The British EEF therefore had the ‘means’ to break through at Gaza and drive the Ottomans out of the Near East. The force had been expanded to ten infantry divisions and four mounted divisions, and possessed 116 heavy guns. The EEF was supported by new aircraft, particularly the Bristol Fighter plane, which gave a technological advantage over the Central Powers’ air forces on their front. With numerical superiority, the British and Indian troops were grouped into three corps. The XXI Corps of three infantry divisions, facing Gaza and its south-eastern approaches, was commanded by Lieutenant General Edward Bulfin. Opposite Beersheba, Lieutenant General Chetwode commanded the XX Corps, with three infantry divisions with an attached Yeomanry division, while Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel’s Desert Mounted Corps, on the right flank of the EEF, faced Beersheba’s south-eastern approaches.
What the EEF needed was the ‘ways’. The arrival of the new commander, General Edmund Allenby, seemed to herald the end of the stalemate that had prevailed for months. The appointment of a new commander, the soldiers believed, increased the likelihood of an advance into the more temperate landscape of Palestine out of the exhausting desert conditions of southern Palestine. Allenby’s confidence, his physical presence, his experience from the Western Front, his willingness to talk to soldiers, and his intolerance of oversights amongst his officers had a positive and energizing effect across the army.26
The Middle East and Palestine, 1918
The strategic situation was becoming more urgent by the day. There was growing concern that, with the situation in Russia deteriorating, more Ottoman troops might be released from the Caucasus front and deployed against the EEF. According to Lloyd George, Allenby was expected to defeat and then pursue the enemy to the limit of his resources. Robertson was more cautious. He wrote to Allenby that ‘it will be a good thing to give the Turk in front of you a sound beating, but that the extent to which we shall be justified in following him by an advance into Northern and Central Palestine is a matter which for the moment must be left open’.27 Referring to the Clausewitzian problem of a culminating point, he added: ‘The further we go north the more Turks we shall meet; and the greater will be the strain upon our resources.’ He added a ‘PS’, in which he pointed out it was not so much going forward that he opposed, but how to ‘maintain ourselves after going forward and to a useful purpose’.
Allenby therefore devised a plan with his corps commanders to unhinge the Ottoman defences. The Third Battle of Gaza (31 October–8 November 1917) opened with a sustained artillery bombardment on the defences of the town lying on the extreme left, and was then extended by Chetwode’s XX Corps against Beersheba on the extreme right flank. Along the line in the centre, the infantry of the 60th and 74th divisions approached methodically from the south-west, the troops following just 30 yards behind a curtain of explosions, suffering some casualties from Ottoman retaliatory fire. Significant features such as Hill 1070 were captured, but progress was slow because of the resistance shown by Ottoman units.28 It was not until the evening that all their objectives were secured.
Then, in an unexpected manoeuvre, the Desert Mounted Corps used the cover of darkness overnight on 30–31 October to ride around to the east of Beersheba. As planned, the XX Corps’ attack from the south-west and west had compelled the Ottoman III Corps commander, Colonel Ismet Bey, to push his reserves against Chetwode’s infantry. As a result, Chauvel’s Desert Mounted Corps outnumbered the Ottomans on the extreme right. The Australian 7th and 5th Light Horse regiments drove back the 3rd Ottoman Cavalry Division north of Beersheba, while the 6th Light Horse acted as a reserve in support of the New Zealanders’ attack on the hill at Tel es Sabe. An Ottoman battalion was dug in on this high ground, and their commanding position gave them wide fields of fire across Beersheba’s eastern approaches. It took the New Zealand Mounted Rifles brigade most of the day to assault and capture this tactically vital position.29
Clearing this feature made it possible for the Australian 4th and 12th Light Horse regiments that evening to charge through the twilight, 800 strong, towards the town. Under machine-gun and small-arms fire, the leading squadrons dismounted when they reached the Ottoman trenches and engaged in a close-quarter battle, mostly with bayonets.30 The squadrons behind them continued to fight their way into the town on horseback. The result was the capture of Beersheba and a haul of Ottoman prisoners. The Ottomans’ attention was fixed on their extreme flank, but before reserves could be committed, they had to consider that Beersheba was a feint as the British attacks were now developing near the coast.
