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.

This article is about the United Kingdom Army unit. For other units of the same name, see XVI Corps.

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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