CAPITULO III: DIRECCIONAMIENTO ESTRATÉGICO
11. BALANCED SCORECARD
11.3. PLAN DE ACCIÓN
In a letter to the Malone family in 1932, General Sir Alexander Godley wrote about one of his ‘most treasured possessions’ – a book given to him by Taranaki’s most well known soldier from the Great War, Lieutenant-Colonel (Lt. Col.) William George Malone of Stratford.1 The book was The Crown of Wild
Olive by John Ruskin, and in the third chapter, on war, Malone had marked what Godley described as a ‘striking passage’.2 It read:
I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth of word, and strength of thought, in war; that they were nourished in war, and wasted by peace; taught by war, and deceived by peace; trained by war, and betrayed by peace: - in a word, that they were born in war, and expired in peace.3
By marking Ruskin’s words Malone revealed his attitude towards ‘great nations’ and war. Defining events in history, it seems, came in the form of a trial in which war decided the greatness of nations. For individuals too, like Malone himself, it meant the difference between personal success and mediocrity. Ruskin’s words provided Malone with a set of guiding principles.
Malone arrived in Taranaki in 1880, and he busied himself with demanding tasks in farming and public service. As a young man, he chaired the Ngaere Road Board, sat on the Hawera County Council, the Taranaki Hospital and Charitable Aid Board, and was the Stratford County Council’s first clerk and treasurer. In the 1890s, he became a Land and Commission Agent in Stratford, diligently studied law, and later became a solicitor and a barrister. He
1 General Sir Alexander Godley to I. K. Malone, 7 June, 1932. W. G. Malone. MS Papers 2198-1 (ATL). Those papers comprise Malone’s diaries from August 1914 to August 1915.
2 ibid. 3 ibid.
even entered national politics, albeit unsuccessfully.4 It was the soldier’s life that
had special appeal for Malone, and one most likely to provide him with a Ruskin-like trial of greatness.
Malone’s military career began in London during the mid-1870s. At the age of 16 he enlisted in the City of Westminster Rifle Volunteers followed by service with the Royal Artillery Volunteers. In Taranaki, Malone joined the armed constabulary at Opunake in 1880 and he took part in the assault on Parihaka in 1881. As a Captain during the South African War, Malone helped raise the Stratford Rifle Volunteers. In the decade preceding the Great War, he commanded the 4th Battalion, Wellington (Taranaki) Rifle Volunteers as a
Lieutenant-Colonel. Later he was appointed commander of the 11th Regiment
(Taranaki Rifles).5
Soldiering, wrote Godley, was ‘in his bones’.6 To toughen himself to the
soldier’s life it has been alleged that Malone ‘rationed himself, eschewing all luxuries, and [that he] slept on a military stretcher instead of a soft bed’.7 He
also put into daily practice the ‘age old customs and traditions’ of the local Rifles regiments whereby:
He marched his men at the unique Rifles rate of 140 paces to the minute, he adopted the Rifles drill system and used all the traditional Rifles vernacular, such as referring to bayonets as ‘’swords.’’ He even had the distance from his home to his office perfectly worked out and would walk it every working day at the Rifles pace. He would always hit the office step with the same foot and right on the exact second of time.8
4 Christopher Pugsley, ‘William George Malone 1859-1915’, in Dictionary of New Zealand
Biography, vol. 3, 1901-1920, Auckland: Auckland University Press with Bridget Williams Books and the Department of Internal Affairs, 1996, p. 327. E.P. Malone, ‘The Diaries and Letters of Lt. Col. W. G. Malone, August 1914-August 1915’, in The Turnbull Library Record, 22:1 (1989), p. 45. The Wellington West Coast Regiment in their regimental history room in Wanganui also holds a photocopied transcript of Malone’s diaries.
5 Pugsley, ‘William George Malone’, p. 327. 6 Godley to I. K. Malone, MS Papers 2198-1.
7 ‘A Fearless Leader’, (writer unknown), MS Papers 2198-1. 8
Murray Moorhead, First and Strong. The Wellington West Coast and Taranaki Regimental Story, Wanganui: Wellington West Coast Battalion, 2002, p. 81.
At the outset of the Great War, Malone volunteered immediately, along with his sons, Edmond and Brian. Malone was ‘achieving a lifelong ambition of going to war’.9 By volunteering he set ‘A FINE EXAMPLE’ for others, claimed the
Stratford Evening Post, because ‘atduty’s call he offers everything’.10 Within days
Malone had been appointed commander of the Wellington Infantry Regiment and he brought to that position ‘knowledge of the art of war’ from his studies of the Napoleonic and American Civil War campaigns.11
In the immediate pre-war period, about 10,000 males of military age (ie. between 20 and 40 years) lived in Taranaki.12 By 14 December 1914, at least 416
of them, including Malone, had volunteered and embarked with the NZEF
9 Pugsley, ‘William George Malone’, p. 327.
10Stratford Evening Post (SEP), 13 August, 1914, p. 4. 11 ‘A Fearless Leader’, MS Papers 2198-1.
