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- [00:01]
William Dalrymple
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- [00:20]
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- [01:00]
Anita Anand
Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Ananda, William Durample, and I'm delighted to say we are joined once again by the brilliant Eugene Rogan, author of the Arabs and the Fall of the Ottomans. In the last episode, Eugene we were talking about the simmering tensions that existed and the way in which the Ottoman Empire was not in favor of any kind of nationalism at all, because it was basically a signal of the end of the Ottoman Empire. If you had places breaking away and having their own identity and not referring to the center, that would be it for them. And we are talking largely about World War I in this episode, which will inevitably lead to the end of the Ottoman Empire. So can you paint us a picture of this region on the eve of war? What is actually happening, and how much are they aware that the war is going to affect them?
- [01:51]
Eugene Rogan
Well, in a sense, for the Arab world, the First World War was going to bring certain transformative realities home to roost. So the Ottoman Empire, which had for four centuries been the only state they'd ever known, would fall and national identities would emerge to carve the region at the same time that European imperial powers are going to be defining their own interests in the eastern Mediterranean. And through all of this, the position of the Zionist movement was going to get an unprecedented boost when it received an endorsement from one of the great powers of the world. So really, the First World War is the great transformative moment that takes us from the old world of the 19th century and propels us forward to what would be the nation state realities of the 20th.
- [02:35]
William Dalrymple
Eugene, how far do you think anyone in the region was aware what was about to hit them? Was there any sense that they were on the eve of this major transformative step, or did the whole thing come out of the blue? Because it wasn't given that Turkey would join the war at all, was it? I mean, it was A series of missteps, partly by Winston Churchill, and seizing of an Ottoman warship in Tyne and Weir by the British that made Turkey join the war, which is something that could easily have been avoided in circumstances.
- [03:01]
Eugene Rogan
Oh, and I think that maybe Russian threats on Turkish territory. Remember, the Russian Empire had set its eyes on occupying Constantinople, the Ottoman capital. So there were drivers for the Ottoman decision to enter the First World War, but the Arab world had nothing to do with it. And for the Arab citizens of the Ottoman Empire, they were furious that the state drew them into a war in which they had no cause. And they were terrified because for the first time in their modern history, they were going to go to war with the greatest powers of the age, Britain, France and Russia. And the first thing that happens in the summer of 1914 is the call for conscription as young Arabs were being drawn into the Ottoman army with great fear and great foreboding. But no, they had no idea of what lay ahead. No country going to war ever does. If they were to win that war, their situation coming out of the war would have been strengthened. But were they to lose the war, they would lose control over their land, their lives, their territory.
- [03:57]
Anita Anand
Well, one of the things that is on the horizon is something we've covered in a previous Empire season on the Ottoman Empire, and that is the Sykes Picot Agreement of 1916, where James Barr ably held us by the hand and took us through what was a division of a map with crayon lines in the sand, he called it. So just to remind you, this is a time when the British promised the Middle east to three different parties during the war. The French with the Sykes Picot Agreement. They also have an understanding with the Sharif of Mecca, certainly something that T.E. lawrence thinks that Britain is going to honour. Lawrence of Arabia. And you also have a promise made to the Zionist movement. I mean, this is again, these fissures and these deals that are being made at the same time to three different parties are never going to end.
- [04:46]
William Dalrymple
Well, there's also, of course, a sense of the British promising themselves a slice of the cake.
- [04:52]
Eugene Rogan
Eugene.
- [04:52]
William Dalrymple
They promise themselves Mesopotamia in Sykes Picot, don't they? And also in this correspondence that takes place with the Sharif of Mecca.
- [04:58]
Eugene Rogan
Absolutely. I mean, we use Sykes Picot as a shorthand for a diplomatic process that really went on right through the four years of the First World War, where I think Britain, France and Russia, the Entente Allies, were really concerned about achieving a balance of imperial power rather than trying to create a stable Middle east in a post Ottoman world. They didn't even think of the Middle east as a regional in its own right. They were really concerned that should they come out of the First World War victorious, they wouldn't then fall out among themselves over imperial claims to Ottoman territory. And in a sense, by the time you get to Sykes Picot, you've already had one agreement struck between Britain, France and Russia in 1915, the Constantinople Agreement. You've already had the promise to the sharifs of Mecca to establish an Arab kingdom in return for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. And then you have Sykes Picot, where Britain and France actually want to start putting down on exactly what territory they're promising each other. And this process will continue as Italy, Greece, other powers are drawn into the war. And it kind of culminates in the Balfour Declaration, where the Zionist movement comes into the discussion. So it's a shorthand for a partition diplomacy that was one of the diplomatic features of the First World War.
