| Tommy's army life > Training Tommy for war: Officers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
One
of the forgotten wonders of the Great War is how Britain transformed
it's small, professional soldiery into a mass citizen army in a
relativelty short period of time. The army was being massively increased
in size to meet the needs of the war
strategy. But exactly how were the thousands of new officers
produced from what had previously been schoolboys, solicitors, engineers
and teachers? |
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| The training of officers | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The most serious deficiency in the Army was the lack of men who could lead and command, both as officers and NCO's. Without a massive scaling-up of the number of officers, the New Armies could not have been established. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
OTCs were formed in 1908 at Universities and Public Schools to attract young men into the army and carry out training sufficient to allow the recruit to be commissioned. There were 23 OTC contingents of the 'Senior Division' at Universities, and 166 of the 'Junior Division' at schools. The Inns of Court, part of the legal establishment in the United Kingdom, also had an OTC. The OTCs continued their activities throughout the war and played a key role in prviding the raw material for selection as officers. |
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| Officer Cadet units In February 1916, a new system of training for officers was introduced, after which temporary commissions could only be granted if a man had been through an Officer Cadet unit. Entrants would have to be aged over 18 and a half, and to have served as a ranker or to have been with an OTC. The training course lasted 4 and a half months. The Officer Cadet Battalion had an establishment of 400 cadets at any time (although this was raised to 600 - if the unit could accommodate them - in May 1917). More than 73,000 men gained infantry commissions after being trained in an OTB, with increasing numbers coming from 'the ranks' as the war went on.
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Tommy goes to the trenches |
Officer
Training Corps