Starting in London and Liverpool, the phenomenon of 'Pals battalions' quickly spread across the country, as local recruiting committees offered complete units to the War Office (WO), which constituted the Fifth New Army (K5).

One such organisation was the 'Welsh National Executive Committee' (WNEC), which on 10 October 1914 was authorised to form a complete Welsh Army Corps of two divisions.

[3][4][5] However, a large number of otherwise medically fit volunteers were being turned away because they did not meet the minimum height requirement of the prewar Regular Army, of 5 feet 3 inches (160 cm).

Alfred Bigland, the Member of Parliament for Birkenhead, persuaded Kitchener that this pool of potential manpower should be tapped, and he was given authority to raise a battalion of 'Bantams' (named after the small but pugnacious fighting cock).

Three Bantam battalions were quickly raised at Birkenhead for the Cheshire Regiment, many of them coal miners who had travelled long distances to enlist, including from Wales, and the scheme spread to other areas.

In early July 1915 12th SWB left Newport for Prees Heath Camp, where it joined the newly-formed Welsh Bantam Brigade.

However, the battalion seems to have been better than the others at rejecting physically unfit or under-age recruits, which were a problem for all bantam units after the initial volunteer rush of fit miners and other manual workers had waned.

About January 1916 the battalion moved to Kinmel Camp where it joined 14th Reserve Brigade as part of the Rhyl Training Centre.

Some of the men received were classified as labour recruits and were transferred to Class W of the Army Reserve and sent off to work in the munitions factories of Coventry or the coal mines of South Wales.

On 8 July Lt-Col Porter was succeeded in command by Brevet Colonel William Beresford-Ash, a retired officer of the RWF.

Postwar it was converted into a service battalion on 8 February 1919 and the following month was sent to join 2nd Brigade of Western Division serving in the occupation forces with British Army of the Rhine.

[23][24][27][28][29][30][31] 12th SWB spent its first week after joining the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) engaged in training, for example in the use of anti-gas helmets.

An attempted raid by 12th SWB was disrupted when the Germans fired a small defensive mine when the raiders entered the front trench.

The front line troops spent the winter among a maze of smashed and flooded trenches and dugouts, under occasional bombardments.

However, on 21 November the battalion suffered an outbreak of collective disobedience when 19 men of D Company refused to fall in on defaulters' parade.

[40][41] Trench-raiding by both sides resumed when the weather improved in March 1917 – 40th Division was ordered to penetrate into the German lines at least once a week.

At 05.00 its advance was halted by snipers and machine guns; these were dealt with and by 05.15 the ravine was in the Borderers' hands, and the moppers-up were clearing German trenches and dugouts.

However, the barrage and moppers-up had missed three strongpoints in front of the ravine, and the garrisons of these posts opened fire in the rear of B Company and on the carrying parties from 119th Brigade Trench Mortar Battery, who were bringing forward supplies for the battalion.

A Company meanwhile had drifted slightly right to stay in touch with 19th RWF and had got ahead of the others in the poorly-defined ravine, so reluctantly it fell back into line.

[17][18][46][47] 12th SWB and 19th RWF were in brigade reserve when 40th Division attacked Villers-Plouich on 24 April; together they amounted to a single weak battalion.

The left half met little opposition until the village was reached at 23.20, when it ran in to a great deal of wire and came under rifle and machine gunfire from the north west.

The capture of the wood by 40th and 51st (Highland) Divisions would provide a defensive flank to allow Third Army to continue developing the successes of the first two days.

The attacking infantry were preceded by a barrage of high explosive and shrapnel shells that fell on the edge of the wood at 10.10 and then lifted forwards 200 yards (180 m) every 10 minutes from 10.30.

The barrage was supposed to include smoke shells, but they did not arrive in time, though the morning mist gave some cover to the attackers.

By 15.00 the whole of 12th SWB and two companies of 17th WR were holding the line of the road when they came under a heavy bombardment followed by a powerful German counter-attack that threatened to envelop and overwhelm them.

About 15.00 another German attack began to make progress, but at 16.00 the mixed force of Welsh battalions, Highlanders and cavalry pressed forward again, pushing the enemy back down the northern slopes of the wood, where they were caught by the British barrage.

The brigade was formally relieved by 186th Bde of 62nd Division next day, and could then be withdrawn to reorganise and rest while the fighting for Bourlon village continued.

[73][74][75] The whole of 40th Division was withdrawn at noon on 27 November and at the end of the month it was sent north to take over the line north-west of Bullecourt in the Arras sector.

It occupied a captured section of the Hindenburg Line named 'Tunnel Trench' and held those positions through the winter, despite its very weak battalions.

Battalions within 119th Bde also wore coloured geometric shapes on the sleeve: a green horizontal rectangle at the top of the arm in the case of 12th SWB.