The civilian effort before the war to create a ‘people’s army’ under the provisions of the Territorial Force Act, was a fine national exploit, whether in the West Riding or elsewhere. Equally fine, if not finer, though no basis of comparison can be fixed, was the response of the men, including officers and other ranks, to whom the appeal was made.

It is essential to see this clearly. Parliament might pass the best Act which ever adorned the legislature. The Secretary of State for War and His Majesty’s other Ministers might use all the eloquence at their command to popularize the Act in the country. The Territorial Force Associations, which were called into being under the Act, might attract the best brains in every county to crown the scheme with success. Throughout the complex organization, avoidable mistakes might be avoided, unavoidable obstacles might be overcome, and a kind of conspiracy of good luck might have surrounded the enterprise from its initiation. And yet, in the ultimate resort, one first condition must be satisfied: the men must be willing to come forward. For the Act spoke, as we have seen, of a ‘reorganization of His Majesty’s military forces’; and no power on earth, certainly no political power in England, could organize a voluntary force which was unwilling. If the troops out of whom the Territorial army was to be made were not willing to enrol in that army, and to bring to it the loyalty and devotion which had characterized voluntary service in the past, legislation would prove a dead letter. With or without the conditions which we have enumerated above (and some were lacking, as we are aware) the primary factor was the personal one; conversely, if the heart of the nation was sound, no weakness in the Army Council or at the Treasury could wreck the scheme beyond repair.

Accordingly, it is useful at this point to look at events before the war from a different angle of vision. Men in high places, ‘dressed in a little, brief authority,’ have always this consolation, when they contemplate their shortcomings, whether within or without their own control, that the near view is fuller than the distant. If every Territorial soldier in the West Riding had been privy to Lord Harewood’s difficulties, if every unit awaiting a headquarters had been admitted to the heart-breaking negotiations which preceded each grant of an eighth of an acre of ground, if every recruit grumbling at his boots had known how many pairs of boots were included in General Mends’ requisitions, no progress at all would have been made with the raising of the Force or its equipment. But the men who were raised and equipped were spared these disappointments and dubieties. They took their troubles in single spies, not battalions; and the single troubles which they encountered—too much rain, too few blankets, insufficient transport, and so forth—were counted as part of a day’s work, not as items in a quarterly return. They did not multiply their grievances by the calculus familiar to an Association; and it is precisely this restricted point of view which is valuable as a contrast and a corrective to Associational experience. For the final triumph of the Territorial scheme, as proved in the searching test of war, was a triumph achieved by individuals within the limits of their personal capacity.

It is well to recapture the spirit in which this triumph was achieved; and, fortunately for that purpose, we can refer to a West Riding unit, whose records go back from its War Diary of 1914 to the date of its original inception in 1859. A happy feature of this possession, unique and valuable in itself, is that the unit in question became in the fulness of time the same 4th Battalion of the West Riding Regiment, whose transport left England for France first of the 49th Division[8]; and, with the added interest of that coincidence, its faded pages may be searched for evidence to the men’s point of view. It was Lord Haldane who wrote (December, 1908), in a passage referred to above[9]:

Such a light is thrown by this record on the history of the previous half-century.

It began on May 25th, 1859, when Major-General Jonathan Peel, a brother of the great Sir Robert, and a predecessor of Lord Haldane’s at the War Office, issued a circular to authorize the formation of Volunteer corps. Two days later, a requisition was addressed to the Worshipful the Mayor of Halifax by a hundred and twenty-five inhabitants of the borough and its neighbourhood, praying him to convene a public meeting in order to consider ‘the propriety of forming a Volunteer Rifle Corps for this district.’ The propriety was duly considered on the following Friday, June 3rd, in the Town Hall at Halifax, when and where a hundred and twenty good citizens, with Mr. Edward Akroyd[10] at their head, professed themselves willing to enrol as members of a Volunteer Rifle Corps for this Town and District, ‘provided the cost of uniform, arms and accoutrements does not exceed £9 per annum.’ The crest selected was the Borough Arms; the head-dress, familiar in caricature, was ‘shako and plume’; the uniform a dark-green tunic; the arms, a short Enfield muzzle-loader, and bayonet; and the title of the corps was the 4th West Yorks Rifle Volunteers. Seldom have small beginnings been more amply fulfilled by noble ends.

