From Gaza to Jerusalem

by Stuart Hadaway

  So what had gone so badly wrong for the British? Some mistakes were avoidable, and some were not. Among those that were not was the fog in the morning, blamed by many of the senior staff for delays of up to two hours. There is perhaps an element of exaggeration in this, and there is certainly the fact that proper reconnaissance and planning would have negated many of the delays.

  The lack of proper planning and reconnaissance was entirely avoidable, and was probably mostly a symptom of overconfidence. The expectation that the Ottoman forces would not stand was perhaps understandable, but it also led to a fundamentally flawed mindset in the commanders. Once battle was joined, these problems were exacerbated exponentially by serious flaws in the command and communications systems. At almost every level, communications broke down at some point. Criticism has been made that Dobell and Chetwode withdrew the cavalry because they were concerned about the need to water them, unaware that water had been found by most units. Surely, this was because this important information had not been passed up through the brigade and divisional staffs and back to the main headquarters. Another example was the use of artillery. Inadequate numbers of guns were available to begin with, and these were then improperly used. Infantry units had no, or only very slow, ways to call down artillery on specific targets or parts of the Ottoman defences (which had not been properly mapped anyway, due again to reconnaissance failures). And of course, the biggest breakdown of all was the confusion between the 53rd and 54th Divisions on the evening of 26 March.

  A major reason for the breakdowns in communication lays with the staff officers at division and higher levels. First World War staff officers are much-maligned figures in the popular imagination, but they were a crucial cog in the machine. Every piece of information coming into a headquarters, every message, every telegram, every hand-scribbled report, had to be read, comprehended and compared. The progress of units could only be recorded by collating all of these scraps of information and then physically plotting them on a map. Every outgoing message had to be drafted in a standard format and using very specific terminology to avoid any possible confusion, and then despatched to the correct recipient. It was hard work requiring concentration and skill, but all of the higher formations at the 1st Battle of Gaza were short of such officers. Dobell, commanding a force larger than the average army corps on the Western Front, had a much smaller staff than such a force required. At his advanced headquarters he had only three trained staff officers, one or two of whom could be absent at any one time as they directly coordinated with Chetwode or other formations.72 Chetwode, meanwhile, had only the standard staff to control a single division, while attempted to keep track of three divisions spread over a considerable distance. One of those divisions, the 53rd, was apparently so short of staff that Chetwode could not establish any meaningful communications with it for a whole two hours on the morning of 26 March.73 Given these staffing levels, it is perhaps unsurprising that vital messages (including the intelligence intercepts) were left unread, or that messages like those ordering the 54th Division to retire were not properly forwarded to the other relevant headquarters.

  Interestingly, given the number of avoidable mistakes that were made, much debate has focused on one decision that was perfectly justifiable: the withdrawal of the cavalry from the northern parts of Gaza. It was deeply unpopular with the divisions involved, especially the Australians and New Zealanders who, understandably, felt that they had driven in the defenders and were on the brink of victory. However, their position was far from secure. All units were exhausted after a day and a night’s hard riding and fighting, and in need of water and ammunition, both of which would be difficult to bring up to the correct positions in the darkness. The outlying cordon encircling Gaza to the north and east and protecting their rear was stretched dangerously thin, and gaps up to several miles wide were beginning to appear in the piquet line. Should large Ottoman reinforcements arrive in the night – and it was known for certain that the 53rd (OT) Infantry Division was advancing from the north, quite apart from the other large bodies that had been seen – this thin egg-shell of cavalrymen would be unable to do more than offer a token resistance and perhaps delay them a little.

  Inside the city, the situation had even more potential for disaster. At least the outlying regiments and brigades were mounted, and could spur to safety. Inside the city the cavalrymen were up to several miles from their horses. They were also spread through unfamiliar streets and buildings, with no cohesive defensive plan or effective means of communication between units. They had not been trained for urban warfare, and even today, when the British Army puts considerable effort into such training, street fighting is only approached with great caution. In the jumble of alleys and houses it would have been very easy for the existing Gaza garrison to launch limited counter-attacks in the dark, isolating and overwhelming the horsemen in penny-packets. With the Ottoman reinforcements from the north hitting them from that side as well, the two brigades in the city would have stood little chance.

  In the early 1930s a broad review of the various First World War campaigns was held to create what would now be called a ‘lessons learned’ report. The officer who studied the 1st Battle of Gaza identified many problems, from the slow and unreliable communications, to the confused command structure, and the insistence of the senior commanders to repeatedly throw reinforcements into already failed assaults on Ali Muntar (although these did eventually succeed). ‘The [1st] Battle of Gaza’, the author noted, ‘should become a classic example of a Battle won by troops, but lost by Staff.’74

  Notes

  49 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 300; Gullett Vol. VII p. 300

  50 Gullett Vol. VII p. 280

  51 Quoted in Anglesey p. 98

  52 Clunie p. 136

  53 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 300

  54 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 307

  55 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 307

  56 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 308; Gullett Vol. VII p. 284

