When horse requirements are calculated across the BEF as a whole, the scale of the problem is apparent. In a lecture on horse mobilization given to the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies (RUSI) and published in the RUSI Journal in November 1921, Brigadier General T. R. F. Bate reveals the extent of the problem: 'In 1914 the Expeditionary Force had a Peace Establishment of approximately 19,000 horses. Its War Establishment included 55,000 horses so the first task was to produce 36,000 horses and this was done successfully in 10 days. (9) Ninety per cent of these horses were provided by impressment. However, the mobilization of the Territorial Force as it stood in 1914 required another 81,000 horses while recalled reserve units required another 18,000 horses bringing the total number up to 135,000 in round figures.'
With the problem of horses comes the problem of fodder. Horses cannot do heavy work like pulling guns and ammunition limbers while fed on grass. They need hay and grain, which, again according to Captain Cross of The King's Troop, meant a large supply of oats and cereals. The BEF consumption of fodder was truly prodigious, the horses requiring many hundreds of tons of hay, oats and cereal every day. If the fodder ran out the horses died and the guns and ammunition had to be abandoned.
Wilson's anxieties over horses, so often expressed in the previous chapter, are therefore understandable; horses were hard to find, could not be maintained on a wartime scale in peacetime, were difficult to look after, and took up a great deal of shipping space, not least as regards the transport of fodder.
A further illustration of the supply problem comes from Supplying the Front Line, (10) which gives the stores requirement for the actual BEF of four infantry divisions and one cavalry division that went to France in 1914. In August 1914, this force of 120,000 men and 53,000 horses required: 3,600,000 lbs of meat, 4,500,000 lbs of bread, 5,900,000 lbs of horse fodder and 842,000 gallons of petrol (including aviation spirit).
The weight of fodder is nothing compared to its bulk; the BEF's fodder needs occupied an immense amount of rail and shipping space. One answer was to increase the amount of motor transport, but the automobile was in its infancy in 1914, vehicles were underpowered and unreliable, and very few people could drive; it was usual to impress the vehicles and recruit their drivers at the same time. The war establishment shown in the table (see page 84) lists just 1,185 MT (motor transport) vehicles; of these ninetyfour were attached to the Royal Flying Corps and most of the rest (1,025) were in the lines of communications, engaged in moving supplies from the railheads to dumps closer to the front.
This transport echelon was for the army as a whole; the BEF was far less well endowed. According to Ian Malcolm Brown, (11) the BEF motorized logistical support in 1914 amounted to a mere eighty trucks, twenty automobiles and fifteen motorcycles, most of these attached to GHQ.
No MT whatsoever was attached to the infantry or cavalry units, which relied exclusively on horse transport. Here too plans had been made to collect motor transport committed to the army on the outbreak of war through a pre-war subsidy scheme. This produced only eighty lorries, and the bulk of the BEF's motor transport was obtained either by requisition from private companies - like the London furniture store Waring and Gillow - or through donation by individuals. (12)
In the event, 40,000-50,000 horses were quickly collected and distributed to units, and as PRO/ WO 339/14401 records, 'this was a wonderful testimony to the preparations made in peacetime by the QMG's Branch'. It adds that, 'It was after the completion of mobilization that the chief difficulties began because from that moment we were dealing with unknown quantities as nothing was definitely certain as to ships, and embarkation, disembarkation and entrainment across the Channel.'
The problem of guns can be related to the problems of ammu nition. Ammunition is heavy and bulky and needs careful handling, but the big issue, and one that was not given sufficient consideration, was how much ammunition would the BEF need to fight in this continental war? The short answer was that nobody knew, and the estimates based on ammunition consumption in the South African War proved completely inadequate for the demands of the Western Front - an inadequacy that culminated in the notorious shell shortage scandal of 1915.
The pre-war rifle ammunition scale per soldier was 100 rounds per man in the cavalry and 150 per man in the infantry (carried in pouches or bandoliers) plus 100 rounds for each man in the regimental (or battalion) reserve. With divisional reserves, the total number of rounds available per man at the front came to 370 for each cavalry trooper and 420 for each infantry soldier. Each battalion also had two medium machine guns (MMGs)- Maxim or Vickers - with a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute. (13)
The BEF had four types of artillery piece: the 13-pounder Quick Firer, used by the Royal Horse Artillery, the 18-pounder used by the Field Artillery, which supported the infantry, and for general bombardments the 4.5-inch field howitzer and the 60 pounder. The average number of rounds per gun held forward of the advanced depot was calculated at 528 rounds, which compared well with the French artillery's 579 rounds per gun (mostly of the rapid-fire 75mm shell) and the German artillery's average of 386 rounds per gun. (14)
This ammunition scale seems adequate, but looking back at ammunition expenditure in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05- a conflict that much resembled the Great War and deserved closer study than it usually received after 1905- it was discovered that at times the Russian guns were firing up to 360 rounds of ammunition per day. Before the 1904 war the Russians thought that 500 rounds per gun was enough for all emergencies, but afterwards they concluded that 1,000 rounds per gun was the minimum requirement. Getting the quantity of artillery ammunition right was crucial; without ammunition the most powerful gun is little better than a heavy piece of scrap iron. As we shall see, the BEF was soon woefully short of artillery ammunition.
