When was pals battalion

The Pals allowed Britain to mobilise for war. Integration into the army saw the Pals start to lose their local flavour. Officers were brought in from elsewhere in the army establishment. Men unfit for duty were sent home. Some men deserted or died of accident or illness before they reached the front, and their places were filled not by local lads but by recruits brought in by conventional means.

Still, these units retained their community atmosphere until war took its toll. It was in the nature of the First World War that losses from particular battalions were often huge. Whether losses came gradually or in sudden, dramatic moments, they whittled away at the groups that had volunteered together.

Replacements were not recruited in the same way as the original battalions but came from all over the country. Once conscription took over as the main source of recruits, replacements were no longer even volunteers.

The comradely local spirit of the Pals was lost. These losses affected not only the units but their communities back home. Families lost all their male members.

Whole neighbourhoods lost most of their young men in a single day, as volunteer battalions took heavy losses at battles such as Ypres and the Somme. The Pals battalions began in a communal spirit of patriotism and camaraderie.

The atmosphere around the mass enlistment was electric. Shops and offices closed and thousands of locals lined the streets to bid the brave men farewell on the day they departed for training. On the first day of the Somme , the Accrington Pals helped mount an offensive on a heavily fortified village of Serre. It turned out to be a bloodbath. An estimated Accrington Pals were killed in 20 minutes during the offensive.

It meant that droves of families back in Accrington were left bereft in one swoop. I don't think there was a street in Accrington and district that didn't have their blinds drawn, and the bell at Christ Church tolled all the day. Another Pals Battalion well remembered today was the 17th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, which was largely made up of professional footballers. War memorials all over the country were built after the war in memory of local people who fought bravely for their country during World War One.

Visit the war memorials in your area to find out about the local heroes who fought bravely in World War 1. Pupils could design their own recruitment poster using persuasive language to encourage their potential recruits to enlist.

Children could write home as if they were a soldier on the front line. Special mention could be made in their letters of some of the memorable antics or acts of bravery shown by their friends and workmates who are away with them.