British Army First World War reserve brigades

The article lists British Army reserve brigades in World War I. At the start of the war volunteers in the vast majority of cases joined their local infantry regiment's reserve battalion. As the army expanded rapidly, further reserve battalions and brigades were formed. After conscription was introduced in 1916 the existing regimental system could not cope with the large influx of recruits and the existing reserve brigades were incorporated into the Training Reserve, with an official complement of over 209,000 soldiers, in addition to the regimental training units.

Recruitment

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, and 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. This group of six divisions with supporting arms became known as Kitchener's First New Army, or 'K1'. 'K2' and 'K3', followed shortly afterwards. In addition, recruits flooded into the drill halls of the part-time Territorial Force (TF), which had largely volunteered for overseas service. The flood of volunteers overwhelmed the ability of the army to absorb and organise them, and by the time the Fifth New Army ('K5') was authorised on 10 December 1914, many of the units were being organised as 'Pals battalions' under the auspices of mayors and corporations of towns up and down the country. Many of these pals who had lived and worked together, joined up and trained together and were allocated to the same units. The policy of drawing recruits from amongst the local population ensured that, when the Pals battalions suffered casualties, whole towns, villages, neighbourhoods and communities back in Britain were to suffer disproportionate losses.