King's Bench Division

“ Lord Monck enclosed the heads of a plan for the reorganisation and increase of the active militia, based mainly on the voluntary principle, with rules for the erection of armouries, drill-sheds and rifle-ranges, and the appointment of brigade-majors and sergeants, &c., and other means of a perfect organisation. The scheme was to raise an active battalion for each territorial division of the country corresponding with the regimental district of the sedentary militia, to be increased in number as needed, each active battalion to be taken from the sub-division of the district. ”

“ Our regiment was on the extreme left of our brigade, which placed us in rear when marching in columns of four. Our company, Company E, was on the left of the regiment, this making our company the extreme left of Jenkins' Brigade. Just in rear of us was Bennings' Georgians, and the old general was on his gray horse in that slow gallop at the head of his brigade. Our division (Fields' Division) was composed now of Hood's Texas Brigade, in front, Anderson's Georgia Brigade (Tige Anderson) , Robertson's Alabama Brigade, Jenkins' South Carolina Brigade and Bennings' Georgia Brigade (Rock Benning) . ”

“ The passiveness of Benning's brigade, which does not seem to have fired a shot, has never been explained.
General Bragg was bitterly disappointed by the failure of his best division, numbering fully 5000 men, as he said in his report to the War Department, and pitted, as they were, against “parts of the 11th and 12th Corps, troops which have more notoriety for their want of steadiness under fire than anything else. The officers do not seem to have appreciated a night attack. ”

“ This appeared to content them, and thereafter, for a considerable time, the front became of a placidity such as the troops of the 36th Division had seldom known.
[184]
For the moment—a fleeting moment, indeed—the enemy had second place in the minds of officers and men of the Division. Its first concern was with its reorganization. The shortage of man-power had been talked of long enough. Its fruits had now to be plucked, and bitter they were. The whole British Army was now cutting down its divisions to nine infantry battalions, and its brigades to three. ”

“ The new law replaced the old territorial departments with corps areas, which assumed the tasks of administering and training the Army. Each corps area was to have at least one National Guard or Organized Reserve division. Corps areas were to be combined into army areas for inspection, mobilization, maneuver, and demobilization. Rather than mandating the structure of regiments as in the past, Congress authorized the number of officers and enlisted men for each arm and service and instructed the president to organize the units. ”

“ My plan for the impending battle involved the employment of four Divisions in the actual assault, with one Division in reserve. The Reserve Division was to be available for use in one of two ways; either as a reserve of fresh troops to exploit any successes gained upon the first day, or else to take over and hold defensively the ground won, if the assaulting Divisions should have become too exhausted to be relied upon for successful resistance to a counter-attack in force. ”

“ All dismounted cavalry belonging to the Army of the Potomac, and the dismounted cavalry from the Middle Military Division not required for guarding property belonging to their arm of service, will report to Brigadier-General Benham, to be added to the defences of City Point. Major-General Parke will be left in command of all the army left for holding the lines about Petersburg and City Point, subject of course to orders from the commander of the Army of the Potomac. The 9th army corps will be left intact, to hold the present line of works so long as the whole line now occupied by us is held. ”

“ Future enemies would most likely organize their forces in great depth; therefore, the Army had to be prepared to overcome that challenge.
Nevertheless, the committee believed a division of four infantry regiments, although lacking the flexibility of Pershing's suggested unit, would have the necessary mobility and striking power. Divisional support troops needed to be reduced, but the retention of the square division preserved the organizations for army corps and armies that had been developed during the war. ”

“ If possible, he wanted units to have adequate housing and training facilities as well as to be located where the men could assist in the development of the reserve components. The recommendations called for the Second and Ninth Corps Areas each to have an infantry division, the Eighth Corps Area to have both infantry and cavalry divisions, and the remaining corps areas each to have a reinforced brigade. ”

“ In 1648 the City carried one point and gained the command of their own militia. A deputation of Lords and Commons attended the Court of Common Council, and assured them that not only did they cheerfully commit to them the command of the militia, but that they had resolved on making no change in the constitution of the country with King, Lords, and Commons. ”

“ Again we were associated in the memorable battle of Arras in April 1917, and now again we have kicked off side by side in an advance the results of which I have every reason to believe will be far-reaching. That your Division was able after the continuous fighting in which it has been engaged this year to take and keep the strong position of Greenland Hill, testifies in the strongest possible manner to the fact that [370] the fighting qualities of the 51st are second to none in all the Allied armies. ”

“ I must learn the strength of the force; I must get corroboration. The man with whom I had talked might be wrong on some point. I considered my friend's opinion correct concerning Branch's purpose. The Confederate force was put here to protect the railroad. From the envelopes I had learned that Branch's brigade had recently been at Gordonsville; it was clear that it had left Gordonsville in order to place itself between Anderson's force at Fredericksburg and Johnston's army at Richmond, and thus preserve communications. ”

“ A division was composed of two, or less frequently of three, brigades, and might have any number from ten up to sixteen or eighteen battalions—i.e. it varied, allowing for casual losses, from 6,000 to 10,000 men. This irregularity was part of Napoleon’s system: he laid it down as an axiom that all military units, from a brigade to an army corps, ought to differ in strength among themselves: otherwise the enemy, if he had once discovered how many brigades or divisions were in front of him, could calculate with accuracy the number of troops with which he had to do. ”

“ These, with medical and other units, made a total of over 28,000 men, or practically double the size of a French or German division. Each corps would normally consist of six divisions—four combat and one depot and one replacement division—and also two regiments of cavalry, and each army of from three to five corps. With four divisions fully trained, a corps could take over an American sector with two divisions in line and two in reserve, with the depot and replacement divisions prepared to fill the gaps in the ranks. ”

