The Great War

by Peter Hart

  In August the Turks, still under the command of von Kressenstein, launched another daring attack on the Suez Canal, intent this time on the more limited objective of blocking or disrupting the Canal to traffic rather than securing a crossing and a revolt in Egypt. It was a bold but ultimately foolish attempt, for the EEF was well dug in, occupying a series of redoubts on the sand dunes and ridges stretching inland from the coastal region. In the event the Turks were hurled back at the Battle of Romani on 4 August 1916 with heavy losses and would never again manage to mount a credible threat to the Suez Canal. Yet this was only the beginning of what was to be two years of hard fighting involving hundreds of thousands of troops. As in Mesopotamia, any well-intentioned thoughts of restraint were overwhelmed by the perceived need for absolute security, driven by the legitimate desire to annihilate the local Turkish forces and sprinkled lightly with the personal ambitions of military commanders who would otherwise have found themselves confined to a backwater. Thus the advance would continue, its first objective being El Arish, a perfectly legitimate target in itself, but at the same time the start of a slippery slope down which would tumble hundreds of thousands of troops that could have been better employed in the battles that would decide the future of the war on the Western Front.

  The advance to El Arish was a difficult logistical undertaking as the wire road, the railway, the supply dumps and water points all had to be painstakingly constructed. They were protected by the Royal Navy on their left flank abutting the sea, but their right flank was theoretically exposed, with miles of open desert. As Murray became more and more immersed in administration he delegated command in the field to Lieutenant General Sir Charles Dobell. In the end the long-awaited capture of El Arish on 22 December was something of an anti-climax as the wily von Kressenstein withdrew his troops before the actual blow fell, thus evading a near inevitable defeat. With El Arish in the hands of the British, their grip on the Suez Canal was finally secure: it offered copious water supplies for a garrison which could thwart any attempt by the Turks to march across the desert by striking at their open northern flank. Also, once the railway line and road had been completed, El Arish offered the ideal base for an assault on the Turkish bases over the Palestinian border. The Sinai Campaign was over; the Palestinian Campaign was about to begin. But something else was stirring in Arabia late in 1916.

  The Arabian Campaign

  The Arab Revolt was a minor distraction taking place alongside the Palestinian sideshow, but it would attract a great deal of attention and prove of considerable significance in the development of alternative methods of fighting a war. The key reason for this was Captain T. E. Lawrence, an academic and archaeologist who had been sequestered into British intelligence in Egypt and then employed as an adviser and liaison officer to the Arab rebel forces operating under the command of Emir Feisal, the son of Sherif Hussein of Mecca. Lawrence was not alone in this mission, but his energy and impact were such that he dominates most accounts of the two-year campaign fought in Arabia. His initial exploratory mission in October 1916 resulted in his building a strong relationship with local Arab leaders and an intuitive understanding of how to maximise the impact of the irregular Arab forces.

  As a mass they are not formidable, since they have no corporate spirit or discipline, or mutual confidence. Man by man they are good: I would suggest that the smaller the unit that is acting, the better will be its performance. A thousand of them in a mob would be ineffective against one fourth their number of trained troops: but three or four of them, in their own alleys and hills, would account for a dozen Turkish soldiers. When they sit still they get nervous, and anxious to return home. Feisal himself goes rather to pieces in the same conditions. When, however, they have plenty to do, and are riding about in small parties tapping the Turks here and there, retiring always when the Turks advance, to appear in another direction immediately after, then they are in their element, and must cause the enemy not only anxiety, but bewilderment.2

  Captain T. E. Lawrence, British Military Mission, Arabia

  Lawrence sought not to attack the Turks where they were strong, avoiding frontal attacks, but instead to seek them out and harass them around the periphery, stretching out their forces and tormenting them with a myriad pinpricks rather than a single decisive blow. As other Arabs saw what the insurgents were capable of achieving, so they began to join the revolt against Turkish rule, creating a bandwagon effect.

