HISTORY OF "A" BATTERY 84th ARMY BRIGADE RFA 1914-1916

An account of an 18-pdr battery on the Western Front from July 1915 to the end. It was in 84th Brigade, RFA, part of the 18th Division. In February 1917 the 84th became an Army Brigade RFA and in that role was available wherever it was needed. The battery whose story is briefly chronicled in this book, was fortunate in one respect - possibly even unique. From its formation in October 1914 till demobilisation in 1919 it had only one commander, the author of this book, Major D F Grant, who, as a young subaltern, was given command of a hundred Kitchener volunteers and told to make a battery of them. So the 262nd Battery RFA came into being; three months later it became "A" Battery of the 84th Brigade RFA. Another piece of good fortune was the division to which it was allocated - the 18th (Eastern) Division, then being formed as part of Kitchener's Second New Army. Its GOC was Ivor Maxse, a Coldstreamer and an officer well known for his ability in training skills, and under his command the 18th Division was to become one of the best in the British Expeditionary Force. They went to France in July 1915 and moved into the Fricourt-Carnoy sector. During the next nineteen months the battery fought in all the battles of the 18th Division, right through the Somme offensive in which the division was engaged in nine battles and actions. At the beginning of 1917 a new type of artillery unit was created, the Army Brigade RFA. Most of these were formed by withdrawing an artillery brigade from each division and the 84th Brigade was selected from the 18th Division, assuming its new role on 22nd February 1917. These brigades were available for attachment to any division, corps or army needing reinforcement in artillery, and by the end of the war the 8Fourth Army Brigade RFA had served with twenty-two different divisions, taking part in the Battles of Vimy Ridge, Messines, Flanders 1917, the March 1918 retreat and the counter-offensive of August. In all no less than 35 officers and 600 other ranks passed through this single battery of six guns during its four-and-a-half years' existence. Reprint of the 1922 original edition.