The New Zealand and Australian Division was a composite army division raised for service in the First World War under the command of Major General Alexander Godley. Consisting of several mounted and standard infantry brigades from both New Zealand and Australia, it served in the Gallipoli Campaign between April and December 1915.
At Gallipoli, the division landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, coming ashore as follow-on troops to the initial assault force that had made it ashore earlier in the day, and later occupied the northern areas of the Allied lodgement. After the initial Allied assault at Anzac Cove, elements of the division were sent to Cape Helles in early May, where they participated in the Second Battle of Krithia, launching an unsuccessful attack towards the Achi Baba peak. The division's mounted units were sent to Gallipoli in mid-May without their horses, to serve as dismounted infantry, making up for previous losses. Later that month, the division helped repel an Ottoman counter-attack at Anzac Cove, after which it occupied the line until August, when the Allies launched an offensive designed to break the deadlock. During this period, the division attacked Chunuk Bair and Hill 971, and then later Hill 60. These efforts failed, and as winter set in on the peninsula, the division was evacuated from Gallipoli in mid-December 1915 as part of a general Allied withdrawal.
Returning to Egypt, the division was disbanded in early 1916 following a reorganisation of the Australian and New Zealand forces. The division's constituent infantry brigades were then used to form the Australian 4th Division and the New Zealand Division. These two formations would then be sent to the Western Front where they would take part in further fighting throughout 1916–1918, while the division's former mounted elements went on to serve in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign as part of the Anzac Mounted Division.
History
Formation
Following the outbreak of the First World War in early August 1914, the New Zealand government made an offer to the British War Office of a New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF), which was duly accepted. Mobilisation quickly followed and by late September, the NZEF consisted of two brigades – the New Zealand Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade. This was insufficient to form a conventional infantry division, which usually consisted of three infantry brigades. In contrast, in Australia there were more than enough volunteers for the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). The original intention had been to form a single infantry division, along with a light horse brigade; however, there were enough volunteers to meet this with a surplus of infantrymen being sufficient to form another brigade. Initially, it had been planned to send the NZEF and the AIF to the United Kingdom for training prior to their deployment to the Western Front in France; however, as the convoy carrying the troops transited the Suez Canal they were disembarked in Egypt to temporarily help defend the canal following the Ottoman Empire's entry into the war. Later, overcrowding and a shortage of equipment in the United Kingdom resulted in the decision for the Australians and New Zealanders to remain in the Middle East.
In December 1914, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, under Lieutenant General William Birdwood, was formed to command both the Australian and New Zealand components, which were under the respective commands of Major Generals William Bridges and Alexander Godley. The headquarters staff for this formation amounted to 70 officers and 550 men. These were mostly provided by the British and it was formally part of the British Army. A corps normally had a complement of two infantry divisions, but given the numbers of mounted troops in the AIF and NZEF, Birdwood envisaged that the corps would include a mounted division. As only one complete infantry division (the 1st Australian Division) was present in Egypt, the NZEF and remaining AIF forces in Egypt were to form the other infantry division. Birdwood decided to combine the New Zealand Infantry Brigade with the Australian 4th Infantry Brigade, with a third brigade to be included if one could be formed. By early 1915, Birdwood scrapped the plans for the corps to have an integral mounted division and instead included two mounted infantry brigades with the two standard infantry brigades to form the second infantry division. This was to be known as the New Zealand and Australian Division, with Godley as its commander. A British Army officer, Godley had previously served as commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces from 1910. As well as the four infantry and mounted brigades, the division also included artillery. This was contributed by the NZEF, but only consisted of 16 guns, including four howitzers, much less than the normal divisional complement of artillery. Headquarters staff were also drawn from the NZEF. Supporting arms included engineers, medical, signals, and service corps units.
Elsewhere, while the majority of the division was focused on Chunuk Bair, Brigadier General Frederic Hughes' 3rd Light Horse Brigade – allocated as corps troops at Anzac, but assigned to Godley for the offensive – undertook a costly attack towards Baby 700 and the Nek. Ultimately a futile effort, it resulted in heavy casualties for no gain, partially due to the delays elsewhere. In support, two regiments of the Australian 1st Light Horse Brigade, positioned around Quinn's and Pope's, carried out several feint attacks. The attack around Quinn's began around 4:30 am on 7 August, when the 2nd Light Horse Regiment sent in the first of four waves of 50 troops. Coming under heavy machine gun fire, 49 of the 50 men in the first wave were killed and wounded, after which the attack was eventually called off. The attack around Pope's by the 1st Light Horse Regiment against the position dubbed the "Chessboard" fared little better, devolving into a series of grenade attacks that lasted three hours before the light horsemen withdrew, having lost 154 men out of the 200 that had been committed.
