The 10th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (Stockbrokers) (10th RF) was an infantry unit of 'Kitchener's Army' in World War I. Recruited from the financial community of the City of London it was the original 'Pals battalion'. It served on the Western Front from July 1915 until the Armistice, seeing action at the Somme and the Ancre, at Arras and Ypres, against the German spring offensive, and in the final Hundred Days Offensive.

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. 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. Men flooded into the recruiting offices and the 'first hundred thousand' were enlisted within days. This group of six divisions with supporting arms became known as Kitchener's First New Army, or 'K1'.War Office Instructions No 32 (6 August) and No 37 (7 August).Becke, Pt 3a, pp. 2 & 8.

Meanwhile, on 19 August the Director of Recruiting at the War Office (WO), Major-General Sir Henry Rawlinson, wrote to his friend Major the Hon Robert 'Bobby' White, who worked at the stockbrokers Govett & Sons in the City of London. He told White that Kitchener was anxious to get additional recruits for the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). He suggested that they could recruit from men working for the financial businesses in the city: 'many City employés ... would be willing to enlist if they were assured that they would serve with their friends'. White set up a recruiting office at Govett's premises in Throgmorton Street and enlisted over 1600 men in under a week. Parading before Field Marshal Earl Roberts at Temple Gardens on 29 August in all sorts of clothing, from silk hats and morning coats to caps and Norfolk jackets, they marched to the Tower of London to be sworn in by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Vansittart Bowater, who later became the battalion's Honorary Colonel. Impressed by the response to the battalion, the Earl of Derby coined the phrase 'a battalion of pals', and began recruiting similar groups in Liverpool. Soon Pals battalions were springing up all over the country. The Royal Fusiliers sponsored several of these – the Empire Battalion, the Public Schools Battalions, the Sportsmen, the Frontiersmen etc., but the 'Stockbrokers' was the first, handed over to the WO as part of 'Kitchener's Second New Army' (K2) on 6 September 1914.Frederick, pp. 287–8.James. p. 49Carter, pp. 11–2, 18–23.O'Neill, pp. 2–3.O'Neill, pp. 9–10.

Training On 3 September the men paraded at the Tower and entrained for Colchester in Essex, where they were accommodated at Sobraon Barracks. Lieutenant-Colonel Claude Hawker, formerly of the Coldstream Guards and just returned from service with the Anatolian Gendarmerie in the Turkish Empire, was appointed commanding officer (CO) with White as second-in-command. White had been able to obtain 25 ex-non-commissioned officers (NCOs) from the Brigade of Guards to assist with the training, which proceeded rapidly, although there were not enough rifles to equip the whole battalion. Hawker left in December and White was promoted to lieutenant-colonel on 6 December to command the battalion. As a 'spare' Kitchener battalion outside the main army organisation, the 10th Royal Fusiliers was designated as 'Army Troops', ie not assigned to a specific formation. White lobbied to get the battalion attached to the First New Army (K1), which would be going overseas first. However, it was attached to the 18th (Eastern) Division which was gathering round Colchester as part of K2. 10th Royal Fusiliers remained attached to this division until 25 February 1915, when it moved to Andover, Hampshire, to join 44th (later 37th) Division. (The battalion's depot companies seem to have remained at Colchester.)Becke, Pt 3a, pp. 79–84.Carter, pp. 21, 24–52.Royal Fusiliers at Long, Long Trail.

As authorised in March 1915, 37th Division consisted of Kitchener battalions that had originally been allocated as Army Troops to the New Armies. 10th Royal Fusiliers was allotted to 111th Brigade in the new division; the brigade also included 13th RF, 13th King's Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC), and 13th Rifle Brigade (RB). By April 1915 when the division was formed, all its units had been training for some months, and it was quickly assembled on Salisbury Plain for final battle training. 10th Royal Fusiliers was stationed at Windmill Hill near Ludgershall from 7 April to 30 July. In July orders arrived for the division to move to France to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front. Embarkation began on 28 July, the 10th RF advance party arrived in France on 30 July and most of the remainder of the battalion next day. On 2 August the division completed its concentration around Tilques, near Saint-Omer.Becke, Pt 3b, pp. 71–9.37th Division at Long, Long Trail.Carter, pp. 53–83.

