After moving to Chelmsford, Bury St Edmunds, and Norwich on 20 August, the division served on coast defence duty.

The battalions of the division were reorganized to include four companies in January 1915, and in May it concentrated near St Albans, preparing to be sent overseas.

Leaving behind the divisional artillery and most of the train, the division departed St. Albans for Devonport and Liverpool between 20 and 30 July, boarding transports for Mudros, where it began arriving on 6 August.

[3] The 54th (East Anglian) Division landed at Suvla on 10 August in the Gallipoli Campaign, as a part of IX Corps under Lieutenant-General Stopford.

The division took over the southern section of the Suez Canal defences on 2 April,[5] as part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under General Archibald Murray.

Then in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, during the First Battle of Gaza, on 26 March 1917, the 161st Brigade and divisional artillery were in reserve while the 53rd (Welsh) Division carried out the main attack.

After the end of the battle, the division concentrated at Hableh on 24 September and was ordered to move to Haifa three days later.

The division was ordered to begin the advance to Beirut on 20 October, which was conducted by brigade group in daylong intervals.

In an attempt to avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met the German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in September and brokered the Munich Agreement.

[13] The plan of action was for the existing units to recruit over their allowed establishments (aided by an increase in pay for territorials, the removal of restrictions on promotion that had been a major hindrance to recruiting during the preceding years, the construction of better quality barracks, and an increase in supper-time rations) and then form Second Line divisions from small cadres that could be built upon.

[13][14] As a result, the 54th was to provide cadres to form a Second Line duplicate unit, which would become the 18th Infantry Division following the start of the war.

At that time 34,500 militiamen, all aged 20, were conscripted into the regular army, initially to be trained for six months before being deployed to the forming second line units.

[19] Comprising still the 161st, 162nd and 163rd Infantry Brigades and divisional troops, the division absorbed hundreds of conscripts and spent the first few months of the war, after guarding various designated 'vulnerable points', training for eventual overseas service.

[20] The division remained in the United Kingdom as a local defence formation, being downgraded to a Lower Establishment in January 1942.