General Sir Alexander John Godley, (4 February 1867 – 6 March 1957) was a senior British Army officer. He is best known for his role as commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and II Anzac Corps during the First World War.
Born in Gillingham, Kent, in England, Godley joined the British Army in 1886. He fought in the Boer War and afterwards served in a number of staff positions in England. In 1910 he went to New Zealand as Commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces. Promoted to temporary major general, he reorganised the country's military establishment. Following the outbreak of the First World War, the New Zealand government appointed him as commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, which he led for the duration of the war.
During the Gallipoli campaign, Godley commanded the composite New Zealand and Australian Division, before taking over command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps for the final stages of the campaign. Promoted to lieutenant general, he was given command of II Anzac Corps in 1916. He led the corps for most of its service on the Western Front. Regarded as a cold and aloof commander, his popularity was further dented in October 1917 when he insisted on continuing an offensive in the Ypres salient when weather and ground conditions were not favourable. His corps suffered heavy losses in the ensuing battle. In 1918, II Anzac Corps was renamed XXII Corps and he led it for the remainder of the war.
After the war, Godley spent time in occupied Germany as commander of the IV Corps and then, from 1922 to 1924, the British Army of the Rhine. In 1924 he was promoted to general and was made General Officer, Commanding, Southern Command in England. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in 1928 and was Governor of Gibraltar for five years until his retirement in 1933. During the Second World War he commanded a platoon of the Home Guard. He died in 1957 at the age of 90.
Early life Alexander Godley was born at Gillingham in Kent, England, on 4 February 1867, the eldest son of William Godley, an Irishman who was a captain in the British Army, and Laura , who was English. His father's brother was John Robert Godley, the founder of Canterbury province in New Zealand. Despite being born in England, Godley always viewed himself an Irishman.
The family moved to Aberdeen in Scotland the year after Godley's birth and then to London in 1873 where he entered the Royal Naval School as he intended to join the Royal Navy. However, after a few years, Godley reconsidered his future and chose to pursue a career with the British Army. To ensure he was adequately educated to qualify as a gentleman cadet for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, he was enrolled at Haileybury College in 1879. The following year, when he was 13, his father died leaving his mother to raise and educate four children with limited financial resources.
Unable to continue at Haileybury, Godley attended United Services College, in Devon, as a boarder. At one time, his roommate was Rudyard Kipling. After several years, and well prepared, he passed the entrance examinations for Sandhurst and duly entered the college as a gentleman cadet in 1885. Ranked 81st out of 156 cadets when he graduated in August 1886, Godley was commissioned into the Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a lieutenant. His maternal uncle, Spencer Bird, was an officer in the regiment's 1st Battalion, and ensured Godley joined his unit.
Initially stationed at Mullingar in Ireland, Godley's military duties were not onerous and there was plenty of time for sport. An enthusiastic horseman, Godley engaged in hunting and polo, at which he became extremely proficient. He later played in the first international polo match between England and Argentina at the Hurlingham Club in Buenos Aires. Life as an officer in the British Army could be expensive and his living costs exceeded his basic salary. In February 1889, he became the battalion adjutant, and this position saw a useful increase in his salary. From 1890, Godley served in a number of posts around Ireland, including the Royal Dublin Fusiliers recruiting depot at Naas, in County Kildare. Here, to supplement his pay, he trained polo ponies. He also met Louisa Fowler, his future wife, the elder sister of Sir John Sharman Fowler.
In 1894, Godley took an instructors course for mounted infantry at Aldershot. In March 1896, by which time he had reached the rank of captain, he ended nearly ten years of service with the Dublin Fusiliers and returned to Aldershot as adjutant of the Mounted Infantry School there. Later that year he was selected for service in Mashonaland, to help suppress a rebellion in the British South Africa Company's territories in Rhodesia. After serving with the Special Service Battalion of the Mounted Infantry, he returned to England the following year and was promoted brevet major. Again based at Naas, he resumed his acquaintance with Louisa Fowler, and the couple married on 17 September 1898.
Boer War
In 1898 Godley attended the Staff College at Camberley, which brought him into contact with George Francis Robert Henderson, "the prominent military theorist of his time". However, following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899, ended his studies early to volunteer for service in Africa. Along with other officers of the Special Service Battalion, he helped to raise irregular mounted regiments. Godley was later adjutant to Colonel Robert Baden-Powell and was present during the siege of Mafeking. He was also chief staff officer to Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Plumer and later commanded the Rhodesian Brigade. In 1900, Godley transferred to the Irish Guards before being appointed to the staff at Aldershot Command as commander of the mounted infantry.
