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Britain entered World War I with a small, professional army in sharp contrast to the much larger conscript armies of the continental European countries. (Conscription was one of the factors that drove large numbers of Europeans to emigrate to America.) The British at first attempted to fight the war with a volunteer army. Large recruiting drives were launched. Entire towns would volunteer with the idea of serving together. The Accrington Pals regiment is the most famous of this type of recruitment raised in the early months of the War. Forming units from specific communities, however, have a terrible downside. If that unit sustained inordinate casualties, the community involved could be devestated. The Accringtom Pals were decimated at the First Battle of the Somne (1916). In its first major action, the battalion suffered devastating losses in the attack on Serre (July 1, 1916). This was the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. The losses were hard to bear in a community where nearly everyone had a relative or friend who had been killed or wounded. Although the battalion was to fight again, its Pals character had been irretrievably lost.
Accrington was at the time a mill town located in England's industrial midlands. It was in Lancashire between Liverpool and Birminghan. The town is lnown for manufacturing suposedly the hardest building bricks in the world. Accrington participated in Britain's Indistrial Revolution which at first was centered on the textile industry. And the textile industry became the core of the twn's economy. Both mills and dye works opened. Working conditions were as in other mill towns very poor and conflicts developed between the mill opperators and the workers. The most notable event was the 'Plug riots' (1842). Workers launched a general strike spread which from town to town. Striking workers marched from one town to the next to persuade other workers to join the strike. The strikers eventually merged with the Chartist movement which failed.
Accrington
was the smallest town in the realm to raise a
Battalion in Woirld War I.
Britain entered World War I with a small, professional army in sharp contrast to the much larger conscript armies of the continental European countries. Conscription was one of the factors that drove large numbers of Europeans to emigrate to America. This was especially true of the ethnic minorities making up the population of the Russian and even more so the Austria-Hungarian Empire. The European armies were substantial with a large professional core supported by reserves which had military training and could be raoidly mobilized to create a massive military force.
The largest army was the Russian Army, but it took rime to mobilize. The Germans who could mobilize faster decided to strike first and knock France out of the War. The strategy to accomplish this was the Schifflen Plan, to avoid the French border defenses by invading France through Belgium.
The assasination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand led to World Wat I. Europe at the time was armed to the teeth and divided into two alliance system. The French having leaned their lesson in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and would never again attempt to fight the Germans without allies. The French signed an alliance with Tsarist Russia. Kaisr Willhelm II ignored Bismarck's advise and allowed Germany's alliance with Russia lapse. Insted Germany's alliance system was based on a treaty with Austria-Hungary (Central Powers). When Germany gave Austria-Hungary the green light to punish Serbia, the alliance system led against all expectations to a general European War. Britain was not obligated to join the War, but Grmany's invasion of neutral Belgium brought Britain into the War. The small BEF was rushed across the Channel to support the Belgians faced with the massive weight of the German Army.
Britain entered World War I with a small, professional army. It was rushed to Belgium as the British Expiditionary Force (BEF). While small, because of its professiinalism, the BEF played an important role in slowing the German advance through Belgium and saving Channel ports critical in maintaing a joint effort with the French Army. While the Germans succeeded in occupyong mist of Belgium, the timetanle of the Schliffen Plan was derailed, making possible the French Miracle on the Marne. In the pricess the BEF that entered Belgium was mauled. The British at first attempted to replace the losses and fight the war with a volunteer army. Britain in its long history had never fought its wars with conscripts. The Royal Navy had press gangs, but there was never a conscription law, even during the Napoleonic Wars.
Lord Kitchner launched highly publicized recruiting drives. The unexpected War was at first seen as a great lark. The public which has grown up school stories and the Boys' Own Paper had no idea what war was like or how long it would taken. Men signed up in large numbers seeing the War as a great adventure. Lord Derby suggested to Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, that men would enlist more willingly if they could serve with their friends, neighbours and workmates. Lord Kitchener immediately sanctioned the raising of Pals Battalions. Groups of friends from all walks of life in Accrington and its neighbouring towns enlisted together to form a battalion with a distinctively local identity. Entire towns would volunteer with the idea of serving and enjoying the adventure together. The idea of serving together made enlistment much more acceptable. The idea of being together with friends and neigbors was somehoe comforing.
