An army would also control additional artillery, engineers, and logistical units that would be used to support the subordinate corps and divisions as needed.
An attempt to form a ninth – the Second British Expeditionary Force, the second overall – was made, and one regional command was redesignated as an army for a short period.
[a] The first army-level command, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), was formed in September 1939 following the outbreak of the war and dispatched to France.
[10] There were several exceptions to this norm; John Vereker was a full general when he was placed in command of the BEF,[11] as was Henry Maitland Wilson when he was chosen to lead the Ninth Army.
General Claude Auchinleck was commander-in-chief of all forces based in the Middle East when he decided to take over personal command of the Eighth Army.
At the Second Battle of El Alamein, the Eighth Army had around 195,000 men consisting of Australian, British, French, Greek, Indian, New Zealand, and South African troops spread over eleven divisions and several additional brigades.
It was then composed of British, Indian, Italian, New Zealand, and Polish troops, as well as the men of the Jewish Infantry Brigade.
This plan proved impracticable; the French military was disintegrating and the British withdrew all remaining forces from France via operations Aerial and Cycle.
In early 1945, German intelligence were informed that the army had been used as a source of reinforcements for formations abroad fighting and that it was then merged with Northern Command.
The Imperial War Museum wrote that the insignia was based on a crusader shield and the initial design may have included a red cross.
The army fought throughout the North African Campaign, landed and advanced through Italy, and by the end of the war was located in Austria.
[30][31][d] The Ninth Army was created to control British-led forces in the eastern Mediterranean and parts of the Middle East.
[33][34][35] The Tenth Army controlled forces based in Iran and Iraq and maintained the supply line from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union.
As the German 1942 offensive entered the Caucasus, a threat to British interests in the Middle East emerged and the army was to counter any such advance.
It was used to pose a threat towards Crete and southern Greece, in an effort to divert Axis attention away from Italy and the pending Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky).
The Imperial War Museum wrote; "at one point it held the longest battle line, from the Bay of Bengal to the borders of India and China".