The attack on Gaza itself began on 1 November with Bulfin’s XXI Corps artillery hammering the Ottoman defences, before mounting an infantry assault with the advancing troops keeping just behind the belt of exploding shells. Attacks were made on the advanced strongpoints, and raids made against others, but what the Ottomans did not realize was that the full weight of the offensive had not yet come.31 This was understandable since Bulfin’s artillery barrage was the largest outside Europe to date in the war, with 15,000 rounds smashing into the ground around the settlement before the infantry reached the position. Despite the staggering volume of fire, the Ottoman garrison defended their blasted and collapsing trenches with courage and determination.32 Believing that the British would press home the attack, more Ottoman units were rushed into these defences, while the line beyond Hebron was stripped of available manpower. Allenby had also succeeded in weakening his enemy’s positions in the centre, at the ‘hinge’ of Hareira and Tel el Sheria, two settlements at the heart of the Ottoman defences. On 6 November, the main attack went in against this section, and the Ottoman line was cut.33 A gap seven miles wide was opened up, through which his reserves now advanced, and kept moving, right into the Judean Hills.
After Third Gaza there was continuing debate between Robertson and Lloyd George over the ends and means of the Palestine operations, and how the campaign fitted into the overall strategy of the war. Impatient with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, the Prime Minister forced Robertson out in February 1918. In December 1917, Robertson had stated, ‘it is for serious consideration whether the advantages to be gained by an advance [in Palestine] are worth the cost and risk involved’. He added, ‘The answer depends to some extent upon whether the conquest of Palestine would put Turkey out of the war.’34
Nevertheless, on 9 December 1917, it was Allenby’s entry into Jerusalem that mattered to the Prime Minister. It was strategically important, not least for Britain’s prestige and its bargaining position in the post-war world. Lloyd George told the House of Commons: ‘The capture of Jerusalem has made a most profound impression throughout the whole civilised world … the name of every hamlet and hill occupied by the British Army … thrills with sacred memories.’35 Allenby, conscious of the sensitivities in the city and globally, chose to walk in on foot in simple khaki service dress. After a brief ceremony lasting 15 minutes, he returned to the soldiers’ business of finishing the Ottomans in the Near East.
Allenby had been instructed to resume his offensive in February 1918 but he could not progress north into Syria until he had neutralized the 20,000 Ottoman troops on his eastern flank in Amman. His first manoeuvre, to take Jericho, was successful, with the town falling to Allied troops on 21 February. Next, Allenby seized the hills above Wadi Auja, which put Jericho and its line of communications beyond the reach of Ottoman artillery. In March, an attempt to raid towards Amman met with defeat, largely because of the weather and topography. Heavy rains made all movement arduous and prevented the deployment of field artillery. A second attempt was then delayed because divisions were being withdrawn for service in France to face the massive German offensive of the spring.
The second raid, when it came in May, also met with failure. General Liman von Sanders, now the commander of the Yıldırım Group of Ottoman reserves, had called in his more-exposed posts in order to concentrate his forces around the city. He knew that Amman represented the last rail link with the garrison in Medina,
and therefore was a vital junction for the entire campaign theatre.36 He called for further reinforcements from the north and dispatched Ottoman cavalry to threaten the British lines of communication astride the Jordan River. Meanwhile, Allenby’s force was struggling with the rain and mud, and a decision was made to transfer as much arms, equipment, and baggage as possible to camels and mules because of the difficulty in moving wheeled transport. Such were the conditions that men and animals died of exposure on the wind-swept slopes of the valley. Consequently, the British force that arrived in front of the Ottoman positions was exhausted before the fighting had even begun.37 The EEF’s brigade, with the ammunition and guns they could carry, launched four days of assaults against strong positions. Some 2,000 defenders were dug in, armed with 70 machine guns and supported by field artillery which had been zeroed in on prearranged targets and beaten zones. Further Ottoman reinforcements arrived during the fighting. Yet Liman von Sanders was so concerned about the mounting casualties and wavering resolve of the defenders that he ordered their positions to be held regardless of the cost. The British and Imperial forces could not, however, continue the attacks indefinitely. On 30 March 1918, they commenced their withdrawal, accompanied by large numbers of refugees from Es Salt who feared Ottoman retribution.38
Nevertheless, Allenby’s aborted attack convinced the German and Ottoman commanders that more reinforcements must be sent to this city that commanded the British right flank. If the British could not secure Amman, it was reasoned, they would not be able to press on into Syria.