The Accrington Pals is probably the best remembered of the battalions raised in the early months of World War I in response to Kitchener's call for a volunteer army. A month after the outbreak of the War, the War Office accepted an offer made by Councillor John Harwood, mayor of Accrington to raise a full battalion of 1,000 men to serve with the East Lancashire Regiment. [The Accrington Observer & Times, September 8, 1914.] Recruitment offices were opened in Accrington, Burnley and Chorley and the smaller townships of Church, Clayton-le-Moors, Great Harwood, Oswaldtwistle and Rishton.
Captain John Harwood was assigned the task of raising a complete battalion.
When rrecruitment began, 104 men were accepted in the first 3hours (September 14). Brothers, cousins, friends and workmates enlisted together. The Accrington battalion reached a full strength of 36 officers and 1,076 other ranks (September 24). The Batallion was inevitably nicknamed "The Accrington Pals".
The Accrington Pals were trained in Wales. The prople of Accrington gave the battalion a magnificent send-off as it departed for training at Caernarvon in Wales (February 1915). .
Lt-Col. A. W. Rickman of the Northumberland Fusiliers took command of the battalion. After the initial training, the battalion moved to the Penkridge Bank Camp near Rugeley (May 1915). There it joined the 12th, 13th and 14th Battalions of the York & Lancaster Regiment to form the 94th Brigade, 31st Division.
The major front of the War for the British was the Western Front in northern France and Belgium. After the initial engagements on both the Western and Eastern fronts it looked liked the Germans were prevail. The Ottoman Turks seeing the opportunity to regain lost territory from the Russians entered the the War on the side of the Central Powers (October 1914). As the Ottonon Empire at the time exteded to Palestine bordering Egypt, this endangered the vital Suez Canal. The British thus reinforced their garrison in Egypt.
The 31st Division embarked for Egypt (December 1915). Soon after arriving in Egyot, however, the 31st Divusion was reassigned to France where the British were prepaing their major offense on the Somme (February 1916).
The Germans launched a major offensuive designed to destroy thecFrench Army at Verdun. The British offensive on the Somme was in part designed to releave German pressire at Verdun.
In its first major action, the battalion suffered devastating losses in the attack on Serre (July 1, 1916). This was the opening day of the Battle of the Somme. The losses were hard to bear in a community where nearly everyone had a relative or friend who had been killed or wounded. Although the battalion was to fight again, its Pals character had been irretrievably lost.
The Pals battalions of 94th Brigade was to capture the hilltop fortress of Serre and form a defensive flank facing north-east and north. Against them, Serre was held by the 169th (8th Baden) Infantry Regiment. The British artillery opened a bombardment that was to continue until the morning of the attack (June 24). The bombardment was intended to destroy the German defenses completely, but failed to penetrate through to many of the underground shelters and left much of the barbed wire emplacements intact. Reports suggest that many of the British shells used in this bombardment were defective. The shells used were shrapnel producing shells. The timing mechanism resembled something like the inside of a wind up clock. There were lots of small precision parts that needed the skills of a watchman to put together for the fuse to work. If any part of this mechanism failed then the shell would not explode. It is claimed that unskilled workers had not made precision parts and 30 percent of the shells used through out the bombardment were duds.
Captain Tough led the first of the battalion's four waves 100 yds into the nightmare of No Man's Land under the cover of artillery and mortar fire (Saturday July 1, Time 7:20 am).
A few minutes later, the second wave followed led by
Captain Livesey. As soon as the British bombardment ceases, the Germans soldiers untouched by the bombardment began exiting their underground shelters and man machine gun positions. Other soldiers have rifles and grenades (7: 30 am). The British leading leading waves rose and walked in line towards the German positions. German Machine gun- and rifle fire immediately tore into the advancing lines of infantry. One British observer likened the lines of dead to "swathes of cut corn at harvest time". Out of some 720 Accrington Pals who participated in the attack, 584 were killed, wounded or missing. [The History of the East Lancashire Regiment in the Great War] A total of 234 men were killed (131 with no known grave) and 350 were wounded.
The first press reports of the battle received in Accrington were in error. When the Mayor of Accrington learned of the terrible loses the town council tried to keep the lid on what had happened. The truth was slow in leaking out. Newspapers spoke of a victory but this was far from the truth. Then the telegrams to the families began arriving. A rumour spread around Accrington that only seven men had survived from the battalion. An angry crowd surrounded the mayor's house, demanding information. Then the pages of the local newspaper began to filled with photographs of the killed, wounded and missing. Percy Holmes, the brother of an original Pal, recalled "I remember when the news came through to Accrington that the Pals had been wiped out. I don't think there was a street in Accrington and district that didn't have their blinds drawn, and the bell at Christ Church tolled all the day.
