Odds and Sods : Minorities in the British Empire s Campaign for Palestine, Julian Thiesfeldt Saltman

Transcription

1 Odds and Sods : Minorities in the British Empire s Campaign for Palestine, By Julian Thiesfeldt Saltman A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Anthony Adamthwaite, Chair Professor James Vernon Professor John Efron Professor Ron Hassner Fall 2013

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3 1 Abstract Odds and Sods : Minorities in the British Empire s Campaign for Palestine, by Julian Thiesfeldt Saltman Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Anthony Adamthwaite, Chair This dissertation examines the role of minority soldiers in Britain s Army during the campaign for Palestine in the First World War. It compares the experiences of two distinct, yet parallel, groups three battalions of black, British West Indians (the British West Indies Regiment) and three battalions of Jewish soldiers (the Jewish Legion ). Past scholarship has mostly ignored the history of these men, and what does exist has tended to conflate or subsume the specific experiences of the men in Egypt and Palestine within the broader histories of their specific minority groups, generally those that occurred on the Western Front. This work diverges from these past understandings, arguing that a comparative assessment of minority soldiers within the Palestine theater of war yields a new understanding of how Britain fought the First World War, as well as how wartime experience differed significantly amongst various minority groups. The first main part of this project assesses the specific military experiences of West Indian and Jewish soldiers in Palestine, tracing their recruitment, training, and military roles. By outlining how the British government and military maintained hierarchies of ethno-racial identity, as well as how minority soldiers conceived their own identities, these chapters are able to dispute narratives of homogenous military service. Specifically, West Indians in Palestine viewed themselves as elevated in class and culture not only from other non-european colonial soldiers, but also from other West Indian military units, including units of their own regiment stationed in Europe. Similarly, the identity of the Jewish battalions often viewed historically as distinctly Zionist was heavily contested by assimilated British Jews, leading to a more diverse military experience than often assumed. Both chapters demonstrate that West Indians and Jews played key roles in the front lines, and suggest that they represented a distinct tier of imperial soldiering, one precariously situated above explicitly colonial units. The second part of this dissertation explores frameworks of imperial conditioning, offering detailed examinations of military justice and forced athletic training inside the West Indian and Jewish battalions. First, it examines how West Indian and Jewish soldiers encountered military justice, with a specific focus on how their minority identities influenced the application of military law. These chapters conclude that military law was applied in both a punitive and nuanced manner allowing prejudice and stereotype to affect the sentencing of minority soldiers, but also providing an effective counter through a mechanical system of

4 appeals, remission, and commutation. The final portion of this section argues that frequent athletic competition amongst soldiers in the EEF was more than a leisure activity or form of military training, but was an indirect means of inculcating potentially disruptive soldiers with a set of British values and norms that would make them amenable to postwar imperial governance. This was a direct reaction to the political radicalism unleashed by the war namely Bolshevism and the rise of pan-nationalisms inside the British Empire. This dissertation uses military service records, the application of military justice, and a set of wartime and postwar conditioning policies to reveal the ways in which the British Empire was forced to broaden its definitions of who in its empire could serve, what expectations their service would create, where they could bear arms, and how this would affect the postwar empire. 2

5 To Mama and Papa i

6 ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements A Note on Terminology Abbreviations iii v vi Prologue 1 Introduction 2 PART I Chapter 1: 19 Their one aim and object was to go to the Front : The British West Indies Regiment in Palestine, Chapter 2: 70 A Jewish Legion? The Jewish Battalions in Palestine, PART II Chapter 3: 117 The Full and Just Penalty? Military Justice and the British West Indies Regiment Chapter 4: 140 In the army, held by iron chains : The Jewish Battalions and Military Justice Chapter 5: 173 Time Wasted in Waste Places : Athletics and Imperial Conditioning in the War for Empire Conclusion 201 Bibliography 205

7 iii Acknowledgements Any large work is often the sum of its parts, and this project is no different, not least in the quantity and quality of those who have offered their support and wisdom throughout the course of this project. This dissertation began when I enrolled in a research seminar on Jews in the First World War during my first year of graduate school. A broad interest in the British Empire in the Middle East quickly crystallized into my initial research on the Jewish Legion, which led me to discover the British West Indies Regiment. The contours of this project began to take shape, and a trio of advisors in the History department provided the encouragement, support, and counsel to guide it to its current form. My foremost thanks go to Anthony Adamthwaite, whose affability and intellect helped persuade me to come to Berkeley. His support for this project never wavered, even as I bounced from one idea to another. His sage advice on all parts of academic life whether it be writing a chapter, constructing a conference paper, publishing, teaching, or finding a job was essential. James Vernon was also critical to the development of this project, and always quick to offer both support and indispensable feedback on various drafts. John Efron s initial encouragement to examine the Jewish Legion within a wider context was what sparked this project, and his assistance with the canon of Anglo-Jewish history was most welcome. In the political science department, Ron Hassner has been everything one could hope for in an outside reader. I also owe much to the entire History department at Berkeley, specifically Margaret Anderson, Geoff Koziol, Thomas Laqueur, Thomas Metcalf, and Tyler Stovall, all of whom influenced my professional development through their courses and feedback on my work. To the late Susanna Barrows, I owe a tremendous debt, for she helped me conceptualize what exactly it meant to be a historian and scholar. To the often unsung administrative staff of the department especially Mabel Lee and Hilja New I express my deep gratitude, because I literally would not have made it through the program without you. In addition to the faculty at Berkeley, I was also fortunate to be surrounded by a tremendous cadre of graduate students. I am particularly appreciative of those who read or helped me conceptualize this project, and wish to thank Riyad Koya, Radhika Natarajan, Alex Toledano, and Sarah Zimmerman for all their help. A host of others were influential in many other ways, specifically Rachel Bernard, Joe Bohling, Kate Bollinger, Desmond Fitz-Gibbon, Knightcarl Raymond, Arjun Subrahmanyan, Chris Shaw, Jesse Torgerson, and Ben Urwand. This intellectual support was made possible by the financial support I received from several sources at Berkeley. The Institute for European Studies supported my early years of graduate school, as well as my pre-dissertation research. The Institute for International Studies provided welcome financial support for writing, as did the UC-Berkeley Graduate Division, which also supported much of my dissertation research. Funds from the Helen Diller Family Trust enabled my trip to the YIVO and AJHS archives in New York City. All of these entities have my sincere thanks for allowing me to pursue this research. Outside of Berkeley, I wish to thank John Mitcham, Michelle Moyd, Andrew Muldoon, and Carole Summers for their feedback on my work at various conferences. Richard Fogarty and Andrew Jarboe, my two editors for a forthcoming publication, have provided fantastic editing and truly helped in the development of this entire work. The McKee s Martin, Dorothy, Rebecca, and Charlotte not only housed me during my trips to London, but became my surrogate family there. The staff of archives around the world specifically the National

8 Archives of the UK, the Imperial War Museum, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, the British Library, the Jabotinsky Institute, YIVO, and the American Jewish Historical Society made this project possible by providing me with the material needed to write it. The digital collections of the National Archives of both Australia and New Zealand, Moving Here, and the Library of Congress, gave me access to information from the comfort of my own desk. Abiel Acosta, David Hoftiezer, Susan Napier, and Jon Webster never ceased to remind me to get back to said comfortable desk. My sister, Annika, was always a source of encouragement. A special thanks to Margaret Darrow and Kenneth Shewmaker who long ago were the ones who launched me into the world of the British archives. A very lovely lady named Katy found herself suddenly part of this project many years ago. She has stood by me throughout the ups and downs, and even decided it would be a good idea to marry me. She has been more instrumental to this project than she will ever know, and my acknowledgement of her here does little to encompass what she means to me. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my parents. They have been an unrelenting source of encouragement and support, fueling my interest in history as a little boy with trips to bookstores, museums, and new places. It came as no surprise to them when I decided to wander off to the archives as an undergraduate, but I never would have gotten to that point without their love and devotion. To paraphrase another man s dissertation dedication, without them, this project may or may not have been possible. This one s for you, Mama and Papa. iv

9 v A Note on Terminology Throughout this dissertation, several problematic and polarizing terms are used freely to promote an ease of analysis. They also accurately contextualize and recreate the beliefs and actions of the early twentieth-century British Empire. The first of these is the use of the term minority to encapsulate the wide swath of men from across the Greater Caribbean and of Jewish faith who served in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. One might argue that the Jews were minority-nationals and the West Indians were colonials, and there is substantial merit to these arguments. However, this project considers them together as minorities because they were distinct from the notions of Britishness that pervaded the British armed forces during the Great War, even as they themselves articulated their own British identities. From a purely technical perspective, within the British Army of the First World War, black men who resided in the West Indies and men of Jewish faith could be, and often were, considered distinct from other British forces. The decisions to create the BWIR and Jewish battalions were firmly couched within understandings of these groups as distinct, minority entities within the British imperial war effort, and thus, this project uses the term minorities as an encompassing term. The idea of race, specifically in its relation to British military and imperial policy, is a common theme throughout this project. Most historians today understand race as a social construction, or, at the very least, recognize that biological or scientific understandings of human group identity are not predictive or confirmative, and are in fact designed to pigeonhole particular people into hierarchical categories for the benefit of various political and social ideas. However, the British Empire of the early twentieth-century did, in general, believe in various classifications of race that assigned immutable characteristics to certain groups, which in turn enabled the justification of various political, economic, and social hierarchies. To accurately examine the British Empire s Great War, this dissertation freely mentions, discusses, and analyzes, but does not seek to legitimize, race-based notions of ability and identity. The term coloured is a specific British term that refers to people of mixed racial background within the scope of this project, almost always of partial African descent and could carry particular class connotations. It occupies a middle position between white and black in the British worldview of the first half of the twentieth-century, and should be interpreted within that context; not as part of the American terminology of white and colored. Similarly, the use of the then contemporary terms non-european, not of pure European descent, and non-white, all of which deny people identity by describing what they are not as opposed to what they are, are used because they accurately reflect a dominant hierarchical dichotomy of white and other during the period this project examines. The term Palestine refers to Ottoman or British Palestine during the First World War and its aftermath, and is not in any way referential to the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian inside this dissertation, therefore, refers to the Jews residing in Ottoman Palestine before 1914 who joined the Jewish battalions, since this was the terminology used to describe them inside the EEF. Similarly, the terms Zionism or Zionist refer strictly to the idea of creating a Jewish national state in the pre-1948 period. They carry no pejorative, supportive, or modern political weight within this project. Lastly, a number of prominent and sometimes controversial political personalities and organizations are discussed throughout especially in chapters related to the Jewish Legion. My interest in situating these figures within the context of the British war for Palestine should not be interpreted as providing historical substantiation for any of their former or later beliefs, nor as a legitimization of critiques of their actions.

10 vi Abbreviations AJHS American Jewish Historical Society ANZAC Australia and New Zealand Army Corps AWOL Absent without leave BWIR British West Indies Regiment CAB Cabinet Office Papers CO Colonial Office Papers C.O. Commanding Officer EEF Egyptian Expeditionary Force ELC Egyptian Labour Corps FGCM Field General Court Martial FP Field Punishment (denoted as Number 1 or Number 2 ) GHQ General Headquarters HO Home Office Papers ICS Institute for Commonwealth Studies IWM Imperial War Museum JAG Judge Advocate General (If deputy attached, DJAG used) JI Jabotinsky Institute JRC Jewish Regiment Committee LOC Library of Congress NAA National Archives of Australia NCO Non-Commissioned Officer NZEF New Zealand Expeditionary force OR Ordinary Rank (Soldier without a commission) POW Prisoner of War RF Royal Fusiliers WICC West India Contingent Committee WIR West India Regiment WO War Office Papers WD War Diary ZMC Zion Mule Corps

11 1 Prologue For several weeks, spotters in the Ottoman Army watched as the British Army built up a massive force across from them in the Jordan River Valley. Great clouds of chalky dust kicked up as columns of troops marched into position during the day, while countless campfires burned through the night. Reconnaissance aircraft overflew the British position and saw thousands of horses, an indication that Indian cavalry and ANZAC mounted infantry were also encamped. Twice in the Spring of 1918 the British had attempted to break though the Ottoman defenses in the Jordan, but had ultimately failed on both occasions. Now in September 1918, it seemed that the British would try once again placing the bulk of their military manpower in the valley to overwhelm the Turks and consolidate their captures of Jericho and Jerusalem less than a year before. But they did not. Instead, Britain s Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) launched a massive offensive several dozen miles to the west of the Jordan. Following the plan laid out by the EEF Commander, General Sir Edmund Allenby, an immense artillery bombardment and waves of infantry created gaps in the Ottoman defenses that mounted troops quickly exploited and exaggerated. The result was perhaps the most resounding victory of the British Army in the First World War an unanticipated, but nearly total, triumph crowned by the capture of Damascus on October 1. Twenty-nine days later, an armistice that ended hostilities in the Middle East was signed in the harbor of Mudros in the North Aegean Sea. Britain s victory was so complete that it was named the Battle of Megiddo, for it began near Tel Megiddo, the supposed location of Armageddon. The attack in the Jordan River Valley had, in fact, come as well but not in the way the Ottoman commanders had expected. The massive British force in the western Jordan hills was an illusion the product of repeated decoy marches and dummy encampments replete with stick horses. The EEF soldiers who had supposedly been arriving throughout August had actually been secretly positioning themselves in the coastal plain, while the same battalion marched up from Jericho every day, returning secretly at night. But the soldiers in the Jordan valley were also part of Allenby s actual offensive. Under the command of the New Zealander, Major- General Sir Edward Chaytor, they crossed the Jordan, beat back the Ottoman troops from the bridgeheads and eastern banks of the valley, and blocked the potential routes of escape for the collapsing armies in the coastal plain. They too advanced rapidly, summiting the eastern hills of the valley en route to capturing the crucial towns of Es Salt and Amman, the latter a key junction on the Hejaz railway. Yet, while Chaytor s Force played an important role in the final victory in Palestine, its larger historical significance lies in its composition. For when the Ottoman spotters looked through their binoculars at the amassed troops on the western bank, they would have seen very few traditional British Tommy s. Instead, there were mounted men in ANZAC slouch hats, Indian troops, black and coloured men in British Army khaki, and, finally, British infantry who wore the Magen David on their uniforms the universal symbol of Judaism. Chaytor s troops were a composite force, an amalgam of different units from across the British Empire brought into service by the crushing casualties of the First World War. The presence of ANZACs and Indians in the British forces would surprise no historian but the utilization of expressly Jewish and West Indian units in front-line roles reflected important and subtle transformations inside the British Empire. What follows is a history of these men and these transformations.

12 2 Introduction Odds and sods, like Jewish battalions and regiments of Hottentots, wrote the British General Sir Edmund Allenby in June 1918, are useful in a way; but they won t win wars. 1 Although meant as an aside, Allenby s statement neatly encapsulated a series of assumptions about a portion of the soldiers he commanded in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), the army that fought the Ottoman Empire in the Sinai and Palestine during the First World War. Chief among these was the implicit equation of Jewish and black soldiers, as well as their middling categorization as useful in certain respects, but not essential for victory. For Allenby, these minority soldiers occupied a middle ground between those whom he preferred for fighting and those whom he, or Britain as a whole, might refuse to arm. Yet since taking command of the EEF roughly one year prior, Allenby had been forced to balance competing pressures: the desire for the successful conquest of Ottoman Palestine, but also the decision of the British command to rotate many of the EEF s British veterans to the Western Front. The result was that the prosecution of the final offensive campaign in Palestine in September 1918 increasingly relied on a diverse swath of empire and minority units, including some whose frontline service reflected a unique series of confluences brought on by the war the odds and sods. The principal focus of this work is to understand minority military service in the British Army during the First World War through the prism of Jews and black, British West Indians who were part of the EEF in Egypt and Palestine. 2 Both of these groups served within structurallyisolated units that had emerged during the war and supposedly reflected a particular identity and ethnoracial belonging the British West Indies Regiment and the Jewish battalions, officially part of the City of London Royal Fusiliers, but unofficially known as the Jewish Legion. While British West Indians and Jews had fought on behalf of Britain well before 1914, and served in almost every theater of the First World War, this project illustrates the unique history of those 1 Matthew Hughes, ed, Allenby in Palestine: the Middle East Correspondence of Field Marshal Viscount Allenby, June 1917-October 1919 (London: Army Records Society, 2004), 161. Allenby s letter was to Sir Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and his focus was on requesting veteran manpower. His letter continued, Americans and lame French Territorials do not make an army; and are merely an encumbrance, if immobilized by lack of transport. Give me some fighting Japanese Divisions, and I ll give you a lot of help. Who Allenby meant by the Hottentots is unclear; it could be a reference to the British West Indies Regiment, but also to units of African infantry that the War Office had implied might be released to his theater shortly. Regardless, the implication equating Jewish and black units remains clear. 2 The term minority is a potentially problematic term that in other instances, particularly after the Versailles Peace Conference, carried legal meaning or denoted a national identity. Within the scope of this project, however, the term connotes those who served in the British Army proper during the First World War, but might be marginalized as somehow distinct whether on account of race, place of birth, or faith. Thus, even though black British West Indians and British Jews could lay claim to a British identity, they came up against a definition of the term in the War Office and army that usually meant to be white, not self-identify as someone from the dominions or colonies, practice a Christian faith (generally Anglican), and, possibly, maintain a communal sense against others, as Linda Colley has argued. This, as later chapters illustrate, created significant conflict. On the broader history of West Indians and British identity, see Anne Spry Rush, The Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). For more on the term as it applies in the context of the British Army, see Jacqueline Jenkinson, All in the Same Uniform? The Participation of Black Colonial Residents in the British Armed Forces in the First World War, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 40 no. 2 (2012): and Linda Colley Britishness and Otherness Journal of British Studies 31 no. 4 (October 1992): , especially 326. For how the term minority has been used in war studies, a good starting place is Panikos Panayi, ed. Minorities in Wartime: National and Racial Groupings in Europe, North America and Australia during the Two World Wars (Berg Publishers: Oxford, 1993).

13 3 who fought for British Palestine. In that specific theater of war, West Indian and Jewish military service was significantly less constrained by prevailing assumptions about who was capable of bearing arms for Britain, enabling black and coloured men from the Anglophone Caribbean and a global panoply of Jews (many of whom were not British nationals) to serve alongside both each other and a host of other empire soldiers. As it so happened, Allenby s flippant equation of these two units occurred while he prepared for them to play similar roles in the build-up and prosecution of his final offensive, indicating a broader equivalency within British imperial and military policy, and suggesting the need for a more nuanced understanding of how the British Empire fought the Great War. Thus, by divorcing the units who served in Palestine from histories that provide a broad narrative across the entire war, and instead placing them in focused dialogue with each other, a new avenue opens for understanding minority military service in the First World War. The study that follows is the first to sustain a juxtaposed history of these two groups, although it often eschews explicit comparison in order to provide the requisite empirical depth. Rather, it offers a series of snapshots of how these specific units formed within the contours of political advocacy and ethnoracial prejudices, how they were trained and utilized, how they were viewed by other British and imperial forces, and what transpired in the months that followed the fighting s end in the late autumn of As this dissertation demonstrates, despite differentiation along religious, ethnic, and racial lines, the men of the BWIR and Jewish battalions enlisted specifically as British Army soldiers, thus creating a critical contradiction between wartime policy and prewar attitudes, since despite their minority identity, they were supposedly entitled to the same rights, privileges, and protections as any other British Tommy. Moving beyond how this affected their role as soldiers, this project is the first to investigate how this contradiction played out within the realm of military justice, specifically the hundreds of field courts-martial used to formally discipline the West Indian and Jewish soldiers. It also offers a new interpretation on the topic of athletics and minority soldiers, treating sports as part of a process of social and cultural conditioning designed to reinforce other forms of military and imperial authority. Threaded throughout these discussions is an illumination of how the West Indians and Jews reworked their own conceptions of imperial and military identity, the ways in which this both reinforced and challenged dominant British views, and how their selfconceptualization and service fused to generate a variety of expectations about their place in the postwar British empire. While the West Indians and Jews were not the only minority soldiers in the Palestine theater, their unique and shifting military roles, as well as broader political importance, offers a unique and compelling window into a poorly understood aspect of how Britain and its empire fought the First World War. Great War, Global War The history of the Great War has long been a European one a story of unforeseen carnage and stagnation on the Western Front, and of a flawed peace that led to another horrific, general conflict. The established Eurocentric focus is not surprising given the scale of bloodshed along the Western, Eastern, and Southern European Fronts; the majority of the nine million dead, twenty-one million wounded, and nearly eight million missing became a casualty on a European

14 4 battlefield. 3 Yet, the Great War was also a global war, a conflict in which vast empires marshaled men from around the world to fight each other far from their homes. In recent decades, histories of the Great War have increasingly recognized the conflict s global scope. Influenced by the imperial turn in scholarship, historians of the First World War have worked to understand the global nature of the conflict by focusing on its colonial and imperial dimensions. The narrative tapestry of the war has broadened as new works examine Senegalese, North African, and Indochinese soldiers in the French Army, Indians stationed in British trenches, African askari in the German Army, and the African, Chinese, and Egyptian labor corps who built much of the battlefield infrastructure. 4 When combined with a parallel body of material on the contributions of the white, British Dominions notably Australia, New Zealand, and Canada a much fuller picture of the conflict has emerged. 5 But despite this growth in scholarship, the majority of these works still confine themselves to European fronts and the ensuing metropolitan-colonial relationship. While understandable for the continental combatants, the British Empire, more than any other belligerent, fought a truly global war. As the short, localized conflict of August 1914 grew into a protracted struggle, Britain had no choice but to draw upon the economies and populations of its dominions and colonies. The empire was transformed into a great reservoir of manpower yielding well over 1 million Indians, roughly 1 million Africans, 600,000 Canadians, over a half million men from British Oceania, and over 100,000 white South Africans. 6 Other less-populated parts of the empire also 3 Of the 900,000 British men killed during the war, no less than 750,000 perished on the Western Front. John Morrow, The Great War: An Imperial History (London: Routledge, 2004), For the best individual overview of the topic, see John Morrow, The Great War Op. cit. Also excellent are the entire collection of essays in Santanu Das, ed. Race, Empire and First World War Writing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) particularly the chapters by Paul Bailey, Michelle Moyd, Kimloan Hill, and Christian Koller. For more specific work on France, see Richard Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Joe Lunn, Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (Portsmouth:, Heinemann; James Currey; David Philip, 1999); and Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006). On Indians, see David Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War: Soldiers Letters (Houdsmill: MacMillan Press Ltd, 1999) and Radhika Singha, The Recruiter s Eye on The Primitive : To Franceand Back-In the Indian Labour Corps, , in James Kitchen, Alisa Miller, and Laura Rowe eds, Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011). On China, see Guoqi Xu, China and the Great War: China s Pursuit of a New National Identity and Internationalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 5 The historiography around the contributions of these Dominions is immense, especially from the Australian perspective. Outside of official histories, good starting points include: David MacKenzie, ed. Canada and the First World War: Essays in Honour of Robert Craig Brown (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005); Bill Gammage The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War (Canberra: ANU Press, 1974); Christopher Pugsley, The ANZAC Experience: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War (Auckland: Reed, 2004). 6 Morrow, The Great War, 285, For slightly more conservative enlistment numbers (but roughly the same), see Robert Holland, The British Empire and the Great War, in Judith M. Brown and Wm.Roger Louis, eds., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. IV: The Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 1999), 117. Oceania provided over 400,000 Australians and over 100,000 New Zealanders, of which 59,000 Australians were killed in action, a higher proportion than the 57,000 Canadian dead. There is some dispute over the number of Africans serving in the war, with estimates ranging from ½ million to 1.5 million. Most were forcibly conscripted, often into roles as porters, bearers, or laborers. For more on Britain and Africa in the war, see Albert Grundlingh, Fighting their own war: South African Blacks and the First World War (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987); Tim Stapleton, No Insignificant Part: The Rhodesia Native Regiment and the East Africa Campaign of the First World War (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006); Byron Farwell, The Great War In Africa ( ), (New York: WW Norton, 1986); David Killingray and James Matthews. Beasts of Burden: British West African Carriers in the First World War, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 13, no 1/2 (1979): 7-23; Bill Nasson, Why

15 5 contributed, sending tens of thousands to the battlefield, including contingents of Rarotongans, Maori, Fijians, and Burmese. Some of these empire forces particularly the Canadians and contingents from Australia and New Zealand fought in France, as did portions of the Indian Army in the first years of the war. Yet the War Office s continued belief that the Western Front required the inherent racial superiority of the white, British soldier ensured that much of the empire s manpower also fought in the secondary theaters, the majority of them against the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and the Middle East. Many men served bravely in these campaigns, but empire soldiers took on such significant roles in them that they often became points of symbolic focus. The ANZAC contribution at Gallipoli, an ill-fated attempt to relieve pressure on the Western Front, helped develop a critical component of national mythology in both Australia and New Zealand. 7 In Mesopotamia, the Indian Army composed most of the British force, and garnered much attention for weathering the siege of Kut and seizing Baghdad, in the process helping consolidate the defense of India s northwestern flank. 8 In contrast, the British campaign for the Sinai and Palestine was, in the words of one historian, a multinational, multicultural, imperial effort. 9 It featured such a diversity of manpower, as well as enough relatively distinct phases, that it lacks the prevailing and dominant identity of other campaigns and is consequently less understood than the rest of the war. 10 While Palestine may not have affected the war against Germany in Europe, it was a military theater of great historical consequence more members of the British army spent time in Egypt and Palestine than in any other theater of war outside the Western Front and one that set many of the twentieth century s most important debates. 11 Initially tasked with defending the Suez Canal after the Ottoman declaration of war in November 1914, the British military presence in Egypt slowly evolved into an offensive they Fought: Black Cape Colonists and Imperial Wars, , The International Journal of African Historical Studies 37, no. 1 (2004): Both countries hold days of remembrance on April 25, the date of the initial landing. Two good, recent overviews on Gallipoli are Robin Prior, Gallipoli: The End of the Myth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) and Peter Hart Gallipoli (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Hart, in particular, has refocused attention on the importance of the French military contribution. For the New Zealander perspective, see Terry Kinloch, Echoes of Gallipoli: in the words of New Zealand s mounted riflemen (Auckland: Exisle, 2005). 8 On Britain s Mesopotamian campaign, a good starting point is Charles Townshend, Desert hell: the British Invasion of Mesopotamia (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011). 9 Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, The most immediate explanation of this is that the entire conflict in Palestine has been consistently underexamined by most general histories. Among recent histories from popular historians, John Keegan s The First World War (New York: Vintage Books, 2000) reduced the Palestine campaign from mid-1917 until 1918 to a mere nine lines, while Hew Strachan devoted just two paragraphs of his general study, The First World War (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), to the campaign. See Keegan 415, Strachan 284-5, 323. Some historians Ian Beckett and Martin Gilbert, and John Morrow have recognized the importance of the theater in their general studies, but they are a distinct minority; even histories of the global dimensions of the First World War barely address the conflict in Palestine. See Martin Gilbert The First World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt and Co, 1994); Ian Beckett The Great War, (Harlow: Longman Pearson, 2007); John Morrow, The Great War, and for examples of neglect, Ashley Jackson, Distant Drums: The Role of Colonies in British Imperial Warfare (Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2010) and V.D. Kierrnan, Colonial Empires and Armies, (Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing Limited, 1998). 11 Approximately 2.5 million men in the British forces served in the Middle East during WWI roughly 1 million of whom were stationed there after the Armistices. The breakdown of the total number of men who served in each theater is approximately: 5.4 million men on the Western Front, 1.2 million in Egypt and Palestine, 890,000 in Mesopotamia, 470,000 at Gallipoli, and 145,000 on the Italian front. David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York:Henry Holt and Co, 1989) 385.

16 6 campaign for the Sinai Peninsula and Ottoman Palestine. The early portion of this evolution took place under the command of the British General, Sir Archibald Murray, who had taken command of the newly created EEF in March Much of Murray s focus in 1916 was on an active defense of Egypt by crossing the Sinai Peninsula and pushing Ottoman forces back from the Suez Canal, a strategy that required the creation of significant infrastructure. 12 Although the EEF firmly moved into a more offensive role with victory at Romani in August 1916, their primary mission was still reasonably limited to ensure the defense of Egypt while also rotating troops back to the more important Western Front. 13 The ascendancy of David Lloyd George to the office of Prime Minister in December 1916 heralded a significant shift in British aims in Egypt and Palestine. An ardent bible scholar and astute politician, Lloyd George saw the Palestine front as an opportunity for victories to boost both his political capital and Allied morale particularly if they might entice the United States into joining the Allies cause. 14 After Murray failed to break through the Ottoman defenses at Gaza twice in the Spring of 1917, Lloyd George looked for a replacement, settling on General Sir Edmund Allenby in June Under Allenby, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force waged a wildly successful war bookended by the breakthrough at Beersheba at the very end of October 1917 and the capture of Aleppo almost exactly one year later. In between, the EEF conquered Gaza, Jerusalem, and Jaffa (November to December 1917), Jericho (February 1918), Haifa and Amman (September 1918), and Damascus (October 1918). 16 Britain finally had a war of movement, and Lloyd George had his victories. 12 Previously, British forces had been organized in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and a garrisoning force in Egypt. One British soldier recalled the constant dearth of necessary infrastructure as they advanced: There was practically nothing in the country. We wanted sleepers, rails, and locomotives for the railway; pipes, pumps, and other materials for the water-supply; waggons, motor-lorries and light-cars for transport purposes Antony Bluett, With Our Army in Palestine (London: Andrew Melrose Lts, 1919), 44. For an interesting take on the evolution of infrastructure and imperial rule, see Kristian Coates Ulrichsen The Logistics and Politics of the British Campaigns in the Middle East, (London: Palgrave Macillan, 2011). 13 The War Office had Murray send almost a quarter-million troops and nine heavy artillery batteries to France by July As late as December 15, 1916, the Imperial General Staff maintained to Murray that your primary mission remains unchanged, that is to say, it is the defence of Egypt. You will be informed if and when the War Cabinet changes this policy. One month later, it informed him that no offensive operations should begin in Palestine until Fall See WO 33/905/6323, Chief of the Imp General Staff to CinC Egypt, Dec 15, 1916, and 33/905/6495a, Chief of the Imperial General Staff to CinC Egypt, January , No On manpower, see David Woodward, Forgotten Soldiers of the First World War (Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2006), Lloyd George quickly asserted himself an April 1917 Cabinet memorandum noted that British Palestine is undoubtedly what is hoped for by the great mass of the inhabitants of Palestine proper. The delivery of Jerusalem from the Turk would be hailed by every Christian, Jew, and Arab would have world wide moral and political effect. See CAB 21/15. Memorandum by Captain Ormsby Gore entitled Campaign in Palestine and Syria, April 1, There is a vast literature on Lloyd George during the First World War, not least of which are the seven volumes of his own memoirs. For an introduction, see Bentley Brinkerhoff Gilbert David Lloyd George: A political life: Organizer of Victory, (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992), George Cassar, Lloyd George at War, (London: Anthem Press, 2009), and David Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals (Newark, University of Delaware Press: 1983). 15 Matthew Hughes, the preeminent historian of Allenby s strategy, argued that Murray lacked the verve to move from logistics to operational success, while George Cassar argued that Lloyd George s decision was because Murray deceived the War Cabinet about the First Battle of Gaza in March Allenby was Lloyd George s second choice; his first was the South African Jan Smuts, who declined. See Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, 7; Cassar, Lloyd George at War, For many years, the works of the official war correspondents W.T. Massey and Henry Gullett in conjunction with a series of memoirs published in the 1920s, served as the dominant histories of the British war in Palestine. W.T. Massey. The desert campaigns (London: GP Putnam, 1918), How Jerusalem was won, being the record of

17 7 Figure I.1 Map of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, Allenby s campaign in Palestine (London: Constable and Co, 1919), and Allenby s Final Triumph (London: Constable and Co, 1920). Henry Gullett, The Official History of Australia in the War of , Vol 7, Sinai and Palestine: The Australian Imperial Force in Sinai and Palestine, (Sydney: Angust and Robertson, 1923). See also Cyril Falls, Armageddon, 1918 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964). Several descriptive memoirs of the war in Palestine are RMP Preston, The Desert Mounted Corps: An Account of the Cavalry Operations in Palestine and Syria, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922), Captain Oskar Teichman, DSO MC. The Diary of a Yeomanry M.O.: Egypt, Gallipoli, Palestine and Italy (London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd, 1921), Bluett, With Our Army Op. cit. and Cecil Sommers, Temporary Crusaders (London: John Lane, This map depicts the movements of Murray, Allenby, and Arab forces. The 2 depicts both the unsuccessful Trans-Jordan raids of Spring 1918, as well as the approximate location of Chaytor s Force, including the BWIR and Jewish battalions, who took those positions in Summer Chaytor s offensive in September 1918 followed a similar route to the raids, although the map arrow is misleading and should be located just above the northern tip of the Dead Sea. Modified from Matthew Hughes and William J. Philpott, The Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas of the First World War (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), Map 35.

18 8 Allenby, or Bull, as his soldiers sometimes referred to him, could have simply been remembered as a failed commander on the Western Front, a former cavalryman who simply could not tactically adapt to the conditions of the trenches. Instead, his success in Palestine, particularly his impressive defeat of the Turkish armies at Megiddo in September 1918, provided him with a wholly more positive reputation. 18 Together with T.E. Lawrence, Allenby anchored the history of the Palestine campaign. Both men embodied a familiar British romanticism; one in which white, British men displayed their ingenuity and martial ability against an easily Orientalized enemy, achieving overwhelming victory. 19 Such history provided a sunnier counterpoint to the wastage of the trenches, particularly as the postwar glow faded into the dark introspection of later decades. Yet while Lawrence still captures popular imagination and Allenby the attention of many military historians, the history of the First World War in Egypt and Palestine has begun to broaden to include all those who served. More than any other military force in the war, the EEF was a diverse collection of British, imperial, colonial, minority, and minority-national soldiers that tended to reflect shifting perceptions of military ability. For much of the war, it had a substantial Territorial contingent, who despite being English, had initially been derided as a town-clerks army and subject to similar obstacles as dominion and minority troops. 20 Once these men became needed on the 18 Two biographies of Allenby are Sir Archibald Wavell, Allenby: A Study in Greatness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941) and Lawrence James, Imperial Warrior: The Life and Times of Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1994). The best introduction to his time in Palestine is Jonathan Newell, Allenby and the Palestine Campaign, in Brian Bond, ed. The First World War and British Military History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991) and the best overview of his strategy is Matthew Hughes, Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1999). Allenby s use of ground-air tactics, as well as a highly mobile piercing-attack, has led some to argue that he was the first to successfully utilize modern combined arms, (thus perfecting blitzkrieg thirty years before the Wermacht conquered most of Europe). See Gregory Daddis, Armageddon s lost lessons: combined arms operation in Allenby s Palestine Campaign (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 2005), 2; Bryan Perrett, Megiddo 1918: The Last Great Cavalry Victory (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1999) Lawrence as the intellectual commander gone native, with Allenby as the military mastermind were, and still are, easily digestible themes to the public. These assumptions were aided by the physical and historical geography of Palestine. A European military campaign against the Ottomans had obvious parallels to the Crusades, and this retrograde context was only further enhanced by the biblical allure of both religious sites and battlefields in Palestine. Megiddo the final major battle of the Palestine theater was not only the site of several biblical contests involving Egyptian Pharaohs, but it was supposedly the site of Armageddon yet another final battle. Further romantic synchronicities developed around Allenby whose name translated phonetically to prophet of Allah and who supposedly fulfilled an ancient prophecy about transporting the Nile to Palestine (the Sinai water pipeline) and driving the Turks from Jerusalem. (The phonetic forms are: Allah nbi, al-nabi, or Allah-nebi. It seems that the British may have been more enthused by this parallel than their Islamic allies). For overviews of the romanticized literature, often in the form of crusading, see Eitan Bar Yosef, The Last Crusade? British Propaganda and the Palestine Campaign, , in Journal of Contemporary History 36, no. 1 (Jan 2001): and Jonathan Newell, Allenby and the Palestine Campaign, Op. cit. For a contemporary example of this trend, see Anthony Bruce, The Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War (London: John Murray, 2002). On Lawrence, good starting places are Brian Holden Reid T.E. Lawrence and his Biographers, in Brian Bond, ed. Op. cit. and his authorized biography: Jeremy Wilson, Lawrence of Arabia (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1989). 20 David Woodward, in Forgotten Soldiers of the First World War Op. cit. has argued that the Territorials were a key and forgotten piece of victory in Palestine. For a broader overview, see Ian Beckett, The Amateur Military Tradition, (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1991), Beckett points out that the Territorials initially were used to release regular army troops from imperial garrison duties, and once sent to France, found themselves facing Lines of Communication duties instead of front line service, discrimination in pay and benefits, perceptions of lax discipline, and a hostility from other Army units. These, as this dissertation reveals, were commonalities with the minority units in the EEF.

19 9 Western Front, the result was what some scholars have termed the Indianization of the force British men ordered to Europe had their units diluted with or replaced by Indian soldiers (a policy known as substitution ). 21 This intensified with the major German offensive of Spring 1918 along the Western Front (the Kaiserschlacht or Ludendorff Offensive ), as incorrectly inflated intelligence about Ottoman troop strength led the British General Staff to relocate British troops to France before they were killed in a secondary theater. 22 Indian troops replaced two British divisions in April 1918 and twenty-four more British battalions between May and early August requiring an expansion in the martial race doctrine in India to include seventy-five new classes of Indians, as well as a lessening of physical enlistment criteria. 23 Throughout this transformation, a substantial core of ANZACs remained, a significant proportion of whom had arrived in the theater after serving at Gallipoli. By the time Allenby launched his final offensive near Megiddo in September 1918, his front-line force of almost 70,000 men contained only a small number of British soldiers. 24 Thus, the EEF could not maintain the racial dichotomy of the Western Front in which whites bore arms and non-whites and minorities generally did not it had to both train and allow men from minority groups to fight. 25 But these men tend not to fit the dominant contours of the broader imperial experience, and thus are either neglected or examined in isolation from similar groups, usually via works that are bounded by national or ethnic identifiers. Broader histories provide an overview of the imperial war effort in Egypt and Palestine, but unsurprisingly, tend to focus on the history of the largest groups. Thus, while there is a 21 Two good discussions of Indianization are in the same recent volume: Dennis Showalter, The Indianization of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, : An Imperial Turning Point and James Kitchen, The Indianization of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force: Palestine 1918 both in Kaushik Roy, ed. The Indian Army in the Two World Wars (Leiden: Brill, 2012). For more on Indian forces in the EEF, see D.C. Verman, Indian Armed Forces in Egypt and Palestine (New Delhi: Rajesh Publications, 2004); Byron Farwell, Armies of the Raj: From the Mutiny to Independence, (New York: WW Norton, 1989); and Charles Chenevix Trench, The Indian Army and the King s Enemies, (GDR: Thames and Hudson, 1988). 22 Yigal Sheffy, British Military Intelligence in the Palestine Campaign (London: Frank Cass & Co, 1998), 288. On the condition of the Ottoman Army in Palestine, see Edward J. Erickson, Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I: A comparative study (London: Routledge, 2007). British soldiers in Egypt and Palestine were often aware of their future transfer. One noted in his diary, the rumours that we are going to France had been recurrent ever since the great, German offensive began in March. They also knew they were being replaced by troops from British India. See IWM 84/52/1. Diary of J. Wilson, June 1, 1918, pg The 52 nd and 74 th were replaced by the 7 th Meerut and 3 rd Lahore Divisions. For notes on the exact substitutions, see WO 161/81. A Brief Record of The Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force Under the Command of General Sir Edmund HH Allenby, GCB GCMG July 1917 to October 1918, Compiled from Official Sources and Published by The Palestine News. (Cairo: Government Press and Survey of Egypt, 1919) pg For information on changes in Indian recruitment, see Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War, pg 16 and Beckett, The Great War (2 nd ed), 94. For two good discussions of martial races, see Heather Streets-Salter, Martial races: the military, race and masculinity in British imperial culture, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004) and Timothy Parsons, The African rank-and-file: social implications of colonial military service in the King s African Rifles, (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1999), especially Chapter 3. Parsons examination is particularly useful in light of the shifting parameters of what was meant by martial in the recruitment of Indians into the EEF. 24 In fact, there was only one entirely British division in Allenby s force (the 54 th East Anglians, known unflatteringly as Allenby s pets ). In contrast, there were 51 British infantry divisions in France. See Holland, The British Empire and the Great War, 136. The size of divisions changed during the war, but each consisted of three brigades (each between men), plus divisional troops. 25 For discussion of this, see Chapter 1 of Laura Tabili, We ask for British justice: workers and racial difference in late Imperial Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). How to fit the Indian Army into this framework is trickier than Tabili lets on.

20 10 substantial canon of scholarship addressing the Australian and New Zealander contribution, as well as growing work on Indian forces, smaller minority and imperial forces are often confined to small asides. 26 Yet perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Allenby s EEF was its diversity outside of the dominant imperial groups there were American and Russian Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Burmese, Canadians, Egyptians, Francophone Africans, Italian Bersaglieri, Rarotongans, South Africans, and West Indians. With the exception of two recent monographs that aim for inclusivity, yet both of which maintain much larger scopes of analysis, studies of these less-dominant constituents are bounded by a variety of geographic, national, religious, and ethnic boundaries that isolate their subjects from the broader historical context. 27 For the most part, the small canon of histories focused on minority soldiers in the Britain s Great War forces has tended to be both unitary and isolated in focus. The experiences of a particular group are discussed in a unified manner, but the study is isolated from broader parallels and comparative possibilities. While often well-researched and well-argued, these specialized histories are often hamstrung by their inability to assess the uniqueness of the situations faced by their subject. They are, in many ways, micro-histories of the units, albeit with broader import to their specific colonial and imperial canons. 28 Their isolation from the broader immediate context of the other similar participants, however, results in a historiography that lacks a connection between the broad imperial and colonial history of the Palestine Campaign itself and the postwar British Empire. It is not surprising that while military historians have mostly ignored them, historians of empire have often fixated on minority and colonial units after decades of neglect, as they tend to fit dominant historiographical narratives of colonial othering. Many explore the obstacles faced by minority soldiers: official discrimination, trumped up charges and verdicts, racially motivated presumptions of inferiority, not to mention a pervasive atmosphere of dislike, distrust, and disgust. While the historical record demonstrates that all of the above occurred, the major problem to grapple with is that, sometimes, the opposite occurred. The trajectory in many studies of the BWIR, for example, is that miserable service conditions, false promises, and racist abuse triggered an explosion of discontent, helping to catalyze several nationalist movements in the postwar-caribbean. 29 Less linear studies also tend 26 In a very broad canon that often features romanticized narratives, good starting points that consider not only military success, but relationships with the inhabitants of Palestine and the British command are: Terry Kinloch, Devils on Horses: In the Words of the ANZACs in the Middle East, (Auckland: Exisle, 2007); Christopher Pugsley, On the Fringe of Hell: New Zealanders and Military Discipline in the First World War (Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991) and The ANZAC Experience: New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War (Auckland: Reed, 2004); Suzanne Brugger, Australians and Egypt, (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1980). On their legacy, see Paul Daley, Beersheba: A journey through Australia s forgotten war (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2009), which shows how a particular strain of evangelical Christians believe that Christ will be accompanied into Jerusalem by the fallen ANZAC horsemen (such was their importance to the Holy Land s liberation). Good discussions of Indian Army contributions are in fn The best, and most recent, examination of this topic is Edward Woodfin, Camp and Combat in the Sinai and Palestine: The Experience of the British Empire Soldier, (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), while David Woodward, Forgotten Soldiers Op. cit. originally published as Hell in the Holy Land by the University of Kentucky Press, is also useful. See also, Mario Ruiz, Manly Spectacles and Imperial Soldiers in Wartime Egypt, , Middle Eastern Studies 45 no. 3 (2009): There are plenty of micro-histories of British units too. See Michael Mortlock, The Egyptian Expeditionary Force in World War I: A History of the British-Led Campaigns in Egypt, Palestine and Syria (Jefferson: Mcfarland, 2010), which is really a study of the 5 th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. 29 Perhaps the classic example is WF Elkins, A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean: The Revolt of the British West Indies Regiment at Taranto, Italy, in Science & Society 34, no. 1 (Spring 1970): For a more

21 11 to allow an interest in the development of Caribbean identity and nationalism to shape discussions of wartime experience. The problem is that there was no unitary West Indian wartime experience some battalions were combat troops in Palestine, others were support troops in France and Mesopotamia, some served in Africa, and still others were essentially forced into labor duties while in Italy. Similarly, how can we accept a unified history of discrimination against West Indian soldiers, culminating in the Taranto mutiny and trials in Italy in December 1918, when three battalions of West Indians in Palestine were not only nowhere near Taranto, but were actually publicly well-regarded as soldiers and imperial citizens by their peer units including white soldiers? Similar issues constrain the history of the Jewish battalions inside the EEF, which tend to be discussed within the contours of the history of Anglo-Jewry or Zionism. In both cases, the battalions themselves are often a mere aside to broader political and social focuses, either as a tangible manifestation of the unsteady Zionist and British relationship or as part of the rupture in the Anglo-Jewish community. Often, the battalions are discussed only in terms of the service of certain key Jewish figures in the Mandate and post-1948 period, reducing a much broader and complex wartime story. 30 How can the history of the Jewish Legion be merely the prehistory of the Haganah, a critical stepping stone in the Zionist narrative from Bar Kochba to 1948, when the first Jewish battalion, the one with the most illustrious combat record, was dominated by British Jews, including Russia-born East-Enders, who generally had minimal interest in settling in a Jewish Palestine? Overall, in fact, despite their fertile histories, both the Jewish Legion and the British West Indies Regiment have been under-examined by modern historians. Glenford Howe s Race, War, and Nationalism is still the only work to focus on the contributions of the entire West Indies during the war, while more recent work by Richard Smith tends to fixate on the Jamaican experience during the war. 31 While groundbreaking, the work of both these scholars has significantly minimized the West Indian story in Palestine, preferring to focus on both the Caribbean and the Western Front. The story of the Jewish battalions in Palestine has also been told principally by Martin Watt s balanced and well-researched work, as well as Michael and Shlomit Keren s anthology of experience. 32 However, neither is able to fully assess the nuanced example, see Glenford D. Howe, De (Re) Constructing Identities: World War I and the Growth of a Barbadian/West Indian Nationalism, in The Empowering Impulse: The Nationalist Tradition of Barbados, Glenford D. Howe and Don D. Marshall, eds. (Barbados: Canoe Press, 2001) These issues are discussed in Chapter 2. Key works that discuss the battalions relationship with the Mandate are AJ Sherman, Mandate Days: British Lives in Palestine (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997); Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (New York: Henry Holt, 2000); Naomi Shepherd, Ploughing Sand:British Rule in Palestine, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000); and the volume that best connects the actual war to the Mandate, David Fromkin s A Peace to End All Peace Op. cit. 31 Glenford Howe, Race, War and Nationalism: A Social History of West Indians in the First World War (Oxford: James Currey Publishers, 2002); Richard Smith, Jamaican volunteers in the First World War: Race, masculinity and the development of national consciousness (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), Richard Smith Heaven grant you strength to fight the battle for your race : nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the First World War in Jamaican memory, in Race, Empire, and First World War Writing, ed. Santanu Das, Op. cit., Both only offer a few pages specifically focused on Palestine, instead focusing on experience inside Europe and the West Indies. 32 Martin Watts, The Jewish Legion and the First World War (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Watts does offer some comparative discussion on , but focuses mostly on exposure to disease. Michael Keren and Shlomit Keren, We are Coming, Unafraid: The Jewish Legions and the Promised Land in the First World War (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010). A shorter, very specific article on the early conception of the Jewish battalions, is Martin Sugarman, The March of the 38 th Royal Fusiliers: When the Spirit of Judah Macabee Hovered

22 12 uniqueness of the situations encountered by Jewish troop in the EEF, and outside, comparative context is often minimal. While all of these volumes make important contributions to the canon of Great War scholarship, the examination put forth in this dissertation better illuminates the intersections of imperial policy and military experience across the Palestine front for all historians of empire and war. When viewed in isolation from each other, each unit appears of minor significance to both the war and broader imperial history. Yet, when considered together, it is clear that there are similarities possibly to the point of congruence between some of the minority battalions inside the EEF. While the BWIR as a whole has been well-situated against the African and Afro-colonial experiences in the war, the divergent history of the battalions in Palestine, which tends not to fit completely within these narratives, is generally minimized. Similarly, isolated Jewish battalions should not simply be compared to Jewish soldiers in other theaters of war they should be examined within the context of similarly-constructed units engaged in similar tasks, regardless of divergences in ethnoracial identity. It s even possible to consider these structurally isolated units of several thousand men, generally grouped together by perceived common ties in ethnicity, religion, and race, as a distinct tier within Allenby s force. Yet, because of their small size and strategic flexibility, most military historians of the Palestine theater have ignored or misunderstood their contributions, but they were a unique, and at times essential, part of Allenby s fighting force, and one which has much to offer historians of both empire and the First World War. This dissertation eschews a focus rooted in shared regional, national, or ethnic identity, and instead looks for similarity and dissimilarity inside the actual theater of war in this case, Egypt and Palestine. 33 In the case of the West Indians, this involves separating them from the dominant narrative predicated on European experience. For the Jewish battalions, the focus is on deconstructing the unitary notion of a Legion and exposing the distinctions between its component battalions. Throughout, the project recognizes that the minority composition of these battalions ensured that as a unit, they were imbued with deep political and social significance. While some constituent men worked to reinforce and uphold these parameters, others might attempt to counter them, and still more remained either indifferent or unaware of these broader undertones. This work also makes a point of not ignoring the key British personalities, like Allenby, but rather works to integrate him and the rest of the EEF into a series of smaller narratives about the various colonial and minority soldiers that fought in this campaign. Contextualization is key for such a polyglot force, for it illuminates the broader contours of British military and imperial policy. This is not, however, strictly an account of either imperial politics or military history, for it does not focus exclusively on either high politics or tactical and strategic issues. Instead, it veers between these two canons to chart and illuminate issues and experiences that are usually overlooked, including the training of minorities for war, their encounters with military justice, over the Whitechapel Road, (Western Front Association, 2009). Online: [Accessed July 25, 2013]. 33 This approach is gaining traction in the study of empires and the Great War. One new attempt at an overdue transnational approach to the topic is Timothy Winegard, Indigenous Peoples of the British Dominions and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Several edited volumes also are constructed with similar goals: Santanu Das, ed. Race, Empire and First World War Writing Op. cit.; Richard Fogarty and Andrew Jarboe, eds. Empire in the First World War: Shifting Frontiers and Imperial Dynamics in a Global Conflict (London: IB Tauris, Forthcoming 2013), as well as the section on Race and National Identity in James Kitchen, Alisa Miller, and Laura Rowe eds, Other Combatants, Other Fronts Op. cit.

23 13 and processes of social and cultural conditioning through sport and education. It also attempts to bridge the gap between military histories that tend to end with the Armistice at Mudros, Mandate histories that begin with the war s end, and the empire micro-histories that discuss postwar discontent only as it pertains to their subject, often decontextualizing the topic from broader issues. There is, therefore, plenty of room in the historical canon for a study that offers a middle approach: a comparative and synthetic examination of some minority soldiers situated within the broader context of the British empire at war. The significance of this project, then, lies in its unique comparative structure and its examination of previously undiscussed elements of imperial and minority soldiering in the Palestine theater. It revitalizes the military history of the British war for Palestine, demonstrating the crucial and often neglected role of minority forces in defeating the Ottoman Army. By offering a comparative examination, it helps clarify why the marginalized men of one empire fought to destroy a different empire in a part of the world far from their homes and families. More importantly, this work provides a clear sense of the functional existence of these men using them as a prism for understanding the transitory nature of British imperial policy during a war that uniquely reshaped both Europe and European empire. 34 This means deviating from a simple combat narrative in favor of a broader analysis of military service, one expanded to encounters with the military justice system and the various education and training schemes created by the British Army. Moving beyond capital courts-martial, a close examination of military justice helps uncover the conflict between minority military service, discrimination, and the structures of liberal empire. Education and training, on the other hand, demonstrates the way in which the empire in this case via the Army sought to acculturate and mold potential postwar destabilizers into amenable imperial participants. All of this was contextualized not only by the crisis of manpower in Britain and the debate between the Colonial Office and War Office over the enlistment of previously impermissible men, but also by British fears of the rise of Bolshevism in Europe. An examination of these areas illuminates the relationships in Palestine between minority soldiers and the state, and between the soldiers themselves, providing an important foundation for understanding the broader frustrations of veterans in the postwar British empire. West Indians and Jews: The Case for an Integrated Understanding Despite appearing a somewhat unusual comparison at first, the West Indian and Jewish units in the EEF were actually quite analogous. From a technical standpoint, they were similar in terms of size and military designation. The Jewish troops in Palestine in 1918 were the 38 th, 39 th, and 40 th Royal Fusiliers, with the first two battalions employed as regular service units and the latter essentially serving as a reserve battalion. Similarly, the British West Indies Regiment had its 1 st and 2 nd battalions as regular service units, and the 5 th Battalion as a reserve unit Importantly, despite its detail, this project does not attempt to recite fully the wartime experience of these men. Although this is a common theme in military history, there are deep methodological problems of recapturing lived experience from limited sources. In recognition of this issue, this project focuses instead on the functional existence of the units, examining their actions and reactions within the broader context of imperial and military policy. Additionally, while particular military encounters are recounted in detail, it is not due to any great attachment to military history, but because these details refute contemporary and scholarly perceptions of minimal military involvement for most minority soldiers. 35 The size of these battalions could fluctuate, but usually the battalions marked for service had approximately 1,000 men, while the reserve units generally contained several hundred more (sometimes well-over that number, in

24 14 Both units maintained a flexible role throughout their service, executing a range of primary and secondary military duties, as well as some labor and defensive infrastructure projects. Primary roles revolved around front-line service, raids, or combat, while secondary roles encapsulated the garrisoning of towns, the escorting or guarding of POW s, the patrolling of supply and communication lines, and a range of other militarily necessary tasks that did not involve direct, adversarial contact with the enemy. While they arrived in the theater at different times, both units held the line in the Jordan Valley as part of Chaytor s Force during the September 1918 offensive, and both had sustained military and social interaction with the other imperial troops in the force. Outside of the Jordan Valley offensive, they performed a similarly wide range of military tasks, had comparable wartime and postwar training programs, and faced similar types of political, social, and military obstacles. Interestingly, there was an attempt to brigade the Jewish units and West Indians together, into one united military force. This order appears to have driven by military protocol (although various Jewish soldiers allege it was designed to eliminate the Jewish character of their units), but it seems to betray an intrinsic hierarchy inside the British Army that placed these two different groups of men together. Importantly, both units fell under the aegis of the British Army, and not a separate command or autonomous expeditionary force (like the Indian Army or various Dominion forces), nor was either unit marked as a colonial force. 36 Rather, they both maintained the status of official units of the British Army, just as any distinct unit of Englishmen did. As a consequence, they technically held the same rights and privileges of any other British soldier under the Army Act of 1914, which offered them not only certain legal protections, but gave them a platform from which to express grievances and make claims. This, in turn, allowed them to generate their own versions of British identity, which often led to service and disciplinary situations that fully illuminated the complexities and contradictions of imperial rule. Yet with the exception of officers, most of the men within these two units were considered by much of British officialdom to be at least somewhat distinct from normative British identity whether due to religious faith, racial background, or place of birth. The result was that their soldiering abilities could be assumptively questioned because of engrained prejudice generally relating to discipline, courage, and martial intellect. Yet these units were only homogenous in their composition within the sense of how the British Army and government constructed identity. There were few commonalities between Yiddish-speaking, Russian immigrants from London s East End who enlisted in the Jewish battalions under the threat of deportation to Russia, and American Zionists who willingly enlisted in the British army for a chance to forge Eretz Yisrael. Similarly, the British West Indies Regiment represented the entire Anglophone Caribbean an area encompassing thousands of square miles and composed of islands with a multitude of political, social, economic, and cultural distinctions. 37 the case of the Jewish battalions at the end of 1918). It s fair to estimate both contributions to the EEF during the war at between 3000 and 5000 men. Roughly another 5000 Jewish volunteers were being assembled and trained in Canada when the war ended, but they played very little to no part in the proceedings discussed in this project. 36 For an introduction to the issues of autonomy and separation in Britain s imperial forces, see Holland, The British Empire and the Great War, The distance between the Bahamas and Trinidad & Tobago is nearly 2.5 times the length of England and Scotland, and shipping routes were often indirect. As late as the 1920s, letters from Jamaica to locations like Barbados, Trinidad, or British Guiana often routed through London, New York City, or Halifax due to the lack of direct shipping routes. For more, see Elisabeth Wallace, The British Caribbean: From the decline of colonialism to the end of Federation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 26.

