7th Infantry Division (United Kingdom) - First World War

First World War

The 7th Division was a Regular Army division that was formed by combining battalions returning from outposts in the British Empire at the outbreak of the First World War. The division began moving to France on 6 October 1914. The division fought in most of the major battles on the Western Front through to 1917 before being sent to Italy for the remainder of the war. At the battle of Loos in 1915, the Division's GOC, Major-General Thompson Capper, was killed in action at the height of the fighting. Unlike the first six regular divisions of the B.E.F., a third of whose strength was made up of regular reservists, the 7th Division was composed entirely of serving regulars, which gave rise to its nickname The Immortal Seventh.