The Prime Ministers of Israel, Australia, and New Zealand
will lead much of the Israeli-based diplomatic corps at commemoration events on
October 31 to mark the 100th anniversary of the conquest of Beer
Sheba. Why is this event so special?
The Battle of Beer Sheba was the first major victory for
Britain in World War One. Consider this.
Going into this battle, Britain had
been defeated four times by the Turkish army. The failure of the British to
take the Dardanelles led to the resignation of Winston Churchill as First Lord
of the Admiralty. His initiative to launch a naval invasion at Gallipoli
resulted in 400,000 casualties on both sides and an ignominious Allied retreat.
The British army suffered a humiliating defeat in Iraq (then
Mesopotamia) when they were surrounded and surrendered to the Turks at the
Battle of Kut.
Under General Sir Archibald Murray, the British army were
badly beaten twice at the battles for Gaza. Murray tried to put a brave face on
his humiliating defeat by misrepresenting the casualty figures and claiming
that “it was a most successful operation, the fog and waterless nature of
the country just saving the enemy from complete disaster.”
The War Cabinet did not see it that way, and Murray was
relieved of his duty to be replaced as Commander of what was called ‘The
Egyptian Expeditionary Force’ by General Edmund Allenby.
This no-nonsense, six foot four tall, military leader, known
as ‘The Bull’ for his build and his demeanor, received instructions from
British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, a Welsh Baptist Zionist, to give
the British public a gift by taking Jerusalem by Christmas.
Allenby adopted a new tactic of military deception by
lulling the enemy into thinking he would follow Murray’s example and launch a
third major assault on Gaza.
Instead, aided and advised by a Palestinian Jew and a
Christian Zionist intelligence officer, Allenby was persuaded to swerve south
of Gaza and attack Beer Sheba because, as Aaron Aaronsohn, an agronomist from
Zichron Yaakov, told him “that is where the water is.” Aaronson’s research convinced him that large
reserves of water lay hidden under the hot desert surface of the Negev. As he
pointed out to a receptive Allenby, without sufficient water for the hundreds
of thousands of men, tens of thousands of horses and camels, and his motorized
vehicles, he had no chance of winning the Palestine Campaign.
Aaronsohn also knew the trails and wadis that would allow Allenby’s
massed troops to negotiate their way from Egypt to Beer Sheba without getting
bogged down in the soft desert sands and for his advanced troops to approach
Beer Sheba relatively undetected.
Despite his name, Richard Meinertzhagen was a swashbuckling
British intelligence officer who became an ardent Zionist. He devised a series
of ploys that led the Germans and Turks into believing that Allenby planned to
attack Gaza again, using an attack on Beer Sheba as a decoy assault. One of his
methods was to ride close to the Turkish lines tempting the Turks to come out
in pursuit. When the Turks shot at him he pretended to be hit. He dropped a
blood spattered haversack and made off as if injured. The satchel contained
what appeared to be secret military plans and maps showing Turkish defensive
positions at Gaza as well a forged private letter in which an officer wrote to
his sweetheart in London about getting ready to move against Gaza.
The deception worked. According to reports provided by
Aaron’s sister, Sarah, the only woman to head an espionage ring in enemy
territory during wartime, Allenby saw that the Turks were bringing up reserves
to strengthen their Gaza garrison.
The battle began against Beer Sheba on October 31st,
1917, but, by the middle of the afternoon, no discernable progress had been
made. Allenby watched the battle, surrounded by his generals, through his
binoculars from a hilltop over the southern flatland leading to the town. Looking at a potential defeat, or a
withdrawal of forces before darkness fell, the order was given to the
Australian 4th and 12th Light Horse Brigades to mount a
frontal charge against the enemy’s double-lined defensive trench emplacements.
Seven hundred horsemen armed with bayonets rode in three
successive lines across a three-mile stretch of open ground. They gradually
gained speed until they were in full gallop. With artillery shells and gunfire
directed at them they closed on the enemy ranks. The lead horsemen, those that survived the
gunfire, leapt over the Turkish infantrymen in their trenches. They job was to
take the town and reach the few water wells that had been mined for demolition
by the enemy. The second and third line of horsemen leapt the trenches,
dismounted, and took on the Turks in hand to hand combat, meeting bullet with
bayonet.
This was the last great cavalry charge in military history.
The enormous courage of the ANZAC soldiers won the day, Beer Sheba was taken,
and this battle opened the way for the liberation of Palestine and the fall of
the Ottoman Empire.
This victory also paved the way for the restoration of the
Land of Israel.
Read my epic book. It's a fascinating page turner full of drama and personal anecdotes from the people who changed history.
Barry Shaw is the author of the best-selling book ‘1917.
From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’
https://www.createspace.com/6830537
He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
He is also the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
World War I was a totally avoidable satanic slugfest on a range of fronts. The whole inferno was a set up. Princip was just the trigger to the first domino falling.
ReplyDeleteToo many young men died because of the policy decisions of various "leaders".
Watch Peter Weir's great anti-war movie "Gallipoli".