Introduction to the Royal Garrison Artillery

Background to the RGA of the Great War

The Royal Garrison Artillery as it related to the period of the Great War came into existence in 1899, a few months before tension in South Africa became the Second Boer War.

The “Army and Navy Gazette” of Saturday 10 June 1899, announcing the restructuring that created the Royal Garrison Artillery as a distinct arm of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. (British Newspaper Archive). Former regular, Militia and Volunteer units were brought into the RGA, and remained so until the Haldane army reforms of 1908 did away with the militia and volunteers, replacing them with the Special Reserve and Territorial Force.

The new RGA brought into a single corps the army’s coastal, mountain, heavy and siege artillery. The lighter and more mobile forces became the Royal Horse & Royal Field Artillery. To the RGA would be added, through tactical and armaments developments in the Great War, the anti-aircraft artillery, the heavy trench mortars and the light armoured motor batteries.

Table from Major-General Sir John Headlam’s published history (see “Further Reading”, below) showing the British Army’s establishment of batteries and companies in August 1914. At that time, the RGA was a relatively small organisation amounting to 81 Garrison Companies, 12 Heavy Batteries, 5 Siege Batteries, and 21 Mountain Batteries. Of this, it was envisaged that just 6 Heavy and 3 Siege Batteries would form part of a British Expeditionary Force that would proceed overseas.

The manpower of the RGA

The Royal Garrison Artillery expanded from just under 34,000 officers and men just before the war began, reaching more than 210,000 in the summer of 1918.

Strength191419151916191719181919
Officers (R)117616171970232025462550
Officers (TR)077285092014452100
Officers (SR)602201054355453995000
Officers (TF)3709231385181320332000
OR (R)23431401069753114932119913157402
OR (TF)879719190179652314200
Grand total338346282812075518107021055469052

The source of this table is “Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War“, p.162.
Abbreviations: R – regular; TR – temporary regular; SR – Special Reserve; TF – Territorial Force.
The figures given were correct at 1 August each year. There are some differences to Headlam’s numbers for 1914 but this may be a combination of timing and definition.

The expanded manpower allowed the expansion of the numbers of units: note especially the growth in Siege and Anti-Aircraft Batteries.

Units191419151916191719181919
RGA Companies878278794241
Heavy Batts1266100928728
Siege Batts355221425413178
Mountain Batts999131714
Anti-Aircraft025139187275193
Heavy Trench Mortar0Some forming115142960
Fire Commands00003131

The source of this table is “Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War” , p.163.

RGA losses

It is very difficult to isolate RGA casualties from those of the rest of the artillery, bu the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database returns 15,911 dead through a simple search using “Royal Garrison Artillery” as its term.

Further reading

Three volumes of “History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery” by General Sir Martin Farndale (London: Royal Artillery Institution, 1986-1989)

“History of the Royal Artillery – volume II – 1899-1914” by Major-General Sir John Headlam (Woolwich: Royal Artillery Institition, 1937) (free version at Archive.org)

“‘The Infantry cannot do with a gun less’: the place of the artillery in the British Expeditionary Force, 1914-1918” by Sanders Marble (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013) (free version at Archive.org)

“Artillery in the Great War” by Paul Strong and Sanders Marble (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2013)

Links

Researching the men of the Royal Garrison Artillery

How the artillery developed to become a war-winning weapon