129th (Bristol) Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, was a New Army ('Kitchener's Army') unit of the British Army raised in the City of Bristol in World War I. It was later joined by a contingent recruited from Smethwick in Staffordshire. The battery served with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front, spending a long period in the Vimy Ridge area, including the 1917 battle, then saw action at Messines and Ypres. It fought against the German Spring Offensive and took part in the Allies' victorious Hundred Days Offensive.
Recruitment
On 6 August 1914, less than 48 hours after Britain's declaration of war, Parliament sanctioned an increase of 500,000 men for the Regular British Army, and the newly-appointed Secretary of State for War, Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, issued his famous call to arms: 'Your King and Country Need You', urging the first 100,000 volunteers to come forward. This group of six divisions with supporting arms became known as Kitchener's First New Army, or 'K1'. The flood of volunteers overwhelmed the ability of the army to absorb and organise them, and by the time the Fifth New Army (K5) was authorised on 10 December 1914, many of the units were being organised as 'Pals battalions' under the auspices of mayors and corporations of towns up and down the country.
Following their success in raising the 12th (Service) Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment (Bristol's Own) from August 1914, the Bristol Citizen's Recruiting Committee was authorised by the War Office (WO) on 1 February 1915 to raise a heavy battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA) in the city. A further battery was authorised on 22 April. These became the 127th (Bristol) and 129th (Bristol) Heavy Batteries under the administration of the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command. These 'local' units were the equivalent of Pals battalions and were not officially taken over by the military authorities until 25 July 1915 (in practice this may not have happened until October).
Service
All the local units suffered from lack of equipment and instructors, which held up training. However, after completing its training, 129th Heavy Bty joined 38th (Welsh) and 120th Heavy Btys to form a new 42nd Heavy Brigade, RGA, at Bordon Camp on 2 March 1916. The brigade was mobilised for overseas service on 8 March and it embarked at Southampton on 27 March for the Western Front where it joined First Army. 129th Heavy Bty established its wagon lines and ammunition column at Béthune while the gunners began improving existing gun positions and dugouts at Annequin. The battery fired its first rounds on 6 April.
Artillery policy in the BEF was now to redesignate the RGA brigades as 'Heavy Artillery Groups' (HAGs) and to switch batteries between them as required. 129th Heavy Bty was transferred to 3rd HAG on 7 April, then back to 42nd HAG on 22 April.
Trench warfare
Meanwhile the battery registered its guns on enemy batteries and on Douvrin, and received a few German shells in return. This counter-battery (CB) fire, sometimes in conjunction with observation aircraft, became the battery's routine. German return fire included both high explosive and gas shells. On 27 April the gun positions round Anneqin were heavily shelled and later enveloped in a gas cloud released from near Loos (part of the action known as the Gas attacks at Hulluch). The battery replied with a vigorous bombardment while the gunners were wearing their gas helmets. The battery positions were shelled again on 29 April, suffering some damage.
On 22 May the battery was transferred to the command of 15th HAG, which was concerned with Vimy Ridge, to the south of Loos, which had recently been taken over from the French Army. Bitter trench warfare was going on here, and the Germans had made a major attack on 22 May. First Army switched additional artillery to this sector ready for a counter-attack, with 129th Heavy Bty firing CB and retaliation tasks, and bombarding the ridge itself, though on occasions one of its guns was unable to get the requisite angle from its positions near Annequin. The fighting at Vimy died down at the end of the month as the BEF concentrated on its preparations for the summer's 'Big Push' (the Battle of the Somme). German artillery on First Army's front was generally quiet during May and June.