10th Battalion, Intelligence (B) Before World War I the Directorate of Military Intelligence at the War Office had identified a number of officers and civilians whose skills could be used in the event of war, and this scratch Intelligence Corps went to France with the BEF in August 1914. These officers’ batmen, and later the policemen recruited for field security duties, were enlisted into the Royal Fusiliers under the cover designation of ‘10th Battalion, Intelligence B’ – not to be confused with the 10th (Stockbrokers’) Battalion, though the varied personnel of the 'Stockbrokers' did provide it with at least one intelligence officer. As the war progressed, more and more men were recruited for their language skills, ranging from idle rich travellers to a showman who trained Russian bears and an Anglo-Armenian sergeant born in France and educated in Czechoslovakia. The 10th RF I(B) specialised in plainclothes security and counter-espionage work and operated in France, Italy, Salonika, the Middle East and Russia.Carter, p. 21.Clayton, pp. 16–8, 22–3, 26–7, 38–41, 258.Fergusson, pp. 181–2, 233–4.O'Neill pp. 10–11.

31st (Reserve) Battalion On 17 July 1915 the Lord Mayor and City of London raised a second Pals battalion of the Royal Fusiliers from the financial community: the 26th (Service) Battalion (Bankers) was recruited from bank clerks and accountants across the country. It went on to fight in 41st Division on the Western Front and in Italy. On 21 October 1915 the depot companies of the 10th (Stockbrokers) and 26th (Bankers) battalions were combined at Colchester to form the 31st (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, as a Local Reserve unit with the role of training reinforcement drafts for the two parent battalions. 31st (R) Battalion moved to Leamington Spa in Warwickshire and joined the 24th Reserve Brigade (an all-Royal Fusiliers brigade). By January 1916 it was at Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and in April 1916 the brigade moved to Edinburgh. On 1 September 1916 the Local Reserve battalions were transferred to the Training Reserve (TR) and 31st (R) Bn RF became 107th Training Reserve Battalion, though the training staff retained their Royal Fusiliers badges. On 6 September 1917 it was redesignated 265th (Infantry) Battalion, TR, and on 1 November 1917 it reverted to the regiment as 52nd (Graduated) Bn, RF. It was then at Ipswich in Suffolk as part of 217th Brigade of 72nd Division. 72nd Division was broken up in early 1918, and in February 1918 the battalion transferred to 204th Bde of 68th Division at Newmarket, where it remained for the rest of the war. On 8 February 1919 it was converted into a service battalion and joined the British Army of the Rhine, where it was absorbed into 23rd (Service) Bn, RF (1st Sportsmen's) on 4 April.O'Neill, pp. 22–3.Training Reserve at Long, Long Trail.Becke, Pt 2b, pp. 83–90, 107–10.

Service On arrival the units of 37th Division were attached to those of 12th (Eastern) Division in the front line for instruction in trench warfare in the quiet sector near Armentières; on 18 August 10th RF was attached to 8th RF.Carter, pp. 83–92.O'Neill, p. 77. At the end of August 37 Division entrained for Doullens and then marched to Foncquevillers in the Somme sector, where the BEF was taking over more of the line from French troops. The battalions took turns in the front line, and there was a steady trickle of casualties. From 23 to 27 September during the Battle of Loos the division was stationed at La Cauchie to act as reserve for the French Tenth Army's attack, but then returned to Foncquevillers and the routine of trench holding alternating with billets in Souastre through the autumn and winter.Carter, pp. 93–115. On 10 December the men of 10th RF amused themselves by setting up a large noticeboard near the German trenches with a report of a peace demonstration in Berlin.O'Neill, p. 82.

On 2 January 1916 the second-in-command of the 10th RF was promoted to command another battalion, and was replaced by Major Winston Churchill, who had resigned from the government after the Dardanelles affair and had been serving with the Grenadier Guards. However, Churchill had only been with the 10th RF three days when he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel to command a battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers.Carter, p. 116. On the moonless night of 13/14 January 10th RF made use of a gap in the German barbed wire to carry out a large raid, but the raiders were spotted and fired upon at close range, suffering casualties as they withdrew. On 6 February the battalion moved a few miles north to a new sector at Bailleulval, then on 18 March carried out a two-day march to a training area at Mezerolles. By now the 10th RF, 1100 strong when it landed in France, was down to about 850 men, the casualties so far including 18 killed or died of wounds.Carter, pp. 116–27.

After a four-week period of rest and training the battalion left Mezerolles on 21 April when it moved to Humbercamps in the rear area of the Somme sector, providing working parties for the Royal Engineers (REs) before going back into the line on 30 April. On the morning of 4 May the battalion came under heavy artillery fire, losing 9 men killed or died of wounds and 48 wounded. In May 1916 10th RF received a reinforcement draft of 54 men from 18th (S) Bn RF (1st Public Schools), which had been disbanded after most of its other ranks (ORs) had been commissioned as officers. Another 21 men arrived from 31st (R) Bn RF at Colchester. However, the battalion continued to suffer a steady toll of casualties when holding the trenches. On 5 June it carried out a short raid, which had been carefully rehearsed and was covered by an artillery barrage; casualties were trifling.Carter, pp. 127–44.

Somme