The Rifle Corps grew and prospered. Colours, with crest and title, were worked by the ladies of Halifax and presented in September, 1860,[11] and Captain Akroyd had the satisfaction in that month of parading 455 men at a Review in York, and of publishing in Orders the next day, that ‘the 4th West Yorks Rifle Volunteers, by their soldier-like bearing, their excellent discipline, and the steadiness of their movements, have earned for the Corps a high reputation among the Riding and County Battalions.’ On March 10th, 1863, they paraded at the marriage of the Prince of Wales. They furnished a Guard of Honour, and guards and sentinel for the night, when His Royal Highness, on the following August 3rd, visited Halifax to open the Town Hall. In the same year, a capitation grant of 20/- for each efficient man was authorized for issue by the Government, thus relieving all ranks of a part of their voluntary expenditure; and it is observed in the same context, though its precise bearing escapes us to-day, that the Government ‘also repeated the gracious permission accorded by George II. of wearing hair-powder untaxed.’ A drill-hall, designed by an assistant to Sir Gilbert Scott, and intended to serve both as the head quarters of the corps and as a public hall and concert-room, was started in 1868 and available in 1870. In 1874, the busby head-dress was adopted; the tunic was altered to scarlet with dark-blue facings, and the long Enfield was substituted for the short. At the same time, the maximum establishment was fixed at 600 all ranks. The next year saw the first Camp, in tents on Castle Hill, Scarborough. In 1880, the Battalion was armed with the Snider breech-loader and bayonet, and the common helmet replaced the busby. In July, 1881, the Battalion, 480 strong, represented the county of Yorkshire at a Royal Review of Volunteers in Windsor Great Park. In 1883, a step forward was taken in the direction completed by the Territorial Act of 1907: the 4th, 6th and 9th West Riding of Yorkshire Volunteer Corps were renamed the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Volunteer Battalions of the West Riding Regiment (Duke of Wellington’s); the old Arms of Halifax were replaced by the badges of the West Riding Regiments; and in 1887 the Battalion was re-clothed in a manner similar to the Line Battalions with which it had been affiliated, but with silver lace, buttons and badges. Ten years later, in 1897, a detachment of the Battalion was bivouacked in the ditch of the Tower of London, and did duty on London Bridge, on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. A more serious call was to follow. On December 19th, 1899, after the so-called ‘black week’ in the Transvaal, it was announced that ‘Her Majesty’s Government have decided to accept offers of service in South Africa from the Volunteers.... The terms of enlistment for officers and men will be for one year, or for not less than the period of the War.’ Three days later, on December 22nd, Major W. H. Land, commanding the 1st Volunteer Battalion, West Riding Regiment (our old friend, the 4th Rifle Volunteers), was prepared to place the Battalion at the disposal of the Government, and an Active Service Company of Volunteers, with Lieut. H. S. Atkinson at their head, was complete for embarkation early in 1900, when they were entertained at a farewell banquet in Halifax. The occasion, historically so inspiring, has several features of present interest. Colonel (later, Sir) E. Hildred Carlile, remarked on the sense of ‘promotion,’ and the ‘feeling that more would be required,’ in the call to Volunteers to take a place side by side with Regulars in Line Battalions. Colonel Le Mottee discussed the ‘spirit of militarism,’ drawing a clear distinction between its fair and evil aspects; and other speakers who followed referred with gravity and emphasis to the future needs of national defence. The draft sailed on February 17th, reaching Table Bay on March 14th, and, exactly a year later (March 16th, 1901), the Relief Company of the Battalion left Halifax for the same destination. Needless to say, their fighting record in South Africa was worthy of their regiment and Riding. They contributed to the final victory of British arms; and, when the first members of the first Service Company returned to Halifax in the following May, they received the welcome which they deserved. A presentation of medals took place later in 1901, and inspired a prophetic speech by Colonel Le Mottee, which is well worth recalling to-day:

This perception carries us a long way from 1859 and the Halifax Rifle Corps. We reach in the new century and the new reign, and in the brief peace after the South African War, the problem, or series of problems, which were honestly attacked, if not, as we have seen, fully solved, by the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act of 1907. But note the continuity of the history, and the secure foundation of that Act on material already existing. The Territorial scheme, like the British Constitution, grew up and developed by its own strength; it was never imposed from without. Herein lay the secret of such measure of success as it achieved. The war in South Africa had revealed grave defects in military resources and in the means of national defence. ‘Conscription was out of the question at present,’ but the war of 1914 found the counties of Great Britain at least organized for an emergency which surpassed in its demands and its extent the most serious anticipations of the most foresightful. And the organization (this is the important point) was based on a tradition which could not fail. Everywhere in England, not in Halifax alone, had been men of public spirit, like Edward Akroyd, to petition their worshipful mayor on behalf of the Volunteer movement. Everywhere in England, for fifty years, the Volunteers had drilled and camped, had exchanged their shakoes for busbies, and their muzzle-loaders for breech-loaders, and had converted public ridicule into tolerance, and tolerance into appreciation, and appreciation at last into heartfelt gratitude to the ‘people’s army’ which sprang from English soil. We turn the old pages of Punch, and smile at John Leech’s pictures of ‘The Brook-Green Volunteers’ and others; but behind our laughter is the sense that these long-ago, long-whiskered men were the true makers and only begetters of the Territorial Army in the Great War, and that Edward Akroyd and the hundred and nineteen who signed the resolution of enrolment at the public meeting in Halifax Town Hall on June 3rd, 1859, showed the way to the fighting men of the West Riding who helped Marshal Foch and Earl Haig to turn the tide of German advance in the summer of 1918.

This historic sense deepens as we approach the period immediately before the war. In May, 1902, the honorary rank of Lieutenant in the Army was granted to Captain H. S. Atkinson, with an award of the Queen’s Medal with three clasps, in recognition of his services in South Africa. So, the Volunteer and the Regular had coalesced. In the following December, Lord Savile accepted the honorary Colonelcy of the Battalion, in succession, after a long interval, to its virtual founder, Colonel Akroyd, and testimony was borne to the fact that the troops were ‘working on lines which lead to real efficiency of mobilization for home defence.’ In 1905, the writing on the wall was conspicuous for all to read. Colonel Land observed, at the annual prize-giving, that the choice for the future now lay between ‘the more effective training of the Volunteer forces, or compulsion. It rested entirely with the authorities and employers of labour to decide which alternative to adopt. One or the other was inevitable.’ In 1907, the inevitable occurred, and early in 1908, when the Territorial Act was on the Statute-book, the Secretary of State for War addressed a stirring appeal to the male youth of Great Britain:

Our survey of the progress of a single unit from 1859 to 1908 should enable us better to understand the precise bearing of Lord Haldane’s language. What is true of a unit is true of the whole; and we shall see, in the further annals of this corps of old Rifle Volunteers, who now bore ‘South Africa’ upon their Colours, and counted a Regular officer among their Captains, how gallantly the Yeomanry and Volunteers responded to the call of tradition, and how fully ‘a process of evolution’ describes the action which they took.