[Accrington Observer & Times, July and August 1916.]
The Battalion was finally disbanded in October 1919, this was 5 years and 1 month after its formation. At least 850 Accrington Pals died in the service of their country. Some 530 are buried at cemeteries in France and Belgium and 24 at cemeteries in England and Wales. Many others have no known grave but are commemorated on seven memorials.
Accounts exist of several individuals who were members of the Accrington Pals.
Fred Astin was a boy of 15 years who joined the Pals. He lied about his age.
Anthony Battersby recalls the astonishing wartime exploits of his father who enlisted in the Pals at age 14 and survived the War. He later became a Church of England vicar. "Reginald St John Beardsworth Battersby was born on 26 February 1900, the second son of the Rev Walter Schofield Battersby and his wife Susannah. Walter was the first vicar of Blackley, then a settlement on the edge of Manchester. I know nothing of my father’s childhood except that he adored his mother and did not get on with his father. In 1914, at the outbreak of the Great War, Susannah died and St John decided to join the Army. On 30 January 1915 he walked into a recruiting office in Manchester and enlisted. He said he had been born on 26 January 1896 and that he was a draper by trade. Accepting this subterfuge, the Army drafted him into the 14th (reserve) battalion the Manchester regiment stationed at Litchfield, where, after one week, he was made a Lance Corporal. My grandfather, horrified that his son had enlisted as a “common soldier”, asked two friends to vouch for St John so that he could receive a commission in the East Lancashire Regiment. The headmaster of Middleton Grammar School and David McCabe, the Lord Mayor of Manchester, duly obliged and on 6 May 1915 my father, aged 15 years and two months, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the East Lancashire Regiment, serving with the 10th and 3rd battalions before joining the 11th, the famous Accrington Pals. I think he was the youngest commissioned officer in the British Army in the Great War. My father trained with his regiment at home bases until April 1916 when he went to France to join the battalion. His time on the Western Front was typical of so many, best described as weeks of sheer boredom interspersed by moments of sheer terror. From the stories he told me it seems that the horrors of the front did not heavily impinge on his young mind. I remember him telling me how they used to go on raids to the German wire and how one night, after he and his batman were surprised by a German patrol, they both escaped by throwing pepper into the eyes of the enemy. On another occasion they were in a part of the front which had been fought over in the Franco-Prussian war 40 years earlier. The trench led to the officers’ dugout cut through a mass grave. The officers used the bones projecting from the side of the trench as coat hooks. On 1 July 1916 St John, now a platoon commander, was in a trench just behind the front line waiting for the signal to advance towards Serre where for him the Battle of the Somme was about to begin. At 7.30am officers blew their whistles and the advance began. Before my father had even reached the front line trench he was hit several times in the back, leg and forearm by a machine gun strafing the advancing troops. He was lucky; the machine gun stopped firing just as he was hit and he fell far enough away from the front so that he could be evacuated to the field dressing station in Railway Hollow. He was sent back to England and by August 1916 he was fit enough so that after one month‘s leave he returned to France to rejoin his battalion, a battalion made up of almost entirely new faces because 75 per cent of the men had been killed, wounded or were missing after the disaster of 1 July. Through the winter of 1916-17 my father remained in the line before Serre while attack after attack failed to capture the village. By March 1917 the front line had advanced about a mile and his company was occupying Orchard Trench just outside the village of Puisieux-au-Mont, a little to the north of Serre. Nothing much was happening on the night of 7 and 8 March. Second Lieutenant Wild was out on patrol, subsequently taken prisoner by a German counter patrol. My father, Second Lieutenant Thomas Cronshaw from Blackburn and Captain Dodson, commander of Y company, were in a section of the trench hit by a shell. Cronshaw was killed and Dodson and my father were both seriously wounded. My father had celebrated his 17th birthday a week and a half earlier. Evacuated to Number One hospital Étretat, his left leg had to be amputated above the knee. He was sent back to England to recover and, undaunted, when the War Office asked him in November 1917 to resign his commission my father replied that he would be getting an artificial limb 'about Christmas', that he was 'quite fit in every other way’ and that he wished 'to remain in until the end of the war.' He did. In fact he remained a serving officer attached to the Royal Engineers until 1920 when he was finally forced to retire." [Accrington Observer, June 30, 2006.]
Accrington Observer & Times, July and August 1916.
Accrington Observer, June 30, 2006.
The History of the East Lancashire Regiment in the Great War.
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