The Pioneer Battalion

This extract from “Pioneer Battalions in the Great War” by K.W. Mitchinson, published by Leo Cooper in 1997, explains the rationale for the existence of this unusual form of infantry unit:

“By October 1914, the war of movement had given way to a war of stalemate in which the exhausted armies glared and fired at each other from a rapidly growing system of trenches and breastworks. These hastily dug excavations were separated from each other by stretches of increasingly broken and disputed ground. The most pressing requirement for those occupying the trenches and manning the guns behind was that the earthworks offer some protection from the shells which were daily directed against them. In the eyes of the Allied commanders these were never meant to be permanent constructions, but soon it became evident that the Royal Engineers and the infantry alone could not be expected to fight as well as maintain the burgeoning number of trenches and gun emplacements. Furthermore, the camps and railways under construction to accommodate and supply the growing armies were also absorbing an ever-increasing amount of the scarce resources of available manpower.

In November 1914 the War Office began to consider how this dilemma could be solved. Its solution, announced to the GOC commanding the various army groups in early December, was to create and post a Pioneer battalion to each division of the New Armies then forming in the UK.

From the outset these new units were designed to be equipped and trained as conventional infantry. The difference was that they were intended to be more closely affiliated to the divisional Royal Engineers than with the brigades of infantry. Consequently they were to be provided with a selection of technical stores, and would be given special training in entrenching, road-making, demolition and other work which could generally come under the description of ‘pioneering’. Because it was envisaged that these units would spend much of their time digging, they were ordered to ensure that at least 50% of their strength should be composed of men who were used to working with pick and shovel. The other 50% had to possess a recognised trade. The skills decreed as appropriate ranged from masons and bricklayers to those found in any of the metal trades. Yet, because these units would be used at the front, even the skilled men were to be instructed in trench digging.

This decision was later confirmed, and in early January 1915 an Army Council Instruction expounded a little further on the duties the new units would be expected to perform. In addition to road making, demolition and entrenching, battalions were to be trained sufficiently to undertake technical work on railway embankments, to be able to construct wire obstacles and to bridge and to fell trees. The technical instruction was intended to take place at the same time as battalions continued with their more conventional infantry training. The War Office asserted that as trained men became available an engineer officer and NCO would be attached to every unit. The role of these new units was defined as one of fighting infantry, capable of providing ‘organized and intelligent labour’ for engineering operations.

Commanders of New Army [and Territorial] divisions were instructed to ascertain which battalions under their command would be best suited for conversion to pioneers. In a statement which showed a fine disregard of the motives behind many men’s enlistment in the Kitchener battalions, the War Office announced that if a man in one of the selected battalions did not possess the qualifications for a pioneer, he could be transferred to another battalion and replaced by a volunteer from a different unit. If a division found that none of its battalions was suitable for conversion, it could receive one from another division, which contained more than one unit, which fulfilled the requirements. In such instances, the loss of a battalion would be made up by one posted to it from army troops”.

Notes

The Corps of Royal Engineers had a rank of Pioneer. This has no connection to the units described on this page.

The Royal Pioneer Corps was not formed until 1939.

The divisions that served in Egypt and Palestine were not generally furnished with a pioneer battalion. The same is true of divisions that remained at home.

The British Pioneer Battalions

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