The 12th (Eastern) Division was an infantry division raised by the British Army during the First World War from men volunteering for Kitchener's New Armies. The division saw service in the trenches of the Western Front from June 1915 to the end of the war.
The memorial to the glory of the 12th British Infantry Division to Epehy.
Royal Artillery gunners at the 12th Divisional Canteen on the Arras road near St. Pol, February 1917.
The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, as Kitchener's Mob,
was an (initially) all-volunteer portion of the British Army formed in the United Kingdom from 1914 onwards following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War in late July 1914. It originated on the recommendation of Herbert Kitchener, then the Secretary of State for War to obtain 500,000 volunteers for the Army. Kitchener's original intention was that these men would be formed into units that would be ready to be put into action in mid-1916, but circumstances dictated the use of these troops before then. The first use in a major action of Kitchener's Army units came at the Battle of Loos.
Alfred Leete's recruitment poster for Kitchener's Army.
1914 poster describing terms of enlistment
A Church of England service at the 10th (Irish) Division's camp at Basingstoke in 1915