|
56th (London) Division
The 56th (London) Infantry Division was a Territorial Army (United Kingdom), Territorial Army infantry Division (military), division of the British Army, which served under several different titles and designations. The division served in the Trench warfare, trenches of the Western Front (World War I), Western Front during the World War I, First World War. Demobilised after the war, the division was reformed in 1920 and saw active service again in the World War II, Second World War in Tunisian Campaign, Tunisia and Italian Campaign (World War II), Italy. The division was again disbanded in 1946 and reformed first as an Armoured warfare, armoured formation and then as an infantry division before final disbandment in 1961. Formation The Territorial Force (TF) was formed on 1 April 1908 following the enactment of the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 (7 Edw.7, c.9) which combined and re-organised the old Volunteer Force (Great Britain), Volunteer Force, the Honourable Artillery ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Divisional Insignia Of The British Army
Formation signs at the division level were first introduced in the British Army in the First World War. They were intended (initially) as a security measure to avoid displaying the division's designation in the clear. They were used on vehicles, sign posts and notice boards and were increasingly, but not universally, worn on uniform as the War progressed. Discontinued by the regular army after 1918, only a few Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Territorial divisions continued to wear them before 1939. Reintroduced officially in late 1940 in the Second World War, divisional formation signs were much more prevalent on uniforms and were taken up by many other formations, independent brigades, Higher Formation Insignia of the British Army, corps, armies, overseas and home commands, military districts and lines of communication areas. The sign could be based on many things, geometry (simple or more complex), heraldry, regional or historical associations, a pun, the role of the division or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Territorial Army (United Kingdom)
The Army Reserve is the active-duty volunteer reserve force of the British Army. It is separate from the Regular Reserve (United Kingdom), Regular Reserve whose members are ex-Regular personnel who retain a statutory liability for service. Descended from the Territorial Force (1908 to 1921), the Army Reserve was known as the Territorial Army (TA) from 1921 to 1967 and again from 1979 to 2014, and the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve (TAVR) from 1967 to 1979. The force was created in 1908 by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane, Richard Haldane, when the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 combined the previously civilian-administered Volunteer Force, with the mounted Yeomanry (at the same time the Militia#United Kingdom, Militia was renamed the Special Reserve). Haldane planned a volunteer "Territorial Force", to provide a second line for the six divisions of the British Expeditionary Force (First World War), Expeditionary Force which h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Regiment (1908–1938)
The London Regiment was an infantry regiment in the British Army, part of the Territorial Force (renamed the Territorial Army in 1921). The regiment saw service in the First World War and was disbanded in 1938, shortly before the Second World War, when most of its battalions were converted to other roles or transferred elsewhere, and reformed in 1993. The London Guards date their formation to that of this regiment in 1908. History 1908 The regiment was first formed in 1908 to regiment the 26 Volunteer Force battalions in the newly formed County of London, each battalion having a distinctive uniform. The London battalions formed the London District, which consisted principally of the 1st and 2nd London Divisions. First World War Now part of the Territorial Force, the London Regiment expanded to 88 battalions in the First World War. Of these, 49 battalions saw action in the trenches of the Western Front in France and Flanders, six saw action in the Gallipoli campaign, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military unit, military formation that typically comprises three to six battalions plus supporting elements. It is roughly equivalent to an enlarged or reinforced regiment. Two or more brigades may constitute a Division (military), division. Brigades formed into divisions are usually infantry or armored (sometimes referred to as combined arms brigades). In addition to combat units, they may include combat support units or sub-units, such as artillery and engineers, and logistic units. Historically, such brigades have been called brigade-groups. On operations, a brigade may comprise both organic elements and attached elements, including some temporarily attached for a specific task. Brigades may also be specialized and comprise battalions of a single branch, for example cavalry, mechanized, armored, artillery, air defence, aviation, engineers, signals or logistic. Some brigades are classified as independent or separate and operate independentl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or Formation (military), formation, usually consisting of between 10,000 and 25,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades; in turn, several divisions typically make up a corps. Historically, the division has been the default combined arms unit capable of independent Military tactics, operations. Smaller combined arms units, such as the American regimental combat team (RCT) during World War II, were used when conditions favored them. In recent times, modern Western militaries have begun adopting the smaller brigade combat team (similar to the RCT) as the default combined arms unit, with the division to which they belong being less important. A similar word, ''Divizion, //'', is also used in Slavic languages (such as Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Polish) for a battalion-size artillery or cavalry unit. In naval usage "division (naval), division" has a completely different range of meanings. Aboard ship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yeomanry
