Lieutenant General Sir Leslie James Morshead, (18 September 1889 – 26 September 1959) was an Australian soldier, teacher, businessman, and farmer, whose military career spanned both world wars. During the Second World War, he led the Australian and British troops at the Siege of Tobruk (1941) and at the Second Battle of El Alamein, achieving decisive victories over Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps. His soldiers nicknamed him "Ming the Merciless", later simply "Ming", after the villain in the Flash Gordon comics.
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Morshead resigned his teaching position and his commission in the Cadet Corps to travel to Sydney and enlist as a private in the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the First Australian Imperial Force. He was commissioned as a lieutenant in September. He landed at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, and his battalion made the farthest advance of any Australian unit that day. Invalided to Australia, he became commander of the 33rd Infantry Battalion, which he led on the Western Front at Messines, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux, and Amiens.
Between the wars Morshead made a successful business career with the Orient Steam Navigation Company, and remained active in the part-time Militia, commanding battalions and brigades. In 1939, he was appointed to command the 18th Infantry Brigade of the 6th Division in the Second Australian Imperial Force. In 1941, he became commander of the 9th Division, which he led in the Siege of Tobruk and the Second Battle of El Alamein. He returned to Australia in 1943, where he was appointed to command II Corps, which he led during the New Guinea campaign. In 1945, he commanded I Corps in the Borneo campaign.
Early life
Morshead was born on 18 September 1889 in Ballarat, Victoria, the sixth of seven children of William Morshead, a gold miner who had emigrated from Cornwall via Canada, and his wife Mary Eliza Morshead, formerly Rennison, the Australian-born daughter of a fellow Cornish immigrant. William died when Morshead was six years old. He was educated at Mount Pleasant High School, where he was appointed a junior teacher in 1906.
In 1909, he became a student at the Melbourne Teachers Training College to obtain formal teaching qualifications. After his graduation in December 1910, he was awarded a scholarship to complete an education diploma at the University of Melbourne, but decided to defer for a year in order to teach at schools in country Victoria. He became a schoolteacher, teaching first at Tragowell in the Swan Hill district, and then at Fine View State School in the Horsham district. In 1911 he entered Trinity College at the University of Melbourne. After failing an exam in deductive logic, he decided to quit the state school system, and in 1912 took up a position at The Armidale School in the New England district of New South Wales. In 1914 he moved to the prestigious Melbourne Grammar School.
Morshead had been commissioned as a lieutenant in the Australian Army Cadets in 1908. At Armidale, he was appointed commander of the school cadet unit, and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Militia on 10 February 1913. He was promoted to captain in September. At Melbourne Grammar he commanded a company in that school's much larger cadet unit. While at Melbourne Grammar, he met Myrtle Catherine Woodside, the daughter of a Happy Valley, Victoria, grazier, and the sister of one of Morshead's pupils.
First World War
Gallipoli
Morshead's teaching career was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. He resigned both his teaching position and his commission in the Cadet Corps and travelled up to Sydney to enlist as a private in the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) because it was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Braund, whom Morshead knew well from his time teaching in Armidale. Morshead's time in the ranks was brief, as he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the AIF on 19 September. He embarked for Egypt on the transport Suffolk on 18 October 1914. While his battalion was in training there, he was promoted to captain on 8 January 1915.