- [06:12]
William Dalrymple
Now, in terms of actual action during the First World War, we had an episode with you, Eugene, in our Ottoman series on Gallipoli, when Churchill has this idea of invading the Gallipoli peninsul, and it's a famous and catastrophic failure. What is happening in Palestine during the early years of the war? Because the British are in Egypt, aren't they? Palestine is basically on the front line, but there's no action in the early part of the war, is that right?
- [06:36]
Eugene Rogan
Well, there is action and the action really causes the British concern. The frontiers of Egypt with Palestine are at the extremity of the Sinai Peninsula. But the British, recognizing that there is no water in Sinai, you cannot post troops to Sinai, chose to defend Egypt from the Suez Canal. So basically, the Ottomans free run over the Sinai Peninsula, and they chose twice to try and cross the peninsula to threaten the British position in Egypt. The Ottomans hoped in so doing they might provoke a jihad among Egyptians against the British. There had been this call for the First World War to become a jihad. And I think that they hoped that Muslims would respond with more enthusiasm. But for the British, the critical thing was the Ottomans had massed enough soldiers in Palestine to threaten the Suez Canal. They learned through this that if a hostile power held Palestine, the British could not guarantee the security of the Suez Canal. The second attack by the Ottomans, they pulled cannons to within five miles of the canal and were able to fire artillery very precisely on Allied shipping in the canal. So it really hammered home the point that the security of the canal lay in Palestine with the first available water resources lay in the wells of Beersheba and Gaza.
- [07:50]
William Dalrymple
You mentioned, Eugene, this hope that a jihad would break out in Egypt. This was actually the Germans who were allied with the Turks. They had an active policy, I think, in Persia too, didn't they, to try and provoke a Jihadi uprising against British interests. This was part of a wider German plan. Am I right about that?
- [08:07]
Eugene Rogan
You are. And I think many view Max von Oppenheimer, a kind of Orientalist agent who'd lived for years in Cairo and got the ear of the Kaiser as having planted the seed of this idea, which really is one of the foundations of Germany's alliance with the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The Germans knew the Ottomans were weak militarily, but believed that through the Ottomans involvement in the war it could lead to colonial Muslims rising up in India, in North Africa and West Africa and in the Caucasus to undermine the Entente war effort in their empires and then lead them to collapse on the eastern Western front of the First World War itself. So that idea was made in Germany, no doubt about it. But the Ottomans actively believed that the unpopularity of the British in Egypt meant that all it took was a bold gesture by the Ottomans to inspire the Egyptian Muslims to rise up against their British occupiers and you might see a movement that could begin to defeat the British.
- [09:07]
William Dalrymple
And on the other side you have the idea which Lawrence is encouraging, encouraging the Arabs to rise up and seize power for themselves and throw out what Lawrence is calling their Ottoman Turkish occupiers. Are many people in this region enthusiastic about that idea? I mean, we've all seen in the movie Lawrence of Arabia making these wonderful speeches and encouraging the Arabs to rise up. But do you get the impression that in towns like Nablus and particularly a town like Gaza, that many people are up for Lawrence's idea, that they regard the Turks as oppressors and look to the British as liberators?
- [09:40]
Eugene Rogan
It's an interesting question, and we don't have many documentary sources, but there's a wonderful diary by a notable in Jerusalem named Ehsan Turjman. And he was a literate, well educated man and his friends were as well. And he talks about discussions with his friends about what the beginning of war held for Palestine. And they seemed to converge around the idea that this would lead to a British occupation. And then they just wondered what Palestine's future under the British might be. That already in 1914. It's interesting because I think at the outbreak of war, Palestinian notables were reactively concerned about what their future might be. And if we take just the example of the diary of one notable of Jerusalem in the Ottoman army, Ehsan Turman. His circle of friends would gather regularly and talk about politics and they imagined that the British would invade Palestine and take it over. And they were concerned about their future under British rule, just because the British in Egypt hadn't really looked an attractive proposition for Arab people. So when the Sharif's revolt in Mecca is announced in 1916, Turchman responds with great enthusiasm and he wishes that movement well and he hopes that it will lead to the liberation of the Arab peoples. But I think on the whole, the Sharif's appeal did not really fall on fertile ground. Most in the Arab world were so wedded to the Ottoman order, they could not imagine a future without the Ottoman Empire. And they knew that any disloyalty to the Ottoman Empire could lead to massive retribution. Cemal Pasha, the Governor General of Greater Syria, including Palestine during World War I, notoriously hanged Arab nationalists in Damascus and Beirut to set the example. So I think that the response was muted, but the future was in question. And I think people were nervous and.