For they ‘passed into’ the Territorial Army. As Colonel Land said to his men on a day in 1908: ‘The word “conscription” appears to be repulsive to the vast majority of Englishmen.’ He did not share that repulsion, but for those who shared it ‘What was the alternative? Mr. Haldane thought the alternative was to enlarge and make effective use of the present auxiliary forces by reorganization.’ So be it. A ‘voluntary Territorial force stood between the country and conscription.’ But in certain districts of England the Volunteer law was current among men, as the Scout law is, or should be, among boys: ‘The Army Council was only asking all Volunteers to do what they in Halifax had done for years’; and, when only two alternatives were presented for selection, either to attest under the new Act, or to retire from the auxiliary forces and unwrite a chapter of local history which had been opened in 1859, ‘they in Halifax’ were never in doubt. The 4th West Yorks Rifle Volunteers had changed their name in 1883, when they became the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the West Riding (Duke of Wellington’s) Regiment. On April 1st, 1908, they consented to change their name again. The 1st West Riding Volunteers became now the 4th Battalion of the West Riding Regiment, with their uniform similar to the Line Battalion’s, and scarlet facings for white and gold lace, gilt ornaments for silver and white, and the letter ‘T’ to indicate Territorial. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose; the ‘process of evolution’ was complete.

We come back from the part to the whole, from Halifax to the West Riding. Our choice of Halifax has not been due to any exceptional conditions in that borough. In some respects, indeed, it lagged behind. Its city fathers contained at least their full proportion of anti-‘militarists’ and anti-‘conscriptionists,’ and its recruiting record was never the best in the Riding. It has been clearer and more convenient, however, to illustrate the movement from start to finish, or, at least, from 1859 to 1908, by means of a concrete example, than to deal vaguely with the mass.

When the mass-problem was approached by Lord Harewood, as Lieutenant of the Riding, and his colleagues in the County Association, they found that the old Volunteer and Yeomanry forces were required to ‘pass into’ the new Territorial Army to the number of about 18,300 of all ranks. On March 31st, 1908, the actual strength of those old forces was 414 officers and 9,683 other ranks; so that, roughly, 8,000 in all had to be found additionally in the West Riding: eight more for every ten on the strength. The quota allotted to the Riding were a whole Division, a Mounted Brigade, and Army Troops.

We have already viewed this problem through the eyes of the West Riding Association, when we saw that the full numbers were never reached, and that a big new scheme was devised, and brought to the notice of the Prime Minister, in order to render the terms of service more attractive. We propose to look at the problem here through the eyes of the men themselves: not of those who did not enrol, but of the personnel which actually joined up. It is important to emphasize this aspect. A sermon preached at absent congregants always hits the regular church-goers; and the repinings of Associations at a deficiency in establishment are apt to distract attention from the merits of the men on the strength. Thus, the keen inheritors of the tradition of the 4th West Yorks Rifle Volunteers were not less but, rather, more praiseworthy because their strength as a Territorial unit, after April, 1908, was always below establishment. Take the three last returns before the war:—

4th BATTALION, WEST RIDING REGIMENT, HALIFAX.

This was the kind of disheartenment which General Wright,[12] Commanding the Division, had to face at the outset of his task; and, since it was the function of the Association to rebuke the absent 37 per cent., let us praise the present sixty-three. When three or four men in ten abstain, the virtue of the assentients is more conspicuous.

Certainly, it was easier not to join. We are not referring now to what we may call the permanent handicap: the passive resistance of some employers, the active dislike of others: the wave of pacific sentiment, fanned by hot blasts from Labour circles, and the acute suspicion of the hidden hand of compulsion. Nor are we referring now to merely local conditions, such as points of precedence and procedure, and minor grievances and jealousies, almost inevitable at the start of a novel and complex organization in an area as wide as the West Riding. These things loom large in the beginning, but the incidents of the quarrels disappear when the decisions shine in their results, and the wisest course is to believe that every honest conflict of interests is inspired by generous emulation. This, at least, is how we shall recall the discussion in 1908 whether the West Riding Horse Artillery, which was to form part of the Yorkshire Mounted Brigade, should be raised by the borough of Sheffield or by Earl Fitzwilliam, with its headquarters at Wentworth Woodhouse, and the ultimate acceptance of the latter offer in the public spirit in which it was made. No: the task set to General Wright and his colleagues, the purely military task, that is to say, was formidable enough, without attempting to weigh the imponderable. His record of service shows that he was least of all likely to be satisfied with a hollow or an illusory success. On July 7th, 1908, for instance, on the occasion of a visit to Leeds by their Majesties King Edward and Queen Alexandra, Regular and Territorial Troops were paraded to line the streets and to furnish Guards of Honour; and the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, in publishing the King’s gracious message, expressed his personal

