McCay's military career began in 1884, when he enlisted in the 4th (Castlemaine) Battalion,
Victorian Rifles. He was commissioned as a
lieutenant on 29 October 1886, and was subsequently promoted to
captain on 5 March 1889 and
major on 13 March 1896. Following the forced resignation of the commander of the 8th Regiment for making a political speech touting McCay, McCay was promoted to lieutenant colonel and assumed command of the regiment on 12 January 1900. In turn, McCay turned to his former schoolmate, John Monash, whom he had appointed to the command of the Victorian section of the new
Australian Army Intelligence Corps (AIC), with a promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel on 28 March 1908. The AIC set about compiling information such as the suitability of lighthouses for signalling, the availability of railway rolling stock, and the number of civilian motor vehicles suitable for military use. A concerted effort was put into creating sets of detailed maps. McCay and Monash became close friends. In 1912, McCay & Thwaites moved into offices at 360 Collins Street, where businesses associated with the
Baillieu family were located. Monash moved his offices into the same building, and the two addressed each other as "Jack" and "Jim". On 5 March 1912, McCay was appointed a commissioner of the
State Bank of Victoria. In 1911, McCay delivered a lecture at the Victorian United Services Institution entitled "The True Principles of Australia's Defence". He suggested that the Australian Army should be equipped to the same standard as the
British Army and should be prepared to fight an enemy overseas rather than waiting for an invasion of Australia. On 11 April 1913, he resigned his position as Director of Military Intelligence and was placed on the unattached list. McCay was assigned two regular officers as his brigade major and staff captain, but was permitted to choose his four battalion commanders. All of McCay's choices were senior Militia commanders from Victoria. Three of them proved to be too old for the vigours of a modern campaign. The exception was his youngest appointment, Lieutenant Colonel
Harold Elliott of the
7th Infantry Battalion, a University of Melbourne educated lawyer like himself. The brigade assembled at
Broadmeadows Camp where it commenced its training. On 21 October McCay and his brigade headquarters embarked from Melbourne on the former
P&O ocean liner RMS Orvieto, which also carried
Major General Bridges and the staff of his
1st Division. After sailing through the
Suez Canal, it arrived at
Alexandria,
Egypt on 4 December 1914. The brigade camped at Mena, on the outskirts of Cairo, where training resumed.
War correspondent Charles Bean noted that McCay "trained his command with conspicuous ability. He did a great deal of detail work himself, drawing his own orders, and sometimes training his own
platoons." ) in conversation with Colonel
Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan (left), commanding the 3rd Brigade, pictured here in either 1914 or 1915. McCay arrived off
Anzac Cove on the transport SS
Novian on the morning of
Anzac Day, 25 April 1915, with his headquarters and the
5th Infantry Battalion on board.
Novian had difficulties reaching her berth and when she finally reached it there were no boats to unload her. McCay therefore did not step ashore until about 06:00. There, he met Colonel
Ewen Sinclair-MacLagan, the commander of the
3rd Infantry Brigade, who asked him to deploy the 2nd Infantry Brigade on the right, on the 400 Plateau, instead of the left as planned. McCay did so, establishing his headquarters on what became known as McCay's Hill. The 2nd Infantry Brigade was soon involved in "the most costly struggle of the day". At 16:45 McCay telephoned Bridges at 1st Division headquarters to ask for reinforcements. The Australian line was forced back on to the reverse slope, but did not break. The commander of the
Mediterranean Expeditionary Force,
General Sir
Ian Hamilton, now decided to make his main effort at
Cape Helles. The
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps commander,
Lieutenant General Sir
William Birdwood, was ordered to send a brigade from each of his two divisions to Helles to reinforce the British and French troops there. McCay's brigade and the
New Zealand Infantry Brigade were chosen. They embarked for Helles on 6 May. On the evening of 8 May, during the
Second Battle of Krithia, McCay was given 35 minutes notice to conduct an advance across open ground in broad daylight. McCay protested that there was insufficient time to organise this but was overruled by Hamilton. The brigade suffered heavily. McCay led his men from the front, driving them on despite the futility of the attack. All of his staff were killed or wounded, and McCay's leg was broken by a bullet. The advance was also pointless, for it could have been conducted after dark without loss. As a result, his men regarded him as responsible for their fate. McCay was evacuated to hospital in Alexandria. He rejoined his brigade at Anzac on 8 June but the wound had not fully healed and he was lame, walking with the aid of a stick. In the meantime, General Bridges had been mortally wounded on 18 May and the Australian government sent the Chief of the General Staff, Major General
James Gordon Legge, to replace him as commander of the 1st Division. McCay, Monash and Colonel
Harry Chauvel were all disappointed at being passed over for the command, and protested to Birdwood and the Australian government, but to no avail. However, Legge chose McCay to command the
2nd Division, then forming in Egypt. Unfortunately, on 11 July, the day before he was due to leave for Egypt, McCay's leg snapped where the bone had been broken at Krithia. He was evacuated again, this time to
Malta, and then to the United Kingdom, where he was visited by Sir George Reid, now the
Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. McCay's wife Julia died while he was in hospital. Several weeks later his father died as well. McCay was therefore sent back to Australia on compassionate leave. He arrived back in Melbourne on RMS
Malwa on 11 November 1915, accompanied by his two teenage daughters and his brother Hugh, who had joined the ship in
Adelaide, to a hero's welcome. For his service at Gallipoli, McCay was
mentioned in despatches for his "great promptitude in supporting the threatened flank of the covering force" during the landing and his "conspicuous gallantry" at Krithia. He was also appointed a Companion of the
Order of the Bath, and bestowed the ''Croix de Commander de la
Légion d'honneur'' by the
President of France. In addition he had, in July 1915, been promoted to the temporary rank of brigadier general, dated back to 15 August 1914.
