New Zealanders sail for war

On 16 October 1914 ten grey-painted transports sailed from the port of Wellington. They carried the so-called Main Body of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force: about 8,500 soldiers and nearly 4,000 horses. It was the largest military force New Zealand had ever sent abroad.

Volunteers from the dominion

Together with Britain, all her dominions entered the war. In August the New Zealanders had already occupied German Samoa, and at the same time they were raising forces to fight alongside the British in Europe. The Main Body was made up of volunteers enlisting in existing Territorial units. It comprised an infantry brigade and a mounted rifles brigade, as well as artillery and services. It was commanded by the British general Alexander Godley, commandant of New Zealand’s military forces since 1910.

Waiting for an escort

The contingent had been due to sail at the end of September. However, the German squadron of Admiral Maximilian von Spee was operating in the Pacific, and the old British cruisers that were to protect the convoy would have been no match for its powerful ships. The voyage was therefore postponed until a stronger escort arrived: the British armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur and the Japanese battlecruiser Ibuki. For several weeks the soldiers waited in camps and on board ship, while impatience grew at home.

When the escort arrived, the convoy set out across the Tasman Sea. After a short stop at Hobart in Tasmania, at the end of October it reached King George Sound near Albany in Western Australia. There it joined the transports carrying the first contingent of Australian troops. On 1 November 38 ships, ten of them from New Zealand, set off together across the Indian Ocean.

To Egypt instead of France

The British chronology of the war records that the New Zealanders sailed “for France”. That was indeed the plan: the contingent was to reach England, complete its training there and only then go to the Western Front. The plans changed while the convoy was already under way. The camps in England were overcrowded, and the Canadians, living in tents on Salisbury Plain, were suffering from the autumn downpours. At the beginning of November the Ottoman Empire also entered the war, which increased the importance of Egypt and the Suez Canal. London therefore decided to land the troops from New Zealand and Australia in Egypt. The convoy reached Alexandria at the beginning of December.

The New Zealanders, equipped with woollen uniforms meant for an English winter, pitched camp near Cairo and for the following months trained in the desert. There, together with the Australians, they formed the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC. In April 1915, instead of in France, the soldiers of the Main Body landed on the Gallipoli peninsula, where the Gallipoli campaign began.