20,000 of the 47,000 men were reservists The field force, augmented by an additional brigade of infantry at the last minute, totalled three divisions; a fourth was organised in early November, and a fifth at the end of the month. A sixth was mobilised on 14 December, which completed the two corps originally planned as an expeditionary force, and after a brief panic in mid-December a seventh was dispatched at the end of January, leaving the country virtually empty of regular troops. This was the end of the planned mobilisation; no thought had been given pre-war to mobilising the Militia, Yeomanry or Volunteers as formed units for foreign service. 43,000 reservists had been sent overseas with the regular forces—out of a total of 80,000—with the remainder sent overseas as reinforcements and replacements over the first year of the war. The conventional system of posting reservists to their own regiment worked until April 1900, after which it became sometimes necessary to post reservists to different regiments due to heavy losses, and by September 1900 this system had broken down entirely, with the reserves entirely exhausted of men. On 16 December, the first request was sent from South Africa for auxiliary troops, and a commitment was made to send a "considerable force of militia and picked yeomanry and volunteers". In early January, the reinforcements to be sent out included one service company of volunteers for each regular battalion, one complete volunteer battalion, and seven militia battalions. A large number of battalions of the Militia, which had volunteered for overseas service, were eventually sent out of the country during the war; sixty, with around 46,000 men, went to South Africa, whilst eight more served in colonial garrisons. They were employed mainly on lines of communication, and regarded as second-line troops of low quality; this was unsurprising, as they were strongly deficient in officers and heavily composed of men of 18 and 19, who would have been regarded as too young by the regular Army. The deficiencies of the militia were increased by the fact that many of its best and most experienced men had volunteered for the Militia Reserve: Of the 30,000-strong militia reserve, 13,000 were stripped from their battalions and sent overseas as drafts for regular units, while some of the 10,000 who had already travelled to South Africa with the militia were subsequently transferred to regular units while overseas. Sir Ian