25 15 The consequence of these shared divergences was that members of both the Jewish battalions and BWIR differentiated themselves from groups that some British officials might lump them in with. Inside the Jewish battalions, many drew distinctions between assimilated British Jews, Russian-born immigrants, Zionist volunteers, and the various Jews who had settled in Egypt and Ottoman Palestine before the war. Likewise, the BWIR articulated its difference from the long-existing professional body of West Indian soldiers, the West India Regiment (WIR). Members of the BWIR referred to themselves as imperial troops, a distinct contrast to the pejorative colonial they termed the WIR, and a difference underscored by the BWIR s regular khaki versus the WIR s distinctive zouave uniform. The internal support for such differentiation stemmed from the BWIR s self-conscious status as volunteers, in itself code for the middle class status many of the regiment s soldiers maintained before the war. The final point in favor of juxtaposition is that both units reflected certain political goals the Jews and West Indians service in supposedly homogenous units had an express political purpose. The Colonial Office wanted to federate the West Indies and defuse the rise of pan-african nationalism, while the Jewish Legion represented the goals of pro-zionist elements of the British government to create a body of men attuned to future British governance in the Middle East. Thus, their status as military units was unique to the time (and ultimately fleeting), for the divergences from prevailing ideas about their incapability of effective soldiering was due to a unique set of political circumstance and lobbying, the combination of an offensive war in Palestine, and the attrition of the Western Front. By the armistice, the British military command consistently feared these units exposure to, and potential participation in, future political disturbances (Bolshevism and black nationalism, mainly) as a result of slow demobilization. While they had swallowed their discomfort in arming and training minority soldiers during the war itself, afterwards, old stereotypes quickly coalesced with new fears. The result was a diffuse attempt to ensure their amenability to empire, utilizing both athletics and education as a means to both acculturate and counter potentially destabilizing politics. However, this process helped inadvertently to reinforce preexisting relationships between minority and Dominion soldiers, and thus underline new notions of imperial service and community. By juxtaposing these units, while also situating them within the broad contours of military and imperial policy, it is possible to show how the British Empire utilized all of its available manpower to extend its territorial boundaries in the Middle East. This is the gap which this work seeks to fill to understand how Britain chose parts of its Empire to fight the war in the Middle East, how that war was fought, and to suggest how this would lead to broader consequences for the postwar, imperial world. Chapters and Sources This dissertation is divided into two major parts. Part I traces the creation, training, and military service of both sets of minority battalions. More specifically, it illustrates how the battalions in Palestine reflected various British political motivations, assumptions about martial ability, and understandings of West Indian and Jewish identity. It also reveals countermotivations and understandings on the part of the battalions, illuminating the ways in which this generated conflict and disruption. Part II grapples with two underexplored facets of minority wartime experience related to the maintenance of imperial authority. The first of these is military justice, specifically courts-martial in the field, which exhibited prejudicial variants, but also a

26 surprisingly liberal counterbalancing through judicial review. The second is the idea of imperial and cultural conditioning through a process long assumed to simply be a postwar distraction athletics. In both cases, a broad, contextual backdrop is provided by the unrest inside the EEF in Chapter 1 examines the battalions of the British West Indies Regiment in Egypt and Palestine, and argues that they not only self-differentiated from other non-white military units, but that these beliefs were reinforced by Colonial officials interested in Caribbean federation. In contrast, the War Office maintained a prejudiced view of all black troops, and refused to differentiate these battalions from any other black military or labor unit except in cases of military necessity and Colonial Office pressure. These divergences shaped the military service of the battalions and created conflicting expectations, especially after they were fully trained as combat forces in the EEF and given a more significant military role than normally assumed after Allenby s arrival in Chapter 2 follows a similar analytical trajectory to relate the history of the Jewish battalions. It fleshes out the conflicts between Zionists and assimilated Anglo-Jewry over the creation of the battalions, and reveals how this shaped the identity of each individual battalion in the period prior to the armistice. The result is a disputation of the idea of a unified Jewish Legion experience in Egypt and Palestine, as the chapter shows how some of the most prominent Legionnaires in the postwar period played very minimal roles in the actual September offensives. The focus of the project shifts in Chapter 3, which begins Part II. After outlining the mechanics of military courts-martial, this chapter illuminates how race-based perceptions of indiscipline led to a higher frequency of British West Indian soldiers being charged with infringements of military order, and how most were sentenced more harshly than other army soldiers. However, it also demonstrates how West Indian soldiers were still entitled to processes of judicial review, which often commuted or remitted their sentences to levels similar to other soldiers inside the EEF. Thus, West Indians faced a contradictory judicial process of punitive sentencing that was often followed by compensatory revision. Chapter 4 switches to the Jewish battalions encounter with military justice in Egypt and Palestine. It points out that while the disciplinary records of the front-line battalions have some similarities to the West Indian story, the overwhelming majority of Jewish soldiers faced courtsmartial after fighting concluded, and therefore most disciplinary infractions stemmed from localized issues like demobilization into British Palestine. It also disputes the idea of unrelenting prejudicial sentencing of Jewish soldiers, pointing out that access to educated men in the battalion as defense representatives as well as disciplinary flexibility on the part of battalion officers meant lower conviction rates than often assumed. As the chapter illustrates, this specifically occurred during the battalion mutinies of Sumer 1919, a series of incidents that are contextualized within the broader unrest inside the entire EEF. Lastly, Chapter 5 shifts the focus from visible and entrenched governance to the more subtle cultural and social realm of acculturation. It argues that athletics, traditionally understood as simply a leisure activity in the army, were a form of imperial conditioning in Palestine. Demonstrating how EEF soldiers, especially minority troops, were forced to compete athletically and attend various educational schemes in the armistice period, it contends that these actions reflected the attempt of British officers to counter rising discontent inside the EEF and to prevent it from developing into more significant political radicalization. It also shows, however, that minority and imperial troops utilized games as a means to dispute imperial hierarchies and 16

27 17 assumptions of marginalized ability, and in the process developed a nascent sense of imperial community with other like-minded groups. To support these arguments, this project relies on a wide range of archival sources, many of which have been unused or underutilized by historians of the First World War in Palestine. The holdings of the British National Archives particularly the files of the Colonial Office (CO) and War Office (WO) compose the policy skeleton for this work. 38 The military narrative is provided via battalion war diaries, a day-to-day accounting of active service maintained by a commanding officer, much like a ship s log. 39 Further depth is provided by written correspondence and recorded interviews located in the Imperial War Museum (IWM), as well as the holdings of the British Library (BL) and the National Archives of Australia (NAA). The specific West Indian dimensions of the project are fleshed out by the holdings of the Institute for Commonwealth Studies (ICS), which holds the valuable collections of the West India Contingent Committee. For the Jewish perspective, the material of the Jabotinsky Institute (JI) in Tel Aviv is key, as are the holdings of the YIVO Institute and American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) in New York City. 40 The presence of Jewish and Afro-Caribbean men in the British armed forces of the First World War was not new both had fought on Britain s behalf well before the twentieth century. But there was novelty in how they served in the EEF, who they served with, how they understood their service, and how these all held deeper ramifications for postwar British imperial policy. Part of this was reflected in the very structure of the units, which held distinct identities inside the armed forces, carried much broader political motivations, and existed within a military framework that maintained an uneasy contradiction between discrimination and recognition as British soldiers. While no general military history would give them more than a passing mention, this is not necessarily an indication of their importance, which lies outside their numerical total. By shining a comparative spotlight on what, in the larger context of the war, appear to be fringe units in a secondary theater, this dissertation is able to not only uncover new dimensions of the First World War, but also to lay the groundwork for a more complete understanding of the pervasive disturbances of the interwar period across the British Empire. The assumption has often been that the wartime experience of minority and colonial soldiers prompted interwar reactions, but there has been little focused and contextualized examination of what actually 38 These official files include formal policy decisions, the official war diaries of each unit, (secret) instructions to colonial or military figures, reports and memorandums, courts-martial records, and copies of letters sent to the respective ministry. In addition to the files themselves, internal ministry discussions were recorded in shorthand on memo sheets, many of which still remain, and provide an important window into how decisions were reached. 39 Common updates include personnel movements, training exercises, orders, combat updates, commendations, medical reports, and summaries of health and discipline. These diaries are particularly useful at determining when various imperial and minority battalions interacted with one another. The war diary of the 1 st BWIR is more detailed than most war diaries, providing the exactitudes of daily life inside the BWIR during periods of training and active service. For example, the exact hour-by-hour training schedule of the unit during its time in Egypt is provided, as well as extremely detailed accounts (written by Commanding Officers) of periods of combat. 40 When possible, the subjects of this project speak for themselves. However, the paucity of personal documentation from the BWIR in the Middle East has forced me to reconstruct West Indian opinion by combing through various archives for copies of letters to Commanders, Colonial Government Officials, and friends. In contrast, is the wide variety of material from Jewish soldiers, much of which is dually dominated by the narratives of British officers and the perceptions of Zionist volunteers (most of whom played little role in 1918).

28 occurred during the war in Palestine. The juxtaposition presented in this project enables an evaluation of the extent of discrimination against minority troops in not only military roles, but also within application of military law and postwar demobilization. Thus, the aim of this project is not only to revitalize the minority story inside the Palestine theater of war, but also to provide new foundations for scholarship on the post-1919 period. Yet the West Indians and Jews in Palestine should also be understood as a prism for the transitory nature of British imperialism in that their existence, and directed homogeneity, was the result of both political visions of Empire and the fierce exigency of modern war. At the same time, the varying objectives of these men in offering military service to the Crown illuminates not just their own agency, but the ways in which Britain s imperial vision was modified, mitigated, and restructured by its soldiers. This dual focus reveals the policies of an empire at war: the massive marshalling of manpower according to particular frameworks, the mitigation and modification of certain policies in the face of resistance and exigency, the attempts to structure and control combat, and the ways in which policymakers sought to look past the war s conclusion, planning for a victorious postwar period. Instead of another isolated chronicle of bravery and discrimination, this work peels back the imperial skin, providing an intimate look at the functioning machinery of history s largest empire at war. These men reveal important insights into how Britain marshaled more than just English manpower during the Great War, and provide a firm foundation for understanding the ruptures caused by the postwar political struggles across Britain s imperial possessions. The broad significance of colonial, imperial, and minority-national military units during the First World War is their encapsulation of the old order and the new the systems of traditional imperial governance that existed before 1914, and the shifts into the short twentieth century that the First World War catalyzed. Minority soldiers are critically important in demonstrating that Britain s First World War was not merely a national struggle, but that of a complex and often contradictory empire. An entity which can be better understood through a historical interpretation of the use and experience of minority soldiers inside the EEF. 18

29 19 Chapter 1 Their one aim and object was to go to the Front : The British West Indies Regiment in Palestine, Little has been said in the war news of the British West Indies Regiment, but when the history of the Empire s sacrifices has been written down a foremost place will surely be given to the deeds of the gallant fighters from these remote islands The Daily Graphic 1916 In the center of London, four large columns of grey Portland stone straddle the road from Wellington Arch towards Buckingham Palace. They are a relatively new addition to the area of Constitution Hill, officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on November 6, 2002 as the Memorial Gates. Most people scurry along the path without a second glance at yet another monument in a city full of them, but those that do often pause at a small cupola, where they find the names of men from the British Empire who won either the Victoria or George Cross in service of that empire during the First or Second World War. For this is a monument to the wartime contributions of men from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Africa, and the Caribbean those whose bravery and service had too often been ignored on account of their skin color. Figure 1.1 Memorial Gates on Constitution Hill, London 43 Near the cupola, a sleek metal panel informs the curious of the 15,000 men who served in the British West Indies Regiment and saw action in France, Palestine, Egypt, and Italy during the First World War. Drawn from across the greater Caribbean including the Bahamas, 41 ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Meeting of Nov 25, ICS 96/2/3 WICC Scrap Book, 16, Daily Graphic, Aug 19, Remembrance: Memorial Gates. Online: [Accessed January 20, 2008]. See also the Memorial Gates Trust. Online: [Accessed January 9, 2013]

30 20 Barbados, British Guiana, British Honduras, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and both the Leeward and Windward Islands the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR) consisted of eleven battalions of black and coloured men who served not only the theaters of war named on the panel, but also in Mesopotamia and East Africa. Despite the unitary memory projected at Memorial Gates, the truth is that the BWIR was a force divided during the war, its battalions fulfilling completely different military roles, while reacting in divergent ways to the contradictory mix of discrimination and opportunity presented by Britain s imperial system. This chapter illuminates this division by examining the three battalions of the British West Indies Regiment who served in Palestine as part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF). It argues that these service battalions the 1 st, 2 nd, and 5 th (Reserve) were welltrained, combat troops who had a markedly different war experience than the other BWIR battalions, most of which served in Europe in an array of military support and labor capacities. In addition, it argues that an array of Colonial officials viewed the members of the service battalions within a hierarchy that mixed race with class, and thus elevated these men over many of their colonial peers including other troops from the British West Indies due to their socioeconomic standing inside the Caribbean. This imperial vision was in part governed by a desire to achieve political federation of the British West Indies after the war, a goal that helped govern the formation and constitution of the first battalions. Thus, while the BWIR experienced racial prejudice in all theaters of the war, especially from a deeply racist War Office, this chapter demonstrates that the combination of Colonial Office advocacy with the diverse composition of the EEF helped protect, and offer opportunities to, the men of the BWIR in Egypt and Palestine. All of these strands come together in the final portion of this chapter, which details the various responses to one Army order and their broader reflection of imperial identity. The contributions of the British West Indies Regiment during the Great War were ignored by historians for much of the twentieth century, the battalions presence reduced to asides or footnotes in various official histories. The general attitude was that the BWIR performance had been no mean one or, at best, mixed, and most chose to focus on the Caribbean contributions during the Second World War, which offered a more compelling foundation for discussions of Caribbean federation and independence. 44 The only sustained scholarly discussion of the BWIR before the early 1970s was in CLR James biography of the Trinidadian labor leader, Arthur Andrew Cipirani, who had served as a Captain inside the regiment. 45 James work provided an exposé of the racist mistreatment of West Indian soldiers, although he was careful to note a variety of mitigating factors, not least the differences between the Palestine and European theaters. 44 J.H. Parry and P.M. Sherlock. A Short History of the West Indies (London: Macmillan, 1968), 251; Cyril Hamshere, The British in the Caribbean (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), 200. See also, Wendell Bell, ed. The Democratic Revolution in the West Indies: Studies in Nationalism, Leadership, and the Belief in Progress (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Co, 1967). Even figures like Eric Williams, the Oxford-trained historian and Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, who certainly had political and social reasons to mention the West Indian contribution during the Great War, ignored the BWIR in his broad-ranging history of the Caribbean. See Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: History of the Caribbean, (London: André Deutsch Limited, 1989). 45 CLR James, The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British Government in the West Indies (Nelson: Coulton & Co, 1932).

31 21 Shortly after the declassification of official British records, two foundational articles appeared on the British West Indians. One, by C.L. Joseph, provided the first archive-based narrative of the BWIR battalions, in which he condemned the deliberate misuse of West Indian manpower by the War Office and the failure of the Colonial Office to challenge this development. 46 The other article, W.F. Elkins landmark essay, A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean: The Revolt of the British West Indies Regiment at Taranto, Italy, argued that racism and abuse meted out to the BWIR during the war had triggered an explosion of discontent in December 1918 while the battalions were at the port of Taranto. To Elkins, [t]he soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment began the national liberation struggle that eventually led to the demise of open colonial rule in most of the British Caribbean. 47 Thus, the early history of the BWIR pivoted off linear connections between wartime mistreatment and the development of anti-colonial movements. The influence of Taranto and other instances of racial discrimination during the First World War pervaded subsequent discussions of the BWIR, which tended to be encompassed within broader narratives of blacks in the British Empire. 48 Yet at roughly the same time of the Memorial Gates unveiling, two monographs emerged that finally afforded the BWIR a fuller history. The first was Glenford Howe s Race, War and Nationalism: A Social History of West Indians in the First World War, which traced the myriad ways in which the British West Indies experienced the Great War, and offered foundational connections between the issues of racial hierarchy, war, and the development of Caribbean anti-colonialism. 49 Howe demonstrated the ways in which political, economic, social, and racial frameworks not only influenced the recruitment and use of West Indian soldiers, including the BWIR, but how they altered the contours of the Anglophone Caribbean itself. The other major work was Richard Smith s Jamaican Volunteers in the First World War: Race, masculinity and the development of national consciousness, which discussed the BWIR via the prism of Jamaican soldiers. 50 Smith carefully 46 CL Joseph, The British West Indies Regiment, , Journal of Caribbean History 2 (May 1971): WF Elkins, A Source of Black Nationalism in the Caribbean: The Revolt of the British West Indies Regiment at Taranto, Italy, Science & Society 34, no 1 (Spring 1970): See James Walvin, Black and White: The Negro and English Society, (London: Allen Lane, 1973), 205 which states that West Indians were barred from combat duty because of their race and forced into labour gangs. A similar contention that all the BWIR were used as a labor corps was made in Martin Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History (New York: Henry Holt, 1994), 311. More recent work has been more nuanced, but still focuses on the connections between racism and regional unrest in a broad and cohesive manner. See Winston James, The Black Experience in Twentieth-Century Britain in Black Experience and the Empire, eds Philip D. Morgan and Sean Hawkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004): 354; Howard Johnson, The British Caribbean from Demobilization to Constitutional Decolonization, The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. IV: The Twentieth Century, Judith M. Brown and Wm.Roger Louis, eds.(oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 599; John Morrow, The Great War, 312. The most careful and thoughtful discussion of West Indians and the Great War within a broader imperial narrative is Anne Spry Rush, The Bonds of Empire: West Indians and Britishness from Victoria to Decolonization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Two other recent works provide important information on West Indian servicemen: George Brizan, Brave Young Grenadians Loyal British Subjects (Trinidad & Tobago: Paria Publishing Co, 2002) and Humphrey Metzgen & John Graham, Caribbean Wars Untold: A Salute to the British West Indies (Kingston: University of West Indies Press, 2007). 49 Glenford Howe, Race, War and Nationalism: A Social History of West Indians in the First World War (Oxford: James Currey Publishers, 2002). See also his focused examination of nationalism and the Great War in Barbados in Glenford Howe and Don Marshall, eds. The Empowering Impulse: The Nationalist Tradition of Barbados (Barbados: Canoe Press, 2001), Richard Smith, Jamaican volunteers in the First World War: Race, masculinity and the development of national consciousness (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004). See also Richard Smith Heaven grant you the strength to fight the battle for your race : nationalism, Pan-Africanism and the First World War in Jamaican

32 22 reconstructs the interplay between racial frameworks and contested notions of masculinity in the Empire, and demonstrates how they informed and intersected various postwar political ideologies. What is missing from this resurgent discussion is a more careful understanding of how the wartime experience of BWIR battalions differed based on where they served, and what this means for the broader linkage of wartime mistreatment and postwar anti-colonialism. 51 Too often the history of the BWIR has been conflated across theaters and experience, even though the battalions in Egypt and Palestine were not only trained, combat troops, but not present at Taranto during the foundational revolt a fact that Elkins himself clearly noted. 52 To fully understand the West Indian role in Britain s imperial military effort, as well as the complexities of imperial rule, the battalions in Egypt and Palestine must be examined within their own narrative, as well as the broader story of the EEF s war in Palestine. The Politics of West Indian Service Britain greeted the outbreak of war with Germany on August 4, 1914 with a professional army of nearly a quarter-million men, a contingent that the British Cabinet quickly realized required supplementing, especially as half were stationed across the Empire. In response to Lord Horatio Kitchener s initial appeal on August 7 for 100,000 men, a burst of patriotism swept over England and well over 700,000 men volunteered in the initial two months of the war. 53 But the carnage of this new conflict around 44,000 Britons died in the first four months of war with many more wounded or missing meant that Britain would also need to turn to its empire for additional manpower. 54 Within the first week of war, Britain had accepted Australia s offer of 20,000 men, as well as 20,000 from Canada and 8,000 from New Zealand. 55 These imperial contributions would multiply into the hundreds of thousands over the next years, but British India would be the dominant supplier of imperial manpower, providing approximately one out of every ten soldiers in the British forces. 56 Despite a consistent attempt to grow Britain s forces during the first year of the war, the War Office consistently worked to avoid enlisting men of African descent, believing that their racial background precluded effective and timely training, Memory, in Das, ed. Race, Empire, and First World War Writing, and West Indians at War, Caribbean Studies 36, no. 1 (Jan-June 2008): Smith s focus on Jamaicans, in part, stems from the fact that 10,380 out of 15,501 total BWIR came from Jamaica. See Sir Agernon Aspinall, A Wayfarer in the West Indies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927), 212. However, as this chapter illustrates, the overwhelming majority of these men served in Europe. 51 Both Howe and Smith discuss the battalions in Egypt and Palestine, but due to the large scopes of their work, are not able to focus on the unique context and nuance evident in the EEF. 52 Elkins, A Source of Black Nationalism, The exact number varies from source to source, often depending on date cutoffs. John Morton Osbourne provides 761,824, while Niall Ferguson think it s closer to 725,000. John Morton Osborne, The Voluntary Recruiting Movement in Britain, (PhD Diss. Stanford University, 1979), 247; Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I (New York: Basic, 1999), 198. Ferguson has famously played devil s advocate to The Myth of War Enthusiasm, arguing that plenty of Britons had no desire to go to war. (See p ). Martin Gilbert, The First World War, Morrow, The Great War, ,000 of those killed were Old Contemptibles from the prewar army. 55 CEW Bean, The Story of ANZAC, Vol 1 From the outbreak of war to the end of the first phase of the Gallipoli Campaign, May 4, 1915, 11 th ed. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1941), Omissi, Indian Voices, 4. Omissi provides the following statistics: 1.27 million Indians enlisted, of which 827,000 were combatants and of which 49,000 died. While Indian infantry were used in Europe in 1914 and 1915, the dominant theater of Indian participation was Mesopotamia. The final death tolls for Canada and Australia were triple their initial contribution, and double for New Zealand.

33 23 that they might later destabilize British rule, and that it violated the norms of war to field them in battle against European armies. As the war continued and casualties mounted, pressure grew on the War Office to allow coloured and black men to enlist, especially those from the British West Indies. The War Office argued that the small populations of the West Indies and distance from Europe precluded effective recruiting and transport, and thus only permitted men of pure European descent to enlist if they paid their own passage to England. 57 It was men not of pure European descent, however, who were the dominant male population in the Anglophone Caribbean, and there was substantial enthusiasm amongst them for Britain s war against Germany. As the Trinidadian Arthur Andrew Cipriani pointed out, not only is the existence of the Mother Country at stake, but the very Empire of which we are all proud to be a part. We should feel not only isolated but slighted if our services are declined. 58 Unless non-european men were allowed to enlist, the British West Indies would essentially be shut out of the fighting. Twice, the Colonial Office attempted and failed to create a Caribbean black contingent the first halfhearted attempt in August 1914 and another, more robust attempt in December In the latter attempt, the Colonial Office rejected the War Office s offer to create a West Indian force for service only in East Africa, demanding a more significant deployment. 59 Clashes between the Colonial Office and the War Office over the parameters of West Indian military service were common throughout the war. There was a history of antagonism between the ministries, and during the war itself, Colonial Office officials frequently vented about War Office attitudes towards the different imperial and colonial forces, specifically their insistence on bifurcating British forces as white and European, or non-white and not of pure European descent, regardless of the soldiers roles or socioeconomic positions. 60 This conflict was particularly critical for the BWIR battalions in Palestine, who tended to reflect the acculturated middle class of the Caribbean and fervently objected to being lumped in with natives by the War Office. Pressure for a black West Indian contingent, however, finally became acute when King George V involved himself in April The King s involvement likely stemmed from a combination of petitions and entreaties to enlist from the West Indies where the British monarch was held in extreme esteem combined with an awareness of other imperial military 57 ICS F1601, PAM 13. Lt. Col C. Wood-Hill, A Few Notes on the History of the British West Indies Regiment, Published in Sunday Pamphlets, Vol XIII, 1. A few coloured men of light skin tone, some of whom were studying in England at the war s outbreak, succeeded in enlisting. One, James Ernest Ross, joined the 19 th London Regiment in 1914, and became a POW after fighting as a machine gunner in several major battles. See Brizan, Brave Young Grenadians, CLR James, Captain Cipriani, Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, Howe views the Colonial Office as reluctant advocates for black West Indians, arguing that they were primarily concerned with diffusing regional instability. There is merit to this explanation for the early portion of the war, but later instances of advocacy often when politically unnecessary suggest explanations beyond regional politics. 60 See CO 323/756/21188 Handwritten Memo Sheet of April 30 and May 2, 1917 for Colonial Office officials openly expressing incredulity at how the War Office airily ignore[d] previous correspondence about utilizing non- European manpower. Prewar antagonism stemmed from control over the imperial garrison at Sierra Leone and broader authority over British West Africa. See Akinjide Osuntokun, Nigeria in the First World War (London: Longman Group Limited, 1979), 245.After the war, squabbles persisted. The British Army only adopted a colorblind policy to soldiers in 1939 as the result of Colonial Office pressure. See David Killingray, All the King s Men? Blacks in the British Army in the First World War, in Rainer Lotz and Ian Pegg, eds. Under the Imperial Carpet: Essays in Black History, (Crawley: Rabbit Press, 1986): 181.

34 24 contributions and casualty rates. 61 The King first wrote to the Colonial Office on April 17 about a West Indian contingent, and after being told of its undesirability, persisted, penning another note on the 22 nd after a conversation with Lord Kitchener. This second letter forced the War Office s hand, and by the end of May, the decision to allow a contingent became known inside the Caribbean. 62 Glenford Howe has argued implicitly that pressures to enlist black West Indians developed progressively in reaction to various contexts the Governors of the British West Indies urged enlistment because of local unrest, the Colonial Office pushed for enlistment as localized unrest threatened to develop into regional instability, and the War Office only conceded after political pressure emerged from the monarchy. 63 There is merit to this particular interpretation, but it is also important to note that there were examples of other minority units developing simultaneously in different parts of the Empire. While some Maori, for example had enlisted in New Zealand units despite color barriers, many others followed a similar trajectory to the British West Indians and became part of a small, distinct unit the Maori Pioneer Battalion which arrived at Gallipoli in July Similarly, the first distinctly Jewish unit the Zion Mule Corps also formed in the Spring of 1915 for service in Gallipoli. The creation of the BWIR, then, should also be considered within the broader context of a war being fought on increasingly numerous fronts that required more manpower. Lurking behind this, importantly, was a unflinching War Office refusal to employ men of African descent as combat troops in Europe. To fight at the front, minority troops would have to serve in the secondary theaters. 65 Following the decision to enlist non-white West Indians in May were several contentious months of proposals and spats between the Colonial and War Offices. Much of the problem stemmed from the War Office s reluctance to give West Indians equivalence in rights and privileges with British soldiers, something the Colonial Office pushed for. The War Office raised a serious objection to one proposal to enlist black West Indians directly into existing units, an idea that was favored in places like the Bahamas and Barbados. 66 Part of the impasse stemmed from initial Colonial Office estimates that the Caribbean would produce approximately 950 to 1150 men (the vast majority from Jamaica and British Guiana) only enough for around one battalion. 67 However, as it quickly became clear that these numbers would be exceeded, the decision was made to create a specific regiment of black and coloured men from the British 61 CL Joseph has identified at least one petition, which came from a British Lady engaged in war work in the West Indies. The BWIR, Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, Incidentally, Bonar Law became Colonial Secretary right at this time (May 27, 1915). See also Killingray, All the King s Men? Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, Christopher Pugsley, Te Hokowhitu a Tu: The Maori Pioneer Battalion in the First World War (Auckland: Reed Books, 1995), 9, 36. Pugsley s claim that the provincial battalions in which they enlisted as not conscious or concerned about race may be somewhat of a stretch. However, there was certainly an appreciation of the Maori that elevated them to a higher level of the imperial racial hierarchy. 65 It is worth pointing out that while in the secondary theaters, black men were used to fight against German troops. The issue for the War Office, then, was the context of Europe itself, not the European identity of its opponents; a point further borne out by the use of Indian Army troops on the Western Front. 66 CO 318/336/29508 War Office to Colonial Office, June 25, The day of the month is penciled in with a?. See also CO 318/336/29508 HJ Read, Colonial Office to War Office, July 7, 1915 and CO 23/276/39657 Allardyce to Arthur Bonar Law, Colonial Office, August 9, The War Office ultimately caved on this issue by June See CO 137/727/49204 Governor Probyn to Secretary Long, CO, September 20, This correspondence acknowledged the receipt of a July 15 communiqué informing him of the War Office decision. See CO 318/347/25696 for the June discussions. 67 CO 318/336/29508 Handwritten Memorandum, Signed OGRW June 28, 1915

35 25 West Indies to serve in Egypt. 68 Service in Egypt was, in itself, a significant concession from the War Office, which had stated in December 1914 that West Indian troops would not be suitable for Egypt. 69 Most importantly, with a few minor exceptions, the BWIR was recruited on the same terms and conditions as British recruits, a likely War Office concession to avoid enlisting West Indians directly into preexisting units. 70 This was a major concession despite their non- European status, the newly created British West Indies Regiment was a unit of the New Army, not a separate colonial force. By the time Arthur Bonar Law presented the Cabinet with a memorandum on the Question of Raising Native Troops for Imperial Service in October 1915, the first two BWIR battalions existed. Bonar Law s memorandum, however, marked an important shift in British military policy; the declared realization that non-european manpower from the Empire would be needed if Britain had any chance of winning a long war. The dilemma to British official minds, however, was the postwar cost. The issue was put forth immediately at the memorandum s start; despite the need for soldiers, there was a possibility that a large body of trained and disciplined black men would create obvious difficulties, and might seriously menace the supremacy of the white. 71 Arming non-europeans might help win the war, but might end Britain s colonial empire. West Indians, however, were an exception. West Indians were included in the list of potential colonial manpower but they were elevated above Africans and other colonial groups. The memorandum acknowledged the African origin of the West Indian, but in contrast to descriptions of other sources of manpower, argued that the West Indian should make a good soldier, though it will probably take rather longer to train him than to train a European and that he would be best employed in the Middle East instead of in a European winter campaign. 72 While this was possibly political cover for the embryonic BWIR, it more likely reflected the views of the Colonial Office that West Indians were better acculturated to the imperial system and, therefore, substantially less politically dangerous. As one ex-governor argued later in the war, the West Indian soldier though generally a man of colour, is of a very different educational and social status from the West African and some other soldiers from the Crown Colonies 73 In the eyes of British officialdom, the Empire had less to fear from black West Indians. Despite the BWIR s supposed unique status within the imperial system, the War Office still wanted to maintain as clear a racial hierarchy as possible. While coloured and black men could serve as non-commissioned officers (NCOs), the War Office prohibited them from receiving commissions, no matter their socioeconomic standing or education. Interestingly, when it notified the Colonial Office that it was averse to any mixed-race man holding a commission inside the BWIR, the War Office requested this policy be passed back to the Caribbean, 68 CO 318/336/29508 HJ Read, Colonial Office to War Office, July 7, Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, 40. A 1916 Report on Coloured Manpower specifically referred to the BWIR as a Regiment of the New Army. See CO 323/757/2213 Memorandum on steps taken to Increase the Supply of a) Coloured Troops, b) Coloured Labour, December , pg CAB 37/136/19 Question of Raising Native Troops for Imperial Service, October 18, 1915, pg 1 72 CAB 37/136/19 Question of Raising Native Troops for Imperial Service, October 18, 1915, pg 4 73 ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of the June 6, 1918 meeting. The quote is from the Chairman of the WICC, Sir Everard im Thurn, who features later in this chapter. In a speech one year earlier, im Thurn had argued in a similar vein. The BWIR occupied a peculiar place not merely as men from the tropics fighting side by side with their European confreres, but also as distinguished from their native confreres by great difference of history. See ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of the Nov 25, 1917 meeting.

36 26 suggesting that without this notification, the colonial governments might have commissioned black and coloured men of high social standing. 74 Later, as the war dragged on into 1918, the War Office was forced to begrudgingly allow slightly coloured gentlemen if in every way suitable to take officer training courses if they had performed with credit in the war and been recommended by their officers. 75 Pressure for this had, in part, stemmed from the West Indies, which had essentially run out of men to officer its battalions and administer the colonies. 76 These continuing shifts in War Office policy, many the product of Colonial Office pressure, reflect the ways in which cracks emerged in the racial hierarchies that governed the British military as the war ground on cracks which the BWIR was instrumental in creating, and which it was surprised to find quickly plastered up when the war ended. The WICC and the Idea of Imperial Federation The Colonial Office officially oversaw efforts to integrate colonial manpower into the British Army, but in the case of the British West Indies, a smaller ad-hoc organization played a crucial role, the West India Contingent Committee (WICC). In many ways, the WICC represented a form of colonial policy outsourcing, focusing its attentions on the day-to-day affairs of the BWIR, and serving as a prominent focal point for West Indian soldiers, Colonial policy makers, newspapers, and the general public. 77 Once the decision was taken to enlist West Indians, the WICC pledged to not only look after the comfort of the [West Indian] men, but to take up large questions of policy and carry them through. 78 Often this involved helping to resolve policy disputes between the War and Colonial Offices, especially if instigated by 74 CO 318/336/57697 War Office to Colonial Office, December In fact, this appears to have occurred anyways, albeit not in the BWIR. One Colonial official noted internally that some of the practically white men from Trinidad had already been accepted to officer training courses inside England. See CO 318/336/57697 Handwritten Memo, Signed ORW, December 17, In addition, George EK Bernard, a mixed-race engineering student before the war, held a commission in the Royal Field Artillery, and Walter Tull, a mixed-race Afro- Caribbean and popular prewar footballer for Tottenham Hotspur, held a commission in the 23 rd Middlesex. Stuart Halifax (an Oxford PhD) has pointed out that while Bernard lied about being of pure European descent at the urging of his superiors, Tull very clearly wrote no, but was still commissioned in For more see Great War London at [Accessed August 11, 2013]. 75 CO 318/347/20749 War Office to Colonial Office, April 1918 (No date noted, but received the 29 th ) and CO 318/347/25696 Handwritten Memorandum by G. Grindle, June 5, The policy still prevented new enlistees from gaining commissions and was secret, and thus deniable if necessary 76 For early warning of this, see CO 323/757/2213 Memorandum on steps taken to Increase the Supply of a) Coloured Troops, b) Coloured Labour, December Draft pg 8. The Colonial Office estimated that 1/3 of European officials from the Colonies had already enlisted, and that almost no unofficial were left. 77 In some ways, it was modeled after the much older West India Committee, which since the 18 th century had lobbied for the economic interests of the Anglophone Caribbean (although certainly not for many of its residents), performed public relations work, and assisted the British Government on certain policy matters. But as a product of the war itself, it occupied the same extra-governmental position of a variety of other wartime committees. Some of the more famous examples of these types of committees, like the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee and the National War Aims Committee, dealt with recruitment and domestic propaganda. 78 ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of May 21, 1919 meeting. One particularly important example of the WICC s work was in September 1918, when they handled the aftermath of a false news story accusing hospitalized West Indian soldiers in Liverpool of attacking British soldiers and killing a white nurse in the process. After asking to play a role in the enquiry, the WICC released corrective statements to the press after it was determined that the story was exaggerated and no West Indians were at fault. See WICC 97/1/6/1 Sept 27, 1918-Nov 1, 1918 for more.

37 27 grievances from West Indian soldiers. When BWIR men protested over being barred from estaminets in France for being black, for example, the WICC succeeded in having the prohibition order reversed in six weeks, restoring West Indian access. 79 While not part of official British government, the WICC consisted of many former colonial officials and maintained close enough ties with the Colonial Office to enable them to exercise significant authority. The key members of the WICC all had substantial experience in the West Indies as figures of colonial authority, usually as Governors. Among its members were the former Governors of Barbados, Jamaica, Trindad and Tobago, the Windward Islands, the Leeward Islands, the Bahamas, and Fiji. 80 Despite their ex-officio status, these men still maintained political clout inside the Colonial Office, and all had familiarity with how England dealt with her West Indian possessions from a broader policy perspective. Meetings of the WICC frequently occurred at the Colonial Office, and there was generally at least one key Colonial Office figure at each meeting (usually G. Grindle, the Assistant Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies or JFN Green, the Chief Clerk of the West India Department of the Colonial Office). 81 The Colonial Office maintained close written contact with the WICC about various policy issues the committee secretary Algernon Aspinall often relayed correspondence from potential or current soldiers directly to the ministry and its chairman, Sir Everard im Thurn, appears to have received relevant Colonial Office memoranda. 82 The WICC was in a position to influence the broader policy of Empire, and it so by attempting to forge closer links between the West Indian islands themselves and with the mother-country through the BWIR itself. The formation of a volunteer fighting force from across the British West Indies represented an opportunity to the WICC to not only renew the bond between Britain and the Caribbean, but to politically federate the islands themselves. The decreasing importance of the Caribbean to Britain the slums of the Empire in Lloyd George s view was a source of consternation to these men, and the war offered a unique, corrective opportunity. 83 After the war, the WICC member Sir William Grey-Wilson confirmed the WICC s intentions and reiterated points made during the war: war had been to the West Indies of the greatest national and political importance. The story of the prowess and the doings of the Contingents would be told from generation to generation, and would be an incentive and a link with the Empire it might not otherwise be easy to forge ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book Jan 18, March 4, Their enlistment status as a New Army unit supposedly guaranteed their access. 80 For more information, see: Letter from the WICC to Walter Long, CO Secretary, Dec 30, Loose letter tucked into ICS BWIR War Diary. One of these was the Fabian Sir Sydney Olivier, who had been the Governor of Jamaica. 81 See CO 318/336/ Confidential minutes from the first WICC meeting reveal that it took place on August 30, 1915 at the Colonial Office, with Mr. Darnley representing the CO. 82 For an example, see: ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Nov 26, 1915 Meeting, which noted that correspondence with the Colonial Office respecting the objects of the Contingent Committee was presented to the entire committee. See CO 318/347/6167 for an example of im Thurn commenting on CO memo sheets. 83 Williams, From Columbus to, 443. AJP Taylor more courteously termed them not much more than a relic from a vanished past. A.J.P. Taylor, English History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of Jan 22, 1920 meeting. Arthur Bonar Law articulated this argument during the war, proclaiming that the WICC s personal care and kindness to West Indian soldiers would strengthen the bonds uniting the West India colonies to the mother country. See WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of Sept 22, 1916 meeting. For more, see Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire,

38 28 As this and subsequent chapters detail, links with the Empire did emerge, but not in the way that the WICC may have intended. The more immediate WICC goal, which would aid a closer connection with Britain, was to acquaint and integrate the residents of the geographically dispersed West Indian islands through the BWIR essentially, to push for political federation. The Chairman of the WICC and former Governor of Fiji, Sir Everard im Thurn, offered the clearest rendering of this particular objective in a speech at a September 1916 meeting: There will be many benefits arising out of the War, and it will be a great benefit to the West Indies if they are taught to work in harmony. Undoubtedly that will be a great gain a great step towards the realisation of the desire for a federated West Indies with power to act as a strong unit of Empire The welding together of the various units from the West Indies into a homogenous force would have established bond of fellowship which should bring nearer a solution of the problem of a closer federation of the West Indies. 85 A volunteer unit of West Indians, then, would act as the vanguard of regional political and economic integration. Interestingly, two key Colonial Office figures Grindle and Green attended the meeting, thus indicating some level of tacit acceptance inside their ministry for the ideas expressed by im Thurn. This was unsurprising; federation might eventually help the economically depressed and tiny Caribbean colonies move towards the supposed imperial criteria necessary for self-sufficiency and, consequently, independence. 86 Other key figures in the BWIR, such as Lt. Colonel Charles Wood-Hill, the commanding officer of the 1 st battalion and probably the most influential BWIR officer, agreed with the idea of federation. After the war, Wood-Hill argued that no future existed for the West Indies unless there were federated under one Governor and Government with adequate representation in London and that the driving force for federation would be men with a shared wartime experience. 87 These intentions did not go unnoticed inside the Caribbean during the war, and there were localized fears of federation inside individual islands. A letter to the Editor of the Nassau Guardian insisted that many of our bravest boys have lost their Bahaman identity as a result of the broader regimental structure in the BWIR, a direct challenge to a broader Caribbean identity. 88 The possibility of localized identities resistant to broader integration may explain why 85 ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of Sept 22, 1916 meeting. This political intent has been missed by historians. See, for example, the work of Samuel Hurwitz who argued that the First World War put off other possible plans or suggestions for federation of any part of the West Indies. Samuel J. Hurwitz, The Federation of the West Indies: A Study in Nationalisms, The Journal of British Studies 6, no. 1(Nov 1966), 150. For a broader overview on the links between the idea of federation and the colonial service, see Ged Martin The Idea of Imperial Federation, in Ronald Hyam and Ged Martin eds, Reappraisals in British Imperial History (London: Macmillan Press, 1975) Elisabeth Wallace, The British Caribbean: From the decline of colonialism to the end of Federation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 20. Whether these criteria could ever actually be met is another story entirely. 87 Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, 8, 3. In Wood-Hill s view, the shared experience was one of discrimination, which interestingly, he did not seem to think would push the British West Indies towards the goal of political independence. 88 Scrap Book, pg 35, Nassau Guardian, May 8, The Bahamas desire to maintain independence from a West Indian federation is not surprising. Many of its residents, and many across the West Indies, viewed it as a distinct entity. Wood-Hill, for example, felt that the Bahamas did not belong in a political federation because they were not in the Tropics and did not form a part of the West Indies. See Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, 8, 3. One work, however, has argued that the mixing of distinct island groups led to conflict inside the BWIR. See Metzgen & Graham, Caribbean Wars Untold, 94.

39 29 the goal of a federated West Indies did not materialize until 1958, and lasted a mere four years before dissolving. Yet the intent in recruiting, at least for the early battalions of the BWIR, was to find the men best-suited for advancing these political interests. Recruitment Recruitment for the first enlistees to the British West Indies Regiment the men who would form the battalions that fought in Palestine tended to target the black and coloured middle classes of the Anglophone Caribbean. Early appeals were often literary and couched in existential terms local newspapers articulated the political need for service, arguing that it would prove that the distinction between God-made creatures of one empire because of skin, colour or complexion differences, should no longer exist, and that some opportunities should be afforded the Coloured subjects of the empire as fall by right of race to its citizens. 89 While the goals articulated in this statement would have appealed to any West Indian, its literary form, as well as its political content, suggest it was targeted towards a very specific group. Similar themes emerged in some recruitment poster, like one that offered a sheet of text fixed on the existential struggle that Britain found itself in: 89 The Federalist quoted in Metzgen & Graham, Caribbean Wars Untold, 89. The quoted editorial is from an undated clipping, and the authors note that the paper was one of the more conservatively British in the Caribbean. Importantly, this particular editorial was from a Barbados newspaper, where historically racial differences had been more muted than other parts of the Caribbean, and where political rights for non-whites had been a consistent part of the political agenda for decades. See also Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, 41.

40 30 Figure 1.2 One Bahaman recruitment poster urges men to answer the call of Empire, while another appeals to the higher ideals of Britain and its allies. 90 While the poster urged MEN OF EVERY CLASS, CREED AND COLOUR to save the Empire, the appeal, perhaps inadvertently, was towards educated men. In tone, the poster was similar to the appeal Cipriani had made for recruits in Trindad: we must do our duty as a unit of the British Empire I appeal to you to-day in the name of the King to enlist, and I do so irrespective of class, colour or creed. 91 Another poster urged men to fight for the ideals of Justice and Truth, while depicting figures such as Raymond Poincaré, Woodrow Wilson, Sir Douglas Haig, King Albert of Belgium, and King George V of England. While King George, and perhaps Woodrow Wilson, were easily identifiable figures, identifying the rest of the men required the audience to have followed the military and political course of the war. In fact, it was only King George himself who formed an easy focal point for the casual passerby. The prominence of King George in recruiting materials was not surprising given his role in establishing the BWIR, as well as the emphasis on monarchism in the imperial 90 For the left-hand poster, Library of Congress, POS-WWI-Gt Brit, no Online: [Accessed January 30, 2013]. The Library of Congress dates this poster from 1915, but it is probably from a later date. For the right-hand poster, the figures depicted, counterclockwise, are Poincaré, Wilson, King George V, Haig, and King Albert. Library of Congress, POS-WWI-Gt Brit, no Online: [Accessed January 30, 2013] 91 CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 25.

41 31 propaganda that dominated British Empire culture and education in the post-victorian period. 92 Personal duty to the monarch was reinforced primarily through the education system, but also through the spectacle of Empire Day celebrations and other royal occasions like coronations or birthdays. 93 The result was that many in the British Empire viewed the King as the principal figure in an idealized nuclear family as well as the head of the larger imperial family of which [West Indians] themselves were members. 94 This is clear in the message of condolence from Jamaican ex-servicemen over the death of George V two decades later: We feel we have lost a father, a very compassionate parent, whose honour, prestige, and integrity we were happy to assist to uphold in the time of the Empire s darkest hour Amid our sorrow we rejoice that a truehearted comrade, Edward VIII, has come to the Throne. We are happy to reaffirm our allegiance to him, even to the supreme sacrifice we gave during the Great War.We think of his Majesty as the best brother we have had. 95 Early West Indian volunteers had internalized the combination of existential conflict and monarchical loyalty. One private wrote how we ll surprise, William the Kaiser / with our bayonets sharp as razor while another focused on the fight for liberty, a clear reference to propaganda that depicted Britain as the defender of freedom against an aggressive, imperial Germany. 96 At the very least, fixation on the King revealed a stake in the imperial system. To the British government, drawing volunteers from the most acculturated residents of the West Indies a middle class that through education had internalized the hierarchies and priorities of Empire was far less dangerous than arming and organizing black laborers. Initial recruiting standards, therefore, not only focused on health, but also on class and culture early volunteers were enlisted only if they were likely to be a credit to the colony from which they came and were literate. 97 Literacy was a critical underpinning of the Caribbean middle classes, for it reflected the ability to both absorb and project British culture. 98 This was something of a divergence from general imperial recruiting policy; the British recruited the least educated members of Indian society to the Indian Army over fears that the better educated would be susceptible to anti-imperial sentiment and spread it through the army. 99 It is likely that the rationale behind this divergence was that West Indians who were educated had been imperially 92 See John MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984) 2-4. Although MacKenzie points out the gradual transformation of the monarchy (contenting that only by 1897 had anti-monicharism truly dissipated), he argues that by the turn of the century, royalty became one of the principal means for commercial exhibitions of imperialism. 93 Johnson, The British Caribbean, OHBE, 597; Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire, Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire, The Times Jamaican Ex-Soldiers Message, Jan 27, 1936, pg WM Misc 200, Item 2928 Nurse s Autograph Books Containing Contibutions by the West Indian Contingent, First World War. Poems of Private John Henry Lyken and Private Jacob Stanishaus Cunningham. Other BWIR men offered comic drawings of the Kaiser and British lions, an internalization of a different imperial trope. Indian soldiers also fixated on the monarch in their letters home, demonstrating a very clear sense of personal duty to him. See Omissi, Indian Voices of the Great War, 20-1, which argues that it is possible to interpret this devotion as a suggestion that in one important respect, at least, the peasant-soldiers were (or had become) the very people that their colonial masters wished them to be. 97 Metzgen & Graham, Caribbean Wars Untold, Bridget Brereton has argued that it was not skin color or wealth that was necessary for entry into the middle class, but rather it was command of European culture [that] was the essential qualification for membership. See Bridgit Brereton, Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 5-6, Morrow, The Great War, 82.

42 32 acculturated through schools and work, and represented the least likely threat to British authority. This sentiment was on display in October 1915, when several in the early battalions were branded a most undesirable type agitators trying to cause discontent and sent home, in part because the majority of the West Indian Contingent belonged to the better class of West Indian and disliked the agitators. 100 In addition, several dozen East Indians were also discharged, officially for language and ration issues, but also due to adversarial relationships with the West Indians., who looked down on them. 101 Ultimately, the exactitudes of socioeconomic standing within the BWIR battalions in Palestine are beyond the scale of this project. However, work that has examined the occupation of the first 4000 men to enlist in Jamaica discovered that 42% were laborers or cultivators, but critically, that the rest tend to be drawn from a more skilled or respected pool of men 356 carpenters, 249 clerks, 245 bakers, 196 engineers or mechanics, 176 shoemakers, 165 tailors, 102 masons, and there also dozens of teachers, printers, shop-keepers, and constable. 102 It is not possible to correlate when certain professions enlisted, but given the high standards for enlistment in 1915 when the Palestine battalions were raised, and the less dominant presence of Jamaicans in the early battalions (only 723 out of the first 2406 men), it is quite possible that the earlier recruits were drawn from higher social classes. The generally higher class of early recruits to the BWIR was confirmed in a letter by the Chairman of the Barbados Recruiting Committee to the Colonial Office. The men comprising those early Contingents he wrote were, like their white brothers in England who first responded, some of the best. Detailing the petitioners socioeconomic standing to underline his point, he noted that one private was an elementary school teacher, another was middle class and well-connected, a third was the son of a Planter and the grandson of a Judge, while another s brother had won a prestigious Barbados Scholarship. 103 To reiterate the distinctions between battalions, he noted that after men like those detailed were sent to Egypt, a request for labour battalions came later and men from a different class were sent. 104 As the accompanying correspondence from the Governor of Barbados stated, the early volunteers were men of good character and standing in the Colony and imbued with imperial patriotism. 105 The idea of differentiation based on socioeconomic standing was not limited to colonial officials; it was also expressed by the BWIR volunteers themselves. For the most part, this was done via self-differentiation from the West India Regiment (WIR), a colonial force composed of 100 CO 318/336/47970 Col AE Barchard to Colonial Office, October 17, Barchard claimed there were 10 agitators, although it may have been less. See also Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, 93. Howe points out the importance of Barchard s decision to not try the men for mutiny, but rather simply send them home. 101 CO 318/336/49130 War Office to Colonial Office, October 25, The Guyanese novelist Edgar Mittelholzer recalled how the Caribbean coloured and black middle classes looked down upon the East Indian sugar plantation labourers ( coolies we called them ). See Clem Seecharan, Muscular Learning: Cricket and Education in the Making of the British West Indies at the End of the 19 th Century (Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers, 2006), Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, CO 28/294/56561 Letter from JC Lynch to TE Fell, Colonial Office. Oct 9, Other records indicate that the 1 st BWIR also contained members from the police force of British Guiana, as well as men like Roydon Taylor, who had been a Clerk Registrar at the Magistrate Court in Grenada. Brizan, Brave Young Grenadians, 25; CO 318/351/31276, May 14, CO 28/294/56561 Letter from JC Lynch to TE Fell, Colonial Office. Oct 9, Whether Lynch is conflating the later BWIR battalions with their duties or discussing a unique labor corps is unclear. Recruiting standards did decrease for later contingents at various points in 1916 some later recruits apparently chose military service over a prison sentence. See Metzgen & Graham, Caribbean Wars Untold, CO 28/294/ Governor of Barbados to Long, Colonial Office, Oct 14, 1918.

43 33 black West Indians that had existed since the late eighteenth century. 106 The WIR were professional soldiers, and therefore lacked the socioeconomic pedigree of many early volunteers to the BWIR. Distinctions abounded illiterate applicants to the BWIR were rejected and sent to the WIR in the early stages of recruitment, promising musical talents in a Kingston orphanage were plucked for the West India Regiment band (the fruits of subsidizing their tuition), and WIR soldiers were paid less than the BWIR. 107 Colonial officials acknowledged and supported these divisions. In a sharply-worded letter, the Colonial Office rebuked the Ministry of Pensions over the latter s assumption that the BWIR and WIR were drawn from precisely the same classes and the same geographical areas. 108 The Colonial Office s response was that these assertions were scarcely correct, and that the WIR mostly came from Jamaica, while the BWIR was a more diverse group of men drawn from a much superior class. 109 Differentiation also occurred visually. The members of the BWIR wore standard issue, British uniforms, while the WIR dress uniform was distinctly colonial featuring a braided scarlet sleeveless jacket, dark blue trousers, a white turban, and red fez with colored tassels. 110 BWIR men, therefore, could claim visually and socioeconomically, to be part of a new, broad volunteerism in the Empire, while the WIR reflected retrograde colonial rule. This differentiation was taken very seriously, even well into the war. In March 1918, when a portion of the 1st BWIR was ordered to merge with the 2 nd West India Regiment, the BWIR soldiers became so restless over the issue that their commanding officer asked for a temporary cancellation of the order due to the seriousness of the matter. 111 Similar events transpired in East Africa. Referencing the possible amalgamation of BWIR troops into the 2 nd WIR, a telegram to the War Office noted that it was so repugnant to the former unit that the order had been canceled to avoid serious trouble involving riot and probable murder. 112 Critically, when faced with discrimination and entrenched prejudice later in the war especially from the War Office the BWIR would argue for particular rights and privileges by detailing their difference from the WIR. It was in part through self-differentiation from the perceived lower classes of the Caribbean that the BWIR articulated their own identity and sense of imperial value. 106 For more on the WIR, see Bryan Dyde, The Empty Sleeve: The story of The West India Regiments of the British Army (St Johns: Hansib Caribbean. 1997). Dyde views the WIR as a superior military unit to the BWIR, and contends they would have performed better if given the BWIR s opportunities. For a discussion of the Africanization of British forces in the Caribbean that led to the WIR s creation, see Roger Norman Buckley, The British Army in the West Indies: Society and the Military in the Revolutionary Age (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 1998). 107 Smith, Jamaican volunteers, 89; Jeffrey Green and Leslie Thompson, Trumpet Player from the West Indies, in The Black Perspective in Music 12, no. 1 (Spring 1984): ; Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, CO 318/348/ Unsigned and undated letter from Ministry of Pensions to Colonial Office. Portions of this letter were clearly damaged in a fire, but the quoted content is clear. 109 CO 318/348/ G. Grindle, CO to Ministry of Pensions, March 24, Importantly, the initial draft of the correspondence stated that it was the earlier battalions of the BWIR that were of the superior class. This important detail was removed in the official letter. 110 Dyde, The uniform was approved in October WO 95/5318. War Diary for March Entries of March 24 and March 31. Importantly, the BWIR was content to combine with Indian troops, Italians, and Algerian tirailleurs in one composite force, and later with ANZACs and Jewish soldiers in Chaytor s force (also a composite style unit). 112 CO 318/347/17779, Telegram from GOC Africa to War Office, #2733, April 9, The telegram closed with The units well behaved in other respects.

44 34 By the beginning of October 1915, 2,120 West Indians had volunteered for the BWIR, a number that rose to 2,406 by the end of the year. 113 The initial drafts to England had drawn heavily from British Guyana, Trinidad, Grenada, Barbados, and the Windward Islands, and were quickly supplemented with volunteers from the Bahamas, British Honduras, and Jamaica. These men formed the core of the 1 st and 2 nd battalions, and critically, were far more representative of the different Caribbean islands than the later BWIR battalions, which drew extensively on the more populous Jamaica. 114 This broad geographic scope was unsurprising given the political goals and class filtration attached to the unit, and critically, these early battalions would have a markedly different wartime experience than other British West Indians the result of policy, circumstance, geography, and identity. From the Islands to the War The contingents that would become the first battalions of the BWIR began to arrive in England at the end of September They were sent to southeastern England to begin training, arriving at Seaford in East Sussex as the weather worsened in October The climate was cold and wet, and the West Indians were housed in hastily knocked-up huts that were really only suitable for summer conditions. 115 Their training, meanwhile, took place outside in the rain, cold, and mud. Jack Cunningham, a convalescent private suffering from pneumonia, composed a song with a refrain fixated on the chill For I m cold, cold, cold, boys; Cold in my hands and hair; In my mouth and my nose from my eyes to my toes; And even the clothes I wear. 116 Another invalided private, Lionel French, struck a similar tone, writing of [s]hivering in camp with fever and cold. 117 The climate took an immediate toll the battalions lost their first man when Private TD Primo from British Guiana died of pneumonia in October. 118 As the weather rapidly turned colder in December, the situation became increasingly dangerous. 113 CO 318/336/45120 Handwritten Summary of replies to SoS s telegram of 4 Oct as to increase of West Indian Contingent. According to the CO, the breakdown was: British Guiana 272, Trinidad 500, Barbados 123, Grenada 200, St Lucia 110, St Vincent 55, Leeward Islands ~120, Jamaica 500, British Honduras 110, Bahamas 130 for a total of 2120 men, 86 more than needed for 2 battalions. An additional 40 officers joined by the end of 1915, the majority of whom came from Trinidad and Jamaica. An updated, handwritten chart is enclosed at the end of CO 318/336/52746 and corresponds very closely to the troop strengths reported in WO 95/4427. It gives the breakdown of other ranks by as follows. British Guiana 330, Trinidad 531, Barbados 193, Grenada 201, St Lucia 110, St Vincent 55, Leeward Islands 106, Jamaica 723, Bahamas 29, British Honduras See Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, 1, 3-4 where he explains that the 3 rd and 4 th battalions of the BWIR were composed of almost entirely Jamaicans. Initially, the companies of battalions were allotted to particular groups (inside the 1 st BWIR, A Company= British Guiana, B Company= Trinidad, C Company= Trinidad and St. Vincent, D Company= Grenada and Barbados). These designations clearly became more malleable once in the Middle East, when personnel were moved between battalions and companies depending on need. See WO 95/4427 for initial company designations. 115 Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, 2. It appears that similar situations unfolded with nearby British units, so the inappropriate living conditions appear to have been more likely the result of neglect than targeted discrimination. 116 IWM Misc 200, Item 2928 Nurse s Autograph Books Containing Contibutions by the West Indian Contingent, First World War, Folded Letter inside front cover, dated Oct 9, That these low ranking soldiers picked up a pen is not surprising, given how many of the early West Indian contingent were educated. 117 IWM Misc 200, Item 2928 Nurse s Autograph Books Containing Contibutions by the West Indian Contingent, First World War, Entry Dated Oct 27, CO 318/336/49511 G. Grindle to Colonel Barchard, November 2, Primo s death would foreshadow the West Indian experience; although expecting death on the battlefield, the majority of West Indian casualties were the result of illness.