- [11:31]
William Dalrymple
People presumably were looking also what was happening at the Armenians who had risen up against the Turks and suffered this brutal genocide in 1915-16.
- [11:40]
Eugene Rogan
Knowledge of the Turkish action against the Armenians only began to filter into Syria and Palestine in the later 1916, 1917 period, when surviving Armenian refugees made their way through Greater Syria and came to settle in towns and villages around Palestine and Transjordan.
- [11:58]
William Dalrymple
And the Armenian quarter in Jerusalem had many refugees. In my early travels in Jerusalem, I remember meeting people who'd come from the Black Sea area.
- [12:06]
Eugene Rogan
Absolutely.
- [12:06]
Anita Anand
So I mean, the British are still eyeing Ottoman Palestine because, you know, if you're going to def the Ottomans, you've got to do it comprehensively. And they first they start operating out of the Sinai border town that we have come to know the name of very well, Rafah in January 1917. But it is really difficult to operate in the middle of ostensibly, what is a desert. You need water, you need to have supply lines. And so there is an idea that actually, you know what, there is a place not far from here. Gaza would be a much better site. And so actually I think operations are paused until you can have enough men move up to then take Gaza. And so you have this sort of extended railway building, don't you, to try and get to Khan Younis, which again, another name that we know very well through the news in 1917. Just tell us what a feat it is and how quick it is for the British to set up this railway and how pivotal it is to what happens next.
- [13:07]
Eugene Rogan
Absolutely. I think first off, the. The British had set their sights on Gaza from the outset, and they recognized the only way that they were going to get there through the arid wasteland of Sinai was to provide water through a pipeline. So basically, the campaign force only progressed at the speed at which they could lay a pipeline and a railway, because modern armies needed provisions and supplies if you were to carry the heavy ordinance of modern warfare. Artillery, ammunition, the works. So. So really, across 1916 and into 1917, you had this frenzy of laying a railway, laying a pipeline and advancing British troops at the pace that the infrastructure was going down, while being harassed by Ottoman forces who were taking advantage of British exposure in Sinai to try and inflict casualties on them.
- [13:55]
William Dalrymple
You say British forces. Now, who are those British forces? Where I live in Delhi, we have a plaque very near our house which says, from this village of Meroli, two or three hundred young men went off to fight for the British Empire in the Middle East. Are many of these British forces actually Indian?
- [14:14]
Eugene Rogan
Yes, good point. Certainly a number of Indian units are involved in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, as the Palestine Campaign came to be known. But I think that a large number of the troops were actually Anzacs from Australia and New Zealand. You see them in their recognizable hats and whatnot, drafted into units of camel corps. So the cameleers with their whalers, as they called their horses, into cavalry units, because on this landscape with no roads, the only means for an army to advance was on horseback or on camelback.
- [14:51]
Anita Anand
So you've got this parallel track of water pipe and railway heading towards Gaza. I'm sure the people of Gaza would have seen it approaching, because, you know, it doesn't happen overnight. So what is happening in Gaza itself as these two tracks are getting closer and closer to their city?
- [15:06]
Eugene Rogan
What the people of Gaza themselves know is a mystery to us, because it was happening over the further horizon. It's a time where you don't have aerial surveillance, but certainly the Ottomans and Germans were aware that the British were on the move towards the frontiers of Palestine, and they began to establish entrenched positions to defend this territory against what was apparently a very large army.
- [15:31]
Anita Anand
Yeah. And the man who is sort of leading the charge, if you like, is a man called General Murray, or Old Archie is his nickname. Now, tell us who he is and tell us his story.
- [15:42]
Eugene Rogan
General Murray was an old soldier. He'd fought in the Boer War, and he'd actually served in France before being dispatched to Middle Eastern service. So he only took lead of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in January of 1916. And all you could say is he, he was a very conventional soldier whose experience in the First World War suggested he was the kind of general that was leading to the frontal assaults that led to such high casualties. And so he would do in Gaza.