  The initial target was the Hedjaz railway which ran from Damascus to the main Turkish Arabian base at Medina. Lawrence used explosives to sabotage the line and bridges, attacking trains and driving the Turks mad with frustration as they sought to grasp this will o’ the wisp. Later he captured the relatively lightly defended port of Aqaba in July 1917. This would subsequently act as a base for the Arab Revolt, funnelling through munitions and supplies from the British. Lawrence was promoted to Major and entrusted with the task of harrassing the relatively unprotected Turkish left flank in the Syrian and Trans-Jordan areas while the British pushed deep into Palestine. Lawrence’s desert campaign would prove to be the stuff of legend, but his achievement was real enough: his 3,000 Arabian irregulars tied down up to 50,000 Turkish troops over the last two years of the war.

  The Palestinian Campaign, 1917–18

  Meanwhile Murray took stock, making administrative and logistical preparations ready for 1917. Although he had lost one division to the pressing demands of the Western Front, he still had four infantry divisions in his Eastern Force under Dobell made up of the 52nd, 53rd, 54th and 74th Divisions (the latter a scratch force made up from three brigades of dismounted yeomanry). He also had Lieutenant General Sir Philip Chetwode in command of the Desert Column consisting of the Australian and New Zealand Mounted Division and the Imperial Mounted Division. This mobile force soon proved its worth in desert conditions with a series of successful raids carried out by Major General Sir Harry Chauvel of the A&NZ Mounted Division which cleared out isolated Turkish positions perched just inside the Egyptian border.

  When the main attack came, the British were confident it would be more of a matter of bringing the Turks to battle and cutting off their retreat than some grim battle. Yet despite all their planning and preparations they were once again rather over-optimistic. The Turks were not yet present in great numbers around the town of Gaza, which commanded the coastal region and hence the gateway to Palestine, but their units had dug in on the hills and ridges above it, their trenches augmented by thick cactus hedges which had considerable stopping power. The Turkish reserves were further inland but could soon be deployed once they grasped where exactly the British were making their thrust.

  The British plan for the First Battle of Gaza on 26 March 1917 was undoubtedly both bold and ambitious: Chetwode’s cavalry would sweep round the town to cut off the garrison which then would face a frontal assault from the 53rd and 54th Divisions. At first everything went swimmingly as the cavalry penetrated right through to the sea to encircle Gaza, while the night approach march of the infantry had gone unobserved. However, inadequate guides, dense fog and poor staff work meant that crippling delays crept in. When at last the 53rd Division attacked the dominant Ali Muntar hill they met with a considerable resistance.

  Our great concern was a certain cactus hedge, from which machine guns might wipe us all out as soon as we got level with it. A small party was sent off to investigate, and all being reported well we got on a few yards further, leaving some behind – hit – at every rush forward. Worn out and heavily laden (besides their packs the men carried extra rations, a second water bottle and extra bandoliers of ammunition) the prospect of having to rush the entrenched and steep slopes was not a pleasant one, but with bayonets fixed and revolvers cocked, off we went with a cheer. The Turks vacated their trenches and ran. The top of the hill was reached and we rounded up many Turks, Those who ran were fired at and some bowled over. On looking round we found ourselves behind Turks who were still firing on other oncoming troops and we got some fin
e firing at their backs, until they withdrew.3

  Second Lieutenant Archibald Lee, 5th Welsh Regiment

  The 53rd Division captured most of their objectives and even managed to establish tentative links with some of the cavalry, but it was fairly late in the day and they had not broken the Turkish opposition. Further attempts to advance were met with heavy fire, while ominous reports were coming in of Turkish reinforcements on the march from the south. The effective use of time is always important in warfare, but in Palestine it was particularly critical because unless they had secured water within a certain time-frame, the troops would have to be withdrawn. First Dobell pulled back his rather too exposed Desert Column cavalry forces, but then confusion caused a total collapse of command and control. In truth, the Turks too were confused: indeed, for a while both sides considered themselves to have lost the battle. But the Turks had the advantage, in that his pressing water situation meant that Dobell did not have the time to ponder his actions: an instant decision was required. So it was that he withdrew the 53rd and 54th Divisions and, on 27 March, the whole of Dobell’s forces fell back, surrendering their hard won gains. It had been a close-run thing, but the upshot was a British defeat.

