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In 1908 the British Army began testing the feasibility of using commercial motor buses as troop transport in the event of an emergency. The manoeuvres using twenty-four buses were very successful and it was decided that they would be used in future wars.

In August 1914, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, asked the London General Omnibus Company to provide buses for the use of moving troops in France. The company asked for volunteers from among their conductors and drivers and eventually 75 crews were chosen and then recruited into the Royal Marines. In September 1914, 75 Diamler buses and crews were shipped to France. Some of the buses were captured by the Germans but the rest remained in France until the end of the war in November, 1918.