The 10th (Service) Battalion, Queens (Royal West Surrey Regiment) (Battersea) (10th Queen's) was an infantry unit recruited as part of 'Kitchener's Army' in World War I. It was raised in the summer of 1915 by the Mayor and Borough of Battersea in the suburbs of South London. It served on the Western Front from May 1916, taking part in the first tank action at Flers-Courcelette, then serving at Messines and Ypres. It was then sent to the Italian Front, before returning to France and defending against the German spring offensive. It next trained troops of the American Expeditionary Forces before taking part in the final advance to victory in Flanders. It served in the postwar Occupation of the Rhineland before being disbanded in 1920.
Recruitment and training
On 6 August 1914, less than 48 hours after Britain's declaration of war, Parliament sanctioned an increase of 500,000 men for the Regular British Army. The newly appointed Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You', urging the first 100,000 volunteers to come forward. Men flooded into the recruiting offices and the 'first hundred thousand' were enlisted within days. This group of six divisions with supporting arms became known as Kitchener's First New Army, or 'K1'.War Office Instructions No 32 (6 August) and No 37 (7 August).Becke, Pt 3a, pp. 2 & 8. The K2, K3 and K4 battalions, brigades and divisions followed soon afterwards. But the flood of volunteers overwhelmed the ability of the Army to absorb them, and the K5 units were largely raised by local initiative rather than at regimental depots, often from men from particular localities or backgrounds who wished to serve together: these were known as 'Pals battalions'. The 'Pals' phenomenon quickly spread across the country, as local recruiting committees offered complete units to the War Office (WO). Encouraged by this response, in February 1915 Kitchener approached the 28 Metropolitan Borough Councils in the County of London, and the 'Great Metropolitan Recruiting Campaign' went ahead in April, with each mayor asked to raise a unit of local men.McCue, pp. 10–1.
The Metropolitan Borough of Battersea in South London already hosted the 23rd (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment, a pre-war Territorial Force (TF) unit with its drill hall at St John's Hill. This unit had quickly expanded to two battalions after the outbreak of war and it had just begun recruiting a third battalion, while the employees of a major local employer, Price's Candles, had volunteered to form a company of the 3rd (City of London) Battalion, London Regiment, and the Royal Irish Rifles was advertising in the borough for men of Irish origin. The mayor of Battersea, Councillor T.W. Simmons, considered that it would be difficult to recruit another large unit in the borough, and suggested that it should aim for an artillery battery of 133 men. However, the neighbouring Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth agreed to support the raising of a full infantry battalion of 1350 men, and consequent newspaper criticism of Battersea's proposal, coupled with local rivalry, led to Battersea revising its plans. The 10th (Service) Battalion, Queens (Royal West Surrey Regiment) (Battersea) was authorised by the WO on 3 June 1915. (The Queen's Regiment was the Regular Army regiment covering South London, the pre-war London Regiment consisting entirely of part-time soldiers of the TF; Wandsworth had chosen to affiliate its battalion to the East Surrey Regiment.)Anon, 23rd, pp. 81, 165.Frederick, p. 199.James, pp. 43–4McCue, pp. 11–3.McCue, pp. 168–75.War Office Instruction No 56 of September 1915, Appendix IX.Queen's Regiment at Long, Long Trail.Wylly, pp. 252–3.
The Lower Hall of Battersea Town Hall was designated as the new unit's battalion headquarters (HQ) and Colonel William Inglis was appointed its commanding officer. Inglis, a retired former officer of the Queen's, had rejoined the army at the outbreak of war and had been Inspector of Recruiting for Eastern Command. Major Talbot Jarvis, a TF Reserve officer, was later appointed as his second-in-command.London Gazette, 27 July 1915.London Gazette, 29 September 1915. Three Battersea councillors took up commissions in the battalion, but as the mayor had feared, recruiting was weak: by the end of June only 50 men had volunteered. This was despite a committee of ladies handing out facsimile railway tickets to Berlin (rather than the traditional white feathers of cowardice) to men who were not in uniform. Simmons and Inglis obtained a number of local men who had been commissioned as officers after seeing service on the Western Front or at Gallipoli and others with previous TF experience. Battersea Council provided Latchmere Road Baths as a drill hall, while outdoor drill was carried out in Battersea Park and on Clapham Common. Recruiting continued slow until December, when the government announced the introduction of conscription, and there was a late rush of men wishing to volunteer for a specific unit rather than be drafted.
