The Nadir of the Regular Army: 28th Division and the Battle for the Hohenzollern Redoubt, September-October 1915

Abstract

The year 1915 was a difficult one for the British Army. The Official Historian, Sir James Edmonds, lamented that the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of 1915 consisted of ‘partly trained’ officers and men who suffered ‘awful slaughter and pitiably small results’ on the Western Front. This was demonstrated at the Battle of Loos, when the novice 21st and 24th Divisions were prematurely committed to action with disastrous consequences. Edmonds acknowledged the courage of these formations but was critical of their lack of field craft and felt that the exertions demanded of them were ‘small as compared with the original five divisions of professional soldiers of the B.E.F.’