The Palestine-Syria Campaign

[Murph]

With what little material I have, and have been able to get (I would love a well written/researched book on this campaign), it appears the British Army conducted a workmanlike unspectacular campaign that worked generally pretty well.  Allenby seems to be a general cut above most British Generals of the time period, but it makes me wonder how some other British generals would have done?  I look at the Palestine-Syria campaign as something that Bernard Law Montgomery would have been completely at home with.  

[RETAC21]

1 hour ago, Murph said:

With what little material I have, and have been able to get (I would love a well written/researched book on this campaign), it appears the British Army conducted a workmanlike unspectacular campaign that worked generally pretty well.  Allenby seems to be a general cut above most British Generals of the time period, but it makes me wonder how some other British generals would have done?  I look at the Palestine-Syria campaign as something that Bernard Law Montgomery would have been completely at home with.  

I would say he was cut above Monty, but failed on the personal side, hence his nickname of The Bull. He wasn't particularly successful in the Western front, but the wiki hints out why:

"Commanding a corps seemed to make Allenby's bad temper even worse where anything from a split infinitive in a staff paper to discovering a corpse in the field without the tin helmet that Allenby ordered his men to wear sent Allenby off into a rage"

"Archibald Wavell who was one of Allenby's staff officers and supporters, wrote that Allenby's temper seemed to "confirm the legend that 'the Bull' was merely a bad-tempered, obstinate hot-head, a 'thud-and-blunder' general"

"However, despite Allenby's rages and obsession with applying the rules in a way that often seemed petty, Allenby's staff officers found an intellectually curious general who was interested in finding new ways of breaking the stalemate."

So he would be more at home in the less dense defenses of Palestine than against the Hindenburg line

[Murph]

That was interesting, I had not known that about him.  I do not have much respect for Monty at all.  

[Argus]

I'm of the opinion that most of the British Corps commanders from the BEF would have been generally up to Palestine - Syria gig. Allenby was the guy they picked as the best balance between capable of doing the job and not being missed in France.

Its a real pity the ADG records got Blitzed in 1940, as we don't really know that much about how British officers got picked and sorted in WWI after the initial rush. There are a few historians who have been trying to piece things together by deduction and observation but its still very much a black box - IIRC the Western Front Association has a podcast on the topic. But its clear it was anything but ad hoc and most of what we though we did understand is based on guesses and assumptions. For example, trawling though the gazettes they've put together a roll of officers who served in the department and the first thought was 'what a load of toffs.' They were all minor aristocracy, law, business, a few academics, it was 'The Establishment' gone to war...  almost just as you'd expect.  But then dig a little deeper and the one thing all these officers had in common was independence and probity, they were already 'made' in their fields, with nothing to gain from doing anyone favours. 'Oh aye'' me thinks cynically, a likely story that. But then the guys doing the research are Northerners not afraid to call a commercial goods vehicle a lurry, so I have to give them the benifit of the doubt when it comes to class warfare.

As for Monty, what is it with those of Sam and Bernard Law Montgomery - I recon its just he was as much a drama queen as Patton and you guys can't stand the competition.



 

Edited November 3, 2022 by Argus

[Murph]

Monty gets plenty of bad press, and really comes across as a semi-competent prima donna in Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy.  Patton was certainly a drama queen, Simpson had all of Patton's gifts, and none of his faults.  He was the most "normal" of US generals in WWII.  

I am interested in something I ran across Imperial Service Units which apparently the Indian Royals contributed to the war effort.  

ADG?  

There seems to be a bit too much of the "Old School Tie" in the British Army at the very beginning.  Independence and probity, hmmm, please expand on this, you have my interest.  

[Argus]

I think this is the right link
 

 

[Murph]

Thanks I will try that one.   Also it is a pretty fascinating campaign in and of itself and shows what the British/Imperial army could do led by a reasonably decent commander with the technology of the time.  In some ways it was one of the biggest Imperial Armies in the history of the British Empire.  Slim's 14th Army was the last.  

[Murph]

Would Monty have been a different sort of commander if he had served under Allenby in Palestine?

[Argus]

I think he was going to be an egotist no matter where he served

I mean sure, different influences make for different development, but I'm not sure what was so objectionable about him as-was, other than the size of his head. The British Army and US Army were looking at the world though different lenses, not right nor wrong, just respecting their individual situations. I'd expect any British Commander to be pursuing similar ends if by different means. 

But I do agree Palestine/Syria was by far the best Anglo-French campaign of the war as a stand alone effort.

[Murph]

It certainly appears to be the very best, a war of maneuver (albeit slowly....) and fought by generals that were "better" than many.   

 

Agreed Monty had to worry about manpower (there was none), and the US was profligate on spending lives at times, although no one was as profligate as the Russians.  But Monty's military education was formed by the grinding trench warfare of the Western Front, I wonder if he would have been more "mobile minded" if he had served in Palestine?

[Murph]

Still looking for good books on this campaign.

[Argus]

The Desert Column by  Ion Idriess is a nice first hand account, Idriess is one of those happy sources that served in the ranks and went on became a professional writer of non-fiction, while living a life that did fill several books, so his stuff tends to be well observed and well written. 

I've been meaning to try The Palestine Campaigns by Wavell, yes that Wavell. He had a reputation as brain but I find I've never actually read any of his stuff.

 

  

 

[Murph]

I am reading Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War, and it is pretty decent.  I seem to think so far that the cream of the British Generals came to Palestine, and the donkeys remained in France.  Also the discussion on the logistics angle is very well taken.  Water being the limiting factor to any assault.  

[Argus]

Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for that one.

I'm not sure I agree on the best generals going to Palestine, rather I think Palestine was a far easier theatre for good generals to do well in. Get the logistics right and manoeuvre was always possible. 

[Murph]

You could be right, although it seems the Generals were more open to maneuver than those on the Western Front who seemed so addicted to "Once more over the top chaps!".   But in fairness, there really wasn't any other method of getting the job done on the Western Front.

[Argus]

 But they weren't 'addicted' to once more over the top, they just didn't have any alternative. There's not much room to manoeuvre in a 500 yard gap between continuous trench lines

They also didn't keep on doing the same thing over and over again either. They were experimenting furiously to try and find tactical and technical solutions to a problem set that kept evolving too.  

None of which isn't to say there weren't stupid decisions made,  bad command environments and poor commanders.

[Murph]

That is why I think that the generals in Palestine (and later Mesopotamia) looked better than the Western Front Generals, fewer dead bodies on their ledgers.