THIRTY-THIRD DIVISION IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS. 1915-1919

The 33rd Division began life as the 40th in December 1914, part of Kitchener’s Fifth New Army. In April 1915 the original Fourth New Army was broken up to provide for casualty replacements and the Fifth New Army was renumbered Fourth and the 40th Division became the 33rd – two of its brigades, 98th and 99th, were composed entirely of Royal Fusilier battalions (17th to 24th). The division moved to France in November 1915 and immediately on arrival the 99th Brigade was transferred to 2nd Division in exchange for the 19th (all regular battalions) and for the rest of the war the division consisted of 19th, 98th and 100th Brigades. It spent the first six months on the La Bassee front, a period of mining, counter-mining and trench raids, before moving down to the Somme where it was engaged in heavy fighting on Bazentin Ridge, at High and Delville Woods. In March 1917 the division moved north to the Arras front, taking part in First and Second Scarpe in May. After a short spell on the coast at Nieuport in August 1917, where it encountered mustard gas for the first time, the division moved down to Ypres in time to take part in the battle of Polygon Wood, suffering 2,905 casualties on one day. The division was still in Flanders when the Germans launched their Spring offensive, 1918, and was heavily engaged in the battles of the Lys. In the advance to victory the division took part in the battles of Epehy, St Quentin Canal, Beaurevoir Line, Cambrai and finally the Selle. In all it suffered 37,404 casualties and was awarded four VCs.
In dimensions this is the largest of the WWI divisional histories; its author was the CO of the divisional MG battalion. It begins with the arrival in France and the first eight of the nine chapters each deal with a specific period and the operations involving the division during that period; most chapters begin with the divisional order of battle at the time. Casualty figures are given from time to time in the text as well as nominal rolls of officer casualties by unit. A great deal of the narrative is taken up with extracts from newspapers – 19 in all, mainly from the Times, describing operations based on GHQ communiques and occasionally quoting German communiques. The only map is of France and Flanders, in outline, illustrating the division’s moves and actions. There are no appendices and no index. From September 1916 on the GOC was R.J.Pinney, a teetotaller who bannned the rum ration for the division. An infuriated Private Frank Richards (Old Soldiers Never Die) called him “a bun-punching crank, more fitted to be in command of a Church Mission hut at the base than a division of troops.”