British Expeditionary Force

The expeditionary force was prepared after the Boer War as part of the reforms of the War Secretary Richard Haldane. In August 1914 four infantry divisions and a cavalry division crossed to France first, and more soon followed. The force fought at Mons, retreated as far as the Marne, and in the autumn, in the First Battle of Ypres, lost much of the old regular army. Its soldiers called themselves the Old Contemptibles after a supposed order by Kaiser Wilhelm II about a 'contemptible little army', which has never been shown to exist.

Later the BEF was filled out by the Territorial Force, volunteers of Kitchener's New Armies, conscripts and troops from the Dominions. The name remained the official title of the British forces in France and Flanders throughout the war, but it usually refers to the force of 1914.