Photograph captioned of the 4th Dorsets, G Coy, July 1914 at Sling Plantation, Bulford.
The 4th Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment was a Territorial Battalion. They were not brigaded with the regulars but rather organised with other territorial battalions on a geographical basis. The 4th Dorsets were part of the South-Western Brigade in the Wessex Division. On the 25th July 1914, the battalion set out for its Annual Camp. By all accounts, it was a textbook summer’s day, and the forecast looked good for the fortnight they were going to be away. The assassination of Archduke Frans Ferdinand had already happened, but according to the Battalion History, there was little concern of a war, as political issues in the Balkans were common at the time.
Salisbury Plain was chosen as the location for the Annual Camp in 1914, specifically Sling Plantation, Bulford. Foreshadowing events to come, the last time the battalion had its Annual Camp at Sling Plantation was in 1900, when Britain had last been engaged in a war. At the time, the Second Boer War was the most expensive and bloodiest war that Britain had fought since Napoleon.
Britain declared war on the 4th August 1914, and the following day, the 4th Dorsets struck camp and marched to Salisbury (Amesbury station was unavailable, it was congested with soldiers going to France). The pre-war plans were for the Battalion to gather at the Depot in Dorchester and then entrain for Devonport. The theory being that all the soldiers would be spread around Dorset at their homes, not on Annual Camp. So, as with all the best-made plans, they had to change, and the battalion entrained at Salisbury and went straight to Devonport to take over from regulars who were garrisoning the area.
Being Territorials meant that they were not required to serve abroad. However, the nature of the war and the losses incurred early on meant that within weeks of the war starting, the Territorials were asked for volunteers for overseas service. Those who volunteered would become the 1/4th Dorsets and set sail for India. Upon arriving, they were the first Territorial Troops deployed to India, once again fulfilling the regimental motto, ‘Primus in Indis’ (first in India) as their 1st Battalion counterparts had done in the 39th Regiment of Foot in 1754.
Bibliography
Various. 2007. HISTORY of the DORSETSHIRE REGIMENT 1914 – 1919 Volume 2.
DKMMT, DORMM:1961/1448/2.