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Recruitment to the British Army during World War I

At the beginning of 1914 the British Army had a reported strength of 710,000 men including reserves, of which around 80,000 were professional soldiers ready for war. By the end of the First World War almost 25 percent of the total male population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had joined up, over five million men. Of these, 2.67 million joined as volunteers and 2.77 million as conscripts (although some volunteered after conscription was introduced and would most likely have been conscripted anyway). Monthly recruiting rates for the army varied dramatically.

August 1914[edit]

At the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914, the British regular army numbered 247,432 serving officers and other ranks.[1][2] This did not include reservists liable to be recalled to the colours upon general mobilization or the part-time volunteers of the Territorial Force. About one-third of the peace-time regulars were stationed in India[1] and were not immediately available for service in Europe.


For a century British governmental policy and public opinion were against conscription for foreign wars. At the start of World War I the British Army consisted of six infantry divisions,[3] one cavalry division in the United Kingdom formed shortly after the outbreak of the war,[4] and four divisions located overseas. Fourteen Territorial Force divisions also existed, and 300,000 soldiers were in the Reserve Army. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, considered the Territorial Force untrained and useless. He believed that the regular army must not be wasted in immediate battle, but instead used to help train a new army with 70 divisions—the size of the French and German armies—that he foresaw would be needed to fight a war lasting many years.[3]

A   Able to march, see to shoot, hear well and stand active service conditions.

"Lord Kitchener", 1915. Posters No. 113 and 117, 145,000 copies

"Remember Belgium", 1914–1915. PRC16 and PRC 19, a British soldier on guard while a woman flees her burning home. 140,000 copies

"Take Up The Sword of Justice", September 1915 PRC 105, 106, 11. By featuring the sinking of the Lusitania in the background with a figure offering a sword, 105,000 copies

Bernard Partridge

"Serve The Guns" May 1915. PRC 85a, 85b, 85c. Soldier and munitions worker shaking hands. 101,000 copies

"He did his duty. Will You do Yours". December 1914. PRC 20. Portrait of (who had recently died of pneumonia after visiting Indian troops on the Western Front) with his Victoria Cross. 95,000 copies.

Lord Roberts

Official advertising for recruits was in the control of the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC), but private efforts such as that by the London Opinion with the now iconic image of Kitchener were also produced. Posters were prepared in different sizes according to where they would be used; two sizes 40 and 20 by 15 in (1,020 and 510 by 380 mm) were common. The PRC was formed of the Prime Minister and heads of political parties later joined by other representatives such as for the Trades Union Congress; its sub-committees handled the preparation and publishing of recruiting materials.


Over the course of the war the PRC was responsible for 164 poster designs and 65 pamphlets. Between those and other advertising materials a total of over 54 million pieces were produced at a cost of £40,000. According to numbers of posters produced, the most popular official PRC posters were:


The "King's Message" reprinted in poster form ran to 290,000 copies.[43]

Victoria Cross recipient

Sergeant John Doogan

later intelligence officer and Conservative politician

Captain Samuel Hoare

banker and Conservative MP (awarded OBE for his services)

Major Lionel Nathan de Rothschild

Notable men who served as army recruiters during the war included:

Monthly recruiting figures for the British Army in the First World War

British Army First World War reserve brigades

Conscription in Australia

in Canada

Conscription Crisis of 1917

Compulsory military training in New Zealand

No-Conscription Fellowship

Opposition to World War I

Temporary gentlemen

Becke, Major A. F. (1935). Order of Battle of Divisions Part 1. The Regular British Divisions. London: . ISBN 978-1-871167-09-2.

HMSO

Beckett, Ian (1985). . Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-1737-7. Retrieved 30 August 2018.

A Nation in Arms: A Social Study of the British Army in the First World War

Beckett, Ian (1990). "The Real Unknown Army; British Conscripts, 1916-1919". In Becker, Jean-Jacques; Audoin-Rouzeau, Stéphane (eds.). Les Societes Europeennes et la Guerre de 1914-1918. Nanterre: Publications de l'Université de Nanterre.  978-2-95-042550-8.

ISBN

Bowman, Timothy; et al., eds. (2020). The disparity of sacrifice : Irish recruitment to the British armed forces, 1914-1918. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.  978-1-78-962185-3.

ISBN

Chandler, David (1996). The Oxford History of the British Army. Oxford University Press.  0-19-285333-3.

ISBN

(1993) [1932]. Military Operations France and Belgium, 1916: Sir Douglas Haig's Command to the 1st July: Battle of the Somme. History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I (Imperial War Museum and Battery Press ed.). London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-89839-185-5.

Edmonds, J. E.

Floud, Roderick; et al., eds. (1990). Height, Health, and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750–1980. Cambridge University Press.  978-0-52-130314-9.

ISBN

Gregory, Adrian (2007). The Last Great War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rinaldi, Richard A (2008). . Takoma Park, Maryland: Tiger Lilly Books. ISBN 978-0-9776072-8-0.

Order of Battle of the British Army 1914

Rippon, Nicola (2009). The Plot to Kill Lloyd George: The Story of Alice Wheeldon and the Peartree Conspiracy. Wharncliffe Books.  978-1-84563-079-9.

ISBN

Simkins, Peter (2007). Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies, 1914–16. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen & Sword Military.  978-1-84-415585-9.

ISBN

Taylor, James (2013). (ebook). Salford, Manchester: Saraband. ISBN 978-1-90-864311-7.

Your Country Needs YOU - The Secret History of the Propaganda Poster

(2014) [1962]. Guns of August. Random House Trade. ISBN 978-0-345-38623-6.

Tuchman, Barbara W.

. London: His Majesty's Stationery Office. 1922.

Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War. 1914–1920

The British Army in the Great War