  Murray, still in overall command, wrote up the battle in a despatch which was optimistic in the extreme, exaggerating three-fold the Turkish casualties. This would condemn Dobell and his men to a swift rematch, when a further period of consolidation might have been a better course of action. Taken in conjunction with reports of Maude’s success in capturing Baghdad on 11 March, Murray’s portrayal of the battle as a mere setback seemed to offer the continued opportunity for a significant success in Palestine. This was seized on by Lloyd George – ever the ‘Easterner’ – and sanction was given for a further advance on Palestine, with the capture of Jerusalem as Murray’s ultimate goal. Murray was promised future reinforcements and a second attempt at Gaza was thus sanctioned. Murray had estimated in the past that he needed five infantry divisions to defend Egypt; but now he was attempting the invasion of Palestine with just four. Blind optimism – just as in Mesopotamia in 1915 – was replacing the sound application of common sense. The Turks were being under-estimated yet again; the British disease of hubris had not yet burned out.

  The Second Battle of Gaza, fought on 19 April 1917, proved a disaster. Dobell, hamstrung by continuing water difficulties, decided not to pursue a flanking attack further south but instead ordered a head-on assault on Gaza. However, the Turks were not going to be caught by surprise again and had spent their time wisely, industriously digging a mutually supporting system of strong redoubts and snaking concealed trenches across the broken ground. This was a tough nut to crack and, in an effort to help, Dobell was sent eight of the Mark I tanks which by this time were deemed obsolescent on the Western Front. Prone to mechanical breakdowns at the best of times and unbearably hot for their crews, the question was whether they would be of any use in harsh desert conditions. Although Dobell’s men outnumbered the Turks by two to one in the Gaza Sector, the strength of the Turkish defences condemned his attack to failure. The tanks achieved little except to act as magnets for Turkish artillery fire. By the time Dobell accepted defeat the British had made negligible gains, failing in all their tactical objectives, and had suffered some 6,444 casualties.

  Repercussions were swift. Dobell was relieved of his command to be replaced by Lieutenant General Sir Philip Chetwode, while Major General Sir Harry Chauvel took over command of the Desert Column. But the biggest change occurred when General Sir Edmund Allenby, the erstwhile commander of the Third Army recently engaged in the Battle of Arras on the Western Front, was despatched to replace Murray in June 1917; another sign that the British were not prepared to let the campaign drift. Murray had contributed much to the campaign through his mastery of its logistical and administrative demands, but Allenby would bring a greater vigour to field operations, albeit building on Murray’s sound foundation. Allenby moved his headquarters forward to the Palestinian border and, after visiting his command, instituted a reorganisation to a more formal corps structure to create the Desert Mounted Corps under Chauvel, the XX Corps under Chetwode and the XX1 Corps under Lieutenant General Edward Bulfin. He was further bolstered by the arrival of increasing numbers of equipment, troops, artillery and aircraft to modernise his force.

  Tactically, Allenby forswore another attack on the Gaza fortress, but instead resolved to assault Beersheba at the southern end of the Turkish lines. Here the defences were considerably less well developed, but Allenby had to counterbalance that advantage with evident problems in coping with a shortage of water during the long flanking march, coupled with the absolute necessity of immediately capturing the wells at Beersheba. There could be no margin for error. The assault force would require hundreds of thousands of gallons of water a day which could not be conjured up out of the arid wastes.

