The 1/4th (Queen's Edinburgh Rifles) and 1/7th mobilised in Edinburgh in August 1914, and were assigned to the 52nd (Lowland) Division. Whilst the division was mobilising, the 1/7th was involved in the Quintinshill rail crash, which killed 210 officers and men and wounded another 224. They fought at the Battle of Gallipoli before being moved to Egypt in 1916 and serving in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign. They were sent to France in April 1918 for the Second Battle of the Somme, and remained there until the end of the war. Both battalions were reduced to a cadre in March 1919, and returned home to disband in May.