12 The contemporary historical record shows 9,964 males (including Maori) of military age in Taranaki in 1911. This figure comprises males aged between 20 and 40 in the boroughs of New Plymouth, Stratford, Waitara, Inglewood, Eltham, Hawera, Patea, and in the counties of Clifton, Taranaki, Egmont, Stratford, Whangamomona, Eltham, Waimate West, Hawera and Patea. See
Census of New Zealand, 1911, pp. 236-38, 252 and Appendix A, p. v. The military age did fluctuate throughout the Great War. This can cause confusion depending on what source is used and what period of the war the researcher is focusing on. The Defence Act (1909) does have a section on ‘liability for service in time of war’ that refers readers to three age classifications in section 27 sub-section 3. The Act empowered the Council of Defence to determine the age group for military service. At the outset of the Great War, the Stratford Evening Post reported 20 as the minimum age for volunteers. (SEP, 6 August, 1914, p. 2). Christopher Pugsley states that, ‘the enlistment age for overseas service was 21 years, many in the Territorial Force were not old enough to go to war in August.’ (Anzac. The New Zealanders at Gallipoli, Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett Publishers Ltd, 1995, p. 14). Pugsley also states that ‘only those between 20-34 were to be included’ in the Main Body in 1914. (Gallipoli. The New Zealand Story, Auckland: Sceptre, 1990, p. 47). Ian McGibbon agrees with the latter age range in The Path to Gallipoli, Wellington: Historical Branch Department of Internal Affairs, 1991, p. 251. A January 1915 recruiting poster in Paul Baker’s thesis on p. 29 shows 20 to 40 years as the age range of enlistment. A contemporary pamphlet states, ‘THE MEN WHO ARE WANTED – Healthy men between the ages of twenty and forty-five years of age who are British subjects.’ (“England Expects” The Recruit’s Handbook. NZEF Reinforcements. Conditions of Enlistment, Pay, Service, Promotion, Pensions, etc., Wellington: John MacKay Government Printer, 1915, p. 5). The Military Service Act of 1st August, 1916 set enlistment between 20 and 46 years. For the entire Great War period J.L. Sleeman focused on 19- 45 as the military age. (‘The Supply of Reinforcements During the War’, in The War Effort of New Zealand, H.T.B. Drew, (ed.), Auckland: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1923, p. 11). James Cowan, a contemporary historian, cited the ‘Kahiti’, or Maori Gazette as notifying Maori that the age of enlistment was between 21 and 40. (The Maoris in the Great War, Auckland: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1926).
along with another 128 by 17 April 1915.13 The enlistment and embarkation of
these men from rural Taranaki raises questions. What did the voluntary system of enlistment entail; who enlisted and why, conversely why did some men not enlist; and how did enlistment and departure for camp affect people closely associated with them? These are the questions to be addressed in this chapter on the mobilisation of Taranaki’s volunteer soldiers in the pre-Gallipoli period.
Table Six : Number of Recruits From Taranaki Who Embarked With the NZEF During the Pre-Gallipoli Period
NZEF Date of Embarkation Number of Recruits
Samoan Advance Party 15 August, 1914 20
Main Body 16 October, 1914 311
2nd Reinforcements 14 December, 1914 85
3rd Reinforcements 14 February, 1915 56
1st Maori Contingent 14 February, 1915 6
Samoan Relief Force 27 March, 1915 8 New Zealand Army
Nursing Service Corps 8 April, 1915 3 4th Reinforcements 17 April, 1915 55
Total - 544 Source: Alphabetical Roll of New Zealand Expeditionary Force. From 15th August
1914 to 31st December 1915, vol. 1, Wellington: Government Printer, 1917.
The voluntary system of enlistment in New Zealand was conducted in an organised manner. The objective was to form and maintain an expeditionary force in the field based on reinforcements from an equal system of quotas provided by the four military districts. In August 1914, Taranaki, as part of the
13Alphabetical Roll of New Zealand Expeditionary Force From 15th August 1914 to 31st December 1915,
vol. 1, Wellington: Government Printer, 1917, (Nominal Roll of NZEF). Copies of vol. I are held at City Library, Palmerston North and all four volumes are held at New Zealand Defence Force Library, Wellington. Volume 1 consists of 808 pages that alphabetically lists recruits in the NZEF during 1914-15. It categorises each recruit according to serial number, rank, name, body or reinforcement, unit or regiment, marital status, last known New Zealand address, military district, name and address of next-of-kin. It does not contain tables of statistics or summary information. Researchers must collate their own data from each volume to establish information.
