VI Corps (United Kingdom)

In 1876 a Mobilisation Scheme for the forces in Great Britain and Ireland, including eight army corps of the 'Active Army', was published. The '6th Corps' was headquartered at Chester, composed primarily of militia, and in 1880 comprised: • 1st Division (Chester) • 1st Brigade (Chester) • Royal Denbigh and Merioneth Rifles (Wrexham), 1st Cheshire Militia (Chester), Royal Montgomeryshire Rifles (Welchpool) • 2nd Brigade (Chester) • Clare Militia (Enniskillen), Royal Flint Rifles (Mold), Carnarvon Militia (Caernarfon) • Divisional Troops • Cheshire Yeomanry (Chester) • 2nd Division (Liverpool) • 1st Brigade (Liverpool) • Dublin City Militia (Dublin), 2nd Royal Lancashire Militia (Liverpool), Roscommon Militia (Boyle) • 2nd Brigade (Liverpool) • King's Own (1st Staffordshire) Militia (Lichfield), King's Own (2nd Staffordshire) Light Infantry Militia (Stafford), King's Own (3rd Staffordshire) Rifle Militia (Newcastle-under-Lyme) • Divisional Troops • 2nd Bn. 20th Foot (Mullingar), Lancashire Hussars (Ashton in Makerfield) • 3rd Division (Manchester) • 1st Brigade (Manchester) • 1st Derby Militia (Derby), 2nd Derby Militia (Chesterfield), 2nd Cheshire Militia (Macclesfield) • 2nd Brigade (Preston) • 1st Royal Lancashire Militia (Lancaster), 3rd Royal Lancashire Militia (Preston), 4th Royal Lancashire Militia (Warrington) • Divisional Troops • 1st Bn. 11th Foot (Manchester), Duke of Lancaster's Own Yeomanry (Worsley) • Cavalry Brigade (Crewe) • Denbighshire Yeomanry (Ruthin), Derbyshire Yeomanry (Derby), Worcestershire Yeomanry (Worcester) This scheme had been dropped by 1881. The 1901 Army Estimates (introduced by St John Brodrick when Secretary of State for War) allowed for six army corps based on the six regional commands: 'Sixth Army Corps' was to be formed by Scottish Command with headquarters in Edinburgh. It was to comprise 3 regiments of Imperial Yeomanry, 26 artillery batteries (17 Regular, 6 Militia and 3 Volunteer) and 25 infantry battalions (2 Regular, 13 Militia and 10 Volunteers). Under Army Order No 38 of 1907 the corps titles disappeared. ==First World War==

Operations around Ypres VI Corps was organised within Sir Herbert Plumer's Second Army of the British Expeditionary Force on 1 June 1915. It was placed under the command of Lt-Gen Sir John Lindesay Keir, promoted from command of 6th Division. Initially it comprised 4th Division from V Corps and 6th Division from III Corps, and it took over the left of the British line at Ypres. VI Corps cooperated with the attack by its neighbour V Corps on Bellewaarde Ridge on 16 June 1915 with rifle and artillery fire, and in July and August 1915 it was engaged in trench fighting round Hooge Chateau. The corps was first seriously engaged in the Second Battle of Bellewaarde, a subsidiary attack to assist First Army's attack at Loos on 18 September 1915. Order of Battle of VI Corps April 1917 Order of Battle of VI Corps March 1918 Order of Battle of VI Corps August 1918 German resistance was now crumbling, and the Allied advance had become a pursuit. During the night of 8/9 November, the reserve of Guards Division, 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was pushed ahead through a black night with its machine guns on pack mules to seize the citadel of the old French frontier fortress of Maubeuge, which the Germans had captured after a siege in 1914. The main German defence line was now seven miles away. By 11 November when the Armistice came into effect, the 62nd and Guards Divisions were the advance guard of Third Army, but were doing no more than pushing forward infantry outposts and cyclist patrols against the dissolving German forces. VI Corps was among Allied troops that advanced into the Rhineland after the Armistice. ==Second World War==

In June 1940, following the Allied defeat in the Second World War's Battle of France, the British Army proceeded to reorganise their forces throughout the UK. In mid-June VI Corps was formed to command all British troops based in Northern Ireland. On 12 July, the corps ceased to exist, and its headquarters was used to form British Troops in Ireland (by the end of the year, the command had been renamed British Troops in Northern Ireland or BTNI). This command supplemented the existing Northern Ireland District, which was made responsible for local defence while BTNI would launch counterattacks against any German invasion of the territory or would spearhead an advance into the Republic of Ireland if the Germans invaded. ==General Officers Commanding==

Commanders have been: • June 1915 – August 1916 Lieutenant-General John Keir • August 1916 – 1919 Lieutenant-General Aylmer Haldane • 1940 Lieutenant-General Hubert Huddleston ==Trivia==

In July 1918, the sculptor John Tweed, who had failed to gain employment as an official war artist, was commissioned by General Jan Smuts to travel to France and prepare designs for a proposed South African War Memorial. Tweed knew Haldane, who had raised the money for Tweed's sculpture of Lt-Gen Sir John Moore at Shorncliffe, and Haldane offered the sculptor facilities with VI Corps HQ. Tweed spent the last five months of the war as a civilian member of the corps staff, and accompanied the troops into the Rhineland. Although one of Tweed's studies entitled Attack was exhibited, the ambitious architectural monument that he designed for South Africa was never executed. ==Notes==