Kindle Notes & Highlights
By December 1915, although the administrators in London were usually able to obtain the necessary supplies, they could not guarantee their arrival at the front; even this situation began to deteriorate as production failed to keep up with demand.
At its high point point in 1918, the AOC had 2,133 officers and 37,342 other ranks, split 33,906 in the store section, 2,075 armourers and 1,361 artificers. There were also numerous civilians working in ordnance departments, numbering 23,287 men and 6,385 women in 1917, and 4,386 men and 3,644 women in the army clothing department.
a grand total for the period from August 1914 to November 1918 of £8,742,000,000.
There were 600 clerks and accountants in June 1916, about 1,200 in December 1916 and about 3,500 in November 1918.
In the first year of the war supplies were despatched via specially designated wharves at Southampton and Newhaven; in 1915 Littlehampton and the Albert Docks in London were added. By February 1918 train ferries, where the train itself was driven onto the ferry, sailed from Richborough to Calais, and later from Southampton to Dieppe. Richborough was also used to load barges which were towed across the Channel.
The work of the ordnance depots in the UK fell into four phases: the first was the mobilisation of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), who were all regular soldiers and thus already had much of their equipment and clothing.
the third phase order was restored and work in the depots became more routine.
In France the bases were mostly located in or just outside large modern towns with well equipped ports or railway stations able to deal with bulk supplies. The lines of communication between these towns and the fighting front were comparatively short, there were extensive railway systems and a good network of durable roads. Obstacles to the passage of transport were mostly in the forward areas which had been wrecked by shelling. Supply ships in the English Channel were not seriously threatened by submarines.
At the highest point of activity, the supply depots at Havre, Rouen and Calais provided food for over 3,000,000 men. They also provided a total of over 27,000,000 gallons of petrol,
more than half of this from Calais. By the beginning of 1918 the monthly usage of petrol in France had risen to some 8,000,000 gallons.
The general duties of each base depot needed an average of twenty-five motor vehicles and twenty-eight horse transport vehicles. Lorries took an average of seven loads per day, each of 14 tons. The horse transport carried 1 ton per load, with each vehicle doing six or seven loads. The train loading officer had twelve horse transport vehicles and the rest were on general duties.
There were two coal yards at Boulogne capable of holding 9,000 tons of coal, 3,500 tons of coke and 2,000 tons of fuel wood. The limited space did not permit standard stacks, but each shipment was kept separate. All the labour in those yards was provided by prisoners of war, who were found to be superior to the Chinese coolies who provided the rest of the labour.
There were floating suction and elevator plants which were placed between the ship and the quay. Bulk cargoes of oats were bagged at this point. The cargoes were often damaged and there was much pilfering. However, this method emptied the ships and freed the quay quickly. It was an overall policy of the docks to unload ships and send them on their way quickly.
A report on base supply depots remarked that at some depots mechanical goods handling aids were used on platforms (e.g. mechanical conveyers and gravity rollers), and it was felt that more of these were needed.
Each station had a number of rail lines, arranged on each side of a central line where the bulk trains came in; there could be as many as fourteen of these side lines, and trucks were shunted on to these lines and on to trains going out to fighting units.
Forage was stacked at the advanced supply depot. To avoid a build-up of old forage it was only issued from stock, to turn over the reserve. It was stacked on raised platforms 120ft wide and the stack beds were fixed to 90ft by 30ft, which gave stacks of approximately 300 tons of hay and 600 tons of oats. Labour was contracted out as much as possible. Trains of forty trucks came into a siding on one side of the stack platforms and section trains were loaded from the other side. This allowed simultaneous use of the stack area.
At Calais an average of three forage ships arrived each day from England, and there were usually five or six ships in the port. Handling this quantity of forage required four officers and eighty-eight other ranks. The daily output to sections was approximately 1,100 tons of oats
and 500–600 tons of hay. In addition, altogether the French received up to 400 tons of oats per day and the Belgians 274 tons per day. A conveyor for lifting hay from barges to s...
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The function of the dock at Havre was mainly gross intake from overseas and output to regulating stations. The overseas intake included all trans- atlantic shipments of frozen meat, preserved meat, pork and beans (presumably in tins), oats, flour and oatmeal, cheese and milk. Any remaining shipments went to the home supply base at Newhaven. Some coals, oils and medicinal comforts were held in stock for local use.
Before the value of rags was realised, many items of dirty (and bloody) clothing and blankets were just burned; later they were cleaned and used to make sacks, mess-tin covers, haversacks, belts and even water bottles. Canvas material, such as tents and trench covers, was to be returned for repair and overhaul before being reissued.
Jam cases (presumably wooden) were to be collapsed after removing the wire, tied together and handled with care so they could be re-used immediately on return to UK. Pickle jars were urgently required for bottling the pickles made in Egypt. Meat or bacon condemned as unfit for human consumption should have the fat extracted before the residue was destroyed. The fat was to be put into tins in the usual way but marked ‘U’. For collection of other fat, presses were available.
at the end of August 1918, when the total number of horses and mules was 828,360, the number designated as riding horses was 193,747, or 23.4 per cent. And that is riding horses, not cavalry horses. We don’t have a number that separates cavalry horses from the other riding horses, but one estimate for the 1880s, for a force of eight infantry regiments, three cavalry regiments, two artillery batteries, officers for all these and a general and his staff, gives 1,200 cavalry horses and 363 other riding horses.