- [16:12]
Anita Anand
Well, I mean, he was used to high casualties. I mean, he served in the Second Boer War as well. So, you know the sort of style of combat that he was used to. He was also involved in France and the Battle of the Mons. So at what point does he decide that the only way we are going to take Gaza, we need Gaza? There's no question that we're not going to take Gaza is to lay siege to Gaza.
- [16:32]
Eugene Rogan
And I think we have to give Murray a little credit because history has not been kind to his memory, that in the first battle of Gaza he did lay out a victorious battle plan. They were delayed by fog. When on 26th March 1917, they launched their battle, they were forced to delay until noon an assault that they'd expected to take place first thing in the morning. Just because they had fog, they didn't have the visibility they needed to prosecute the war. And the other thing is, we forget our methods of war today mean that instant communication is part of strategy. They had none. And they were sending troops around a wide circle around the city of Gaza. And as it turns out, they were literally on the cusp of defeating Ottoman positions in Gaza to take the city. But they were very nervous because this was literally a horse ridden cavalry making war in a very arid zone where if they did not get to water at the end of the day, their mounts would die. A day of battle for a horse means it must be watered or it will die. And so while they were on the verge of taking Gaza, the commanders did not know and feared that having started late, they hadn't gotten far enough. And they called the troops back. And retreating under fire is the worst situation for an army. And the British army suffered terribly, turning the first battle of Gaza from the brink of victory to the despair of defeat.
- [18:01]
William Dalrymple
Eugene, we've talked about who the British troops are and many of them, as we said, are Indian and Anzac. Tell us about the Ottoman troops. Where are they from? And many of these men, I think, are veterans of Gallipoli, aren't they? Including some of their commanders?
- [18:13]
Eugene Rogan
Absolutely. And we have diaries and memoirs of several soldiers who served in both Gallipoli and were on the defense of Palestine. And they were very proud of their record as having driven the British and French out of Ottoman territory in Gallipoli. When these soldiers drove the British away from Gaza, they felt they'd given the Brits a good drubbing and that the Brits would never dare take them on again.
- [18:37]
Anita Anand
And you've got, as you say, General Murray getting a real drubbing in the press and being blamed for this sort of catastrophic failure of British troops having to withdraw under heavy fire. A second British assault on Gaza takes place. How long after the first? And how is it different to the first?
- [18:54]
Eugene Rogan
Well, poor Murray was, in a sense, a victim of his own braggadocio. Rather than acknowledging how badly the campaign had gone. In the first battle of Gaza, he claimed to have suffered fewer casualties in his own forces and to have inflicted far more on the Ottomans than in fact he did. And so the high command, having their doubts about Murray's reports, called his bluff and said, if you did so well and the Ottomans are so weakened, then you must seize the initiative and send your troops back into a second campaign. Now, Murray, before launching his second campaign, called for massive modern arms to help make the difference, to tip the balance in his favor. So this is the first battlefield in the Middle east that is, in which the British will use gas weapons, they get gas tipped artillery, and they call in tanks, which have been used on the Western Front to very good effect to put a little shock and awe into battle formations. And in this way, Murray hoped that he'd be able to send a second campaign force into Gaza that would then make the breakthrough.
- [20:00]
Anita Anand
I know all of the subsequent criticism of Murray and the humiliation of Murray, but are you saying at the time, in between the first and second assault of Gaza, people still back at home aren't clear that this has been a disaster for him the first time around, so they fully invest in the same man to do it again.
- [20:14]
Eugene Rogan
Well, we know that the Ottomans were.
- [20:16]
Anita Anand
Aware, Right, because they were shooting at them.
- [20:17]
Eugene Rogan
Exactly. There's a lovely anecdote about the Ottomans dropping leaflets to the British saying, you may have won the battle of Communiques, that is claiming to have won this, but we know we beat you.
- [20:29]
Anita Anand
Right?
- [20:29]
Eugene Rogan
But this message, if it had gotten back to the British high command, they.
- [20:33]
Anita Anand
Wouldn'T have trusted him to do it.
- [20:35]
Eugene Rogan
They had no one else to go with. He was the commander of the eef. And as I said, I think they called his bluff. They basically said, general Murray, if you've done so well, then go finish the job. And so on the 17th of April, a little over a month later, he was at it again, armed with terrible New weapons. And again, remember these gas tipped artillery shells? They were able to provide British soldiers and Commonwealth soldiers with gas masks, but of course, the Ottoman soldiers were completely unprotected.