45 35 The deterioration of the new West Indian force which had required significant political jockeying to create was cause for concern amongst British colonial officialdom. Members of the WICC visited Seaford on several occasions and attempted to improve both living conditions and the clothing available to the West Indian troops, as well as providing a variety of creature comforts. 119 Despite this, the West Indians commanding officers realized that their force was being rapidly depleted without being anywhere near the war, and sent Lieutenant-Colonel C. Wood-Hill to London to quickly engineer the transfer of the West Indians to warmer conditions for training. 120 Although there is evidence in mid-december 1915 that the War Office planned to transfer the BWIR to Egypt soon, it appears that Wood-Hill s visit expedited the process. 121 Three weeks after Wood-Hill s trip, the several thousand men of the 1 st and 2 nd Battalion began to ship out from Plymouth for Egypt. The first detachment of West Indian volunteers consisting of the entire 1 st battalion and approximately four hundred men from the 2 nd battalion arrived at the port of Alexandria on February 2, 1916 aboard HMT Marathon. 122 The remainder of the 2 nd battalion followed several weeks later aboard the Hawkes Bay, arriving at Alexandria on February 21 and quickly rejoining the other members of their unit. 123 As additional West Indian recruits continued to arrive in Egypt, the 3 rd and 4 th battalions of the BWIR emerged as independent units in subsequent weeks. A 5 th battalion was also formed in Egypt and designated a reserve battalion; its soldiers would replace and strengthen the 1 st and 2 nd BWIR battalions when necessary. Each battalion was meant to contain 1025 men broken down into four companies, although the total strength could be temporarily higher or lower for a variety of reasons. 124 When the 1 st BWIR arrived in Egypt, it immediately received orders to head for Sollum, on Egypt s western frontier, to quell an uprising in the Western Desert. Islamic tribesmen the Senussi had revolted in late November 1915 after some prodding by the Ottomans and Germany. The result was a mobile, desert campaign, in which British cavalry and armored cars chased several thousand mounted Senussi, eventually forcing and winning a decisive action at Agagiya on February The order to the BWIR arrived before the engagement at Agagiya, and represented an immediate opportunity for active service. However, the rapid departure from England meant that the West Indian battalions had left England relatively untrained, and when 119 CO 318/341/47768 Report of the West India Contingent Committee for the ten months ended June 30, A variety of clothing was provided, but there was a focus on socks, gloves, and headgear. Creature comforts included cigarettes, games, sporting equipment, and reading and writing material. 120 Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, 2. Wood-Hill had accompanied the 2 nd Contingent to England, and while initially in command of the 3 rd Battalion, would take over the 1 st battalion when the 3 rd went to France. He became a crucial advocate for the West Indians inside Egypt and Palestine, and often liaised with the EEF command, the Colonial Office, the WICC, and the War Office. 121 See CO 318/336/57983 War Office to Colonial Office, December 15, The letter notes arrangements for the despatch at an early date of the West Indian Contingent already in this country to Egypt, as well as the impossibility of shipping reinforcements directly to Egypt from the Caribbean. 122 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Jan 20-21, The journey seems to have taken twelve days, and no record exists of what occurred on-board. 123 WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, Feb 9, 21, CO 318/344/3144 One Battalion: British West Indies Regiment. According to this breakdown, there were 247 men in each of the four companies. The remaining 37 men were either commanding officers or attached to headquarters duty. The 5 th s status as a reserve battalion meant that it fluctuated the most in size as drafts moved in and out, but it often contained well over 1000 men, sometimes several hundred more. 125 Woodward, For a fuller account of the campaign, see SC Rolls, Steel Chariots in the Desert: the story of an armoured-car driver with the Duke of Westminster in Libya and in Arabia with TE Lawrence (London: J. Cape, 1937).

46 36 the battalion s then-commander, Colonel AE Barchard, notified headquarters that his unit had not begun a basic rifle-firing course, the order was cancelled. 126 The order to send black men from the empire into combat against native tribesmen was not a departure from past precedent; West Indians of African descent had consistently fought for the British against various non- European foes throughout earlier conflicts. 127 Even so, the order represents an important differentiator for the BWIR in Palestine and set a precedent. In this theater of war they could be used to fight due to manpower requirements, and equally importantly, a continuing pattern of advocacy from their officers would help to protect them from some poor policy decisions. The order to Sollum in early 1916, however, was the only direct order of the BWIR into combat that year. This had little to do with the BWIR, but rather the fact that there was little military action to speak of in the theater. The only substantive engagement of the year was the battle of Romani near the Suez Canal in August 1916, and to a lesser extent, the small-scale attack at Magdhaba at year s end. The British had adopted a generally defensive posture in 1916 a fact underlined by a December 1916 communication to General Archibald Murray: your primary mission remains unchanged, that is to say, it is the defence of Egypt. 128 In fact, Murray was under orders not to begin an offensive into Ottoman Palestine until Autumn 1917; his focus was to be on defending the Suez Canal and eventually building the infrastructure needed for his forces to cross the Sinai Peninsula. 129 The BWIR, then, would spend most of 1916 training to become combat troops, which would pay dividends when they reached the front. After arrival in Egypt, the BWIR headed to Mex Camp near Alexandria. Here they were fully outfitted, allotted specialist roles, and began to train. 130 Training was multi-faceted it included tactical and physical exercises with their unit, a wide range of guest lectures and courses at one of several schools of instruction created by the British Army. Sundays were free, as was Saturday afternoon. On other days, the West Indians rose early between 5am and 6:45am. The order of activities rotated, but usually consisted of various drilling, physical training, and musketry training, with a break for breakfast between 7:45 and 9am. One day each week, the West Indians would embark on a long march, after which there was time for bathing. 131 After a break for lunch between 12:30 and 2pm, the West Indians focused on tactical and strategic training at the platoon level until 4:30pm. Most of the focus was on basic techniques like shooting and fire discipline, bayonet fighting, entrenching, attack and retreat formations, and judging distances. 132 While quite standard, this program was significant in light of the fears expressed in Balfour s Memorandum about the potential menace of militarily-trained black men to white supremacy. The West Indians in Palestine were being trained, by the British, to become a disciplined and tactically proficient force. 126 Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, 2. Howe claims that Wood-Hill had the order overturned, but I believe it was Barchard, who was in command of the 1 st battalion at that time. 127 The West India Regiment, in particular, had served in Africa, most notably in the 3 rd Anglo-Ashanti War (1873-4) and in Sierra Leone, although it s not possible to determine whether this history influenced the order to Sollum. See Byron Farwell, Queen Victoria s Little Wars, 7 th ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1985), WO 33/905/6323, Chief of the Imp General Staff to CinC Egypt, Dec 15, 1916, No Terry Kinloch, Devils on Horses: In the Words of the ANZACs in the Middle East, (Auckland: Exisle, 2007), WO 95/4427 WJ Murray, C in C EEF to Secretary of WO, June , Report entitled A Short History of the British West Indies Regiment in Egypt 131 BWIR Training Programs, February Weekly Training Schedules in WO 95/4427, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Sept 5, April 24, There was a break for Breakfast. 132 WO 95/4427, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Feb-April, 1916.

47 37 West Indian troops also became specialists in a range of military skills by attending several schools of instruction that the army had created in Egypt at Zeitoun and Ismailia. The most important of these schools was the Imperial School of Instruction at Zeitoun, a Cairo suburb, which had been created to provide training courses for officer and NCO candidates in It quickly expanded to provide additional instruction in other areas, and by June of 1917, the 1 st BWIR alone had sent 43 officers and 243 other ranks there to attend courses. 134 These courses varied in length the officer and NCO class took 3 weeks and was probably the broadest subject but appear to have averaged around 1-2 weeks. 135 At Zeitoun, West Indians studied a range of topics, including advanced telephony, range finding, topography, and various forms of machine-gunning. 136 This in of itself was somewhat noteworthy, since the French Army refused to provide specialist training to indigenous soldiers, believing them incapable of mastering skills like signaling or machine-gunning Sir Archibald Murray, Sir Archibald Murray s Despatches (June 1916-July 1917), (London: JM Dent, 1920), 7-8. Zeitoun was created by Temporary Lt Col. Edward Colson after recovering from a wound in Europe. See biography of Colston in Bosley s Catalogue for December 13, 2006, lot 598. Online: [Accessed January 30, 2013]. 134 WO 95/4427, WJ Murray, C in C EEF to Secretary of WO, June ,Report entitled A Short History of the British West Indies Regiment in Egypt 135 ICS 96/3/14 1 st BWIR War Diary Resurvé of last 6 months covering period January 1917 to June The ICS holds a type-script copy of the 1 st Battalion War Diary, which contains some extra additions, particularly about combat situations. I use the original War Office documents, except when I cite any supplemental information from the ICS version. 136 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Zeitoun, Vol 19 Sept According to a 1 st BWIR report, 153 ordinary ranks studied grenade throwing at a Brigade School, while at Zeitoun the most frequently taken courses were: Machine Gun (56), Signaling (36), NCO Training (31), Cookery (27), and Grenade Throwing (22), with 20 others studying more specific and advanced firing and tactical techniques. 137 Fogarty, Race and War in France, 61-2.

48 38 Figure 1.3 A BWIR Corporal (note his two chevrons) models his uniform and full kit 138 Other West Indians headed to the Central Gas School in Rafa near the Sinai to receive instruction in gas warfare, while others headed to trade schools to learn smithing or mechanical skills, or to the School of Field Cookery in Ismailia, Egypt. 139 During the war, the goal of these courses was to enhance tactical ability, as well as to refocus men with skilled and technical backgrounds on performing similar and related tasks for the army. Other goals developed nearer the war s end, namely the ways in which these technical proficiencies might increase the chance that demobilized West Indian soldiers could apply these new skills in the postwar workforce. The West Indians that passed these courses and most of them did became specialists, and frequently led training sessions on their area of expertise when they returned to their companies 138 ICS 96/3/30 Untitled. Online: [Accessed January 15, 2008]. 139 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, May 11, 1918; WO 95/4410, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 24, Feb 9, 1918

49 39 and platoons. Whether becoming a specialist led to proficiency pay is unclear, but the broader impact of the schools was that it provided black and coloured West Indians with advanced military and technical training, as well as placing them in close contact with other British and imperial troops taking the courses, thus exposing them to both friendly and prejudiced attitudes. By June 1916, the BWIR had completed the necessary basic training, and were sent to the major British encampments at the Suez Canal. Here, they learned from British soldiers how to construct defensive positions, were attached to British units to learn how to man front-line trenches, and saw their first real action when a German airplane bombed the 3 rd BWIR while on inspection parade. 140 The process of military education via attachment to other units one historian has referred to them stage-managed combat situations was common inside the EEF throughout the war. 141 The goal appears to have been two-fold: to acquaint less-experienced troops with realistic fighting conditions, but probably also to evaluate their potential fighting efficacy. In August 1917, for example, eight platoons of the 1 st BWIR were attached to the 1/6 th Highland Light Infantry for instruction in Trench Warfare, during which they were shelled by Turkish artillery daily. 142 As this chapter later points out, August 1917 was a moment of critical transition in the role of the BWIR in Palestine, and the decision to train in a live-fire situation cannot be considered coincidental. But the Summer of 1916 was a period of detrimental transition for the BWIR. As they completed training and began to take on various military roles in the canal defenses, the BWIR fractured. The War Office ordered the 3 rd and 4 th battalions to France as support troops for British artillery, where they essentially became shell-carriers. It then sent 500 men to East Africa as service troops, and another 100 to Mesopotamia to perform a range of support duties. 143 These decisions not only broke up the West Indian force, they shifted the role of West Indians to support roles a slippery slope towards becoming labor units, despite the fact that West Indians had enlisted as regular service troops. In addition, this fracture ensured that subsequently formed BWIR battalions would be sent to Europe, while the 1 st, 2 nd and 5 th battalions remained in Egypt and Palestine. After the war, Wood-Hill who took command of the 1 st BWIR during the transition argued that these decisions destroyed the possibility of a West Indian Brigade, which he felt might have developed into a meaningful fighting force inside the EEF. 144 Why exactly the War Office chose to fracture the BWIR is unclear. Some have suggested it was a racially-prejudiced decision to prevent the regiment from becoming a legitimate combat force, while others view it as one result of the indirect and haphazard way the BWIR had formed. 145 Circumstantial evidence points to an intention, at least while the unit formed in 1915, 140 The 2 nd BWIR, for example, was attached to the 214 th RW Kent Regiment to learn about holding trenches. See WO 95/4427, 2 nd BWIR War Diary, Vol 3, June 12 and June 29, Edward Erickson, Ottoman Army Effectiveness in World War I: A comparative study (London: Routledge, 2007), 136. This appears to have intensified under Allenby. 142 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, August 26, 1917 and Training and Works, Vol 19, Sept officers and 419 other ranks, according to the war diary. 143 WO 95/4427 WJ Murray, C in C EEF to Secretary of WO, June , Report entitled A Short History of the British West Indies Regiment in Egypt. The troops dispatched to East Africa would return to Palestine in The Mesopotamian contingent ultimately grew to 397 men who have been of great value, with 101 as motor boat drivers, 81 as guards, 71 as clerks, 23 as carpenters, 16 as camp police, 12 as blacksmiths, 11 as fitters, 6 as telephone operatiors, and 76 others in miscellaneous duties. CO 318/347/18005 Copy of Letter Lt Gen. FS Maude, GOC Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force to War Office, June 23, Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, See Joseph, The BWIR, 105 for the former explanation, and for the argument that their status as soldiers was not altogether clear, Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, 38. Howe discusses Joseph s argument on pg 100.

50 40 to use the early BWIR battalions as active service units. The War Office wanted future drafts equal to 100% of the first battalions manpower to maintain the battalions for one year, a level of replacement that assumed significant casualties inside the battalions. 146 The other immediate question, of course, was why some battalions were able to remain in Egypt. One explanation is that General Murray himself, in fact, blocked the War Office s attempt to convert the entire BWIR into pioneer labor units. According to CL Joseph, Murray refused to endorse the wholesale conversion of the BWIR, arguing that the battalions (and one must assume especially the early battalions) saw themselves as representing the West Indies and were anxious to fight for the Empire. 147 It is not clear whether this sentiment originated with Murray himself, or resulted from pressure from Wood-Hill and others, whose postwar political plans for the British West Indies pivoted off military service during the war, not labor. Nor did Murray s argument fully satisfy the War Office. In the Fall of 1916, after receiving positive feedback about British Honduras soldiers in Mesopotamia particularly how useful they had proved in non-combat duties the War Office attempted to shift the remainder of the first contingent to Iraq. 148 Yet again, Wood-Hill had to protect the status of the BWIR. On the morning of November 20, 1916, a conference took place at the Savoy Hotel in Cairo the location of the EEF s general headquarters under Murray to clarify the role of the BWIR battalions. There, Wood-Hill lobbied the Chief of the General Staff, Major General Lynden Bell, to write privately to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (Sir William Robertson) on the need for the West Indian battalions to take a more active role in Egypt. Wood-Hill expressed the considerable dissatisfaction inside the 1 st and 2 nd BWIR over their lack of front-line service, and also headed off an attempt by the Quarter Master General to turn them into a Mechanical Section. Ultimately, the conference concurred that the battalions should be moved forward and allowed to take a more active part in proceedings in Egypt and the officers present state[d] that they have noted the good work done by the two Battalions. They are universally spoken well of and in sympathy with any movement for getting fair play with the West Indians. 149 The command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force would support the BWIR. One outcome of this conference was an attempt to re-concentrate all West Indians in Egypt, returning the BWIR battalions from France. This attempt was blocked by the commanding officers of the battalions in France, who expressed their desire to remain there, and claimed that their battalions preferred to remain in their duties in France. 150 The veracity of this statement is unclear. The West Indians may have felt that they were closer to the real war in France, and assumed they would eventually go to the front-line. 151 It is also possible that the response stemmed from a careerist motivation from the officers to be in the main theater of war, rather than a sideshow. 152 Regardless, the second, and ultimately final, attempt to create a unified BWIR for active service in Palestine fizzled out. More importantly, the apparent rupture 146 CO 318/336/52746 War Office to Colonial Office, November 13, CL Joseph, The BWIR, WO 33/905/5957, Chief of the Imperial General Staff to CinC Egypt, October 19, No ICS 96/3/14 1 st BWIR War Diary, November CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 28. Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, Howe, Race, War and Nationalism, 100. Howe has uncovered evidence of this sentiment amongst some of the BWIR soldiers in Egypt in 1915 and late Interestingly, up until the November armistice, none of the Commanding Officers (C.O.) of the BWIR battalions in Europe had received any distinction for service in the field, while the C.O. s of the 1 st and 2 nd BWIR battalions in Egypt both received the Distinguished Service Order (D.S.O).

51 41 of opinion between BWIR battalion officers allowed the War Office one final opportunity to create confusion about the wartime role of West Indians. 1917: A Pivotal Year Ian Beckett has suggested that 1917 was the pivotal year of the First World War outside the Western Front, and it certainly marked a series of important shifts for the BWIR in Egypt and Palestine. 153 In the first months of the year, the West Indian role as active service troops was again endangered by a War Office desire to concentrate all battalions in Europe as artillery support troops or laborers, regardless of past pledges. Again, however, the BWIR in Egypt resisted the decision, and importantly, significant shifts inside the EEF took place in the Summer of 1917 that finally placed them in a more prominent military role. Initially it seemed that the EEF conference on the BWIR had finally clarified the battalions role a January 16, 1917 letter from the War Office to the Colonial Office stated unequivocally that it has been decided that the 1 st and 2 nd Battalions and the 5 th Reserve Battalion, West Indies Regiment, are to remain in Egypt. 154 Based on this decision, the War Office requested the Colonial Office s assistance in raising another two battalions for service in France, setting several requirements for the new recruits who would fill the position not assigned to the service battalions in Palestine. However, less than one week later, an internal War Office minute noted that the BWIR artillery carriers were quite a success in the Spring and Summer, and we hope to have 4,000 next Spring. 155 The problem was that the prior request to the Colonial Office for two additional battalions would only yield roughly 2,000 men where would the others come from? One month later, the answer became clear when the BWIR in Palestine received notification from the War Office that they would be reorganised as shell carriers to heavy batteries in France, an unexpected and infuriating reversal of policy. 156 One possible motivation may have been thriftiness. An internal War Office memorandum on finding labor sources noted that while West Indians were more desirable than men from African or Eastern Colonies for war labor, they could not be paid more than white soldiers without prejudice to discipline, and that for labour abroad the West Indian can command more than army pay. 157 By enlisting West Indians as troops, the War Office was able to circumvent this pay issue by paying them as soldiers, but using them as laborers. 158 Unlike other contentious issues, no discussion of the order exists in various WICC committee files, even though it was likely that that the WICC received protestations from the West Indians. Ultimately, the order was reversed, and a telegram on April 8 notified the three BWIR battalions in Palestine that they would return to their former 153 Beckett, Introduction in 1917: Beyond the Western Front (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Beckett closes his introduction by arguing that 1917 was a decisive year in terms of the eventual outcome of the war and, while Germany would ultimately be defeated on the Western Front, it was not anything that occurred in the fields of France and Flanders during 1917 that ensured that result. 154 CO 318/344/3144. War Office to Colonial Office, January 16, WO 32/5094. Minute of Jan 22, ICS 96/3/14 1 st BWIR War Diary, Feb 17, CO 323/757/2213 Memorandum on steps taken to Increase the Supply of a) Coloured Troops, b) Coloured Labour, December , pg This explanation, however, may better explain the decision to use BWIR battalions as labor troops at the port of Taranto in Italy, rather than as artillery support, which was ostensibly a military, and not labor, duty.

52 42 establishment as regular service troops in the Middle East. 159 While the debate unfolded, the first British attack at Gaza had begun in March, and it is possible that the BWIR would have played some role there had their status not been in the air. Another attempt to transform all West Indian volunteers into non-combat troops, when combined with over a year of military inactivity for the BWIR in Egypt, seem clear evidence of embedded discrimination inside British policy. However, that the BWIR in Egypt and Palestine had successfully withstood War Office attempts to reconfigure their role is the first indicator that a more nuanced understanding of their specific history is required. The continued advocacy for West Indians as combat soldiers offered by officers like Wood-Hill and General Murray, as well as the efforts of the WICC and Colonial Office to halt War Office meddling (even if it motivated by broader political goals like federation) reveal key differences in the policy surrounding these earlier battalions. The second indicator, and the one now focused upon, is the ways in which the British West Indies battalions were utilized inside Egypt and Palestine, which finally broke in significant ways from the West Indian experience in Europe after the Summer of When not training, the BWIR battalions in the EEF were employed in three capacities primary military roles, secondary military roles, and labor projects. Primary roles revolved around front-line service, raids, or combat, while secondary roles encapsulated the garrisoning of towns, the escorting or guarding of POW s, the patrolling of supply and communication lines, and a range of other militarily necessary tasks that did not involve direct, adversarial contact with the enemy. For the year between the summer of 1916 and 1917, BWIR responsibilities were almost always secondary roles or labor projects. To Wood-Hill, this was a somewhat passive existence. 160 Of course, secondary military duties were not uneventful, and could provide martial opportunities. While patrolling behind front-line positions, for example, the BWIR engaged in multiple surface-to-air firefights with German aircraft intent on bombing EEF positions (shooting one plane down in May 1917 and attempting to capture its pilot). 161 The 2 nd BWIR, which had been aerially strafed earlier in April 1917, also came close to capturing an aircraft that had landed in an attempt to lay explosives on the British railway. 162 Simultaneously, tensions erupted with local Bedouins over their apparent involvement in the murder of a private in the 1 st battalion. 163 While Wood-Hill s assessment of passivity is fair combat came to the BWIR in Spring 1917 much of the supposed symmetry between West Indian duties in France and the role played by BWIR troops in Egypt and Palestine revolves around the issue of labor. The British Army in the First World War relied heavily on exploitable labor corps to build the infrastructure needed to fight. Chinese and African laborers, amongst others, built railways and dug trenches on the Western Front, while in Egypt and Palestine, the EEF relied on the Egyptian Labour Corps for a host of tasks, including the construction of pipelines, roads, 159 ICS 96/3/14 Lt Col AAG to GHQ EEF, April 8, 1917, Telegram MFC 10119, R1. Located in 1 st BWIR War Diary. The BWIR had never actually changed duties, despite the wording of the orders. 160 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Wood-Hill to GHQ Eastern Force, June 17, ICS 96/3/14 1 st BWIR War Diary; April-May WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, April 4, May 25, The patrol that caught the plane wounded one of its occupants, and Lance-Corporal HE Butcher (who had been a private during the incident), won a Distinguished Cross Medal in March 1918 for his actions that day. See WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, March 30, ICS 96/3/14 1st BWIR War Diary; April 18-19, 1917

53 43 railroads, and draining of marshes. However, the large amount of territory captured as the EEF pushed across the Sinai Peninsula and Palestine ensured that soldiers often found themselves building more specific military infrastructure. Thus, detailed to sites in platoons or companies, rotating portions of the West Indian battalions found themselves laboring. In June 1917, for example, one hundred and fifty members of the 1 st BWIR constructed offices for the Headquarters of the Eastern Force by cutting into the face of cliffs, another one hundred and ninety-three soldiers buried cables and wires between observation posts and artillery batteries, while another hundred soldiers were sent to Umm Jerrar to dig emplacements. 164 These duties seem to have cycled frequently in the case of the headquarters construction, almost every day a different group of West Indians would take over the work, and there was often a balance between labor and secondary military roles. 165 A detachment might be assigned to construct defensive redoubts, while at the same time stationing outposts, patrolling railways and other supply and communication lines, or performing other guard duties. 166 Rotating duties, then, prevented West Indians from only being used as military labor. In many ways, these rotations were the outgrowth of the EEF s success newly occupied territory needed to be both guarded and consolidated, but infrastructure damaged in fighting needed to be replaced. Military labor, more importantly, was a ubiquitous part of the wartime experience of many combatant units in Egypt and Palestine. Major engagements in Palestine were concentrated in the spring and autumn, generally avoiding the hot summer and rainy winter. The result was that all soldiers in the EEF spent a significant portion of their service not fighting, but usually training, patrolling, or building military infrastructure. It is common to find entries in British soldiers diaries like: have been on a digging fatigue, making trenches for a bayonet obstacle course at the School of Instruction just over the road. 167 The diaries of a soldier in the 4 th Royal Scots reveal that in the months before and after the battles at Gaza, his, and many other British units, alternated between training and labor fatigues digging wells, trenches, and building roads. 168 Other less martial roles were also ordered to British soldiers the 10 th Garrison Cheshire Regiment replaced the 2 nd BWIR s salvage operations on the Gaza battlefield in November Nor were white soldiers exempted from labor during the hot season; the records of various ANZAC combat units reveal that during the stifling, 100+ degree heat of the summer of 1918, they built roads from their encampments to fresh water, constructed defenses in the Jordan Valley, and unloaded the contents of lorries at supply dumps WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, June 1, 2, 23, , Vol 16. These assignments were not without danger the cable buriers were shelled heavily. 165 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary May men would be drawn from one of four battalion companies, with 50 from another. The next day, those same numbers would be drawn from different companies, and the work continued to rotate. 166 ICS 96/3/14 1 st BWIR War Diary; Resurvé of last 6 months covering period January 1917 to June IWM 84/52/1. Diary of J. Wilson, Oct 25, 1917, pg 9. Wilson was a member of the 179 th Machine Gun Corps. 168 IWM 87/17/1. Unpublished, typescript memoir of R. Loudon entitled My Life in the First World War, pg WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, November 9, WO 95/4546. War Diary of NZ Canterbury Mounted Rifles, June 1-4, 1918; WO 95/4545. War Diary of NZ Auckland Mounted Rifles, Sept 1918; May 23, 1918; June 3, 1918; June Labor, of course, was far from valueless, even if combat has been glorified as the barometer of military worth. Christopher Pugsley, for example, has argued that despite being pioneers (i.e. laborers), the Maori Pioneer Battalion were far from second-class soldiers and rather an essential part of the New Zealand Division s fighting effort at Gallipoli. Christopher Pugsley, Te Hokowhitu a Tu: The Maori Pioneer Battalion in the First World War (Auckland: Reed Books, 1995), 9, 36.

54 44 Critically, the labor projects undertaken by the BWIR in Palestine tended to be for functional purposes like defense or infrastructure, rather than rote means of occupying their time. This was distinct from the BWIR experience in France, where harsh winters sometimes forced them away from the front and into Southern France. 171 One non-commissioned officer recalled the mindless work forced upon the West Indians when he ended up supervising them while waiting for boat passage back to Egypt: Any good at discipline? I said, meaning what? And they said, well we ve got to keep a crowd of West Indian troops here from getting down into the town, into the red light, red lamp area. And so, they ve got a job of building a camp and striking it, just keeping them out of mischief. So I went up to see what it was all about. Apparently, what did happen, what I was told, and this was it. They got them to build a camp before breakfast. Have breakfast. Go back again to tidy up the camp and do all the guy ropes and this kind of thing. Strike the camp before the midday meal. Then have their meal. Build the camp again [laughs] after the midday meal. Strike it for the evening, and they d be marched back to camp, and they were kept inside a guarded camp. And I did that for about a fortnight. They were good-tempered enough, they knew what it was all about. They made no attempt to, uh, because they knew jolly well if they broke camp they d be in worse trouble than anything else. I did it for about a fortnight. 172 This mindless and rote work had zero military utility; it was merely a means to occupy the West Indians time, in part because the War Office continued to refuse them greater responsibility or transfer them away from Europe. In contrast, when the battalions in Egypt and Palestine labored, it was always on projects reflective of evolving and necessary military infrastructure. However, even in Palestine prejudice could govern attitudes towards non-white troops, and labor projects could affect perceptions of the West Indians. One British soldier, for example, made reference to a large party of West Indians from a labour battalion near El Shaulth. 173 Such a labor unit did not exist the West Indians were BWIR men, yet to that observer, they were no more than pioneers. This sort of misperception could further entrench racial views of Afro-Caribbean men as incapable of more important military roles; a nonsensical stereotype that many in the BWIR were desperate to overturn. Despite the importance of their secondary role and the value of military labor, it is impossible not to note that in the early Summer of 1917 close to two-thirds of the 1 st BWIR, despite extensive training, were not performing military work. 174 Around the same time, a report on manpower substitution conducted in Egypt examined the possibility of taking suitable men from garrison battalions and the BWIR to staff a variety of positions behind the front lines. Some positions were a clear affront (servants and grooms), while others were administrative positions across a variety of logistical units. 175 It was not surprising then, that in a June 1917 letter bemoaning the inability to achieve promotion, one officer in the 2 nd BWIR cryptically assessed 171 This seems to have been a British version of the French policy of hivernage, or wintering of warm-weather troops. The West Indians were sent to the South of France as they could not stand the Winter in the North. WO 32/5094. Field Marshall, C in C France to War Office, March 4, No. OB/1980. For a discussion of hivernage, see Fogarty, Race and War in France, IWM Interview with Edward Henry Tyler Robinson, Recorded in IWM 03/31/1. CR Hennessey. 174 This calculation includes roughly two hundred men who worked on the railway near Gamli. 175 WO 158/985. Man-Power in Egypt Report by Lt-General HM Lawson, 1917, pg 23. Lawson s inquires took place in June 1917, and were discussed with Allenby in early July. The report implicitly noted the rather peculiar situation of the BWIR inside the EEF. The battalions were considered an effective rifle strength of 1767 men, and included with regular EEF units, as opposed to garrison battalions, administrative troops, miscellaneous, or civilians, natives, and followers. See pg

55 45 the likelihood of the West Indians fighting: [w]e have not been sent into the firing line out here, and for military reasons which I m not allowed to state, will never be. 176 This letter ultimately proved to be inaccurate, as the BWIR did enter the front lines, but the letter implied that an irresolvable issue, almost certainly their race, prevented the West Indians from active combat. But Wood-Hill, and perhaps other BWIR officers, persisted in agitating throughout June and July of 1917 for a more primary role arguing that the West Indians had completed the necessary training and were capable of front-line duty. Before full deployments orders came, however, the BWIR would have to prove its ability to the EEF command in a combat situation. A Demonstration of Ability In July 1917, while some West Indians labored, several dozen men comprising the machine gun detachments of the 1 st BWIR were ordered to join the 162 nd Machine Gun company in the front lines at Gaza, where they would participate in a raid on Turkish positions. The attack took place on the night of July 20 th at Umbrella Hill near Gaza, during which the West Indians covered the attacking infantry with fifty rounds a minute for forty-five minutes, despite being shelled with high explosives by Turkish batteries. 177 Five days later, the West Indians again demonstrated their martial worth in another raid on Umbrella Hill, which although of smaller scope, did involve hand-to-hand bayonet fighting in the trenches. 178 The raids were deemed a success, and the West Indian performance did not go unnoticed. Reporting on the initial engagement, the officer in charge of the 162 nd reported that the West Indians worked exceedingly well displaying the qualifications necessary for a Machine Gun Section viz. a keen interest in the work, cheerfulness and energy, cool-ness [sic] under shell fire and an intelligent application of what was required of them and the ability to carry it out. 179 Decades later, the officer, now Lord Harding, remembered the work of the West Indians in an oral interview, and still maintained a positive view of their military ability. 180 Critically, the EEF command appears to have paid attention to these reports, for it awarded the Military Medal to a member of the BWIR machine gun section. The recipient, Lance Corporal T.N. Alexander, had maintained one of the machine gun barrages on the nights of the 20 th and 27 th despite heavy artillery shelling and having his weapon hit by enemy rifle fire on both occasions. 181 If this deployment had been a test of the BWIR as combat troops, they had certainly passed. 176 CO 137/725/10162 Copy of a Communication from an Officer of the Second Battalion, BWI, Egypt, dated June 12, WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, July While these numbers fluctuated, the 1 st BWIR machine gun detachment in one report was listed as 1 Officer, 2 NCOs, and 35 men, with a reserve detachment of 1 Officer, 1 NCO, and 21 men. 178 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, July WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, July The strong showing by the West Indians was of particular note, as they were issued a new type of machine gun, with which they were less familiar, only a few days before their deployment. 180 IWM #8736, Recorded Interview with John Lord Harding, WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Aug 2, 1917

56 46 Figure 1.4 Two BWIR soldiers man a Vickers Machine Gun in After the attacks at Umbrella Hill, Wood-Hill capitalized on the West Indian performance to push harder for sustained front-line duty. Writing to Headquarters in August 1917 he estimated that he could put eight platoons of the 1 st BWIR, approximately four hundred men, in the front lines on short notice, and agitated for the deployment of his men. 183 Shortly afterwards, the role of the BWIR began to shift, either the result of Wood-Hill s lobbying, Allenby s troop requirements for attacking Gaza in the Autumn of 1917, or both. Allenby, who had replaced Murray in July, was caught between the need for an offensive campaign into Palestine and the need to rotate British troops out of his command and into the Western Front. That August, he had been ordered to press the Turks opposed to you to the fullest extent of your variable resources a message that persisted for the several months. 184 Ever a pragmatist, the availability of unused, disciplined, and well-trained troops, even if they were black, would have been attractive to Allenby. 182 ICS 96/3/30 Photo entitled Kirkland and self Online: [Accessed January 15, 2008]. 183 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Draft Letter, Wood-Hill to GHQ, August 19, WO 158/611 London to Allenby, Desp 1840 August 10, 1917.

57 47 Shortly after the Umbrella Hill raid, the EEF notified the War Office of its intention to use the BWIR battalions in combat. A minute written by Egyptian Expeditionary Force officers noted the request of the 1 st BWIR to update its armaments, and asked General Headquarters to place this B[attalio]n on same footing as any other B[attalio]n. It will probably take its place in the line soon if it can be arranged. 185 The result was the replacement of some BWIR equipment and gear with those more suited to desert warfare. 186 Later, when the fluidity of the war in Palestine became apparent, the battalion s less portable Vickers machine guns were replaced with the more desirable Lewis guns. 187 Ultimately, consistent pressure from Wood-Hill, the well-regarded military performance of small groups of West Indians in 1917, and Allenby s need to find alternate sources of combat troops fused to present the BWIR with a front-line opportunity that has often bit misunderstood or overlooked the Composite Force. 188 The Composite Force In September 1917, the EEF placed the 1 st BWIR into a composite force of several different units. Relatively understudied by military historians, these forces often encompassed un-brigaded units and other individual forces into a unit sizeable enough for more major tactical uses. By composing a broader force, the chain-of-command could be streamlined and a larger position could be held. These seem to have been popular in Egypt and Palestine; one early composite force of cavalry squadrons and artillery had performed well at the Battle of Romani in In September 1917, as the EEF prepared for its third assault on Gaza, the British command formed a composite force out of the 1 st BWIR, the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade (generally Indian), the 20 th Indian Infantry Brigade, the 121 st Indian Field Ambulances, three hundred Italian Bersaglieri attached to the 20 th Indians, and a French contingent of around eight hundred soldiers that consisted of several companies of Algerian soldiers. 190 Perhaps the only 185 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, S.O. 8 of XXIst Corps of August 1917; WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Wood-Hill to GHQ, August 19, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Wood-Hill to GHQ, August 19, Originally, the BWIR had been outfitted with leather belts and pouches, which while appropriate for the European climate, were ill-suited for the dry, sandy conditions in the Middle East. After the leather cracked and peeled, Wood-Hill requested and received Web Equipment, which the other units stationed in the Middle East preferred (and which had been Army standard issue before wartime enlistment outpaced production). 187 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Wood-Hill to GHQ, August 19, 1917; WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, May 27, This process clearly took time; the War Diary of the 2 nd BWIR noted as late as June 14, 1918 that their Vickers guns were replaced with Lewis Guns to as to join the scale of an Infantry Battalion in Egypt. 188 Despite his advocacy, Wood-Hill has been the subject of critique. Richard Smith has argued that an obsession with military honour and discipline, and not any particular desire to redress racial discrimination, motivated his actions. See Richard Smith, West Indians at War, Caribbean Studies, 36, no 1 (January-June 2008): 228. Much of the evidence for Smith s contention stems from Arthur Andrew Cipriani, who disliked Wood-Hill enough that his biographer, CLR James referred to the officer as an autocrat of the first order. Cipriani and James preferred the commander of the 5 th Battalion Colonel A. Wilson noting that he would allow no discrimination against his regiment. See CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 30. These critiques seem unfair. Even if he was merely motivated by military honor or by the goal of political federation Wood-Hill, along with Wilson, consistently protected the BWIR from War Office abuses, as well as seeking the combat role which the West Indians had enlisted for. 189 Kinloch, Devils on Horses, 84, WO 95/4410, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Training and Works, Vol 19, Sept 1917; WO 95/4731 Order Z/77/CB in Composite Force War Diary, Vol 1, Sept 1917 The 20 th Indian Brigade contained the 110 th Mahratta Light Infantry, the Alwar, Gwalior, and Patiala Imperial Service Infantry, a British signal section, and a transport train. It had been stationed in Egypt since November For more, see WO 161/81. A Brief Record of The Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force Under the Command of General Sir Edmund HH Allenby, GCB GCMG July 1917

58 48 description of the entire Composite Force was recorded by Cecil Sommers after the 3 rd Battle of Gaza, even though it seems unlikely he knew what he was describing: Yesterday we met a batch of several hundred Turkish prisoners who were being escorted down the line by Indian lancers. The Indians seemed to like the job better than the Turks. About the same time there caught us up a squadron of French African Cavalry, fine looking men on splendid white Arab chargers. They looked very picturesque beside our drab infantry. Bersaglieri waved to us from their encampment under a couple of cypress-trees, and dusky West Indians were busy sinking a well. 191 While the Italians had been placed in Palestine as a nominal force in order to show the Italian flag, the Indian troops, particularly the Imperial Service men, were well-respected as a combat force, as were the French North Africans. 192 The combination of units suggests some level of equivalency between the groups in the minds of EEF commanders, especially as duties on the front line appear to have been parceled out relatively equally. There was also likely a pragmatic reason; the EEF required men for the Gaza attack, and combined several available, smaller units a position not uncommon for many minority and empire units that lacked larger brigade structures into a bigger force. The problems endemic to such a force were obvious language, different tactical training, and overall unit cohesion but this force did play an active role in British operations in the final attack on Gaza. After its formation in September, the Composite Force patrolled behind the lines as they waited to move into the trenches. Perhaps in a way to build cohesion, or possibly simply to kill boredom, the various Imperial units occupied themselves by frequently playing sports. 193 Interestingly, the BWIR had interacted with the 20 th Indian Infantry before in the Spring of 1917, often relieving each other of, and occasionally overlapping in, various positions and duties. 194 The rapport between units is unknown, but had it been poor, it s unlikely the units would have found themselves together in the Composite Force. On October 1, the 1 st BWIR entered the front-line trenches at Dumbbell Hill, and were later joined by machine guns sections from the 2 nd BWIR on November Other machine gun sections from the 2 nd BWIR had been attached to the 162 nd Machine Guns the same unit from Umbrella Hill and in the trenches since September The West Indian position was a dangerous one; it faced the Turks from such an angle that they could be shelled by both Turkish positions opposite and to the north. These positions, the Tank and Atawineh Redoubts, were two of the only Turkish positions to hold out to October 1918, Compiled from Official Sources and Published by The Palestine News. (Cairo: Government Press and Survey of Egypt, 1919) pg Cecil Sommers, Temporary Crusaders (London: John Lane, 1919), Dec 23, 1917, p Despite his diary date, it s difficult to precisely ascertain when Sommers encountered this scene. The Composite Force disbanded as a force in November 1917, but his description of all the various component units in one scene meant that he either encountered them earlier, or that the now disbanded force remained in extremely close proximity to each other. 192 FO 371/3045/65801 Operations in Palestine, March 28, WO 95/4731, Composite Force War Diary, Vol 1, Sept 13, 18, 20, WO 95/4433 War Diary of 20 th Indian Infantry Brigade March and April WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Vol 20, Oct 1, 1917; WO 95/4731, Composite Force War Diary, Vol 3, Nov 1, As was the case in the European trenches, the British in the Middle East took to naming the various junctions in the trenches after places in England. A map (no 57) in the October 1917 War Diary of the 1 st BWIR reveals that the West Indian positions at Dumbbell Hill feature a Charing Cross, a Brighton, and a Carfax. 196 WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, September 16, 1917.

59 49 during the offensive in Gaza towards Beersheva during the first week of November. 197 In part, this was because the EEF had limited desire to attack these positions; an Australian force had been thrashed there during the 2 nd battle of Gaza. 198 Instead, the Composite Force s position was designed to prevent Allenby s forces from being flanked. Throughout October, the BWIR patrolled the locality in conjunction with Indian troops from the 20 th Indian Infantry and from the Imperial Service Cavalry, capturing several Turkish prisoners. 199 When Allenby s attack finally began on the last day of October, the West Indians feinted towards the strong Turkish positions at Atawineh, in order to induce the enemy to believe that an attack may be expected in that section. 200 No doubt this maneuver was designed to trick the Ottoman forces into believing a repeat of 2 nd Gaza was underway, as the BWIR proudly noted its success in drawing and holding a large number of Turks away from the key points on the line. 201 As the offensive progressed along the rest of the line, the EEF claimed to receive intelligence that a counter-attack in the West Indian sector was likely, pulling the force back from its advance in order to defend the right flank. It is worth noting that this preservation of predominantly non-european soldiers from attacking an entrenched position is a noticeable difference from, for example, the ways in which French commanders used similar troops as essentially cannon fodder on the Western Front. 202 The result was that the West Indians and others returned to their positions on Dumbbell Hill, where for the next several days they were heavily shelled causing several cases of shell shock. 203 By November 7, the battle for Gaza was mostly over. That day, however, a German airplane bombed the 2 nd BWIR near Beersheba wounding three and killing Lance Corporal R. Wason. 204 That same day, expecting the Turks to have retreated, two platoons of the 1 st BWIR (around one hundred soldiers) and a squadron of Imperial Service Calvary set out to reconnoiter the Atawineh Redoubt. Reaching a wadi, the cavalry dismounted and moved towards what had been the Turkish line, while the West Indians took up a support position at a nearby farm. The cavalry crept on foot to within six hundred feet of the barbed wire when Turkish forces sprang an ambush. Turkish machine guns decimated the exposed cavalry, and when their commander was killed, they fell back in complete disarray towards the West Indian position. 205 The BWIR responded to the chaotic situation like veteran troops. As Turkish units began to advance, a West Indian stretcher party dashed forward to retrieve the body of the cavalry commander (a Lieutenant Kelly), while other West Indians laid down covering fire. Turkish artillery then began shelling the West Indians, but the BWIR did not break. Instead, they retreated in an orderly and staggered fashion, which required West Indians to offer covering fire as further advanced troops moved backwards. Upon reaching a strong defensive position held by a different platoon from the 1 st BWIR, they forced the Turkish troops to retreat Anthony Bruce, The Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War (London: John Murray, 2002), Kinloch, Devils on Horses, WO 95/4410, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 20, Operations, Oct WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Vol 21, Intelligence and Operations, November WO 95/4410, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 21, Intelligence and Operations, Nov Fogarty, Race and War in France, Fogarty details how the French army used Senegalese soldiers as troupe de choc ( shock troops ), providing them with insufficient military training and then placing them in front of poilus, where they would bear the brunt of defensive fire. 203 WO 95/4731, Composite Force War Diary, Vol 3, Nov 3, 4, 6, 7, WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, November 7, WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Vol 21, Intelligence and Operations, Nov WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Vol 21, Intelligence and Operations, Nov 1917

60 50 The cool, methodical manner in which the West Indians had fought saved many lives, and the Army Council of Egypt again rewarded them. Lance Corporal VE Johns won the Military Medal for running a telephone line between Battalion HQ and the exposed platoons, enabling Captain R. Fink, who took over upon Lt. Kelly s death, to organize the withdrawal, for which he earned the Military Cross. Two other privates, CA Hyudrman and F. Pullar also won the Military Medal, the first for running messages under heavy fire, and the latter for his scout work before and after the battle. 207 Since their front-line service began, four coloured West Indians had decorations for bravery sanctioned and awarded by senior, white British officers. It was clear that the BWIR in Palestine could provide a valuable contribution to the EEF, yet for a variety of reasons, the BWIR did not return to front-line service until the Summer of Still, the BWIR s service in the Composite Force was key for several reasons. From a tactical perspective, they demonstrated their ability to maintain positions under fire and perform in difficult combat situations. A significant portion of West Indian soldiers were now in the line and facing enemy fire an accomplishment that should not be overlooked in light of the prior War Office attitude. Strategically, as the following map illustrates, the West Indians positioning prevented Ottoman and German forces from flanking Allenby s troops during a counter-attack: Figure 1.5 Map depicting the strategic situation on November 2, 1917 at 6pm (British forces in red, Composite Force circled in yellow) WO 95/4410, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 22, Decorations, Dec WO 161/81 A Brief Record of The Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force Under the Command of General Sir Edmund HH Allenby, GCB GCMG July 1917 to October Author s photograph.

61 51 Had the initial attacks on Gaza gone poorly and the Composite Force weakened or collapsed, a major portion of Allenby s force could have been outflanked, or possibly encircled. The casual assumption, therefore, that the role played by the West Indians in this force was minor or unimportant is mistaken. Lastly, BWIR participation in the Composite Force illustrated their ability to coexist closely with a broader imperial force, an increasingly key skill as empire troops replaced British ones in The result was that the BWIR s other major military contribution would come as part of a broad, imperial force named after its leader Major-General Sir Edward Chaytor in which imperial coexistence, tactical coordination, and the ability to withstand strategic isolation would be key. Figure 1.6 A screen-grab of a platoon of the 1 st BWIR from the film, Deir el Belah. Filmed around the Composite Force period in November and the Megiddo Offensive Allenby s attack at Gaza had been a massive success. Exploiting gaps in the Turkish line, his forces raced towards Jaffa and Jerusalem, which prevented infantry units with inadequate transport from keeping pace. This included the BWIR, who found itself in a familiar and unsatisfactory position when the Composite Force dissolved in November. Instead of continuing a combat role, the battalions returned to the Lines of Communication to patrol the rapidly expanding supply lines, guard captured munitions and clean up battlefields. 210 After the surrender of Jerusalem on December 9 (Allenby entered the city two days later) and some consolidation of gains around Jaffa before Christmas, the EEF essentially came to a halt. Assuming defensive positions for the rainy season, Allenby s forces would not go on the offensive again until the large raids across the Jordan River on Es Salt and Amman in March and 209 IWM 10, Deir el Belah, :00-9:33. Online: [Accessed January 17, 2013]. 210 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Vol 21, Intelligence and Operations, Nov It is unclear why the force was dissolved.

62 52 April In the meantime, the 2 nd BWIR took over the defenses around Beersheva in December, while the 1 st BWIR guarded the Lines of Communication inside Palestine. 211 Having recently been in the front lines, these duties, with the exception of an occasional clash with Bedouins, must have bored the West Indians. 212 More importantly as when they were ordered to bury the bodies of EEF soldiers left on the Gaza battlefield their role probably offended them. However, they had set important precedents throughout the second half of 1917, and they would return to a front-line position when Allenby developed the parameters of his September offensive in Summer As Allenby reconfigured his forces sending British units to the Western Front and taking on thousands of relatively raw and untrained Indian soldiers, the entire EEF began an intensive program of training in the Spring of With the exception of the forces that briefly and unsuccessfully raided across the Jordan River, most of the EEF spent April and May 1918 internalizing the tactical lessons learned from nearly four years of conflict. The training was extremely intensive: the West Indians spent eight hours each day in some form of preparatory work, in addition to other responsibilities. 213 There was an emphasis on physical fitness throughout the EEF, as Allenby s plan required his infantry to cover long distances quickly to consolidate newly won positions. The West Indian battalions therefore undertook progressively longer and more difficult training marches. Outside of physical training, they listened to educational lectures on military topics, or received hands-on instruction from specialists in patrolling, bayonet fighting, and setting up sniper and observer teams, amongst others. 214 Generally, this type of instruction was provided by white soldiers from other British units; for example, a lieutenant from the 1/6 th Essex Regiment and thirteen soldiers from the 163 rd Infantry Brigade joined the D Company of the 1 st BWIR to provide instruction for the Lewis machine gun. 215 The next day, two more soldiers (this time from the 1/7 th Essex Regiment) joined D Company as bomb and rifle grenade instructors, while the A Company of the 1 st BWIR was joined by four outside inspectors of bayonet fighting. 216 Tactical training also developed in 1918 into specialist tasks conducting reconnaissance, conducting field communications, and spotting targets for artillery. 217 As Allenby s former forces rotated towards France, the West Indians became an increasingly attractive option for front line service in the next offensive. They were better trained than newer Indian units and had acquitted themselves well in action in the latter half of After weeks of training, General Headquarters ordered the 1 st BWIR on July 5 to reenter the line at Rafat with the 232 nd Brigade. 218 This was an oft-overlooked order. The 232 nd were part of the 75 th Division a critical fighting force inside the EEF that Allenby stationed in the coastal plain for his September offensive and would use to assault the Turkish defenses. Some of its British troops had been dispatched to France, so the unit required additional infantry for combat operations. More importantly, its commander Sir Edward Bulfin was the nephew of a WICC member and a strong supporters of the BWIR, having frequently expressed his great 211 WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, December 7, 1917, WO 95/4410, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 25, March ICS War Diary, Nov 22, 1917, pg WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Training, May WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Training, June WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, May 27, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, May 28, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Training, May 1918, General, February 1918; WO 95/4732, Modified Musketry Course of Aug 23, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, General, July 1918

63 53 satisfaction at the manner in which the Regiment had performed its work. 219 The BWIR were going to play a pivotal combat role in the forthcoming major offensive. The Spanish Flu, however, had other ideas. An outbreak of influenza had sickened the 5 th BWIR for much of June, and when three members of the 1 st BWIR returned from a detail inside the 5 th to their own unit, they brought the flu with them. The 2 nd BWIR reported influenza on July 2 nd, with 78 men hospitalized the next day. In the 1 st BWIR, roughly a quarter of the battalion sickened, and the active duty orders for both battalions were promptly canceled. 220 The overall health of the BWIR battalions eventually improved, but they had missed an opportunity to play a front-and-center role in the forthcoming offensive. Just like the order to the Senussi campaign in 1916, bad timing substantially altered the wartime narrative the West Indians would be able to produce. They would, however, still see front line combat and form an important imperial relationship in the process. Finally, on August 12, the 1 st BWIR moved into the front line not in the coastal plain, but on the far right flank of the British line, located in the western hills of the Jordan River valley. They were greeted inhospitably by the Turkish units the same battalions, incidentally, that the BWIR had fought against at Dumbbell Hill who spasmodically shelled the West Indian positions and wounded two privates within 48 hours of their arrival. 221 The following day, the 2 nd BWIR began to arrive to the same sector, and the West Indians took up positions alongside ANZAC units, the 20 th Indian Infantry, and two battalions of the Royal Fusiliers the combat troops of the Jewish Legion. 222 This collection of soldiers essentially another Composite Force fell under the command of the popular New Zealander Major-General Edward Chaytor and took his name, becoming Chaytor s Force. 219 ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper report, of meeting May 21, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, General and Hospital July 1918 and 2 nd BWIR War Diary, July 3, Conspiracy theorists might argue that GHQ knew of the influenza when it issued the order, but at least in the case of the 2 nd BWIR, the order was issued before any symptoms of influenza inside the unit. 221 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Operations and daily entry for August 14, 1918; 222 WO 95/4732, 2 nd BWIR War Diary, Vol 29, August

64 54 Figure 1.7 The EEF Front Line on September 18, The BWIR position is circled in yellow, while the blue circle depicts the placement of the brigade they were initially assigned to in July. 223 Figure 1.8 Close-up of Chaytor s Force as of Sept 18, Chaytor s Force was responsible for holding probably the most physically uncomfortable part of the EEF line; the Jordan River valley, often referred to by its Turkish name, the Ghor. In the summer months, it could be unbearably hot. Before the West Indian arrival, the war diary of 223 WO 161/81 p 104. Author s photograph. 224 WO 161/81 pg 104. Author s Photograph.

65 55 the Auckland Mounted Rifles recorded the daily temperature in the shade; temperatures over 100 degrees were the norm throughout June 1918, with a monthly high of 110 degrees in the shade for June In addition, malarial mosquitoes plagued the valley. Attuned to the misery of the locale, the Turks dropped leaflets over British positions: Flies die in July, men in August and we will come and bury you in September. 226 Allenby himself was well aware of the heat and malaria in the Jordan Valley, and focused on it heavily. In letters throughout the Summer of 1918 to his friend Captain CW Battine, Allenby discussed his anti-malarial operations throughout Palestine, arguing I do not see any reason why the Jordan Valley, as well as the marshy places near the Mediterranean coast, should not be free of Malaria. 227 He noted the considerable heat of the Jordan Valley that soon will become pretty bad, but he felt it was not much worse than Mesopotamia or India. 228 More importantly, the Ghor, despite its deeply uncomfortable climate, was of critical strategic import to the EEF. Allenby continually stressed in his letters that he must keep troops in the valley to control the river crossings and the Dead Sea, as well as to offer some protection to Lawrence s Arabs along the Hedjaz. 229 In a blunt letter to Sir Henry Wilson, he explained: My right flank is covered by the Jordan; my left by the Mediterranean Sea. The Jordan Valley must be held by me; it is vital. If the Turks regained control of the Jordan, I should lose control of the Dead Sea. This would cut me off from the Arabs on the Hedjaz railway; with the result that, shortly, the Turks would regain their power in the Hedjaz. The Arabs would make terms with them, and our prestige would be gone. My right flank would be turned, and my position in Palestine would be untenable. I might hold Rafa or El Arish; but you can imagine what effect such a withdrawal would have on the population of Egypt, and on the watching tribes of the Western Desert. You see, therefore, that I cannot modify my present dispositions. I must give up nothing of what I now hold. Anyhow, I must hold the Jordan Valley. 230 The Jordan, therefore, was clearly a critical portion of Allenby s front line from a strategic perspective. It also, however, represented an opportunity for pulling off an elaborate deception; one which Chaytor s force would be responsible for. The strategy behind the forthcoming British offensive hinged on a full attack in the coastal plain, which meant troop strength in the Jordan River Valley was reduced to a minimum in order to concentrate five divisions in the plain. However, to keep the Turks from discovering his re-concentration of force, Allenby ordered his forces in the valley to trick the Turks to believe that an attack east of the Jordan was intended, either in the direction of Madeba or Amman. 231 The EEF had conducted substantial raids across the Jordan in March and April in the same sector, so Allenby s ruse was not entirely unbelievable. In addition to normal front-line duties, Chaytor s troops erected a series of dummy camps, which covered-up the departure of the Desert Mounted Corps to the coastal plain, and fooled Turkish observers and airplanes into thinking that forces continued to concentrate in the 225 WO 95/4545. War Diary of NZ Auckland Mounted Rifles, June 19-30, Robert Henry Wilson, Palestine 1917, IWM 90/37/1. Lord Allenby to Capt CW Battine, Letters of June 7 and June 15, IWM 90/37/1. Lord Allenby to Capt CW Battine. Letters of June 7, June 15, and August 19, /37/1. Lord Allenby to Capt CW Battine, Letters of June 7, See also Allenby to Wilson, June 5, 1918 in Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, Allenby to Wilson, June 15, 1918, in Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, 163. Author s italics. 231 WO 32/5128 Despatch describing operations of the EEF from 9/19/ /26/1918, Allenby to War Office, 10/31/1918, pg 3.