Training At New Year 1916 the WO formally took over the battalion from the borough council, and ordered it to Albuhera Barracks, Aldershot, to join 41st Division, the last 'K' division to be formed. It was assigned to 124th Brigade, serving alongside the 26th (Bankers) and 32nd (East Ham) Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) (RF) and the 21st King's Royal Rifle Corps (Yeoman Rifles) (KRRC), recruited from North Country farmers. At Aldershot the battalions were equipped with modern rifles, specialists such as Lewis gunners, signallers and 'bombers' were selected and trained, and route marches were carried out in full marching order. Unfit personnel were withdrawn to second-line units, including Col Inglis who left to command the newly formed 33rd (Labour) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, at Seaford but died on 30 March 1916, aged 53. He was replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Oakley, a former Regular officer of the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles). Some other trained replacements came from the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Queen's, at Sittingbourne, and 300 from 8th (Reserve) Battalion), Northamptonshire Regiment at Colchester. In February the whole of 41st Division concentrated at Aldershot and began its final battle training.Becke, Pt 3b, pp. 109–15.41st Division at Long, Long Trail.James, p. 50.Inglis at CWGC Records.McCue, pp. 175–7.Markham, p. 154.
On 5 May 10th Queen's boarded three trains for Southampton Docks, where the men embarked on the transport Hunscraft and landed at Le Havre in France the following morning. On 7 May the battalion went by train to Steenbecque and then marched to billets at Ebblinghem, later moving to Outtersteene in the division's concentration area west of Bailleul in Second Army's area. Here it resumed training until the end of the month.McCue, pp. 177–8.10th Queen's War Diary, May 1916–December 1918 at Queen's Royal Surrey site.
12th (Reserve) Battalion The 12th (Reserve) Battalion, Queen's, was formed by Maj S.B. Schlam of the South African Defence Force at Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, in October 1915 from the depot companies of 10th (Battersea) and 11th (Lambeth) Bns Queen's as a Local Reserve battalion to supply reinforcement drafts to the two battalions. It went to Northampton, where Lt-Col W.D. Wynyard (Army Ordnance Corps) assumed command, and it joined 23rd Reserve Brigade. In May 1916 the brigade moved to Aldershot. On 1 September 1916 the Local Reserve battalions were transferred to the Training Reserve (TR) and 12th (R) Bn Queen's became 97th Training Reserve Battalion, though the training staff retained their Queen's cap badges. It was still in 23rd Reserve Brigade. On 4 July 1917 it was redesignated as 209th (Infantry) Battalion, TR, and on 1 November it was transferred to become 51st (Graduated) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment in 193rd Bde of 64th Division at Taverham in Norfolk. It went to Norwich for winter quarters, then in March 1918 to Sheringham, before returning to Taverham. In November 1918 it went back to Norwich. After the Armistice with Germany it was converted into a service battalion on 8 February 1919 and was then sent to join the British Army of the Rhine, where it was absorbed into 7th Bn, Middlesex Regiment, on 8 April.Wylly, p. 285.Frederick, p. 216.James, p. 94.
Service On 30 May 10th Queen's marched to Steenwerck, and the following day moved into billets in Ploegsteert ('Plugstreet'). Although the battalion was in divisional reserve, it had to supply working parties to improve the trenches near Ploegsteert Wood, and it began to suffer a trickle of casualties from chance shellfire or random machine gun fire. These increased after 4 June when the battalion began its first tour of duty in the Ploegsteert Wood trenches. Towards the end of the month volunteers were called for to undertake a raid on enemy lines. Five officers and about 150 other ranks (ORs) were selected from among the volunteers and sent by motor bus to Bailleul to train over specially prepared ground. The raid was carried out on the night of 27 July and was tolerably successful, but costly: 4 of the officers were wounded, 6 ORs killed or died of wounds, 37 wounded and 7 missing.McCue, pp. 178–86.
Flers–Courcelette When 41st Division arrived on the Western Front the British Expeditionary Force was preparing for that summer's 'Big Push', the Battle of the Somme, which began on 1 July. On 23 August 10th Queen's entrained for Pont-Remy in the Somme sector, where it undertook three weeks' special training at Buigny-l'Abbé before being called upon to participate in the offensive, at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. The training included operating in a wood similar to the notorious Delville Wood on the Somme. On the afternoon of 14 September the brigade was guided to trenches north-east of Delville Wood, where orders were issued for an attack next day. 124th Brigade on the division's right formed up during the night, with 10th Queen's (right) and 21st KRRC (left) in eight waves, the leading waves in No man's land, the others stretching back to 'Brown Trench'. They were supported by 26th and 32nd RF respectively. The division had four objectives and the brigade was intended to take them in succession with the battalions in this formation, until they were beyond the village of Gueudecourt. For this its first attack, 41st Division had support from tanks, also making their first ever appearance on a battlefield. Ten Mark I tanks of D Company, Heavy Section, Machine Gun Corps, were assigned to the division, formed up behind the infantry.Eden, pp. 92–7.McCue, pp. 187–9.Miles, 1916, Vol II, pp. 299, 321.Wylly, pp. 253–4.