Clipstone Camp in Nottinghamshire where all the infantry of the division were concentrated by 13 July. On 3 August they went to Salisbury Plain for final battle training, with 100th Bde at Perham Down. 33rd Division landed in France to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in November 1915. Advanced parties of the 16th Middlesex arrived at Le Havre on 14 November and the main body of the battalion left Perham Down on 17 November. In December 33rd Division took over the trenches on the La Bassée front from Givenchy to 'Mad Point', just north of the Hohenzollern Redoubt, scene of bitter fighting the previous autumn, but now considered a 'quiet' sector suitable for newly-arrived formations to learn the routines of trench warfare. 16th Middlesex was introduced to the trenches by 1st Middlesex of 19th Bde, a Regular Army brigade that had been transferred into 33rd Division to exchange experience In its first tour of duty at the Annequin North trenches on 2–14 January the battalion suffered its first casualties, losing one officer and 11 other ranks (ORs) killed, with 24 ORs wounded by a single shell. The next tour (27 January–2 February) was responsible for more serious casualties: first the frontline and support trenches were heavily bombarded on 28 January, then the battalion was ordered to carry out a trench raid on 'Mad Point'. Although the raid was cancelled, the patrol sent out that night to reconnoitre suffered casualties. Then when the battalion was in brigade reserve on the night of 3/4 February, it was ordered to make a bombing attack on three craters at Mine Point. D Company (140 men plus 32 battalion bombers) went out but the attack was a failure; a second attempt next night also failed, with mounting casualties. On 16 February the Germans exploded a large mine; a party of 16th Middlesex held the lip of the crater until relieved by 21st Royal Fusiliers (4th Public Schools). On 25 February the public schools battalions were withdrawn from 33rd Division and assigned to GHQ Troops at Saint-Omer while their best men were selected for officers' commissions; 16th Middlesex supplied 250 candidates. The rest of the battalion was then quarantined at Saint Omer due to an outbreak of German Measles, and it was not until 24 April that it entrained for Doullens, made up to strength with raw recruits. At Doullens it joined 86th Bde in