The fact was gratifying, no doubt, but the responsible military authorities were probably much more concerned with the further facts that, at the same date, no equipment had been received for the Horse Artillery, only part equipment for the Royal Field Artillery and the Royal Engineers, and that the Infantry equipment had to be reported as ‘generally bad, of obsolete pattern, and useless for active service.’ It was not to earn Royal compliments on parade, but to have the Troops ready for mobilization, that these authorities were primarily concerned.

We are constrained to dwell upon this feature, because of its obvious connection with future deficiencies in numbers. Take the first Annual Training in Camp of the West Riding Division in the summer of 1908. Over 97 per cent. of other Ranks attended, of whom 72 per cent. were in attendance for the fifteen days: a very commendable record. The results on the whole were good. The Redcar Urban District Council expressed ‘high appreciation of the gentlemanly conduct’ of the Troops, and hoped to welcome them again. There was not a single case tried for drunkenness, and discipline and bearing were notably improved. But, when we turn to the Report of the Divisional Commander, what do we gather as to his views, and what can we read between the lines?

Danger and suffering are strong words, which General Wright would not have used without good cause. In the previous chapter we attempted to translate these grievances into the language of War Office routine, and after multiplying them by the ninety-four Associations, we were able to find some excuse for official hesitation in removing them. Here it is appropriate to translate them into the language of the rank and file, and to imagine, by no great effort, how, when the Camp was broken up, drivers of teams ‘unsuitably’ harnessed and victims of even worse defects would deter, unconsciously, it might be, their brothers and friends from joining up.

It may be urged that 1908 was the first summer in the life of the Force. Let us turn to the following year. At the Divisional Camp in 1909, the attendance of all ranks below officers reached 94 per cent., of whom 71 per cent. attended for fifteen days. But the Chairman’s October report stated, with reference to an Army Council Order as to the purchase of boots: ‘Under present conditions, should the Force be mobilized, it would be found to be incapable of marching.’ Moreover, there were sundry deficiencies of guns, limbers, wagons, etc., and it is significantly observed:

Here, perhaps, we may interpolate a note, that in January, 1910, instructions were issued from the War Office,[13] authorizing County Associations, ‘in view of the great influence and local knowledge’ at their disposal, to add to their existing heavy duties by making arrangements for the provision of the vehicles and animals required on mobilization for the Regular Army as well as for the Territorial Force. The West Riding Association, acknowledging this letter, remarked drily, that, while it was not aware that the provision of horses for the Regular Army on mobilization formed any part of its statutory duties, ‘it is quite willing to undertake the work, subject to a clear understanding that adequate funds will be provided, sufficient, in its judgment, to carry out the work effectively.’ And, if any reader is inclined to cavil at the tautology in the last phrase, he may be recommended to study the experience of the West Riding Association as to the Army Council’s view of the meaning of ‘adequate funds.’

General Bullock[14] succeeded General Wright as Officer Commanding the Division in January, 1910. His first Camp was held partly in the Isle of Man, where, unfortunately, the weather was very bad. The attendance was 93 per cent. of other ranks, of whom 69 per cent. trained for fifteen days. ‘No change’ was reported in the condition of the supply of guns, wagons, and saddlery; most of the units were still deficient of binoculars; ‘the supply of horses was, on the whole, satisfactory,’ and the provision of machine-guns in all units was complete. His second Camp (1911) showed a further fall in the percentages: 89 per cent. of other Ranks attended, of whom 58 per cent. trained for fifteen days. The Troops were encamped in various places, including Salisbury Plain, Ripon, Scarborough, Marske, Skegness and Aldershot. A Review of the Ripon Camp was witnessed by Major-General (Sir) John Cowans, afterwards Quartermaster-General, and at that time Director-General of the Territorial Force.