Wellington military district, had to supply a quota of 320 Territorials for the first lot of reinforcements, or Main Body, of the NZEF.14 Intending volunteers
received information about enlistment from posters in defence (recruiting) offices, railway stations, post offices and newspapers. Under the regulations governing enlistment, preference was given to unmarried Territorials over the age of 20, or men with previous military experience aged between 25 and 30 (Reservists).15 No man under the age of 20 was to be accepted, or any less than
160cms (5 feet 4 inches) in height, or over 75.6kgs (168 pounds) in weight.16 The
age eligibility regulation presented a problem. At Hawera, volunteers were called for at a parade and ‘every man stepped forward’, but half of them were under age for the NZEF and only 24 could be accepted.17 Similarly, in New
Plymouth, Captain McDonnell reported that 600 of the 900 local Territorials were under 20 years-of-age.18 This meant that defence authorities had to include
those men in the Reserve. Stories abound both in New Zealand and abroad of enthusiastic volunteers who deliberately misinformed military authorities about their real age, and of recruiting officers who ignored, or misjudged the minimum age limitation. Campbell McAllister from Stratford recalls that:
The First World War naturally raised a fervid military ardour among the boys. Some of them quietly disappeared from their homes and by overstating their ages in other towns were taken into camp as recruits. For most of them ignominious discovery brought them back to school, crestfallen, but soon recovering under the approval, open among their fellows and only thinly disguised in some of the official quarters. Two or three years later they would be old enough to be swallowed by the increasingly greedy maw of ‘’reinforcements’’.19
14SEP, 12 August, 1914, p. 4. Taranaki Herald (TH), 10 August, 1914, p. 7.
15The Defence Act of 1909 abolished the volunteer system in New Zealand and replaced it with compulsory military service for all males aged between 12 and 30 years. Junior cadets were aged between 12 and 14, but this section was abolished in 1912. Senior cadets comprised 14-18 years; Territorials 18-25 years; Reserve 25-30 years.
16SEP, 6 August, 1914, p. 2. Pugsley, Gallipoli. The New Zealand Story, pp. 47-8. 17TH, 10 August, 1914, p. 7.
18TH, 14 August, 1914, p. 2.
It is not difficult to see why McAllister’s classmates were initially accepted as recruits. Volunteers were not required to provide evidence of age and recruiting officers had to judge their ‘apparent age’.
From 6 August 1914, Lieutenant William Furby commenced voluntary registrations at the Stratford Defence Office where ‘quite a large crowd’ had gathered, and a ‘good number of names were taken’.20 An intending recruit
either registered at the local defence office, or he obtained a registration card from the post office. Personal information then had to be provided by the recruit for the defence authorities. An acknowledgement notice was then sent to the recruit, which included his registration number, a warning not to give up his job, and information about the medical examination. A second card was sent later informing the recruit about where and when the examination would take place. The medical examination, like age eligibility, determined who would move on in the process.
Jock Phillips says, ‘only about two-thirds of those who voluntarily registered were eventually sent to camp’.21 In Stratford, Lieutenant Gray kept a
register since August 1914 of all recruits who had passed through the local Defence Office. By 1916, Gray’s register listed about 700 names, of which 160 (22.8%) had been medically rejected.22 A volunteer rejected on medical grounds
20 SEP, 7 August, 1914, p. 7. See Pugsley, Gallipoli. The New Zealand Story, p. 47 for a general outline of the enlistment process. See Provision of Reinforcement Drafts for the Expeditionary Force, Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, (AJHR), 1915, vol. II, H.-19E, pp. 2- 6 for details about the enlistment process in New Zealand.
