From Gaza to Jerusalem

by Stuart Hadaway

  On 28 June 1917 Sir Archibald Murray handed over command, and returned to the UK. He would not see active service again, spending the rest of the war as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Aldershot Command, and retiring in 1922. His service in Egypt and Palestine had certainly been mixed. Building on foundations laid by his own predecessor, Sir John Maxwell, he had fought a competent if unimaginative campaign to secure the Sinai Desert, taking a slow and careful approach that was more than warranted by the extreme conditions in which his army found itself. During this campaign, and into the early summer of 1917, he has also laid his own solid foundations for the supply and operation of the army in southern Palestine, a fact that Allenby would freely acknowledge. However, his performance before Gaza had been greatly lacking, and it is hard to envisage any new offensive under Murray being more than a similarly limited and pedestrian affair. Perhaps most importantly, he had also lost the confidence of the government.

  Notes

  * The troops had advanced with full magazines, but no round in their rifles’ chambers, so that no accidental shots could alert the Ottomans.

  * They had been intended for use in the trenches, but in the event they proved too congested for the Royal Engineers to work.

  202 Hatton p. 141

  203 MacMunn and Falls Vol. 1 p. 361

  204 Bostock pp. 80–1

  205 Sheffy ‘Origins of the British breakthrough’

  206 Chetwode IWM 10414

  207 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 p. 363

  208 Robertson pp. 98–103

  209 Sheffy ‘Origins of the British breakthrough’

  210 Nogales Four Years pp. 291–2

  211 Dawnay IWM 10403 ‘Battle of Philistia’ file

  212 Thompson p. 340

  213 Thompson p. 337

  214 Gillon pp. 267–8; Thompson pp. 342–5; Scott Elliot pp. 148–152; Divisional, Brigade, battalion, battery and MG company reports in TNA WO95/4608, WO95/4607, and WO95/4597

  215 Minshall IWM 2792 25 April 1917

  216 Mackie p. 293

  217 Godrich p. 108

  218 Godrich p. 108

  219 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 pp. 355–8

  220 TNA WO95/4368, EEF War Diary September 1917

  221 Quoted in Lloyd p. 194

  222 MacMunn & Falls Vol. 1 pp. 358–62

  223 TNA WO106/716 Lynden-Bell to Maurice 26 May 1917

  9

  ALLENBY

  IT WAS CLEAR after the 1st Battle of Gaza that Sir Archibald Murray had lost the Prime Minister’s confidence. David Lloyd George felt strongly that the campaign in Palestine needed to pushed forward vigorously, for the effect success would have on morale quite apart from any strategic purposes. He felt that the ‘liberation’ of the holy sites of Christianity, and in particular Jerusalem, from the Ottomans would serve as a tonic across all of the allied nations. At his direction, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir William Robertson, would remind Murray on 2 April 1917 that:

  Everyone now feels the strain of war, and the strain is increasing; therefore the moral effect of success is of great importance … Success in Palestine will have inspiriting effects in Christendom.224

  On 5 and 6 April 1917, two special meetings were held by the Prime Minister with the Secretary for War, the Foreign Secretary, and several other prominent MPs and members of the Privy Council, as well as the CIGS. In these, it became clear that Lloyd George thought that Murray lacked an aggressive spirit and wanted him replaced, but other ministers argued against this, pointing out that he had been very successful in Egypt and that the War Office and Cabinet must bear some of the blame for any failures as they had not provided all of the support Murray had requested. The CIGS was less supportive, but voiced concern at replacing a commander on the brink of a battle. Lord French, the former commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France, for whom Murray had been Chief of Staff, was consulted, but although his opinion backed up that of the Prime Minister, it was clear that there was not enough support to move to replace Murray. The best that Lloyd George could achieve was suggesting that the CIGS begin looking for possible replacements, suggesting Lieutenant General Sir William Birdwood (commander of the I ANZAC Corps in France) or someone like Major General Sir William Bridges (the Australian commander of the 1st Australian Division, who had been killed by a sniper at Gallipoli). Both of these officers were (or had been) aggressive, and had a command style that included regular visits to the front line and popularity with their men, in contrast to Murray’s aloof style.225

  After Murray’s second failure to take Gaza, Lloyd George found himself in a much stronger position. In the same meeting of the War Cabinet that Murray’s failure was announced, the Prime Minister again raised the subject, and suggested Lieutenant General Jan Smuts. A South African who had fought very successfully against the British in the Boer War of 1899–1902, Smuts had recently arrived in London after commanding the campaign in German East Africa. With his experience in open warfare he was thought to be the ideal candidate, although, when asked, Smuts felt differently. Protracted discussions followed.226 After taking two weeks to think it through, Smuts replied that he was concerned that the campaign would not receive enough resources to ensure success, especially if the trouble in Russia, where the government had recently been toppled by revolution, continued. Lloyd George countered that, should the situation in Russia worsen, even to the point of them withdrawing from the war effort, it would only make the importance of Palestine greater. He had no hopes of anything being achieved in France in 1917, and proposed making Palestine the leading subsidiary campaign.227 Even with this reassurance, Smuts finally rejected the idea. This was reported to the War Cabinet on 5 June, and with it came the instruction to inform General Sir Edmund Allenby that the job was his.228

