Reserve forces
The London Trained Bands made a vital contribution to the Parliamentarian army in the Civil War, and Field Marshal Sir John French, commander-in-chief of the British army in France in 1914-15 paid handsome tribute to the Territorial battalions without whom the line could not have been held. But part-time soldiers experience the same sort of public ambivalence towards them as their full-time colleagues do.
'... ten per cent of troops sent to the Balkans in the 1990s were Territorial Army volunteers.'
Some civilians and journalists snigger at the part-timers for ‘playing at soldiers’, and Regular soldiers sometimes maintain that their professional standards are lacking. But there can be no doubting the importance of their contribution to the British army.
In the Napoleonic War, the militia furnished a flood of well-trained recruits to the Regular army, and ten per cent of troops sent to the Balkans in the 1990s were Territorial Army volunteers.
The militia was the oldest reserve force. Organised in county regiments, it was recruited by ballot from able-bodied men on lists drawn up by parish constables, and its officers were local gentlemen. It trained part-time, but might be embodied for full-time service when there was a risk of invasion, and in the Napoleonic wars it provided many recruits for the Regular army.
One such recruit was William Wheeler, who was a private in the hard-driven 2nd Royal Surrey Militia, and in 1809 was persuaded to join the Regular army. He wrote:
I have at length escaped from the militia without being flayed alive. I have taken the first opportunity and volunteered together with 127 of my comrades into the 51st Light Infantry Regiment. I had made up my mind to volunteer into what regiment I cared not a straw, so I determined to go with the greatest number...
Upwards of 90 men volunteered for the 95th Rifle Regiment. I was near going into this Regt. myself as it was always a fancy corps ... another cause was that Lieut Foster a good officer and beloved of every man in the Corps I had left volunteered into the 95th ...
The Letters of Private Wheeler, BH Liddell Hart (Cassell Military, 1994)
Published: 2005-02-28