  57 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 308

  58 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 307

  59 Desert Column Report

  60 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 309

  61 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 311

  62 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 310

  63 Sheffy British Military Intelligence p. 231

  64 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 310

  65 Dudley Ward 53rd Division p. 94; 53rd Division Report

  66 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 311

  67 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 pp. 312–13; Dudley 53rd Division p. 95

  68 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 313

  69 Dudley Ward 53rd Division p. 95

  70 53rd Division Report

  71 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 pp. 315 & 321

  72 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 289

  73 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 294

  74 TNA WO32/3116 Report of the Committee of the Lessons of the Great War, App. IV p. 64

  4

  SECOND BATTLE OF GAZA

  IT IS HARD to see how anyone could represent the 1st Battle of Gaza as a British victory, but somehow General Murray contrived to do so. In his initial brief telegram to London, he announced that he had driven the railway another 24km (15 miles) towards the Wadi Ghazze before becoming ‘heavily engaged’ with a force of some 20,000 Ottoman troops. No mention of a deliberate attack was made, and indeed it could easily have been assumed that it was the Ottomans who attacked the British line.75 This was certainly how Sir William Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), interpreted it, when he reported the ‘victory’ to the Imperial War Cabinet on 29 March 1917. Great losses were reported to have been inflicted on the enemy, quite apart from a large number of prisoners taken (which admittedly was true), and the CIGS went so far as to say that no pursuit of the defeated enemy was possible due to water shortages.76

  The War Cabinet, and in particular Prime Minister David Lloyd George, were not content to let it rest at that. After all, unlike Robertson and many of the other senior military com
manders, Lloyd George was an ‘Easterner’. He was encouraged in this belief by the new government in Russia, which had come to power in a revolution in early March, and who promised to press the Ottomans more vigorously on the Caucasian and Persian front. Closer to Palestine, a few weeks earlier the British forces in Mesopotamia under General Sir Frederick Maude had captured Baghdad. This was a severe blow to the Ottomans; while their empire was large, their population (and thus army) was relatively small and already struggling to fight in Mesopotamia, Arabia, southern Palestine, the Balkans and the Caucasus. The perpetual hope, from the advent of the Gallipoli campaign in April 1915 until the last weeks of the war, was that just one more push would cause the ‘sick man of Europe’ to collapse entirely. Equally, the fall of Baghdad was a clear victory to trumpet to a British public who were facing a third long year of bloody stalemate in France and a growing spectre of starvation as the German submarine blockade tightened its grip. Lloyd George now scented another opportunity. On 31 March the CIGS wired Murray for more details, which arrived the next day and were presented to the Cabinet on the day after that.77 In this fuller account Murray at least admitted that he had initiated the battle, although he rearranged his objectives for public consumption. Taking the Wadi Ghazze was now held up as the primary objective, followed by bringing the Ottomans to action, and only thirdly seizing Gaza if possible. The account of the battle continued to be sanitised, with no reference to how close they had been to taking Gaza, or of the debacle surrounding the withdrawal of the 53rd (Welsh) Division. On hearing of this apparently successful but deliberately limited action, the War Cabinet ordered another attempt on Gaza to be made. This time, the objective was not just to take the city if possible, but to rout the Ottomans all the way back to Jerusalem, the capture of which would have a very inspiring effect in Christendom.

  General Murray was now neatly hung by his own petard. Opposite him, the Ottomans had already begun to improve their positions, not only reinforcing the defences to the south of Gaza, but also beginning a line of redoubts and strongpoints out to the east, strung out for about 19km (12 miles) along the Gaza–Beersheba road. Turning the flank of these would be practically impossible, given the lack of developed water sources in that direction. The Ottomans’ skill at creating formidable fieldworks was well known, and it was clear that not only would any future battle have to be fought in a direct, head-on manner without the support of flanking movements, but it would also be against a well-dug-in and prepared enemy. The sweeping attacks of the first battle would have to be replaced with dogged, Western Front-style assaults, for which the army was ill-prepared. Such an attack required substantial artillery support, but the EF had been short of guns even for the more limited action seen during the first battle. Due to these shortages the 74th (Yeomanry) Division would still not be able to take a proper role in the battle, while at least one of the three infantry divisions that Murray could use, the 53rd, was now seriously under-strength. At least his cavalry had been reinforced; A&NZ Mounted Division regained the 1st ALH Brigade and the 4th ALH Brigade returned to the Imperial Mounted Division. In all, Dobell had around 35,000 men with whom to mount his attack.