  For Allenby, this came as none-too-welcome news. Allenby was an experienced cavalry officer; commissioned in 1882, he had served as a junior officer in campaigns in Bechuanaland (1884–5) and Zululand (1888) before passing the Staff College exams in 1896–7, a rare accomplishment for a cavalry officer at that time. After graduating, Allenby served briefly as a staff officer in Ireland before being sent to South Africa for the 2nd Boer War (1899–1902). During the war he established a solid reputation for his grasp of open, mobile warfare against the small Boer guerrilla bands that plagued the more ponderous British Army. During these three years he fought many successful small actions, and rose from the rank of major to brevet colonel, commanding a mixed column of cavalry, infantry and artillery. He returned to England after the war, and in 1905 was promoted to brigadier general, commanding the 4th Cavalry Brigade. Four years later he was again promoted, to major general, and was soon after appointed the Inspector General of Cavalry, responsible for overseeing cavalry training and standards across the army. During this period he began to build a no-nonsense reputation, with a forthright, even harsh, manner and a fearsome temper when displeased, earning him the nickname of ‘The Bull’.

  On the outbreak of the First World War, Allenby had been appointed to command the Cavalry Division of the BEF in France. The Cavalry Division was not a peacetime formation; it consisted of four brigades of cavalry (plus supporting Royal Horse Artillery) who had seldom worked in unison, and a staff who were thrown straight into their work with no time for training or familiarisation, deploying to the continent within weeks of the division’s formation. Despite these handicaps, Allenby’s command performed well in the opening campaign in Belgium and northern France, even if problems in communications meant that Allenby himself lost contact with large parts of his division for extended periods. By the end of the year Allenby was commanding the Cavalry Corps, of two divisions, and in May 1915 he took over V Corps, then engaged in the 2nd Battle of Ypres. In October he rose again, to command the newly formed Third Army.

  Allenby was still in command of the Third Army in early 1917, when it was decided to launch a series of attacks on the Germans on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. This grand
scheme would have hopefully seen the Germans drastically overstretched, and subsequently overwhelmed, but it began to fall apart in February when the Russians announced that they would be incapable of taking part. In March, the Germans themselves added to the problems by staging an orderly withdrawal from a large stretch of the front opposite both the British and French armies, to the heavily fortified Hindenburg Line. This threw Anglo-French planning into turmoil, but the French were determined to push ahead anyway. Civil and military discontent within France was reaching dangerous levels, and a victory was sorely needed. The French Chief of the General Staff, Robert Nivelle, convinced the British to proceed, and on 9 April the 2nd Battle of Arras was launched in heavy snow in the British sectors, aimed at drawing off German reserves before the main French attack a week later. Allenby’s forces were positioned in the centre of the British line, just east of Arras itself.

  The initial attack by the Third Army was a remarkable success, penetrating 6.5km (4 miles) into the German lines, although problems in moving the reserves forward prevented any chance at a clear breakthrough. Further north, the Canadian Corps in First Army managed to take and hold the dominating feature of Vimy Ridge, although to the south the Fifth Army met with less success. Over the next month a series of further attacks were made, but none were as successful as the earliest phase, and casualties began to mount rapidly. On 16 May the offensive was halted. The French, meanwhile, had launched the Nivelle Offensive on 16 April. This also met with some initial successes, but by 25 April major operations were halted as French casualties in nine days exceeded those suffered by the British in five weeks. By the end of May a widespread mutiny had broken out in the French lines, with tens of thousands of soldiers refusing to take orders. This was part of the background against which Lloyd George was so desperate for victory, and it also brought to a head several problems between Allenby and the British commander in France, Sir Douglas Haig. The two, who had known each other since Staff College, did not work well together. The appointment to Palestine was an ideal opportunity for Haig to replace Allenby.

  However, Allenby initially viewed his recall to London and the offer of the position of General Officer Command (GOC) EEF as a demotion. He was, after all, being taken away from the main fight against the principal enemy, and shunted off to a sideshow on the other side of Europe. Only after a long discussion with Lloyd George in person did he begin to come around, and by the time he left England to take up his new command he was fully enthused about the idea. To convince him, Lloyd George had used (apart from his natural and considerable charm) the same arguments with which he had attempted to woo Smuts. There was no hope of any decisive blow being made in France for the foreseeable future; the French Army was in disarray, and the British would be able to do little more than hold the line on their own. The Russians were fading fast from the war effort, and could possibly even collapse altogether. In April the United States of America had at last joined the fight against Germany, but it was unlikely that they would be able to put troops onto the Western Front in any significant numbers until the following year, or possibly even 1919, while much of their heavy equipment, artillery and aeroplanes would have to be provided by the British and French. Meanwhile, they would have to move all of their troops and supplies across the Atlantic, at a time when the German submarine threat was reaching almost disastrous levels, with British shipping taking unsustainable losses.

