First World War
In October 1914, two months after the British entry into World War I, Davies was appointed as GOC of the 8th Division, which had been created only recently from Regular Army units scattered around the British Empire. The division, along with its GOC, was soon sent to the Western Front, where the rest of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was already serving, and where the division would remain for the rest of the war. The 8th, serving under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Rawlinson's IV Corps, saw major action for the first time in 1915 at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March and later in the Battle of Aubers Ridge, two months later, both of which resulted in heavy casualties. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 1915 Birthday Honours.
Towards the end of July Davies was posted away from the fighting in France and Belgium to take over the command of VIII Corps, then heavily engaged in the Gallipoli campaign, from Lieutenant-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston. Davies, promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant-general, took over as its GOC on 8 August from Major-General William Douglas, GOC 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, who in turn was in temporary command of the corps as well as his own division. He brought with him from the fierce fighting on the Western Front valuable combat experience and, it is said, "his contribution to what was a very difficult period (and the greater part) of the campaign has been largely overlooked. He inherited a shattered and demoralised corps, starved of resources and reinforcement. Over the five months of his tenure his ideas and energy were the catalyst for a myriad of tactical and systematic improvements which greatly improved the fighting efficiency of his force, allowing his troops to achieve tactical superiority over the enemy facing them".
In the aftermath of the evacuation of British and Allied forces from Gallipoli in January 1916, Davies was moved on to succeed Lieutenant General The Hon. Sir Julian Byng as GOC of IX Corps, which had also fought at Gallipoli but had now been relocated to the Western Front. Davies was in command only until June when he returned to the United Kingdom to serve as military secretary at the War Office, taking over from Major General Sir Frederick Robb and retaining his temporary lieutenant general's rank. He held this post until after the end of the war, finally relinquishing to Lieutenant General Sir Philip Chetwode in June 1919. His rank of lieutenant general became substantive in January 1917.
