref|The full list of dead is; Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry 34, Warwickshire Yeomanry 108, Yorkshire Hussars 46, Staffordshire Yeomanry 91, Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers) 79, Staffordshire Yeomanry 91, Shropshire Yeomanry 43, Ayrshire Yeomanry 43, Cheshire Yeomanry 19, Yorkshire Dragoons Yeomanry (Queen's Own) 41, Leicestershire Yeomanry 158, North Somerset Yeomanry 119, Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry 39, Lanarkshire Yeomanry 57, Northumberland Hussars 75, South Nottinghamshire Hussars 123, Denbighshire Yeomanry 15, Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry 45, Pembroke Yeomanry 35, Royal East Kent Yeomanry 32, Hampshire Yeomanry (Carabiniers) 20, Royal Buckinghamshire Hussars 130, Derbyshire Yeomanry 106, Dorset Yeomanry (Queen's Own) 206, Royal Gloucestershire Hussars 146, Hertfordshire Yeomanry 73, Berkshire Yeomanry 143, 1st County of London Yeomanry (Middlesex, Duke of Cambridge's Hussars) 8, Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry 28, Suffolk Yeomanry 39, Royal North Devon Yeomanry 50, Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars 215, West Kent Yeomanry (Queen's Own) 37, West Somerset Yeomanry 45, Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars 161, Montgomeryshire Yeomanry 31, Lothians and Border Horse 52, Glasgow Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal) 35, Lancashire Hussars 37, Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regiment) 52, Fife and Forfar Yeomanry 51, Norfolk Yeomanry 50, Sussex Yeomanry 50, Glamorgan Yeomanry 22, Lincolnshire Yeomanry 97, City of London Yeomanry (Rough Riders) 110, 2nd County of London Yeomanry (Westminster Dragoons) 34, 3rd County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) 62, Bedfordshire Yeomanry 65, Essex Yeomanry 152, Northamptonshire Yeomanry 70, East Riding Yeomanry 67, Lovat Scouts 108, Scottish Horse 203, Welsh Horse 32. and nineteen lieutenant-colonels some while serving with other units.{{#tag:ref|Two from the Staffordshire Yeomanry, the Royal North Devon Yeomanry, and the Essex Yeomanry, and one each from the; Yorkshire Hussars, Nottinghamshire Yeomanry, Shropshire Yeomanry, Leicestershire Yeomanry, North Somerset Yeomanry attached to the 6th Leicester Regiment, Pembroke Yeomanry, Derbyshire Yeomanry, Hertfordshire Yeomanry, Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry, Queen's Own Worcestershire Hussars, Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars commanding the 8th Somerset Light Infantry, Glasgow Yeomanry (Queen's Own Royal) attached to the 53rd Australian Infantry, A.I.F., and the Scottish Horse. Conversion to artillery Guidon with Guard of Honour After the war, the British Government decided to reduce the number of yeomanry regiments down from the pre-war total of fifty-five. The fourteen senior regiments would remain as yeomanry cavalry while the majority of the remainder were converted to artillery, joining the Royal Artillery. The 1st County of London Yeomanry (Duke of Cambridge's Hussars), were at the time uniquely converted to a signals regiment in the newly formed Royal Corps of Signals. Yeomanry today The yeomanry is still represented in the Army Reserve of the British Army of the 21st Century. The largest contingent is still associated with the successors to the cavalry, the Royal Armoured Corps, with four regiments, each made up of several squadrons representing an old yeomanry regiment. They are the Royal Yeomanry, the Royal Wessex Yeomanry, the Queen's Own Yeomanry and the Scottish and North Irish Yeomanry. Other Yeomanry sub-units serve in other corps. The Royal Signals have the 71st (City of London) Yeomanry Signal Regiment (Volunteers), as well as four independent Yeomanry squadrons. The Royal Artillery have 106 (Yeomanry) Regiment, and the Army Air Corps has No. 677 (Suffolk and Norfolk Yeomanry) Squadron AAC. The Royal Logistic Corps also has four squadrons which are affiliated to Yeomanry regiments. ==Territorial Force mounted brigades==

When the Territorial Force was formed, there were only fourteen mounted brigades, those regiments that were not part of the pre-war organisation were now attached to brigades (marked ** below). At the same time, a fifteenth brigade was raised in Scotland. Another brigade was formed in Egypt in January 1915; it served dismounted in Gallipoli with the 2nd Mounted Division before being broken up in Egypt in March 1916. ==See also==