IV Corps (United Kingdom)
[4] The Corps had its origin in a force operating independently against the German invasion of Belgium under the command of Lieut-Gen Sir Henry Rawlinson.It was transferred from War Office control to the British Expeditionary Force on 9 October 1914, and the BEF"s commander, Sir John French, constituted it as IV Corps.Rawlinson's failure to bring reserves to the IV Corps front lines allowed the Imperial German Army to regroup and caused the BEF counteroffensive to fail to break through.IV Corps was moved south of Givenchy, opposite Vimy Ridge, which gave the Germans the advantage of height.[15] Thirteen different divisions passed through IV Corps during Wilson's eleven-month tenure, and only one, the 47th, stayed for longer than six months.Then the 63rd and 9th Divisions were taken away, then in October the whole Corps was transferred to Gough's Reserve Army on the Somme, although it was used as a holding formation rather than being deployed into the front line.[16] During 1916, able staff officers were still in short supply and such men were poached from IV Corps and its component divisions by Rawlinson for Fourth Army HQ.[18] Order of Battle at the start of the final advance in Picardy (27 September 1918)[19] GOC: Lieutenant-General Sir George Harper The Corps was reformed in Alresford in Hampshire in February 1940[20] in anticipation of operations in Norway, or perhaps Finland (part of a projected intervention in the Russo-Finnish Winter War).[23] Order of Battle Autumn 1940[24][25] In January 1942 the Corps headquarters was dispatched to Iraq,[20] as part of Middle East Command.In 1942, Corbett was appointed Chief of Staff of Middle East Command and Lieutenant General Noel Irwin took over IV Corps.Lieutenant General Scoones was appointed to Central Command, an army-level headquarters in India, and replaced in charge of IV Corps by Lieutenant-General Frank Messervy.The offensive began with IV Corps on the left of Fourteenth Army, led by the newly arrived 19th Indian Division.Temporarily commanded by Lieutenant-General Francis Tuker, it was responsible for mopping up the remaining Japanese forces in Burma until the end of the war including the defeat of a large break-out in the Pegu Yoma.