Western Front The Minister for Defence, Senator
George Pearce, appointed McCay to the newly created post of Inspector General of the AIF on 29 November 1915, with the local rank of major general. McCay was involved in recruiting campaigns, and inspected AIF units and reported on their training and equipment. He proposed a new training regime, with a national syllabus that increased the number of hours per week of training and the duration of training to twelve weeks. This led to strikes at the camps at
Casula and
Liverpool. Rioting soldiers clashed with police at
Circular Quay and at
Central Station striking soldiers were shot and one killed by soldiers sent to return them to Liverpool. As a result, new liquor laws were introduced, including
six o'clock closing. Meanwhile, the
Gallipoli campaign had ended and the AIF in Egypt was in the process of doubling in size from two divisions to four. Birdwood wished to appoint two British generals to command the new divisions, but Senator Pearce opposed this, ordering that one be given to McCay. On 22 March 1916, McCay arrived back in Egypt to assume command of the
5th Division. He found that General Headquarters,
Egyptian Expeditionary Force had ordered
II Anzac Corps, of which the 5th Division was a part, to replace
I Anzac Corps in the defence of the Suez Canal. Owing to a shortage of
rolling stock, the
4th and 5th Divisions were ordered to undertake a three-day route march across the desert under service conditions, carrying their packs and weapons. This proved to be a greater test of staff and troops than anticipated, and many men dropped from thirst or exhaustion. Many of his men blamed McCay for subjecting them to such a humiliating and severe trial. In June 1916, the 5th Division moved to the
Western Front. Although the last to arrive in France, it would be the first to see serious action, a part of an ill-conceived plan by Lieutenant General Sir
Richard Haking, whose
British XI Corps would attack a strong part of the line with inexperienced 5th Division and British
61st (2nd South Midland) Division. Haking was principally responsible but McCay bore some of the blame. He made tactical errors: his failure to pass on Haking's cancellation orders led to the annihilation of the now-unsupported 58th's men before crossing the field, described by C.E.W. Bean as one of the bravest and most hopeless assaults ever undertaken by the Australian Imperial Force; his order to vacate the first trench after it was cleared "undoubtedly contributed to the causes of failure". His cancellation of a truce already in progress to recover wounded further damaged his popularity. For his part, McCay was mentioned in despatches a second time. The 5th Division was out of action for some months. It finally moved with the rest of the I Anzac Corps to the
Somme sector in October. After months of fighting and recent rain, the front line area was a devastated muddy morass. McCay was ordered to undertake an attack with the 2nd Division's
7th Infantry Brigade at
Flers, which cost 819 casualties and gained no ground. Once again, McCay's handling of his division showed poor planning and tactics. Moreover, at Flers he showed that he had not learned from the lessons of Fromelles. His relief was now only a matter of time. Nonetheless, McCay remained in command of the 5th Division until 18 December 1916 when he was granted medical leave in the United Kingdom for treatment on his leg, which the doctors diagnosed as
neuralgia. McCay was mentioned in despatches a third time.
United Kingdom On the recommendation of Brigadier General
Robert Anderson, the Commandant, Administrative Headquarters, AIF, and against the opposition of Birdwood, Senator Pearce appointed McCay as commander of the AIF Depots in the United Kingdom. These depots received and trained reinforcements arriving from Australia, and rehabilitated and retrained convalescents who were released from hospital. McCay established his headquarters at
Tidworth, in the heart of the
Salisbury Plain where most of the Australian camps were located. He occupied this post for the remainder of the war, failing in bids to return to an active command at the head of the 5th Division, the
Australian Corps, or the
3rd Division when Monash was promoted to corps commander. A bid to replace Birdwood as administrative commander of the AIF also came to naught. For his services in the United Kingdom, McCay was mentioned in despatches a fourth time, made a Knight Commander of the
Order of St Michael and St George in 1918, and a Knight Commander of the
Order of the British Empire in 1919. On 10 March 1919, McCay handed over command of the AIF Depots in the United Kingdom to Major General
Charles Rosenthal. After a farewell dinner hosted by Monash, he embarked for Australia, where his AIF appointment was terminated. In 1919, along with
George Swinburne and Generals White and Legge, he produced a report on the organisation of the post-war Army. In 1920, he joined Generals Chauvel, White, Monash, Legge, and
Hobbs to produce a second report on the subject. McCay retired from the Army in 1926 with the honorary rank of
lieutenant general. ==Later life and death==