Atdtda - Chums in WW1

[Dave Monroe]

--- Michel <mryc2903 at yahoo.fr> wrote:

> Was reading in John Keegan's excellent The First
> World War (1998).  In chapter 8 he tells that the
> British volunteers from the same city or region
> could stay together in the 'Kitchener batallions'
> (on condition they enlisted together) and were
> named after their origin, preceded with 'Chums of '.
> 
> Many of these young guys were killed at the Somme
> in 1916.

At the outbreak of war, the British Army was 450,000
strong and required a large expansion of manpower to
bring it up to the strength of the other European
Armies. A Territorial Force of 250,000 men existed as
a semi-trained reserve, but the newly appointed
Secretary of War, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, had the
thought in his head of 1 million men in khaki. He
appealed for his first 100,000 on August 7th 1914.

His idea was to organise the civilians that enlisted
into an army of Service Battalions named after the
areas they were raised. These were then to be attached
to local regular units. The response was
overwhelming....

Kitchener agreed to the creation of Battalions formed
from men of a common background. The men were of
common occupations, professions, sporting associations
or even youth groups such as the Boy's Brigade or
Public Schools. The collective term for these
Battalions became the 'Pals'. Of around 304 such
Battalions, only one chose to become know as the
'Chums'. These were the 'Grimsby Chums'....

http://www.eebo.freeserve.co.uk/chums.htm

The Pals are perhaps the saddest story of the whole
Somme debacle and one that left whole streets, schools
factories and towns almost bereft of men after the
battle. Look at any war memorial in any town square in
the country and the majority of the names that you see
will have died in a pals battalion and probably on the
Somme....

The Pals are perhaps the saddest story of the whole
Somme debacle and one that left whole streets, schools
factories and towns almost bereft of men after the
battle. Look at any war memorial in any town square in
the country and the majority of the names that you see
will have died in a pals battalion and probably on the
Somme.

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.1914-1918.net/pals.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimsby_Chums

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pals_battalion

http://www.rootsweb.com/~englin/mem/grimsby.htm

http://www.poulton.info/familyhistory/master.htm

http://website.lineone.net/~eebo/history10thlincolns.htm

http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/historian/hist_simkins_05_pals.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/pals_01.shtml

Thanks, Michel ...


 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate 
in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545367