Sir George Bullock’s command of the Division coincided with the pressure of three problems: the provision of horses on mobilization, to which reference was made above; the formation of the Territorial and Veteran Reserves, with which progress proved very slow; and the formation of Voluntary Aid Detachments, which it was decided to raise in the West Riding in accordance with the scheme of the St. John’s Ambulance Association under the provisional name of County Companies (men’s and women’s). The first work of getting these companies afoot devolved upon General Mends, who, with customary zeal, doubled the duties of Association Secretary with those of County Director. In the Autumn of 1912, the designation of County Company was changed to Voluntary Aid Detachment, and shortly afterwards, when General Mends resigned the direction to Major G. D. Symonds,[15] he was able to hand over to his successor as many as fifty Voluntary Aid Detachments (16 men’s, 34 women’s), and at the same time to state his confident belief that the initial stages were safely passed and the movement was firmly established.

But these, after all, were side-shows, and, whatever success they achieved, or whatever labour they involved, they must not deflect attention from the main military business, which was always present to the minds of the Commanding Officers, and of non-Commissioned officers as well. It was their business to train for mobilization the Territorial troops of the Riding. The more keen and conscientious they were, the more they were haunted in their dreams by the shadow which took substantial shape on August 4th, 1914, and which grew so rapidly to dimensions undreamed of even by Lord Roberts. Yet this urgent business was performed, like the tasks of the Israelites in Egypt, without the necessary materials. Mr. Churchill, Secretary of State for War, at a meeting of representatives of Associations held in London on April 1st, 1919, in announcing his preliminary plans for the reconstitution of the Territorial Force, was moved to speak as follows:—

And the Minister went on to point out that—

on whom to draw for the reconstituted Force. A happy state of things indeed: ‘immense supplies, even immense surplus supplies of the very finest equipment in the world,’ and numberless recruits ‘versed in every aspect of war, who have the records of their achievements and of their experience vividly in their minds.’ How many members of Associations, remembering the days that were past, must have listened to Mr. Churchill’s words with more sorrow than anger in their hearts. The anger had faded and died in the fiercer emotions of the war, in part-preparation for which an earlier Secretary of State, just eleven years before, had reconstituted the old Yeomanry and Volunteers into the new Territorial Force. Now the new Territorial Force (after all, it was only eleven years of age) was to be reconstituted in another peace-time out of its own ‘war-trained veteran soldiers’. It had sent, as Mr. Churchill stated, 1,045,000 men to fight against the best troops of Germany and Turkey. Six thousand five hundred of its officers and a hundred and five thousand other ranks had laid down their lives in that fight, out of a total casualty list of nearly 600,000 throughout the Force. Twenty-nine of its officers and forty-two of its men in other ranks had won the supreme honour of the Victoria Cross; and there might well be sorrow in the hearts of many present at that meeting, not only for the dead, the missing, and the maimed, but for the ‘painfully limited Army Estimates’ from 1908 to 1914; for the ‘second- and third-rate weapons,’ or no weapons at all, with which Territorial troops had been armed; for the standing order to train for mobilization and the recurring refusal to provide the means, for all the unrecognized sacrifices of officers, N.C.O.’s and men, badly clothed, badly housed, badly equipped, and for the contrast between the generous recognition of what the Territorial Force had done and the ungenerous treatment meted out to it in its years of preparation for the doing. If Mr. Churchill’s audience that day agreed with him not to look back upon past grievances, at least they might welcome his praise of

Our account of the West Riding Troops in the period before the war were best concluded on this note. Up to the measure of their achievement, they are entitled to their share of the praise, and no useful purpose would be served by recounting in terms of drill-hall and barrack-room accommodation the same tale of official procrastination and delay, some features of which we have noted in relation to equipment and arms.

In September, 1911, General Baldock[16] succeeded Sir George Bullock as General Officer Commanding the Division, and his term of service extended into the war epoch. His summer camp in 1912 trained partly on Salisbury Plain (where the Mounted Brigade encamped for the first time outside Yorkshire), partly at Ad Fines, Buddon, Skegness, and other places, with the 2nd and 3rd General Hospitals at Netley. The weather was uniformly bad, so much so that a letter was addressed by the Army Council to Northern Command, expressing ‘their appreciation, and that of the Secretary of State for War, for the excellent spirit which was shown by the Territorial Troops in Camp this year. The weather has been most inclement, and the soldierly spirit in which the Troops bore their discomfort was most praiseworthy.’ The attendance of ranks below officers reached 85 per cent. of strength, of whom 60 per cent. trained for fifteen days. The corresponding percentages for 1913, when the weather was remarkably fine, rose to 88 and 66 respectively. Full arrangements were made for an Annual Camp in 1914, at dates between May 21st and August 16th, and many units, as we shall see, were in training when the summons came to mobilize.

We may note, for historical completeness, some of the activities of the Command which were interrupted by that sudden summons. The whole machine was working steadily and regularly, but with slightly diminished velocity, and a certain sense, which is developed in fine machinery, of insufficient encouragement from above. Probably, from the point of view of the rank and file, the call seemed likely never to arrive. Even the keener officers and more intelligent N.C.O.’s might not unreasonably have begun to believe that the leisurely methods of the War Office still corresponded, as politicians certified, to a clear sky in Europe and a firm friendship with all foreign Powers, so that they, too, might pick their way slowly. Such pressure as was exerted, at any rate, came from within, not from without. As late as April, 1914, the new Headquarters at Halifax for the 2nd West Riding Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, and at Ripon for the Detachment of the West Riding Regiment, still awaited inspection by the Army Council. These were the last of a long series of premises, the acquisition and building of which had given endless trouble to the Association, not without serious detriment to the efficiency of the Troops. At the end of May, 68 Voluntary Aid Detachments (19 men’s, 49 women’s) had been recognized by the War Office, covering the following districts: Settle (1), Skipton (1), Ripon (1), Harrogate (12), York (5), Otley (7), Leeds (4), Aberfordia (9), Halifax (1), Wakefield (9), Osgoldcross (9), Huddersfield (3), Doncaster (2), Sheffield (2), Rotherham (2). The number of National Reservists had reached a total of 10,853, including 2,404 not classified in respect to their service-value. But of all the statistics available, the most interesting, finally, are numbers. On May 31st, 1914, the Establishment of the West Riding Territorial Force was 574 officers and 17,680 other ranks, 18,254 in all. Its total strength on that date was 537 officers and 14,699 other ranks, showing a shortage of 37 officers and 2,981 other ranks. In real numbers, the shortage amounted to 58 and 3,082 respectively, the discrepancy in figures being due to occasional surpluses in certain units.

Finally, we reproduce below a tabulated statement of the designations and peace-stations of the Corps which formed the Territorial Force of the West Riding shortly after the outbreak of war, and in the third column of that table we add the names of their then Commanding Officers. This, in fine, was the outcome of the six and a half years’ work of the Lord Lieutenant and his colleagues in the Association. These Corps of gallant officers and other ranks were the open and visible sign of the response of the West Riding to the appeal of 1908. The Association might not have succeeded in discharging fully the duties numbered from (a) to (l) in Section II., Sub-section (2) of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act. They might not have provided all the necessary buildings, nor have arranged with all employers of labour as to holidays for training, nor have supplied all the requisites on mobilization, nor have done half a dozen more things which they tried to do in the face of obstruction, and would have liked to do if they had been allowed. Their shortcomings were their misfortune, not their fault, and they have served since as a warning to the Army Council to prevent their repetition in the future. But in the spirit of the officers and men who were on the strength of the units in 1914, the West Riding had given overrunning measure. ‘Any part of the Territorial Force,’ it is written in Section XIII. (1) of the Act, ‘shall be liable to serve in any part of the United Kingdom, but no part of the Territorial Force shall be carried or ordered to go out of the United Kingdom.’ The Act of Parliament limited the liability; we shall see how the action of West Yorkshiremen broke those limits, when the day came.

WEST RIDING TERRITORIAL FORCE
AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE GREAT WAR.