21 Jock Phillips, A Man’s Country? The Image of the Pakeha Male-A History, rev. ed., Auckland: Penguin Books, 1996, p. 160. Pugsley writes that ‘medical rejections totalling 25 percent of all applicants further reduced the numbers.’ Gallipoli. The New Zealand Story, pp. 48, 54. In 1914, 8,223 recruits for the Territorial Force in New Zealand were medically examined and 246 (3%) were classified as unfit to serve that year, while 415 (5%) were declared totally unfit for service. Report on the Defence Forces of New Zealand: 25 June 1914-26 June 1915, AJHR, 1915, vol. III, H.-19, p. 11. Conscripts in New Zealand in 1917 give an indication of the proportion of males who failed the medical examination. Out of a total of 20,557 conscripts aged between 20 and 40 years, 842 or 4% were considered to be ‘permanently unfit for active service’ in any capacity to do with the war. NZEF Return Showing Age and Weight of Members of Reserve Called Up By Ballot According to Medical Classification, AJHR, 1917, H.-19T.
received a certificate ‘as proof that he tried to do his duty to the Empire, and that it [was] not his fault’.23 Alternative service for those men rejected could be
found locally in the National Reserve for Home Defence, such as Stratford’s Foot and Mounted Rifle Corps, which began forming in the opening weeks of the war.24 The Stratford Evening Post reported early in September 1914, that
‘there is certainly a wide feeling that the older men – those between say twenty- five and fifty years of age – would like to be able to do something practical which would be useful in the case of emergency.’25
If medically fit, the recruit was then attested whereby he had to answer eighteen personal questions read aloud by the attesting officer. A key question asked of the recruit was ‘are you willing to serve in the Expeditionary Force in or beyond the Dominion of New Zealand … For the term of the present European war and for such further period as is necessary to bring the Expeditionary Force back to New Zealand and to disband it’.26 Agreeing to that
question moved the recruit from a voluntary position to one of obligation where he had serve ‘for the duration’ of the war. What took place next was a defining moment in the enlistment process. The recruit swore a formal oath of attestation where he ‘sincerely promise[d]’:
I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King, his Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully serve in the New Zealand Military Forces, according to my liability under the Defence Act, and that I will observe and obey all orders of His Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, and of the Generals and Officers set over me, until I shall be lawfully discharged. So help me, God.27
23AJHR, 1915, vol. II, H.-19E, p. 3.
24 W. J. Reeve to James Allen, 14 August, 1914. AD 1 10/155/21 Home Defence-Stratford-Offers Services in Raising Corps (ANZ). H.M. Whittington to Allen, August, 1914. AD 1 10/155/31 Home Defence-Hawera-Proposals re. Raising Corps (ANZ). W. J. Kirkwood to Allen, 27 August, 1914. AD 1 10/155/37 Home Defence Stratford re. Formation of Corps (ANZ). C. P. Baker to Defence Department, 10 September, 1914. AD 1 10/155/55 Home Defence Eltham. Proposals re. Raising Corps. 1914 (ANZ). HNS, 11 August, 1914, p. 4. SEP, 4 September, 1914, p. 4.
25SEP, 2 September, 1914, p. 4.
26 Attestation of Irving Blackstock, 19 August, 1914. Military Service Record and Attestation File (MSRAF) 10/680. Blackstock lived in Cardiff, west of Stratford in central Taranaki.
By that oath the civilian became a soldier by legal process. The soldier then had to continue with his job until called to camp. The ‘call-up’ took the form of a ‘Notification of Acceptance of Service with the Expeditionary Force’. An example from Owen Kinsella reads: ‘You are required to parade at 7.30 pm on August 23, 1915 at Inglewood Railway Station, and will proceed to Camp, Trentham, Wellington, by the Special Troop train.’28
The following illustration shows soldiers on parade north of New Plymouth at Waiwakaiho in 1915, and it suggests much about the volunteers. They have a ramshackle appearance judging by the different styles of military caps worn in the front row, which is made more obvious by those soldiers in the second row who are still dressed in civilian clothing. It seems not all soldiers met the physical specifications set out in the recruitment regulations. The soldier sixth from the right in the front row looks to be over the regulation weight, whereas the soldier fourth from the left is possibly under the minimum height. Some training is evident by the uniform splaying of feet in the front row, but they have yet to attain the stiff soldier-like appearance as exhibited by the officers in the foreground and to the left of the illustration. In the background ill discipline can be seen in the form of a fight and a soldier with his cap held aloft on a rifle. From where in Taranaki society did these volunteer soldiers come from? Men who volunteered in the opening weeks of the war, and who embarked with the first contingent, or Main Body of the NZEF are a representation of Taranaki’s soldiers in the pre-Gallipoli period. Constructing a social profile of them is a methodical way of finding some answers about who the volunteers were.29
28 Letters to Mrs A. R. Matthews from Owen Kinsella, 1913-28, Anne Matthews Papers, Box 1, Bag 20/21 (Wanganui Regional Museum).
29 Census of New Zealand, 1911, Nominal Roll of NZEF vol. 1, and the NZEF Military Service Records and Attestation Files of 311 soldiers from Taranaki who served with the Main Body are the sources of information for the profile. All 311 files are held at New Zealand Defence Force