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James Whiteside MCCAY KCMG KBE CB VD

MCCAY

Date of birth21 December 1864
PlaceBallynure, Antrim, Ireland
ParentsReverend Andrew Ross Boyd and Lily Ann Esther Waring (nee Brown) McCay
Date of death1 October 1930
PlaceSomerset House, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Age65
Scotch Year(s)1878 to 1880

Service record and post-war life

James McCay was 49 years old when he enlisted in the First AIF on 15 August 1914. He was the son of a Prebyterian clergyman, who emigrated to Australia the year after James was born. James attended Scotch on a scholarship. He was a good sportsman and an even better student, being dux of the school in 1880, the year before John Monash won the same honour. In 1880 Monash came second in mathematics and logic to James, who became his lifelong friend. James won Exhibitions at Melbourne University but had to leave in 1883 without graduating, due to his family’s financial problems. He became a schoolteacher. In 1885 James bought the Castlemaine Grammar School, where he became the principal. He had a reputation as a good teacher and firm disciplinarian who used corporal punishment freely.

In 1886 James gained a Commission in the Victorian Rifles. By 1900 he was a Lieutenant-Colonel. He returned to university in the 1890s, completing an MA, LLB and LLM. He set up practice as a solicitor in his home town of Castlemaine. In 1895 James was elected to the Victorian Legislative Assembly and then in 1901 to the new Federal Parliament. In 1904-05 he was made Minister of Defence and performed the job ably. He lost his seat in 1906.

James became in 1907 the first commander of the new Australian Intelligence Corps, a militia unit, with the rank of Colonel. This appointment was not universally approved, for in politics he had developed a reputation for an abrasive personality. Bad relations with the permanent Army Staff Corps followed, and in 1913 his appointment was terminated. At the outbreak of war James was put in charge of censorship, but on 15 August 1914 was appointed to command the 2nd Brigade of the Australian Imperial Force. He warned a surprised audience at a function in his honour that the war would not end early or easily.

At a September 1914 farewell dinner for Scotch Collegians going to war, a song was introduced which ran:

'All the Scotchies then did cry,“Hi, hi, hi, Colonel McCay, We’ll be with you, wet or dry, Ready to do or die! Hooch-aye!”'

The second line was later updated to ‘General McCay’ and eventually to“Hi, hi, hi Generals Monash, Smith, McCay”.

Peter Pedersen, one of Australia’s leading authorities on Australia in the First World War, says that ‘unlike his old schoolmate Monash, who could make imbeciles feel like intellectuals, McCay did not tolerate fools gladly and made them feel like imbeciles.’ Moreover, says Pedersen, James ‘freely dispensed advice to his superiors.’ He trained his brigade, which reached Egypt in December, with such rigour that he became unpopular with his command. The history of the 5th Battalion, which probably contained more Old Scotch Collegians than any other battalion, says that on New Year’s Day 1915 James paraded the brigade, which had been guilty of some misbehaviour, and poured forth ‘a torrent of invective [which] deeply wounded the decent-minded men who were in the majority.’ He could also irritate those above him, to the point that the Commander of the AIF, General Bridges, considered sacking James because of his ‘tendency to regard all orders from the point of view of the lawyer and to argue about them.’

However, Bridges also saw James’ strengths, and chose James’ 2nd Brigade to go closely behind the first brigade in the Gallipoli landing on 25 April. The landing brought little credit to any of the Australian commanders, and James has been criticised for overestimating the forces facing his own, which led to Bridges sending him troops badly needed elsewhere. James’ personal courage was reflected in the fact that within the first hours after the landing he was shot once through his sleeve and twice through his cap! Half of his brigade became casualties and the brigade was relieved by 30 April.

It was sent back into action on 8 May when, responding to General Sir Ian Hamilton’s demand for reinforcements for British forces at Cape Helles, Bridges recommended the 2nd Brigade. He reportedly believed that James’ week at Anzac had enhanced his leadership. The 2nd Brigade was ordered to attack across open ground at Krithia. James was not responsible for this futile advance, but was blamed for it. During the advance he told the official Australian historian Charles Bean, 'This is where I suppose I have to do the damned heroic act' and scrambled on to the parapet of the trench, shouting, 'Now then, Australians! Which of you men are Australians? Come on, Australians!' ('I said in effect to them', he wrote home, '“Come and die”, and they came with a laugh and a cheer'.) He and his brigade headquarters reached a suicidally forward position, but to no effect. They had to dig in and count the cost: more than 1000 casualties. James himself became one when, while arranging for stretcher-bearers and rations, a bullet broke his thigh.