Yeomanry is a designation used by a number of units and sub-units in the British Army Reserve which are descended from volunteer cavalry regiments that now serve in a variety of different roles. History Origins In the 1790s, following the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, the perceived threat of invasion of the Kingdom of Great Britain was high. To improve the country's defences, Volunteer regiments were raised in many counties from yeomen. While the word "yeoman" in normal use meant a small farmer who owned his land, Yeomanry officers were drawn from the nobility or the landed gentry, and many of the men were the officers' tenants or had other forms of obligation to the officers. At its formation, the force was referred to as the Yeomanry Cavalry. Members of the yeomanry were not obliged to serve overseas without their individual consent. Early 19th century During the first half of the nineteenth century, Yeomanry Regiments were used extensively in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volunteer Force (Great Britain)
The Volunteer Force was a citizen army of part-time rifle, artillery and engineer corps, created as a Social movement, popular movement throughout the British Empire in 1859. Originally highly autonomous, the units of volunteers became increasingly integrated with the British Army after the Childers Reforms in 1881, before forming part of the Territorial Force in 1908. Most of the regiments of the present Army Reserve (United Kingdom), Army Reserves Infantry of the British Army, Infantry, Royal Artillery, Artillery, Royal Engineers, Engineers and Royal Corps of Signals, Signals units are directly descended from Volunteer Force units. The British Army following the Crimean War Prior to the Crimean War, the British military (i.e., ''land forces'') was made up of multiple separate forces, with a basic division into the ''Regular Forces'' (including the British Army, composed primarily of cavalry and infantry, and the ''Ordnance Military Corps'' of the Board of Ordnance, made u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Territorial And Reserve Forces Act 1907
The Territorial and Reserve Forces Act 1907 ( 7 Edw. 7. c. 9) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the auxiliary forces of the British Army by transferring existing Volunteer and Yeomanry units into a new Territorial Force (TF); and disbanding the Militia to form a new Special Reserve of the Regular Army. This reorganisation formed a major part of the Haldane Reforms, named after the creator of the act, Richard Haldane. The lessons learned during the South African War of 1899-1902 had reinforced the idea that the Regular Army was not capable of fighting a prolonged full-scale war without significant assistance; almost all regular units in the United Kingdom had been deployed overseas within four months of the outbreak of hostilities. Furthermore, by the end of the first year of fighting, the Regular Reserve and the Militia Reserve had been entirely exhausted. (Regular reservists were members of the Regular Army who had retired from the active-d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Territorial Force
The Territorial Force was a part-time volunteer component of the British Army, created in 1908 to augment British land forces without resorting to conscription. The new organisation consolidated the 19th-century Volunteer Force and yeomanry into a unified auxiliary, commanded by the War Office and administered by local county territorial associations. The Territorial Force was designed to reinforce the regular army in expeditionary operations abroad, but because of political opposition it was assigned to home defence. Members were liable for service anywhere in the UK and could not be compelled to serve overseas unless they volunteered to do so. In the first two months of the First World War, territorials volunteered for foreign service in significant numbers, allowing territorial units to be deployed abroad. They saw their first action on the Western Front during the initial German offensive of 1914, and the force filled the gap between the near destruction of the regular ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tunisian Campaign
The Tunisian campaign (also known as the battle of Tunisia) was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces from 17 November 1942 to 13 May 1943. The Allies consisted of British Imperial Forces, including a Greek contingent, with American and French corps. Despite initial successes by the German and Italian forces brought from the mainland and which had withdrawn into and occupied Tunisia after their defeat in the Western Desert and the success of Operation Torch, massive supply interdiction efforts and Allied assaults from east and west led to the decisive defeat of the Axis. Over 260,000 German and Italian troops were taken as prisoners of war, including most of the Afrika Korps. Background Western Desert The first two years of the war in North Africa were characterized by chronic supply shortages and transport problems. The North African coast has few natural harbors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Front (World War I)
The Western Front was one of the main Theatre (warfare), theatres of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Imperial German Army, German Army opened the Western Front by German invasion of Belgium (1914), invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in Third Republic of France, France. The German advance was halted with the First Battle of the Marne, Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a meandering line of fortified trench warfare, trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France, the position of which changed little except during early 1917 and again in 1918. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several offensives along this Front (military), front. The attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. Entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, and artillery repeatedly inflicted severe casualties ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