In fact, all the armies of the Great War entered the conflict with far too little artillery ammunition. The French, for example, calculated that their guns would use around 100,000 shells a month; between August and December 1914 their guns consumed almost 900,000 rounds a month, and this quantity would soon grow. During the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914, Sir Douglas Haig had to withdraw one third of his guns from the field and send them to the rear, as he had no ammunition for them. In the early weeks of 1914 the British artillery fired more shells than it had expended during the entire South African War.
Shipping was another problem. The Admiralty did not keep troop transports on call, waiting at anchor for an emergency. In the past, when shipping was needed, it was simply hired, or the troops were embarked on ships making regular peacetime sailings. That would not do for shipping such a large Expeditionary Force. For that it would be necessary to requisition merchant shipping. These vessels were known as STUFT (Ships Taken Up From Trade) transports, but their availability depended on the ships in port at any one time- and not every ship would do.
The Admiralty solved the first part of this problem by taking a census of available vessels over a twelve-month period during 1912, so arriving at a total and breakdown of types for ships that should be available for STUFT purposes on any particular day. In the event this worked very well. The ships would be available; whether they could work to the tight BEF timings was another matter.
WO 339/14401 remarks (15) that in 1890 the War Office asked the Admiralty 'How long it would take to ship 40,000 men and 7,900 horses to the Continent. The answer was 4 to 5 weeks. The gap to be bridged between this and the completion of the concentration on the Belgian frontier by the 12th day of 185,804 men and 60,368 horses was thus a pretty big one.'
Putting the practical details of the mobilization plan together took several years and was almost entirely the work of Henry Wilson. By the end of 1913 he had drawn up a list of movement schedules and priorities and backed these with the appropriate administrative and transport arrangements.
Before the troops could move they must be mobilized, and the timings for this phase were as follows, based on 'M1',
the day of mobilization:
1. English infantry stationed in England could mobilize by 1159 hours (midnight) on the third day (M3).
2. English and Scottish infantry stationed in Ireland could mobilize by 1159 hours on the fourth day (M4).
3. Cavalry could mobilize by 1159 hours on the fifth and sixth day (M5 and M6).
4. Artillery could mobilize by 1159 hours on the sixth day (M6).
5. Motor transport could mobilize by 1159 hours on the fourth day (M4).
This mobilization and transport schedule was detailed in a number of separate instructions, contained in three fat files, WO106/49A/6 (Entrainment and Move to Areas of Concentration), WO106/49A/9 (Mobilization Appointments) and W106/49B/1 (Instructions for Entrainment of the British Expeditionary Force). Having mobilized, the units must then be moved to the docks, where certain limitations materialized.
All tables for railway movements (16) were made out by the various army commands - Southern Command, Northern Command, Western Command, etc. - the movement order including the trains for the collection and distribution of horses. Since the main embarkation ports were in the South of England, the final arrangements were worked out by the movements staff at the War Office- MO(1) and the QMG's department. These liaised with the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), the latter being the medium of communication with the other British railway companies.
The routine was that the MO(1) collected the information from the commands with the units already sorted into trainloads, and noted the day they had to move according to the WF plan, and their destination. From this information the railway companies worked out the timings and the LSWR provided the coordination and linked the trainloads to the ports. The main limiting factor here was the number of trainloads that could run into the principal embarkation port, Southampton. The rail capacity in 1912 was around thirty trains a day but extensions to the rail yards in the pre-war years had greatly increased that capacity by 1914.
The BEF also embarked from a number of other ports: Newhaven, Avonmouth, Liverpool, Belfast, Dublin, Queenstown, Cork and Glasgow. These had been selected in 1912 by a joint War Office-Admiralty committee under Admiral Slade, and were chosen for the suitability of their berthing facilities, tidal range, warehouses, lifting cranes and wharves. A similar transport and embarkation organization was then created in each location. From the completed railway timetables, which showed the time of unit arrivals, the MO(1) compiled another table showing the 'allotment into ships', that is the sorting out of trainloads into shiploads, depending on the type of unit- infantry, cavalry, artillery- and the number of ships and ship movements possible each day. This was dependent on tides and the port facilities in France, where 'the port capacity was definitely limited'. (17)
Page four of this War Office file (WO 339/14401) also refers to another problem, Admiralty ignorance of what is now called 'combat loading' -the need for military equipment to be stowed in ships in reverse order so that kit needed first is landed first and is not at the bottom of the hold. 'At the outset they needed a certain amount of education as to Army requirements for their first instinct was to bundle men, horses, transport etc. on in bulk, into different ships, regardless of unit organisation, but they quickly tumbled to our necessities.'
The disembarkation ports and their berth capacities were: Le Havre - thirty ships a day; Rouen - twenty ships a day; Boulogne -eleven ships a day.
