Both brigades served with the ANZAC Mounted Division during theSinai and Palestine Campaign ofWorld War I. In July 1917, the division's artillery was reorganized and the brigadeheadquarters were dissolved.
In practice, the batteries were permanently attached to the mounted brigades: Leicestershire RHA to the 1st Light Horse Brigade[9] and Somerset RHA to the 2nd Light Horse Brigade.[10]
British artillerymen loading an 18 pounder gun at Romani in 1916
The brigade, and its batteries, served with the ANZAC Mounted Division in theSinai and Palestine Campaign until July 1917. With the division, it saw action at theBattle of Romani (4 – 14 August 1916) as part of No. 3 Section, Suez Canal Defences. This saw the repulse of the final Turkish attempt to cut theSuez Canal.[11]
^The basic organic unit of theRoyal Artillery was, and is, theBattery.[1] When grouped together they formed brigades, in the same way that infantry battalions or cavalry regiments were grouped together in brigades. At the outbreak ofWorld War I, a field artillery brigade ofheadquarters (4 officers, 37other ranks), three batteries (5 and 193 each), and a brigade ammunition column (4 and 154)[2] had a total strength just under 800 so was broadly comparable to an infantry battalion (just over 1,000) or a cavalry regiment (about 550). Like an infantry battalion, an artillery brigade was usually commanded by aLieutenant-Colonel. Artillery brigades were redesignated as regiments in 1938. Note that the battery strength refers to a battery of six guns; a four-gun battery would be about two thirds of this.
Becke, Major A.F. (1936).Order of Battle of Divisions Part 2A. The Territorial Force Mounted Divisions and the 1st-Line Territorial Force Divisions (42–56). London: His Majesty's Stationery Office.ISBN1-871167-12-4.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Clarke, Dale (2004).British Artillery 1914–19 Field Army Artillery. Vol. 94 of New Vanguard Series. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.ISBN1-84176-688-7.
Farndale, General Sir Martin (1988).The Forgotten Fronts and the Home Base, 1914–18. History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery. Woolwich: The Royal Artillery Institution.ISBN1-870114-05-1.
Frederick, J.B.M. (1984).Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978. Wakefield, Yorkshire: Microform Academic Publishers.ISBN1-85117-009-X.
Gullett, Henry Somer (1923).The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine, 1914–1918. Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918. Vol. VII. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.OCLC59863829.
Perry, F.W. (1992).Order of Battle of Divisions Part 5A. The Divisions of Australia, Canada and New Zealand and those in East Africa. Newport: Ray Westlake Military Books.ISBN1-871167-25-6.
Westlake, Ray (1992).British Territorial Units 1914–18. Osprey Publishing.ISBN978-1-85532-168-7.
United Kingdom
British Army