  The artillery shortage was partially solved. The steady improvement in the supply situation as the railway and water pipeline were developed meant that the Royal Garrison Artillery’s complement of 60-pounders could be doubled to twelve guns, while the addition of the 201st Siege Battery added two 8in and two 6in howitzers. The artillery detachments of the infantry divisions were also brought further up to strength; each now had all three of their designated brigades of artillery, but each of the brigades’ three batteries still only had four of their six guns.78 Additional firepower was arranged with the French Navy, into whose area of responsibility the coast of Palestine fell. The French supplied the coastal defence ship Requin, and allowed the British monitors M21 and M31 to take part in bombarding the Gaza defences, as well as arranging for a suitable flotilla of escorts.79

  Other attempts were also made to prepare the army for a Western Front-style battle, although as with the artillery, almost all of the efforts fell short. As well as his persistent (and consistently ignored) assertion that advancing into Palestine would require five fully equipped infantry divisions, on 4 April 1917, Murray had listed his demands for equipment and specialist troops in a telegram to the War Office. He requested more heavy artillery, more signallers, more engineers, and more (and more modern) aeroplanes. Although he stated that he was ‘anxious not to hurry’ over the preparations for the next assault on Gaza, it was clear that the pressure was on. The Cabinet clearly expected early results, while Murray himself wanted to act before the Ottomans could move up too many reinforcements or prepare too many defences. At the same time, the impending approach of summer must also have been a factor. Murray was working desperately to develop wells and cisterns and stockpile water in the rear areas and in the Wadi Ghazze itself.80 The onset of summer would only decrease the natural supply while increasing the demand.

  Everything in the lead up to the 2nd Battle of Gaza was done in too much of a rush. Murray had ordered Dobell to come up with a plan, which he did on 3 April. A few changes were made over the following week, but the final orders for the operation were issued on 12 April, with an intended start date of 17 April.81 In that time, all of the deficiencies of the first battle still had to be solved, and the army refocused from open, mobile warfare towards siege operations and trench warfare. It also meant that even if the equipment and men that Murray had requested had just happened to be on hand in the UK (which was unlikely, with the army in France gearing up for their own major offensive at Arras) and was immediately loaded onto ships, it would not have reached the front in time to play any part in the battle.

  Some of the modifications were logical enough, and indeed long overdue. On 9 April 1917 General Instructions were issued to the artillery that included orders to mark their maps up in a grid system, as had been used in France since the early days of the war.82 This reflected the need for pin-point accuracy in directing not only artillery, but the movement of troops. Old directions such as those given by Chetwode to Dawnay in a letter in February that the position in question was ‘near the “M” of Magruntein’ were simply not good enough.83 Other efforts to improve artillery cooperation were less logical, and included instructions that each infantry company should carry two canvas screens, measuring 0.9m by 0.6m (3ft by 2ft), painted in their divisional colours. These should be planted behind the leading troops to indicate their position to friendly artillery.84 The obvious drawback in this scheme – that what the British artillery could see, so could the Ottomans – must have been pointed out by someone (or perhaps many people) closer to the firing line, as two days later a second order was issued requiring the screens to be cut in half and used as flags instead, and stating that they ‘will in no case be planted in the ground’.85

  Great efforts were also made to improve cooperation with artillery and commanders through the use of aircraft. During the first battle, No. 14 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps (AFC) had only been able to provide twenty-one serviceable aircraft: twelve aged BE2s and nine slightly more modern Martinsyde Elephants. Five of these aircraft were designated for general reconnaissance work under the direction of HQ EF, six for artillery cooperation, and six for general patrol work, with the rest in reserve. They had been spread too thinly, with too many gaps between patrols, and although some valuable reconnaissance work had been done, the artillery and patrol work was far from a success. Their opponents across the lines, Flieger Abteilung (FA) 300, had far fewer aircraft but of much newer and better designs. Fresh two-seater Rumpler C.1s (not Halberstadts, as often quoted) had just arrived to reinforce those already at the front, while the Germans also had two or three designated fighters – Fokker E.IIs or Pfalz E.IIs. These were outdated 1915-vintage monoplanes, while the Rumplers were technically reconnaissance aircraft, but all were fast and had forward-firing guns. They
easily outclassed the British machines, shooting one down and damaging two more.86

  After the first battle, more British aircraft were brought forward, and in the intervening weeks they were busy photographing the front to aid in the production of accurate maps, and in an exchange of bombing raids with the Germans on each others airfields. Appeals were made to London for even a small number of the most modern types of fighters to be sent out to help secure air superiority.87 Such requests came at a bad time, as the RFC in France was preparing for the Battle of Arras. Here too they had been falling behind in the technological race, and all of the newest machines were needed to simply keep pace with the Germans. Through the first quarter of the year, the RFC’s losses doubled each month, culminating in what would become known as ‘Bloody April’, when over 250 aircraft (and over 400 aircrew) would be lost.88 In Palestine, the best that could be done was to bring up more flights, until they were able to supply seventeen BE2s and eight Martinsydes by 17 April, and twenty BE2s, nine Martinsydes and two Bristol Scouts by 20 April.89

  The only new weapons that Murray would be able to bring into play were two that were already present in the country, and were ones that in many ways epitomise Western Front battles: tanks, and poison gas. The latter was a particularly cold-blooded decision, and Murray dithered over the issue for a considerable period. Although he had requested 12,000 poison gas shells (and an equal number of ‘tear gas’ shells) in January 1917, this was at least partly so as to have a stock on hand for retaliation in case the Ottomans used gas.90 Now, to use poison gas against troops known not to have any protective equipment was a hard decision to make.