- [21:03]
Anita Anand
Are we talking about mustard gas? You know, the kind of things that we saw in the trenches claim so many lives. And when you say poison tipped gas shells, what are we talking about?
- [21:11]
Eugene Rogan
Well, it was a weapon that I think had not really proven its merits in the Western Front, which might be why they were willing to part with so many shells. I think actually the explosion of the artillery probably was destructive on the gas itself. And I don't know whether it was mustard gas in those shells. But getting ahead of our story here, the shells did not seem to have had a lethal impact. Certainly the gas did not seem to have lethal impact. Either the explosion of the shells or the winds of Gaza dispelled the gas.
- [21:39]
Anita Anand
But the intention was there. The intention was to use the kind of weaponry that had caused such chaos and carnage on the Western Front here in a place in the desert. Okay, so you've kind of given us a clue, but let's go through it. What happens next? So, you know, the battle plan is laid, the man in charge is still in charge and they've called his bluff. How does it go for him?
- [22:00]
Eugene Rogan
Well, everyone is calling poor Murray's bluff and here once again, he lines his troops up and does a frontal assault on Gaza. So he just sends his forces against the entrenched Turkish positions. Now, any scholar of the First World War will tell you that it was always the attackers who suffered the highest casualties. Defenders were dug in, they had more protection. And I think the British hoped that between gas warfare and eight fearsome modern tanks, they would be able to overwhelm Ottoman lines. But yes, as the spoiler alert already gave away.
- [22:36]
Anita Anand
You're telling stories like William does and I expect so much more from you.
- [22:40]
William Dalrymple
Thank you for that vote of comment.
- [22:42]
Eugene Rogan
Yeah, I'm honored as well, Very proud.
- [22:44]
Anita Anand
I mean, honestly.
- [22:45]
Eugene Rogan
Well, let me tell you about the tanks in Egypt, because of course, tanks are a magnificent target. And while I think they raise the morale of the British side and you have lots of huzzahs being shouted from the front lines as the British follow these tanks towards and over Ottoman lines. They are wonderful targets. And the Ottomans basically had at the tanks with everything they had, artillery and machine gun, and they just started blowing up. And as the tanks blew up, it raised the morale of the Turkish soldiers and defeated the morale of the British soldiers. And suddenly the Brits found themselves deep into Ottoman territory without Their mighty tanks to protect them and being picked off by brutal Turkish gunfire. And I'm afraid the second battle of Gaza ended yet worse for British forces than had the first. Higher casualty figures. The British lost about three times the number of dead that the Ottomans did. About 6,500 British killed, about 2,000 Ottomans killed. So the second battle of Gaza, an even worse catastrophe and adding to a record of defeat at the hands of the Ottomans that starts in Gallipoli, continues in Mesopotamia and the the siege of Kut. And now in the second battle of Gaza, they've lost twice at the gates of Gaza.
- [23:59]
William Dalrymple
It's not going well. And these poor Australians and these Sikhs, there are pictures of them on their camels. The tanks are blowing up in front of them and these guys are exposed on these camels to Turkish machine guns. Well entrenched, well hidden, and it's a massacre.
- [24:13]
Eugene Rogan
It was a dreadful battle. And I think from the distance of over a hundred years and geography, we have a bit of detachment from it. But if you were in Gaza and you heard the guns, the sounds of battle, battle, then I think the fear must have just been devastating. And of course, in what comes next, Gaza is going to really become a target.
- [24:34]
Anita Anand
Well, I mean, one thing that does happen is that General Archie Murray cannot rewrite history again in such a short space of time. So news of his failures do finally get out and reach Britain and he loses his job. He is replaced by a man called General Allenby. Join us after the break when we talk about what Allenby does.
- [25:01]
William Dalrymple
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- [26:09]
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- [27:08]
William Dalrymple
Welcome back. Anyone who has crossed from Jordan into the west bank will have to cross over the Allenby Bridge. It's one of those old imperial place names that still sits on the map. But who was he? Eugene Rogan, welcome back. Who was the man after whom the bridge is named?
- [27:22]
Eugene Rogan
Sir Edmund Allenby was going to prove the decisive general for the British Army's efforts in Palestine. He too was an old soldier of deep experience going back to the Boer War, and he brought to the Palestine campaign a whole new set of strategies. If I were to distinguish Allenby from Murray, it's the conventional Murray who believed in the frontal assault, is replaced by Allenby the trickster. He was constantly using ruse and subterfuge to fool the Ottomans on British intentions and achieve success where all of his predecessors had failed. And when it came to taking the gates of Gaza, his methods would prove entirely successful.