Three years later he transferred to Longmoor Military Camp, commanding the mounted infantry there until 1906. By this time, Godley held the brevet rank of colonel, having been promoted in February 1905. He then served as an assistant adjutant general (AAG), taking over this position from Colonel John Cowans, and was promoted to full colonel in March 1906. Godley then served on the staff of the 2nd Division at Aldershot until March 1910 when he relinquished the position to Colonel Beauvoir De Lisle and was placed on half-pay.
Commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces Later in 1910 Godley accepted the position of commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces, as the New Zealand Army was then known. He had some reservations about his new appointment; he had been in line for command of an infantry brigade and was concerned that being posted to remote New Zealand would be detrimental to his career. He arrived in New Zealand to take up his duties in December 1910. He had been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in June of that year.
Promoted to temporary major general, Godley, together with fourteen British Army officers seconded to the New Zealand Military Forces, was tasked with reorganising and instilling professionalism in the military establishment of the country. Compulsory military training had recently been introduced by the government but with little thought as to its implementation. In refining the New Zealand Military Forces, Godley drew heavily on the recommendations of Lord Kitchener, who had visited New Zealand earlier in the year on an inspection tour.
Godley established the Territorial Force, which replaced the outdated and recently disbanded Volunteer Force. He organised the structure of the New Zealand Military Forces into four military districts, with each district to be capable of raising an infantry and a mounted brigade. The districts had a specified number of battalions and regiments organised along the lines of the British Army. He also formed the New Zealand Staff Corps, which provided a professional body of officers to train and administer the Territorial Force. The quality of small arms and other personal equipment provided to the country's military personnel were improved and orders placed for new artillery pieces and machine-guns.
By 1914 the Territorial Force had some 30,000 men involved in divisional level training camps; two years previously, the manpower and logistical constraints of the force was such that only battalion level camps could be achieved. When General Ian Hamilton, the Inspector General of Overseas Forces, visited New Zealand in 1914, he was impressed with the level of preparedness of the country's military. This reflected positively on Godley's work, and he was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George the same year.
From 1912, Godley began putting plans in place for the rapid deployment of a New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) in the event of war in Europe. He anticipated that Imperial Germany would be the likely enemy and envisaged deployment to either Europe or possibly Egypt, to counter the likely threat to the Suez Canal in the event Turkey aligned itself with Germany. He envisioned the expected deployment would be co-ordinated with an Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and liaised with the Australian Chief of General Staff, Brigadier General Joseph Gordon, and the possibility of a composite division was discussed. The question of Germany's possessions in the South Pacific was also raised, and it was agreed that New Zealand would have responsibility for German Samoa, while Australia dealt with German New Guinea. The arrangements Godley put in place for deployment for the NZEF were soon put to the test, for when the First World War began, a New Zealand occupation force was quickly assembled to occupy German Samoa.
First World War The New Zealand government authorised the formation of the NZEF for service in the war in support of Great Britain, with Godley, having relinquished his position as commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces to Major General Alfred William Robin, as its commander. Godley would retain command of the NZEF for the duration of the war, making regular reports to James Allen, the New Zealand Minister of Defence. By October 1914, the NZEF consisted of 8,500 men and, along with Godley, just promoted to substantive major general, embarked from Wellington for Europe. The NZEF was intended for service on the Western Front but was diverted to Egypt while in transit, following the entry of Turkey into the war. In Egypt, the NZEF underwent an intensive period of training under Godley's supervision. Despite his strict approach to training and discipline, he was a relatively enlightened commander for his time; he discreetly established drinking canteens and venereal disease treatment centres for his men.
Gallipoli
Prior to the start of the Gallipoli campaign, Godley was made commander of the New Zealand and Australian Division, a composite formation of infantry brigades of the NZEF and the AIF. His new command was one of two infantry divisions of the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, commanded by General William Birdwood.
Although an extremely competent administrator, there were reservations within the New Zealand government following Godley's appointment as commander of the division. Allen, although publicly supportive of Godley, privately believed an alternative commander should be found after the division completed its training. Godley was a distant and remote divisional commander, not popular with most soldiers of his command. He also favoured the professional officers of the NZEF, most of whom were seconded from the British Army, over those drawn from the Territorial Force.