The 31st Division was an infantry division of the British Army. It was raised in the Great War by volunteers from Kitchener's Army and formed in April 1915 as part of the K4 Army Group and taken over by the War Office on 10 August 1915. Comprising mainly infantry battalions from Yorkshire and Lancashire, the division was sent to Egypt in December 1915 before moving to France in March 1916 and spent the remainder of the First World War in action on the Western Front. The 31st Division was the quintessential New Army division, being made up entirely of Pals battalions.
The Battle of the Lys, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ypres, was fought from 7 to 29 April 1918 and was part of the German spring offensive in Flanders during the First World War. It was originally planned by General Erich Ludendorff as Operation George but was reduced to Operation Georgette, with the objective of capturing Ypres, forcing the British forces back to the Channel ports and out of the war. In planning, execution and effects, Georgette was similar to Operation Michael, earlier in the Spring Offensive.
The Fifth Battle of Ypres, also called the Advance in Flanders and the Battle of the Peaks of Flanders is an informal name used to identify a series of World War I battles in northern France and southern Belgium (Flanders) from late September to October 1918.
The First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux, took place during Operation Michael, part of the German spring offensive on the Western Front. The offensive began against the British Fifth Army and the Third Army on the Somme and pushed back the British and French reinforcements on the north side of the Somme. The capture of Villers-Bretonneux, close to Amiens, a strategically important road- and rail-junction, would have brought the Germans within artillery-range. In late March, Australian troops were brought south from Belgium as reinforcements to help shore up the line and in early April the Germans launched an attack to capture Villers-Bretonneux. After a determined defence by British and Australian troops, the attackers were close to success until a counter-attack by the 9th Australian Infantry Brigade and by British troops, late in the afternoon of 4 April, restored the line and halted the German advance on Amiens.
The Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux took place from 24 to 27 April 1918, during the German spring offensive to the east of Amiens. It is notable for being the first occasion on which tanks fought against each other; it was the biggest and most successful tank action of the German army in the First World War.
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 one month later.
The Battle of Courtrai was one of a series of offensives in northern France and southern Belgium that took place in late September and October 1918.
The Battle of the Lys and the Escaut was the third and last phase of the Second Battle of Belgium or the Ypres-Lys Offensive, and took place in Belgium between 20 October and 11 November 1918.
The 59th Division was an infantry division of the British Army during World War I. It was formed in late 1914/early 1915 as a 2nd Line Territorial Force formation raised as a duplicate of the 46th Division. After training in the United Kingdom and seeing service in the Easter Rising in April 1916, the division joined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front in early 1917. It saw action at Ypres and Cambrai, and was almost destroyed during the German Army's Spring Offensive in March 1918. The reconstituted division took part in the final advances of the war.
The following events occurred in February 1918:
The following events occurred in March 1918:
The following events occurred in May 1918:
The following events occurred in September 1918:
The following events occurred in October 1918:
The following events occurred in October 1914:
The North Scottish Royal Garrison Artillery and its successors were Scottish part-time coast defence units of the British Army from 1908 to 1961. Although the unit saw no active service, it supplied trained gunners to siege batteries engaged on the Western Front during World War I.
70th Siege Battery, was a heavy howitzer unit of the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) formed during World War I. It saw active service on the Western Front at the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Cambrai, against the German spring offensive, and in the final Hundred Days Offensive.
114th Siege Battery, was a heavy howitzer unit of the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) formed in Wales during World War I. It saw active service on the Western Front at the Somme, Vimy Ridge and Ypres, against the German spring offensive, and in the final Hundred Days Offensive.
174th Siege Battery was a unit of Britain's Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) formed during World War I. It served on the Western Front, including the Battles of Arras, Messines and Passchendaele, and the crushing victories of the Allied Hundred Days Offensive in 1918.
142nd (Durham) Heavy Battery was a unit of Britain's Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) formed during World War I from coast defence gunners of the Durham Royal Garrison Artillery. It served on the Western Front, including the Battles of Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, the Lys, and the Allied Hundred Days Offensive in 1918.