Hill 60
The final major attack at Gallipoli came at Hill 60, a small feature situated to the north-west of Hill 971, which offered the Allies a line of communications between the beach around Anzac Cove and Hill 971. This attack involved troops from the Australian 4th Brigade and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade (largely the Canterbury and Otago Rifles), as well as a battalion (the 18th) from the newly arrived 2nd Division, and the British Connaught Rangers and Hampshire Regiment. A supporting attack towards Susak Kuyu was also carried out on the left flank by two battalions of Gurkhas from the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade.
thumb|left|Kaiajik Dere and Hill 60|alt=Hill 60 and the low ground in front of it, as taken after the war
The first attempt, which was made on 21 August, managed to secure part of the hill, although Ottoman forces remained in possession of the top. A renewed effort on 22 August by 2nd Division troops resulted in heavy casualties due to hasty and poor planning. Some gains were made throughout the morning, but heavy grenade attacks ultimately forced the newly arrived troops back around 9:00 am. Two hours later, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles attacked again on the left, and took about of trench line, which was then secured with sandbags. A lull followed for several days, during which the two sides traded grenade attacks and sniped at each other while working to improve their positions.
The Australian 4th Brigade had been heavily depleted by the earlier fighting, and only 250 men remained available for the renewed attack on 27 August, which also involved troops from the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, reinforced by the Australian 9th and 10th Light Horse Regiments, and British troops from the Connaught Rangers. While the supporting preparatory artillery barrage proved ineffective, the assault eventually took some of the Ottoman trenches on the top of the hill. Nevertheless, it ultimately failed to secure the entire position. Three days of see-sawing close quarters fighting followed in which several counter-attacks were launched, and the position lost by the Allies, and then retaken. Finally, on 29 August, the fighting ended with the Allies occupying the southern half of the position, while the Ottomans held the northern half.
Losses during the fighting for Hill 60 had been heavy, and according to Harvey Broadbent it "effectively ended the fighting capacity of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles". Out of 2,000 troops originally assigned to the brigade, 730 had gone into the fighting around Hill 60, and only 365 were fit afterwards. Meanwhile, the Australian 4th Brigade had also been heavily depleted, with a strength of only 968.
Evacuation and disbandment
Following the failure of the August offensives, a period of stalemate followed around Gallipoli. As sickness rates began to rise British commanders began considering evacuation before winter, with some strategists arguing that they should focus their efforts on the Western Front. Between mid-September and early November, the New Zealand brigades – except the supporting engineers, artillery and medical personnel – were able to detach elements for rest at Sarpi, on Lemnos, as the Australian 2nd Division arrived to relieve the two original Anzac divisions. In November, now Major General Andrew Russell took over as division commander from Godley, who had been given command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Later the same month a heavy blizzard blew, bringing snow to Gallipoli, and after Lord Kitchener carried out an inspection of the theatre, the decision was made to withdraw the Allied troops from Gallipoli. This was completed in several phases, with the final 3,000 rearguard troops from the division, which had been holding positions between Hill 60, Hill 100, Cheshire Ridge and the Apex, departing on 20 December 1915.
thumb|Stores burning at Anzac Cove prior to the evacuation |alt=A beach crowded with military stores. Near the foreshore a plume of smoke rises
Following the division's evacuation, it moved back to Egypt via Lemnos. In January 1916, the two Australian divisions were moved to Tel-el-Kebir to help defend the Suez Canal, while the New Zealand and Australian Division was sent to Moascar camp, near Ismailia, in reserve. By this time, a large number of reinforcements from Australia and New Zealand had arrived in Egypt. Numbers were so large that they could not be absorbed into the existing formations; as a result, new formations were planned and permission was sought from both the Australian and New Zealand governments to begin the reorganisation, prior to their dispatch to the Western Front. The process of splitting the division began in late February 1916, when the Australian 4th Brigade and the Australian support troops departed Moascar to join the other Australian troops around Tel-el-Kebir. In their stead, replacement New Zealand units were brought on strength. On 1 March 1916, the process was completed with the division assuming its new designation of the New Zealand Division.
While the 4th Brigade would be used to form part the Australian 4th Division, the New Zealand components were formed into the standalone New Zealand Division. As part of this process, the New Zealand Infantry Brigade was formed into the 1st Infantry Brigade, keeping most of its experienced personnel, and was joined by the 2nd Infantry Brigade and the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, formed mainly from reinforcements with a small cadre of veterans. Together with the Australian 4th and 5th Divisions, the New Zealand Division was then formed into II ANZAC Corps under Godley prior to its dispatch to the Western Front, where they would see further fighting over the course of 1916–1918. The division's mounted elements were re-united with their horses and organised into the Anzac Mounted Division, and took part in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign over the same period.
Commanders
The following officers commanded the division during the war: