New Zealand Staff Corps

New Zealand Staff Corps
Active	1911–1947
Country	New Zealand
Branch	New Zealand Military Forces
Type	Staff
Size	~100
Disbanded	1947

The New Zealand Staff Corps was a corps of professional officers in the regular New Zealand Military Forces which, in peacetime, administered the Territorial Force. During the First and Second World Wars, many members of the corps commanded battalions and brigades in the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces sent overseas. The corps was disbanded in 1947.

For much of the 19th century, New Zealand lacked a modern army. By the mid-1880s, following a series of "Russian Scares", in which it was feared Russia was the most likely military threat to the country, the forerunner to the New Zealand Military Forces, the New Zealand Permanent Force, was established. The Permanent Force numbered no more than a few hundred men at any one time, and New Zealand's local defence needs depended on the militia, known as the Volunteer Force.

The Volunteer Force had a number of defects, the first of which was the quality of its men. Although they funded their own equipment and trained on their own time, the equipment was often of low quality and time spent training was insufficient. Officers were elected by their men but generally lacked professional military training, and were often compromised when giving orders to men that elected them to command. Co-operation between the Volunteer Force and the Permanent Force was lacking. By 1905, the constraints of New Zealand society and increasing work commitments began to impact on the number of willing volunteers. The commandant of the New Zealand Military Forces at the time, Major General James Melville Babington, considered the Volunteer Forces to be an inefficient fighting force.

Following the Imperial Defence Conference in 1909, it was recognised there was a need for increased military cooperation between the Dominions of the British Empire. Each Dominion was expected to be capable of raising an expeditionary force with units organised along the lines of the British Army. It was quite clearly apparent that the current system, based on the Volunteer Force, would fall well short of what would be required.

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