Horses used by the British Army were of three sorts.
A London traffic census conducted in 1913 found that only 6 per cent of all passenger vehicles (buses, trams and cabs) were horse-drawn, but 89 per cent of goods vans were still using horses.
As the numbers of equines used in the war increased, so did the staff of the Remount Service, from 121 officers and 230 men in 1914 to 423 and 20,560 respectively in 1917;
fit horse should be able to cover 20 to 25 miles in a day. Most of this would be done at a walk, at an average pace of about 4mph. A forced march of 40–45 miles a day might have to
Mules proved to be far more resistant to adverse circumstances than horses: mule deaths from disease or during transportation on land and sea were less than half of those among
Almost 470,000 equines were bought in Great Britain, and some from India, Australia and South America, but the greatest number came from North America.
Although the horse is a large animal, he does not have a large stomach capacity, and the best rule to observe on feeding is ‘little and often’. In military situations this usually means three corn feeds and two or three issues of hay per day, and some grazing whenever possible.
The standard army daily ration per horse was 12lbs hay, 10lbs oats and 8lbs straw, with an additional 2lbs of oats for draught horses.
Hay is made of dried grasses, cut when the grass is tall and flowering. A small amount of any of the clovers or lucerne is good in hay, but hay which contains buttercups should be rejected as buttercups are a blistering agent.
Horses need up to 10 gallons of water a day. In stables, they usually take 3–4 gallons at a time, except in the early morning when they take about half this amount.
The shoes themselves have a central groove on the underside (for grip) in which nail holes were punched.
The ignorance of soldiers and officers about horses caused so much wastage in France in the First World War that it was decided to provide classes at veterinary hospitals on the lines of communication, in addition to those given at the Army Veterinary School at Aldershot.
At the beginning of this war there were six veterinary hospitals for 250 animals each, eleven mobile sections, and two base store depoˆ ts, manned by 122 officers and 797 other ranks.
Although most of the horses purchased for the army were already ‘broken’ (i.e. trained to carry a rider or pull a vehicle), they still needed more training to make them ready for their job.
Getting horses accustomed to all the things they might encounter in the field of war was necessary.
By the start of the First World War, it was by no means certain that new army officers would be able to ride;
The mounted swordsman or lancer needs the security of seat which a properly shaped saddle gives, and being able to push down onto the stirrups allows extra security and a solid base from which to wield a weapon. Stirrups also allow a rider to stand up, giving him better reach in battle.
Horses are liable to pull up or jib when faced with a square bristling with sharp weapons, but are happy to pursue a running mass of men who can then be despatched with sabre or lance.
The work of the cavalry was more likely to involve reconnaisance, patrols, protecting the rearguard of a marching army or other escort duties, piquet duty, outpost duties and skirmishing.
There are several myths about the cavalry in the First World War.
All the draught horses except those used by the artillery were controlled by the Horse Transport section of the ASC. By the Armistice, this section consisted of 51,501 men, of whom 37,172 were in France and the rest in other theatres. There were also 1,755 farriers, 1,153 saddlers and 1,481 wheelwrights in France, with others in other theatres.
Those which were unfit for human food, and the by-products of most of the others, were sold to various trades. Seven installations known as ‘Horse Carcase Economisers’ were set up on lines of communication. Each of these had fourteen workers who dealt with up to thirty carcasses per day. Hides were cured, and the flesh was dried and went into pig, poultry and dog food. Bones were crushed and degreased and ground into bone-meal. Oil from carcasses (up to 5 gallons per animal) went to soap manufacturers, and the hooves became glue. Many of these products were sent to England.
The Army Service Corps (ASC) provided transport, both horse-drawn and mechanical, to the army. Its duties were defined in King’s Regulations as ‘furnishing transport, provisions, fuel, light and supplies, for the use of all branches of the army, and with the allotment of barracks and quarters and their equipment, as laid down in the Regulations for Supply, Transport and Barracks Services’.
With the exception of the artillery and a few cavalry units, all horse-drawn transport belonged to and was manned by the ASC. This included pack animals.
It was then reorganised in 1914 and numerous depots were set up; as there was a shortage of serving ASC officers, a number of retired officers were recalled to run these depots. On the declaration of war, the plans worked perfectly.
The advantages of reorganising the transport and supply services were claimed to include the increased mobility of the expeditionary force; that there would no longer be a need for transport officers and baggage masters on the strengths of fighting units; that the roads in the rear of fighting troops would be clearer; that there would be a reduction in the time taken for refilling transport by trained ASC transport officers controlling supply trains; that there
would be proper organisation for exploiting local supplies; that fewer horses would be needed in the field; that there would be better arrangements for evacuating the sick and wounded; and that the accompanying cattle and their slaughter would be kept well away from the fighting units.
By 1 December 1918 the horse transport section alone consisted of 51,501 men, of whom 37,072 were in France, the rest in other theatres:
