14th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment (West of England)

The 14th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment (West of England) ('14th Glosters') was a Bantam battalion recruited in World War I as part of 'Kitchener's Army' from men who were below the minimum height normally required by the British Army. Together with other bantam battalions it joined the 35th Division and served with it on the Western Front from early 1916, first seeing action at the Battle of the Somme. The Bantam concept did not survive the losses of the Somme, and had to be abandoned when the battalions became filled with reinforcements who were not simply undersized but actually unfit for service. In 1917 the 14th Glosters became a conventional infantry battalion and saw further action during operations along the Hindenburg Line, when one of its officers won the Victoria Cross, and at the Battle of Passchendaele before being broken up early in 1918 to provide reinforcements to other units.