66 56 valley. 232 Other members of the force used mules pulling sleighs behind the lines to create clouds of dust and simulate troop concentration. 233 Part of the West Indian duties in deception involved marching along the Jerusalem-Jericho road to simulate the arrival of thousands of infantry. While one commentator claimed that the BWIR enjoyed the gentle stroll downhill and the motor ride back in the evening, the reality was that these marches occurred in intense heat, and caked the West Indians in chalky dust. 234 The 1 st BWIR s War Diary, in fact, noted that the marches were arduous and trying in the extreme. 235 Simultaneously to these duties, Chaytor s force sent patrols into no man s land that were coordinated between the different constituent units. Throughout August, the West Indians combined with Australian soldiers (probably the 3 rd Australian Light Horse) to send out joint patrols every night along the Jordan River valley, occasionally even capturing Turkish deserters. 236 While militarily important, the broader significance of these patrols lies in the necessary coordination and cooperation between imperial groups the very close contact between white Australians and black West Indians. These activities intensified in September, as West Indian ventured into no-man s land around the clock, sustaining Turkish fire and frequently pushing right up to Turkish lines at night. 237 These were often dangerous missions on the night of September 18 th, the 2 nd BWIR moved out of their positions to the left of the 1 st BWIR and working their way under heavy fire, both artillery and machine gun, made a strong demonstration against Turkish positions, eventually withdrawing after coming within 600 yards. 238 Meanwhile, the 1 st BWIR s A Company was caught in an exposed position by such heavy shell fire that they became effectively cut off from the rest of the force until the shells subsided. 239 These particularly dangerous maneuvers were a necessity; the BWIR needed to be positioned for Allenby s offensive, which began the next day. As dawn broke on September 19, the calm of morning was shattered by a cacophony of artillery fire. Along a line that stretched from the Mediterranean coast, across the Judean Hills, and nearly to the northern shores of the Dead Sea, the guns of the British Army thundered into continuous action. Sixty-pounders, eighteen-pounders, siege howitzers, and mountain batteries several hundred guns hurled shells thousands of yards into Turkish positions. 240 As the EEF advanced along the plain of Sharon near the Mediterranean Coast, Chaytor s Force shifted from deception and skirmishing to actively securing the British flank. In the Jordan Valley, the West Indians and the rest of Chaytor s force skirmished and exchanged artillery fire. On the 20 th, the same company of the 1 st BWIR that had been pinned down two days prior was subject to another heavy barrage, which would kill Sgt AV Chan and wound eight others. 241 More West Indians were wounded the next day, when the BWIR received orders to move with all speed to the bridge at Jisr-ed-Damieh, one of the major routes across the Jordan River. 242 That night at 9pm, the 1 st BWIR exited their trenches, rendezvoused with 232 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Operations for Sept Pugsley, Robert Henry Wilson, Palestine 1917, 122. It s possible the claim was ironic, but there is no way to discern this. 235 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, General August WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 30, Operations, August WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Operations for Sept ICS 96/3/14 1 st BWIR War Diary Operations for Sept WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Operations for Sept Perrett, 20-22, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Sept 20, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Sept 21, 1918

67 57 the New Zealand Mounted Brigade at midnight, and broke into a rapid flank march across the Turkish front, covering 15.5 miles in 3.5 hours with no real water supply until reaching the area around the bridge. 243 The bridge was heavily fortified and defended by entrenched Turkish forces, including multiple machine gun sections that had clear lines of fire, enabling them to strafe the bridge at will. The West Indians arrived at 5am on the morning of the 22 nd, resting for one hour before moving into positions from which they would assault the Turkish position. When the orders came for the BWIR to fix bayonets and seize the bridge, one New Zealand Trooper recalled that the West Indian mood was jubilant: they went into the charge laughing running and jumping just like a lot of school boys just let out of school for the mid term vacation. 244 The joy at being ordered into a dangerous assault was unusual, but may have reflected the West Indian belief that they were finally being given an opportunity to demonstrate martial ability in a significant way. Although they had contributed militarily since mid-1917, their role had tended to be reactive. A major assault reflected an opportunity to symbolically conform to dominant standards of martial ability particularly through the use of the bayonet. 245 At 11am, the West Indians broke into a trot and charged in two waves at the Turkish positions some six hundred yards away. Behind them, BWIR machine gun teams provided covering fire across the river. The Turkish defenders were so surprised and panicked by the charge that their fire became erratic and inaccurate. One West Indian, Private George Dick charged towards a machine gun nest. Bayoneting the two Turkish gunners, he captured the weapon. Elsewhere, another Private, Albert Marquez, flanked an enemy post from which Turkish troops hurled grenades. Marquez quickly killed six soldiers single-handedly, wounded another two, and took two more prisoner. Similar events unfolded around the bridge, as the Turkish defenders collapsed, unsuccessfully attempting to retreat back into the neighboring hills. The charge had been a remarkable success 200 Turkish soldiers had been killed, another 110 were captured, and the West Indians had seized 14 machine and automatic light guns while only suffering one wounded soldier in return. 246 The charge had not only been an exhibition of tremendous bravery, but also a victory of significant strategic importance. The Damieh bridge was the main escape route across the Jordan River for the Turkish troops retreating from the British onslaught in the coastal plain. 247 By seizing the bridge, the West Indians prevented the Ottoman forces from regrouping or counter-attacking, funneling them further north and away from any potential strategic high-ground. Simultaneously, they opened the path for mounted ANZAC troops to ride to Amman, where they took control of the Hedjaz railway. After breaking the bridgehead defenses, small groups of BWIR troops cleared remaining pockets of Turkish resistance on the west side of the river by bayoneting Turkish troops, all the while sustaining machine gun fire from across the river. As these actions occurred, the machine gun sections of the BWIR strafed the Damieh bridge, killing any Turks retreating to the East side of the river. The Auckland Mounted Rifles pursued the broken Turks while companies of the 1 st 243 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Operations for Sept Diary of Harry Judge, Sept 22, Quoted in Kinloch, Devils on Horses, On martial ability, see Joe Lunn, Male Identity and Martial Codes of Honor: A Comparison of the War Memoirs of Robert Graves, Ernst Junger, and Kande Kamara, The Journal of Military History 69, no. 3 (July 2005): See specifically Lunn s discussion of Kande Kamara on WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Sept 22, 1918 and Vol 33 Honours. Interestingly, there had been some Germans in the bridgehead defenses, thus perhaps complicating the War Office s insistence that black men not fight Europeans. See Kinloch, Devils on Horses, Bruce, 232. Bruce never mentions who took the bridge.

68 58 BWIR consolidated the newly won heights before being relieved. Meanwhile, the 2 nd BWIR and the 1 st Australian Light Horse dealt with a Turkish counter-attack nearby its goal was to cut off the West Indians and New Zealanders that had already crossed the river driving the Turkish troops back across the Jordan by evening. 248 The BWIR charge did not go unnoticed. British newspapers featured a story entitled Capture of Amman: West Indian Troops Gallantry that described the gallant bayonet charge of the West Indians across the Jisr ed Damieh bridge, an attack that broke the Turkish defenses and won the admiration of Colonial veterans. 249 This admiration was genuine. Writing after Megiddo, the commander of the Auckland Mounted Rifles took pains to explicitly commend the West Indians, calling their advance particularly keen and workmanlike, as well as executed with great style. 250 This praise was no mere platitude it was recorded inside the Auckland s War Diary, and no one outside the unit or the EEF command would have read it. Several West Indians were honored for their bravery in the Damieh assault. Privates Marquez and Dick received the Military Medal for their actions on September 22 nd, as did Lance Corporal Collin Leekam, who had commanded four Lewis machine guns at Damieh. Corporal Richard Turpin and Private Hezekiah Scott won Distinguished Conduct Medals for bravery during the artillery barrages of September 20 th, as did Sergeant William Julien, who had taken command of a platoon and led the advance over the Damieh bridge after his officer was wounded. Two other sergeants were mentioned in Allenby s October Dispatches, and two Military Crosses were given to two officers. 251 Having opened up huge holes in the Turkish defenses, the mounted elements of Chaytor s Force poured in towards Es Salt and the railway junction at Amman at a speed that the BWIR, and the rest of the infantry, could not keep up with. The 1 st BWIR, however, did push deep into previously Turkish territory on the night of the 23 rd, ascending the mountains east of the Jordan River to about 4000 feet and covering fifteen miles at night with only light uniforms, no blankets, light rations, and no reserve water. Unfortunately, this advance would eventually create significant illness inside the BWIR particularly pneumonia and malarial fever. Other issues than the harsh conditions preoccupied them at the that time; the 1 st BWIR had to deal with scattered pockets of Turkish resistance during their ascent, including sniper fire and grenades. A few dozen resistors were taken prisoner, and the 1 st BWIR arrived in newly caputured Es Salt at 4pm on the 24 th, before continuing onwards to Amman, which they helped guard upon arrival on the 26 th. By the time the offensive ended for the BWIR on September 26 th, they had covered just over fifty-four miles in five days, often under fire and exposed to the freezing mountain air. 252 At first glance, the victory over the Ottoman forces in the Jordan River Valley appeared to have come with little casualties. While combat casualties were low, the historian Christopher Pugsley has rightly noted that for the men of the EEF, the victory over the Turks was followed 248 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Operations for Sept ICS 96/2/3 WICC Scrap Book, pg 36. W.T. Massey, Capture of Amman: West Indian Troops Gallantry in Daily Mail, Nov 23, WO 95/4545. War Diary of NZ Auckland Mounted Rifles, Report on Operations at Jisr ed Damieh by Lt-Col JN McCarroll. Undated, but in the Sept 1918 War Diary. 251 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Honors, November 1918, Vol 33. The sergeant, William Julien, had taken command of a platoon when an officer was wounded during the attack on the Damieh bridgehead, and had led the advance over the bridge. 252 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Operations for Sept They marched 15.5 miles over the 21 st and 22 nd, 15 miles on the night of the 23 rd, 4 miles on the 24 th, 12.5 miles on the morning of the 25 th, and 7.5 miles on the morning of the 26 th.

69 59 by the swift victory of disease. 253 In September alone, the 1 st BWIR evacuated 8 officers and 293 other ranks due to sickness, while only sustaining seventeen total casualties during the actual military offensive. 254 The disparity is striking one West Indian died during the attacks, but 42 died of disease in October. 255 During the push across the Jordan River, West Indians fell sick from the extreme variation in climate between the valley s heat and the chillier landscape east of the river; a shift exacerbated by the tremendous physical exertion of the marching soldiers. The exposure to cold during the marches through the mountains sickened so many men that between September 20 and October 10, 77% of the Battalion s officers and 73% of other ranks were admitted to the hospital 716 men, in total, out of a previous strength of 1187 men. By the end of October, forty-two of these men had died from either dysentery, malaria, or pneumonia. 256 The medical records of the mounted ANZAC forces show a similar phenomenon: during the first twelve days of October, the New Zealand Mounted Brigade sent 700 soldiers to the hospital with malaria. 257 In fact, the majority of Chaytor s Force, some 6920 men, became sick between September 19 and November 3, most of them with malaria. 258 A variety of explanations exist for these extremely high illness rates. First, that soldiers were at risk for a number of diseases inside the Jordan River valley, not least of which was malaria. The 1 st BWIR in its August War Diary noted that the 3 rd Australian Light Horse, who they had relieved, had suffered heavy casualties from malignant malaria. Despite having 149 cases of illness inside the battalion, the diary noted that the use of mosquito curtains, repellant cream, and even mosquito gloves had prevented any West Indian malarial casualties. 259 These items had all been part of Allenby s plan to reduce his force s exposure to malaria, but offered little protection once troops began to move. The commanders of the BWIR, in evaluating their troop strength in October, implied that troops had been exposed to malaria while in the valley, and then succumbed to malarial fever once they went on the offensive. The official record of the campaign, however, stated that malaria had been so successfully dealt with, even in the Jordan Valley, that troops were able to stay there without any alarming amount of sickness. It then, however, noted that active operations into untreated areas caused a spike in the number of malignant cases amongst soldiers. 260 Thus, the official argument was that offensives into Turkish positions (which truly were infested with malarial mosquitoes) had caused the spike; at the very least, a plausible explanation given the huge increase in sick EEF troops after the Megiddo operations. 253 Puglsey, The ANZAC Experience, WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 31, Health for Sept Interestingly, due to the use of mosquito curtains, mosquito repellant cream, and mosquito gloves, the 1 st BWIR suffered no casualties from malaria in August WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Health, October The cause of death was: 24 from malaria, 13 from pneumonia, and 5 from dysentery. 256 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Vol 32, Health for October Pugsley, The ANZAC Experience, 144; Kinloch, Devils on Horses, Kinloch, Devils on Horses, 321. Kinloch argues that the disease was contracted as they moved into Turkish zones. 259 WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, Hospital for August WO 161/81. A Brief Record of The Advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force Under the Command of General Sir Edmund HH Allenby, GCB GCMG July 1917 to October 1918, Compiled from Official Sources and Published by The Palestine News. (Cairo: Government Press and Survey of Egypt, 1919). Pg 105.

70 60 Perceptions of the West Indian Soldier The response to the BWIR s role in the September offensive was bifurcated between those inside the EEF and those outside, especially the War Office, which chose to focus on the revolt of other BWIR battalions at Taranto in December 1918 instead of the accomplishments of the battalions in the EEF. For the War Office, this was a matter of supreme convenience; with the war over, racial barriers to black regular service troops, commissioned officers, and direct enlistees into British regiments could be immediately reinstated if their successful military service was ignored. Regardless of the precedents set and hierarchies mitigated, the War Office was desperate to return to pre-war norms, and focusing on black troops rebelling against military authority was preferred to the BWIR in Palestine, who had broken most stereotypes about Afro- Caribbean soldiers. After the war, Wood-Hill accused the War Office of deliberate obstinacy, arguing it refused to reconsider its belief that the West Indian would never be any use as a soldier, and that his fighting qualities are doubtful, and that in a word, he is gutless. 261 This assessment was generally correct; while returning West Indian troops from East Africa to Palestine, the War Office notified Allenby in June 1918 that as fighting troops they are not of much value, ignoring the fact that Allenby had already deployed West Indians at Gaza. 262 Despite an underlying sentiment in the War Office that the BWIR had performed poorly in Palestine, there is evidence that it knew what had occurred in the Jordan River Valley. Chaytor had quite publicly complimented the BWIR, telling them in a November inspection that all the troops of my division report that they like to fight with you, in fact, could never wish for anybody better. 263 Such commendation did not go unnoticed at EEF Headquarters. A report from the EEF General Staff on behalf of Allenby was sent to the War Office a week before Christmas 1918, which pointedly discussed the BWIR s great initiative, great steadiness under fire, the individual gallantry of eleven men, and the success of their engagements. Most clearly, it stated that the bearing of these two battalions was excellent in the trenches their discipline was of a high standard During the operations they displayed great steadiness under fire, and dash in the attack, and gave proof of marching power of a high order. 264 This glowing praise was reliable; with the war over on all fronts, and the knowledge that the War Office was decidedly unimpressed with the idea of black troops, there was little to gain with unnecessary praise. More importantly, Allenby had not avoided the BWIR; instead, he visited wounded West Indians in a Jerusalem hospital to personally thank them for their military service. 265 Here, then, was evidence from a victorious commander that attested to the wartime contributions, and future potential, of black West Indian volunteers. The opinions of the BWIR in Palestine could not have contrasted more strongly with the British view of those at Taranto and either inadvertently, or deliberately, the War Office chose to remember West Indian military service as essentially valueless. This attitude trickled into various ministries, including the Colonial Office. While debating internally over the civil service application of a 2 nd Lieutenant who had served with the 2 nd and 5 th BWIR, one Colonial Office official opined that I understand the BWI Regt has not 261 Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, WO 33/946/9707, WO to CinC, Egypt, June 15, 1918, No According to the telegram, there were 324 BWIR and 262 of the 2 nd WIR. 263 WO 95/4732, 1 st BWIR War Diary, Copy of Chaytor s Speech, located in November 1918, Vol CO 318/350/7466. Report sent to the War Office of Lt Col J. Spencer of the EEF General Staff for Allenby, Dec 17, CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 32.

71 61 distinguished itself much, to which a different official responded the battalions of the WI Regt attached to the Egyptian EF fought well in Palestine. 266 However, this differentiated view deteriorated, and the role played by the BWIR in Palestine was increasingly forgotten. Even well after the war, those who had worked with the BWIR in Palestine expressed outrage at the belief that they had been poor soldiers. In a letter reprinted in a 1927 book by Algernon Aspinall, the WICC secretary, Chaytor himself indignantly rebuked this perception at length: Statements to the effect that the British West Indies Regiment was useless, that it did not distinguish itself in the advance to Amman, and that the favourable reports about the regiment published in General orders were untrue, and were only prompted for diplomatic reasons, are absolutely false, and I assure you that all I said of the B.W.I s, either in my reports or when speaking to them at Ram Allah on November 25, 1918, was true, and was prompted by no other motive than my appreciation of their work and of the great assistance they had given to me and my division during a difficult operation. Previous to the two British West Indies Battalions coming under my command in the Jordan valley, I had not met them, nor have I ever been in the West Indies or had any interest there; consequently I could have had no reason to favour them, and it must be obvious that neither the G.O.C. N.Z.M.R. Brigade nor I was likely to award an undue share of the credit for the success of the operations to an attached unit. Further, no one ever tried to influence me as to what I should say in my reports on the B.W.I. s or on any other unit. Those for the period when the B.W.I. s were under my command were rendered direct to G.H.Q., and Lord Allenby is the last man to allow, still less to instruct, a subordinate to give praise which he considered was not deserved. My knowledge of the work done by B.W.I. s was derived from reports by the G.O.C. New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and from officers on my staff, and also from personal observation of their work in the line, of much of their fighting on September 19 th, 20 th, and 21 st, and of the condition of the 1 st Battalion when it arrived at Amman, and its work there. Since my reports were written, I have frequently heard officers and men of the N.Z.M.R. Brigade, who had fought alongside the B.W.I. s, speak of them, and all, without exception, have expressed appreciation of the Westies and of the help they gave to the Brigade. 267 Chaytor s vehement defense of the BWIR nearly ten years on suggests that the postwar views on West Indians in the war had become dominated by the legacy of War Office opinions. The views of other British men and women who came into contact with the West Indians during the conflict tended to vary widely, often depending on their own personal experiences with the West Indian troops, as well as their own prejudices. Personal perceptions of the BWIR tended to stem from two discordant areas: entrenched assumptions about inherent racial ability, but also individual experiences with West Indian troops. As Colin Holmes has pointed out, a 1918 survey revealed that while strong race prejudice existed in England against colonial groups, it was not as a result of personal contact. 268 So while there is no question of casual racism in the broader English population, its general latency ensured that when British soldiers came into contact with West Indians, positive personal contact could overturn race prejudice. This does not mean that white British soldiers elevated West Indians to the status of equals, but rather that they elevated them in their personal imperial hierarchy. British reactions were also governed by socioeconomic constraints of worth and ability. One rifleman in the Post Office Rifles recalled interacting in Northern France with some black 266 CO 28/294/ Transfer to West Africa, Handwritten minutes of December 16 (signed MS) and December 18 (signed AF), Algernon Aspinall, A Wayfarer in the West Indies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1927), Colin Holmes John Bull s Island: Immigration and British Society, (Houndsmill: MacMillan Education Ltd, 1988), 106.

72 62 West Indians who all seemed to speak English quite well. From what I saw of the West Indian soldiers they could give points to the British in manners, speech and behaviour. 269 Similarly, a British woman working as a temporary nurse at a British hospital in Basra in 1917 recorded the complicated imperial differentiation she observed at mealtimes, focusing on the both the acculturated nature and self-differentiation of West Indian blacks: The British Tommies did not want to sit with the blacks and the blacks did not want to sit with each other. The blacks were not Indians; we never saw them. These were negroes. Some, from the West Indies, were cultured, educated men, more fastidious than many a British soldier with their array of toilet articles on their lockers tooth brushes, sponges, talcum powder, etc. Some were just wild savages from the Gold Coast or Nigeria, brought to work on the Inland Waterways. Cups and saucers, cutlery, etc, were something they had never seen at that time, and their table manners were simply non-existant (sic). So the negroes, who looked exactly alike, had to be found separate tables. 270 This tripartite categorization British whites at the top, colonial men acculturated by the British imperial system in the middle, and finally African savages at the bottom reflected precisely the hierarchical articulation of the Colonial Office and WICC during the BWIR s formation. Identity and imperial worth, then, were wrapped up within participation in this system. Yet, those who encountered the West Indians had to be willing to acknowledge this hierarchy, because when they did not, perceptions of West Indians were rooted in racist stereotype. One BWIR sergeant in France complained after the war that British soldiers told the French that the West Indians were monkeys recently caught and tamed and whose tails were cut off. 271 Much earlier at Seaford Hospital in England, some British soldiers had mocked newlyarrived West Indians in the autograph book of a nurse. One entry by a member of the London Scottish, entitled A Sister s Nightmare, featured minstrel-faced blacks pleading in plantation English I se sure gwine ter die dis time! and I be a goin to Die! 272 This mockery depicted the West Indians as both cowardly and uncultured lacking the stoicism and self-discipline to face death and therefore, subservient. Other reactions to the BWIR, particularly in Europe, assumed they were incapable soldiers, a sentiment far more difficult for the West Indians in Europe to dispel than those in Palestine. In a backhanded swipe, David Lloyd George noted that Chinese laborers were not badly affected by artillery bombardments, arguing they were far less nervous under fire than 269 IWM 88/57/1 WE Young, pg 52. The evident fixation on manners and correct speech may imply earlier assumptions that black West Indians were uncultured speakers of plantation slang or African savages precisely the sort of latency cited by Holmes. 270 IWM 85/39/1 Mrs. MAA Thomas, pg 20. Mrs Thomas fixation on toiletries may reveal a latent view of West Indians as dandies. Much has been written on the subject of men of African descent becoming dandies, but for an excellent example of this phenomenon, see John Henderson, The West Indies (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905). See also Marcus Collins, Pride and Prejudice: West Indian Men in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain, The Journal of British Studies, 40, no 3 (Jul 2001): for the ways in which these developed into other stereotypes of West Indian men and masculinity. 271 CO 23/285/68385 The Negro World, November 14, 1919, pg 7. The Sergeant, however, also noted the tremendous aid provided by the WICC, particularly over access to estaminents and resolving pay issues. 272 IWM Misc 200, Item 2928 Nurse s Autograph Books Containing Contributions by the West Indian Contingent, First World War. One illustration appears to depict a West Indian in bed, probably in a hospital.

73 63 the British West Indians. 273 A British private, John Jackson, recalled being amused by the squabbles of a section of West Indian n*ggers in France when a German artillery shell hit and collapsed a nearby building onto them, thus revealing a prejudiced view that West Indians were incapable of putting aside minor arguments to seek cover. 274 One Lieutenant, who had observed the BWIR at Taranto, wrote: I think it was a great mistake to have ever brought them over from the West Indies. The only time they went into action in East Africa they were reported not to have stopped running for two days! And they were not much as for labour battalions and had the vices of the white man and none of his virtues, and were always lazy and grumbling. 275 Such a statement revealed most of the racist perceptions that governed many British views of West Indian troops. West Indians were cowardly, poor soldiers no mention is made of the military role they played in Palestine with no work ethic and inflated senses of self. The Colonial Office, in fact, was aware of racist outbursts at West Indians during the war, and blamed postwar discontent in the Caribbean in the Fall of 1919 in part upon slights and insults received by [ coloured soldiers] mainly from Dominion troops on account of their colour. 276 The Dominion troops in question were almost certainly South African the BWIR had become steadfast allies with soldiers from Australia and New Zealand during their time in Palestine, and seem to have had minimal sustained contact with Canadian troops. 277 BWIR commanding officers discussed how the West Indians received the utmost consideration and kindness from ANZAC soldiers, and how real good fellowship and friendship existed between them. 278 In fact, the West Indians so admired the independent spirit and volunteerism of the Australian and New Zealanders that they began referring to themselves as the Black Anzacs. 279 One New Zealand trooper recalled how impressed he was by the BWIR, viewing them much more favorably than the well-respected French North African Cavalry. 280 Even CLR James noted the relationship, writing that the Australians were always very friendly and sympathetic to the West Indians during the war. 281 As later chapters reveal, the close bonds formed between 273 Lloyd George in Martin Gilbert, The First World War, 311. This assessment was likely based on biased field reports, as there was every indication that many West Indians performed admirably under fire 274 John Jackson, Private 12768: Memoir of a Tommy (Stroud, Gloucestershire: Tempus Publishing, 2005), The artillery attack seems to have occurred near Arras in While in a Calais hospital after the attack, Jackson reflected on the beating of some of the injured West Indians in the hospital who had become very arrogant and cheeky, a response that he tacitly approved of. 275 IWM PP/MCR/173 First World War Memoirs of Lt DC Burns Jan 1919, pg CO 318/352/ Minute by G. Grindle of Oct 22, South African attitudes towards the West Indians had been on display early in A photo of the BWIR in the Natal Witness in January 1916 articulated a variety of racist stereotypes, not least in its title: Happy Darkies at the Front: No Bad Teeth in that Lot! Not content with a reference to the checking of African teeth during the slave trade, the photograph, despite pointing out that they were splendid soldiers, did not display the BWIR in martial duties. Rather, they were depicted playing cards, a reference to racist beliefs about the propensity of black men towards degeneracy. The caption also relied on stereotypes of educated black men as dandies, arguing that they had entertaining merry dispositions and have taken with them to Europe the manners and customs of the plantations. See ICS 96/2/3 WICC Scrapbook. Natal Witness, Jan 25, 1916, pg Lt. Col C. Wood-Hill, A Few Notes on the History of the British West Indies Regiment, Published in Sunday Pamphlets, Vol XIII (Located at the ICS London in F 1601, PAM 13), Kinloch, Devils on Horses, 394 ff Kinloch, Devils on Horses, CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 32.

74 64 the Antipodeans and British West Indians not only altered disciplinary proceedings, but also conceptions of place in the British Empire. British soldiers in Palestine often expressed a combination of admiration for the West Indians fighting ability, but also a latent racism that inherently situated West Indians below whites. The officer in charge of the BWIR machine gun units at Umbrella Hill in July 1917 embodied this duality in a postwar interview, stating I d acquired this machine gun section of the West India Regiment, enormous great black n*ggers, one wouldn t call them n*ggers in these days, but West Indians. And they were very good. 282 This casual combination of racist terminology and martial praise reflected the curious position the BWIR occupied in many British minds. Despite the protective role played by the WICC and their own officers, West Indians could encounter significant abuse inside the Palestine theater. One letter, sent from a sergeant in the 1 st BWIR to a friend in England, revealed how racism had upset his view of the West Indian place in the British Empire: There is hardly a Christian precept which has not been violated in the treatment meted out to us; our relations with the other troops are just as strained as those between white and black in USA. With this difference that over there wrongs can be redressed while with us there is no redress, for we have no rights or privileges. This is not a dream but a reality. We are treated neither as Christians nor British Citizens, but as West Indian N*ggers, without anybody to be interested in or look after us. Instead of being drawn closer to the Church and the Empire we are driven away from it. And I am one of those who suffered a great deal by it for once upon a time I lent my aid to furthering the interest of the Empire among my own kin. 283 The letter s claim that no one look[ed] after us seems tenuous, considering the actions of the Colonial Office, the WICC, Wood-Hill, and others. While the actual date of the letter is not immediately apparent it was forwarded to the Colonial Office in October 1918 it appears to have been written right before the BWIR came into sustained contact with the other members of Chaytor s Force, who for the most part, seem to have had more respect for the West Indians. 284 The internal response of the Colonial Office to this letter underlines the fragmented and fragile hierarchies of race inside the British Empire. In a handwritten response, the Colonial Office official ER Darnley noted This is another token of colour trouble, which is I fear not inconsiderable. There seems to be too great a tendency to class the comparatively advanced coloured West Indians with all sorts of primitive n*ggers. 285 Darnley s statement, intended as a dig at the War Office, in fact helps reveal the gradations of imperial hierarchy. In fact, during the early discussions of the BWIR s formation, there was internal dialogue in the Colonial Office about whether the War Office needed to know the racial hierarchy of the British West Indies. An internal memo wondered aloud whether the WO should be told about the two classes one lower class that provided men to the WIR, and the other superior educated class of coloured population engaged in commercial and civil service positions that would form 282 IWM Transcript of Interview with Lord John Harding. Recorded in CO 318/347/ Letter to Roland Green, October 25, According to the recipient, Roland Green, who forwarded it anonymously to the Colonial Office, the NCO was a well-educated man from Trinidad, who had studied in the USA as well. The idea that there was redress for American blacks, but not West Indians, is particularly interesting given the immense discrimination that occurred inside the American Army against the African-American 92 nd and 93 rd Infantry Divisions 284 Spry Rush notes the date of the letter as July 27, 1918 in a footnote. Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire, 125, 25ff. 285 CO 318/347/ Handwritten Minute, signed CRD, October 29, My italics.

75 65 the BWIR. 286 The answer, expressed in the sidebar of the memo sheet, would prove key: Leave this, I think. They must take every fit man who comes. 287 This, of course, did not occur initially, as recruiters worked to present a very particular representation of the West Indies. The memorandum represented a missed opportunity for policy clarification the Colonial Office had failed to elucidate the very racial framework with which it governed, and with which the volunteers to the BWIR would invoke. The Colonial Office s advocacy did not stem from a belief in the equality of mixed-race Caribbean men with white, British men. Rather, it was the articulation of a nuanced hierarchy of imperial governance, one in which West Indian volunteers in the BWIR occupied a more privileged position than many other empire soldiers, even if they were from the same islands. One member of the Colonial Office later offered the corresponding anchor to Darnley s outburst at grouping the BWIR with primitive Africans, pointing out that the BWIR s claim to general equality of treatment with British troops is untenable such a promise only held true inside the Colonies where it was promised, not inside the Empire proper. 288 Yet it was a dispute over their place inside the broader British Empire, brought on by an Army Order at the beginning of 1918, that helps reveal the imperial identities of the BWIR men in Egypt and Palestine. Army Order No 1 and Imperial Identity Despite the clarification of the BWIR s role that took place in 1917, the War Office had persisted in blurring the delicate racial, social, and economic hierarchies that the Colonial Office, and West Indians themselves, used to differentiate the BWIR. The most critical of these was the dispute over Army Order No 1 of 1918, which established a 50% pay raise (from 1 shilling/day to 1 shilling and 6 pennies/day) and a bonus for all British and imperial troops but specifically excluded the BWIR and many other colonial units. The West Indians in Palestine discovered this in January, shortly after its promulgation. 289 When the BWIR battalions protested through their officers that they were technically British Army units and entitled to the raise, the War Office bluntly replied in June that native-units were excluded from the benefits and after very careful consideration it is regretted that no alteration in the decision conveyed to you can be made. 290 Dissatisfaction over pay had occurred before there had been previous failures to pay out separation allowances to the families of BWIR men (apparently the result of records lost at sea while in transit to Egypt) but the War Office s classification of the West Indians as natives infuriated the BWIR. 291 This, then, was the context of the letter from the Trinidadian sergeant to his friend in England the War Office s shattering of a careful hierarchy of imperial identity, taught in West Indian schools and long-internalized by the men of the BWIR. The War Office s confirmation that it considered the BWIR equal to African labor units sparked a significant outcry inside the battalions in Egypt and Palestine. Complaints and 286 CO 318/336/29508 Handwritten Memorandum, signed OGRW June 28, The exact phrase is R + F of the WIR. 287 CO 318/336/29508 Grindle Sidebar Notation on Handwritten Memorandum, June 28, CO 318/348/5991. Internal Colonial Office minute of Jan 30, 1919 Signed HR. 289 WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, January 31, WO 95/ nd BWIR War Diary, July 24, Letter of June 18 from GF Waterson, War Office. 291 CO 23/280/38626 Copy of Colonial Secretary to Command Paymaster at Cairo, July 9, Delays in pay throughout the British Forces occurred often due to what Helen McCartney has termed poor administration in Britain. See Helen McCartney, Citizen Soldiers: the Liverpool Territorials in the First World War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 136.

76 66 petitions reached both the Colonial Office and the WICC, and in June 1918, both began in earnest to try and reverse the terms of the order. 292 Importantly for this project, these petitions remain in the ledgers of the Colonial Office, and provide critical voice to the selfconceptualization of the BWIR men in Palestine. Protesting the War Office s stance on Army Order No 1, a number of Barbadian members of the BWIR in Palestine wrote the head of their island s recruiting committee a man they would have had personal contact with when enlisting. In the letter, they demanded not only that Order No 1 be extended to them, but that their identity within the Empire be clearly defined, writing: We had all along imagined ourselves to be Imperial troops [but] We are yet to know whether we are Imperial troops or Colonials; as a matter of fact the War Office has referred to us as natives. It must be understood that the men of this regiment are like the men of all the new armies of the Empire a different type to the old professional soldier and there could never have been the response to the appeals made by the recruiting committees in the various islands but for the fact that we were made to understand that we would have been on an entirely different footing to the regular West Indian regiment, and that we would have enjoyed every privilege just as any other British soldiers. We find now that this is not the case. We have been deceived. We like to think that the deception was not intentional. 293 This letter articulated a very particular sense of imperial identity, one rooted in a sense of solidarity with other imperial volunteers from the Empire, and a distinct sense of class superiority to the regular West India Regiment. In this letter, the BWIR used the WIR as a means of distinguishing themselves from lower-class colonial units by citing their inclusion in the British imperial forces, a point they emphasized by pointing out that they had left reasonably comfortable employment in order to volunteer to fight. Helen McCartney has argued that for British territorials, volunteering was an example of consensual democracy that reinforced their belief that they had certain rights and privileges even during their Army service. 294 Similar sentiments seem to exist inside the BWIR battalions in Palestine. Their middle class status inside the colonies, their push for greater political rights but within the governing framework of the British Empire and their consistent references to volunteerist service, entitled them to particular provisions and rights. A similar line of argumentation was expressed after the Megiddo offensive had concluded, when forty-three non-commissioned officers from the 1 st and 2 nd BWIR wrote to the Governor of Barbados, arguing for their right to the provisions of the order: we were led to believe that we would be treated as Imperial Troops and receive any and all benefits accruing to such Troops We were treated as British soldiers in equipment, training, discipline, and were used as such in the field It thus appears that we soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment are neither Colonial nor Imperial Troops, holding a very unenviable position in as much as we are not in receipt of pay as awarded to soldiers of the various Dominions nor soldiers of His Majesty s Imperial Forces. The majority of the men of the British West Indies Regiment are taxpayers in the various West Indian Colonies and loyal subjects of His Majesty, and we feel that this discrimination is not only an insult to us who have volunteered to fight for the Empire but also an insult to the whole West Indies. 292 ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, June 25, Petitions towards Colonial officials or the Colonial Office reflected an engrained practice often the only method to redress grievances inside the Caribbean was through petition to the Colonial Office. See Wallace, The British Caribbean, CO 28/294/ Letter from twelve members of BWIR in Egypt to Hon. JC Lynch, MLC, August 2, McCartney, Citizen Soldiers, 122.

77 67 We would like it to be understood that the motive of this memorandum is not so much to get the pecuniary benefits from which we have been denied, as to bring before His Excellency that we are alive to the fact that as West Indians we have been unfairly discriminated against. 295 Although less apparent, this letter also made claims to equal treatment by way of socioeconomic status. Many qualifications for political enfranchisement in the Caribbean stemmed from tax payments; the reference to the BWIR men as taxpayers indicated that they were not only of a higher class, but that they were politically capable. Equally critical were the number of signatories 43 NCO s represented a substantial portion of the non-commissioned officers inside the BWIR. In some ways, therefore, the letter appears to be not just a statement of entitlement, but a veiled threat the discrimination, not the money, was the more serious issue, and one which would be remembered after the war. Another letter to the Colonial Office, received right before the Army Order was finally reversed, was from a BWIR soldier named Aloysius Ferreira. Ferreira fumed at the War Office s decision to identify him, and the rest of the BWIR with African troops instead of other Imperial forces: It was not until recently that I realised that the British West Indies Regiment was considered by War Office as a Native Regiment, and similarly regarded as the African Rifles, etc. To my knowledge, men of all shades of colour, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Portuguese, Negroes, half-castes, etc., relinquished lucrative appointments, many of them in the Civil Service of the various Colonies and Islands of the West Indies, and enlisted in the Regt. I have been informed that I am not entitled to a Gratuity for my War Service, and consider it a grave injustice. I am entitled to wear 4 blue chevrons, have served 2 ½ years with the EEF, for the greater part of this period as a qualified machine-gunner, have never performed labour duties (Labour Courps men are entitled to Gratuity) and am at a loss to understand why there should be any differentiation between me and other men of the Imperial Army, many of them with perhaps less service, and, in many cases, no service with an Expeditionary Force 296 Ferreira s complaint pivoted off the existential anchors that have been traced throughout this chapter. The first was that the men of the BWIR, despite their racial diversity, were of significantly higher socioeconomic and cultural standing than the Africans they had been equated to. This foundation allowed Ferreira to posit his second major claim, which was that there should be no differentiation between him and other imperial men, especially because he had service code for having seen combat. Thus, Ferreira clearly articulated a hierarchy of Empire in which acculturated imperials, regardless of their race, deserved to be elevated above a lower tier of subjects, not least because they had fought for the Empire in its hour of need. In this way, the BWIR volunteers in Palestine represented a continuing tradition of aspirational, imperial politics. Conscious of racial hierarchies inside the Empire, the class of men inside the BWIR sought sanctuary within conceptions of the imperial, elevating themselves above the lesser colonial (or native, in the case of Africans). The consistent 295 CO 318/348/ Undated Letter from 43 BWIR NCO s to Gov. O Brien, Barbados. 296 CO 318/352/2011. Letter from Aloysius P Ferreira to CO, Jan 8, Ferreira s racial makeup is unclear; his statement that he wore four blue chevrons probably signifies service chevrons, which were awarded for each year in service. He would have, it appears, to have enlisted before the formation of the BWIR to earn four year s worth. However, a red chevron was awarded for service before December 31, 1914, indicating that he either enlisted at the start of January 1915, miscounted his entitled stripes, or there was a different arrangement inside the BWIR (In the photo of L/Cpl Leekam being awarded his Military Medal, four service chevrons are also visible). That Ferreira was a machine-gunner would imply he was not an officer, and therefore unlikely to have been of pure European descent. My thanks to Professor Peter Doyle for help with chevron identification.

78 68 anger over any affiliation with the West India Regiment, the return of East Indians from the initial BWIR contingents, and the warm relationship with Anzacs (self-identifying as black Anzacs ) were all proof of this consciousness. This self-configuration had a significant tradition inside the West Indies: the coloured members of the Jamaican Assembly in the mid-nineteenth century, for example, had tended to vote with the whites and to dissociate themselves from the black majority of the population, while in Trinidad, coloured legislators considered resigning over the election of a black man. 297 In many ways, coloured was coded onto middle class, and vice versa inside the Caribbean Clem Seecharan has referred to it as a delicately constructed scheme of hierarchy status conferred on the basis of incremental propinquity to whiteness. 298 The result was, as Anne Spry Rush has pointed out, that West Indians tended to construct their version Britishness through a middle-class notion of respectability, loyalty to an idealized British empire, and pride in varied racial and geographical heritages. 299 These were all constituent parts of the BWIR s projected identity, but the idea of military volunteerism for the sake of the Empire was also grafted on. In fact, when the WICC agitated on behalf of the BWIR s inclusion in Army Order No 1 of 1918, it used similar language to the BWIR men, arguing that pay inclusion would mitigate their dissatisfaction at being treated differently from men in Imperial Units, many of whom are not volunteers. 300 It was no surprise, then, how the BWIR chose to identify with essentially the white Dominions over any other colonial troops. Dominion men, even if they were white, clearly exhibited the four key tenets of BWIR identity. The ex-governor of Jamaica, Sir Sydney Olivier, perhaps did not realize the deeper undertones to his message when he mentioned to his WICC peers the great dissatisfaction which was felt at the differentiation between other Imperial troops and the British West Indies Regiment in the matter of pay a differentiation for which no particular reason had been adduced. 301 The professed equality with other imperial units had, in fact, featured very early in the BWIR s service. When a number of BWIR men were invalided back to the Caribbean in 1916, they found themselves placed in third class, while Australians and Canadians traveled in first and second class. The protest of a Trinidadian NCO on board encapsulated the BWIR imperial view we are not English Tommies, but Colonials. 302 The distinction was in the West Indian perspective; to these men, Colonials were superior to regular Tommies. As the Governor of Barbados informed the somewhat surprised Colonial Office, the BWIR men were angry that they have been treated as though they were only English Tommies instead of being accorded proper treatment as Colonials. 303 The West Indians in the BWIR, therefore, made claims on being British and part of the Empire, but not on being English. Ultimately, the WICC and the Colonial Office were able to reverse the War Office s decision at the start of 1919, but the matter did clear damage inside the BWIR. For those battalions in Europe, their dissatisfaction culminated in mutiny at Taranto, in part because they had no tangible way to challenge the racist discourse that underpinned the War Office decision. In contrast, the BWIR in Palestine could contest the framework through martial success a 297 Wallace, The British Caribbean, Seecharan, Muscular Learning, Spry Rush, Bonds of Empire, CO 318/351/3414. Letter from WICC to Viscount Milner, Colonial Office, Jan 15, ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper report on West Indian Contingent Committee: The Half-Yearly Meeting, Dec 18, CO 28/289/50710 Memorandum by Sgt AT Martin to Colonial Secretary, September 21, CO 28/289/50710 Governor Probyn to Bonar Law, Secret, September 25, 1916.

79 69 possible explanation for the jubilant mood with which the West Indians went into a presumably dangerous assault on the bridge at Jisr ed Damieh. Natives would never be given the opportunity in the British Army for a frontal assault on an important Turkish and German position. This was a distinct opportunity the BWIR in Europe had also been denied the pay order provisions, but had no possible opportunity to refute its deeper undertones. In contrast, not only could the BWIR in Egypt and Palestine protest, but they could rely on a clear foundation of martial ability since July 1917 (one supported by their medals) as well as a more supportive command in the form of Wood-Hill, Wilson, Bulfin, and Chaytor. It seems possible, in fact, that the pressure from the WICC and Colonial Office would not have overturned the War Office s decision without the military record of the three battalions in Palestine. In some ways, the Colonial Office s motivation to push for a reversal stemmed from postwar political considerations. ER Darnley opined that a fresh outburst of discontent was simply not worth the minimal financial savings, an attitude that generally dominated earlier Colonial Office memoranda. 304 However, as a different official noted on the pay dispute, [d]iscrimination in the matter of pay on colour grounds seems unfair. 305 As with the issue of forming a West Indian contingent to fight, some of the motivation behind Colonial Office advocacy stemmed from local and regional political considerations. Yet, there also were significant articulations of a nuanced hierarchy of imperial governance, in which West Indian volunteers in the BWIR occupied a more privileged position than many other non-white soldiers from the Empire. The role of the BWIR battalions in Egypt and Palestine was fundamentally different than that of their Caribbean peers in Europe. This was especially true from the Summer of 1917 onwards, when the EEF frequently placed them in front-line, combat situations, and took note of their successful military service at Gaza and in the Jordan River Valley. This military use underlined key conceptions of differentiation many of which were rooted in the application of class structures to hierarchies of race and empire. From the early stages of their recruitment, the battalions of the BWIR that served in Egypt and Palestine were intended to serve as a vanguard of imperial federation inside the Caribbean, and were thus conceptualized by various colonial officials as distinct. The War Office, however, never acceded to this modified hierarchy, and maintained a strict black-white dichotomy of martial worth. This, as this chapter has shown, posed a massive challenge to the self-identification of the BWIR battalions. Subsequent chapters of this work reveal not only the different application of military justice to West Indians in the Palestine theater, but also the ways in which their front-line service and athletic prowess both reinforced and modified their imperial identity. There, in Palestine, the West Indians found themselves included in a diverse community of soldiers reworking their imperial allegiances while simultaneously serving empire. Among these were the battalions of the Jewish Legion, to which the focus now turns. 304 CO 318/348/ Minute by ER Darnley of April 14, See also CO 318/348/5991 Memorandum of January 27, CO 318/348/5991, Pay of the British West Indies Regiment, signed HTA, January 30, 1919.

80 70 Chapter 2: A Jewish Legion? The Jewish Battalions in Palestine, In her memoir, My Life, the Israeli stateswoman, Golda Meir, briefly recalled her time in Milwaukee during the First World War. This period of her life was of particular importance to her, for it was when she first met David Ben Gurion and Yitzahk Ben-Zvi, both of whom would also go on to significant Israeli political careers. Expelled from Ottoman Palestine in 1914, they had traveled to the Midwest to promote and find recruits for the embryonic Jewish Legion, a military unit comprised solely of Jews that they hoped would be formed to fight for Britain in Palestine. According to Meir, they spoke about the Jewish Legion with such feeling that I immediately tried to volunteer for it and was crushed when I learned that girls were not being accepted. 306 The exact veracity of the incident is murky, but the significance of its retelling is clear. As a leader of Israel, Meir needed to be tied back to the Jewish Legion, which was eventually formed in August 1917 and served in the EEF from February 1918 onwards. Many members of the Jewish battalions later became key political figures in Israel Ben Gurion, Ben Zvi, Levi Eshkol, Yaacov Dori, Dov Hos, amongst others and a clear national narrative developed. The leaders of Israel, who consistently fought to protect the Jewish state in the post- WWII period, had also fought to create it during WWI. They thus claimed active agency in all stages of Israel s national birth. By noting her attempt to volunteer, Meir implicitly linked herself with this early project, claiming her place in the foundational narrative. This narrative situated the Jewish Legion as the key transitory force between ancient Jewish fighters and Jewish statehood, often articulating its place between Bar Kochba s revolt against the Romans and the push towards independence in In this history, the Legion was a force of committed Zionists, bearing arms to liberate Palestine from Ottoman control. As the headline of a retrospective piece written in 1957 by a Legionnaire proclaimed Jewish Battalions Paved Way to Statehood. 307 A few years later, Ben Zvi offered a slightly different, but generally similar trajectory, placing the Jewish Legion between those who had fought for Benjamin of Tiberias in the seventh century and the Haganah. Ben Zvi s argument was equally foundational, claiming that the Jewish battalions had instilled a feeling of self-confidence that allowed the Haganah, a Jewish self-defense force, to develop underground during the British Mandate ( ). 308 These linkages became increasingly codified after the Six Days War in June 1967, perhaps because its outbreak was concurrent to the 50 th anniversary of the Legion s establishment in August In a written message to the 1968 Golden Jubilee Dinner of the Zionist Organization of America, the IDF Chief of Staff and former Legion corporal, General Yaakov Dori, argued: I venture to believe that there is a historic link between the volunteering of the Judean Battalions to fight for libarating (sic) Palestine and redemption of a homeland for 306 Golda Meir, My Life, (London: Cox and Wyman Ltd 1975), 39. Meir mentions that they visited Milwaukee in 1916, which was well before the official formation of the Jewish battalions by Great Britain in August When exactly she attempted to volunteer is not clear, nor is it certain that the story is true. One Jewish veteran, William Braiterman, claimed that Meir confirmed the story, and told him that she had protested that the recruitment materials only referred to Jews, not specifically Jewish men. See AJHS I-429 Jewish Legion Veterans Newsletters The Youngest Soldier, by Elsa Solender in Baltimore Jewish Times, December 31, JI 29-1K, Jewish Battalions Paved Way to Statehood, August 12, 1957, pg 75. The author, Leon Cheifetz, helped create and oversee Bet Hagdudim. 308 AJHS I-429, Philadelphia Chapter Materials. The Jewish Legion: An Address by Itzhak Ben Zvi, Translated by Judah Lapson, December 10, 1960, pg 8.

81 71 our people and the Great Six Day s War in which longstanding wishes and dreams of generations came trough (sic). 309 This theme became firmly rooted, and it was not uncommon after 1967 to find less prominent veterans from the Jewish battalions like one who was wounded in the leg during the war who professed similar sentiments: the legion was the kernel that helped bring about the Jewish state. 310 Underpinning this conception of the Jewish Legion as a key link in the path towards Jewish statehood was its relatively homogeneity in terms of broader identity and political ambition. Although its constituents came from England (many by way of Russia), the United States, Canada, Argentina, Egypt, and Ottoman Palestine itself, they were united as Jews in search of a national homeland. The fractures and schisms in the global Jewish community, and particularly in Britain, are obscured, leaving behind a vague and pervading Zionism. The use of the term Legion to describe the Jewish units helped connote precisely this fusion. Like many national narratives, however, this one too was something of a myth. The Jewish Legion was far from a unified Legion in fact, it was a set of three battalions that reflected the broader fissures in the Jewish community, particularly that of Britain. During WWI, these battalions technically lacked a Jewish identifier, despite being composed almost entirely of Jews they were simply the 38 th, 39 th, and 40 th battalions of the City of London Royal Fusiliers. 311 This chapter demonstrates that the Legion was a remarkably heterogeneous group of men, bound together only by the ethno-religious label of being Jews. Far from a unified experience, the history of the battalions is marked by a series of divisions and internal conflicts that ran through their formation, military service, and memory. Much of this stemmed from a debate over the nature and purpose of Jewish identity between two broadly outlined groups. The first of these were members of Anglo-Jewry who favored assimilation into England, maintaining a Jewish identity only in terms of religious practice or cultural heritage. The other was the Zionists, those who grafted a political (and ultimately national) identity onto Judaism in their quest for a Jewish homeland, ideally in Palestine. Caught between these broad poles which themselves were not without internal factionalism were many Russian Jewish immigrants to England, whose lack of wartime service had been the spark for the battalions creation. Despite the growth in histories of Jewish participation in the First World War and the importance of the Legion in foundational narratives, its history remains something of a footnote. Often, the story of the Jewish Legion is integrated into works with broader historical vantage points principally examinations of Anglo-Jewry in the early twentieth century or the political 309 AJHS I-429, Veterans Judean Battalion, Correspondence. Letter from General Yaacov Dori to Veterans of the Judean Battalions, Sept 1, Similar arguments developed after the Yom Kippur War in 1973, but the Six-Day War had a larger impact. Perhaps one of the stranger historical trajectories figured in a speech by Dr. Hirsch Gordon in 1940, which eschewed older fighting forces and instead tied the Jewish Legion to Berek Joselowicz s Jewish cavalry regiment during the 1794 Kościuszko uprising. See British Library, Address of Dr. Hirsch L. Gordon, 25 th Anniversary Reunion, March 2, AJHS I-429 Jewish Legion Veterans Newsletters Israel s past matters less than present to World War I Jewish Legion veterans by Lynda Robinson. The Sun, Feb 29, The soldier in question was David Todes. 311 A fourth battalion, the 42 nd, was formed in 1918, but never left England or played any significant role. Several thousand more volunteers from the United States and Canada were aseembling and beginning very intial training in Canada when the war ended.

82 72 history of the British Mandate in Palestine. In works focused on the British Jewish community, the creation of the battalions is a narrative accompaniment to the ruptures and compromises inside the Jewish community as Zionists and assimilationists battled for political and communal influence. 312 Some scholars, like David Cesarani, have argued that debates over the necessary wartime role of Jewish immigrants from Russia split the broader Jewish community, and thus, World War I engendered a social revolution in Anglo-Jewry. 313 These immigrants, however, were more than a mere backdrop to communal fissures their presence sparked the creation of the Jewish battalions, and approximately 1500 of them served in the Palestine theater as British Army soldiers. Yet, for most focused studies of early twentieth century Anglo-Jewry, the story of expressly Jewish troops ends once their battalions were sent to Palestine, in part because a different sub-canon takes their story over. The presence of Jewish troops, especially a significant Zionist contingent, in Palestine at the end of the First World War provides an easy lead-in for many histories of Britain s Mandate in Palestine. The Mandate officially ran from 1920 to 1948, with British control beginning in 1918 via military administration, and the importance of many former Legionnaires to say nothing of their tempestuous relationships with the British has led some historians to briefly consider their wartime service. 314 In general, however, these works focus on the Zionists inside the Jewish battalions, often ignoring the nuances of experience with the unit. Other histories, whether deliberately or inadvertently, have relayed incorrect narratives by reading interwar and post-1948 influence back into the Legion itself. 315 Often, this is due to an over-reliance on the memoirs of certain figures inside the Jewish battalions. As was common in the postwar period, a number of the principal figures inside the Jewish battalions produced memoirs chronicling their experience at war. Chief among these was With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign, by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, the primary commander of the Jewish battalions, as well as the work of the articulate, persistent, and ever-contentious, Vladimir Ze ev Jabotinsky, who had been one of the driving forces behind the Legion s creation. 316 Jabotinsky produced his version of events a decade into Britain s Mandate in Palestine, and more than any other memoirist, he was expressly aware of how to tweak narratives to create contemporary gain, which particularly affects his recollections of 312 David Cesarani, ed. The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990). WD Rubenstein, A History of the Jews in the English-Speaking World: Great Britain (Houndsmill: MacMillan Press, 1996). Todd Endelman, The Jews of Britain 1656 to 2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 313 David Cesarani The Transformation of Communal Authority in Anglo-Jewry, in David Cesarani, ed. The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), Other scholars, like WD Rubenstein, have strongly disagreed with Cesarani s conclusions. See Rubenstein, 197 for a specific refutation. 314 There are hundreds of works on the British Mandate. For recent examples of how the Jewish battalions are briefly tied to the Mandate, see Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate, trans. Haim Watzman (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001); Naomi Shepherd, Ploughing Sand: British Rule in Palestine, (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000); AJ Sherman, Mandate Days: British Lives in Palestine (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997). 315 See Jill Hamilton, Gods, Guns and Israel: Britain, the First World War and the Jews in the Holy Land (Phoenix Mill: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2004); Ismar Elbogen, A Century of Jewish Life, trans. Moses Hadas (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953); 316 J.H. Patterson, With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1922). Patterson also authored the earlier With the Zionists in Gallipoli (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1916). Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Story of the Jewish Legion, trans. Samuel Katz (New York: Ackerman, 1945). The original version was published in 1928, apparently in Russian.

83 73 British attitudes and interactions with other competing Zionist figures. 317 Two Anglo-Jewish officers, Redcliffe Salaman and Henry Myers, also produced important memoirs, and although Myers remained unpublished at the Imperial War Museum, he actively corresponded with various battalion veterans societies. 318 These works, along with a variety of small pamphlets and other ephemera, served as the core for two books produced in the 1960s by former legionaries. The first, Roman Freulich s Soldiers in Judea, offered a wide range of vignettes of daily life and incidents, as well as a number of character sketches. The second, Elias Gilner s War and Hope often utilized similar stories and events as Freulich s book, but developed them into a more linear narrative. 319 Freulich and Gilner, both of them American volunteers to the battalions, were heavily focused on pointing out the antisemitism of the EEF command and tracing the success of key Israelis like Ben Gurion, Eshkol, Dov Hos, and others back into their wartime service. Unsurprisingly, both presented these arguments within a narrative arc of Jewish return to biblical Palestine, further underpinning self-conceptualized parallels to mythologized Jewish fighters like Simon bar Kochba (the leader of a revolt against the Roman Empire) and the Maccabees. These varied perspectives and reconfigurations have been examined by Alyson Pendlebury, who provides a critical unpacking of the broader cultural and literary dimensions underpinning Jewish service in the First World War. 320 After many decades, two welcome, scholarly works on the Jewish Legion emerged in recent years. Foremost among these is Martin Watts The Jewish Legion and the First World War, which is the first synthetic examination of the Jewish battalions. 321 Well-researched and fair in its analysis, Watts bridges many of the gaps in historiography, and provides a key foundation for future scholarship with his detailed reconstruction of the Legion s creation and service. The other recent work, Michael and Shlomit Keren s, We are Coming, Unafraid, eschews a standard structure, and provides chapters in which the writings of a different member of the battalions are reproduced at length, with minimal intrusion. The result is essentially a curated anthology of Jewish experience during the war in Palestine, which coalesces into a broader narrative demonstrating the development of nuanced and unique identities inside the Legion. Keren and Keren suggest that many of these pivoted off what they refer to as existential Zionism, an outlook that stemmed not from an imagined model formulated by 317 Michael Stanislawski, Zionism and the Fin de Siecle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) 118. Stanislawski writes Jabotinsky s various autobiographical writings are hardly accurate and reliable [and] present a selective and factually distorted portrait. Jabotinsky s account of the Jewish Legion did not emerge until well after other accounts, first in Yiddish and Hebrew in 1929, and in English in See Stanislawski 266, ff Redcliffe Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed: Letters from a Jewish Officer in Palestine (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd. 1920). See a discussion of Myer s memoir in Mark Levene, Going against the Grain: Two Jewish Memoirs of War and Anti-War, , Jewish Culture and history 2 no. 2 (Winter 1999): Both Salaman s and Myer s work feature narrative and reproduced correspondence. When I am citing a letter, I include its date and the page number where the letter appears. This method, I feel, helps maintain an awareness of chronology. If the citation does not reflect a reproduced letter, I have merely included the page number from the volume s text. 319 Roman Freulich, Soldiers in Judea: Stories and vignettes of the Jewish Legion (New York: Herzl Press, 1965); Elias Gilner War and Hope: A History of the Jewish Legion (New York: Herzl Press, 1969). There are some problems in their construction Freulich s work, for example, takes liberties with certain stories to add drama or underscore his broader interpretation. For evidence of this, see the correspondence between Freulich and Joshua Joseph Davidson in YIVO RG 1530 Joshua Joseph Davidson Papers and then Soldiers in Judea, pg Davidson s vignettes appear differently in Freulich s book than in how they are presented to him. 320 Alyson Pendlebury, Portraying the jew in first world war Britain (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006). 321 Martin Watts, The Jewish Legion and the First World War (Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

84 74 political leaders and intellectuals, but rather a Jewish national consciousness that stems from religious roots. 322 As this chapter reveals, however, this intellectual framework may not have applied to many in the battalions. Unlike these recent works, this chapter does not fully uncover the complicated ways in which individual Jews understood their service in the First World War nor does it provide a complete narrative. Instead, it focuses on disrupting the homogenous identity of the Jewish Legion. It explores the contradictions in the Jewish battalions formation, particularly the oftoverlooked manpower composition of each unit. Situating this within the broader context of the EEF campaigns of 1918, it illustrates that the most enthusiastically Zionist battalion did little militarily, while the battalion composed mostly of British Jews and conscripted immigrants fought the most frequently. Finally, it raises issues about allegiances and loyalties inside the battalions, particularly to what extent they might actually be considered Jewish and how that affected visualizations of their place in the postwar British Empire. Prelude Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, a tiny number of Jews served in the British Armed Forces. One well-informed estimate by Rabbi Michael Adler enumerated 50 Jews serving in the Royal Navy, 400 in the Regular Army, and around 600 men in the Special Reserve and Territorial Forces in August With a total Jewish population in the United Kingdom in 1914 between 275,000 and 300,000, military service prior to the Great War was apparently of low priority to the Jewish community. However, Jewish men in Great Britain responded with great fervor to the call to arms in August 1914; by certain metrics, more so than their non-jewish peers. Around 41,500 British Jews fought in the First World War, of which roughly 10,000 enlisted as volunteers prior to the institution of conscription in May This meant that between 14-15% of Britain s Jewish population enlisted in the army, in contrast to the 11.5% of the general British population that served. 325 An additional 8,500-9,500 Jews from around the Empire pushed the total number of Jews fighting for the British Empire to 50, While this was a tiny percentage of the nearly nine million men mobilized by Britain, it was significant for both its proportional weight and deeper, post-emancipatory symbolism. British Jewry s strong response to the call for arms, especially during the earlier portion of the war, indicates that they, like their co-religionists in Europe, saw the war as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate with their blood their utter loyalty to the nation in whose midst they 322 Michael Keren and Shlomit Keren, We are coming, unafraid: the Jewish legions and the promised land in the First World War (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), Michael Adler, The Jews of the Empire and the Great War (London: Richard Clay and Sons, Ltd, 1919), 1. Adler was the Senior Chaplain for Anglo-Jewish forces, and spent most of the war driving along the French front holding prayer services with Jewish soldiers and administering funerary rites to those killed in action. After the war, he was the driving force in the creation of the British Jewry Book of Honour, which contains a chapter about his experiences in France. It is, of course, entirely possible that there were additional Jews in the Armed Services who chose not to note or disguise their faith on the military rolls, as this was not an uncommon occurrence, but they would not push the total numbers out of the minute. See Harold Boas, The Australian YMCA with the Jewish Solider of the Australian Imperial Force (London: Garden City Press, 1919), V.D. Lipman, A History of the Jews in Britain since 1858 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990), Jewish Historical Society of England, Transactions , Vol IX (London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co. Ltd., 1922), 8; Lipman, A History, 140; Adler, Jews of the Empire, The higher number is from Adler, Jews of the Empire, 4, with the lower number from WD Rubenstein, A History of the Jews, 194. There were roughly 145,000 Jews in the British Empire outside of the UK.