- [28:02]
Anita Anand
And just one other sort of little side note on that. He very famously took on Earl Haig in a full frontal assault. Haigh, who had been sending countless men into the mincer by just telling them to go over the top and go straight for it. Allenby was very critical of the way Haigh prosecuted a war. So he is a new thinker in the British military establishment, a sort of a maverick, if you will. So he goes though. He goes with David Lloyd George, who's the Prime Minister. He goes with his blessing. And Lloyd George tells him something sort of quite crazy. He says, you know, I want you to conquer Jerusalem by Christmas. That is his direct order, is it not?
- [28:38]
William Dalrymple
He wants a Christmas present for the British people, I think is the phrase.
- [28:40]
Eugene Rogan
That he says, yeah, which made all the sense in the world because of course, what was Sapping morale on the home front was the unmoving trench warfare of the Western Front. And they looked to the Ottoman front and remember, for the British and French, the Ottoman Empire was simply the weakest link in the Central Powers chain. There was no reason why they should be doing so well against the superior British and French armies. So they expected a breakthrough and that there would, at least on the Middle Eastern fronts, be a war of motion to replace the terrible trenches of the Western Front. And that was what Alami was asked to deliver, a breakthrough and a war of motion that would once again give the British public confidence that they could win this war.
- [29:25]
Anita Anand
So let's talk about the third British assault on Gaza. When does it begin and how does it look and feel different?
- [29:32]
Eugene Rogan
Well, the third assault of Gaza is going to take place in October 1917. Halloween, actually, 31st of October. And here's where we see the genius of Allenby already beginning to manifest. He's surveyed the territory, he does not want to repeat Murray's mistakes of a frontal assault on Gaza leading to high casualties. And he realizes from his reconnaissance missions that the area around Beersheva is less well defended, particularly to the east, where the Ottomans relied on topography, highlands and rough terrain to serve as their shield against attack. And Allenby had a vision of coming around from the eastern side of Beersheva, breaking through Ottoman positions there. There are wells in Beersheva so you could water your horses and then outflank the Ottomans in Gaza to make a breakthrough and to get through their positions without having to come through their well defended southern lines. But he didn't let onto that. And they use all these wonderful subterfuges. So you have the story of a British intelligence officer who goes forward to Ottoman lines as if he's lost, engages Ottoman guards in a gunfight, gallops away as if wounded and drops his satchel. And his satchel is full of war plans for an attack on Gaza.
- [30:48]
Anita Anand
This is a precursor to that great enigma plan in Operation Mincemeat.
- [30:52]
Eugene Rogan
Absolutely. But typical Allenby. And then the other is he definitely masses troops and artillery as if he's about to launch a frontal assault on Gaza. But at night he is moving troops eastwards towards Beersheva to the east of Gaza to have the troops silently in place without letting on their presence. And so when the order for battle is given, yes, guns open fire on Gaza as though in anticipation of a third frontal assault. But the assault is going to come in the east at Beersheba. And here the Ottomans in less well dug in Positions find themselves coming under a heated assault by a fast moving cavalry that is taking up positions to threaten the Ottomans in Beersheva.
- [31:41]
William Dalrymple
You have a very nice account in your book Eugene from Emynchol. He says we woke to the sound of artillery. We had not slept anyway and things get very hot, they're under shellfire. And he writes what kind of war are we fighting? The Ottoman army has no working artillery, no functioning machine guns, no aircraft, no commanding officers, no defensive lines, no reserves, no telephone. The troops are fighting in total isolation of each other and the morale has collapsed. Indeed, this army has none of the things it would need to win. So it doesn't sound very promising on the Ottoman side.
- [32:15]
Anita Anand
It doesn't. But they still fight really hard, don't they Eugene? I mean even they may be demoralised but they still put up a battle.
- [32:22]
Eugene Rogan
No. And poor Emin Chol has been sent to defend Beersheva. All the resources he listed in his wonderful quote have been redeployed to Gaza. They're trying to protect Gaza. That's where you have airplanes, that's where you have artillery, that's where your commanders are. These poor soldiers left to defend Beersheva are just a what if protective force. They were not there to deal with the full onslaught they face. And even with that, but they held the British back. They were absolutely heroic in their defense of Beersheva. And it takes a decisive decision by an Australian cavalry commander to break with the war plan. A very dangerous thing to do in the heat of battle because they were once again afraid that if they didn't get to Beersheva before sundown and secure the wells before the Ottomans might destroy them, they wouldn't have the wherewithal to water their horses. And so he breaks with the battle plan and he lines his cavalry up for the charge.
