Great Britain orders the mobilisation of the army

On 3 August 1914, after Edward Grey’s speech in the House of Commons, the British government decided to mobilise the army. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, who since the spring of 1914 had also been in charge of the War Office, asked for help from Lord Haldane, the former Secretary of State for War and author of the reforms that had prepared the army for war. Haldane went to the War Office and set in motion the preparations for mobilisation.

The formal royal proclamations, calling the reservists to rejoin their units and embodying the Territorial Force for active service, were issued on 4 August. The first day of mobilisation was 5 August. Notices were posted outside post offices and in the streets, and reservists from all over the country set off for their regiments.

The British Army differed from the continental armies. It was a relatively small professional army made up of volunteers, without universal conscription. Haldane’s reforms of 1906–1912 had, however, created two important instruments: the British Expeditionary Force, ready to be sent quickly to the Continent, and the Territorial Force, intended primarily for home defence.

Mobilisation went smoothly. On 5 August Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, one of the few politicians who foresaw that the war would last for years, became Secretary of State for War. The decision to send the Expeditionary Force to France soon followed. Its first units crossed the Channel in the second week of August, and in the second half of the month they were already fighting in Belgium.

The mobilised army was, however, too small for the war that was coming. Kitchener quickly began recruiting hundreds of thousands of volunteers for new divisions. For the first two years of the war Great Britain relied entirely on volunteers, and it introduced universal conscription only in 1916.