85 75 lived. 327 Across Europe, various decisions throughout the nineteenth century had emancipated Jews and conferred upon them civil and legal rights that allowed them to identify primarily as citizens of their nation who simply practiced a minority faith. In Britain, this had occurred several decades before the Great War, in a piecemeal fashion between 1830 and Still, when war erupted in 1914 a range of British Jewish associations and publications argued that emancipation should be repaid by enlistment; none more so than the Jewish Chronicle newspaper, which argued in August 1914, England has been all she could to the Jews. The Jews will be all they can to England. 329 This attitude was especially internalized by educated British Jewry. Of the Jewish volunteers during the first two years of conflict, 18% fought as officers double the proportion of voluntary recruits to officers in the rest of the British Army. 330 The act of volunteering, in particular, was key. Offering one s life in defense of the nation was proof to the national community of ultimate loyalty, and British Jews were just as aware of this as the black, British West Indians who volunteered for the BWIR. 331 The vast majority of British Jews who fought during the war served in the same army units as their British peers, with minimal or no difference in wartime experiences. While practicing Jews had different religious services noted by the parade command, Fall out the Roman Catholics and Jews there appears to have been little other distinction, and according to WD Rubenstein, remarkably little evidence of anti-semitism in the trenches. 332 This was precisely what much of Anglo-Jewry wanted to be identified as British citizens who practiced a minority faith. These assimilationist undercurrents ensured that for most British Jews, their Judaism had little discernible influence over their experience during the war. However, some, like Mark Levene, have argued more negatively that the initial Jewish rush to the colors in 1914 was, in part, motivated by the knowedge [sic] that Jews were constantly being watched, and one step out of line might spell disaster. 333 Much of this fear emanated from increasing xenophobia, and despite their strong volunteerism, British Jews became increasingly concerned over the wartime role played by Jewish immigrants to Britain. In particular, those from Russia, who were distinctively visible to popular opinion, but also relatively isolated from the broad British community. The refusal of Russian-born Jews to enlist or perform war service became an increasingly combustible issue, and helped trigger the formation of the Legion. While many Jews rushed to their national colors as a demonstration of loyalty and patriotism, a few saw a different opportunity. The entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war in November 1914 put the issue of Palestine in play, something that committed Zionists thought 327 Marsha Rozenblitt, Reconstructing a national identity: the Jews of Habsburg Austria during World War I (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 39. Rozenblitt notes the extraordinary enthusiasm for the war amongst Austrian Jews, not least due to the opportunity for revenge against the Russian Empire for state-encouraged pogroms. 328 Endelman, The Jews of Britain, David Englander, ed. A Documentary History of Jewish Immigrants in Britain, (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1994) p Englander, Documentary History, 140. Or perhaps testament to the importance of education in the Jewish community. 331 Levene, Going against the Grain, Rubenstein, 195. There seems to have been some anti-jewish prejudice during the initial phases of training in England, though. See Joseph Cohen, Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg, (London: Robson Books, 1975), Mark Levene, War, Jews, and the new Europe: the Diplomacy of Lucien Wolf, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 29. Endleman, Jews of Britain,

86 76 was worth bucking the official Zionist pledge of neutrality. Some, like Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi, had proposed creating a Jewish unit in the Turkish Army, an idea that was scuppered when thousands of Jews in Palestine were expelled to Egypt, but represented one of the early attempts by Zionists to win concessions for a Jewish Palestine by military service. 334 Another notoriously maverick Zionist, Vladimir Ze ev Jabotinsky, thought that fighting for Britain was the more likely scenario for securing a postwar Jewish homeland. Nearly thirty-four years old when the Great War broke out, Jabotinsky had been born in Odessa into a middle-class, relatively assimilated family. A promising young writer and conversant in several languages, he had spent time in Europe as a reporter before attending the Sixth Zionist Congress in Despite having grown up in a home largely devoid of Jewish knowledge, content or ceremony, he became an increasingly ardent Zionist, one without qualms about going against the political grain, and with a nascent interest in Jewish self-defense. 335 Before war broke out, he made trips to the Ottoman Empire, including Palestine, and eventually made his way to England after Always unique, Jabotinsky became increasingly polarizing after the war, when he founded the right of center Revisionist Zionist movement and its accompanying youth organization, Betar. However, during the war, Jabotinsky made a key and unlikely ally in his quest for a Jewish home an Irish-born officer named John Henry Patterson. Patterson one of the most loveable personages that have ever come into Jewish history according to Israel Zangwill had lived a fascinating life before the Great War. 336 Born in Ireland, he had attended Sandhurst and fought for three years during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War. During the war, he had skyrocketed up the military hierarchy from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel in a mere eight months and won a Distinguished Service Order (DSO). In the period between the South African conflict and 1914, he had become something of an international celebrity for killing the man-eating lions of Tsavo while in charge of the construction of a railway bridge in Kenya. 337 Despite his fame and reputation as an excellent soldier, however, his career stalled, and he never advanced further in rank. One possibility for this was his noted intemperance and sometimes renegade attitude, while another interpretation holds that it was his role in an adulterous scandal while on safari in Africa one in which Patterson s affair with the wife of a well-connected man in his regiment led to the latter s suicide that effectively ended Patterson s career. 338 Whatever the reason, the damage was significant enough that despite the need for experienced officers, Patterson only commanded the two different Jewish units conceived by Jabotinsky, and ended the war with the same rank that he began it with. But while 334 Cecil Bloom Colonel Patterson, soldier and Zionist in Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England Volume XXXI (1990): 232. Ben Gurion thought in 1914 that the Central Powers would win the war. 335 Stanislawki, 118-9, ; On 159, Stanislawski points out that the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 has been read back into Jabotinsky s life history as an explanation for his interest in Jewish defense, but that this is misleading. The two most prominent biographies of Jabotinsky are both two volume works by Revisionist Zionists: Joseph Schechtman, Rebel and statesman: the Vladimir Jabotinsky Story (New York: T. Yoseloff, 1956) and Shmuel Katz Lone Wolf: a biography of Vladimir (Ze ev) Jabotinsky (New York: Barricade Books, 1996). 336 JI 6-1K. Israel Zangwill to EM Adler and MJ Landa, August 27, 1917, pg JH Patterson, The man-eaters of Tsavo and other East African adventures (London: MacMillan and Co, 1907). Two interesting biographical points of note Patterson was the godfather to Yoni Netanyahu, and his exploits in Africa were the basis for the major Hollywood film, The Ghost and the Darkness, where he was portrayed by Val Kilmer. 338 Yanky Fachler, The Zion Mule Corps and its Irish Commander, in History Ireland, 11, no 4 (Winter 2003): Bloom, Colonel Patterson, The husband Audley James Blyth was the son of a Baron. The events formed the basis for the film The Macomber Affair, with Gregory Peck as the Patterson-influenced character.

87 77 the Jabotinsky-Patterson alliance would be critical in the formation of the Jewish Legion, it was less important for the creation of the first distinctly Jewish unit to serve in the British Army: the Zion Mule Corps. The Zion Mule Corps The first uniquely Jewish entity inside the British Army did not consist of Jews from within Britain, but of refugees from the Ottoman Empire. In December 1914, the Ottoman Empire expelled those who it considered to be a potential fifth column, forcing roughly 11,000 Russian Jews to flee to Alexandria. 339 The legal obstacles in recruiting Russian Jews to the army, not to mention the protests of Anglo-Jewry, made these refugees an attractive target for those hoping to produce a Zionist-tinged military unit. After traveling to Egypt, Jabotinsky met Yosef Trumpeldor, a Jewish veteran of the Russian Army who had been expelled from Palestine with the other refugees. 340 The two bonded over the idea of a Jewish military unit to fight the Turks, and began to pursue making this a reality. In March 1915, they succeeded in convincing British military officials in Egypt to enlist the refugees as a Colonial Corps with the name, the Zion Mule Corps (ZMC). Patterson happened to be in Cairo at the right time (why is unclear), and ended up being appointed the Commanding Officer in place of an initially requested officer from the Indian Army. 341 This was the period when Patterson began to form relationships with Jabotinsky and other key Zionist figures, thus also beginning his lifelong entanglement with Zionism (in a rather haphazard way). Having enlisted over seven hundred men from the refuges including Trumpeldor, but not Jabotinsky and trained briefly in Egypt, the ZMC was sent to Gallipoli in April 1915 to serve as a transport unit until the end of the year. 342 The Zion Mule Corps, despite being a transport and supply unit, often had to operate in exposed positions while under heavy shellfire. On the one significant occasion when they were called into active service, they had helped defend the British line against a Turkish sneak attack, ultimately repelling the attack in a nighttime firefight. 343 On other occasions, their distinct ethnicity and language caused them problems some Australians mistook them for Germans in disguise on one occasion, and French soldiers nearly executed a ZMC member (thinking he was a Turkish spy) in a different incident. 344 With the Dardanelles campaign coming to an end, the ZMC was ordered to disband in December 1915, and decommissioned officially in May 1916 after several months in Egypt. 339 Mary McClune, The whole wide world, without limits: International Relief, Gender Politics, and American Jewish Women, (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005) pg 46. Sugarman claims that 75% of these 11,000 were Russian speaking and the rest were Sephardim. See Martin Sugarman, The Zion Muleteers of Gallipoli: March 1915-May 1916 (September 2000) Online: [Accessed March 30, 2013]. 340 Trumpeldor had lost his left arm during the siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, later became perhaps the first Jew to become commissioned officer in the tsarist army, and emigrated to Palestine in See Michael Stanislawski, "Trumpeldor, Yosef." YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (October 28, 2010). Online [Accessed March 30, 2013]. 341 Patterson, Zionists, Sugarman claims 737 enlisted. Jabotinsky s reasons for not enlisting are unclear, although probably stemmed from his desire to create a combat unit. Sugarman, Zion Muleteers. 343 Patterson, Zionists, Sugarman Zion Muleteers ; Aubrey Herbert, Mons, Anzac & Kut (London: Edward Arnold, 1919), 86. This edition was simply authored by An M.P. A later edition from 1930 identified Herbert as the author.

88 78 Overall, the Zion Mule Corps had been well-regarded during its tenure, a sentiment shared by the Commander of the Gallipoli campaign, General Ian Hamilton. In a letter to Jabotinsky, Hamilton wrote that he had been particularly interested in the unit and liked the look the men and have always taken special trouble to keep the unit on its legs. More importantly, he found that they had done extremely well and demonstrated a more difficult type of bravery than the men in the front, as they had to endure enemy fire without the opportunity to return it. 345 Unfortunately for Jabotinsky, the ignominy that followed Hamilton after the failure at Gallipoli ensured that this letter did little to strengthen the case for creating a Jewish combat unit. However, it did demonstrate that the ZMC had not performed poorly, which became increasingly important as Britain s manpower crisis heightened in 1916 and Throughout its service at Gallipoli, Jabotinsky had continually sought to use the ZMC as the core of a broader force. In October 1915 he had proposed developing a combatant Zion Corps from the muleteers and several thousand Russian Jews in England, France, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries, which would likely have been modeled on the French Foreign Legion. 346 After the ZMC s disbandment, Jabotinsky continued to lobby for a Jewish unit, sending letters to prominent British Cabinet officials, meeting with like-minded individuals, and attempting to generate popular support (usually unsuccessfully) in Jewish communities across England. For Jabotinsky, the unassailable goal was a combat unit of Jews fighting on the Palestine front; the ultimate manifestation of his vision of Zionism. There appears to have been little concern amongst Anglo-Jewry over the Muleteers existence they were refugees from the Ottoman Empire, did not reside in Britain, and were not combatants. Thus, they would do little to diminish the overall picture of British Jews enlisting and fighting as British citizens. However, the ZMC s existence not only emboldened figures like Jabotinsky, Trumpeldor, and Patterson to pursue a Jewish combat unit, it set a critical precedent that just as there could be Pals Battalions, there could be Jewish ones as well. Although the situation would have been difficult to predict during the ZMC s initial formation, by the time of its demobilization in the Spring of 1916, Britain was facing a serious crisis of military manpower, and just as various obstacles to enlisting West Indians had diminished, now those concerning Russian immigrants were slowly eroding. Manpower and the Russian Jew in England After one year of war, it became clear that the scale of the carnage would require Britain s armies to enlist men at a far greater rate than were volunteering. The only belligerent who did not make use of conscription in 1914, Britain attempted a voluntary recruiting scheme in the Fall of 1915 that Arthur Marwick called one of those shot-gun weddings between the fair maid of Liberal idealism and the ogre of Tory militarism a gigantic engine of fraud and moral blackmail, or more commonly, the Derby Scheme. 347 Named for the then Director of Recruiting, Lord Derby, the scheme failed to yield the necessary results, and conscription was legalized with the Military Services Act in As the war progressed, a significant portion of the British public became obsessed with finding members of British society who did not contribute their fair share to the war effort. For 345 JI 6-1K. Ian Hamilton to Ze-ev Jabotinsky, November 17, WO 158/966 Jabotinsky to Patterson, October 5, Arthur Marwick, The Deluge: British Society and the First World War (London: Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1965), 77.

89 79 men of military age, this could only be achieved by military service. Female militants patrolled the streets, bestowing white feathers of cowardice to men in civilian clothes, while the rest of the public, stirred up, in part, by the press, disparaged the conchies and hunted for shirkers. 348 The British government was no better; it had acquiesced to conscription in 1916 in the belief that it would turn up 650,000 shirkers. 349 Russian Jews, who had thus far made minimal contributions to the war effort and were visually distinctive, became an easy target for condemnation. Eastern European Jewry, many of them from Tsarist Russia, had immigrated to Britain in growing numbers throughout the late nineteenth century. According to Todd Endelman, roughly 120, ,000 of these Jewish immigrants arrived in England between 1881 and 1914, with the majority of them taking up residence in the East End of London. The result had been public xenophobia and the 1905 Aliens Act, which slowed immigration and helped temper the issue, but did not fully resolve it. 350 Once war broke out in 1914, old debates put on new clothes. These immigrants tended to reflect the dominant Ashkenazi religious and cultural perspective of Eastern Europe, the army was a decidedly un-jewish vocation. 351 While the foundation for this stemmed from religious teachings prohibiting murder, it had been continuously reinforced at a secular level by the Russian Army s ill-treatment of Jewish conscripts. The case of Isaac Rosenberg s family was a common one throughout the Russian Jewish community. Both of his Russian-born parents maintained a deep hatred of the Russian army, and thus all soldiering, and the most unspeakable crime as far as the Rosenberg household was concerned was to join the army. 352 Rosenberg joined the army anyways, but some did not, in part because they were legally protected. As Russian nationals, they were prohibited from fighting in the British Army until May 1916, when the War Office decided to allow friendly-alien volunteers to fight in the British Army. 353 Until this change, however, any proposals for enlisting Jewish foreign-nationals had to conceive them as a non-combatant unit, or as an entity distinct from the British Army generally a Foreign Legion modeled on the French concept. One energetic and eclectic British Jew named Captain Webber had attempted to create a Foreign Legion of East Enders in 1914, much to the dismay of Anglo-Jewry. 354 Eventually communal pressure forced him to abandon the idea, but it set an early precedent in both scheme and terminology for the later battalions. The creation of a Legion of foreign-born Jews would have a related antecedent in the war several thousand Jewish immigrants from Russia in France had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. They had done well until nine had been court-martialed and executed for refusing to reenter the front line after suffering 75% casualties at Carency in 1915 an incident which dramatically 348 Conchies was the shorthand slang for conscientious objectors. As for the white feathers, the most famous case occurred when a woman gave a feather to a man in civilian dress outside Buckingham Palace. The man, as it turned out, had stepped outside for a quick cigarette after receiving the Victoria Cross from the King. See Marwick, The Deluge, for what is still one of the better overviews of recruiting in WWI Britain. 349 A.J.P. Taylor, The First World War: An illustrated history (London: Penguin Books, 1963), For the specific numbers, see Endelman, Jews of Britain, 127, and for a good overview of this period, continue to Sharman Kadish, A Good Jew and a Good Englishman : The Jewish Lads & Girls Brigade, (London: Valentine Mitchell & Co., Ltd, 1995), Cohen, Journey to the Trenches, David Cesarani, An Embattled Minority: the Jews in Britain during the First World War, in Immigrants and Minorities 8, No 1 & 2 (March 1989): 67. See also Englander, Documentary History, for Herbert Samuel s involvement. 354 Cesarani, An Embattled Minority, 70. The goal was to enlist 2,000 Russian Jews. Of note is that Redcliffe Salaman, a member of the Jewish battalions, was notably against the formation of this unit.

90 80 reduced Jewish volunteers, and consequently, badly enflamed anti-russian and antisemitic prejudice. By 1917, Russian immigrants in France were threatened with deportation back to Russia if they refused to enlist in circumstances not dissimilar from the situation that would unfold in England. 355 Eventually, the French decided to enlist immigrants directly into the army (after securing a convention with Russia), and on August 10, 1917 a few days before the Jewish Legion s formal creation Russians living in France could be drafted into the French army. 356 But the British government had been more reluctant to bother with enlisting Russian immigrants early in the war. A variety of Victorian tropes decried Jews as naturally pacifistic, weak, and unsuitable for combat, and the war was still young enough that manpower concerns were not paramount. 357 The only potential agitators for increased Jewish enlistment, the Zionists, preferred a Jewish combat unit, essentially building from the precedent of the Zion Mule Corps instead of a Foreign Legion. Once Britain had been forced to adopt conscription to meet its manpower requirements, it began to look more closely at the nearly 30,000 Russian Jewish men of military age. However, neither un-naturalized Russian immigrants nor their sons were available for military conscription, even if the latter had been born in Britain. 358 A convenient subject for the xenophobic press since their immigration, the highly charged atmosphere of wartime England led to an increasingly rancorous public anger. The British government, including some Jews, shared this sentiment, albeit more calmly. In September 1916, the Home Secretary Herbert Samuel, himself a Jew, wrote to the Reverend John Clifford that it was not right that men of an allied nationality, resident in this country, should avoid taking their part in the present struggle. 359 The problem was that the Russians were not British nationals, and could not be compelled to enlist; the only way Britain could take them into the army was if they volunteered. Despite various assurances to the contrary (usually by Zionists who saw the Russians as potential manpower for a military unit), the War Office felt there was no way these men would volunteer. As Sir Auckland Campbell-Geddes, the Director of Recruiting for the War Office, put it, these Jews have not the remotest intention of going out to fight. 360 These beliefs had prompted Britain to enter into negotiations with the Alexander Kerensky s new government in Russia about a legal agreement that allowed Britain to compel Russian nationals to fight on the side of the Entente. In the meantime, the lack of resolution over the Russian issue well over a year after conscription had been introduced for the rest of Britain fueled public (and generally xenophobic or antisemitic) outrage. An internal War Office memorandum argued that the British people are indignant that [the Russian Jews] are being allowed to shirk their responsibility, and much friction has arisen in consequence; which may eventually lead to trouble unless something is 355 Zosa Szajkowski, Jews and the French Foreign Legion (New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc. 1975), Szajkowski, French Foreign Legion, Elliot Horowitz, They Fought Because They Were Fighters and They Fought Because They Were Jews : Violence and the Construction of Modern Jewish Identity, in Jews and Violence: Images, Ideologies, Realities, ed Peter Y. Medding (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Evelyn Wilcock, The Revd John Harris and Anglo-Jewish pacifism, in Jewish Historical Studies, Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, Vol XXX ( ) Englander, Documentary History, WO 32/11353, Minute #11, Campbell-Geddes, DR, 4/30/1917.

91 81 done. 361 Public sentiment over the role of Russian Jews reached a crescendo shortly after this memo when a riot targeting Jews erupted in Leeds on June 3, A crowd of over a thousand mostly youths attacked the homes and shops of Russian Jews, assaulted men and women, and screamed Kill the Jews. 362 While tensions flared three months later in September, when two to three thousand Jews and Gentiles, wielding wood logs, iron bars, and flat irons, fought a pitched battle in Bethnal Green, the riots in Leeds were essentially the high-water point for anti-russian Jewish outburst in England. 363 However, allegations of shirking Jewry continued even after the Legion s formation; in one instance, the Chief Commissioner of Medical Services for the Ministry of National Service was notified that a Dr Saul was deliberately grading down the physique of Russian Jews called before the recruitment boards in Manchester, possibly due to racial sympathy with the Jewish recruits. 364 It is possible that the Leeds riot helped push through a military service convention with Russia, which finally emerged on July 10, Six days later, an Anglo-Russian Military Service Agreement was announced. While the latter specifically bid their subjects to return home for military service, the terms of the agreement also provided the legal mechanisms for the British government to compulsorily force Russian Jews to serve on the pain of deportation. 365 The War Office could now force Russian Jews to enlist; Jabotinsky and his allies were poised to reap this sudden development. The proponents of the Jewish Legion, particularly Jabotinsky, had sensed since 1916 that the discord over the Russian service issue might spark their idea into life. Their plans had consistently detailed how the bulk of the Legion s core would be Russian Jewish immigrants from London s East End, Leeds, and Manchester. 366 In addition, Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor specifically advocated enlisting Russian Jews from France into their Legion playing off the hostility there, while also providing another source of manpower not from the still-neutral United States. 367 In the memorandum sent in January and February 1917 by Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor to a slew of British government officials including David Lloyd George, Mark Sykes, and Leo Amery they detailed the recruitment of Russian Jews from Egypt and France, but made the military utilization of the 30,000 Russian immigrants of military age in England the primary focus. 368 As the war dragged on and casualties mounted, and as public ire over the Russian Jews 361 WO 32/11353, Memo entitled Palestine and the Zionists to General Geddes, WO, Prepared by David Davies, April 23, This situation was remarkably similar to the United States, where the American public decried the Jewish immigrants from Russia as miserable specimens of humanity that collected on the sacrifices of American youth. See David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), WD Rubenstein, A History of the Jews 199; Endelman, The Jews of Britain, Endelman, The Jews of Britain 186. The Bethnal Green incident occurred two months after Britain had announced its convention with Russia over military service and a few weeks after the War Office had announced the Jewish Legion. 364 NATS 1/178 Jews, Medical Examination of at Hume Town Hall. Letter from JJ Cox to James Galloway Esq, MD, November 14, Watts, The Jewish Legion, 97; Englander, Documentary History, David Cesarani puts the pre-wwi Jewish populations as: 100,000 in London s East End (with another 135,000 in the rest of London), 35,000 in Manchester, 25,000 in Leeds, and 15,000 in Glasgow. David Cesarani The Transformation of Communal Authority in Anglo-Jewry, , in David Cesarani, ed. The Making of Modern Anglo-Jewry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), JI 6-1K. Enclosed Memorandum, Trumpeldor to Sir Mark Sykes, Feb 25, 1917, pg 14. This memorandum also was sent to Leo Amery and David Lloyd George. 368 JI 6-1K. Enclosed Memorandum, Yosef Trumpeldor to Sir Mark Sykes, Feb 25, 1917, pg 16. Ever the shrewd operator, Jabotinsky specifically tried to tie the formation of a Jewish Legion to American support for the Entente

92 82 intensified, Jabotinsky s Legion became an increasingly attractive solution to both issues. As a convention with Russia over conscripting its nationals in England grew closer, the War Office noted in internal discussions in June 1917 that as soon as we have the legal power to take these men compulsorily, if we form some convention with the Russian Government, which will give us that power, we should proceed on the lines that [Jabotinsky] suggests. 369 This was not a closed decision; Amery relayed these conclusions to Jabotinsky a few days later, reassuring him that as soon as the legal mechanisms of the convention were ironed out, the Legion scheme would be finalized. 370 A few weeks after the agreements with Russia were announced, Patterson received a telegram from the War Office ordering him to begin preparations for the Legion. 371 On August 23, 1917, the formal creation of a regiment of Russian Jews was announced in the London Gazette but what to call these new units plunged the Jewish community into fierce disagreement. The creation of a Jewish Legion fulfilled a variety of the British government s needs. It provided a source of manpower to the increasingly desperate Army, it diminished the ranks and countered the influence of working-class trade unions and associations inside the immigrant community, and it helped quell popular dissatisfaction and xenophobic violence. Fused with the precedent of an earlier expressly Jewish unit the Zion Mule Corps the creation of the Jewish battalions is hardly surprising. Assimilated Anglo-Jewry, on the other hand, was caught up in set of serious contradictions. Russian Jews needed to serve in order to check the perception that all Jews were shirkers and profiteers, but if the schneiderim were unlikely to acquit themselves well on the battlefield, their service would also bring British Jewry into disrepute. At the same time, the distinctly Zionist overtones of the battalions raised the possibility that, if successful in Palestine, British Jews could be accused of dual loyalties should a Jewish national home develop. 372 The solution for the assimilationists was to minimize the Jewish identity of the battalions. What s in a name? Once the War Office had decided to move forward with Jabotinsky s scheme, a simmering debate finally erupted over the public Jewish identity of the battalions. The Zionists wanted the new units to be explicitly Jewish in name, whether The Jewish Legion, the Jewish Brigade, or the Jewish Battalion. In its announcement, the London Gazette had referred to the raising of a Jewish Regiment. 373 The assimilated Jews, on the other hand, were not enamored of the idea of referencing Judaism in the formal title of the units. Sir Marcus Samuels remarked that calling the units a Jewish Regiment savour[ed] too much of the Ghetto to [his] mind, and possibly playing off the prejudiced belief of Jewish influence in the United States when he subtly noted that Jews there had prominent and honourable roles in all branches of life. 369 JI 6-1K. Typed War Office Minute Sheet, signed Auckland Campbell Geddes, June 12, 1917, pg JI 6-1K. JS Amery, War Cabinet to Jabotinsky, June 15, 1917, pg 61. Amery also noted that Jabotinsky should feel reassured that Patterson would be in command, illuminating some worry that he might not have been. 371 Patterson, With the Judeans, Morton Narrowe, Jabotinsky and the Zionists in Stockholm (1915) Canadian Jews rejected an expressly Zionist unit, and although there was a unit of Canadian Jews organized in 1916, its primary identity was Canadian, therefore reducing Judaism to a similar style unifier as the pals battalions of sportsmen, schoolmates, and professionals. See Zachariah Kay, A Note on Canada and the Formation of the Jewish Legion, in Jewish Social Studies, 29 no 3 (July 1967), Patterson, With the Judeans, 11.

93 83 Lionel de Rothschild echoed his sentiment, mentioning to Lord Derby that a change of name would go far towards removing the objections felt along all sections of the Jewish Community to a specifically Jewish Battalion. 374 Less affluent portions of the Anglo-Jewish community, such as the Tailors Trade Union of Birmingham and various Jewish societies in Manchester, also expressed dismay over references to Judaism in the title. 375 The Zionists, however, argued that removing any references to Judaism from the units names would militate against the success of the battalions in which naturally all Jews should be intensely interested. 376 Israel Zangwill represented this perspective when he argued that an expressly Jewish unit would focus public attention on the loyalty of Jews, whereas those who simply enlisted in the Army did nothing to bolster their cause. 377 The assimilationists protestations over the Jewish units name were, in reality, a reflection of a far deeper concern with the military adequacy of the potential Jewish units. In a letter from the Jewish War Services Committee to the War Office, the assimilationist Jews noted that they had no hesitation in expressing the opinion that the very large majority of His Majesty s British and Colonial born subjects of the Jewish faith were much alarmed at the possibility of having their good name and reputation entrusted to battalions of aliens who, up to the present, have not shown the same desire as they have to do service, either for their own country or that of their Allies. 378 The assimilated portions of Anglo-Jewry, therefore, were not only concerned with the military abilities of the East Enders, but also with how all of Anglo-Jewry would be perceived by the British public. If, as feared, the Jewish conscripts performed inadequately in a unit that was specifically referenced as Jewish, the public would further stereotype Jews as inadequate citizens. In Anglo-Jewry s minds, such a result would have been disastrous to any prewar gains they had made in fighting popular stereotypes of Jews, and would probably prompt fresh outbreaks of antisemitic violence. The War Office, headed by Lord Derby, cared about this squabble only in that it affected its acquisition of military manpower. In a letter to Philip Kerr, Lloyd George s personal secretary and confidant, Derby provided the War Office s perspective, noting that the assimilationists argue that these Battalions, composed as they are mostly of Russian Jews, are not likely to be of very great military value and will bring no credit to the Jewish Race, many of whom have enlisted voluntarily and done well in all Branches of the Service. It really does not matter in the least to me what they are called Personally, I am ready to call them the Joppa Rifles or the Jerusalem Highlanders, or anything else as long as I get the men. These men are being, of course, enlisted for General Service, and not especially for Palestine Of course we shall employ them in Palestine, but I don t think they ought to be specially told that that is what they are going to be employed for. 379 Derby s latter point is of particular note, for it implies that by enlisting the men for general service, they could be transferred to other theaters if necessary. While the War Office felt that 374 WO 32/ Sir Marcus Samuels s and Lionel de Rothschild s Speeches, Transcript of August 30 th, 1917 Deputation to Lord Derby. 375 WO 32/ BA Fersht s Speech, Transcript of August 30 th, 1917 Deputation to Lord Derby. 376 WO 32/11353, Editor, Jewish Chronicle to Earl of Derby, October 10, Note the proximity of date between the Zionist and Assimilationist letters. The War Office was, quite literally, inundated with correspondence from both factions, especially in JI 6-1K. Israel Zangwill to EM Adler and MJ Landa, August 27, 1917., pg WO 32/11353, Secretary, Jewish War Services Committee to War Office, October 18, WO 32/11353, Lord Derby to Philip Kerr, August 22, Italics added.

94 84 placing the Jewish battalions in Palestine logically freed up more seasoned British troops for service in France, should the Ottomans bow out of the war before Germany, the Jewish troops could be transferred to another front regardless of their desires. Whether Jabotinsky and others sensed this attitude (or knew it and gambled anyways) is not clear, but what is clear is that the War Office would make use of whatever political motivations were necessary to attract recruits, and held no qualms about distributing its manpower where it saw fit once enlisted. The combination of manpower needs and a deputation of established and well-connected figures was overwhelming, and the Jewish units came into existence without any reference to Judaism in their title, emerging as the 38 th (and later 39 th and 40 th ) Battalion of the City of London Royal Fusiliers. The eruption from Patterson, Jabotinsky, and others was monumental. Derby was forced into meeting with another deputation in early September, this time demanding the Jewish identity be maintained. A furious Patterson argued that without a Jewish identifier there would be no espirit de corps and that it would thus be a most disastrous failure and be utterly worthless from a military point of view. 380 Implicitly equating the War Office s reversal with the German invasion of Belgium (by referencing the famed Scrap of Paper ), he demanded to be relieved of his command. While the issue was pending, Derby entertained yet another deputation at the end of September, this one hotly opposed to the formation of any distinctly Jewish Regiment. The schism inside the Jewish community and the constant deputations and counter-deputations deeply frustrated Derby. In a note to Chaim Weizmann, the editor of the Manchester Guardian, CP Scott, noted that Derby had practically decided to abandon the idea of a Jewish unit and instead to put the Russians into a Foreign Legion. 381 The name of the battalions was not the only marker of identity; the pro-legion advocates also wanted the Jewish troops to have cap and uniform insignia that marked them, specifically, as members of Jewish battalions. However, in its creation of the units the War Office decided that the battalions would have to earn the right to the distinction of a special badge, which seems yet another indicator that the assimilationists were worried about how the new units would perform militarily. 382 After all, if the units fought well enough to earn a distinctive Jewish badge, it was unlikely that the British public would publicly menace the Anglo-Jewish community. While the battalions did not earn the right to wear a Jewish cap badge (a menorah) until well into the Armistice period, they do seem to have earned the right to fight with Magen David, Stars of David, on their upper sleeves. 383 However, as later photographs in this chapter show, plenty of battalion members seem to have chosen not to wear them, possibly due to selfidentifying as British, or possibly out of fear of anti-jewish prejudice. Interestingly, while the Jewish units were referenced as the Royal Fusiliers in all official documentation, they acquired other nicknames. Some British military personnel called them the Jewsiliers, the ANZAC s referred to them jokingly as the Jordan Highlanders, and others simply referred to them as the Jewish battalions or Jewish Regiment. 384 There are indications 380 JI 6-1K. JH Patterson to the Brigade Major, Reserve Brigade, September 5, 1917, pg JI 6-1K. CP Scott to Chaim Weizmann, September 31, 1917, pg WO 32/ Press Clipping entitled The Badgeless Maccabeeans, Sept. 13, Presumably from The Jewish Chronicle, although there is no reference in the file. It is, of course, relatively common that units in the British army had to earn visible regimental distinctions. The Royal Welch Fusiliers, for example, kept their black flash in World War I because they were considered one of the best units in the British Army. On the other hand, it could be argued that the Magen David badge was not a distinction of valor, but simply a piece of regimental identification. 383 Each battalion wore a different color red for the 38 th, blue for the 39 th, and purple for the 40 th. 384 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, July 3, 1918, pg 106; Kinloch, Devils on Horses, 394 ff6.

95 85 that the Jewish troops fondly appropriated both nicknames (Jewsiliers and Jordan Highlanders), as they appear in a positive tone in an array of reminiscences. 385 Despite the efforts of Anglo- Jewry to avoid Jewish identity being attached to the battalions, it appears that despite their official title, the entire EEF knew precisely who they were. Ultimately, the fight over the name of the Jewish battalions illustrates one of the principal fissures in Britain s Jewish community during the First World War. Just as there was no unified Anglo-Jewish community, there was also no unified Jewish Legion. Instead, there were three separate battalions of Royal Fusiliers, each of which had a very different composition, and a very different combat experience. Interestingly, once the Jewish battalions existence seemed likely, prominent figures in England s Jewish community organized the Jewish Regiment Committee (JRC) eleven days before the official battalion formation. Given the animosity inside the Jewish community that had accompanied the debate over the battalions, the composition of the JRC suggested a slight papering-over of cracks. Chaired by Lord Rothschild, it featured a mix of upper-class Anglo Jewry, prominent community figures, early advocates for the Legion, and the wives of figures like Chaim Weizmann who were on scene in Egypt and Palestine. 386 While this reflected the broader contours of British Jewry, the JRC was significantly different from BWIR s supporting committee, the WICC, in both composition and function. As the previous chapter noted, the WICC was heavily dominated by former Colonial officials not their wives and played an active role in policy issues. In contrast, the JRC mostly concerned itself with community support and played little role in broader policy discussions, thus paralleling a host of similar wartime organizations inside Britain that offered minor care and comforts, social opportunities, and engaged with the public on behalf of the units they supported. With the addition of volunteers from American and Palestine, parallel Red Magen David societies sprung up in the US, as well as several local support committees in Palestine. 387 However, none of these ever became actively involved in setting British policy from an organizational level, but the JRC can be thought of not just as a support mechanism for the battalions, but as an internal means for the community to resolve differences of opinion. Recruitment Since the formation of the Zion Mule Corps, Jabotinsky had maintained numerous recruiting efforts inside London s East End, especially after the ZMC s dissolution. Much of this involved walking a particular tightrope he was recruiting for a Jewish force that did not exist, but one that might not come into existence unless he could demonstrate the availability of willing participants. Participants, particularly in the East End, however, were not exactly receptive to Jabotinsky s exhortations. A Yiddish-speaking sergeant from Special Branch had kept Jabotinsky under surveillance, lest he prove a political provocateur or enemy agent. His reports on Jabotinsky s recruiting efforts in October 1916 indicated a strongly antagonistic reaction from the Russian 385 YIVO 85740, He Remembers the Jewsiliers Bet Hagdudim, Jubilee Souvenir Journal, 1967, pg Notable figures included: Baron Adolph Tuck, Henry Drummond-Wolff s son, Joseph Cowen (the MP for Whitechapel), the writer Myer Jack Landa, the wife of England s Chief Rabbi (Joseph Hertz), and the editor of the Jewish Chronicle (LJ Greenberg). The prominent officers from the Jewish battalions were honorary members. JI 21-1K, Report of the Jewish Regiment Committee, August 1919, pg JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg Agronsky later shortened his last name to Agron and became the mayor of Jerusalem (as well as founding today s Jersusalem Post).

96 86 Jewish community at one meeting Jabotinsky was drowned out by booing, and the next day audience members several times rushed the platform. 388 At other events, Jabotinsky and others were greeted with volleys of rotten tomatoes and eggs during recruitment speeches. 389 A patchwork group of organizations attempted to counter Jabotinsky s efforts with a wide array of arguments. At one end were many British Zionists, who were against Jabotinsky s scheme, and did nothing to help promote it in the East End. The basis for this critique emanated from the meeting of the Zionist Council in June 1915 at Copenhagen, which had condemned Jabotinsky s fusion of Zionism with British war aims as an unforgivable breach of neutrality and as a stab in the back of Zionist leadership. 390 At the other were a large number of workingclass associations from trade unions to socialist organizations who allied with anti- Compulsion organizations to protest the Legion scheme. The Home Office monitored many of these organizations, particularly what it referred to as the Russian Anti-Conscription League and an umbrella organization called the The Foreign Jews Protection Committee against Deportation to Russia and Compulsion that represented 120 groups and unions. 391 The Home Office believed that these organizations had links to Russian anarchists and revolutionaries, which actually may have ended up increasing the Cabinet s decision to proceed with Jabotinsky s scheme as a way of diminishing or diffusing their influence. After the official announcement of the Jewish battalions, strong protests continued from Jewish working class groups in several English cities. A large meeting of Jewish workers met at Mile End in London on August 26 th and adopted an unanimous resolution that emphatically decried the battalions as detrimental to the interests of the Jewish masses in England. The resolution, however, struck a somewhat unwise political tone by articulating its defense of Jews in England through essentially an iteration of Russian socialism arguing that the workers had no special Jewish interests in the present war and that they were citizens of Free Russia now that the Tsar had been deposed. 392 This manner of protest had essentially prohibited any possibility of a political alliance against the Legion with the middle and upper classes of Anglo- Jewry. It is also possible that it played some underlying role in sparking the conflict at Bethnal Green in September, perhaps by its tone, although that is entirely speculatory. The future disjuncture between Jews inside the Legion was foreshadowed by recruiting materials, which emphasized different messages to different groups. A Yiddish appeal to Jewish youth in England argued that military service is a question of the Jewish future in England, claiming that failure to answer England s call to Jewish immigrants for military help would be a deadly blow to Jewish rights and immigration throughout the world. 393 This type of document embodied the way in which Jewish immigrants were recruited for military service veiled 388 Englander, Documentary History, These meetings took place in mid-october Matthew Silver, Fighting for Palestine and Crimea: Two Jewish Friends from Philadelphia during the First World War and the 1920s, Jews and Violence: Images, Ideologies, Realities, Peter Y. Medding, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), Isaiah Friedman, The Question of Palestine, , British-Jewish-Arab Relations (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), HO 45/10818/31809 Police report of Inspector Thomas MacNamara and Superintendant P. Quinn, Sept 7, Some of the represented unions included: the Hebrew Curver Furnishing Trade Union, the Hat & Cap Makers Trade Union, the London Ladies Tailors, Machiners & Pressers Trade Union, and the United Garment Workers. 392 JI 29-1K. The Times, August 27, 1917, pg JI 17-1K. This was authored by Jabotinsky and for the Committee For Jewish Future, Also available in Englander, Documentary History, 326.

97 87 threats of damage to the entire Jewish community if this potion did not do their duty, so to speak. Another recruitment strategy for Russian Jews, likely led by Jabotinsky, was to produce a lengthy Yiddish pamphlet entitled The Right Way (Foreign Jews and Military Service that attempted to force the issue of military service through fear-mongering. At its start, it declared that there were only two options to serve in Russia or to serve here, and that contrary to rumor, there were enough ships to return Jews back to Russia promptly. 394 Having frightened the reader with stories of iron discipline and miserable treatment in the Russian army, as well as the dangers of submarines during the journey back, the pamphlet argued that the best choice was to enlist in the Jewish Legion. Having outlined the various benefits of service in the Legion, the pamphlet also took a swipe at assimilationists (referring to them implicitly as cowards ) and worked to build the Zionist underpinnings of the unit referencing the Maccabees and the creation of a Jewish nation. In contrast, recruiting materials in North America did not threaten Jews, but offered the reward of a Jewish national home. A recruiting pamphlet to the young Jews of Montreal expressed this clearly, referring not to a duty to any particular belligerent country, but a duty to your people. This, of course, was to realize twenty centuries of Jewish aspirations and create a national home in Palestine via the sword in the hands of our young men. 395 The idea of the sword was a particularly relevant one a number of materials related to the Jewish battalions featured an image of a Maccabee handing a sword to a Jewish Legion soldier. 396 The distinction then, was clear. Jews in North America were recruited to the Legion through the expression of Zionist promises, while Jews in Britain were essentially threatened into enlistment, with no discourse on a national homeland. This dichotomy existed well before the pronouncement of the Balfour Declaration, but was codified by it providing Zionist Jews with proof of the reward, and further underlining the responsibility of Jews in Britain towards the country that would commit itself so. Other recruiting efforts offered more contradictory messaging, as was the case with a 1918 recruitment poster from Montreal, Canada. 394 The pamphlet was produced by the Committee For Jewish Future, and translated from Yiddish by the Conjoint Foreign Committee. Reprinted in Szajkowski, French Foreign Legion, JI 17-1K, 1918 Montreal Recruiting Pamphlet, pg See AJHS I-429 Jewish Legion Veterans Newsletters May 1976 Reunion Flier for a well-preserved example.

98 88 Figure 2.1 A Recruiting Poster for the Jewish Legion 397 Under the tagline Britain Expects Every Son of Israel To Do His Duty, this Yiddish-language poster pivoted off of notions of Empire, Zionism, and Jewish community. Underneath Union Jack banners and three men s watchful eye, a Jewish man is set free by a soldier, and states You have cut my bonds and set me free now let me help you set others free. This was not a reference to peer-recruiting, but rather towards the liberation of Palestine from Turks. This Zionist undertone offered a interesting contrast to the Anglo-Jewish luminaries depicted at the poster s top. Of the three men depicted Viscount Reading (originally Rufus Isaacs), Herbert Samuel, and Edwin Montagu only Samuel had any Zionist leanings during the war, and Montagu was a fierce opponent of Zionism. Notices of the battalions formation also went out to France to Jewish officers and warrant officers, which led to a number of transfer requests. This process was how Myer and a number of other veteran officers and NCO s ended up in the battalions. 398 However, these 397 LOC Pos CAN A01, no 100. Online: [Accessed March 30, 2013] 398 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, pg 58, 79, 98. One of the NCO s who transferred in this way was CSM Chick Bitton, a Military Medal winner and a Regimental boxing champion. Some, like Israel Zangwill, hoped that Jews who had enlisted as Anglicans for fear of ragging would now transfer to the Jewish units,

99 89 requests could be delayed or stymied for a variety of reasons the noted poet Isaac Rosenberg s attempts to gain a transfer from his unit in France to the Jewish battalions dragged, and he died before obtaining it. 399 Other British Jews enlisted in the Jewish Legion almost accidentally. One Liverpool Jew, Jacob Plotzker, reacted with near incredulity when learning about the Legion. Born in 1900, Plotzker had been serving on a ship due to his age, and when he was finally called up for the army, the review board: said to me, what about the Jewish Regiment? I said, what Jewish Regiment?! He says, the Royal Fusiliers. I said, the Royal Fusiliers? I says, that s, what do you call it, there s no Jewish Regiment. Yes there is there s the 38 th and there s the 40 th Battalion at the Royal Fusiliers if you want to join that. So I said, yes, all right, I ll join that. And they gave me the pass and I had to go to Plymouth. 400 Plotzker s disbelief at the existence of a Jewish unit shows that even despite the efforts of Jabotinsky and others to promote the idea of a Legion, there were still plenty of Jews who were unaware of its formation. Composition Part I: The Battalions Despite the common bond of a Jewish faith, the Jewish Legion was a quite heterogeneous collection in both identity and motivation. As one officer noted, the battalions were a weird mixture of mankind, a more localized microcosm of the similarly diverse EEF. 401 Officers from the Anglo-Jewish elite commanded Palestinian colonists and Ottoman POW s, Irish sergeants (some Catholic) drilled immigrants from the Russian Empire, and American Jewish mobsters gambled with everyone. These groups were also in conflict with each other, usually as a result of their individual ethnic identities and motivations for serving. Yiddishspeaking, Russian Jews unwillingly dragooned into the battalions had little in common with Hebrew and English-speaking Americans who had enthusiastically volunteered to fight for the Zionist cause. Many accounts of the battalions, however, have papered over these distinctions in order to focus on, and overstress, the shared Jewish baseline. The composition of the Jewish Legion changed frequently throughout its existence, but it most primarily consisted of three battalions of the Royal Fusiliers the 38 th, the 39 th, and the 40 th battalion. 402 At various points, units might be temporarily combined (the 38 th and 39 th briefly became Patterson s Column during the September offensive), renamed (a detachment of Palestinians existed separately before becoming part of the 40th), or permanently merged in 1920, the remaining Jewish troops fused to become the Judeans. These shifts, accentuated by the movement of personnel between battalions especially during the Armistice period have obscured much of the battalion uniqueness that existed during their 1918 war service. During 1918, both the 38 th and 39 th maintained a relatively constant strength of 1000 men, while the 40 th Battalion, given its use as a training and reserve unit, had closer to 1400 although there does not seem to be much record of this exact scenario occuring. JI 6-1K. Israel Zangwill to EM Adler and MJ Landa, August 27, 1917., pg Cohen, Journey to the Trenches, IWM Interview with Jacob Plotzker. Plymouth was the location of Crown Hill Barracks, where the Jewish battalions preliminarily assembled before departing for Egypt. 401 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, October 21, 1918, A fourth battalion, the 42 nd, appears to have technically formed as a reserve unit from those left behind by the 40 th, but it did not travel to Palestine and played no role of significance in the broader history of the Legion.

100 90 soldiers. 403 These numbers increased as more volunteers arrived from the United States, but during the war itself, the Jewish Legion mirrored the three battalions of the British West Indies Regiment in Palestine from a technical perspective. The BWIR also was intended to reflect a supposedly unified Caribbean identity, but as the previous chapter has pointed out, the West Indians were bound together by class, language, and education. In contrast, the internal composition of the Jewish battalions shifted throughout the war in ways that had more significant ramifications for unit and individual identity, war experience, and the memory of the Legion itself. The most important of the battalions in 1918 was the 38 th ; its status as first to form meant it had the most significant role while Palestine was an active theater of operations. Unlike its sister battalions, the 38 th was dominated by British subjects or immigrants from Russia, some of whom had been naturalized by the British Home Office. Martin Watts examination of battalion testimonies revealed that approximately 66% of those surveyed were born in England, and that the majority of the remainder was born in Russia, but lived in England. 404 The composition of the 38 th is encapsulated by two members of the battalion s signaling section Nathan Dansky and Robert Block. Dansky was from the East End of London and a tailor a stereotypical shnyder, with the exception that he had enlisted before the 1917 convention with Russia. In contrast, Block was from London s West End and appeared substantially more assimilated within British culture: writing poetry to his dearest girl Millie in the classic, Edwardian romantic manner, ruminating on Napoleon s campaigns in Egypt, and collecting and pressing many different kinds of plants in his prayer books. 405 Despite their clear differences, the fact that they were both signalers demonstrated a major distinction from the third group inside the 38 th Russian Jews enlisted on the pain of deportation whose discomfort with English would have likely precluded them from such positions. However, the political undertones attached to the Legion seem to play little role in Dansky and Block s wartime service. In fact, Watts has revealed that of the examined testimonies from the 38 th, almost none reveal any Zionist activity or interest. 406 Keren and Keren suggest that some may have developed an existential Zionism a consciousness that stemmed from shared religious roots. 407 While possible, especially for certain English Jews not swept up 403 Watts, The Jewish Legion, The 39 th Battalion actually set sail from Plymouth with only 600 or so soldiers, but filled up to battalion strength of 1000 shortly after arriving in Egypt. The 42 nd contained roughly 2000 soldiers. These numbers fall far short of what the Zionists expected. Jabotinsky argued on several occasions that he could raise a huge mass of manpower (even claiming at one point that a full division of 10,000-15,000 men was likely), Patterson believed that a landing of Jewish forces in Palestine would lead to an insurrection of at least 40,000 Jews against the Turks, and Leopold Amery was confident that 20,000-30,000 Russian Jews would enlist in a separate regiment to reclaim their ancient heritage. The Jewish Battalions never began to approach Division strength, and there was no mass insurrection in Palestine, despite the arrival of the Jewish units. 404 Watts, The Jewish Legion, Only around one-fourth of the testimonies revealed that they had been conscripted. 405 IWM P346, Nathan Dansky Papers, Certificate of Employment During War. IWM 02/12/1, Robert Block Papers, Letter of March 6, Block s Millie appears to have lived near Fitzroy Square Garden on Cleveland Street in London a relatively well-off neighborhood. Dansky, born in 1896, had attested in October It s unclear whether he was a volunteer or conscripted, but likely the latter. 406 Keren and Keren, We are Coming, 72. Watts, The Jewish Legion, Keren and Keren, We are Coming, They do so by looking at the memoir of an English Jew in the 38 th named Abraham Jacob Robinson. However, while the selections of his memoir presented in the text do show Robinson s sense of duty and pride in his faith, there is little connection between the two.

101 91 in political Zionism, the sharp fractures inside the 38 th between Anglo-Jewry and Russian immigrants meant that a cohesive counter-ideology was unlikely to have existed. The prominent Anglo-Jewish element inside the 38 th had another tangible influence outside of mere identity many of these men were Army veterans. Of the biographical testimonies analyzed by Watt, no less than 40% had served in other army units before transferring to the Legion. In addition, several dozen of the Zion Mule Corps veterans, who were then serving in the 20 th Battalion of the London Regiment, also transferred into the 38 th. 408 There also appear to have been men like Dansky conscripted before the Legion formation and awaiting assignment to a unit who ended up in the 38 th after its creation. These men came from non-specific, recruit battalions, and thus received some training before arriving at their assigned barracks. 409 In addition, the Russian Jews, while perhaps not having seen or wanting to see service in the British army, were not necessarily unable to fight proficiently. Many male immigrants from Russia would have been part of either the First or Second Reserves for the Russian army, so some of the recruits would have had at least some military training to put to use in the field. 410 While it is difficult to draw exact conclusions about the number of Jewish veterans in the battalion, a variety of circumstantial evidence hints that the 38 th contained the most experienced troops. Figure 2.2 Members of the 38 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers from Liverpool, Date and Location Unknown Watts, The Jewish Legion, Watts, The Jewish Legion, WO 32/11353, Untitled Report on Russian Jews by Waclaw De Czerniewski. Viewed at the Foreign Office sometime in late May Depending on their age and the unit in which they served, some even had several years worth of training. 411 JML/ / I.p75. Online: [Accessed January 30, 2006]

102 92 During the early stages of formation, it appears that the most capable of new recruits and conscripts were assigned to the 38 th, with the rest being left behind either for other battalions, for the reserves, or to be discharged. As Major H.D. Myer claimed, the 38 th Battalion had already taken the cream off the rather poor milk that the British Isles had yielded from the residue of the Jewish Community. 412 Being the first battalion to form, the 38 th was able to not only take on transfers from other parts of the British Army, but it could be more selective with the initial pools of recruits. In fact, when the 38 th sailed from England, it left behind 400 derelicts that Patterson and his staff did not consider suitable for serious military service. 413 This process continued even after the battalions arrived in Palestine; in October 1918, 41 soldiers from the 40 th Battalion who had all previously served in the Russian or American Armies were ordered to join the 38 th at Kantara. 414 The most military capable Jews went to the 38 th battalion throughout The 39 th battalion also had a significant Anglo-Jewish population, but also included the first wave of American volunteers. The first two groups of American recruits roughly 350 men reached the 39 th in time to actively participate during the advances in Palestine, the only Americans to see front-line service with the Legion. 415 However, it seems that this first wave of American recruits were really recent Eastern European immigrants, most of whom only had brief residencies in North, Central, and South America. 416 They were the product of an aggressive recruiting campaign in the United States, and their early enlistment into a British, not American unit, tended to be proof of significant Zionist leanings. 417 But despite their postwar prominence, these men only compiled around one-third of the battalion s manpower. The rest appear to be drawn from very young English Jews ( A-4 men who could not be dispatched overseas until turning nineteen), British Jews who transferred in after the 38 th had reached strength, and conscripted Russian Jews who had not joined the 38 th. 418 The 40 th Battalion the least important from a military perspective was also the least British in composition. It had begun as a unit of mostly American recruits, but underwent a critical restructuring upon arrival in Egypt. 419 At the time, the 40 th consisted almost entirely of American and Canadian volunteers, with some British volunteers and conscripts. The Americans had come from Windsor in Canada, where they began very preliminary training, and were sent off from Halifax in waves (some after two weeks, others after two months) for the trip to Plymouth. 420 Upon arrival in Egypt in late August 1918, a radical reorientation of the 40 th s composition occurred, as it became the training unit for the new Palestinian recruits. The British 412 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, 98. Myer reveals, unwittingly, a classic Anglo-Jewish position as to the fighting viability of the battalions. 413 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, WO 95/4470, 40 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 1-4 October 24, JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, Watts, The Jewish Legion, 143, 155. See, for example, the motivations to serve in the US Army versus the Legion discussed in Naomi Sandweiss, The Great War s Jewish Soldiers, Tablet Magazine, November 9, Online: JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg It was officially mobilized from the reserve battalion for the Jewish regiments, the 42 nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers, at Plymouth on July 16, WO 95/4470, 40 th Btn Royal FusiliersWar Diary 1-4, July 16, 1918; August JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 100. See Ben Gurion Letters to Paula for an account of their time in Canada, including Ben Gurion s request for copies of the New York Times and other periodicals.

103 93 had begun recruiting Palestinian Jews in June 1918, picking up 457 recruits from Jaffa and 350 from Jerusalem in under a month. 421 Originally tacked on to the 39 th Battalion as the Palestinian Detachment, another 200 Egyptian recruits joined before it was integrated with the 40 th Battalion when the 39 th finished their training. 422 The 40 th Battalion, a unit full of Zionists, proudly adopted the identity of these men and pushed it to the fore of their own unit. The Palestinians, as they were known by the other Jewish units, were not all Palestinians. Some were Zionist settlers from various parts of Europe, others were Yemenite Jews, and others were prisoners of war from the Ottoman army. The differences in background are visible through physical appearance and dress in the below photo, which shows a collection of Palestinian recruits to the 40 th battalion: Figure 2.3 Recruits to the 40 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers in Kantara, Egypt are pictured in the top photo. The bottom picture shows the recruits one month later, training at Jaffa 423 These locally-recruited members of the Jewish units were afforded the same pay and proficiency bonuses as other members of the British infantry, although there were occasionally the same 421 H. Wolfensohn, The Palestinian Battalion, in British Jewry Book of Honour, ed. Michael Adler (London: Caxton Publishing Company, Ltd. 1922), Wolfensohn, The Palestinian Battalion, JML/ / I.p98. Online: [Accessed January 30, 2006].

