Southern Army was a home service formation of the
British Army during the First World War, responsible for the defence of South-East England, including both sides of the
Thames Estuary
The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain.
Limits
An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salinit ...
.
It was formed on 11 April 1916 under the command of
Sir Arthur Paget, with headquarters at
Brentwood, Essex
Brentwood is a town in Essex, England, in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt 20 miles (30 km) north-east of Charing Cross and close to the M25 motorway. The population of the built-up area was 55,340 in 2021.
Brentwood is a t ...
.
[The British Armies of 1914-1918 at the Long, Long Trail]
Accessed 7 June 2017.[Becke, Pt 4, p. 287.] The Army was composed of
2nd Cyclist Division,
65th (2nd Lowland) Division,
66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division
The 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division was an infantry Division (military), division of the British Army, part of the Territorial Force, which saw service in the Trench warfare, trenches of the Western Front (World War I), Western Front, duri ...
,
67th (2nd Home Counties) Division
The 2nd Home Counties Division was a 2nd Line Territorial Force division of the British Army in World War I. The division was formed as a duplicate of the 44th (Home Counties) Division in November 1914. As the name suggests, the division rec ...
and six provisional brigades (
1st,
2nd,
7th,
8th
Eighth is ordinal form of the number eight.
Eighth may refer to:
* One eighth, , a fraction, one of eight equal parts of a whole
* Eighth note (quaver), a musical note played for half the value of a quarter note (crotchet)
* Octave, an interval b ...
,
9th and
10th), with
1st Mounted Division attached for training purposes.
66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division was established around
Colchester
Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''.
Colchester occupies the ...
. Its training was disrupted by the need to provide large drafts of reinforcements to the
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the
Western Front. However, it finally received embarkation orders in February 1917 and left for France.
71st Division moved into
Essex
Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...
in early March 1917 and concentrated at Colchester where it came under command of Southern Army. It took over responsibility for the defence of the East Coast from
Mersea Island to
Walton-on-the-Naze.
[Becke, Pt 2b, pp. 101–5.]
Southern Army was disbanded on 16 February 1918.
[
]
Notes
References
Chris Baker, ''The Long, Long Trail''
* Maj A.F. Becke,''History of the Great War: Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 2b: The 2nd-Line Territorial Force Divisions (57th–69th), with the Home-Service Divisions (71st–73rd) and 74th and 75th Divisions,'' London: HM Stationery Office, 1937/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2007, .
* Maj A.F. Becke,''History of the Great War: Order of Battle of Divisions, Part 4: The Army Council, GHQs, Armies, and Corps 1914–1918'', London: HM Stationery Office, 1944/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2007, .
* K. Mitchinson, ''Defending Albion: Britain's Home Army 1908-1919'' (2005
Field armies of the United Kingdom in World War I
Military units and formations established in 1916
Military units and formations disestablished in 1918
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