- [33:17]
Anita Anand
But the fact that something as basic as flesh and bone as my horse will need to drink is something that dictates battle plans is something that is, I mean, just mind blowing in this day and age where things run on petrol, diesel and fuel. But it is, you know, flesh and blood and a horse beneath you. Okay, so what happens then? Do they do it?
- [33:36]
Eugene Rogan
Well, it's one of the most romantic moments of the first World War in the Middle east and of course romanticized by many an Australian historian ever since. But, but you have a mass of about 800 horse bound cavalry who line up at the trot, when they come within range of gunfire, enter a canter and then as they get close to the lines they go In a full gallop.
- [33:57]
William Dalrymple
There's a terrific movie of this, isn't there? I've seen a reconstruction of this with. And it's this wonderful scene, it's like.
- [34:04]
Eugene Rogan
Well, what's wonderful from our end is we actually have an account of what it was like for the Ottoman soldiers. Emin cholesterol in a sense this is the last thing he will ever see is Australian cavalry galloping towards British lines moving too fast for the Ottomans to be able to pick them off effectively a fast moving target, so much harder to shoot. And before they know it, these horse bound fiends are upon them. Gallop over the Ottoman lines, dismount to begin to engage in hand to hand combat. And it's then when Emin Cheol is himself wounded, he describes it as suddenly his vision goes black, he can feel blood pouring down his face, he doesn't know what's happened. And a comrade takes him aside to get him out of the way of battle and he will go into captivity and that's the end of his war. But that sight of the galloping horsemen coming towards them and the hand to hand battle that follows. But of course many of the horsemen keep going right over Ottoman lines to get to the wells of Beersheva which the Ottomans are already beginning to blow up. Two wells blow up before they're able to stop them, but they succeed. They secure Beersheva and they secure the wells.
- [35:11]
William Dalrymple
We should say that anyone that's enjoying this wonderful description by Eugene should immediately go out and get their copy of the Fall of the Ottoman Empire. Eugene's wonderful book which has two chapters on the battles of Gaza, these three great battles, which are some of the best historical reading I've had in preparing this series. It's absolutely gripping stuff and Eugene may be a professor at an Oxford college, but he writes like a thriller writer, like a screenwriter. You obviously had great fun researching and writing this.
- [35:40]
Anita Anand
So look, now the Ottomans are going to have to fall back. So where do they fall back from Beersheva and what does that mean to Gaza where they have concentrated their military might and weaponry? Do they beat a path straight for there or what is the next move on both sides?
- [35:54]
Eugene Rogan
Well, the situation in Gaza is deplorable. It's hard to capture what follows the fall of Beersheva because now the British have a line to the side of Ottoman defenses, they can outflank them an area where the Ottomans are not defended. The forces retreat from Beersheva to fall back on Ottoman positions in Gaza. But Gaza has been bombarded by artillery from land as well as by naval warships at sea. And the Ottomans, knowing that another battle is coming, have already evacuated the city of its civilians. So they've emptied the town out of its civilian population. And good thing they do, because the entire fabric of the city is being destroyed by artillery and naval bombardment. And so it becomes a place the Ottomans find untenable. And they begin to withdraw from Gaza under an increasingly disorderly retreat, trying to find a place where they can dig in and take a stand against Allenby's fast moving army. But it's happened. He's broken through Ottoman lines and he's delivered what the British high command had asked for, a war of motion. And then the question is, how far can they drive the Ottomans back? But Gaza is now firmly in British hands, destroyed cityscape that it is.
- [37:11]
William Dalrymple
And there are pictures from this period which you have in your book, Eugene. They look like pictures of Ypres or any of those destroyed cities on the Western Front. It's completely gutted. These enormous naval shells are just destroying the city. And so what the British have captured is not a living city full of lovely mosques and caravanserais as it was before the war. And again, there are wonderful photographs of Gaza at this period before the war in the Ecole Biblique, currently in fact, on show in the Institute de Mont d' Arabe in Paris. When one is passing through Paris, they can see wonderful images of Gaza before and after. And so what happens next, Eugene? They've captured Gaza. It's a hellscape, it's a ruin. But they don't stop.