104 94 delays and complications in processing that plagued the rest of the British military. 424 This, however, does not mean that all Palestinian or Egyptian recruits were treated the same by the British, particularly officers. The inclusion of Yemenites inside the British forces was a particular thorny issue; a Jewish battalion quartermaster complained that these natives were allowed the same access inside camp as British soldiers. 425 Captain Salaman despised the Yemenite Jews, even going to far as to say that they are not racially Jews, but rather, black, long-headed, hybrid Arabs. 426 Agronsky also complained about the thoroughly Egyptianized, Arab-ized Jews of Sephardic stock that were in the 40 th. 427 Thus, while the Zionists in the Legion wrote frequently about the Palestinian recruits, what they really meant were Jewish colonists from Eastern Europe inside Palestine before the war erupted. As Salaman himself finally admitted, the real Jew is the European Ashkenazi ; it was these that he thought should populate a Jewish homeland. 428 Opinions about Yemenite Jews inside the battalions accompanied debates about who were the most promising material for both fighting and settling Palestine. Patterson wished that the Americans and Zionists had arrived in time to fight, for he felt they were miles ahead, physically, of the men who joined the Battalion in England. 429 But others with less political interest in the American volunteers remembered them differently, as a queer, odd combination of every possible human type. There were writers, gangsters, clerks, wealthy businessmen, lawyers, poor shopworkers, physicians, artists, musicians, actors, prize fighters, teachers, farmers and even a well known trapeze artist They were not exactly an impressive lot, as physical standards go. There was among them many a pale Poale Zionist whom the medical board accepted only after he had tearfully pleaded that he would make the grade even though he was too short or too light to meet military requirements. 430 While there were disagreements over the Americans, there was less over the Palestinian Jews. The general Zionist opinion was that the Palestinian colonists in the 40 th represented the future, although this broader term contained several sub-groups that each had their proponents. Agronsky, for example, argued that the Palestinian contingent made up admittedly the finest and smartest Battalion in the Jewish Regiment, and among the best in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force. 431 Neither claim was true, but this hyperbole reflected the mindset that the Palestinian Jews should be the nucleus of the new Jewish state (and thus were propped up as superior to their Jewish peers). In contrast, he discussed the Jewish recruits from the upper Galilee, who he noted were fearless but had partly emaciated bodies; as a later chapter 424 WO 32/11353, War Office to GHQ Egypt, April 16, 1918, 110A, 114. For an in depth look at the delays in issuing war bonuses, see WO 33/960 and WO 33/ YIVO 15/9604. Henry Myer, A Brief Glance in a Spring Mirror, in Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion 1, no 5 (May 1976) p Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, July 28, 1918, pg 28. His italics. As with Major Myer s memoir, Salaman s work features reproduced correspondence, so I have cited both the date of the letter and the page number where the letter appears. This method, I feel, helps maintain an awareness of chronology. If the citation does not reflect a reproduced letter, I have merely included the page number from the memoir s text. 427 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, July 28, 1918, pg 28. The Russian East Enders, being ghettoized, did not count in this assessment. The assumption was that working the land of Palestine itself provided a transformative quality. 429 Patterson, With the Judeans, YIVO 15/9604. Joseph Brainin Remembers in Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion (Vol 1, No 5) May 1976 (Baltimore/Avichail) p 19. (Originally published in Young Israel Viewpoint in 1937). 431 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 106.

105 95 details, the natural solution to this would be the restorative properties of athletics an application of Nordau s Muskeljudentum. 432 Occasional disconnects between portions of the Palestinians in the 40 th and their American Zionist peers also affected the opinions offered on the former. Many of the Palestinian colonists lionized an ideology that focused on settling the land and speaking Hebrew that could conflict with other brands of Zionism. 433 Conflicts over language, in particular, created tension with the Americans, as well as disagreements in Zionist political philosophy (which was often wrapped up in debates over socialism). The distinctions between battalions are well-illustrated in the following juxtaposition of photographs. On the left, an NCO from the 39 th RF and his friend post for a common portrait. Wearing the cap badge of the Royal Fusiliers, there is no visual evidence that they might be part of the Jewish battalions (note the lack of Magen David on their sleeves). In contrast, the Zionist identity of those depicted on the right is clear; not only posed in front of a Jewish flag, a portrait of Theodore Herzl arms crossed as usual hangs behind them: Figure 2.4 Two members of the 39 th RF pose on the left, while a group from the 40 th pose on the right JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg Keren and Keren, We are Coming, JML/ p 74 Online: [Accessed January ]. One of the 39 th is a CSM.

106 96 The most important changes in terms of battalion composition took place inside the two service battalions, both of whose compositions diverged between wartime service in 1918 and the Armistice occupational activities of These formerly distinct units were finally compromised by a last wave of American volunteers that arrived in December men who were promptly split between the 38 th and 39 th battalions. 435 Patterson himself recalled the disconnect between what he termed the old boys of the 38 th and the new recruits from North America, noting that the former had fought during the September campaigns and were apt to rub this fact in pretty freely on every possible occasion. 436 Patterson claimed it was a friendly rivalry, but the ways in which the earlier troops divested the new recruits of the battalion s combat legacy suggests a certain territoriality of identity, regardless of a shared religion. Most of the final wave of American recruits were Zionists, while the older members of the 38 th wanted to return to their families across England. Gershon Agronsky noted that the mixing produced a considerable amount of irritation English youth could not understand the strange love for Palestine which was on the lips of very American and Americans could not sympathize with the cold indifference of the English boy toward their aspirations. 437 These ruptures were implicitly verified by a report of the Jewish Regiment Committee, which noted that one of its goals had been knitting together the English and American Jews a quiet confirmation that the two groups were disconnected. 438 Part of this may have taken place on the homefront; some American enlistees to the Legion who visited Whitechapel found themselves in brawls with English Jewish soldiers (and possibly with residents of Whitechapel still upset over the Legion conscription). 439 Perhaps the most striking element of the Jewish Legion s formation was that despite the fierce debate over the service of and military ability of Russian Jewish immigrants in Britain, only approximately 1500 served in the Jewish battalions. Some of these also never appear to have embarked for Palestine; Myer recalled several hundred left behind by the 38 th and 39 th. 440 While this number was a significant constituency inside the battalions, they were miniscule from the perspective of broader British war service. And as a percentage of serving men, they were less than half the level of Anglo-Jewry (there were between 25,000 to 30,000 Russian immigrants in England). 441 More critically, over 6000 Russian Jews chose to return to Russia under the terms of the 1917 Convention, and 2000 of those actually sailed. 442 Thus, the legal mechanisms designed to force enlistment into the Legion actually caused more Russian Jews to leave England than it sparked into joining the British Army. 435 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg Agronsky noted that these men pushed the total who had served in Palestine to near 6000, with a further 2000 technically part of the unit. 436 JI 27-1K. The Zionist Volunteers from America, by Lt Col JH Patterson, pg 84. Undated. 437 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 102. Agronsky noted on pg 124 that this trickled into other areas notably Anglo-Jewish NCO s who did not get along with American volunteers. 438 JI 21-1K, Report of the Jewish Regiment Committee, August 1919, pg Keren and Keren, We are Coming, IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, pg 98. Myer claimed there were 400, and it was unclear whether they were integrated into the 40 th. It seems that they were not considered capable (due to infirmity, mindset, discipline, or other reasons) of soldiering, so it was unlikely they sailed with the 40 th in August Englander, Documentary History, Englander, Documentary History, 314. Those that departed were denied readmission to England after the war. See Cesarani, The Transformation of Communal Authority in Anglo-Jewry, , 124.

107 97 Composition Part II: The Officers Yet another set of disjunctures are present in the officering of the three battalions in Palestine. Patterson was the figurative (and occasionally literal) commander of the Jewish Legion, although he usually was simply the Commanding Officer (C.O.) of the 38 th. Although Irish, Patterson was an increasingly active proponent of Zionism and an officer who men like Jabotinsky had the ear of but he commanded the 38 th, perhaps the least Zionist in composition of the three battalions. Although he was respected as a talented soldier, Patterson also had the peculiar distinction of not having served on the Western Front, a theater of war that many of the British Jews in the 38 th had already fought in. Whether this created any conflict over his command is not clear (his tactical abilities from the Boer War sufficed for the Palestine theater), and his command at Gallipoli provided him with the necessary credibility with the nearby ANZAC forces. The 39 th battalion, with its more diffuse mix of manpower, was probably the only battalion whose general composition matched its C.O., Lieutenant Colonel Eliazar Margolin. A Russian-born Jew, Margolin had attempted to settle in Ottoman Palestine when he was 17, before eventually moving on to Australia, where he became in officer in the army in He had fought with distinction in the Australian Imperial Force at Gallipoli and on the Western Front earlier in the war, and had been recuperating from a knee injury when he decided to take command of the 39 th. 443 Margolin was perhaps the ideal commander for the Jews he could converse with the Russian immigrants, bridge any gaps with other imperial units (particularly ANZACs), had an impressive and respected military pedigree, and was a committed Zionist. The 40 th battalion, however, epitomized the schisms inside the Jewish battalions. Despite its overwhelming core of American and Palestinian Zionists, the unit was commanded by Lt- Colonel Fred Samuel, a staunch member of assimilationist Anglo-Jewry. Samuel was not overly committed to Zionism or any orthodoxy of faith, and his second-in-command, Major Henry Myer, was cut from similar cloth. 444 The lack of pro-zionist leadership in the 40 th did not go unnoticed; Captain Salaman, an ardent Zionist, yet clear product of liberal Anglo-Jewish society, found it ridiculous (although ironic might be a better term) that several Anglo-Jewish officers in the 40 th battalion were, in his view, anti-zionist. 445 These types of officers, however, appear to have been reasonably prevalent across all three battalions. In the journal produced by Bet Hagdudim for the 50 th anniversary of the Legion s founding, Myer claimed that few Anglo-Jewish officers were Zionists. In his view, only around 15% of the total battalion officership was Zionist, and the rest were concerned to see that the British Battalions called Jewish were worthy of British Jewry. The reputations of Jewry, particularly Anglo-Jewry, and of the British Army were at stake. 446 A similar description of the battalion officers was attached to a short, unsigned biography of FD Samuel in language that clarified that while some were Zionists, the remainder were concerned about the battalion 443 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, 96; Suzanne Welborn, Margolin, Eliezer (Lazar), Australian Dictionary of Biography (Volume 10, , Lat-Ner), Bede Nairn & Geoffrey Serle general eds, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986) 408-9; For a full assessment, see Rodney Gouttman, An Anzac Zionist Hero: The Life of Lt-Colonel Eliazar Margolin (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006). 444 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, November 22, 1918, pg YIVO 85740, HD Myer Notes and Reminiscences Bet Hagdudim, Jubilee Souvenir Journal, 1967, pg 141. This was a remarkably unfiltered claim given the celebratory context of the publication and general postwar view of the battalions.

108 98 reputation implying that the two goals were incompatible. 447 In fact, an October 1917 letter from several prominent Anglo-Jewish officers used a similar concern to push for additional British officers, even, apparently, if they did not share Zionist politics. The three officers Captain Redcliffe Salaman, 2 nd Lt Horace Samuel, and 2 nd Lt Harold de Vahl Rubin argued that the Jewish battalions required more British Jewish officers, for the good name of Jews the world over is bound up with the fortune of this fighting Jewish unit and if it failed, the ignominy would fall on the whole of Jewry. 448 While couched in slightly more conciliatory terms than Myer s claim, the point was remarkably similar, despite the political leanings of men like Salaman. The motivation to serve as an officer out of concern over the reputation of British Jewry may have been a reflexive action for most commissioned British Jews, regardless of their disposition towards Zionism. The majority of the Jewish officers in the Jewish battalions were born into the upper, more acculturated classes of British society, while others were products of the Jewish Lads Brigade, which worked to anglicize Jewish immigrants to Britain. 449 As Patterson remarked about the battalions officers they were all 105% British. 450 Their heavy presence in the battalions was of particular significance given Jabotinsky s correspondence with the War Office on how to officer the then embryonic battalions. In June 1917, he had told Auckland Campbell-Geddes that alien Jews deeply resented British Jews who had forgotten their Jewishness in an attempt to become British and would prefer to serve under regular undiluted British officers than British Jewish officers as a result. 451 Further complicating the dynamic, there were some Christian officers and NCOs in the Jewish units, who though a significant minority, tended to put British and military concerns far before Jewish or Zionist ones. 452 Ultimately, with the exception of Jabotinsky (given an honorary commission as a lieutenant in the 38 th ) Margolin, and to an extent, Patterson and a few others like Salaman, the officer corps of the Jewish units represented the acculturated elements of Anglo-Jewry. Battalions conceived and birthed by militant Zionists were run, in large part, by assimilationists. The result was conflicts between officers and the Jewish political and community leaders that tended to serve as other ranks over who was actually in charge. Politically active Zionists inside the battalions were referred to as extremists who made demands that were utterly unreasonable given the context of the war and their enlistment. 453 One American volunteer remembered this very issue: 447 JI 13-1K. Handwritten Note, December 14, 1965, pg 2. The signature is illegible, but this very likely was authored by Myer, for it contains references only known to British officers, and Myer was Samuel s second-incommand. 448 JI 6-1K. Unaddressed Letter from Redcliffe Salaman, Horace Samuel, and de Vahl Rubin, October 22, 1917, pg Kadish, A Good Jew, 56. At least ten former lads died in combat, albeit not all of them officers or NCOs. 450 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, JI 6-1K. Typed War Office Minute Sheet, Signed Auckland Campbell Geddes, June 12, 1917, pg 37. Geddes wrote He told me further that if we want to succeed in raising Jews we must make it quite plain to them that we are not going to put those who join under the control of British Jews. Part of this may have been Jabotinsky jockeying for control of the recruiting process with more established Anglo-Jewish recruiting committees. 452 Patterson, With the Judeans, 23. This could create larger issues, for poor disciplinary decisions from non-jewish officers were considered by many to reflect engrained antisemitism. 453 JI 13-1K, Biography of Colonel FD Samuel, pg 6-7. Some of the more notable demands were the right to hold political meetings during times designated for parade and the use of the Zionist flag as the regimental colors. This biography appears to have been sent to Bet Hagudidm in 1965 (there is a handwritten note to Leon Cheifetz

109 99 The really good officers didn t want assignments with us because we were a very difficult bunch of people to deal with. We wouldn t necessarily listen to officers. We would have our meeting and we would make a motion and we would decide what we would do. This didn t go big with out British officers. They weren t used to it. They were used to giving a command and being obeyed. They weren t used to having soldiers listen first to Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi and then debate how the plan would affect the Zionist movement. 454 Although this account is couched in wry humor, it reveals some of the deeper disconnects between Zionists at the subaltern level inside the battalions, officers with Zionist tendencies (who naturally straddled the line with assimilation due to their social class and upbringing), and the rest of Anglo-Jewry. The military structure and composition of the battalions were certain to generate conflict, a problem that was exacerbated by the physical context of Palestine and the decisions of the EEF Command. Figure 2.5 The NCO s of the 38 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers 455 Despite these deep social and political disconnects, it is worth noting that the Jewish battalions had officers who reflected the distinct identity of the unit. Unlike the BWIR, which only had white officers for units expressly designed for non-white West Indians, the Jewish battalions had Jewish officers. And, even if they were a minority, the Jewish battalions had several Zionist officers, some of whom appear to have been able to promote a particular vision of the battalions role via the battalion newspaper, The Judean. In an article focused on tracing Jewish history via scientific race theories, Salaman argued that the Jew of Europe is racially the same as his forefather when he left Palestine and, in a more important put-down of attached), but the identity of the author is illegible although he appears to be a British Jew and an Officer. It seems likely to be Henry Myer. 454 AJHS I-429 Jewish Legion Veterans Newsletters The Youngest Soldier, by Elsa Solender in Baltimore Jewish Times, December 31, JML/ / I.p77 Online: [Accessed January 30, 2006]

110 100 assimilationist argument, claimed that the Jew may were a kilt, dance the horn pipe, play the bag pipes, even take of Burns and bonnie bairnes but he remains a Jew by reason of the blood that flows in his veins though he camouflage it never so skillfully. 456 Accompanying this article was one by Jabotinsky that laid out an array of arguments why the Jew was a separate nationality, providing a one-two punch of Zionist political thought. Importantly, Jabotinksy was careful to focus his argument on the Russian Empire, while Salaman never specifically mentioned Anglo-Jewry despite the marginally veiled Scottish references. Still, the prominence afforded to these two articles was testament to the presence of another political bloc of officers within the battalions. Departure, Training, and Deployment Almost six months since their initial formation, the first of the Jewish battalions departed England for the Palestine theater. The individual battalion departures were spaced out the result of bringing each unit up to strength and completing initial training and saw the final battalion to be dispatched, the 40 th, arriving in Palestine only a few weeks before the final EEF offensive. The 38 th battalion, being the first to form, was also the first to leave England. Despite the forcible way in which the first battalion had been assembled, the 38 th was given the opportunity to march through London in a highly celebratory fashion the day before departing. That this was not entirely practical the battalions had been preliminarily assembling near Plymouth, which is where they would depart from underscores the importance attached to publicly demonstrating the transformation of former shirkers into soldiers. Maurice Tal, the son of a battalion member, recalled the parade of Colonel Patterson s mob several decades later: I remember as they came by the old Aldgate Pump where I stood waving madly among the crowds, column after column, led by the Band of the Coldstream Guards and preceded by the blue and white banners with the Star of David and the Union Jack. In that cold, bright morning, I saw my father march by and company after company of Jewry s finest Shlomka the cokeman, Yosel the beigel-maker, Mendel the shicker, Hymie Big Nose the local bookie, just a few among the many tailors and pressers who, for the first time in their poverty-stricken lives, were set out on an enterprise in which they could take pride. 457 The youthful pride in his father was likely an authentic emotion for Tal, and while there was some pride amongst the 38 th as they marched out, there is no question that many were still poor immigrants who had essentially been dragooned into military service. Perhaps revealing the broader atmosphere, rumors spread that many had used the parade as an opportunity to desert. 458 More importantly, contemporary sources indicated that the Russian East Enders had required sympathetic treatment to smooth over initial difficulties. 459 The solution, to provide Russian comfort foods sausages, herring, chopped liver, cucumber, brown bread, and Russian tea was an indication that the mood of many of these men was significantly more sour than exuberant. 456 IWM MS/E/S, E.149. The Judean, pg YIVO 15/9604. Maurice Tal, A Son Remembers in Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion (Vol 1, No 5) May 1976 (Baltimore/Avichail) p Cesarani, An Embattled Minority 72; Martin Sugarman, The March of the 38 th Royal Fusiliers: When the Spirit of Judah Macabee Hovered over the Whitechapel Road (Western Front Association, 2009) Online: JI 21-1K, Canteen Committee, by Romana Goodman, in Report of the Jewish Regiment Committee, pg 12.

111 101 After the parade, the 38 th embarked at Plymouth on February 5, 1918 for the port of Cherbourg opposite the Channel, and then entrained to Taranto, Italy. From there, the Jewish troops boarded another ship for the journey across the Mediterranean. Over three weeks after their initial departure, they arrived at Alexandria in the afternoon of February 28, disembarking the next day. 460 Two months later in April, the 39 th would a similar route, traveling from Plymouth to Le Havre, and then via train to Marseilles where they boarded their ship to Alexandria. 461 After their arrival, the Jewish battalions were sent to Helmieh, outside Cairo, where they remained for several months in training and preparation for military service. The 38 th, weeks after its procession through Whitechapel, encountered a similar phenomenon as it passed through Egypt. Local Jews in Egypt gathered to cheer its arrival, first as it traveled through Alexandria, and again as it passed through Cairo one month later. 462 In some ways, these battalions were what many of the earlier refugees from Ottoman Palestine had envisioned the Zion Mule Corps to be, and the arrival of Jewish soldiers to help expel the Turks was certainly a symbolically significant contribution. The exact substance of the battalion training during the Spring of 1918 is not clear no record remains but it would likely have begun a program designed to develop it into a combat force. This would have included rifle and bayonet courses, as well as tactically-focused training like reconnaissance or artillery spotting. Figure 2.6 Soldiers from the 40 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers training in bayonet combat 463 It is worth nothing that the Jewish troops, just like the West Indians, also went through a period of hands-on training when they were attached to another unit. Unlike the BWIR battalions 460 WO 95/ th RF War Diary, February 5-March 1, WO 95/ th RF War Diary, April 13-27, This trip was over a week faster, probably due to embarkation in Southern France rather than Italy. 462 Gudrun Krämer, The Jews in Modern Egypt (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1989), pg 184. The citation to this is La Revue Sioniste form March 15 and April 5, which was before the 39 th had arrived. 463 JML/ / I. p 99 Online: [Accessed January 30, 2006]

112 102 which trained in a wide variety of military techniques with several different units the Jewish troops seem to have been routinely attached to the 101 st Grenadiers stationed at Umm Suffah for instruction in the line. 464 Each company of the 38 th rotated in for two days of training near the Turkish lines, with Patterson recalling that the purpose was to gain some knowledge of the country, and to learn the nature of duties to be carried out in the fighting zone. 465 Abraham Robinson, a Private in the 38 th, remembered being attached to the Tenth Division and coming under heavy shellfire experiencing an air raid, building gun emplacements, and going out on night patrols to test Turkish positions. 466 These duties were extremely similar to those the Jewish troops would perform in the front lines, so this type of training was of significant value in preparing them. There is no notation whether the 39 th were attached to a British unit in a similar fashion, although they were training under company arrangements in various weapons and tactics the last half of August, which probably involved interaction or hands-on attachment with a veteran unit. 467 The larger question, of course, was what role the Jewish troops would play militarily. Other minority units, like the West Indians, had been in the theater longer, and thus had opportunities to demonstrate their readiness for front-line combat. The Jewish troops, on the other hand, were a new unit, and although the 38 th had a significant number of veterans, there were strong prejudices throughout the British Army as to the martial worth of battalions that feature Russian Jewish immigrants. Allenby s opinions on the Jewish troops varied throughout their service often due to the Zionist component of the battalions and Allenby s desire to maintain peace in his newly occupied territories. Much ink has been spilled alleging Allenby s pro-arab, anti-jewish agenda, but regardless of their veracity, they hold no traction while Palestine was an active theater of operations. During the campaign, Allenby attempted to maximize the utility of the Jewish troops, just as he did his Indian, West Indian, African, and other minority units. The basic truth was that Allenby lacked the manpower to be prejudiced; he had to make use of what he was sent, even if he maintained preconceptions as to the inherent military value of different ethnicities and races. In July 1918, he attempted to combine the BWIR with the Jewish battalions for simple logistical reasons to concentrate sufficient troops in order to replace an ANZAC mounted division in the Jordan. 468 However, the order was halter after an intense and immediate backlash from the Jewish units, who saw this as an attempt to strip the units of their Jewish identity (there are also casual hints of anti-black prejudice in the units as well, specifically amongst some of the Americans). Allenby was, in fact, not as opposed to a larger Jewish fighting force as some might suppose. He informed the War Office in early August 1918 that the creation of a Jewish brigade was desirable politically and soon feasible. 469 But it was the War Office that shut this plan down, advising Allenby that unless he was certain of a local source of viable recruits, a complete Jewish Brigade was impossible from a reinforcements perspective. 470 How Allenby would have 464 WO 95/ th RF War Diary, June 17-23, A Company began on June 17, B Company on June 19, C Company, on June 21, and D Company on June Patterson, With the Judeans, Keren and Keren, We are Coming, 74. They note the division as the Tenth Irish Division. 467 WO 95/ th RF War Diary, August 19-31, The diary specifically mentions training in bombing, Lewis guns, and route marching. 468 WO 33/960 GHQ Egypt to War Office, No EA 1468, July 18, WO 33/960 GHQ Egypt to War Office, No. EA 1546, August 7, WO 33/960 War Office to GHQ Egypt, No , August 27, The War Office claimed that not more than two Jewish battalions could be maintained from potential reinforcements in England.

113 103 made use of a full Jewish brigade is unclear, as he does seem to have maintained some doubts as to their fighting efficacy. As if perhaps reassuring himself before placing them in the front line, Allenby inspected the 38 th on June 7 only several weeks after inspecting the Jewish battalions on May According to Patterson, he swung through the Jordan positions right before the September offensive and asked him if he could trust the men to fight. 472 Allenby s concerns were reasonable from a military point of view; the battalions were new and contained relatively raw Russian and American recruits. Skeptics might argue that Allenby willingly used raw Indian recruits after the Spring of 1918, and his concerns over Jewish troops reflected latent anti-jewish tendencies. While possible, Allenby had also expressed doubts over new Indian troops, and had put them through the same training processes as the new Jewish battalions. 473 Unlike the recently enlisted Indian recruits in Palestine, there were no veteran British battalions attached to the Jewish troops which the British felt bolstered both fighting efficacy and the nerves of the Indians and this was probably of concern to Allenby and his staff. In fact, when EEF units were consolidating into an Army of Occupation, he kept the Jewish troops on the Lines of Communication instead of integrating it with Indian infantry, arguing: In my opinion, 38 th Bn. Royal Fusiliers is not suited to represent British troops in an Indian brigade as it is not sufficiently smart or efficient to uphold in the eyes of Indian battalions the credit of the British infantry. 474 This, however, turned out to be less proof of engrained anti-jewish prejudice, but rather of Allenby s flexible assessments. Roughly one year later, he had changed his attitude, noting that the 38 th is now composed of promising material and is likely to become an efficient unit with further training from a military point of view. 475 Allenby s issues with the Jewish troops during the Megiddo campaign stemmed not from their Jewish identity, but from their general rawness and his desire to have as many veteran, British units as possible. Jews at War Of the three Jewish battalions, the 38 th and 39 th saw front-line combat, but it was only the former who spent a significant portion of time in the lines. Some of this was due to the timing of the battalions arrival the 38 th had arrived in Egypt on March 1, while the 39 th had arrived at the end of April. The result was that the 38 th entered the front-lines at the end of June 1918, while the 39 th did not join them until September 15 just a few days before the start of the British offensive. Since the 40 th battalion did not arrive in Egypt until near the end of August, it saw no front line service. In fact, its only major pre-armistice contribution was when it guarded 471 WO 95/ th RF War Diary, May 15 and June 7, Patterson, With the Judeans, Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, 127, WO 33/960 GHQ Egypt to War Office, No EA 2185, Feb 4, For the integration of British troops into larger Indian units post-armistice, see in the same file Telegram No EA 2261 of Feb 28, WO 33/981 GHQ Egypt to War Office, MFA 516, Feb 16, However, Allenby felt that Jewish troops represented a serious political timebomb if used at all in Palestine or Egypt, and given their reluctance to serve elsewhere, they would need to be demobilized.

114 104 some of the vast quantities of Turkish prisoners of war in early October In view of these individual battalion experiences, it seems inappropriate to reference the contributions of a Jewish Legion when more than a third of its supposed constituents never saw combat, and another third only fought for an extremely short period of time. While it is difficult to question the willingness of those who did not serve, the historical reality was that it was primarily the unit composed of Anglo-Jewry and unwilling immigrants not the volunteer Zionists who provided the Jewish contribution to Britain s victory. As Gershon Agronsky noted in 1919, the Zionists in the 40 th could only read about the efforts of the English Jews a vicarious way of fighting for one s country. 477 The 38 th entered the front-lines on June 27 th to support the 31 st Infantry Brigade, taking over a nearly four mile stretch of front opposite the Turkish positions. Their position was roughly twenty miles north of Jerusalem along the Jerusalem-Nablus road (near the villages of Jiljilia and Abwein), essentially right in the center of the EEF s lines. 478 There were few active operations during this period, and the Jewish role mostly revolved around the frequent use of patrols to press against Turkish positions and sometimes engage them. The standard for patrols seems to have been the departure of two units, each from a separate company, following dinner (between 7:45-9pm) for 5.5 hours worth of reconnoitering of predetermined sectors. 479 As a general rule, patrols usually contained one officer and seven other soldiers, but during periods of anticipated resistance, patrols would double in size and take along a Lewis Gun as added firepower. 480 These patrols often drew fire from Turkish positions, and on several occasions there were significant firefights. After this assignment, the Jewish battalions, like the West Indians, were sent to the Jordan River Valley to be part of Chaytor s Force, holding the farthest eastern position of the EEF line. The reason for this is unclear, but it was probably a rebalancing of forces Allenby was pulling veteran mounted troops out of the Jordan into the coastal areas to the west, where they could play a more prominent role in the attack. Much anger was vented, primarily after the war, over the Jew s stationing in the Jordan River Valley. Some felt that they had occupied the most dangerous sector in the Jordan Valley in order to be annihilated by the Turkish attack in the East, and thus permit the British advance. 481 While the discomfort of the Jordan Valley was undeniable, the strategic assumptions of deliberate Jewish decimation were far from true; Allenby would never risk his flank, no matter how much he might dislike a particular unit. Others alleged that no other European troops ever went to the Jordan Valley a rather convenient oversight of the role played by London Territorials and others during the Spring raids across the Jordan, to say nothing of the large contingent of ANZACs in Chaytor s Force, who 476 WO 95/4470, 40 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 1-4, October 2, Some American volunteers did not even land in England until after the Megiddo offensive was well under way. See YIVO Joshua Joseph Davidson Papers, RG 1530, Davidson Diary Sept 17-26, JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 107. Agronsky s tone is embittered here, for he notes that the English Jews did not want to participate, but did, while the American and Palestinian Jews who wanted to fight, did not. This, of course, is because the latter were simply not trained enough a product of their later enlistment. 478 Patterson, With the Judeans, See also WO 161/81 for maps notating these villages and position. 479 WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 5, July 3-4, IWM P346, Papers of Nathan Dansky, Order of June WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 5, July 3-4, British Library, Address of Dr. Hirsch L. Gordon, 25 th Anniversary Reunion, March 2, Gordon served in the 39 th.

115 105 were considered European by the various racial standards of the British. 482 While there was no question that the Jordan Valley could be an extremely uncomfortable locale, it was at its worst in July (before the Jewish troops arrived), and varied in climate and comfort rather substantially. Salaman wrote home that while the heat is very great there is a bit of fresh breeze [and at the Wadi Aujah] the mosquito has been overcome. 483 Several days later, he unwittingly illustrated the climactic diversity of the valley when he detailed the position of each company of the 39 th. One company was along the river bank encamped in dense foliage; two other companies were at the Wadi Aujah tucked away in great gaps along the canyon wall with access to a delightful fresh stream ; the final company, located nearest the 38 th battalion, had a miserable position amidst complete and ghastly desolation there is no shade and the heat is intense. 484 The differences illustrate that some experiences in the Ghor were substantially more tolerable, and also that not all Jews (as is sometimes depicted) were dispatched into the intolerable wasteland portion of the valley. Figure 2.7 The positioning of Chaytor s Force as of Sept 18, The battalions are labeled as Jewish Troops 485 The temptation for many historians especially when discussing secondary theaters has been to overlook the dangers of day-to-day duty at the front lines. Like the rest of Chaytor s Force, the 38 th s primary role before September 1918 was to take part in the detailed ruse 482 Interestingly, given his earlier letters, Salaman himself claimed we were the only white infantry in the Valley. See his letter of October 28, 1918 in Palestine Reclaimed, 99. The reality was that there was very little white infantry left in Allenby s forces by September Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, September 17, 1918, pg 69. A letter five days later again called attention to the heat, but noted that at night it is really very beautiful. 484 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, September 22, 1918, pg WO 161/81 pg 104. Author s Photograph.

116 106 designed to trick the Ottoman forces into thinking that a major British attack would come in the Jordan Valley. However, as the record of the Jewish battalions show, these periods between offensives were still extremely dangerous. Throughout their three months in the line, the 38 th was shelled relatively frequently, although casualties were slight. 486 During August and September, the Turks frequently fired both 75mm and 77mm shells, both high explosive and shrapnel, one night dropping 150 shells on the 38 th s position. 487 One particularly disliked piece of enemy artillery was a massive naval cannon, nicknamed Jericho Jane because it had enough range to consistently hit Jericho, and manned by an Austrian gun crew. 488 Similarly light casualties from shelling in the rest of Chaytor s force imply that either Turkish and German artillery was badly inaccurate (a possibility), or that the troops were in defensive positions that offered strong cover. Another regular danger for the 38 th was Turkish sniper fire, which the 38 th made a concerted effort to halt by killing the Turkish snipers. Patterson used patrols to discover the location of Turkish snipers, and then placed his own snipers in a position to respond, or as he called it, counter-snipe. 489 These operations killed several Turkish snipers, but were dangerous, and at least one Jew died during a counter-sniping operation (on Yom Kippur, no less). 490 One significant encounter took place on August 28 th, when a seven man patrol encountered a fifty man Turkish outpost (presumably in a Turkish salient). Some of the Jewish troops (particularly those of the Zion Mule Corp) spoke some Turkish, and on this occasion, one from the Caucasus used his linguistic abilities to trick the sentry under the cover of night. 491 The soldier, Private R Sepiashvili, approached the sentry while uttering a bit of Turkish, and then quickly disarmed and captured him. The commotion alerted the nearby Ottoman troops, who opened fire on the patrol and hit two members. One of the wounded was dragged back to British lines by Private SC Gordon along with the captured Turkish sergeant, but the Jews could not recover the other. After returning to the lines, seven additional men volunteered to recover the wounded soldier and returned to the outpost, where they killed six Turks during another heavy firefight. However, they were unable to recover the wounded soldier, who presumably had been taken prisoner by the Turks, and ultimately withdrew. In response to the second attack, Turkish artillery shelled the 38 th s positions throughout the night. 492 While small in scope, incidents like these demonstrate that war did not only occur during major offensives. This particular incident was a reminder to the Jewish troops of the seriousness of war not only had one of the 38 th s men been captured, but the wounded soldier carried back to the lines Private Mark died of his injuries. The presence of Mark, who had fought in France, and Sepiashvili, a Jew from the Caucasus, in the same patrol revealed the uniqueness of the Jewish battalions composition (while also demonstrating the presence of veterans inside the 38 th ). Importantly, the action revealed to the British command that the Jewish troops were capable of extreme bravery Sepiashvili s bold approach to the sentry, as well as the willingness of the second group to retrieve their comrade. Such courage could go a long way in refuting stereotypes 486 WO 95/ th RF War Diary July 13, 14, 23 and August WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers War Diary 7, September 1, Hamilton, Guns, God, 179; Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, October 21, 1918, pg The Ottoman forces maintained another piece of heavy artillery nearby, nicknamed Nimrin Nelly by the EEF troops. 489 WO 95/4456m 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 6, August 24-25, Patterson, With the Judeans, Patterson, With the Judeans, Watts, The Jewish Legion, 189. The action took place at 10:15pm. The soldier who died in this encounter, Private Mark, had fought in France. Thus the encounter reveals the very distinct composition of the 38 th. 492 WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 6, August 28, 1918.

117 107 about Jewish men, and it is worth nothing that both Sepiashvili and Gordon were awarded the military medal by the British command. 493 Jewish bravery was not ignored. When Allenby s offensive began in the coastal plain, the Jewish troops mostly held their positions along with the rest of Chaytor s force. Patterson had sent out a steady stream of stronger patrols (at least twice as large and equipped with heavier weaponry, presumably Lewis Guns), which fought a series of actions with the Turkish rearguard, but for the most part the Jewish troops simply held their line. 494 After three days of British success in the west, Chaytor employed his force of mounted ANZACs and Indian, West Indian, and Jewish infantry to help block an organized Turkish retreat. This strategy involved seizing the bridges across the Jordan at Jisr ed Damieh (the task completed by the BWIR and described in the previous chapter), as well as the centuries-old crossing at Umm Esh Shert. Located about fourteen miles north of the Dead Sea and eight miles northwest of Jericho, Umm Esh Shert was the only path across the Jordan in the sector, and securing it would secure Chaytor s ability to push towards Amman and the Hejaz Railway. 495 Although it seemed an accomplishable task, veteran EEF forces had failed to take the crossing on their last attempt in April The 38 th were ordered to seize the crossing, with the 39 th taking over the 38 th s former positions during the attack. At 5am on the morning of September 22, the 38 th attacked the Turkish defensive outposts on the Western bank of the ford. By 8:30 that morning, a company led in part by Jabotinsky had seized the crossing and dug in, consolidating the position. 497 Hours later, the West Indians successfully charged across the bridge at Jisr ed Damieh, and Chaytor s forces had now secured the two primary crossings across the Jordan in their area. In both cases, infantry from minority units had been the primary actors, and their success had sprung mounted ANZAC s across the Jordan and deep into Ottoman territory. ANZAC mounted troops moved quickly across the bridge one regiment crossed right after the ford s seizure, and an entire brigade crossed four hours later while the 38 th regrouped. 498 Pausing for one day to consolidate with the 39 th, both battalions set out for Es Salt, although the 38 th stopped en route to consolidate and garrison a different position. As was the case with the West Indian infantry, the mounted element of Chaytor s force had moved so quickly and effectively that the infantry could not keep pace, nor was there any serious fighting left to do after crossing the Jordan. 499 Right after the initial capture of the ford, however, a rather remarkable encounter unfolded. Lieutenant HB Cross a Jewish officer inside the 38 th had gone missing believed killed after being ordered to cross the Jordan and occupy abandoned Turkish trenches. 500 According to Cross, he and another soldier (Private S. Mildemer) had gone ahead to scout the area, when they unintentionally walked into a Turkish ambush probably a rear-guard 493 WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 7, September 2, WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 7, September 21, Hamilton, Guns, God, 177. Hughes, Allenby and British Strategy, 72. The map on page 72 of Hughes provided the basis for this geographic situating. 496 Watts, The Jewish Legion, WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 7, September 22, 1918; WO 32/5128 Despatch describing operations of the EEF from 9/19/ /26/1918, Allenby to War Office, 10/31/1918; Hamilton, Guns, God, WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 7, September 22, Part of the problem appears to have been the accidental disappearance of some of the 38 th s transport wagons, which prevented them from keeping pace with the mounted divisions. 500 WO 95/ th RF War Diary, September 22, 1918.

118 108 formation. 501 Machine-gun fire wounded Cross in the arm and killed his companion, and he was taken prisoner. Moved frequently by his captors, Cross eventually ended up in Damascus, where he was finally rescued by the Australian Light Horse. 502 The 39 th were the most junior component of Chaytor s force, and thus performed a far less adventurous set of duties. As the offensive accelerated, they trailed behind the 38 th taking over the latter s defensive positions on September 22, and then heading for Es Salt on the 25 th to act as a rearguard for the mounted ANZACs. There they took over positions held by Indian infantry and helped secure the general area, bury the dead, and collect the thousands of Ottoman prisoners that the various parts of Chaytor s force had disarmed over the previous few days. The 39 th left Es Salt at the start of October, and spent the rest of the month grappling with the effects of malaria, but also escorting and guarding thousands of Ottoman POW s across (now) British Palestine. 503 As William Braiterman recalled years later, What we did was mop up. The Cavalry group from New Zealand and Australia had gone two days ahead of us. When we got to the enemy, they were so glad to be captured that they helped us gather up the guns and game them to us. There was no actual fighting. 504 This may have been beneficial from the perspective of Anglo-Jewry, as the relatively raw 39 th appear to have been quite edgy during the offensive. A New Zealand trooper recalled that companies of the Jewish troops had taken parallel tracks while marching into Ottoman territory, and had mistakenly opened fire on each other before retreating into a disorganised rabble back in the valley. 505 There has been some historiographical debate over the role played by Jewish troops during the final offensive. One older camp generally Zionist has argued that the Jewish troops were primary actors in Allenby s campaign. Ismar Elbogen, for example, has written that the Jewish Legion suffered in a sizzling inferno under the constant fire of Turkish snipers before triumphantly fording the Jordan and defeating the Turkish army of Transjordania. 506 These attitudes helped reinforce perceived biblical parallels with Jewish actions, like those of Rufus Learsi, who argued that Umm Esh Shert was the very spot on the Jordan where Joshua crossed. 507 In contrast have been more recent historians, who have argued, as Naomi Shepherd has, that Jewish units merely played a symbolic role, or who have simply ignored the presence and role played by minority infantry, as in the case of Anthony Bruce. 508 The truth lies between 501 YIVO 85740, Reprinted Letter of Captain HB Cross, October 9, 1918, Bet Hagdudim, Jubilee Souvenir Journal, 1967, pg 133. In his letter, Cross quite readily admitted that he had seen the Turkish forces, but had mistaken them for EEF troops. According to Patterson, the other soldier was Private Mildener. See pg YIVO 85740, Reprinted Letter of Captain HB Cross, October 9, 1918, Bet Hagdudim, Jubilee Souvenir Journal, 1967, pg Cross, at one point, notes that he encountered several other prisoners including 6 from my battalion who had been captured during September. However, he split from these men in order to get himself transferred to a better car during the train ride to Damascus hardly a reflection of unit solidarity. 503 WO 95/ th RF War Diary, September & October, The remaining healthy Jewish troops from the 38 th performed similar duties, escorting Turkish POW s to Ludd. See WO 95/ th RF War Diary, Oct 1-11, AJHS I-429 Jewish Legion Veterans Newsletters The Youngest Soldier, by Elsa Solender in Baltimore Jewish Times, December 31, Kinloch, Devils on Horses, 395 ff36. The trooper did not clarify the battalion, but it was almost certainly the 39 th. 506 Elbogen, A Century of Jewish Life, Rufus Learsi, The Jew in Battle (New York: The American Zionist Youth Commission, 1944), 30. Given that the Biblical passage states that Joshua crossed opposite Jericho, it seems more likely that the ford at Ghoranijeh was the point of crossing. Regardless, it is extremely difficult to pinpoint such a biblical crossing with the certainty of accuracy that Learsi s statement implies. 508 Shepherd, 26. Anthony Bruce, The Last Crusade: The Palestine Campaign in the First World War (London: John Murray, 2002), 236.

119 109 these versions one of the Jewish battalions played a small, but significant role in the last months of the war. Of the two Jewish battalions at the front, the 38 th was likely the superior unit for several reasons. It had been in the Jordan Valley for nearly two months longer than the 39 th, and was thus more familiar with the environment and opposition. More crucially, it had the largest veteran presence inside the Jewish battalions many of its members had seen combat at either Gallipoli or on the Western Front, and this surely must have translated into a more effective military performance. Finally, because of these two factors, it was entrusted with a more substantial role during the offensive, which yielded greater opportunities for bravery and thus reinforced prior opinions. For their service during the offensive, the 38 th received one Distinguished Service Order, five Military Crosses, one Distinguished Conduct Medal and four Military Medals, as well as 8 mentions in dispatches, indicating that they played much more than a symbolic role, and also that, from a military perspective, they performed it well. 509 Other decorations had been awarded to members of the 38 th before the offensive, bringing their total medal count to thirteen, and eight dispatch mentions. Importantly, these awards had not simply gone to British officers, but been relatively evenly split across the commission line (nine awards to officers, and twelve to subalterns six of whom were privates). Given the short amount of time the 38 th spent in the front lines, its medal count does not seem to support the idea that the Jewish troops were unappreciated for their service. However, there is no record of the 39 th winning medals during the September offensive, which may have been the result of their minimal role. There are indications that the Jewish troops fondly appropriated both nicknames (Jewsiliers and Jordan Highlanders), as they were referenced positively in reminiscing messages. 510 Part of this may have developed as a result of the affection between the Jewish troops and ANZACs. While on duties during the Armistice period, Patterson remembered the joyful feelings when the Jewish battalions were reunited with their old friends in the ANZACs, spending much time in various sporting competitions with them. 511 Earlier, he had discussed the feeling of real comradeship for every officer and man between the Jews an Anzac mounted troops. 512 Things, of course, did not always go smoothly with their neighbors in the Jordan Valley. Some Australians became angry when they felt that the Jewish troops were polluting their drinking water, presumably dumping waste into streams that moved through Australian encampments. 513 Jewish Identity One of the more striking aspects of the Jewish participation in the EEF Megiddo Offensive was its timing the Jewish High Holidays fell shortly before it began, and two of the Jewish battalions were engaged in military activities during this period. The other, the 40 th, was 509 WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn. Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 8, October 8 and 19, 1918; Watts, The Jewish Legion, 198. Military Medals went to Lance Corporal M. Elfman, Lance Corporal M. Bloom, and Private Angel. The Military Cross winners were officers. 510 YIVO 85740, He Remembers the Jewsiliers Bet Hagdudim, Jubilee Souvenir Journal, 1967, pg Patterson, With the Judeans, Patterson, With the Judeans, WO 154/164. War Diary of DAPM Anzac Mounted Division, Sept 15, 1918.

120 110 far from the front lines, and enjoyed a deeply significant celebration that, for many, took place more closely to their Jewish ancestral home than ever before. Safely away from the combat of active service, the 40 th Battalion celebrated Yom Kippur in 1918 under the stars on the sands of the Desert in a solemn and quiet ceremony. 514 This spiritually contemplative peace could not be more different than the Yom Kippur of the 39 th Battalion, which was ordered to the front on Yom Kippur eve. Under constant Turkish fire, the unit marched towards the front all night, with the occasional utterance of individual prayer. 515 Upon its arrival, the 39 th was shelled by the Turks for the next 24 hours, creating an all too discomforting atmosphere in which to consider the Book of Life. Incidentally, the 39 th often celebrated Jewish holidays in distinct circumstances; it celebrated Passover in 1919 next to Indian infantry from the 3 rd Lahore Division. 516 However, the 39 th s late entry to the front lines meant that it had been able to celebrate Rosh Hashannah on September 7 and 8. These days were marked as Battalion Holidays, and maneuvers and training ceased. 517 In contrast, the 38 th was in the line, and one solider was missing, presumed killed, on September 7, and another solider was killed on September 8. In addition, the usual detail of patrols from the battalion went out at night on both the 6 th, 7 th, and 8 th, and although they both reported no unusual enemy activity, the continued upkeep of standard, military practice indicates that if there were High Holiday Services, they were held within the confines of military service at the Front lines. 518 Nothing changed on Yom Kippur for the 38 th ; it had its regular details of soldiers in the front lines, and after one soldier died in a counter-sniping operation, his wife believed that the War Office telegram was a clerical error, arguing that no Jew could possibly be fighting on the Day of Atonement. 519 Additionally, the 38 th was frequently involved in combat operations on the Sabbath when the British Command would have had a hard time arguing military exigency, whereas the 39 th only seems to have fought on the Sabbath in times of true military necessity, namely Allenby s September offensive. The Jews of the 38 th battalion, in essence, fought every day that they were ordered to, regardless of religious beliefs. However, while differences abound between the 38 th and 39 th, they still had more common ground in religious experience then did they did with the 40 th, which celebrated Succoth with fun and games while the holiday [passed] unnoticed in the 38 th and 39 th, both of which were in the front line. 520 Once combat ended, the 38 th and 39 th were able to actually celebrate important holy days, including the Sabbath. The provision of Saturday as a day of rest for soldiers in the Jewish units was easily obtained, since it was a simple matter 514 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, September 15, 1918, pg Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, September 17, 1918, pg WO 95/ th RF War Diary, April 14, WO 95/4456, 39 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 6, September 7-8, The notation of Sept 7-8 as the Jewish New Year in the 39 th War Diary is odd, as it appears that Sept 6 th was Rosh Hashanah eve. 518 WO 95/4456, 38 th Btn Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 7, September 7-8, Patterson, With the Judeans, Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, September 22, 1918, pg 72. An odd confluence of British tradition and Jewish religion existed in the British Prayer Book for Jewish Soldiers and Sailors, compiled by the famed Rev. Michael Adler, and carried by the majority of Jewish soldiers. The book seems a standard Jewish prayer book, reading from right to left, back to front, with Hebrew script on the right page and the English translation on the left page. The prayers are also relatively standard Sabbath prayers, the mourner s Kaddish, prayers for meals, prayers for the sick and wounded with the exception of the inclusion of the British national anthem! While military action often precluded the ability of the 38 th (and 39 th, at times) to hold organized services, the possession of the prayer book allowed them to worship individually or in small groups.

121 111 of substitution; when no military exigencies existed, British soldiers normally received Sunday as a day of rest. 521 In addition to the practical exigencies of military service, the varied ethnic and national composition of the Jewish battalions ensured that while they maintained a common religious faith, the members of the Legion differed in how they practiced that faith, and consequently, to what extent it defined their identity. These distinctions became readily apparent in the divergences between the theoretical Jewish Legion and the actual Jewish battalions especially in matters of language and food. In Palestine and Egypt, the Jewish units rarely kept kosher, but did attempt to observe certain culinary restrictions on holy days like Passover. In the front lines, the Jewish units lacked the ability to maintain kosher, and instead consumed the same bully-beef and same emergency biscuit rations as every other British unit. 522 One soldier recalled that their dominant meals were oatmeal porridge and strong tea, with a weekly half-pint of rum although there are indications that many of the Jews drank alcohol sparingly. 523 There were some outliers to this, mainly a few Yemenites in the 40 th who steadfastly adhered to Jewish dietary laws, and thus received double rations of bread and cheese. 524 The posting of the 40 th in the reserve lines, however, made it logistically much simpler for them to observe dietary laws whereas transport and supply issues made it exceedingly difficult for the Jewish units in forward positions. In general, there seems to have been little outcry over the issue substantially less, at any rate, than the issue of languages of command. This may, in part, be the result of many members of the Legion either not keeping kosher normally, or shelving these beliefs for the duration of the conflict. As one British Jew ruminated albeit many decades after the war s conclusion you can t afford to be so strict when there s a war on. 525 This seems to have been a widely-accepted attitude amongst the soldiers who would normally have kept kosher. The dietary divergence from Jewish law, however, did anger many of the Rabbis attached to the Jewish battalions. The senior Jewish Chaplain for the 40 th Battalion, Simon Grajevsky, threw a minor fit that the soldiers ate meat not killed in the method laid down by Mosaic law. 526 Citing the ability of Indian units to observe dietary restrictions, they made the unintentionally humorous mistake of demanding live cattle as is done in the Indian army. 527 The major difference, however, was that the supply chain for the Indian army was broad and relatively well-constructed, while the Jewish battalions by virtue of being British Army units, were simply part of the preexisting logistical chains of the rest of the EEF. Grajevsky and other rabbis were rebuffed due to a stated lack of available slaughterhouses and appropriate animals, and the Jewish troops continued to eat as British troops. The one noticeable distinction was on Jewish holy days, when members of the battalion attempted to eat within religious boundaries if time and appropriate supplies were available. 521 WO 32/ B.B. Cubitt, War Office to Commander in Chief, Southern Command, Sept 14, Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, October 21, 1918, pg AJHS I-429 I remember The Jewish Legion of World War I, by William Braiterman. The Sun Magazine, April 23, Both Myer and Patterson noted in their memoirs how sparingly most Jewish officers and ranks drank. 524 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, p IWM Interview with Jacob Plotzker. 526 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, September 25, 1918, pg YIVO Republished Letter, Executive Committee of Rabbis to EEF GHQ, Bet Hagdudim, Jubilee Souvenir Journal, 1967, pg 17. They also wanted kosher kitchens in Jewish camps. Part of their request stemmed from the precedent created when the North American recruits gathered in Canada, where they received meat from a shochet.

122 112 Major Myer, in a letter to his wife, discussed in detail the process by which his men prepared for Passover in 1919 and how special exceptions existed when feasible. The Town Commandment issued the unit a detached baking oven, the supply officer substituted unmilled corn for the unit s normal bread ration, and then the Yemenite Jews in the battalion made the matzah, and also kept it separated from any leavened bread. 528 Other, less Talmudic, holidays were also celebrated with distinct food. In a supreme irony for it was only a few months after the Rabbi s outburst over kashruth the 39 th battalion enjoyed an immense Christmas dinner complete with turkeys, pudding, and a large amount of wine. 529 Outside of food, the other significant reflection of Jewish identity in the battalions was that of language. English, unsurprisingly, was the language of command, reflecting the battalions official status as British Army troops. However, both Hebrew and Yiddish had significant presences across the Legion, but their specific use reflected the divided identity of the broader Jewish force In the 38 th and 39 th, the large number of British Jews and Anglo-Jewish officers ensured that English was the official and unofficial language of command. It was also the general language of battalion discourse for example, the battalion newspaper of the 39 th, The Judean, was printed in English. Beneath the surface, however, Yiddish was used, especially amongst the Russian Jews and other non-native English speakers. Some NCO s that transferred from France into the Jewish units were considered especially useful because they could speak or, at least, understand Yiddish, and thus improve communication between the ranks and officers. 530 The use of Yiddish could, unintentionally, create problems. One British recruit was ordered to cease fire, but he continued shooting cease was phonetically close to oysshisn (pronounced with a sheesh ), which meant fire or shoot in Yiddish. 531 Whereas Yiddish appeared to be the language of communication at lower levels in the 38 th, it had a higher profile in the 39 th Battalion. This was, in part, due to the marginal English spoken by its commander, Margolin, who preferred to converse with other officers (like Salaman) in Yiddish when possible. 532 Interestingly, it is worth noting that men like Margolin, Salaman, and even Patterson, who supported the broader political aims of the battalions, could not communicate in its supposedly desired language Hebrew. Only in the 40 th, with its large proportions of active Zionists and Palestinian Jews, did Hebrew play much role in day-to-day life. British officers joked that the real site of the Tower of Babel was Tel-el-Kebir, the encampment site for the 40 th Battalion and its ever-changing roster of Russian, American, Palestinian, Egyptian, and British soldiers. 533 Here, the issue of Hebrew as an official language of command fluctuated frequently inside the unit, and caused some unit disharmony. The Palestinian contingent demanded to be commanded in Hebrew, and 528 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, March 17, 1919, pg Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, December 26, 1918, pg IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, 98. There were certainly many Yiddish-speaking recruits to the 38 th battalions. Significant language problems during the recruitment phase persisted in cities outside London, mostly due to a lack of Yiddish and Russian translators to assist in questioning and medical evaluation. Complaints were noted in September 1917 from Liverpool and Leeds, and there appear to have also been issues in Glasgow and Manchester. See NATS 1/917 Jewish War Services Comm 531 AJHS I-429. Maurice Bleifeld, The Historic March of the Jewish Legion, in The American Zionist, June 1978, pp 26. Whether this story is a humorous myth, loosely factual, or true, is unclear. 532 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, November 3, 1918, pg IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, September 18, 1918, pg 121. At one point, the EEF forcibly discharged 250 men originally recruited for the 40 th Battalion into labor battalions because they spoke too many different languages for any type of clear command structure to be imposed. See WO 33/960. General Officer, C.inC, Egypt to War Office, No. EA 1917, 11/20/1918.

123 113 also produced some Hebrew-only social events, which caused tension with other non-hebrewspeaking subalterns who felt deliberately excluded. Major Myer, as assimilated a British Jew as possible, wrote to his wife that he wanted to learn Hebrew because he was curious to know what is taking place among the men, and without relying on a translator. 534 Myer s attempt was emulated throughout the 40 th after the fighting was over; those who did not speak Hebrew took Hebrew lessons, while the Palestinian contingent learned English. 535 However, this was still a British unit, and battalion orders were given in English, with some official Hebrew use on the Sabbath. 536 By March 1919, however, it appears that there was an attempt to provide battalion orders in both English and Hebrew. 537 This may have been an issue of utility; lower ranking officers in the 40 th, when relaying messages to their units, had already been translating orders to make sure they were understood correctly by their men. 538 However, a booklet of Hebrew Words of Command for officers in the battalions provided English commands, the transliterated Hebrew version, and the regular Hebrew script, but focused entirely on ceremonial and parade ground orders. 539 Thus, Hebrew was never a true language of command inside the Jewish units. However, the debate in the 40 th over its use further reflected that the Palestinian contingent represented the symbolic goals of the Zionist movement. An Imperial Identity? The broader context of these issues, however, was a British takeover of Ottoman Palestine, and the establishment of an imperial mandate. How then, did members of the Jewish battalions visualize their place in the postwar landscape would they be a loyal British dominion, or in a holding pattern awaiting an independent Jewish homeland? Much of this is complicated by the events of the Mandate, which changed Zionist perceptions of British intentions and significantly altered the wartime narrative. However, the scant remaining material from closer to the war that addresses this issue reveals that for Anglo-Jewry inside the unit, the answer was relatively clear; a Jewish Palestine would exist under the aegis of the British Empire. With the formation of the Zion Mule Corps earlier, the Jewish Chronicle asserted that all Jews fought for love of Britain and that the Corps creation demonstrated England s superiority over other nations. 540 This was clearly debatable the Chronicle clearly sought to promote a particularly positive view, and it seems more likely that muleteers fought for England as revenge for their expulsion from Ottoman Palestine rather than due to any loyalty to England. After the war, the JRC made a point in its second report in referencing the pride of Jews of the British 534 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, October 21, 1918, pg JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 116. Myer also noted that, the only difficulty in training them is that of language. However, most of their officers have quite a fair knowledge of Hebrew and the men are beginning to learn English. IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, September 21, 1918, pg Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, November 22, 1918, pg IWM P346, Nathan Dansky Papers, Signal of 6/20/1918; British Jewry Book of Honor, 103. WO 95/4470, Unnumbered War Diary, 40 th Btn Royal Fusiliers,March 11, IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, December 28, 1918, pg 150. JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, p JI 18-1K, Hebrew Words of Command, pg 161. Two examples were: Present Arms Lekavôd-hen and Eyes Front Yashar-hen. 540 JI 29-1K. Jewish Chronicle, April 30, 1915, p 3-4.