In fact, Allenby went to great lengths to conceal the direction of his intended offensive. Some 15,000 wooden and canvas horses were built and dummy camps erected to persuade intrusive reconnaissance pilots that the EEF intended to attack from the Jordan valley towards Amman. Units were moved at night, and camouflaged by day. Air patrols did their best to deny access over Allenby’s formations. Bridges were built across the Jordan to give the impression of an impending thrust against the city, and false wireless traffic was generated to support the idea of intense preparations.
The Arab Northern Army played their part in creating the deception. With the bulk of the Arab force laying siege to Ma’an, a detached contingent advanced to within 50 miles of Amman. On 16 September, covered by aircraft of the Royal Air Force, Colonel T. E. Lawrence’s Arab irregulars conducted a series of guerrilla actions on the railway line either side of the junction of Daraa. Lawrence reported that he ‘burnt a lot of rolling stock and two lorries, broke the points, and planted a fair assortment of “tulip [mine]s” down the line’.39 Despite considerable harassment from German and Ottoman aircraft, and the resistance of the local garrisons, the Arabs repeatedly cut the line and succeeded in generating a rout in some of the Ottoman Fourth Army troops. Some of the Ottoman troops exacted a terrible retribution against the civilian population of the village of Turaa. This inspired more local Arab tribes to join the revolt and drew in Ottoman reinforcements to defend the area. The Arab Northern Army caught the Ottoman forces trying to evacuate Daraa and exacted revenge by taking no prisoners.40 This overwhelming Arab victory was possible because Allenby had unleashed his long-awaited final offensive, not against Amman as the Ottomans had anticipated, but right along the line, 50 miles wide, between Jericho and the sea.
The battle of Megiddo, which opened at 0400hrs on 19 September 1918 with a tremendous artillery barrage, was fought between the three corps of the EEF and the remnants of the Ottoman Fourth (near Amman) and the Seventh and Eighth armies of Yıldırım. Allenby had deployed 35,000 infantry, 9,000 cavalry, and 400 heavy guns, the bulk of which were concentrated on a 15-mile front close to the Mediterranean coast, north of Jaffa. The shelling was the most intense delivered outside a European theatre, with 1,000 rounds a minute detonating on the Ottoman positions in this sector.
The engagement developed as Allenby had planned. The infantry assault of the XXI Corps carried the first two Ottoman lines and overcame the resistance of the third and fourth lines soon after. In just two and a half hours, they had penetrated 7,000 yards into the Ottoman positions, and broken open a wide gap in their defences. Chauvel’s cavalry exploited the gap perfectly, chasing the routed Ottoman troops up to Tulkarm, which was captured. The cavalry pressed on with aircraft above them, seizing depots, rounding up prisoners, and destroying the telephone communications’ nodes on which the Yıldırım depended to allocate its reserves. Megiddo, the Biblical site alleged to mark the end of times, was reached soon after, more than 30 miles beyond the front line. The speed of the advance seemed to exceed all expectations: the British 4th Cavalry Division covered 70 miles on 20 September, while the Australian Mounted Division in one bound advanced 11 miles in just 60 minutes. The Ottoman forces began to disintegrate in the confusion: entire Turkish battalions found themselves encircled or under relentless air attack. A key manoeuvre was the decision of the cavalry to switch to a new axis to the south-east, from Nazareth and Beth Shean, which cut off the retreat of the Ottoman Seventh Army. On 23 September, British and Indian cavalry took Acre and Haifa. Resistance from Ottoman forces in Palestine was ebbing away.
