He became General Officer Commanding British Troops in Egypt in 1908, and was deployed on the Western Front at the start of the First World War. Returning to his Egyptian Command in late 1914, he successfully held the Suez Canal against the Ottoman Raid on the Suez Canal. In September 1915 General Godley at Gallipoli complained that too few of the recovered sick or wounded casualties from Gallipoli were being returned from Egypt, and Maxwell commented to Godley that "the appetite of the Dardanelles for men has been phenomenal and wicked".