XVI Corps (United Kingdom)

The British XVI Corps was a British infantry corps during World War I. During World War II the identity was recreated for deceptive purposes.

XVI Corps
ActiveWorld War I
Country United Kingdom
Branch British Army
TypeField corps
Part ofBritish Salonika Army
EngagementsWorld War I[1]

History

British XVI Corps was formed in Salonika in January 1916 under Lieutenant General George Milne.[1] Milne was starved of resources by Sir William Robertson who considered all operations outside the Western Front to be "side shows".[2] The Corps Headquarters were at Kirechkoi to the east of Thessaloniki from January 1916 until the advance to the Struma in September 1916.[3] From May 1916 it was one of two corps within the British Salonika Army. The campaign developed into a battle for position with trenches and emplacements from which the General Officer Commanding (Lieutenant-General Charles Briggs) undertook limited actions to capture Bulgarian and Turkish positions in a river valley that was infested with mosquitos.[4] British operations in the Balkans Campaign were costly: the allies lost over 7,000 troops at the Battle of Doiran in September 1918 alone.[5]

Component units

Component units included:[6]

British XVI Corps

Second World War

In World War II the British XVI Corps was notionally reformed as part of the British Twelfth Army, a fictitious formation created under Operation Cascade. The formation insignia was a phoenix arising from red flames and bearing a flaming torch in its mouth, on a white ground.[7]

Subordinate units

As initially created, the corps contained the following divisions in addition to the usual supporting troops:[7]

General Officers Commanding

Commanders included:

References

  1. The British Corps of 1914-1918
  2. Heathcote, T.A., p.210
  3. Ashtead War Memorials Leatherhead Local History
  4. Stramash on the Struma 1919 Archived 4 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Wakefield and Moody, p.217
  6. Alan Wakefield & Simon Moody, Under the Devil's Eye: Britain's Forgotten Army at Salonika 1915–1918, Stroud: Sutton Publishing (2004).
  7. Thaddeus Holt. The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. Phoenix. 2005. ISBN 0-7538-1917-1
  8. Who's who in World War One By J. M. Bourne, p.38
  • Heathcote, T.A. (1999). The British Field Marshals 1736-1997. Pen & Sword Books Ltd. ISBN 0-85052-696-5
  • Alan Wakefield, Simon Moody, Under the Devil's Eye; Britain's Forgotten Army in Salonika, 1915-1918. ISBN 0-7509-3537-5
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