“ Some designation, such as “shops,” may strike the ear as strange, an unlikely unit to help much in an advance; but a man cannot march without boots, a gun can neither shoot nor advance with a broken spring, a motor lorry will not bring up a single tin of “bully beef” if its axle breaks, and all these things are put right by men who are labelled “shops.” Even the Divisional Canteen plays its part, and has on occasions pushed well forward to refresh wearied troops.
We say these units contribute to an advance! They contribute to every action, to every move—they are the division. ”

“ Thus, in the last Parliament, Mr. Austen Chamberlain and Mr. Lloyd George, addressing the House from back bench corner seats, contrived to present the appearance of Gullivers amid [Pg 194] Lilliputian surroundings—a phenomenon largely attributable to the Front Bench manner. Some members of the new Government (and one or two members of the last Government) who have not yet attained to Front Bench dimensions, present an equally astonishing contrast of the opposite kind. Their painfully unsuccessful efforts to command attention are a source of dismay to their friends and discomfort to their foes. ”

“ Here were men from all those various callings which by their nature tend to give men physical strength—miners, fishermen, farm-servants, gillies, stalkers, all in their prime of life. Later, particularly in 1918, when the Highlands had nothing further to give but her boys, the physique and general appearance of the Division naturally deteriorated. ”

“ The situation of the Third Army, on the right of the 56th Division, brought a multitude of instructions. On the 22nd the XVII Corps had been ordered to withdraw to its third system on the south of the Scarpe, but to continue holding Monchy lightly. But north of the Scarpe the 4th Division, on the right of the 56th, would not move until Monchy had been captured by the enemy, in which case the 56th Division would adjust their line to run through Beatty Post, Bailleul Post, to le Point du Jour Post. ”

“ During the debate over force structure, the War Plans Division considered whether the additional divisions should be Regular Army or National Army units. Not all Regular Army infantry regiments authorized under the National Defense Act of 1916 had been assigned to divisions, thus raising the question of why those regiments should exist. The War Plans Division recommended that the Regular Army infantry regiments become the nuclei of the next group of divisions, which would be completed with National Army units. The National Army units would pass out of existence after the war. ”

“ After World War I the Army quickly demobilized its forces, but memories of the unpreparedness of 1917 caused the nation to change the way it maintained its military forces. Infantry and cavalry divisions, rather than regiments or smaller units, became the pillars that would support future mobilization. Officers examined the structure of those pillars and adopted a modified, but powerful, square infantry division designed for frontal attack and a small light cavalry division for reconnaissance. ”

“ The militia forces were to consist of all able-bodied white male citizens between the ages of eighteen and forty-five and were to be organized into companies, battalions, regiments, brigades, and divisions. The legislation provided that each brigade consist of four two-battalion infantry regiments. A militia division could also have an artillery company and a cavalry troop, both of which were to be formed from volunteers within the brigades at the discretion of the governors. ”

“ To fill the task force, the War Department deferred reorganizing and filling the 97th Infantry Division, the last of the Organized Reserve divisions to enter active military service, and reduced three partially trained divisions to less than 50 percent of their authorized strengths. To avoid stripping divisions again and disturbing their training, the War Department designated the 76th and 78th Infantry Divisions as replacement units to receive, train, and hold men until needed. ”

“ Field operations usually involved less than a regiment or were conducted by gathering the geographically closest elements of several regiments on a temporary basis. Army Regulations, nevertheless, continued to repeat the ideas for organizing army corps, divisions, and brigades, with the division described as "the fundamental element and basis of organization of every active army." ”

“ To call the troops stationed all over this immense area a 'division' is, of course, merely calling old things by new titles. If there is to be reality, then this division must be concentrated at least in brigades, and that will necessitate the withdrawal of garrisons not merely from unimportant places, but from points of which some are of vital importance; while unless the whole country of Bengal and Assam is deprived of military garrisons, no further concentration can take place, and no training as a 'division' can possibly be undertaken. ”

“ The other committees defined the roles of the National Guard and the Organized Reserves, estimated the number of Regular Army personnel required to train and administer them, established manning requirements for foreign garrisons, determined the number of regulars needed for an expeditionary force, and fixed the distribution of the Regular Army in the United States to meet strategic and training considerations. [16]
The Committee on Organization prescribed a 23,000-man square division patterned after the unit of World War I. Seeking comments from beyond the confines of the General Staff, Col. ”

“ Individual states organized their volunteers into regiments, which the War Department initially planned to brigade, mixing foot and mounted infantry [23] in the same units. Two or more volunteer brigades, each consisting of three or more regiments, were to form a division. Under the wartime laws, a brigade was to be authorized at least 3,000 men and a division 6,000. Since Army Regulations called for no fixed staffs, the president was to appoint a quartermaster, commissary, and surgeon for each brigade. Each staff officer was to have an assistant. ”

“ FROM ATTACK TO DEFENCE
It was now generally recognized that the wheeling movement originally contemplated was an impossibility. Between Armentières and Givenchy the 3rd, 5th, and 6th Divisions, and Conneau's cavalry, which was acting with them, had opposed to them the II., IV., VII. and IX. German Cavalry Divisions, several battalions of Jägers, the XIII. Division of the VII. A.C., a brigade of the III. A.C., and the whole of the XIV. A.C., which had recently moved north from in front of the 21st French Army. ”