1st Brigade (Dorking) Ayr and Wigtown Militia (Ayr), Renfrew Militia (Paisley), Perth Militia (Perth) 2nd Brigade (Dorking) Galway Militia (Longbrea), North Cork Militia (Mallow), South Cork Militia (Bandon) Divisional Troops Armagh Militia (Armagh), Middlesex Militia (Uxbridge) Artillery E/5th Brigade RA (Bristol), P/5th Brigade RA (Trowbridge), L/3rd Brigade RA (Woolwich) Cavalry Brigade (Lewes) 11th Hussars (Aldershot), 5th Dragoon Guards (Aldershot), 16th Lancers (Brighton), Hampshire Yeomanry (Winchester), A Battery A Brigade RHA (Aldershot) Corps Artillery (Artillery) C Battery A Brigade RHA (Aldershot), G Battery C Brigade RHA (Christchurch), D Battery C Brigade RHA (Dorchester) A/1st Brigade RA (Devonport), A/6th Brigade RA (Woolwich) Corps Engineers (Aldershot) 15th Company Royal Engineers and Field Park (Kensington) This scheme had been dropped by 1881. The Stanhope Memorandum of 1891 (drawn up by Edward Stanhope when secretary of state for war) laid down the policy that after providing for garrisons and India, the army should be able to mobilise three army corps for home defence, two of regular troops and one partly of militia, of three divisions each. Only after those commitments, it was hoped, two army corps might be organised for the unlikely eventuality of deployment abroad. The 1901 Army Estimates introduced by St John Brodrick allowed for six army corps based on the six regional commands, of which only I Corps (Aldershot Command and II Corps (Southern Command on Salisbury Plain) would be entirely formed of regular troops. However, these arrangements remained theoretical. The Haldane Reforms of 1907 established a six-division British Expeditionary Force (BEF) for deployment overseas, which did not envisage any intermediate headquarters between GHQ and the infantry divisions. First World War On mobilisation in August 1914 it was decided that the BEF would have two-division army corps like the French armies with which the BEF was to operate but only one corps HQ existed, two were improvised. II Corps proceeded to France in August 1914 under the command of Sir James Grierson but Grierson died suddenly on the train to the front on 17 August. Sir John French (GOCinC BEF) wanted Sir Herbert Plumer to succeed Grierson, but the secretary of state for war, Earl Kitchener, instead chose Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, transferred from Southern Command. Smith-Dorrien caught up with his HQ at Bavai on 21 August. II Corps was first engaged two days later at the Battle of Mons and forced into the Great Retreat with the rest of the BEF. It