British and Indian cavalry circled round to cut off Ottoman forces making for Beirut and Homs. Deraa was taken on 27 September and the race was on to drive northwards into Syria before the Ottomans could create any new defensive line. But the rout of the Ottomans was complete. By 30 September, the combined British and Arab force was on the edge of Damascus. A ceremonial entry was arranged for the Arab Northern Army, accompanied by T. E. Lawrence ‘of Arabia’. The British entry was more prosaic, but Emir Feisal was accorded the honours of a conqueror for a short time before being informed, by Allenby, that, according to standard procedure, the city was under British military occupation. It had been a whirlwind campaign which had driven the Ottomans pell-mell out of the Near East. The pursuit continued and Aleppo was taken on 26 October, but resistance had almost ceased altogether by that stage. Just four days after Aleppo was captured, on 30 October, the Ottomans concluded an armistice, agreeing to all the Allied terms.
Robertson’s successor as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson, wrote to Allenby soon after the victory and he concluded that the German strategic plan had been ‘command of the sea [and] the Near and Middle East’. Wilson believed Britain had prevented German command of the sea and ‘I was always casting about in my mind how this second objective [German domination of the Middle East] could be frustrated’.41 He concluded: ‘You [Allenby] and Franchet42 did that. The collapse of the main theatres followed almost automatically.’ In 1918, in Mesopotamia, East Africa, and the Near East, the Central Powers had been defeated. Despite their determined resistance, both Germany and the Ottoman Empire were stripped of their territorial possessions. The Allies had won decisive operational and strategic victories, achieved all their objectives, and acquired new security responsibilities in the process.
CHAPTER 8
THE GREAT WAR AT SEA IN 1918
The role of sea power in achieving victory
Professor Dr Michael Epkenhans
On 24 November 1918, the Great War at sea was eventually over. Having moored all ships under his command – those of the Grand Fleet and those of the beaten enemy, the High Seas Fleet – at Scapa Flow, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet, Admiral Sir David Beatty, delivered an address to his officers and men on board the battle-cruiser HMS Lion: ‘England owes the Grand Fleet a great, great debt. The world owes the Grand Fleet great debt. It has been said before, and it will be said many times again, that the war, which is now on the threshold of coming to an end, has been won by sea-power.’1
The pride visible in Beatty’s words is understandable, because the victory which had been achieved and which was celebrated here had been no easy one. There had been, of course, no more battles of Jutland in which all the big ships had clashed in the last two years of the war. However, many minor encounters at sea, the hardships of convoying, and the war under water, mercilessly waged by Ge
rmany until almost the eve of the Armistice on 11 November, had been great challenges for Beatty, his officers, and his men.
When war broke out in August 1914 all naval officers as well as the public hoped that a great Trafalgar-like battle would soon decide the war, at least at sea. Instead, almost all fleets remained in their homeports. The Grand Fleet, the most powerful navy of the time, had no interest in offensive action. Following plans developed in the last years before the war, the Royal Navy established a distant blockade to keep the Germans at bay. Though many British admirals and sailors wanted to fight, this strategy seemed fully apt to achieve Britain’s main aim: to successfully prevent the enemy from using the great common – as Alfred T. Mahan had called the oceans of the world – and thus cut off Germany from its lines of communications. This strategy did not exclude occasional sweeps into the North Sea as in 1914, when British battle-cruisers attacked and sank three German light cruisers on patrol off Heligoland. However, a battle was no aim in itself, due to the risks it entailed against the background of this overarching strategic aim.
This strategy also applied to the Mediterranean. After the German Mediterranean Squadron, consisting of the battle-cruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau, had fled into Turkish waters, and, moreover, after Italy had joined the Entente in 1915, all the Allies wanted to achieve was to prevent the Austro-Hungarian Navy from coming out into the open sea and trying to attack Allied shipping or from supporting the Austrian Army in its bloody battles against the Italians in the North. Successes and failures had kept the balance throughout the war until the end of 1917.
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