  In Mesopotamia, the British forces had taken Baghdad in March 1917, a serious blow to Ottoman morale, but there the campaign had halted as the forces involved regrouped. Even should that front begin moving again, there was little of real value to be gained by further advances. The campaign in Salonika, in Macedonia, had seen British successes so far that year, but the government was inclined to reduce the forces in that theatre, to decrease the amount of shipping needed to supply the troops and enable that tonnage to make up losses elsewhere. Therefore, Palestine would be the primary theatre for 1917 at least, and possibly into 1918. Lloyd George promised him opportunity and resources to achieve his ends, and perhaps most tempting of all, the chance of truly independent command. Allenby would be running the show, able to experiment and innovate without senior commanders changing his plans or opposing his ideas. The temptation was too much to resist.

  It was at this meeting that, according to Lloyd George’s own diary, he instructed Allenby to deliver Jerusalem to the British (and other allied) peoples as a Christmas present. Lloyd George’s fixation on Jerusalem had been evident in his instructions to Murray, and it was certainly an accurate sentiment. The British public were facing shortened rations, increased air raids, and continuing lack of success in France. While the state of the French Army was kept a closely guarded secret, even without that news the outlook was grim. Any victory by the end of the year would be a welcome fillip to morale and sprits at home, although the symbolism of retaking the Holy Lands would doubtless add to the effects.

  Allenby arrived in Egypt on 27 June, 1917. He immediately began to stamp his own approach and personality on the army. He certainly made an impressive sight. Lieutenant Charles Armstrong of the Warwickshire Yeomanry would describe him the following year:

  ‘The Bull’ was at that time in his 57th year, but with his cap on, looked many years younger. A magnificent figure of a heavy man, he had the complexion of a girl, fine featured, with expression stern almost to grimness, eyes that seemed to look through you and sum you up at a glance, very smartly turned out, even in this terrific heat and dust.229

  His crusade to reinvigorate the army started right away at his own headquarters in Cairo. Lieutenant Colonel Gerald Badcock recalled his whirlwind arrival:

  He arrived in Cairo on Wednesday, June 27, and in less than forty-eight hours he had made the acquaintance of every officer in every branch at GHQ. He came round our Directorate, for instance, accompanied by General Campbell (our DQMG). He went to each person’s office, shook hands with you, and had a few minutes’ chat about your work and so on. I cannot adequately describe the far-reaching effect this simple act had on all such small fry like myself; you felt instinctively that there was nothing you would not try your best to do, and from the date of his arrival as our Commander-in-Chief a totally different atmosphere permeated our whole existence. He went everywhere, saw everything, and possessed moreover that faculty – as wonderful as it is rare – of always remembering everyone he had ever met.230

  This first-hand knowledge of his staff led directly to a shake-up of the headquarters. Some officers were sent home, others reassigned to units closer to the front. One of those sent home (in September) was Major General Arthur Lynden-Bell, Murray’s Chief of Staff, with whom Allenby shared a number of significant differences of view-point. He was returned to England for reasons of ill health, and Major General Louis Bols, who had been Allenby’s Chief of Staff in France, was brought out to replace him.

  One front-line officer, from the Imperial Camel Corps, recorded with approval:

  Allenby’s arrival in Egypt was a breath of fresh air, which was soon to take on the dimensions of a gale … I paid a visit to Shepheard’s [Hotel, in Cairo] a few months before Allenby’s arrival and again a short time afterwards, and the difference was truly amazing. I have never seen or thought it possible to see such an array of brass gathered together as I found in the bars and dining rooms on the first occasion, nor so few as on my second visit. The removal of all this dead wood made a tremendous impression on the army’s morale …231

  Allenby did not confine his energy to the headquarters. Within weeks he was touring the front lines, visiting units and talking to (and more importantly listening to) officers at all levels. The same camelier, Geoffrey Inchbald, had his unit inspected by the new commander soon afterwards:

  After the inspection Allenby insisted on speaking personally to each of the officers and we all dismounted and went up to him in turn. He leant down, shook us by the hand, said a few words of encouragement and departed, as he had come, in a cloud of dust follo
wed by his staff.232

  Although not directly addressed on such a personal level, these visits were also appreciated by the rank and file. Corporal Victor Godrich of the QOWH records that his outpost in one of the front-most areas of the army received a visit on 7 July:

  The very fact of the GOC having a look at the front line was unheard of up till then … Sir Archibald Murray was a figurehead to us, no more in the front line than Kitchener, but Allenby was a real live GOC moving about among us … He earned our gratitude by ordering all the beer in Egypt up to the men in the front line when he discovered we could not get it. Only small matters when viewed from an armchair in England, but big things to us in those dry, dusty days in Palestine.233

  The availability of beer, and better rations, figures in many memoirs, and was symptomatic of Allenby’s willingness to listen to all and any complaints, act on the most important, and to get to know his troops as bodies of men rather than markers on the map. Gunner Anthony Bluett:

  Shortly after his arrival there was a notable increase in the quantity and quality of our rations, and beer in barrels – yea, barrels – came up the line for the troops.