New Army

The New Armies (Traditional Chinese: 新軍, Simplified Chinese: 新军; Pinyin: Xīnjūn, Manchu: Ice cooha), more fully called the Newly Created Army (新建陸軍 Xinjian Lujun) was the modernized army corps formed under the Qing Dynasty in December 1895, following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. It was envisioned as militia fully trained and equipped according to Western standards.

Formation and expansion

There was a foreunner to the effort of modernizing the Chinese army, created before the end of the Sino-Japanese War: in February 1895, the Qing court assembled its Dingwu or the Pacification Army (定武軍 Dingwu jun), consisting of 10 battalions or ying (営), totaling 4,750 men. This was initially organized by Hu Yufen aided by German advisor Constantin von Hanneken

The command of this Pacification Army was turned over to Yuan Shikai by mid-December 1895, and within a few months was renamed the Newly Created Army (新建陸軍 Xinjian Lujun) and expanded to 7,000 men. (Yuan's Newly Created Army was later to become the Guards Army's Right Division (Wuwei Youjun).)

Kitchener's Army

The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, Kitchener's Mob, was an (initially) all-volunteer army of the British Army formed in the United Kingdom following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War. It was created on the recommendation of Horatio Kitchener, then Secretary of State for War.

Origins

Contrary to the popular belief that the war would be over by Christmas 1914, Kitchener predicted a long and brutal war. He believed that arrival in Europe of an overwhelming force of new, well-trained and well-led divisions would prove a decisive blow against the Central Powers. Kitchener fought off opposition to his plan, and attempts to weaken or water down its potential, including piece-meal dispersal of the New Army battalions into existing regular or Territorial Force divisions (the view of the Commander-in-Chief of the BEF, Field Marshal French). Kitchener declined to use the existing Territorial Force (which, ironically, had been set up by Lord Haldane and Douglas Haig as part of the Army reforms of the Edwardian period) as the basis for the New Army, as many of its members had volunteered for "Home Service" only, and because he was suspicious of the poor performance of French "territorials" in the war of 1870–1. In the early days of the war, the Territorial Force could not reinforce the regular army, as it lacked modern equipment, particularly artillery. In addition, it took time to form First-Line units composed only of men who had volunteered for "General Service".