Alexander Godley

Alexander Godley, 1920

Sir Alexander John Godley GCB , KCMG (born February 4, 1867 in Chatham , Kent , † March 6, 1957 in Oxford ) was a general in the British Army who served as Commander-in-Chief of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and Commanding General of the II. ANZAC Corps in the First World War and as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army of the Rhine in the interwar period.

Life

Godley was born the eldest son of William Godley, a British Army officer of Irish descent, and educated at Haileybury College and the Royal Military College Sandhurst . In 1886 he joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers as a lieutenant , where he served until 1896. That year he was promoted to captain and adjutant of the mounted infantry in Aldershot and took part in the suppression of an uprising in Mashonaland ( Second Matabele War ). On his return to England he attended Staff College Camberley from 1898 , but interrupted his studies the following year to take part in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Here he set up mounted units and served as Robert Baden-Powell's adjutant during the siege of Mafeking . He later served as the senior staff officer under Herbert Plumer and commanded the Rhodesian Brigade as Brevet Lieutenant Colonel .

In 1900 Godley moved to the Irish Guards , only to be appointed commander of the mounted infantry in Aldershot a little later. He served here and at Longmoor Military Camp until 1906 when he was promoted to Colonel. He was serving on the staff of the 2nd Division when he was offered the position of commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces in 1910. He took up his new post in December 1910 and was promoted to temporary major-general. Godley set up the Territorial Force in New Zealand , which replaced the Volunteer Force . He divided the colony into four military districts, which should each provide an infantry and a mounted brigade in the event of war. New Zealand officers should be trained at the Royal Military College Duntroon and prepared for service with the New Zealand Staff Corps . From 1912 he planned together with the Australian Chief of the General Staff Joseph Gordon the responsibilities in the event of a war in which the mother country would be involved. The most likely opponent was the German Empire , whose possessions in the South Pacific would initially have to be occupied. The New Zealand Armed Forces were responsible for the occupation of German Samoa in this case .

Godley with William Birdwood (left) and Harry Chauvel (right) on Gallipoli, 1915

When World War II broke out in August 1914, appropriate steps were taken immediately. Godley, appointed Commander in Chief of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF), set out for Egypt in September 1914 with 8,500 men. The troops were originally intended for use on the Western Front , but were later trained for use in the Gallipoli Company . In December 1914, Godley took over command of the New Zealand and Australian Division , which was newly formed in Egypt and was intended for use with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) under William Birdwood . In February 1915, the division was used to defend the Suez Canal against a Turkish offensive before receiving orders in early April to prepare for an amphibious landing on Gallipoli. Godley landed with his division at Anzac Cove on April 25th . His performance at Gallipoli gave rise to criticism in the New Zealand government, and he was not very popular with his soldiers. Among other things, he is held responsible for the failure of the attack on Chunuk Bair during the British August offensive. In November 1915, after Birdwood had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Dardanelles Army, Godley was his successor as Commanding General of ANZAC in the temporary rank of Lieutenant General.

King George V (front center) inspects New Zealand Division troops during the Battle of the Somme . You can see his companions Godley, Harper (right) and Plumer (walking in the back).

After the evacuation, the ANZAC in Egypt was divided into two corps, with Godley receiving command of the I. ANZAC Corps. When the corps was to be shipped to France in March 1916, Godley swapped positions with Birdwood and took over his II. ANZAC Corps, whose training he led before it followed the I Corps in June. As part of the 2nd Army under Herbert Plumer, the corps occupied a section of the front at Armentières and had its first major test in June 1917 in the Battle of Messines . During the Third Battle of Flanders that followed, Godley came under renewed criticism after his corps suffered heavy losses in an attempt to take the village of Passendale in October . It was pulled from the front and in December as a British XXII. Corps reconstituted after the Australian divisions were withdrawn to form the Australian Corps. Godley remained in command of the NZEF until it was disbanded after the war, even when the New Zealand Division was no longer under his direct command.

In April 1918 Godley's Corps was deployed in the Fourth Battle of Flanders , later to support the French in the Second Battle of the Marne and during the Hundred Days Offensive with Henry Horne's 1st Army .

After the armistice , Godley took command of the IV Corps of the British Army of the Rhine , and later the II Corps. From 1920 to 1922 he served as military secretary to Secretary of War Winston Churchill and Laming Worthington-Evans , before taking over as General Officer Commanding the Army of the Rhine. In 1923 he was promoted to general. From 1924 to 1928 he served as Commander in Chief of the Southern Command , then as Governor of Gibraltar until his retirement in 1933 . In retirement he devoted himself to publications on military history topics.

Fonts

• Life of an Irish Soldier: Reminiscences of General Sir Alexander Godley (1939)
• British Military History in South America (1943)

literature

• John Crawford, Ian McGibbon (Eds.): New Zealand's Great War: New Zealand, the Allies, and the First World War. Exisle Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-0-908988-85-3 .
• Glyn Harper, Joel Hayward (Eds.): Born to Lead ?: Portraits of New Zealand Commanders. Exisle Publishing, 2003, ISBN 978-1-927147-39-9 , pp. 39-53.

Web links

Commons : Alexander Godley  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Godley, Alexander John , in: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
• Career data at the Liddell Hart Center for Military Archives

predecessor	Office	successor
Sir Thomas Morland	Commander in Chief of the British Army of the Rhine 1922–1924	Sir John Philip Du Cane
Charles Monro	Governor of Gibraltar 1928–1933	Charles Harington