  One interesting aspect of the operations was a cunning plan designed to convince the Turks that the offensive would be launched in November against the Gaza lines. The authorship of the plan and many of the details are mired in controversy, largely owing to the dubious character of one of the leading protagonists, intelligence officer Major Richard Meinertzhagen. Certainly there was a varied deception plan which had many strands woven together to dupe the Turkish commanders as to Allenby’s real intentions. Fake preparations for an attack were embarked upon opposite Gaza, with an elaborate hoax involving a missing haversack filled with personal effects, fake intelligence reports and a set of notes for a British cipher that was no longer used for real messages but which could be used to feed false information to the Turks. This ruse de guerre backed up ‘searches’ for the ‘missing’ haversack in the area where it had been ‘lost’. In the end, one way or another, the Turks seem to have been convinced that the attack would fall on Gaza. When a massed artillery barrage crashed down on to its defences the deception was complete.

  The operations against Beersheba secured an enviable concentration of forces against the vastly outnumbered Turkish garrison. The XX Corps and Desert Mounted Corps both appeared out of the blue to fall upon the under-strength Turkish III Corps after sterling work by the RFC had prevented any aerial reconnaissance that might otherwise have revealed their movements. When the frontal blow fell from XX Corps at dawn on 31 October the Turks were swept aside, only to find that the Desert Mounted Corps had undertaken a flank march to appear behind them. Time was still of the essence; even hours mattered when it came to securing water supplies. In a spectacular incident the 4th Light Horse Brigade charged across an open plain to take Beersheba and prevent the Turks from sabotaging the vital wells. They were watched agog by Trooper Ion Idriess who, with the eye of a budding novelist, caught the drama of the occasion.

  At a mile distant their thousand hooves were stuttering thunder, coming at a rate that frightened a man – they were an awe-inspiring sight, galloping through the red haze – knee to knee and horse to horse – the dying sun glinting on bayonet points. Machine guns and rifle fire just roared but the 4th Brigade galloped on. We heard shouts among the thundering hooves, saw balls of flame among those hooves – horse after horse crashed, but the massed squadrons thundered on. We laughed in delight when the shells began bursting behind them telling that the gunners could not keep their range, then suddenly the men ceased to fall and we knew instinctively that the Turkish infantry, wild with excitement and fear, had forgotten to lower their rifle sights and the bullets were flying overhead. The last half-mile was a berserk gallop with the squadrons in magnificent line, a heart-throbbing sight as they plunged up the slope, the horses leaping the redoubt trenches – my glasses showed me the Turkish bayonets thrusting up for the bellies of the horses – one regiment flung themselves from the saddle – we heard the mad shouts as the men jumped down into the trenches, a following regiment thundered over another redoubt, and to a triumphant roar of voices and hooves was galloping down the half-mile slope right into the town. Then came a whirlwind of movements from all o
ver the field, galloping batteries – dense dust from mounting regiments – a rush as troops poured for the opening in the gathering dark – mad, mad excitement – terrific explosions from down in the town. Beersheba had fallen.4

  Trooper Ion Idriess, 5th Light Horse Regiment,

  The Turkish defence line was compromised and after two days of reorganisation operations were resumed. Again Allenby used deception to confuse the Turks as to his intentions. This time bombardments were augmented by serious seeming night attacks on the Gaza Sector, while the real blow fell on the centre of the Turkish lines at Tel es Sheria at dawn on 6 November. The Turks began to tumble back and Gaza fell the same day. Allenby set the tone for the pursuit in no uncertain terms.

  In pursuit you must always stretch possibilities to the limit. Troops having beaten the enemy will want to rest. They must be given objectives, not those that you think they will reach, but the farthest that they could possibly reach.5

  General Sir Edmund Allenby, Headquarters, EEF

  One of the most interesting aspects of the campaign was the increasing use of the cavalry for their shock value in pell-mell charges culminating in hand-to-hand combat. One such incident occurred on 8 November, when the men of the Warwickshire and Worcestershire Yeomanry charged Turkish troops who were dug in and supported by both machine guns and artillery at Huj.