124 114 Empire a clear reminder of the battalions place within the British Army, and Palestine s place inside the Empire itself. 541 Amongst British Zionists in the battalions especially amongst officers the tendency was to articulate a Jewish homeland within the confines of the empire. Captain LA Falk, a battalion chaplain and later a prominent Rabbi in Sydney, was a strong Zionist, but envisioned the Jewish homeland in Palestine developing as a dominion of Empire. 542 For some, this made strategic and political sense. Ever the professional soldier, Patterson argued that a Jewish Palestine would form a critical strategic bulwark in the region, claiming that British and Jewish interests are so similar and so interwoven that they fit into each other as the hand does the glove. 543 Salaman, using an unsuspectingly similar analogy, also argued that the young Russian Jew, who is going to make this land, needs a guiding hand, an iron fist in a silken glove. 544 This guide, of course, would be the British Empire, to whom Salaman felt the Jew is ready to be intensely loyal. 545 The viewpoints of the broader mass of Jewish soldiers is hard to discern, but it is possible to speculate on the views of British Jews and the Zionist volunteers from North America. It is likely that the British Jews inside the 38 th, given the way they configured their identity as British men of Jewish faith, would have been pro-empire. Those that had developed Zionist tendencies would probably have articulated a similar view as the officers had Britain would play a caretaker role (this was, of course, the actual stated point of the Mandate). American Zionists, however, would have had little interest in any broader British allegiance. Ben Gurion and others, after all, had initially opposed fighting for Britain due to its alliance with Tsarist Russia, and had preferred, at least initially, to fight for the Central Powers. 546 Their allegiance to the British Empire was probably in their view nothing more than a contract they would help Britain win the war, provided Britain helped build a Jewish homeland. Britain s imperial ambition was not in their interest. On the heels of the Jaffa Riots in May 1921, Patterson wrote an open letter to his former charges that embodied the dualities of their allegiance, reminding them that they had fought for the British and Jewish Cause but then went further, arguing that they were sent to serve to assist in the realisation of a National home for the Jewish people. 547 The statement reflected Patterson s increasing evolution as a Zionist, as well as the increasing ease with which service for the British Empire could combine with the stated aims of the Balfour Declaration to coalesce into a National argument. As the Mandate progressed, this was the view that became increasingly dominant. By the Summer of 1919, the individual identities of the battalions had diminished greatly. Many veteran British officers, as well as some veteran other ranks, had been demobilized back to 541 JI 10-1K. Second Report of the Jewish Regiment Committee, March 1921, pg JI 14-1K, File on Capt. LA Falk. His full name was Leib Aisack Falk. See also Suzanne D. Rutland, 'Falk, Leib Aisack ( )', Australian Dictionary of Biography (Volume 8, , Cl-Gib), Bede Nairn & Geoffrey Serle general eds, (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1981) Patterson, With the Judeans, Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, January 16, 1919, pg Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, January 20, 1919, pg JI 29-1K. The Birth of the Jewish Legion, by Josef Fraenkel, pg 215. See Bloom, Colonel Patterson, JI, 10-1K, Letter from Patterson to men of the Judeans, May 30, 1921, pg 3.

125 115 Britain, and raw American Zionists now served in the 38 th, English in the 39 th, and both in the 40 th. 548 It was this cross-pollination that allowed the myth of active Zionist participation to germinate later Ben Gurion, for example, had been transferred to the 39 th from the 40 th, which might lead some to assume that he had been part of the September offensives. The demobilization of British veterans had left the battalions with a relatively inexperienced core, and a much larger proportion of Zionists than it had throughout It was also at this point that the Jewish troops were finally granted the privilege of a Menorah cap badge, which replaced the regimental Royal Fusiliers cap badge they had worn previously. As Allenby consolidated and demobilized his troops, the battalions took on the official title of the Judeans. Their wartime distinction and individuality was finally gone; they were now finally the Jewish Legion. 548 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 97.

126 116 Part II Assessing the experience of soldiers is a common trope in the history of war, and has been a focal point in the history of the First World War in Palestine, albeit one less prominent than the countless works devoted to men on the Western Front. Coupled to this general concept in the history of minority soldiers are evaluations of prejudice and discrimination scholarly understandings of institutionalized obstacles that both governed and affected the general experience of these troops. Yet for the minority battalions in Egypt and Palestine, discussions of institutional prejudice have been either more anecdotal than empirical, or less contextualized than necessary. Outside of expressly military issues like battalion training and tactical use, two subjects are common evaluators of prejudice health and discipline. The first of these which includes topics like disease, medical care, treatment in hospitals, etc appears often in discussions of non- British soldiers inside Palestine for the simple reason that much of the territory occupied from Ottoman Palestine was unsparingly malarial. Thus, one of the only comparative discussions of West Indians and Jewish troops inside the EEF pivots off medical casualties, specifically issues of malarial exposure and sickness, as well as pneumonia. 549 While discrepancies in actual medical care is an empirically sustainable point of inquiry, most discussions of disease in Palestine gloss over the EEF s efforts to rid their positions of malaria, as well as the fact that during the rapid advances into captured Ottoman territory, disease ravaged Allenby s forces regardless of their ethno-racial background. 550 Thus, health is perhaps a less effective means of discussing engrained prejudice than the one system that remained consistent regardless of environmental issues military justice. Part II of this dissertation offers the first, in-depth discussion of military justice as it was applied to British West Indians and the Jewish battalions. Not content to discuss capital courtsmartial or mutiny cases as is almost always the case in discussions of discipline Chapters 3 and 4 use regular field courts-martial as the basis of inquiry, demonstrating the intricate complexities of how military justice was applied to men who could be considered distinct. The last chapter of this project, 5, wraps up this discussion by evaluating the use of sports and education as a disciplinary medium one designed to subtly condition soldiers for a world where military justice would no longer apply. Threaded through all of this is the discontent that brewed inside Allenby s EEF after fighting cease in 1918, and broader British fears of postwar instability and the potential onset of Bolshevism and other imperially-destabilizing politics. 549 Watts, The Jewish Legion, At least in the case of Chaytor s force, disease developed often after crossing the Jordan River. For the best study of EEF and anti-malarial efforts, see Eran Dolev, Allenby s Military Medicine: Life and Death in World War I Palestine (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007).

127 117 Chapter 3 The Full and Just Penalty? Military Justice and the British West Indies Regiment On a hot July night in 1917, a fight broke out at a British Army compound near the banks of the Suez Canal in Egypt. While the First World War raged across the globe, on that night at a military punishment facility near the Egyptian Expeditionary Force s base at Kantara, the conflict was not between the British and the Germans, Austrians or Turks, but inside the British Army itself. Responding to a Captain s order to quell a loud, but non-violent, commotion, several military policemen found themselves fighting three soldiers from the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR), each of them sentenced to year-long prison sentences the day before. Suddenly, one of the West Indians struck a policeman hitting him with a plank of wood before producing a razor and seriously wounding another in the stomach. 551 Eventually, the fight was quelled and its apparent instigators court-martialed several days later. The knife-wielding soldier, a Jamaican private named Hubert Clarke, had no representation and declined to defend himself, and was ultimately found guilty of striking a superior officer. Fifteen days after the fracas, he was taken to an abandoned rifle range and positioned against a mud wall. Stripped to his shorts and blindfolded, he was then shot by several nervous British soldiers, aiming for the star of plaster-tape marking his heart. He was the first member of the British Army to be executed during the campaign for Palestine. 552 Clarke was one of the 346 British soldiers executed by their own army, the unlucky fraction of the more than 3000 men sentenced to death by military courts-martial during the First World War. 553 Those who were executed, particularly the 278 British Army soldiers shot on the Western Front, have attracted a great deal of historical attention in recent decades. Many of those brought before firing squads on charges of desertion or cowardice suffered from deep psychological wounds, particularly shell-shock, and were probably medically unfit to stand trial. Long hidden from historical conversation, initial work by William Moore led to the first archivally-based examination of the topic by Judge Anthony Babington in 1983, as well as subsequent works by Julian Putkowski, Julian Sykes and, later, Gerard Oram, all of which opened an important window into the murky history of Britain s military-justice system during 551 WO 71/595. Another account is in J. Johnston Abraham, Surgeon s Journey: The Autobiography of J. Johnston Abraham (London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1957), Abraham claimed that when the wounded military policeman, Lance-Corporal G. King arrived at the field hospital, his bowels were held up by a bloody towel. This particular detail is important, as there is some question about the seriousness of Clarke s attack. Abraham recalls the belly wound as ten inches, while the trial testimony indicates six inches. Richard Smith has written about Clarke s execution as well, although his examination focuses on the intersections of race and gender in the BWIR battalions. See Smith, Jamaican Volunteers, 128. The Captain in question was GE Sebag-Montefiore, and a likely relation to the historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore. 552 Many historians cite Clarke s date of execution as 11 August 1917, but his file shows that the sentence was promulgated on 10 August. A South African private named N. Matthews, en route to France, was court-martialled for murder and hanged in 1916 in Egypt. However, he was part of the 3rd South African Infantry Regiment and not technically a member of the British Army. See Julian Putkowski & Julian Sykes, Shot at Dawn: Executions in World War One by Authority of the British Army Act (England: Pen & Sword, 1996), 59, Ferguson, The Pity of War, Depending on who is included, and when one ends the war, the British shot between 346 and 361 soldiers during the war (346 is the official number), but only 291 were officially part of the British Army. According to Putkowski and Sykes, 20, the French Army shot around 700 of its own men, while the German Army shot 48.

128 118 the First World War. 554 Their efforts helped provoke a national debate in Britain over the legacy of capital trials, resulting in a 2006 blanket pardon by the Ministry of Defence for all those executed for military offences during the Great War. Decades after his burial at the Kantara War Memorial Cemetery, Private Clarke was pardoned, a public recognition that the system that had administered his execution was deeply flawed. 555 Figure 3.1 The Pardon of Private Hubert Clarke 556 Despite renewed focus on British capital trials during the First World War, only a small amount of scholarship exists on the system of military justice responsible a variety of courtsmartial that resulted in slightly over 300,000 trials from 1914 to 1920, nearly half of which took place outside the British Isles. 557 Recently, several broader studies of military discipline have 554 William Moore, The Thin Yellow Line (New York: St Martins, 1975); Anthony Babington, For the Sake of Example: Capital Courts-Martial, (New York: St. Martin s Press, 1983); Gerard Oram, Military Executions during World War I (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and Worthless Men: Race, eugenics and the death penalty in the British Army during the First World War (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 1998); Putkowski & Sykes op cit. Moore lacked access to most of the documents and records that later historians consulted, and Babington was provided with access to court-martial files before their release to the public. 555 Putkowsi and Sykes, Shot at Dawn, 282. Soldiers executed for non-military offences, such as murder, were not pardoned. 556 WO 71/595. Author s photo. 557 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War, (London: HMSO, 1920), 643. Of the total number of 304,262 courts-martial, 407 trials of officers and 153,992 of other ranks took place outside England.

129 119 emerged, but all have been heavily focused on the Western Front, and mostly on British soldiers. 558 In comparison, historians know little about military justice in other theatres particularly the Middle East, which was full of colonial and Dominion soldiers subject to the Army Act of 1914 and the same justice processes as British servicemen. The inclusion of the members of the BWIR battalions in Egypt and Palestine inside the same system of military justice as the rest of the EEF was of particular importance, for these men were easily marked for prejudice and discrimination on account of their racial backgrounds. Understanding military justice in the Middle East, particularly during the campaign for Ottoman Palestine, provides a fuller picture of Britain s empire at war, and provides added contextualisation for understanding the various political, social, economic and cultural hierarchies that were so critical in governing the lives of thousands of imperial and colonial soldiers during and after the conflict. This chapter uses a broad examination of the courts-martial of the BWIR in the EEF, balanced against other imperial and colonial stories, to expose the contradictory nature of the military justice system as it applied to non-white British West Indians. Due to the fact that much of the documentation about military justice in Egypt and Palestine that remains comes from Australian archives, the Australian story is also prominent throughout. 559 This chapter argues that many soldiers from the British Empire, but particularly ones of color, acquired reputations for insubordination that were partially the result of perception and not necessarily rooted in any real propensity to indiscipline. Second, it demonstrates how, just as on the Western Front, courts-martial in Egypt and Palestine were overtly punitive and exemplary, often reflecting nineteenth-century norms of military discipline despite the abolition of flogging and public execution. Yet it also takes care to illuminate the checks on the punitive nature of the system, whether informal or formal. In some imperial or colonial units, commanding officers subverted the disciplinary system by exercising powers of summary punishment (comparatively milder than a court-martial sentence) for offenses that could require a court-martial. More importantly, a prescribed system of legal review existed inside the justice system throughout the war, and frequently corrected procedural abuses or overly harsh sentences, even for non- European soldiers. By examining the BWIR experience with military justice, this chapter is able to reveal new ways in which the British Empire s various racial hierarchies functioned, 558 Cathryn Corns and John Hughes-Wilson, Blindfold and alone: British military executions in the Great War. (London: Cassell, 2001); Christopher Pugsley, On the Fringe of Hell: New Zealanders and Military Discipline in the First World War (Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991) and The ANZAC Experience Op. cit.; Timothy Bowman, The Irish Regiments in the Great War: discipline and morale (New York: Manchester University Press, 2003); McCartney, Citizen Soldiers Op. cit. Pugsley s work does the most to venture outside of Europe. 559 Determining the full extent of the British military justice system in Palestine is difficult to do with total precision there are simply too many lost or incorrectly transcribed records. Many were lost during the war and others, including the individual conduct sheets of many EEF soldiers, burned during Luftwaffe raids in Other records, such as those of executed Indian Army soldiers, are missing, and the only full case files for court-martialed British Army soldiers are for those who had a death sentence confirmed. The majority of the quantitative figures in this chapter, therefore, are culled from several dozen of the registers of the British Army s Judge Advocate Generals located in WO 71, which recorded each court-martial. For each trial, these ledgers include the following information: name of the accused, rank, charges brought, date of the trial (sometimes inaccurate), trial location, verdict, punishment, notations of commutation or remittance, and whether the trial was the result of an appeal against summary punishment. These sparse, un-indexed records are supplemented by figures established by other historians, as well as the surviving case files of West Indian and Australian soldiers, in order to offer a fuller comparative picture.

130 120 offering a bridge between past examinations of white, British soldiers or black, African conscripts. Military Justice: The Process During the First World War, the British Army officially maintained four types of courtsmartial, but most soldiers outside of England faced a Field General Court Martial (FGCM), the least formal or substantial of any trial. Authorized by the Army Act of 1914 to expedite legal proceedings while in the field, the field court martial could still impose a full range of penalties, including execution, and dominated legal proceedings in Egypt and Palestine. It consisted usually of three officers, one of whom chaired the proceedings as president and held the rank of Captain or higher (although the Army preferred the chair to be at least a Major). 560 The adjutant or another officer from the accused s battalion acted as prosecutor and charged soldiers could request the aid of a prisoner s friend for their defense generally a junior officer from within the battalion. At least one BWIR officer, Captain Arthur Andrew Cipriani, routinely served as a prisoner s friend and became particularly well-versed in the mitigating intricacies of Army Regulations. 561 Overall though, field trials were often uneven affairs the majority of involved officers lacked legal training, and there were occasions in Egypt and Palestine when the defending officer outranked the prosecutor, sometimes heavily. 562 The field trials of Australian soldiers required three Australian officers, unlike those of other EEF soldiers, who might have judges drawn from several different units. It was, however, not uncommon in Palestine for one of the three presiding officers, although usually not the president, to come from either the accused s battalion or a sister unit. 563 While this was usually the result of necessity and limited forces in a given area, the level of familiarity between judge, prosecution, and defense could be of particular importance for soldiers from minority and colonial units, which often maintained a cohesive, self-contained identity that depended on paternalistic, officer-soldier relationships. A field court martial could award any sentence within the Military Manual of Law, but it could only issue a death sentence if the decision was unanimous. After sentencing, the district s commanding officer had to endorse the punishment, and the Commander in Chief had to confirm death sentences. 564 In addition, a Deputy Judge Advocate General (DJAG), who had the power to lessen, commute, or quash a conviction, reviewed the proceedings for any legal irregularities. Australians, although they could receive a death sentence, could not actually be executed unless convicted of mutiny, desertion to the enemy, or treason due to the terms of the Commonwealth Defence Act of Even then, the death sentence required the confirmation of the Governor- General, a near impossibility given previous public outcry over the British execution of the Australian, Harry Breaker Morant, during the Second Boer War. As a result, no Australians 560 Putkowski & Sykes, Shot at Dawn, 14; Babington, For the Sake of Example, CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 30-31, Putkowski & Sykes, Shot at Dawn, Since these friends had little legal training, they often offered nothing in the way of a defense, and instead focused on lessening the sentence. Some soldiers declined the services of a friend, and there is some evidence to suggest that some soldiers, particularly in France, were not offered one. For examples of outranking, see NAA A471/3382, Gunston, J, and NAA A471/4629, Poulett-Harris, HV. Gunston was defended by a Captain, Poulet-Harris by a Major, and both men were prosecuted by a Lieutenant. For more background, see GR Rubin, The Legal Education of British Army Officers, , The Journal of Legal History 15, no 3, 1994: In each of the surviving transcript of BWIR courts-martial, a BWIR officer sat on the court. 564 Babington, For the Sake of Example, 12,

131 121 were executed during the war, despite the issuance of 121 death sentences and various attempts by senior British generals to overturn or amend the Act. 565 Australians were alone in this exception all other dominion and colonial forces under the British command lacked this layer of legal protection. The actual court-martial occurred in two distinct phases the first to determine the soldier s guilt or innocence, and then if guilty, a period to hear evidence related to the soldier s character before sentencing. During the trial, both prosecution and defense could call and crossexamine witnesses or enter earlier depositions into the official record, and a medical officer attested, often via a paper form, that the accused was medically fit to undergo imprisonment with hard labor. 566 Afterwards, the presiding officers deliberated and reached a verdict. Bizarrely, only a not-guilty verdict could be disclosed at the conclusion of this first phase; guilty verdicts were not actually announced aloud. If the court found the soldier guilty, the trial simply reconvened and the judges asked for character evidence, a process that surely confused many accused soldiers. After hearing character testimony, the court issued a sentence, which was subject to review and confirmation. Since the review process took time and often modified soldiers sentences, it could be days before a convicted soldier knew his final punishment. Private Clarke, for example, had been court-martialed on 7 August, but did not know his sentence was confirmed until 9 August, at the earliest. Many delays were longer one private waited eight days for confirmation of his death sentence and must have been traumatic for soldiers who knew of their conviction, but were unsure of their sentence. The BWIR Encounter: Charges According to the remaining archival records, members of the BWIR in Egypt and Palestine faced field general courts-martial over two hundred times during the course of their service. 567 West Indians could face court-martial for a wide variety of infractions, many of which overlapped in scope. A soldier who had physically threatened an officer might not only be charged with insubordination, but also disobedience or violence towards a superior. Other charges, like drunkenness, frequently appear alongside charges of illegal absence, disobedience, or violence. 568 Charges of violating Section 40, a clause allowing prosecution for conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline, could be added to most formal charges, and was often employed if the soldier s actions had not merited a real charge. As the following table of charges and courts-martial brought against soldiers of the British West Indies Regiment demonstrates, a substantial number of trials featured multiple charges (see Table A on pg 122). 565 Oram, Military Executions During World War I, 9, 17. Pugsley, On the Fringes of Hell, percent of these sentences occurred in France, and 104 of them stemmed from desertion charges. See Pugsley, 133 for a full breakdown. Cornes and Hughes-Wilson give a figure of 129 Australians sentenced to death on page This often took the form of a certificate entered into the evidence. Being medically unfit for imprisonment did not exempt a soldier from a sentence of field punishment. See the file of NAA 471/3282. Franks, Leslie for an example of this. 567 While there appear to be 226 total FGCM s for the 1 st, 2 nd, and 5 th BWIR from , the possibility of record duplication suggests that the number could be as low as 216. However, this is not conclusive, and 226 is the baseline in this chapter. Possible duplicate entries are: Private E Henderson of the 2 nd BWIR; Private J Hylton of the 2 nd BWIR; Private G. Brown of the 2 nd BWIR; Sgt PJ Cassidy of 5 th BWIR; Private C Campbell of 1 st BWIR; Corporal JM Willacy of the 5 th BWIR. 568 See NAA A471/3342. Glass, W. for a good example of this.

132 122 Table A: Charges brought against BWIR soldiers in Egypt and Palestine, Charge Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Total 1 st BWIR 2 nd BWIR 5th BWIR Absence or Breaking * Out of Camp (AWOL) Desertion Disobedience * Drunkenness * Escaping Confinement * Insubordination and Threatening * Losing Property Murder Mutiny Misc. 6(d) Misc Misc Misc Misc Misc Misc Misc * Misc * Misc Offence against Inhabitant Resisting or Escaping Escort * Quitting Post Sleeping on Post Theft Violence or Striking Senior Officer Total Charges Total Courts-Martial When a soldier from a battalion was court-martialled while attached to a different battalion, I have included him in the statistics for the battalion he was serving in when the court-martial took place. Asterixed totals indicate the inclusion of men not explicitly noted as belonging to the 1 st, 2 nd or 5 th Battalions, but clearly members of the BWIR serving in Palestine. In this case, these eight soldiers account for one offence of Absence, one of Disobedience, one of Drunkenness, one of Escaping Confinement, one of Escaping Escort, one of Insubordination, two of Misc. 29 and two of Misc (d) Physically Attacking a Sentinel; 9.1 Disobeying a Superior Officer s Orders; 11 Disobeying a General Order; 15.3 Absent without Leave; 18 Deliberate Injury or Faking Illness to Escape Duty; 18.5 An unspecified Fraudulent Act or Any Other Disgraceful Conduct; 25 Deliberately Making False Statements on Official Forms and Documents or Altering or Stealing them; 29 Providing False Evidence in a Military Court. Manual of Military Law, 6th edn. (London: HMSO, 1914), pp A catch-all clause for trying Army soldiers for a variety of civil offences punishable by ordinary law, such as murder, in an Army court. Manual of Military Law, 413.

133 123 The most striking theme in the table, however, is the number of cases brought on charges of contravening authority. BWIR soldiers were charged with disobedience, insubordination, violence to a superior officer, or a related Misc charge, one-hundred and nineteen times almost 40 percent of the total charges brought. If the catch-all charge of Section 40, which was often applied to cases related to military authority, is included, the percentage increases to nearly 60 percent. 572 These percentages are significantly higher than in the other units for which comparative information exists. Charges brought against New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) soldiers in Egypt and Palestine generally consisted of charges of drunkenness or minor AWOL violations, with some serious charges like rape (three cases), and a number for theft and violence against civilians. Although the NZEF had five times more men in Palestine then the West Indian battalions, there was nowhere near the number of authority-related charges brought against its soldiers. Even when expanded to include the NZEF in France, just under 17 percent of the charges were authority-related. 573 For further contrast, over a similar timeframe (and in the wake of the Easter rebellion), Irish soldiers in France only faced court martial for disobedience 6 percent of the time, insubordination 2.6 percent, or violence to a superior officer.04 percent of the time. 574 The BWIR battalions, it seems, far outstripped another units in terms of authority-related courts-martial. The frequency of authority-related charges could mean that the West Indian volunteers had difficulty adapting to life in the army, but it more likely indicates that British officers were quicker to perceive indiscipline or a challenge to their authority, and court-martialed soldiers accordingly. The BWIR s status as a regular, volunteer unit of the British Army, not a colonial unit, meant that when faced with prejudice or abuse from officers outside their regiment, West Indian soldiers may have responded by invoking their rights as British soldiers, which a prejudiced officer would immediately view as insubordinate behavior. 575 Despite the fact that the charges could be interpreted to reveal a broad pattern of insubordination, no member of the BWIR faced charges of mutiny in Egypt and Palestine. While prejudice over orders or pay did generate unrest, it is surprising that a minority unit with supposed discipline issues never faced a mutiny charge, especially within the context of the following chapter, which reveals how quickly they could be applied to Jewish soldiers. 576 Critically, the army did court-martial other West Indian soldiers in Europe for mutiny many of them after a rebellion against discriminatory practices while stationed in Italy. Of course, West Indians were not the only soldiers in the EEF perceived to be inherently problematic. Australian troops, once the subject of British fascination for their rugged, outback charm, became less appealing to the British when subject to strict discipline. By 1918, nine 572 In fact, all but three of the seventeen courts-martial in the BWIR s first six months of service were for charges of disobedience, insubordination, or violence to officers. See WO 213/8 through 213/ In fact, the NZEF only had 93 courts martial cases in Egypt and Palestine from 1917 to 1919, less than half the total of the BWIR. Pugsley, On the Fringes of Hell, 56, Bowman, The Irish Regiments, 157t. Bowman s timeframe for measuring these offenses is October 1916 through the end of February A comment in CO 318/348/5991 noted that the West Indian negro is in general proud of his British nationality (even to the point of being obnoxious about it abroad). Although subsumed within its own problematic racial hierarchy, this comment does lend credence to the idea of West Indian soldiers reminding prejudiced English officers of their rights. 576 The circumstances that had led to Clarke s attack in the compound, for example, could be considered collective disobedience. The imprisoned West Indians had questioned the authority of a passing white officer when they inverted the chain of command by shouting orders at him, and further subverted the system of military discipline by threatening him with bodily harm if he entered the compound. See WO 71/595.

134 124 Australians per thousand were in military prison, compared to 1.6 per thousand for New Zealanders, South Africans, and Canadians combined. 577 One British soldier in Palestine recalled the Australians as rather grim looking fellows who did not seem to pay much attention to discipline, at anyrate(sic) by Imperial standards. 578 Another summed up their detached attitude, writing in his diary that The national sport of Australia must surely be lamp-post leaning. Wherever a lamp-post or pillar can be found in this country an Australian can be found attached, legs crossed, smoking, gazing amusedly at the world from beneath his broad-brimmed hat. They say that an Anzac got leave from the Jordan Valley after eleven months, and that he never passed Kantara Station on his journey down to Cairo. He found the station lamp-post, and was still there when the train left for up the line next week. 579 Australian indifference to British conceptions of proper bearing during the Palestine campaign was, in part, motivated by the social environment they encountered upon their arrival in Egypt. Not unlike coloured West Indians, who despite being educated and often of middle-class standing in their home colonies, found themselves ignored (or ridiculed) in white, British society, non-commissioned Australians were often left outside of European society while in the Middle East. Many of these circles were upper class and scornful of the ordinary digger, leaving many Australians deeply frustrated by their inability to establish friendships with their co-subjects in the British Empire. 580 Resentment often boiled over into conflict, especially after the bungled British operations at Gallipoli. Several Australian troopers, for example, woke one morning to find themselves facing court-martial for drunkenly assaulting several British non-commissioned officers an incident in which they had attempted to throw the British off a moving train. 581 Many Australian officers were aware of their men s frequent conflicts with British soldiers, and on occasion, altered disciplinary proceedings to compensate for this relationship. In particular, many assumed British provocation of their troopers, regardless of what military policemen might testify to in court. 582 This, of course, was only possible because of the all- Australian makeup of each court-martial, as it is unlikely British officers would have allowed this. In one instance, the presiding Australian officer in one court-martial, a Major Brooks, even took it upon himself to write a letter to senior officers explaining that he is of the opinion that the accused acted under considerable provocation, and has therefore awarded a very light sentence considering the gravity of the charge in this case, the striking of a senior officer. 583 In another instance, an Australian officer refused to try West Indians on charges that a previous British officer had been more than happy to convict them on. 584 Such decisions infuriated the 577 Corns and Hughes-Wilson, Blindfold and Alone, IWM 3/31/1. CR Hennessey, pg 154. Suzanne Brugger has pointed out in her book, Australians and Egypt (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1980) that many Australian soldiers ignored minor military procedures, like saluting, much to the disgust of British officers. See pg 77 for more. 579 Cecil Sommers, Temporary Crusaders (London: John Lane, 1919). Reprinted diary entry of 6 June Brugger, Australians and Egypt, 53, 57, NAA A471/3342. Glass, W. The instigator, Trooper W. Glass, was found guilty at Moascar in September 1917 of drunkenness and violence against a superior officer, charges for which he was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment with hard labor. Glass, importantly, has been wounded at Gallipoli. 582 See NAA 471/4337 McConnachy, Clifford Peter and NAA 471/9721, Murray, A.J. for cases in which Australian officers explicitly assumed provocation by British soldiers in order to lessen punishment on Australian troopers. 583 NAA A471/3382, Gunston, J. Letter from Major JJ Brooks to Convening Authority of FGCM of Trooper Gunson, 6 June CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 31.

135 125 British command, not least because they subverted the entire nature of the court-martial system, which relied on harshly punitive sentences, balanced with later review, to maintain discipline. In the British Army, the general tendency for officers serving on a field court martial was to issue severe sentences to all non-commissioned soldiers found guilty. The majority of officers lacked legal training, many were influenced by classist beliefs to see common soldiers as inherently guilty of crime, and there was a general desire to maintain discipline by convicting, particularly in colonial units. One historian has persuasively argued that most officers viewed field courts-martial simply as components of the penal process, merely a means by which to make examples. 585 The statements of a brigadier-general in Palestine bear this out: in a furious letter, he accused an Australian major of mental peculiarities because he is unable to conceive that an accused person can be satisfactorily convicted of an offence unless the evidence given for the prosecution and the defence tallies in every respect. 586 The system of military justice, therefore, was not designed to establish the guilt or innocence of a soldier, but rather to remind all soldiers of the power of military authority. These attitudes were magnified in the trials of black and coloured soldiers, and West Indians received particularly harsh sentences, an additional reminder that many officers felt the need to discipline non-european colonials particularly severely and remind them of their place in the imperial hierarchy. In the vast majority of cases, BWIR soldiers were sentenced to some form of detainment either in the field or behind the lines. The most common sentences handed down were imprisonment with hard labor or a form of field punishment the former occurring in ninety-seven cases (43 percent of total sentences), and the latter in seventy-nine (35 percent). 587 The worst form of imprisonment, but also the least commonly prescribed, was a sentence of penal servitude, which occurred in fourteen cases (6 percent of total sentences). Unfortunately, due to the small sample size and the fact that soldiers could face multiple charges, it is impossible to develop an accurate correlation between charge and sentence. However, comparison with the sentencing of court-martialed New Zealanders in Egpyt reveals that they also were more likely to receive a sentence of imprisonment or penal servitude (36 sentences) than field punishment (19 sentences), but that as a percentage of total sentences, New Zealanders faced lighter punishment. 588 A similar comparison with the sentences handed to Irish soldiers in France reveals sharp disparities courts-martial sentenced only 10 percent of Irish soldiers to imprisonment with hard labor, and less than 2 percent to penal servitude. 589 FGCMs in the Sinai and Palestine sentenced West Indians with a very heavy hand. A careful examination of the frequency of acquittals in the courts martial of BWIR soldiers further supports this conclusion. According to the voluminous Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, there were a total of 304,262 courts-martial in 585 Babington, For the Sake of Example, xi. For a differing opinion, see Corn and Hughes-Wilson, Blindfold and Alone, NAA 471/4337 McConnachy, Clifford Peter. Brigadier General Commanding Palestine Lines of Communication to General Officer Commanding, AIF, 7 March Of the seventy-nine sentences of field punishment, forty-three were of the harsher, Number 1 variety, twentyeight were the Number 2 variety, and eight sentences did not notate the type (later, this chapter explains exactly what field punishment was and its importance). 588 Pugsley, The ANZAC Experience, percent of BWIR cases resulted in imprisonment or field punishment, versus 46 percent of NZEF cases. If only imprisonment sentences are compared, the ratio falls to 49 percent in the BWIR to 37 percent in the NZEF. The statistics for the full NZEF, including France, was percent imprisonment, 23.6 percent field punishment, and 1.17 percent penal servitude. 589 Bowman, The Irish Regiments, 158. Percentages calculated based on the absolute numbers provided in his table on the page.

136 126 the British Army from August 1914 until March 1920, with 154,339 of these cases occurring outside of England. 590 Of the cases occurring abroad, percent of soldiers were found not guilty. 591 At first glance, the not guilty rate of the BWIR for is comparable 23 of the 226 courts-martial in Palestine, or percent, resulted in not guilty verdicts. However, a closer examination of when these verdicts occurred reveals a more complex picture. Using the October 30, 1918 armistice with the Ottoman Empire as the dividing line, it becomes clear that the BWIR faced a significantly higher conviction rate during the war than during the occupation period. 161 courts-martial of BWIR soldiers occurred before the October Armistice, of which only 8 yielded a not guilty verdict, a rate of 4.96 percent roughly half of the average army rate. After the October Armistice, however, courts-martial reached 15 not guilty verdicts out of 65 cases, a 23 percent rate. 592 In contrast, Timothy Bowman has revealed that from October 1916 until February 1918, the not guilty rate for Irish units in France was 12.5 percent, two and half times greater than that of the BWIR in Palestine. 593 Even though the aforementioned 10 percent rate across the British Army included courts-martial constituted after the European armistice, when convictions would likely be lower, it still seems that West Indian soldiers were more likely to be found guilty than their army peers. The severity of punishment often depended on the character of the accused a word that encompassed both his past disciplinary record and whether his officers thought he was an effective soldier. As a result, it was common for accused EEF soldiers to have their officers speak on their behalf during sentencing. One Australian major noted the exemplary character as a soldier of one accused, and drew particular attention to his service at the battles of El Romani and Bir-el-Abd. 594 At a different trial, another Australian major swore that the accused was a capable and reliable NCO, his character on all occasions has been above reproach, and one of the squadron s best NCOs. 595 In the capital trial of a Jamaican BWIR private, James Mitchell, the company captain, in an attempt to avoid a death sentence, argued that Mitchell s character is excellent and he has never been accused of a crime before. 596 Private Clarke, on the other hand, had been deemed a problem; the description of Clarke s character on his conduct sheet was one significant word: Bad. 597 A court might assume that a soldier without testimony on his behalf was unwanted by his officers, and anyone who had bad character, perhaps having committed multiple offenses, faced rapidly escalating punishments. One Australian trooper in the 2 nd Light Horse received two minor punishments for separate infractions in March 1916, before a court-martial sentenced him to two months of field punishment for insubordinate language in January A few months 590 Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, (London: HMSO, 1920), 643. The total number is made up of 407 Officers and 153,992 soldiers. 591 Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, (London: HMSO, 1920), 644. The total number of not-guilty verdicts as a percentage of officers and ordinary ranks, was percent. 592 Unsurprisingly, privates stood a higher chance of being convicted than non-commissioned officers. There were one-hundred and ninety-five instances of BWIR privates facing court-martial in Palestine, and in only fourteen of them was a not-guilty verdict delivered a rate of 7 percent. However, seven of the nineteen NCO s tried were found not guilty a rate of 37 percent. This disparity is, more or less, in line with general trends in sentencing across the Army, where officers were found innocent twice as frequently as regular soldiers (20.39 percent to percent), a reflection of sharp British class divisions. 593 Bowman, The Irish Regiments, 158t. 594 NAA A471/4629, Poulett-Harris, HV. 595 NAA A471/20226, McPhee, Duncan. Testimony of Major Stodart, MC. 596 WO 71/629/16, 2 nd Testimony of Captain TH Irving. 597 Conduct Sheet of HA Clarke, WO 71/595.

137 127 later, another trial for insubordination led this time to six months of imprisonment at hard labor. When the same trooper pled guilty to disobedience in a July 1918 court-martial, his past history guaranteed a harsh sentence five years of penal servitude. 598 Private Clarke s disciplinary history also escalated from eating on parade in March 1917, to having a dirty Dixie and being improperly dressed in May 1917, to finally persistently marching improperly, a violation of Section 40 s conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline. 599 The latter charge, despite being relatively minor, was probably viewed as sufficiently compounding to earn Clarke the one year of imprisonment that he was beginning when the altercation occurred that led to his far costlier sentence. Inefficient soldiers tended to face harsher penalties, placing many West Indians at an inherent legal disadvantage, since there were many British officers who thought that the West Indian would never be any use as a soldier, and that his fighting qualities are doubtful. 600 Such assumptions might further explain why BWIR soldiers were routinely sentenced with what appears to be an overly heavy hand. The court-martial was, therefore, a legal proceeding in which assumptions, rather than the facts of the case, bore substantial influence. One Australian officer unwittingly revealed the structure of FGCMs in a letter, noting that his rulings were always balanced, excepting in the cases of a few particularly and consistently ill behaved soldiers to whom I have been instrumental in awarding heavier punishment than was perhaps necessary for the actual offence. This was the nature of the courts-martial system it made examples of soldiers with bad character or poor service records. However, a liberal counter-weight was built into the system, which the same Australian noted, in these cases it was done for disciplinary reasons by the effect of immediate promulgation, and in each of these cases remissions were made of portion of sentences awarded. 601 Officers passed down harsher sentences precisely because they wanted to make an immediate statement to their men, and assumed the DJAG would eventually revise the sentence downwards for legal reasons. However, factors beyond the individual case and charges could strongly influence decisions made by the DJAG and the confirming Commander during the sentencing review. Not only did the conduct sheet and character evidence of the accused accompany the case file, but also information about the state of discipline within the accused s unit. 602 The condition of the latter could determine the difference between life and death. Punishment as Public Influence Just before Private Clarke s case file entered the review process, the administrative commandant at Kantara attached a confidential letter to Headquarters. He argued that Clarke s case was an opportunity to deal with what he perceived as the general indiscipline of West Indian troops, writing, 598 NAA A471/14773, Jarman, Edward George. Jarman would have known he would face a severe punishment he had disobeyed an order to join a listening post allegedly stating I m fucked if I will go on, and then punched his troop officer, 2 nd Lieutenant WK Thomson, in the face before threatening to murder him. The presiding officer of the court-martial, knowing full well that the sentence had to be severe, had repeatedly begged Jarman not to plead guilty, or at least to make a statement in his own defense. 599 Conduct Sheet of HA Clarke, WO 71/ Wood-Hill, A Few Notes, NAA 471/4337 McConnachy, Clifford Peter. Major AE D Arcy to DAAG and GOC, Desert Mounted Corps, Confidential letter of 12 March Babington, For the Sake of Example, 16.

138 128 I do not consider the sentence of death passed on Pte Clarke excessive,- but I am personally of opinion that the sentences passed on Ptes. Smith and Banton [the two other prisoners involved] are light, as compared with the sentence passed on Pte. Clarke. A severe lesson is needed with regard to the repeated instances of insubordination committed by prisoners of the B.W.I. Regiment in the F.P. Compound at Kantara. 603 The description of Smith and Banton s sentences several years of penal servitude as light implies that the commandant would have preferred to see them executed as well, even though neither of them had wounded a policeman, as Clarke had done. A broader, commonly-held assumption lay behind his opinions that non-european units required punitive discipline in order to function militarily: I draw attention to the fact that, as appears on the conduct sheets, these, (and other soldiers of this Regt.) have repeatedly committed acts of insubordination, the punishment for which has been unduly light No disciplinary lesson has been taught to insubordinate soldiers in the case of earlier offences and the result appears to be total disregard for authority. 604 Such an attitude likely reflected entrenched prejudice a report just before Clarke s execution had stated that the discipline of the [BWIR] men has been consistently good and the smart turn-out of the men has often been noted. 605 Other reports from officers continually noted the excellent discipline of the West Indians, including when under fire, throughout the war. 606 The commandant s attitude then was rooted in the prevalent belief that soldiers of African descent were inherently problematic and ill-disciplined, regardless of evidence to the contrary. While there were some officers in the BWIR who shared the commandant s attitudes, others did not. One officer in the 1 st battalion noted in a confidential memorandum that the principal irritation of West Indian troops occurred when they were handled in a tactless manner by officers sometimes General officers who did not understand them; who had never been in the West Indies and who were incapable of distinguishing between a West Indian and a Hottentot. 607 One BWIR officer revealed further evidence of the application of this sort of salutary discipline, noting that FGCM s would sometimes receive instructions from General Head Quarters that they were desirous of securing a conviction in that particular case. 608 The result was that some attempted to shelter West Indians from the punitive field courtsmartial by using summary punishment, a process by which officers could issue punishment for infractions without convening a court martial. In his letter about Clarke s trial, the same British commandant also complained to his superiors that BWIR officers were exceeding their powers by summarily punishing soldiers for severe offenses, instead of court-martialing them. 609 This process which is, frankly, quite difficult to track appears to have been a favorite technique of officers in Egypt and Palestine for protecting imperial and colonial soldiers. In the NZEF in 603 WO 71/595. Colonel AHO Lloyd to HQ, Palestine Lines of Communication, 7 August WO 71/595. Colonel AHO Lloyd to HQ, Palestine Lines of Communication, 7 August Italics added. 605 CO 318/344/ Forwarded report entitled, A Short History of the British West Indies Regiment in Egypt, 24 June Although General Murray signed off on the report, it was likely written by senior BWIR officers. 606 See, for example, the statements of Lord Harding in WO 95/ st BWIR War Diary, July 1917 and 2 August After commanding several West Indian platoons during a raid, he wrote to headquarters that they had worked exceedingly well, displaying a keen interest in the work, cheerfulness and energy, cool-ness under shell fire and an intelligent application of what was required of them and the ability to carry it out. 607 CO 318/349/ Confidential Memorandum of 25 July 1919 by Captain RJ Craig, 1 st BWIR. 608 CLR James, Captain Cipriani, WO 71/595. Colonel AHO Lloyd to HQ, Palestine Lines of Communication, 7 August These allegations were raised during the case of Private Hubert Clarke, which will be discussed later.

139 129 Palestine, the commanding officer often dealt with substantive charges, and it was also common among Australian units where, for example, an officer might simply give a three-week field punishment sentence to a trooper for assaulting natives, instead of court-martialing him. 610 Although any soldier had the right to appeal summary punishment and request a formal trial, there are only six instances of West Indians doing so, significantly fewer than in other units for which comparable information exists. 611 Interestingly, as one of the BWIR service battalions (the 2 nd ) spent more time in service near ANZAC units, its court-martial numbers plummeted, perhaps an indication of a broader pattern of imperial avoidance. Table B: Dates of FGCM of BWIR in Palestine, Battalion (Pre-Oct 30) 1918 (Post-Oct 30) 1919 Total 1 st BWIR nd BWIR rd BWIR th BWIR Unclear In contrast, the courts martial rates of the reserve West Indian battalion, a unit stationed in the rear and in close proximity to numerous British officers, maintained a consistently high record of official disciplinary punishment. In addition, this discrepancy reveals that the rapid, offensive movement of the Palestine campaign ensured that commanders in the field maintained some separation from rear headquarters, and could therefore exercise more latitude in disciplining their men. The Kantara commandant s desire to make an example of the three West Indians in order to instill discipline among the remainder of the battalions reflected an older notion of how to maintain order in the military. When a soldier in the British forces was executed during the Napoleonic Wars in the West Indies, his regiment was not only forced to watch the execution, but afterwards was filed past the corpse in slow time so that each man got a good look at the mangled form on the ground. 613 Even though the execution of a soldier no longer took place in front of his unit, much of the intent was the same pour encourager les autres. Corporal punishment evolved in a similar manner the passage of the Army Act in 1881 had prohibited flogging (although the cat-o -nine tails was in use until 1908, and caning continued well into the Second World War), but another punishment, with a similar intent, remained available to military courts. 614 Field Punishment (or FP) was one of the most common British disciplinary punishments in the First World War, yet it is unfamiliar to most non-specialists. Two varieties existed known simply as Number 1 and Number 2 and while both forms relied on physical 610 Pugsley, On the Fringes of Hell, 91 and NAA A471/3382, Gunston, J. Attached Conduct Sheet. 611 WO 213/8/115; 213/21/137; 213/29/92; 213/18/47; 213/25/18; 213/29/135. Bowman, The Irish Regiments, October 30, 1918 marks the date of the British armistice with the Ottoman Empire, and the end of hostilities in the Palestine theater. 613 Buckley, The British Army in the West Indies, Babington, For the Sake of Example, 2; David Killingray, The Rod of Empire : The Debate over Corporal Punishment in the British African Colonial Forces, The Journal of African History 35, no. 2 (1994): 202.

140 130 exertion and public shame as a means of punishment, Number 1 was significantly more severe. In both versions, soldiers spent part of each day either in a special area at the front or behind the lines at a field punishment compound or prison if not on active service. In Egypt, special field punishment compounds existed near major British installations, like Kantara and Abbassia, although some soldiers, like Australian trooper Louie Corcoran, completed their sentences at military prisons like Gabbari. 615 Each day of their sentence, soldiers were subjected to hours of parade inspections and drilling, as well as various forms of pointless, heavy labor. One soldier in Palestine recalled that after drilling, men would be ordered in full kit out into the desert, where they were forced to exercise in the sun. Other times, they filled baskets with sand, carried them hundreds of feet before dumping them, and then carried more sand to refill the original hole. 616 To exacerbate the punishment, soldiers lost their pay, and might still have to fulfill their normal responsibilities if at the front. Number 1, however, added a more brutal twist. Despite many of the limitations on corporal punishment passed in the 1881 Army Act, Number 1 still made an example of the guilty soldier via humiliation and pain. In addition to the penalties common to both forms, soldiers enduring Number 1 suffered an improvised crucifixion. For several hours each day, they could be tethered to a wheel or post, or with their hands tied behind their backs, [be] suspended by their wrists with rope or irons. 617 Poor weather conditions, or a brutal overseer, could make conditions significantly worse. Exposure to extreme heat as was common in the Middle East or cold, a tighter tying of appendages, and many other variations turned a public warning of ill-discipline into severe corporal punishment. One officer from New Zealand referred to it simply as, a means of inflicting unnecessary torture. 618 Field Punishment reflected residual, nineteenth-century notions of discipline that remained in the British military justice system throughout the First World War. The tradition of improvised crucifixion stretched back to discipline in Wellington s army one hundred years before, and existed to deter future offenders through public shame and pain. 619 Field punishment reflected the long-held belief that military law should rely on a policy of calculated terror and torture as a public spectacle in order to deter potential offenders, rather than reform the guilty. 620 This backwards-facing intent did not go unnoticed in Britain after the war, a debate over its use took place in Parliament. One MP from Manchester, an army major with legal training, argued the punishment was quite contrary to the spirit of the age and called for its abolition. 621 Yet, during the war, field punishment remained a key component of the punitive process, since it (arguably) maximized the utility of the example of the guilty soldier. In Egypt and Palestine, a sentence of Field Punishment Number 1 was a rarity, but on the Western Front, it was one of the most common punishments. Not only was it common in 615 NAA B2455, Corcoran L. Corcoran, a member of the 11 th ALH, had been sentenced to two months of FP 1 for disobeying orders and striking an NCO in the military police. 616 Roman Freulich, Out of the Jabotinsky Saga, in AJHS I-429, Honoring the Memory of Ze ev Jabotinsky on the occasion of his 22 nd Yahrzeit and Departed Jewish Legionnaires (Los Angeles, CA: Jabotinsky Yahrzeit Committee, 1962), Putkowski & Sykes, Shot at Dawn, 16; Julian Putkowski, British Army Mutineers, (London: Francis Boutle Publishers, 1998), 11. Putkowski claims that 21 days with two hours per day of crucifixion was the maximum allowed for this form of Field Punishment, but it is unclear whether this cap was actually enforced. 618 Lt. Col. Murray, quoted in, Pugsley, On the Fringes of Hell, Ferguson, Pity of War, Buckley, The British Army in the West Indies, Hansard HC vol 113, col 118, 3 March Speech of Major Gerald Hurst

141 131 English units, but the detailed research of Timothy Bowman reveals that 45.6 per cent of courtmartialed Irish soldiers in France received a sentence of Field Punishment Number 1, as did nearly 11 per cent of New Zealanders. 622 In contrast, 19 per cent of BWIR courts-martial passed down an initial sentence of Number 1, and this percentage decreased further after post-trial, judicial review. 623 However, while the more brutal form of field punishment was common in France, it appears to have been very rare in Egypt and Palestine only three cases are recorded in NZEF trials meaning that the BWIR s rate of field punishment number 1 was actually very high for the theater in which it served. 624 Given the corporal nature of the punishment, it is possible that some field courts martial in Palestine and Egypt used Number 1 as a means of circumventing the British Army s prohibition of bodily punishment, particularly flogging, to make examples of black soldiers and their bodies. One historian has suggested that Field Punishment Number 1 was capable of resurrecting the collective memory of slavery amongst West Indian troops, a strong possibility if the military policemen executing the punishment used more brutal methods, or emphasized racial differences between punisher and the punished. 625 However, there is no evidence that BWIR soldiers in Palestine thought this, and it is important to remember that English soldiers were continually subjected to Number 1 in France. Field Punishment was not, therefore, necessarily redolent of racial slavery, but rather was part of the broader means by which the state exhibited power over its constituents. This is especially true when the punishment of West Indians is compared to the British Army s disciplinary dealings with native Egyptians and Africans during the war. The treatment of native Egyptians and Africans shows most clearly how the racialist thinking that justified slavery still dominated military justice for those at the bottom of the colonial hierarchy. Africans recruited by the British Army were subject to officially sanctioned beatings as punishment, as well as indiscriminate caning and flogging, punishments that British soldiers were immune from. 626 Members of the Rhodesian Native Regiment, for example, faced flogging for crimes of insubordination, insolence, or desertion, and this sentence could be carried out in public, in front of the entire unit. 627 Sentences like those passed on five African members of the 4 th Nigeria Regiment, tried on charges of cowardice and all sentenced to three months of field punishment and twenty-four lashes, were not uncommon. 628 In a different incident, an African soldier in the Gold Coast Regiment received 42 days of FP 1 and 24 lashes for disobedience. 629 In general, African soldiers were sentenced much more harshly than any other 622 I arrived at the Irish percentage by tabulating the sentences from Bowman s table on page 158. Whether any portion of these sentences were commuted is unclear. A further 4.8 per cent of Irish soldiers received Field Punishment No 2. For the New Zealanders, see Pugsley, On the Fringes of Hell, There were 43 initial sentences of Field Punishment no 1 in the BWIR, although four of these sentences were commuted, quashed, or fully remitted. 624 Pugsley, The ANZAC Experience, Smith, Jamaican volunteers, Smith argues that field punishment may have provoked particularly strong feelings among black soldiers, but gives no evidence of this. Given the nature of the punishment, it seems likely that it would have provoked strong feelings in all soldiers. 626 Albert Grundlingh, Fighting their own war: South African Blacks and the First World War (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987), Stapleton, No Insignificant Part, 44. However, Stapleton is quick to note that no Rhodesian Native Regiment soldier was ever executed for a capital offense (desertion, cowardice, etc.). 628 WO 213/19/116. Privates Lawani and Agboola Ibadan, Ediga, Ekka, and Yagba. The trial was on 28 October 1917, and occurred at Mtama, in what is now Tanzania. 629 WO 213/17/171. Private A. Kano, tried at Narungombe on 9 August 1917.

142 132 empire soldiers records of those who had death sentences commuted during review indicate they still faced 14 years of penal servitude, substantially more than the 5-10 years commonly imposed upon West Indians who had death sentences commuted. 630 Nor were native Africans the only members of the British forces to face such punishments. The army treated the Egyptians who comprised the Egyptian Labour Corps (ELC), and built much of the infrastructure needed for Allenby s march to Damascus, in much the same way. Egyptians attached to the ELC were subject to the rules of the Army Act, but Allenby sought for a special legalization of flogging as, there are now and then cases for the lash with the ELC. 631 Although such a provision was never extended, there is substantial evidence that British authorities turned a blind eye to extrajudicial beatings of Egyptian laborers. One historian has found evidence of the promiscuous beating and flogging of native drivers by Australians, and argued this helped exacerbate conditions leading to the anti-british revolts across Egypt in the Spring of However, no attempts were made to treat West Indians, or other coloured service troops, in a similar manner. Rather, the tendency seems to have been to rely on the more brutal form of field punishment to effect corporal punishment. Such processes suggest a multi-faceted racial hierarchy inside the British Army one that might exact illegal violence upon those at the bottom of the racial ladder, but then revert to an intensified, but technically legal, set of punishments for others. While there was clearly discrimination against men classified as nonwhites, it appears to have been more tiered than commonly thought. The West Indians, whether through virtue of being volunteer, combat troops, or because of perceptions of British acculturation, escaped the violence that, at first glance, many would assume they might encounter. Yet, while the disciplinary process allowed the brutal punishment of native laborers, and stopped short of truly protecting the native residents of Egypt and Palestine, there were occasions when it responded to the violence of EEF soldiers against locals. The Other Execution: Private James Mitchell As the British advanced into Ottoman Palestine, they created a legal vacuum, a presence occupied during the war by military courts. Despite a generally blind eye, there were occasions when the justice system took action against EEF soldiers when local Egyptians or Arabs brought complaints to British officers. Perhaps the most important of these trials was that of Private James Mitchell, a Jamaican teenager in the British West Indies Regiment who was the only soldier executed in Palestine itself during the war. Mitchell, apparently intoxicated, had approached a well near the village of Beit Duras in November 1917, where he encountered a local woman, Nazha ben Saleh Yousef, and her husband, drawing water. According to Nazha s court testimony, Mitchell rudely propositioned her, exposed himself, and then lunged at her, at which point her husband interceded to separate them. As Nazha fled, she saw Mitchell unshoulder his rifle and shoot her husband in the chest, fatally wounding him Compare the sentences of Privates Frafa and Dagomba of the Gold Coast Regiment (WO 213/19/106) to WO 213/26/103 CA Wilson (5 years PS), WO 213/11/172 V Hall (10 years PS), WO 213/17/147 H Hart (10 years PS) all in various West Indian units. 631 Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, 100. The letter is from Allenby to General Robertson, and was sent on 4 December Brugger, Australians and Egypt, 77. See also Woodward, Forgotten Soldiers, WO 71/629, Testimony of Nazha ben Saleh Yousef. Medical evidence given at the trial later indicated that her husband, Abda Rahman, had his back at least partially turned when shot.

143 133 After her husband s death, Nazha s uncle traveled to a nearby Jewish settlement and notified a British major of the attack. The British response was prompt the next morning, a doctor, interpreter, and BWIR officer traveled to Beit Duras to examine the body. The West Indian battalion was one of the only units in the area, and a series of lineups occurred, at which Nazha was present. Although Nazha did not identify Mitchell during the lineups (she later claimed that the number of men present made identifying the attacker too difficult), he confessed to assaulting her. However, Mitchell was unequivocally clear that he had only shot her husband because he had attempted to seize Mitchell s rifle. 634 More importantly, Mitchell essentially recanted his confession, acknowledging that it existed, but also noting that he could not remember what I told him as I was not in my right senses. 635 After a more substantial trial than Private Clarke s including a much more significant defense Mitchell was found guilty and sentenced to death, largely on the basis of Nazha s testimony. Despite his popularity inside his platoon, strong character evidence from officers, no past disciplinary history, and other possibly precluding discrepancies during his trial (notably that he might have improperly enlisted while underage), Mitchell was shot eight days later at Ramleh. 636 The decision to execute Mitchell can be interpreted as a statement of both imperial accountability and imperial power the British would respect local inhabitants, provided that they acknowledged the British, in this case the army, as sole arbiter of the region. Nazha, it turned out, was the niece of the mukhtar, a prominent local elder in charge of the area around Beit Duras. This was a figure whom the British wanted to respect and co-opt, both to avoid potential short-term difficulty with their supply lines, but also for the longer term, when they would need local elites to serve as intermediaries of empire. The mukhtar s actions in the wake of his nephew s death had signified a willingness to cooperate with the new imperial authority in the area he had not sought local retribution, but rather initiated proceedings via the presiding judicial process. The trial of Mitchell had been held at Ramleh some 40 kilometers north of Beit Duras, and a not inconsiderable distance for the mukhtar and his niece to travel during a war, thereby signaling further cooperation. Executing Mitchell, rather than imprisoning him, enabled the British to demonstrate their supreme authority, and also helped persuade local inhabitants to warm to the British Empire by ensuring that their first major interaction with it ended with the desired resolution. Had Mitchell been convicted of a voluntary form of manslaughter, the more appropriate charge given his lack of intent to kill willfully and of malice aforethought, it is unlikely that he would have been executed. In two other cases involving the BWIR, soldiers facing murder charges had only been convicted of manslaughter, and both had been sentenced to penal servitude, rather than execution. 637 Executing Mitchell, then, was more of a public statement to the surrounding community than it was to his battalion. Neither the reporting of crimes against locals by EEF soldiers, nor the reliance of the prosecution on native witnesses in assessing guilt, were incidents isolated to Mitchell s case. An Australian lieutenant in the Imperial Camel Corps, Bertram Arthur Clark, was court-martialed at Suez in May 1918 for beating an Egyptian, Mohammed Hassan. After being attacked, Hassan 634 WO 71/629/A, Statement of James A. Mitchell, Nov 23, Testimony of Private JA Mitchell, WO 71/ WO 71/629. Trial of James A. Mitchell. In addition to the strong character evidence presented by Captain Irving on Mitchell s behalf, a childhood friend, Sgt JA Fontanelle, also testified that he was known as a very good boy at school and he has always borne a good character since he left school. 637 See the cases of Blenman WO 213/22/6, Johnson 213/25/19, and for a post-armistice case in Europe, Richards WO 213/27/74. Johnson, tried six months after Mitchell, was actually from the same battalion.