- [37:52]
Eugene Rogan
They don't. And as the British seize the initiative, they are able to drive the Ottomans again in disorderly retreat, right back to Jerusalem itself, where the Ottomans take the decision not to bring war to the Holy City. They withdraw from the city of Jerusalem without resistance, leaving the notables of the city to receive the British occupiers. And new lines are drawn, leaving the Ottoman forces in possession of the west bank and Palestine to the north of Jerusalem, around Acre, Haifa and in towards Tiberias. And these will be the lines that really separate the British and the Ottomans from, let us say, December of 1917 until the end.
- [38:39]
Anita Anand
Am I right in remembering, is this the point where Allenby actually says, I will go to Jerusalem on foot and in humility? I mean, is that the scene which is so sort of cinematically portrayed and described again and again? Is that the point where they say, okay, you know what? We don't want to destroy Jerusalem. We're leaving? And Allenby Comes and takes it. Is that what it looked like cinematically.
- [39:01]
Eugene Rogan
Is the right word to use, Anita. And there was a great deal of forethought that went into Allenby's entrance. So the British had sent some lower ranking soldiers to scout out what was going on in Jerusalem. And they were greeted by notables with a white flag who offered them the keys to the city. But these soldiers said they did not have such rank and standing as to accept Jerusalem. And so they begin the discussion of how and when the man who did have the rank to accept Jerusalem, Alamedi, might enter. And he was very well aware that this was going to be a moment broadcast by Pathe newsreel to the war traumatized British public. And he and his advisors really sat down to do the spin.
- [39:46]
Anita Anand
And Eugene, I mean it's sort of mind blowing, but you can still today see that footage, can't you?
- [39:51]
Eugene Rogan
You can. I mean it's available through the Imperial War Museum's website. I think you can find on YouTube the full film of Alamy's entry and the speeches of the notables accepting his new occupation of the.
- [40:02]
Anita Anand
But despite all of Allenby's efforts to present to the world, look, you know, we are the healers. We have come, we are going to unite, we are accepted by all religions. Look at all these men of faith who are welcoming our arrival. Something extraordinarily damaging to that particular image has already been done, William, something we've talked about a lot on this podcast.
- [40:22]
William Dalrymple
Yes. On the 2nd of November, which is just two days after Allenby's forces have entered Gaza, in a letter to Walter Rothschild, the Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issues the declaration that will be forever associated with his name. And it's published in the Jewish Chronicle on the 9th of November. And in this letter, the British government announces that quotes it views with favor the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This obviously we know is a whole new chapter opening in the history of this region that will change everything. Eugene, give us the background to this. What's going on and why is this being issued? Now, we've actually done a whole episode on this which I think is episode 40, but for those who haven't listened to that lately, could you just refresh our memory of what's going on here?
- [41:13]
Eugene Rogan
Well, I think for both the British Empire in the Middle east and for the Zionist movement, the Balfour Declaration was an absolute game changer for the British Empire. This is harkening back to our earlier conversation about Palmerston's age. This attempt to try and harness the Zionist movement to the benefit of the British Empire. If the British were promising the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, it wasn't to give Palestine to the Zionist movement so much as to use the Zionist movement to stake a claim to Palestine, which in Sykes Picot was a territory shared between Britain, France and Russia. But rather than claiming Britain was doing this out of its own selfish self interest, the British could say that they were doing so for the historic movement of restoring the Jewish people to their biblical homeland. For Zionism, it was yet more momentous. Until now, their movement had been a dream. How to reunite a people scattered in diaspora in one territory, to create one what Herzl had called for a Jewish state. Now they had the backing of the greatest imperial power of the age. And suddenly the unrealistic idea of Zionism suddenly became a political movement with legs. And that was going to transform Palestine, the Middle east, the world.
- [42:37]
William Dalrymple
In the next episode, we're getting another friend of the show, the wonderful Caroline Elkins, who is the author of the extraordinary book the Legacy of Violence and who we had on last on the show for MAU MAU. She's coming back to talk about the British Mandate and we're going to hear more about the Balfour Declaration there and the role played by Weizmann, the extraordinary lobbying that he succeeded in doing in Downing Street. We'll be having Eugene back for the end of this series of our last episode with the end of the British Mandate, the birth of Israel and the Palestinian Nakpa. So we'll be seeing Eugene again then, but from me, William Durimple. Goodbye.
- [43:15]
Anita Anand
And me, Anita Anand. Goodbye.