James was evacuated to hospital in Egypt, but before his injury had healed he returned to Gallipoli on 8 June. By then Bridges was dead, and James was infuriated that William Legge was appointed to replace Bridges as Commander of the AIF. James was selected to command the newly-formed 2nd Division but on 11 July, according to his service record, he was ‘injured’: the Australian Dictionary of Biography says his leg had ‘snapped’. Evacuated to Malta, James underwent several operations and lost a dangerous amount of weight before being invalided back to Australia. Since he had gone overseas his wife and father had died. He returned to a hero’s welcome in Melbourne on 11 November. Among those treating him like a hero were 300 Scotch boys. The school captain was doing an exam at Ormond, so the vice-captain welcomed James in the name of the boys and ‘congratulated him on his safe return.’ [both Captain and Vice-Captain would serve in the war]. The Collegian continues: ‘The boys on the wharf meanwhile voiced their welcome in selections from the School songs, among which the chorus of "General McCay" naturally had chief place.’ According to the article, the ship’s passengers encouraged the boys to ‘renewed efforts’, and the General was left in no doubt about the warm welcome he could expect at Scotch College.

He soon visited the school, where according to The Collegian he received unprecedented cheering. James gave an address, in which he said he would treasure the welcome the Scotch boys had given him at Port Melbourne. The article paraphrased him as saying ‘It was at Scotch that he had learnt the lessons of life – not merely the lessons that one learns in books, but such things as these – to tell the truth, to play the game, to do the decent thing, and if trouble comes, to stand up to it.’ He then made a comment which expressed his philosophy: ‘There were many Scotch Collegians now in the trenches and many had fallen, but there was no need to regret them. In war the country must take precedence of the individual; when our country calls, the life of the individual is unimportant, the safety of the country everything.’ He praised the work of ‘his life-long friend, General Monash’, and said he hoped the present boys would ‘keep up the traditions of what he regarded as the best school in the whole Empire.’

The Age newspaper reported another speech that James McCay gave, at a Scotch College prize giving at Melbourne Town Hall on 14 December 1915. The speech was ‘wildly cheered’. He emphasised the concept of ‘duty’ to the Empire. ‘Citizenship meant duty, and duty entailed self-sacrifice in times of stress.’ He criticised those who were making profits from the war, and those who had not signed up. ‘At this moment of time of the British Empire, when we are stopped at every front except one where we are retreating,’ said James, ‘it is not a question of whether Smith, Brown, Jones or Robinson is being treated properly, but a question of finding men to fight and die. (Cheers.) The man who will not go will be damned in all eternity.’ (Great cheering.) The article concluded that ‘As he limped back to his seat, General M'Cay looked towards where the boys of the school were sitting, and, addressing them, said:— "Boys, duty means forgetting yourself and remembering your country."’

Later that month James was made inspector general of the AIF in Australia, with the rank of temporary Major-General. He was also appointed Commander of the Order of the Bath (C.B.) and awarded the French Legion d’Honneur. In December 1915, when troops threatened a mutiny at Liverpool, New South Wales, he quelled it. James was appointed to command the newly-formed 5th Division in Egypt as a Major-General and was able to join it without facing a medical board, which may well have failed him. Bad luck followed the good though. James objected to a long march his division and the 4th Division were ordered to make across open desert. The march went ahead, but whereas the 4th Division commander allowed his men to pack their rations and sleeping gear on camels, James would not allow the same for his men. The result left one of his brigades dangerously dehydrated – hundreds needing medical attention, many more delirious – but afterwards James showed no sympathy. He delivered ‘a stinging rebuke’ to each battalion in turn, saying all ranks shared the blame. He made the units march with packs for two hours daily. ‘He was loathed thereafter’, according to one of Australia’s leading military historians. James sacked one of his commanders, Brigadier Irving.

The 5th Division was the last of the four Australian divisions to move to France but went into action first. James was pleased that his division would be given this honour. The battle that followed, at Fromelles on 19 July 1916 is infamous, as the 5th Division suffered more than 5500 casualties in less than 24 hours. While Brigadier Pompey Elliott was seen crying over the deaths of so many of his men – also part of James’ division – James was overhead telling another brigadier ‘They’ll get used to it.’ When the Germans offered the Australians a truce to collect their wounded, James, following GHQ orders, refused. Many of his men ignored this and risked their lives by going out into no man’s land. Much of the blame for the operation’s poor planning and execution can be sheeted home to the British corps commander, but James also shares some of the responsibility. His ADB biography (written by Old Scotch Collegian Geoffrey Serle) says James made only one mistake, by ordering his men out of the first of two German trenches they occupied, and thus allowing the Germans to reoccupy it and cut off the Australians. Peter Pedersen also asserts that James was ‘out of his depth at Fromelles’, asserting that James should have challenged the faulty plan in the first place and that he did not follow an instruction from GHQ to establish support points to support each wave of men as it consolidated its new line.