This was not the end of the problem; every port had its own limitations. Boulogne had a narrow entrance and was difficult to enter in bad weather. Rouen was far up the Seine and difficult for ships of more than 18-foot draught or 300 feet in length at most states of the tide. Crane power was none too good anywhere, and there were navigation difficulties in the Seine between Le Havre and Rouen.
One point that affected all mobilization and transport arrangements in the pre-war years was the need for secrecy. Callwell records:
Quite apart from the uncertainty which was caused by the lack of any definite policy on the part of H.M. Government - and uncertainty that made the basis of the whole scheme a matter of conjecture - it had been necessary throughout to perform the work with the utmost secrecy. The fact that Wilson and his staff were in communication with the French had to be kept concealed. The whole of the clerical labour - the typing and duplication of railway timetables and so forth - was in the hands of half a dozen officers, who alone at the War Office knew of what was in progress. Maintaining profound secrecy, and limiting the time that the operation would take as a whole, were the dominating factors in the transaction throughout. (18)
WO 339/14401 expands this point when it comments: 'The provision of the necessary ship fittings was a difficult fence to get over involving spending much money on services which could not be defended in the House of Commons. It is remarkable that in these circumstances Mr Asquith's Government did provide considerable sums for these purposes and also for improving the railway communications with Southampton.'
As this extract indicates, there were a number of technical problems affecting these arrangements, and the first, inevitably, concerned horses. Ships carrying horses needed special cranes or gangways and had to be fitted with stalls and 'horse-brows' for loading and tethering points, and once so fitted could not be readily used for anything else. It was also important that the horses should be accompanied by grooms and other shipping containing water and fodder.
Once the BEF arrived in France the arrangements to send the men, horses, guns and equipment up to the mustering area at Maubeuge, and the BEF's subsequent supply, were the responsibility of the Inspector General of Communications (IGC). The IGC would work closely with the Quartermaster General (QMG). 'Close coordination between the IGC and the BEF's QMG who would select railheads and refilling points in accordance with the army's operational requirements was mandatory if the system were to perform efficiently.' (19)
The IGC had to rely heavily on help and support from the French port and railway authorities, for the BEF had no control of the railways and in the crisis conditions of 1914 the BEF could not be a French priority. Again according to WO 339/14401, 'the outflow from the French ports was limited to a total of 60 trains per day from the 7th day onwards.' (20) The normal train distribution was: from Le Havre, twenty-five trains daily; from Rouen, fifteen trains daily; from Boulogne, twenty trains daily.
There was, however, a problem. French trainloads were not consistent and bore no relation to British trainloads; it was not possible to put, say, two trainloads of British troops on a ship, transport them to France and hope that they would fit comfortably into two French trains. Since the outcome was more important than the input- units must arrive at the concentration area together and with their equipment- it was necessary to reallocate all units to French trainloads and accept that the component parts of a French trainload might travel in different ships; some elements would have to be held at the French port until the rest arrived.
There was also the matter of transport capacity. A British battalion made two British trainloads but one French trainload, though WO 339/14401 remarks that: 'Some of the French train loads were a very tight fit and this made it impossible to add a single pair of wheels to the War Establishment of a unit without upsetting all the French train tables. Consequently all such alterations had to be very carefully scrutinised by the MO(1) in the War Office and if necessary the trainloads adjusted to suit.'
These organizational difficulties were being tackled by 1912 with the appointment of a base commandant and staff to each French port. They were responsible to the IGC for the reception and accommodation of troops and liaison with the French railway authorities, who were in turn organized via a 'Commission de Port', composed of French naval and military personnel and har bourmasters, together with the necessary workmen, dockers, crane operators, etc; the French also undertook the provision of water, lighting and fuel. (21)
Movement from the port to the concentration area was entrusted to the French railway system (SNCF) and its sta
ff. The BEF were allocated a total of seventy-five daily departures from all ports, controlled via the main railway junction or bottleneck at Amiens, through which the lines from every port passed. It was anticipated (correctly) that only about sixty departures would actually be used. Overall control was exercised by a French officer, the Commissaire de Ligne, who met every day with his British and French colleagues and made out a return of arriving units to be railed to the concentration area the following day. This return was then sent to the ports and to Amiens, where arrangements were completed for the departure and reception of trains.
The system, though logical, was inevitably complicated. Fortunately, the plans were completed and issued by the end of 1913, and arrangements were made early in 1914 for the British and French staff to meet at the French ports and try out the arrangements, ironing out any potential snags in the process.
A final paragraph on the working of the WF scheme comments:
It is fair to say that all details of the plan of movement had been worked out beforehand as completely as it was possible to do so. In the latter part of June 1914 a Staff Ride was held at Amiens, attended by British officers of the MO(1) in which the entire railway movement plan was tested very thoroughly. The entire Commission de Ligne, including French staff officers and technical railway officials with their representatives at ports, occupied their war stations. Every sort of mishap was practised such as tunnels being blown in, trains derailed etc., and alternative routes organized to meet the emergency. In the previous winter British officers had witnessed French units entraining at war strength and frequent conferences had been held at the French War Office.
The Old Contemptibles Page 10
