In
December 1915 the United Kingdom’s War
Committee, in line with the decisions at
Chantilly
, had decided
that for the British Empire France was the main theatre of
war, and in the months that followed every effort was made to
strengthen the British Expeditionary Force. Territorial Force
and New Army troops crossed the Channel, and nine divisions
were brought home from
Egypt. Between
Christmas and 1 July the forces under Sir Douglas Haig’s
command grew from three armies numbering 38 infantry divisions
to four armies (and a reserve army) of 49 infantry divisions,
the number of cavalry divisions remaining at five. The reserve
army became the Fifth Army in October.
Each
of these increases reflects an additional Canadian division.
Late in June 1915 the War Office had formally inquired whether
Canada
, in addition to
maintaining her present overseas force with some 5000
reinforcements monthly, could see her way to raise "further
formed bodies of troops. Although General Hughes, two months
earlier, had intimated that a third division could and would
be raised (above, p. 114), Sir Robert Borden, the Chief of the
General Staff, and others now doubted its feasibility.
However, after Genera! Alderson pointed out that in France it
was the policy to have army corps of three divisions, with
always one being kept in reserve, it was decided to form a new
division largely from unallotted units already overseas and to
complete the establishment with troops still in
Canada
.14 Meanwhile the
maximum number of men under arms had been set at 150,000.15 By
September 1915, 56 battalions had been authorized besides the
units of the 1st and 2nd Divisions and the 7th and 8th
Brigades. Three months later the War Office asked whether
Canada
would be
prepared to provide twelve battalions for service in
Egypt
- either in
addition to completing the 3rd Division, or by deferring the
formation of the 3rd Division until the spring. Now confident
that they could maintain four divisions in the field, and
preferring to keep them all together, the Canadian authorities
made the counterproposal (which was accepted) of both a
third and a fourth division for the Western Front.
The
3rd Division came into being towards the end of December 1915.
The G.O.C. was Major-General M. S. Mercer, formerly of the 1st
Brigade, and at the time Commander of Headquarters Corps
Troops. General Mercer was a Canadian, as were also his
brigade commanders and a number of his staff officers; by the
end of 1916 all staff appointments in the division except
three (the G.S.O. I, G.S.O. II and the EM. Artillery) were
held by Canadians. Most of the divisional and brigade staff
officers and some of the unit commanders had served in
France
six months or
more; but comparatively few of the regimental officers or
other ranks had had previous experience in the field.
The
7th Brigade, formed on
22 December 1915
under Brig.-Gen.
A. C. Macdonell, consisted of one veteran battalion and three
units with no field experience. From the 27th British
Division, after a year’s distinguished service in
France
with the 80th
Brigade, came Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.
The Royal Canadian Regiment, at that time the only Permanent
Force battalion, had been employed on garrison duty in
Bermuda
for eleven
months; it had arrived in
France
in November 1915
and trained with the 2nd Brigade. The two remaining units, the
42nd Battalion (from
Montreal
) and the 49th (
Edmonton
), had both
undergone a tour of non-operational duty in
France
. The 8th Brigade
was organized on 28 December and Colonel Williams, though
still holding the appointment of Adjutant General, was placed
in command with the appropriate rank. It was made up of the
1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th Battalions, Canadian Mounted Rifles,
formed by the conversion to infantry of the six C.M.R.
regiments (above, p. 110). The units of the 9th Brigade
(Brig.-Gen. F. W. Hill), which joined the division in February
1916, were the 43rd, 52nd, 58th and 60th Battalions. They came
from
Winnipeg
,
Port Arthur
, the
Niagara
area and
Montreal
, respectively,
and in the main had reached
England
in November. Except
in artillery, the 3rd Division was complete by late March
1916. Until the middle of July, when its own gunners arrived,
it was supported by the artillery of the Indian 3rd (
Lahore
) Division.
