5th Motor Machine Gun Battery to the Rescue

Royal Enfield 770cc V-twin sidecar outfits, equipped with Vickers machine guns and 1000 rounds of ammunition, were delivered to the British Army in December, 1914. They formed the 5th Motor Machine Gun Battery and were first pressed into service in April,1915. During the following year, the 5th saw extensive service and helped counter enemy attacks again and again.

In the arms race that preceded the First World War, the British Army owned very few motorcycles. In 1913, the War Department began a recruitment campaign for The Motor Cyclist Reserve. Candidates had to provide their own machines which the War Office would pay for on a sliding scale, which was dependent on the age of the bike. Many privately owned Royal Enfields, especially V-twins, were signed up in this highly unusual mobilisation.

On 4 August 1914, Germany invaded Belgium in a move to outflank the French Army. Britain, in response, declared war. At the beginning of September, the Belgian government placed the first of four orders for 3hp Model 140 V-twin Royal Enfields, the machines quickly being dispatched to the front line. On 17 August, Russia invaded German East Prussia and the Russian government hurriedly bought 150 Royal Enfield 6hp V-twins. They arrived in Moscow in October and were soon in action.

Setting a Precedent

These first two major military export contracts for Royal Enfields set the precedent for further orders to French, Belgian, Russian, United States and Dominion armies throughout the conflict.

The British Army’s use of Royal Enfields was considerable. By far the most noteworthy development was the creation of the machine gun sidecar. Using the Maxim gun from their Made Like A Gun publicity display, the Redditch works produced a prototype in May 1914 and sent it to the Ministry of Munitions for testing.

In November, the War Office approved the addition of a Motor Machine Gun Battery to each army division and the formation of the Motor Machine Gun Service (MMGS). Geoffrey Smith, editor of the leading weekly magazine, The MotorCycle, had for some time advocated the use of machine gun sidecar outfits. Upon the formation of the MMGS, he used the pages of the magazine to actively recruit motorcyclists into the service.

1000 Rounds of Ammunition

By December, Royal Enfield 6hp machines fitted with 770cc JAP engines were being delivered to the British Army. They formed the 5th Motor Machine Gun Battery, a unit made up of volunteers from Coventry motorcycle clubs and ex-employees of the motorcycle manufacturers located in and around that city. The Enfields carried Vickers machine guns mounted on a strengthened sidecar platform that could be fired forwards or backwards when on the move, although the favoured method was to stop and erect a tripod, a task which could be performed in under 30 seconds by fully trained soldiers. Each outfit carried 1000 rounds of ammunition.

These mobile batteries were highly manoeuvrable and their ability to return to their own lines, as well as advance, at speed made them a great asset.

The 5th Motor Machine Gun Battery first saw active service on 18 April 1915. Hill 60, known locally as Lovers’ Knoll, was located just a few hundred metres from British trenches near Ypres in Belgium. As the Flanders landscape was relatively flat, its summit gave German machine gunners a commanding field of fire over the British lines.

The hill was partially destroyed by Royal Engineers, who burrowed underneath it and laid 9,900 tons of explosives. A ground assault quickly followed but the British troops were unable to hold their prize for very long before enemy soldiers launched a concerted counterattack.

‘Invaluable Service’

Eyewitness reports from the battlefield spoke of the ‘invaluable service’ performed by Royal Enfield motorcycle machine gun outfits of the 5th, that beat off wave after wave of enemy attacks and covered the British troops’ retreat.

The MotorCycle, which later published an account of the battle, said, ‘we have maintained from the first that these sidecar machine gun outfits were possessed of mobility second to none, for the vehicle has yet to be invented which is superior to the motorcycle and sidecar in speed, adaptability, reliability, ability to travel over rough ground, and general handiness, combined with the power of carrying moderate weight and yet occupying a minimum amount of space on the road.’

Further developments, with the assistance of the Royal Artillery Regiment, resulted in a modified platform which allowed the machine gun to be fired in either direction when moving and, when stationary with the gunner flat on his back, skywards as an anti-aircraft gun. Orders for this superior model were soon placed and the outfits delivered once more to the 5th Motor Machine Gun Battery.

A Significant Order

Towards the end of the war, the Imperial Russian government placed a significant order for 6 and 8hp Royal Enfield V-twin motorcycles and sidecars, alongside spare parts and riders’ instruction books translated into Russian. They were despatched from Redditch during the first week of March 1917 but ironically never reached their intended purchasers, as the first Russian Revolution (known as the February Revolution), began the following week and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated on 15 March. The motorcycles, nevertheless, were put into military service, first by the Provisional Government then, after the October Revolution, under Bolshevik control.

Throughout the war, motorcycles were damaged and destroyed at an alarming rate, often in battle but also due to the terrible conditions close to the front line. There is no doubt that the sturdy and reliable design of the heavyweight Royal Enfields used throughout the conflict made them supremely dependable in the most challenging of environments, providing ‘invaluable service’ to thousands of servicemen of many nations as well as those courageous machine gun sidecar soldiers of the 5th Motor Machine Gun Battery.