VI Corps was an army corps of the British Army in the First World War. It was first organised in June 1915 and fought throughout on the Western Front. It was briefly reformed during the Second World War to command forces based in Northern Ireland, but was reorganized as British Forces in Ireland (subsequently British Forces in Northern Ireland) one month later.
Prior to the First World War
In 1876 a Mobilisation Scheme for the forces in Great Britain and Ireland, including eight army corps of the 'Active Army', was published. The '6th Corps' was headquartered at Chester, composed primarily of militia, and in 1880 comprised:
This scheme had been dropped by 1881.[2] The 1901 Army Estimates (introduced by St John Brodrick when Secretary of State for War) allowed for six army corps based on the six regional commands: 'Sixth Army Corps' was to be formed by Scottish Command with headquarters in Edinburgh. It was to comprise 3 regiments of Imperial Yeomanry, 26 artillery batteries (17 Regular, 6 Militia and 3 Volunteer) and 25 infantry battalions (2 Regular, 13 Militia and 10 Volunteers). Under Army Order No 38 of 1907 the corps titles disappeared.[3][citation needed]
VI Corps cooperated with the attack by its neighbour V Corps on Bellewaarde Ridge on 16 June 1915 with rifle and artillery fire, and in July and August 1915 it was engaged in trench fighting round Hooge Chateau.[6] The corps was first seriously engaged in the Second Battle of Bellewaarde, a subsidiary attack to assist First Army's attack at Loos on 18 September 1915.[1][7]
Before dawn on 19 December 1915 VI Corps was the victim of the first German attack with phosgene gas. It had the 6th Division and 49th Division holding the line and 14th (Light) Division in reserve. The attack was made by the German XXVI Reserve Corps between the Roulers and Staden railways, NW of Ypres. The attack was designed to test new weapons (the gas released was an 80:20 mixture of chlorine and phosgene) and to inflict casualties. There was some shelling, but apart from sending out infantry and air patrols to gauge the effectiveness of the gas cloud, the Germans made no attempt to advance. VI Corps' anti-gas measures were reasonably effective, and a pre-arranged counter-barrage of shrapnel shells discouraged the enemy patrols. The British reserves stood to, but were not required. A total of 1069 gas casualties (120 fatal) were suffered, three-quarters by 49th Division.[8]
1916
In early 1916 the expanding BEF was reorganised, and VI Corps became part of Sir Edmund Allenby's Third Army in the Arras sector, with which it remained until the Armistice.[9]
Later in the year, VI Corps was taken over by Lt-Gen J.A.L. (later Sir Aylmer) Haldane, promoted from command of 3rd Division, who remained in command until the end of the war.[10]
By the end of the month, VI Corps was back where it had been a year earlier, fighting a new Battle of Arras on 28 March. For this action Haldane had 2nd Canadian Division and 97th Brigade of 32nd Division under command, as well as Guards, 3rd and 31st Divisions. 32nd Division took part in the Battle of the Ancre on 5 April.[12]
German resistance was now crumbling, and the Allied advance had become a pursuit. During the night of 8/9 November, the reserve of Guards Division, 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, was pushed ahead through a black night with its machine guns on pack mules to seize the citadel of the old French frontier fortress of Maubeuge, which the Germans had captured after a siege in 1914. The main German defence line was now seven miles away. By 11 November when the Armistice came into effect, the 62nd and Guards Divisions were the advance guard of Third Army, but were doing no more than pushing forward infantry outposts and cyclist patrols against the dissolving German forces.[16] VI Corps was among Allied troops that advanced into the Rhineland after the Armistice.[17]
Second World War
In June 1940, following the Allied defeat in the Second World War'sBattle of France, the British Army proceeded to reorganise their forces throughout the UK. In mid-June VI Corps was formed to command all British troops based in Northern Ireland. On 12 July, the corps ceased to exist, and its headquarters was used to form British Troops in Ireland (by the end of the year, the command had been renamed British Troops in Northern Ireland or BTNI). This command supplemented the existing Northern Ireland District, which was made responsible for local defence while BTNI would launch counterattacks against any German invasion of the territory or would spearhead an advance into the Republic of Ireland if the Germans invaded.[18]
General Officers Commanding
Commanders have been:
June 1915 – August 1916 Lieutenant-General John Keir[19]
In July 1918, the sculptor John Tweed, who had failed to gain employment as an official war artist, was commissioned by General Jan Smuts to travel to France and prepare designs for a proposed South African War Memorial. Tweed knew Haldane, who had raised the money for Tweed's sculpture of Lt-Gen Sir John Moore at Shorncliffe, and Haldane offered the sculptor facilities with VI Corps HQ. Tweed spent the last five months of the war as a civilian member of the corps staff, and accompanied the troops into the Rhineland. Although one of Tweed's studies entitled Attack was exhibited, the ambitious architectural monument that he designed for South Africa was never executed.[22]
Blake, John William (1956). Northern Ireland in the Second World War. Belfast: H.M. Stationery Office. OCLC252242666.
Dunlop, Col John K. (1938). The Development of the British Army, 1899–1914: From the Eve of the South African War to the Eve of the Great War, with Special Reference to the Territorial Force. London: Methuen. OCLC29682538.
Edmonds, J. E.; Wynne, Graeme Chamley (1927). Military Operations: France and Belgium: Winter 1914–15: Battle of Neuve Chapelle: Battles of Ypres. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I. accompanying Map Case (1st ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC459168716.
Edmonds, J. E. (1932). Military Operations: France and Belgium, Sir Douglas Haig's Command to the 1st July: Battle of the Somme. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I. accompanying Appendices and Map Case (A. F. Becke) volume (1st ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC689489.
Edmonds, J. E.; Maxwell-Hyslop, Lieutenant-General Robert (1947). Military Operations: France and Belgium, 26 September – 11 November: The Advance to Victory. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. V (1st ed.). London: HMSO. OCLC769477029.
Falls, C. B. (1940). Military Operations: France and Belgium, The German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line and the Battles of Arras. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. I. accompanying Appendices volume (1940) and Map Case (A. F. Becke 1932) (1st ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC222075288.
Miles, Wilfrid (1938). Military Operations: France and Belgium, 2 July 1916 to the End of the Battles of the Somme. History of the Great War based on Official Documents by Direction of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Vol. II. accompanying Appendices and Map Case (A. F. Becke) volume (1st ed.). London: Macmillan. OCLC174835218.