James’ men certainly blamed him for the disaster, giving him the nickname the ‘Butcher of Fromelles’ for his perceived errors and callousness. Their letters home affected attitudes to him in Australia too. He put blame on Irving’s replacement, Colonel Pope, accusing him of drunkenness when he was probably just exhausted. After Fromelles, the 5th Division under James did a solid, if unremarkable job. He was reprimanded in November 1916 because his division had the highest level of ‘trench foot’ in the 4th British Army. He considered it reflected a lack of concern from officers at all levels for their men. James was relieved of his command in January 1917, officially for ill health. He had been evacuated to England and hospitalised with neuralgia relating to his own wound in December 1916. Historians argue that his removal from command of the 5th Division came also because he was so unpopular, not only with the rank and file but also his own staff.

In May 1917 he was given command of the base depots in England. Nearly all other Australian commanders feared that James would be promoted to the senior fighting or administrative command. James strove to gain one of those positions. His one staunch friend was John Monash, who believed in James’ ‘friendly’ nature and intellectual power. However, James was destined to stay on Salisbury Plain, training and supplying reinforcements and then organising demobilisation.

In 1918 he was appointed KCMG (Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George) and in 1919 KBE (Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire). Scotch College understandably continued to praise James, sometimes inaccurately: for example, a piece in the 1918 Collegian claimed, among an unusual number of errors, that in 1914 James ‘took charge of the first Australian Expeditionary Force.’ He returned to Australia and was demobilised in August 1919. In 1930 The Bulletin called gave him the famous title of ‘the most detested officer in the AIF’. Others see him as a great soldier who helped lay the foundations of the Australian Army. Peter Pedersen characterises James thus: ‘He was personally courageous but his harsh leadership style bred dislike and even loathing.’ The Oxford Companion to Australian Military History concludes on him that ‘James was a knowledgeable and intelligent soldier whose career in senior command during the war was blighted, and finally ended, by a mixture of bad luck and personality deficiencies.’

After his demobilisation, James abandoned legal practice. He chaired the Victorian government’s 1919 royal commission into high prices, with his recommendation establishing the Fair Profits Commission. From 1912 James was a commissioner of the State Savings Bank, of which he became deputy chairman. He was a business advisor to the Commonwealth government until 1922, and in 1923 he commanded the Special Constabulary Force during the 1923 police strike in Melbourne. In 1926 James retired from the army with the honorary rank of lieutenant-general. In his final years James was in constant pain from his wartime wound. He died in East Melbourne in 1930. James had married Julia Mary O’Meara in 1896 (d. 1915) and they had two daughters.

Photographs and Documents:

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This page from James McCay’s service record mentions his wound to the thigh in May 1915. Note the interesting spelling of Gallipoli.

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Colonel McCay is depicted standing up and calling his men on at Krithia in this evocative painting by Charles Wheeler, The Charge of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Krithia. AWM ART09558

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Photograph of Brigadier McCay arriving in Melbourne on 11 November 1915. He received a rapturous welcome from Scotch boys.

Sources:

  1. Australian War Memorial – Honours and Awards
  2. Mishura Scotch Database
  3. National Archives of Australia – B2455,
  4. ‘McCay, Lieutenant-General Sir James Whiteside’, Dennis, Peter & Grey, Jeffrey, et al, Oxford Companion to Australian Military History, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, 2008
  5. Pedersen, Peter, The Anzacs: Gallipoli to the Western Front, Pengn, Camberwell, 2007
  6. Roberts, Chris, The Landing At Anzac, Army History Unit, Canberra, 2013
  7. Scotch Collegian 1915
  8. Serle, Geoffrey, 'McCay, Sir James Whiteside (1864–1930)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mccay-sir-james-whiteside-7312/text12683, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 2 July 2016.
  9. The AIF Project – https://www.aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson?pid=194152
  10. ‘The men who don't enlist. A stirring speech. General M'Cay to Scotch College boys.’ The Age, Wednesday 15 December 1915

Page last updated: 11 November 2015