In the United Kingdom the Territorial Army is a part of the British Army composed of reserve units, or part-time soldiers.
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The Territorial Force was originally formed by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Burdon Haldane, following the passage of the "Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill" on August 2, 1907 and contained 14 infantry divisions, each administered by a County Association. There were also 14 mounted yeomanry brigades.
The use of the word territorial signified that the volunteers who served with the force were under no obligation to serve overseas — in 1910, when asked to nominate for Imperial Service overseas in the event of mobililzation, less that 10% of the Force chose to do so. In August 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, Territorial units were given the option of serving in France and by August 25 in excess of 70 battalions had volunteered. This question over the availability of Territorial divisions for overseas service was one of Lord Kitchener's motivations for raising the New Army separately.
The original divisions of the Territorial Army were:
The divisions were assigned numbers in April 1915 so that, for example, the 'East Anglian Division' became the 54th Division.
Territorial Force battalion numbers were prefixed with '1', for instance the 1/5th Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment. A second line of Territorial units were raised by the respective County Associations in August and September of 1914. These battalion and division names were prefixed with '2' to distinguish from the originals. For instance, the second line 'Wessex Division' was originally called the '2nd Wessex Division' (later the 45th Division) and the second line battalion for the 1/5th East Surreys was the 2/5th East Surreys. When a first line battalion was sent overseas, a third line battalion, prefixed with '3', was raised thus enabling the second line battalion to be released for overseas service as well. By the end of the war 692 Territorial Force battalions had been raised. In total, nine second line divisions were raised. No complete divisions of third line battalions were raised.
The second line Territorial Force divisions were:
Territorial units initially saw service in Egypt and India and other Empire garrisons such as Gibraltar, thereby releasing regular units for service in France and enabling the formation of an additional five regular army divisions (for a total of eleven) by early 1915. The first Territorial division to join the fighting on the Western Front was the 46th Division in March 1915. The 42nd and 52nd divisions were sent to Gallipoli as reinforcements for the Helles front in May and June of 1915.
As the war progressed and casualties mounted, the distinctive character of Territorial units was diluted by the inclusion of conscript and New Army drafts.
See Also: List of British divisions in WWI
The TA kept its former role of supplying complete divisions to the regular Army for twelve years after WWII. It also furnished much of the anti-aircraft cover for the United Kingdom during that period. However, as the 1950s drew to a close, British forces contracted dramatically as the end of conscription in 1960 came in sight. The TA was thus re-roled into its modern form. Instead of supplying complete combat units, its function was to round out regular units and supply extra support functions such as engineers, medical units and military police.
After the Strategic Defence Review of 1998, the TA's size was further reduced. As of 2004 it has an authorised strength of just over 40,000.
TA soldiers have seen service in almost every conflict the UK has been involved with since 1945. However, they served in particularly large numbers in three conflicts. Two, the Korean War and Suez Crisis were during the 1950s, when the UK still had an imperial role, and still thought of itself as something of a superpower (a notion that the Suez Crisis finally destroyed). However, in 2003, 9,500 reservists, the vast majority of them from the TA, were mobilised to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Given the current state of world politics and security, it seems inconceivable that the TA will not see further extensive service during the remainder of the early part of the 21st century.