It saw active service on the Western Front in World War I, including the attacks on the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the Gommecourt Salient, and the assault crossing of the St Quentin Canal, 'a most remarkable feat of arms'.

This proposed a Mobilisation Scheme for units of the Volunteer Force, which would assemble by brigades at key points in case of war.

[8] On the outbreak of World War I, the North Midland Division mobilised immediately, and soon afterwards the men were invited to volunteer for foreign service.

This was an attempt to restart the failed Battle of Loos, and the division was moved down from Ypres on 1 October for the purpose.

The only result of this move was an outbreak of infectious disease (Paratyphoid fever and Diphtheria) that weakened units and men for months to come.

[8][18] The 46th Division went back into the line in the Vimy sector, suffering a steady trickle of casualties over the coming months.

The troops were held up in severe house-to-house fighting before a second push cleared the cellars and caused heavy casualties to the defenders.

[8][9] After its previous failures, the 46th Division 'had widely been considered a "dud",'[34] but it was largely untouched by the battles of the German Army's Spring Offensive, and was well rested and thoroughly trained when it took part in the Allied attacks on the Hindenburg Line of late September 1918.

In this section the canal runs through a deep cutting, both sides of which were covered in barbed wire and concrete pillboxes.

137th Brigade under Brigadier-General John Campbell, VC, was to spearhead this extremely hazardous attack, on a section of line that the Germans considered impregnable.

The brigade prepared thoroughly for this amphibious operation, with petrol-tin rafts, collapsible boats, 'mud mats', lifelines and scaling ladders, together with 3000 lifebelts 'scrounged' from cross-Channel leave boats After two days of bombardment and preliminary attacks, there was no chance of surprise, but 29 September dawned with a thick ground fog to help the attackers' smokescreen.

At 05.50 the Staffords set off, with almost a mile to go before they reached the canal, following a fast-moving rolling barrage of field guns and machine-guns firing overhead.

The Staffords quickly stormed the outposts and the western trench line, and reached the canal bank on time, with few casualties, and having already taken 120 prisoners.

The mist protected the attackers from enfilade fire by MGs along the canal, and they seized the Bellenglise tunnel galleries, trapping hundreds of Germans inside.

[35][36][37][39] At Riqueval they got an even bigger prize: the Germans had left the concrete bridge standing as the main supply route for their troops on the western bank.

Captain A.H. Charlton and nine men dashed out of the fog, bayoneted the machine-gunners guarding the west end, and ran across the bridge in a race with the demolition party emerging from a bunker at the east end (where a memorial erected by the Western Front Association now stands).

[45] On 17 October, the 6th North Staffords, holding an enormous frontage in the wood, made a feint attack that allowed the rest of the division to clear Andigny les Fermes.