144 134 had notified a military policeman, which had resulted in an Australian officer preparing lineups and disciplinary proceedings. The prosecuting officer s case against Clark rested almost entirely on Hassan s statements, as well as the testimony of several other Egyptian witnesses who had seen an officer strike Hassan in the neck with a cane from a taxi, before later whipping the (justifiably) indignant Egyptian with a belt. 638 Despite Clark s rapid rise from sergeant to lieutenant, the Distinguished Conduct Medal he won in 1917, and the fact that the prosecution based its case on the testimony of Egyptians while the defense relied on the testimony of several Australian officers, the court still found Clark guilty, though it prescribed the minimal punishment of a severe reprimand and a reset of his seniority date. 639 While such a sentence was a relative slap on the wrist, the simple fact that any punishment resulted against a white officer decorated for bravery, when it was routine for British and Australian soldiers to flog Egyptian laborers, is somewhat remarkable. Checks and Balances? In evaluating the court-martial process, it is important to note that despite its appearance as an overwhelmingly punitive process, there were still entrenched checks against abuse. Officers from the DJAG office, tasked with reviewing trials, were on alert for abusive sentences, as well as for procedural violations that contravened the Army Act. Despite their critical role in the justice system, their work generally escaped both public and historical attention. In the postwar Parliamentary debates over the wartime justice system, one MP from Antrim a former DJAG in Egypt and Palestine called the Commons attention to the system of oversight against abuses, concluding that military justice had not failed as egregiously as some thought. 640 Importantly, there is evidence to support the MP s somewhat self-serving contention. Sometimes, DJAGs focused on appropriate charging, as when one demanded to know of an Australian trial, why this man who was absent for a few hours was charged with desertion. 641 Such oversight could protect an ordinary soldier from the whims of an overly-punitive-minded officer an AWOL charge would normally be punished by a stint of field punishment, whereas desertion could result in a death sentence. On another occasion, an Australian trooper sentenced to six months of imprisonment with hard labor for attempting to plunder supplies had his conviction promptly quashed after the DJAG found a number of problems with the trial proceedings the charges were filed under the wrong section of the military code and a witness was not examined correctly. 642 At other times, a review might turn out worse for the accused. Initially punished with a reprimand at his first court-martial, Lt Corporal Duncan MacPhee 638 NAA 471/6478, Clark, Bertram Arthur. Testimony of Mohammed Hassan, Mohammed Joubshi, Amir Ali, and Ahmed Ali. 639 Clark went on to face court-martial two more times while in Egypt and Palestine once for significantly overdrawing his pay, and the other for organizing a, possibly dubious, commercial sugar-selling enterprise. On both occasions, his punishments were financial an order to repay the extra salary, and another reset of his seniority date. 640 Hansard HC vol 113, col 127-8, 3 March Speech of Major Hugh O Neill. One should note, however, that nothing was said about whether military justice had succeeded. 641 NAA 471/9721, Murray, A.J. Major Percy, DJAG to General Officer Commanding, Eastern Force, 20 March NAA A471/3082. Draper, Rupert Randolph. Major Percy, Deputy JAG, EEF to GOC, Desert Mounted Corps, 31 October 1917.

145 135 found himself facing a reassembled court after the presiding officers were notified by the DJAG that such a light sentence was not a valid Court Martial sentence on an NCO. 643 This system of review was of particular importance to BWIR soldiers, who as noted earlier, often faced particularly aggressive, race-based sentencing that even Australians generally escaped. Yet, this prejudice appears somewhat mitigated by careful examination of the courtmartial statistics of BWIR soldiers in Egypt and Palestine, which show frequent commutations of sentence, as well as partial reductions of sentence length (known as remittance ). Almost 40 per cent of BWIR convictions in Palestine featured a modification of sentence, often significant. Of the eighty-eight cases in which a BWIR sentence changed during review, thirty-eight involved a commutation to a lesser penalty, forty-nine sentences were decreased in length, and one conviction was simply quashed. Importantly, exactly three-quarters of the modified sentences occurred before the October armistice, indicating that despite the punitive tendencies of wartime courts, a level of judicial review still provided some protection to BWIR soldiers. 644 The following chart depicts the instances of review in the 190 cases where a BWIR soldier was sentenced to some form of detention: Figure 3.2 Modified Prison Sentences in the BWIR, While there appears to be some tendency to commute sentences of imprisonment or penal servitude, the above chart makes clear that review more often involved remitting a portion of the original sentence. At a minimum, one-third of the original sentence length was remitted, but more often remittance occurred on a larger scale between one-half and two-thirds of the original sentence length in the cases of field punishment and imprisonment, along with the occasional remittance of three-fourths of a sentence. Additionally, when DJAG s commuted sentences of imprisonment with hard labor to field punishment, the length of the sentence was often substantially reduced as well. The frequency of commutation and remittance reinforces the contention that most courtsmartial of BWIR soldiers in Palestine yielded overly harsh sentences. In one particular case, a FGCM sentence of three years of penal servitude was commuted to only six months of hard 643 NAA A471/20226, McPhee, Duncan. Staff Captain, AAG Palestine Lines of Communication to GHQ Jerusalem, 23 December Of the 88 cases modified, 66 occurred before 30 October 1918.

146 136 labor a significant alteration that implies severe overreach in sentencing by the officers of the FGCM. 645 Still, sentence modification demonstrates that there was some sort of oversight to the punitive nature of military law, even for coloured soldiers. In fact, it is one area where West Indian soldiers fared comparably well 46 per cent of their sentences of imprisonment or penal servitude were modified, compared with 54 per cent for the entire NZEF. 646 While commutations or partial remittances were likely little consolation to sentenced soldiers (and do not suggest that even the modified sentence was fair), the existence and utilization of a check against abusive sentencing is an oft-overlooked feature of the military justice system, and perhaps evidence of a more complex relationship between the British Empire and its imperial and colonial forces during the First World War. 647 An incident related in CLR James s biography of Captain Arthur Andrew Cipriani an officer in the BWIR in Egypt and Palestine clearly encapsulates the contradictory impulses of military justice towards West Indian servicemen. After rifles were stolen by local Egyptians from a BWIR encampment during the unrest of March 1919, several BWIR soldiers were courtmartialed despite the Adjutant s attempts to halt prosecution. The result was as unfair as was to be expected in this type of public show trial, and the convicted soldiers each received six month sentences to imprisonment with hard labor. Yet, this punitive example was reversed after Captain Cipriani petitioned Allenby for clemency, with the West Indians released after four days in prison. 648 This vignette firmly illustrates the West Indian experience with the British Army s military justice system in the First World War. On the one hand, black West Indians could be, and were, made into public examples by British officers convinced that West Indians were racially inferior, disposed towards criminality, and inherently ill-disciplined. While common, these were not universalist assumptions, and the result was that there was room for review, commutation, and remittance of West Indian sentences from both the DJAG and higher levels of the British command. This was made all the more possible by the BWIR s status as British Army soldiers, rather than as a separate or distinct colonial command. In addition, officers inside the BWIR battalions were able to protect their troops either by avoiding courts-martial, acting as prisoner s friends, or pressing for fair play when convictions were unnecessarily harsh. Thus, while the BWIR s encounter with military justice in Egypt and Palestine was hardly fair in a modern, legal sense, on balance it was more nuanced than might be first assumed. This is particularly critical to note in light of the only existing histories of West Indians and military justice in the First World War, which all focus on the mutiny at Taranto. Taranto The BWIR mutiny at the port of Taranto in Italy has become the fulcrum of a narrative highlighting the entrenched prejudice meted out to British West Indians in Britain s armed forces during the Great War. The execution of Private Clarke not least the secret correspondence urging execution of black West Indians has helped anchor this to the West Indian battalions in 645 WO 213/22/88, Case of Private T. Ellis sentences out of 111 modified for the BWIR, and 211 out of 392 modified for the NZEF. For the precalculation New Zealand numbers, see Pugsley, On the Fringes of Hell, Even CLR James admits that this system did overturn particularly unjust sentence. See CLR James, Captain Cipriani, CLR James, Captain Cipriani, 31.

147 137 Egypt and Palestine. Yet the preceding sections of this chapter have demonstrated that at least in Egypt and Palestine, a story of complete and unmitigated injustice is perhaps not quite correct. While neither the incident at Taranto in December 1918 nor the history of West Indians in the European theaters are the primary focus of this work, a brief discussion of Taranto reveals an immediate and important distinction between BWIR service in Europe and that in Egypt and Palestine. With the armistice of November 11, the British command moved to consolidate all of the BWIR in Europe at Taranto for demobilization back to the Caribbean. The battalions in Egypt and Palestine were again the outliers as service troops, their role in maintaining Britain s newly occupied Middle Eastern Empire meant that they were not present at Taranto in December. 649 However, several of the BWIR battalions had been stationed at Taranto during the war, and had been dragooned into labor duties despite their supposed enlistment as British Army soldiers. These duties had been motivated by deep prejudice; the Commandant at Taranto was a South African who maintained a viciously racist attitude towards anyone of African descent. The result was a justified explosion of discontent amongst the West Indians in early December. Unrest rumbled through the 9 th BWIR, while a large portion of the 10 th BWIR refused their orders on December 9. In one particularly tense incident the night before, an NCO in the 7 th BWIR battalion shot an insubordinate West Indian private and was subsequently attacked by the man s comrades. 650 The British response was to immediately disarm the battalions, confine them, and secretly encircle them with machine gunners who probably had orders to open fire in the event of further unrest. 651 Now, however, the unrest moved from localized outburst over poor treatment, to something substantially more political. Some of the disaffected men inside the BWIR battalions became increasingly politicized, and in secret meetings, formed a Caribbean League. The League drew support from across the different battalions, but as it took on a distinctly anti-imperialist and nationalist bent, some men, particularly NCO s, renounced their association. In fact, the Colonial Office received its information about the creation of the Caribbean League because two sergeants, one from the 8 th battalion and the other the 10 th, reported its establishment to their commanding officers. 652 Still, the dissatisfaction with their treatment during the war had helped kindle nationalist sentiment among some of the West Indians. After all, why had they volunteered their lives to defend an entity that responded to their presence with prejudice and disdain? For some historians, the mutiny of the BWIR at Taranto and the accompanying formation of the anti-colonialist Caribbean League by the mutineers was a seminal event in the history of black Caribbean nationalism the modern advent of mass resistance by West Indians to British rule. 653 But these men were still under British rule, and their unrest carried a price. Dozens of soldiers from the 4 th, 9 th, and 6 th BWIR battalions were convicted of mutiny, and with the 649 CO 318/350/7060 Army Demobilization Regulations, Part III, Chapter XXXIII, British West Indies Contingent. This document notes that on January 20, 1919 one month after Taranto the 1 st, 2 nd and 5 th battalions were still in Egypt. 650 CO 33/951/619A. Telegram, Base Commandant, Taranto to WO, December 9, 1918 #BC IWM PP/MCR/173 Memoirs of Lt DC Burns, Jan 1919, pg 136. we had machine guns secretly mounted against them in case of further trouble. See also WO 33/951/625, Inspector-General of Communication, British Forces Italy to War Office, December 11, 1918 #IC CO 318/344/6165. Secret Communique, Major General HF Thuillier to GHQ Italy, Jan 5, Interestingly, an internal minute revealed the Colonial Office s belief that many BWIR men objected to the officials of the League being all Jamaicans. See CO 318/344/6165. Handwritten Minute of Feb 2, 1919, signed CRD. 653 Elkins, A Source of Black Nationalism, 103.

148 138 exception of twelve who had their sentences commuted to imprisonment with hard labor, were sentenced to several years of penal servitude. 654 However, the outburst at Taranto had catalyzed and focused political sentiment. When disaffected servicemen returned home to find no employment, they quickly became involved in a series of disturbances and political movements that began to alter the contours of the British Empire in the Caribbean. But while the outburst at Taranto deserves its attention as an important marker in Caribbean political history, it should also be considered within a broader context. Despite their homogenous regimental identity, the reality, as Chapter 1 has pointed out, was that the service battalions in Egypt and Palestine had a markedly different wartime experience. As a result, even when they came up against entrenched prejudice in military justice or in the pay issues of Army Order No 1 of 1918, they tended not to react like their peers in Europe. In fact, it was only while transiting Taranto during demobilization that the BWIR battalions from Egypt and Palestine came up against mutiny charges. The context of Taranto was the key once out of the EEF, the battle-proven West Indians found themselves detailed to wash dirty laundry and clean latrines, which they protested, albeit while still completing the tasks as ordered. The result were charges of mutiny and a show-trial, those charged having their names drawn at random when the BWIR officers refused to finger any of their men as ring-leaders. 655 Thus, when placed inside a context of entrenched prejudice particularly when a racist General had command BWIR soldiers found themselves incapable of mitigating the comparatively milder racism found inside Egypt and Palestine. 656 The contextual distinction of Egypt and Palestine might explain why despite the sentences issued by field courts martial to BWIR soldiers there, there is surprisingly little concern over the disciplinary system in the few remaining pieces of subaltern testimony from this theater. In a letter in which several members of the BWIR complained about the various discriminatory obstacles the BWIR in Palestine faced, no concern was expressed about the military justice system. In fact, the letter conveyed the West Indians perception that in terms of the punitive nature of military law, they were treated no differently than regular English soldiers Under military law subject to its various amendments we suffer the full and just penalty when we break that law just as any other British soldier. 657 A later letter, signed by forty-two non-commissioned officers from the 1 st and 2 nd BWIR, complained about discrimination over pay, but also made no notation of disciplinary discrimination, noting We were treated as British soldiers in equipment, training, discipline, and were used as such in the field. 658 And a later postwar dispatch from the Governor of the Bahamas to the Colonial Office noted the anger of demobilized 1 st and 2 nd BWIR soldiers at their treatment not in Palestine, but because of the racial abuse and official discrimination they had suffered while waiting in Taranto for ships to the West Indies. 659 The implicit contrast between Palestine and Taranto again suggests that, on the whole, West Indian soldiers in Palestine perceived the system of military 654 WO 213/27/23-25 reveals forty-seven men directly charged with mutiny. For the twelve with commuted sentences, see WO 213/27/23. Interestingly, while convicted of mutiny, most of them were found not guilty of disobedience. 655 CLR James, Captain Cipriani, CLR James even went to far as to imply that the Taranto Commandant was perhaps not the norm, referring to his actions as the behaviour of a stray South African General. See CLR James, Captain Cipriani, Letter from BWIR soldiers in Palestine to the Hon. JC Lynch, August 2, Located in CO 28/294/ CO 318/348/ Letter from NCO s of the 1 st and 2 nd BWIR, Feb 22, CO 318/349/ Governor of Bahamas to Colonial Office, July 14, 1919.

149 justice to be a normal burden to be borne by the British soldier, even if their burden was unknowingly heavier. Military justice, then, was an uneven affair for West Indian soldiers one that featured punitive sentencing, but was balanced in part by a system of review. West Indians were perceived as particularly ill-disciplined by many of the British officers in Egypt and Palestine, and they lacked the protection that the similarly perceived Australians received from their own officers during trials. The result was that West Indians were often at the mercy of the court and the DJAG, although the latter treated them fairly. Critically, while they suffered more severe punishment than white, imperial forces, the discipline meted out to non-white colonials, such as Africans and Egyptians, was significantly more abusive. Whether West Indian soldiers in Egypt and Palestine were aware of the punitive obstacles they faced, as well as the subtle distinctions and nuances that helped reduce these punishments, is unclear. But West Indians were not the only minority soldiers in the EEF to occupy a distinct position inside the British military hierarchy, and to further flesh out military justice in Egypt and Palestine as well as the charged atmosphere of the immediate postwar period this work now turns to the Jewish encounter with courts-martial. 139

150 140 Chapter 4 In the army, held by iron chains 660 The Jewish Battalions and Military Justice Prejudice, distrust, and mutiny. This is the common narrative sequence used to explain the Jewish Battalions encounter with military justice during the Palestine campaign. Men who had voluntarily enlisted in the British Army to liberate Palestine from the Ottoman Empire found themselves facing discrimination and antisemitism at every turn, engendering an atmosphere of distrust and unrest. Eight months after the fighting had ended but demobilization had not, the situation ignited into mutiny, a peaceful revolt of men who had simply endured too much abuse to continue following orders. 661 Flashpoints like capital courts-martial or mutinies are how most historians interpret military justice. As the last chapter argued, the disciplinary history of the British West Indies Regiment has pivoted off the rebellion of several battalions at Taranto, Italy and the punitive execution of one private as a way of situating a growing nationalism. While these events are important, it is also clear that their predominance obscures important nuance in the ways in which minority soldiers experienced entrenched hierarchical governance through military justice. Yet discussions of the Jewish Battalions experience with military justice employ exactly this method, focusing on the Mutiny in the 38 th and 39 th battalions in July 1919 to extrapolate broader themes, particularly the possibility of latent discrimination inside the military hierarchy. 662 The result has been a decontextualization of the broader Jewish experience with military justice, a significant hole that the following seeks to fill by offering an overview of the battalions courts-martial, as well as examining the Mutiny within its immediate political context. This chapter argues that unlike the West Indians, whose disciplinary history revealed a system of differentiated racism inherent to the imperial military system, the courts-martial of Jewish soldiers demonstrate the problems confronting the EEF once the actual fighting stopped. With the Armistices of both Mudros and Compiègne seemingly signaling the end of the war, men throughout the British Army began to agitate for demobilization. This was particularly true in Egypt and Palestine, where empire soldiers were not only anxious to get home to their families and friends, but deeply fearful that slow demobilization would prevent them from securing employment upon their return. However, the acceleration of Egyptian Nationalism into a fullblown, anti-british revolt in March 1919 impeded the pace of demobilization, aggravating many soldiers to the point of military and political unrest. This general anger was badly exaggerated inside the Legion for one major reason the place they hoped to demobilize to was quite literally in front of them. The late arrival of the Jewish Battalions to Egypt and Palestine, coupled with the unrest of 1919, their slow demobilization, and their attachment to Palestine, ensured that their encounter 660 Quote from Liss Diary, Keren and Keren, We are Coming, For examples of this trajectory, see Freulich, Soldiers in Judea; Gilner, War and Hope; Jabotinsky, The Jewish Legion, Op. cit. 662 Only one, Martin Watts, has attempted to examine the actual courts-martial records from the mutiny, while others have simply relied on the statements of various soldiers. See Watts, Jewish Legion, Despite good intent, Watts analysis falls short of conclusive an assessment which will be explained later in the chapter. I have placed Mutiny in quotations here to alert the reader that it was really two separate, small-scale demonstrations of disobedience rather than a single, mass uprising.

151 141 with military justice was unique. Unlike the BWIR, who served for years in the active theater, most of the Jewish soldiers only served in Palestine for between two and eight months while it was an active combat theater, and some for less. The 40 th battalion, for example, did not even arrive in Egypt until several weeks before Allenby s Megiddo offensive, meaning most of their military and disciplinary experiences were in the post-armistice era. The result was that Jewish troops had several potential disadvantages when facing courtmartial, as well as a particularly unique issue that exacerbated unrest. First, they had little time to demonstrate their military value, and prevailing stereotypes considered Jews to be weak, effete, and terrible soldiers. This belief could, and did, put them at a significant disadvantage in the character portion of trials. The nature of their enlistment some of the 38 th, for example, had been pressured into enlistment via threat of deportation to Russia did not help either. Secondly, but of equal importance, was the geographic location in which they served. A sizeable bloc of the Legion had Zionist leanings, which exacerbated natural tendencies in Armistice-era soldiers to escape the boredom of camp life and occupation-related duties. Jews had welcoming colonies, like Rishon Le Zion, to which they could sneak off to for food, wine, and adulation or to whom they might give weapons to for protection. 663 Between anti-imperial revolt and a borderline mutinous army of occupation, Egypt and Palestine was one of the most combustible areas of the British Empire certainly deserving to be included in the discussion of immediate postwar dissent in the Caribbean, India, and Ireland and, therefore, a unique context for the application of military justice. 664 The Battalions Disciplinary Infractions As it was for many idealistic volunteers to Britain s armed forces during the Great War, the Jewish Battalions first encounters with military discipline and justice were something of a rude awakening. The vast majority of the Jewish Battalion members had no prior military experience, and the abrupt shift from civilian rules and culture to military norms and laws was a shock, particularly for those absent or segregated from British civil society. An American recruit 663 See Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, 139 for an account of how three legionnaires gave their rifles to Jewish colonists. According to Freulich, one of the men was Eliezer Sukenik, the translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and father of Yigal Yadin. Sukenik, who had arrived in Palestine before war broke out, was a member of the 40 th. 664 Thus while the foil to the chapter on the West Indian encounter with military justice was primarily Australian soldiers, the comparative baseline for the Jewish units in this chapter is the entire EEF in However, comparisons are still drawn between the Jewish and West Indian battalions, in part because of their similar size, shared theater of operations, and potential to experience prejudice related to their otherness. In addition, despite my best efforts, the inconsistencies of memory, the passing off of second-hand stories as personal experience, and the possibility of incomplete record-keeping makes accurately compiling the Jewish battalions disciplinary record extremely difficult. Incorrect terminology complicates the issue further what a soldier might recall as a field court-martial might actually have been a simple summary trial with the commanding officer. Freulich, for example, seems to have conflated the various forms of imprisonment drawing no real distinctions in his work between detention, field punishment, and the various forms of more severe imprisonment. On page 184 of Soldiers in Judea he tells the story of an NCO named Louis Fischer, whom he claims was court-martialed for taking leaving without a pass, and sentenced to two weeks of military prison at Kantara. Yet, no DJAG records exist for this case and it is more likely he was summarily punished via detention for such a short period imprisonment with hard labor was almost always a sentence of at least several months. Other problems, such as possible misspellings inside the DJAG records (it s not clear, for example, whether the trials of Privates Belonsky and Belontsky are of the same man) also muddles matters. With reference to last names, I have used the name recorded in the DJAG records for footnotes in order to ease the task of any citation-trackers. However, I am also aware that these recorded names are often misspelled, and in the main text have converted them to their proper spelling if I am aware of it.

152 142 named Joe Davidson recalled the recently enlisted Americans introduction to British military discipline as hard and unbearable, and remembered his Irish drill sergeant as rough and tough. 665 While the East Enders and other residents of Britain also faced a significant adjustment process, it appears that the American contingents often brimming with idealistic, young Zionists fared the worst. Redcliffe Salaman, a British Jew serving as the Medical Officer in the 39 th, frequently noted in his letters home the disciplinary strife inside the unit. In July 1918, he wrote that despite potential, the American volunteers had poor discipline, and one month later, he argued that their ability to adapt to military life is certainly lower than in ordinary battalions. 666 This was a prevailing sentiment amongst many Anglo-Jewish officers attached to the battalions, even though the Jews enlisted from Britain were not always considered highly; as one British Major put it, the 38 th Battalion had already taken the cream off the rather poor milk that the British Isles had yielded from the residue of the Jewish Community. 667 The Americans, however, were considered on the whole more troublesome from a disciplinary perspective, even if they sometimes appeared martially preferable to the Yiddish-speaking Russians immigrants from London s East End. But even though evaluations of the 38 th and 39 th battalions were caught up in conceptions of racial worth, their arrival in Egypt and Palestine while the war still raged, and while military justice was still keenly enforced, was perhaps more important initially. The field courts-martial records of the 38 th and 39 th battalions reveal not only the initial challenges of life under military law, but also reflect a policy of encouragement through punitive process. Before fighting ended on October 31, 1918 with the Murdos Armistice, fourteen members of the 38 th and 39 th battalions had been court-martialed in Egypt and Palestine. 668 Seven of the trials involved members of the 38 th battalion, and all occurred between March and August. More importantly, at least four, and likely five, of these trials revolved around charges dealing with contravention of authority whether it was insubordination, striking a superior officer, or disobedience. 669 These trials imply that officers were willing to make examples of men who did not fall into place quickly a suspicion that appears to be confirmed by the punitive sentencing inside the 38 th in With the exception of Sergeant C. Gregor reduced to the ranks for insubordination and disobedience (and unlikely to have been Jewish) the members of the 38 th tried in 1918 received initial sentences of imprisonment with hard labor, penal servitude, and death. In two of these cases, sentences of imprisonment were commuted to the relatively light punishment of ninety days of Field Punishment 2, indicating that the officers presiding over the early FGCMs were either grossly prejudiced against Jewish soldiers, or were attempting to send a message to the enlisted men of the Legion. While discrimination was certainly possible, it seems less likely. In the courts-martial of 38 th soldiers immediately after the armistice, insubordination and disobedience merited only several weeks of field punishment, indicating that 665 YIVO RG Joshua Joseph Davidson Papers. Handwritten, untitled manuscript, Box 2. Davidson did not arrive in Palestine until after the Murdos Armistice, but his feelings on discipline still seem to be reflective of broader sentiment inside the earlier, and later, American contingents. 666 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, 30, IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, One other member of the 39 th had been court-martialed while transiting through Italy on charges of Striking a Senior Officer. For the case, see WO 213/23/128 I. Shulman. For the total numbers of the 38 th, see in WO 213 files 21/129, 25/146, 23/18, 24/51, 25/99, 26/1, and 26/2. For the 39 th, see in WO 213 files 26/97, 26/102, 27/81, 27/46, and 27/ The fifth case of Private D. Fresco (WO 213/23/18) was on charges of Section 40, a charge usually applied for authority-related situations when a more specific charge was inappropriate (or unlikely to convict).

153 143 early trials were less about prejudice than public warnings. 670 Punitive warnings, of course, could be more than just an encouragement to fight; as the last chapter demonstrated, they could indicate particular perceptions of discipline and martialness generally related to imperial race hierarchies. A similar, but slightly different, narrative emerges with the pre-armistice courts-martial of soldiers in the 39 th. Of those seven trials, three were for disobedience, one for insubordination, and two others for violating Section 40 again illuminating how most early courts-martial of Jewish soldiers inside Palestine were over authority-related issues. The surprise, however, was in the sentencing, encapsulated by the battalion s first court-martial inside Egypt and Palestine an appeal of a summary punishment issued for Section 40, conduct prejudicial to good order. 671 The soldier, Private I. Pressman, was found not guilty of the charge. The exceedingly vague nature of the charge, the tendency of officers to side with a fellow officer s judgment (especially in an appeal), and the fact that the first battalion court-martial was an opportunity pour encourager les autres, should have all led to a guilty verdict. Similarly, the first FGCM in the 40 th battalion a November 1918 trial of Private H. Weinstock for Disobedience ended with an equally surprising not guilty verdict. 672 The sentencing of the other six members of the 39 th battalion in 1918 was also dissimilar to what occurred in the 38 th with one exception, the authority-related FGCM s ended with initial sentences of field punishment, not imprisonment. However, there was still a punitive element to these lighter, field punishment sentences those passed before the Megiddo offensive were for No 1, the significantly more brutal, and publically cautionary, version of field punishment. So while the contrast in sentencing between the battalions in 1918 suggests a lack of a homogenous view of Jews inside the EEF officers corps, even the lesser sentences meted out in 1918 contained a salutary element. Despite the conclusions drawn from the pre-armistice trials of Jewish soldiers in Palestine, the relatively late arrival of the Jewish Battalions into the Palestine theater, coupled with their late demobilization, ensured that the majority of their courts-martial occurred in This was particularly true for the 40 th battalion, which saw only two FGCMs in 1918, in part because it did not arrive at Port Said until August In sum, there were twenty-two courtsmartial of Jewish battalion members in 1918, of which fourteen occurred before the Murdos Armistice and four before the Compiègne Armistice with Germany (including one trial for desertion on November 11 itself). 674 As the table below shows, this was but one-tenth of the total FGCMs in the Jewish Battalions from their arrival until the end of December 1919: 670 This is also borne out by the 38 th s two cases in 1918 involving violations of Section 40 and Section 41. The former received 2 years of imprisonment with no commutation or remittance, while the latter received the extremely punitive sentence of 10 years of penal servitude (eventually remitted by five years). Given the DJAG s willingness to remit or commute sentences that involved obvious prejudice, it seems that these sentences would have been revised much further downward had they been motivated by anti-jewish sentiment (WO 213/25/146 M. Beloknentsky. WO 213/23/18 D. Fresco). With regard to the post-armistice courts-martial, authority-related trials began to see elevated sentencing again from May 1919 onwards, as discontent over demobilization grew. 671 WO 213/26/97 I. Pressman. 672 WO 213/27/106. H. Weinstock. While there was an armistice in Palestine by Weinstock s trial, there had not yet been an armistice on the Western Front, and finding a soldier not guilty of disobedience in the battalion s first courtmartial hardly set a tough standard. 673 Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion: The Burning Ground, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), WO 213/27/100 J. Colnibolsky. While possible, it s not clear whether this was more than a coincidence Colnibolsky received six months of detention commuted to ninety days of field punishment no 1.

154 144 Table C: Charges Brought Against Jewish Legion Soldiers in Egypt & Palestine: Charge Absence or Breaking Out of Camp (AWOL) Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Total 38 th RF 39 th RF 40 th RF Desertion Disobedience Drunkenness Escaping Confinement Insubordination and Threatening Losing Property Murder Mutiny Misc Misc Misc Offense against Inhabitant Resisting or Escaping Escort Quitting Post Sleeping on Post Theft Violence or Striking Senior Officer Total Charges Total Courts-Martial The most immediate conclusion from this table is the significant disparity in the number of courts-martial between the two service battalions and the reserve battalion, the 40 th. Even if the active service units twenty FGCM s from 1918 are removed for balance (since the 40 th arrived many months later in 1918), the 40 th still appears to have seen a substantially lower number of courts-martial. This is a notable departure from the comparative case of the BWIR in Palestine, whose reserve battalion faced a substantially higher number of courts-martial than its service 675 When a soldier from one battalion was court-martialed while attached to a different battalion, I have included him in the statistics for the battalion he was serving in when court-martialed. The December 1919 cut-off is because with the exception of one additional FGCM in the 40 th battalion after December 31, 1919, all other courts-martial occurred in the 38 th. This was due to demobilization, which reduced the Legion into one, larger battalion the Judeans. An additional 12 FGCM s took place in the 38 th from 1920 onwards (including the trial of J. Mayofis, listed as a member of the 39 th but attached to the 38 th ). 676 Including one charge of Misc 40(18). 677 A catch-all clause for trying Army soldiers for a variety of civil offenses, like murder, in an Army court. Manual of Military Law, This total does not include Private I. Shulman, tried in Italy on June 29, 1918 for Striking a Senior Officer. WO 213/23/128. Shulman is also not included in the tables breaking down military justice by charges or ranks.

155 145 battalion cousins. Yet closer inspection reveals that the reasons for higher disciplinary counts in the 38 th and 39 th are the large number of Section 40 charges in the 38 th, and the mutiny charges in the 39 th. These charges refer to two separate, but related, outbreaks of dissent in July 1919 commonly grouped together by Jewish soldiers as the Mutiny. As the next table demonstrates, when the various charges related to the Mutiny are dropped, the total numbers even out across the three battalions: Table D: Charges Brought Against Jewish Legion Soldiers in Egypt & Palestine (Not Including Charges Related to the Summer 1919 Mutinies) Charge Absence or Breaking Out of Camp (AWOL) Occurrences Occurrences Occurrences Total 38 th RF 39 th RF 40 th RF Desertion Disobedience Drunkenness Escaping Confinement Insubordination and Threatening Losing Property Murder Mutiny Misc Misc Misc Offense against Inhabitant Resisting or Escaping Escort Quitting Post Sleeping on Post Theft Violence or Striking Senior Officer Total Charges Total Courts-Martial Despite the general leveling in total courts-martial, the 39 th and 40 th seem to have been more likely to face multiple charges (which could increase the odds of conviction). Additionally, with the Mutiny removed, there is a noticeably higher percentage of disobedience charges in the 39 th battalion a 100% increase over the same set of charges in the 38 th, and a point also underlined by a 50% higher number of insubordination charges over the 38 th. Given that the Section 40 charges remain relatively constant across each unit, it would seem that the 39 th were either worse soldiers from a disciplinary standpoint, or as earlier commentary from officers revealed, the

156 146 heavy American composition of the unit led to perceptions of poor discipline. 679 Interestingly, none of these charges appear caused by alcohol; there is but a solitary charge for drunkenness a point that Patterson proudly called attention to in his memoir, claiming that his men were in demand not only for their reliability, but for their consistent sobriety. 680 On the whole, however, the dominant sets of charges remain those related to leaving camp without permission, and for behavior seen as disobedient and insubordinate. Referring back to the broader disciplinary picture provided by Table A, it s clear that charges related to the contravention of military authority outpaced other charges. The three most frequent charges across the battalion were: violation of Section 40, mutiny, and disobedience comprising 49% of the total charges. If two other similar charges are included insubordination and violence towards a senior officer the percentage rises to nearly 60%. 681 It s also noticeable that the majority of these charges stemmed from the 38 th and 39 th battalions, rather than the reserve unit. This is easily explained; these battalions served longer during the pre-armistice period the period in which the British military seemed to more seriously enforce disciplinary breaches via the military justice system and were the two units involved in the Mutiny. It is worth noting that charges related to the Mutiny significantly inflate the totals. When removed, the percentage of charges related to contravention of authority would fall to 40% of the sum total, and the individual battalion totals come closer to approaching parity. 682 The 40 th battalion, however, far outpaced its sister units in courts-martial related to being AWOL or Absent Without Leave, an offense generally listed as Absence and Breaking out of Barracks in FGCM records. The combination of AWOL and Desertion charges for the 40 th are roughly three times that of the 39 th, and four times that of the 38 th. The underlying explanation for this was probably the battalion s composition; more members of the 40 th were from Ottoman Palestine, and undoubtedly would have wanted to see their families and friends, or simply have deserted when they thought the war was over and their service completed. In addition, the 40 th featured several notable figures in the Zionist movement men who were involved in local political issues and anxious to shrug off the British Army, regardless of whether they had been formally demobilized. There is some evidence that May 1919 was a particular tipping point a time when many soldiers decided that their service had run its course. With one January 1919 exception, all of the A and B related courts-martial occurred after April 1919, with the overwhelming majority taking place between April and August the period in which demobilization issues became particularly acute. This was especially true inside the 40 th, where there were not only ten A and B courts-martial in May, but over 75% of the remaining courtsmartial (eleven out of fourteen) to take place in the unit during 1919 were on AWOL charges. More serious instances appear to have elicited desertion charges, although there are several instances where soldiers charged with desertion received light sentences of field punishment, implying that there were instances where soldiers faced charges too severe for the infraction they had committed A different method of assessment suggests that the 40 th might have been the worst-disciplined unit. The 38 th, and also the 39 th, had significantly longer exposure to the British military justice system due to their earlier formation. Thus, on a per month-in-service metric the 40 th, with its shorter period of service, was actually the worst-behaved unit. 680 Patterson, With the Judeans, charges out of 280 total yields 59%. 682 Removing the Mutiny yields 69 authority charges out of 173, almost exactly 40%. Per battalion totals are close, but the 39 th, as was pointed out earlier, still outpaced the 38 th and 40 th. 683 For examples of this, see WO 213/29/85 D. Weiss or WO 213/29/92 J. Masud.

157 147 While the period between the signing of the Armistice and the acceleration of demobilization was a tumultuous period for almost all military units, it was far worse in the Jewish units, whose geographic location inside a long-desired territory ensured that they would consistently agitate for immediate demobilization from the army. After all, while Territorials and ANZACs might demand immediate demobilization as well, they were not in a position to simply walk several miles outside camp into their former home or a Jewish colony, nor involve themselves in the local and imperial politics of the newly occupied territory. Despite the prevalence of AWOL charges in the 40 th battalion, many of these infractions appear to have been handled summarily by commanding officers instead of via court-martial. One particular instance, that of a notorious offender named David Grun better known as Ben- Gurion was recounted by another legionnaire: When David Ben Gurion left the battalion AWOL, within a few days he was arrested and brought on charges which were at that time serious, punishable by a prison term. Colonel Margolin decided personally to try Ben Gurion, who stood before the Colonel silent and sulky. B.G. s uniform was baggy, his brass buttons unshined and his face unshaven. Margolin asked him one question, Where were you? Ben Gurion was silent. Margolin leaned back in his chair and in his litvak English, calmly said, Look at yourself you haven t shaved for several days your shoes are dirty your buttons are not shined I would have not minded if you were brought before me for murder, or robbery, but not for being absent without a pass And then with a gesture of despair he pronounced his judgment, Thirty days confinement to barracks and you are no more a corporal. 684 The story is mostly true. Ben Gurion had left his battalion and walked five-hours to meet with Joseph Sprinzak in Jaffa, where he had proceeded to stay for five days without leave. Upon his return, he was brought before Margolin on December 13, 1918 and fined three days pay, demoted to private, and transferred to the lowest-ranking company inside the unit far away from other political activists in the unit. 685 However, he does not appear to have suffered any sentence of detention, despite the confirmation of his preference for politicing over soldiering, after four months of service in Palestine (during much of which he was sick). Ben Gurion was not alone in this sort of escapade. As Gershon Agronsky pointed out in 1919, the men themselves are not entirely blameless for AWOL prosecutions, for they routinely exploited leave. 686 Zionists inside the battalions particularly Americans often had little interest in observing military regulations restricting their movement once in Palestine. When areas were placed out of bounds to Jewish troops to avoid conflict with Arabs, enterprising souls found ways around the regulations. One, Leon Cheifetz, recalled how he and a friend switched out their distinctive menorah badges for regular Royal Fusiliers badges, and then grouped up with several Australians in order to fool the military police and enter Hebron and Bethlehem. 687 Others snuck into prohibited areas, particularly the Old City of Jerusalem, or 684 AJHA, I-429 Jewish Legion. Saluting the Memory of Colonel Eliezer Margolin, in Honoring the Memory of Ze ev Jabotinsky, pg 11a. 685 Teveth, Ben Gurion, Teveth names Ben-Zvi and Katznelson as specific figures. 686 JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 120. There is little reason to distrust Agronsky s report, which was written before both battalion mutinies occurred and before the conflicts between ex-legionaries and Mandate officials in the 1920s. In other words, he wrote before later events might distort his perspective. 687 Cheifetz became the Secretary of Bet Hagdudim. He recalled this story in the Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion Vol 1, Number 2 (Avichail, Israel), May 15, 1973 on page 16.

158 148 simply bluffed their way past sentries with bravado (and a little luck). 688 Most of them were caught including Cheifetz and received punishment that usually entailed several weeks of Field Punishment No 2 or a pay stoppage. Jewish veterans often recalled these stories of summary punishment with wry humor, but their tone often shifted with regard to courts-martial in the field. Jewish perspectives on military justice The act of court-martialing a soldier was in itself, a public pronouncement to the rest of the unit. The tremendous, seemingly arbitrary, power of an FGCM in which men could be imprisoned with hard labor for offenses that in the civilian world merited no more than the loss of employment could be terrifying to ordinary soldiers. Ira Liss, a Russian immigrant to the United States who volunteered for the 39 th, provided a lengthy entry in his diary about the fearful spectacle of the FGCM of another member of his battalion, Private J. Strasburg. Strasburg faced court-martial in March 1919 on charges of mutiny and insubordination, and Liss stood guard at the trial. 689 Liss duty was all the more difficult, and possibly intentional, because he and Strasburg had been tent-mates and were friendly. Describing the day in his diary, Liss wrote: The ceremony itself was enough to frighten the attendees. We were arrayed in the form of a U and the one charged was in the middle with 2 policemen as escorts. Behind the prisoner was the Corp[oral] of the police. When the Adjutant gave the command: Attention! Stand! and he began to read the private s [name] and number. (At these words, the Police Corp[oral] took his hands off the accused.) What he was accused of was trying to foment a revolution among the soldiers and not obeying the orders of his officer. He pleaded, Not guilty, but he was found guilty on both counts and was sentenced to one year s hard labor, but, out of kindness, his sentence was reduced to 6 months. Parade attention! [was called], and the police escort than turned so they stood with their faces to the guilty party. 690 There is no mention of the proceedings of the trial, particularly whether Liss had a prisoner s friend to defend him. Additionally, it s unclear whether the FGCM immediately reduced Strasburg s sentence, or whether the diary entry is from a later date and integrates DJAG remittance into the original trial. 691 What is clear is that the severity of the sentence shocked Liss, especially because he felt that his friend was innocent: It hit us like a death blow, when we heard such a sentence for something that was mostly a frame-up on the part of several sergeants, who had it in for him. The escort led the prisoner back to jail, and we were taken through the guard ceremony, even though we could barely stand on our feet after having gone through such a bad experience. But what could one do? We were in the army, held by iron chains. And we went off to do our duty as if nothing whatsoever had occurred AJHS I-429. Marginal notes by a Legionnaire by Felix Wolofsky. The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, Jan 13, p WO 213/29/86 J. Strasburg. The charge of mutiny was somewhat unique due to the isolated nature of the trial (no other soldiers were also tried for mutiny). 690 Keren and Keren, We are Coming, The two Kerens translated Liss diary from Yiddish and then provided the lengthy diary entry in their volume. The bracketed text is theirs. 691 The latter is a possibility, not least because there is a discrepancy in the date of the trial between Liss diary (which dates the entry April 4, and describes the trial as that afternoon) and the DJAG records in the War Office (which list the FGCM as March 29). 692 Keren and Keren, We are Coming, 102

159 149 Liss revealed the harsh and inescapable realities of military justice. Despite some of its liberal counterweights, it was still a system designed to enforce hierarchical control for the purposes of waging war. At least for someone like Liss, the public trial and sentencing was a direct encouragement to fight; if someone could be imprisoned by a frame-up, what would happen to those that deserted? That a group of NCOs had it in for the accused, in Liss view, is a particularly revealing insight into the ruptures inside the Jewish battalions, and a notable deviation from postwar accounts that fixate on the Senior Officers outside of their battalion, particularly the General command, as antisemites intent on persecution. Accusations of antisemitism and discrimination abound in some ex-legionnaires writings but anger at NCOs rarely appears. Most soldiers in the Jewish Legion, however, did not experience the military justice system through courts-martial, but rather through internal summary punishment. Meant to cover less severe offenses than a field court-martial, the ability to award a summary sentence concentrated a tremendous amount of disciplinary power within the person of the commanding officer. However, British Army soldiers including the Jewish battalions had the option to appeal summary sentences by requesting a Field Court-Martial; a surprisingly liberal process for a military justice system. Yet, only two members of the 38 th appealed their summary punishment for disobedience (they were both convicted and sentenced to one year of imprisonment with hard labor), and there was only one appeal in both the 39 th and 40 th. 693 The lack of appeals suggests that summary sentencing was preferable to a potential court-martial, and that it may even have been used as a way to shield Jewish troops from discrimination. There is, for example, a noticeable drop in courts-martial for the 38 th once they entered the Jordan Valley in 1918, and it is possible that Patterson may have, similar to BWIR commanding officers, utilized his powers of summary punishment as either a protective measure or preferred them to the difficulty of convening a FGCM in a combat zone. Summary punishment might result in a range of different sentences, even for the same offense. Arriving late for parade, for example, might result in a sequence of exacting (and somewhat mindless) inspection parades for some, while others might be punished with one hour of heavy pack drill each day for one week s time. 694 These sentencing differences were the likely result of several factors: the mindset of the sentencing officer, the disciplinary record of the offender, and the context of the offense. The frequency with which commanding officers resorted to summary discipline often dominated subaltern memories of them. The Australian-Jewish commander of the 39 th battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Eliezer Margolin, in particular, developed a reputation as a stickler for discipline. Soldiers recalled how he frequently drilled his NCOs and lectured them whenever he felt they were becoming too slack (on at least one occasion, notifying them that it was as easy to sew the stripes off their uniforms as on). 695 Margolin s insistence on discipline, however, did not tarnish his image nor authority to most of his men. Rather, he seems to have been considered exacting and demanding, but also fair and loyal to the lower ranks. 696 One former legionnaire 693 WO 213/31/16, M. Basel and L. Schwartz. There was one appeal each in the 39 th and 40 th. 694 Keren and Keren, We are Coming Unafraid, 101; AJHS I-429 Marginal notes by a Legionnaire by Felix Wolofsky. The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, Jan 13, p AJHA, I-429 Jewish Legion. Saluting the Memory of Colonel Eliezer Margolin, in in Honoring the Memory of Ze ev Jabotinsky, pg 11a. 696 YIVO RG Joshua Joseph Davidson Papers. Undated Manuscript, pg 8.

160 150 opined that Margolin s exactness was deliberately designed to overturn existing stereotypes of Jewish weakness and martial ineffectualness, a sentiment that fits with a number of other battalion officers predilections about presentation and discipline. 697 Jabotinsky, in particular, was noted for being stricter than all the others the byproduct of his obsession with the Legion presenting itself perfectly to the British government and army. 698 For the most part, Jewish soldiers respected the summary powers of their officers, but did not fear them in the same way they feared the severity of court-martialing. In part of a mock, epic poem about the founding of the Legion that was published in that battalion newspaper, The Judean, a member of the 39 th focused on the summary disciplinary powers of Colonel John Henry Patterson, the official Commanding Officer of the 38 th battalion, but also the unofficial C.O. for the entire Legion: 19. But certain of them there were, who would not bow down before Atter, the son of Pat, and upon these did his wrath fall. He did send for these men saying Am I not your leader? Take then my punishment. 20. For a hundred and sixty-eight hours shall ye be confined in a dungeon, and this shall be called detention. 21. Some there were that were taxed of their wages, others that were both taxed and punished with detention; and so, Atter, the son of Pat, became both loved and feared, for he was wise in the ways of men. 699 In addition to evident admiration for Patterson, other parts of The Judean mocked officers and NCOs in ways that tested the limits of military hierarchy much further. Some officers were teased for their height, others for their weight (one sergeant was referred to as corpulent ), others their fastidious uniforms, and others for their local love interests. 700 At least in the Jewish battalions, some officers realized that this was an important outlet for their men one wrote home to his wife that a Corporal s published caricatures of me are really A 1, promising to send her copies. 701 This humorous deprecation was not unique to the Jews; soldiers throughout the EEF performed public comedic sketches that made officers and the British command the butt of their jokes. 702 Yet the gentle teasing in The Judean seems to indicate a level of casual camaraderie between commissioned and enlisted men, a bond that could be potentially important when serious disciplinary issues emerged. Escaping Capital Punishment Just as in other non-british units, officers could and did work to protect their men in cases where severe penalties might be enforced. One particular intercession by Colonel Patterson not only prevented the execution of a soldier in the 38 th, but also exploited a particular Army Act in order to return him to service from prison. The soldier, a young private named Ziff, had been caught asleep while on sentry duty, court-martialed, and sentenced to death. 703 The timing of the incident was terrible for Ziff the Jewish battalions were still new to the theater when he was tried in July 1918, and preexisting perceptions that the Jews were bad soldiers in need of a lesson surely led to an excessive sentence. This is borne out by a brief comparison to 697 Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, Keren and Keren, We are Coming, 100. Jabotinsky did, according to Liss, inform them of this but did so in Yiddish. The easy assumption, of course, is that this prevented senior British officers from overhearing. 699 H. Phillips, The Chronicles of Phileas (with apologies to Artemus), in IWM MS/E/S, E.149 The Judean. 700 IWM MS/E/S, E.149 The Judean 701 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, Woodward, Forgotten Soldiers, WO 213/26/2 D. Ziff.

161 151 others in the EEF caught asleep at their post and court-martialed. Several members of the 5 th BWIR were court-martialed at the same time as Ziff for sleeping at their posts all receiving two years of imprisonment, with one year remitted. 704 Several months later, two members of the 39 th were court-martialed for the same offense, and while one initially faced imprisonment, both ended up with several weeks of Field Punishment Ziff, however, probably would have been executed had his commanding officer not intervened. Ziff s C.O. was Colonel Patterson who revealed much of the story in his memoir of service in Palestine: one of my men, quite a youth, was found asleep at his post, and as this is about the most serious crime of which a sentry can be guilty, he was tried by General Court Martial, and sentenced to death. A few days later a telegram came from the Provost Marshal ordering me to send the condemned man under strong escort, with two senior non-commissioned officers, to the prisoners' compound some distance away. I feared that the unfortunate lad would be shot at dawn, and as I knew he had been working exceedingly hard, day and night for forty-eight hours before he was found asleep at his post, and was of good character, and very young, I determined to try to save him. I therefore sent a private wire to General Allenby asking him on these grounds to reprieve him. 706 Patterson s wire to Allenby, unsurprisingly, invoked the particular military language that the British used to assess future martial merit in relation to sentencing character. Ziff s youth was irrelevant (youth did not prevent execution), what mattered was that his crime was one of exhaustion, not delinquency, and that a senior British officer was vouching for his future military potential. It s unclear why Patterson waited until Ziff was to be moved before intervening; it s possible he was unaware of the court-martial until the telegram arrived or that he expected the DJAG to commute the sentence. Regardless, Patterson s telegram to Allenby was a highly unorthodox maneuver that clearly violated the chain-of-command an indication that the officers between Patterson and Allenby might block any attempt to commute Ziff s sentence. This, according to Patterson, still nearly occurred: the Brigadier, saw the wire before it was despatched and stopped it. However, one of my men in the Signal Office told me of this. So I immediately wrote a confidential letter to General Allenby, gave it to a motor cyclist, and sent him off post haste to G. H. Q., some thirty miles away, telling him to ride for all he was worth, as a man s life hung on his speed. I am glad to say that not only did General Allenby reprieve the man and reduce the sentence to a certain number of years' imprisonment, but he suspended even that punishment provided the man proved himself worthy of forgiveness by doing his duty faithfully in the Battalion. The young soldier returned to us overjoyed, and full of gratitude for his release. He proved himself worthy in every respect, and was never afterwards called upon to do a day's imprisonment. 707 Patterson s account suggests the possibility of what might be called the politics of discipline ruptures inside the hierarchy of senior officership as to appropriate punishment and channels of review. Allenby would still have needed to, at the least, nominally review Ziff s file and approve the execution, but it would have been possible for a senior officer to frame the case in terms of a salutary lesson to the Jewish battalions. Patterson s account implies that this framing was 704 WO 213/25/18 N. Augustine; WO 213/25/156 J. Smalling and P. Pierre. WO 213/25/152 I. Gordon. 705 WO 213/27/46 D Baruch. WO 213/27/153 J. Galimidi. 706 Patterson, With the Judeans, Patterson, With the Judeans, Patterson concluded the story by discussing the internal conflict, and what he perceived to be anti-legion prejudice: Not satisfied with having held up the wire, the Brigadier motored some miles away to report the matter to the Divisional General, Sir John Shea. I was duly hauled before the General, not knowing for what reason, until he said, ''You know you will get yourself into trouble if you go sending telegrams direct to the C-in-C' It then dawned upon me for the first time why I had been sent for.

162 152 likely, and given the severity of the 38 th s disciplinary sentencing in 1918, certainly seems possible. The Ziff case also reveals a particular wrinkle inside the British military justice system during the First World War. Ziff s immediate return to duty suggests that Allenby pardoned him under the Army (Suspension of Sentences) Act of 1915, which allowed for accused soldiers to override their guilt by demonstrating exemplary service in the field. 708 Allenby s exercise of this act could stem from multiple motivations a good will towards the Jewish battalions, a shrewd sense of the political consequences inside the EEF of executing Ziff, or possibly council (such as a DJAG) who felt the sentence too harsh given the circumstances. While Ziff s sentence was severe for the EEF, it was not uncommon in other theaters. Two privates serving in Mesopotamia with the 6 th South Lancashires, Robert Burton and Thomas Downing, had also fallen asleep at their posts after a long march. Despite the attempted intercession of their Colonel for mercy and their previous good character, both were shot on February 19, Character and the support of a Commanding Officer could help commute a sentence, but if a senior General felt execution was merited, they mattered little. As much as the British system of military justice functioned within a perceived set of punishment fitting crime norms, the ease with which a death sentence could be passed meant that senior theater commanders maintained authority not standard in a liberal justice system. While Allenby s reasons for pardoning Ziff are unclear, the case still demonstrates how critical the idea of good character was in the justice process. Character rarely prevented a conviction, but could be the difference between an extremely unpleasant punishment and a much more palatable one. Jewish soldiers, however, were at an innate disadvantage in these assessments they had entered military service late in the war, which meant fewer combat opportunities and a corresponding tab as shirkers due to their late enlistment, an identity that could only be overturned by front-line performance. Given prevailing prewar images of Jews as effete and un-martial, the Jewish battalions faced a particularly problematic and self-reinforcing cocktail of slights to their military worth. As the next chapter argues, success at athletic games became particularly critical for Jewish troops it was a means to refute key stereotypes, which could have a serious effect on any disciplinary proceedings. Yet, it seems likely that precisely because of these issues, the commanding officers particularly Patterson became something of character activists for their troops, being well aware of the problems they would face in sentencing. Patterson s role in the Ziff court-martial an appeal rooted in the idea that Ziff was a good soldier is evidence of this. No matter the circumstances of Ziff s case, without Patterson s attestation to the military worth of the young man, there is little doubt he would have ended up either executed or in a penal colony. However, in 1919, with the general assessment that the Jewish battalions had done little during the Megiddo offensive and that they were causing problems for the Mandate, plus the increasingly administrative role of Patterson, Jewish soldiers tried in the later half of 1919 were at a serious disadvantage. The near-execution of Private Ziff raises a critical issue whether or not the military justice system was a means for senior British officers to discriminate against or abuse Jewish soldiers. In Ziff s specific case, a senior officer blocked Patterson s initial attempt at securing a pardon, a possible indication of prejudice. Yet in many recollections, Jewish soldiers recall 708 Geoff Barr, Military Discipline: Policing the 1 st Australian Imperial Force, (Sydney: D Books, 2012) Putkowski and Sykes, Shot at Dawn,

163 153 British prejudice in terms of favoritism towards the local inhabitants of Egypt and Palestine at their expense. Local Conflict? With the fighting concluded, the Jewish battalions served with the rest of the EEF as an army of occupation a duty that brought them into contact with local Egyptians, Palestinians, and Bedouins. The result was a cycle of controversy and conflict. In early February a detachment of the 39 th battalion had been stationed near the village of Ramleh, where the village head accused Jewish troops of attempting to rape his wife and deliberately liaising with a prostitute inside the village mosque. 710 The complaints resulted in a British inquiry, but no evidence of these abuses were found, and no Jewish soldiers were punished. One month later, an Anglo- Jewish Major wrote a furious letter home about accusations against Jewish troops and the British response. Arguing that he did not think the Battalion is being fairly dealt with he laid the blame at local Arabs, claiming that they make every kind of lying accusation they can think of and the Authorities seem quite ready to punish us without investigating the charges at all Only English good-nature or rank anti-semitism could permit of anyone listening to the charges that have been made. Really one is now face to face with anti-semitism in a form that I have never met it before. Whether the Authorities know that they are countenancing it or not, I am not clear, but the situation gives me food for thought. 711 Civilian accusations created a hostile atmosphere, but it was the British willingness to entertain complaints that the Jews found insulting and spurious that truly aggrieved them, and exacerbated the tensions of Despite the problems recorded by battalion officers in early 1919, true prejudice would be reflected by the quantity, and outcome, of disciplinary proceedings against Jewish soldiers. In fact, shortly after the Major s written outburst, a Private Mattuck from the 40 th battalion was court-martialed for offenses against inhabitants. Martin Watts has argued that the Mattuck trial, in particular, bears out the claims of anti-jewish sentiment inside the EEF command. 712 Private Mattuck, however, was acquitted, and no other Jewish soldier faced court-martial in February or March on civil charges. 713 In fact, given the animosity between many local inhabitants and Jews, there are surprisingly few cases of offenses against inhabitants across the battalions entire disciplinary history only 4 out of a possible 128 non-mutiny trials. Soldiers might also be court-martialed under Section 41, a clause designed to encapsulate a variety of civil charges, and usually denoting a disruption with the civilian community. 714 Yet across all the battalions, there were only four instances of a Section 41 court-martial, which meant that a mere 8 out of 128 trials revolved around alleged misconduct towards civilians. Most importantly, in two of these, the soldiers were found not guilty, and in another case, while guilty of military charges, the soldier was innocent of those related to civilians. 715 Five convictions spread out over three 710 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, 174. Letter of Feb 3, IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, Letter of March 14, 1919, pg 171. His ellipse. Myer refers to them as Syrians, but his battalion was not stationed in Syria proper. 712 Watts, Jewish Legion, WO 213/29/76, S. Mattuck. 714 Three of the soldiers charged with offenses were also charged with Section 41: WO 213/29/171 M. Epstein, S. Lusky, D. Rappaport, all tried together on May 1, WO 213/29/76 S. Mattuck, WO 213/29/86 J. Kadosh, WO 213/31/16 J. Nehemia.

164 154 battalions in nearly two years hardly indicates systematic prejudice inside the military justice system. The relative lack of civilian-related courts-martial, particularly in the Spring of 1919 indicates that the military justice system was not a tool used by the British command to indulge anti-jewish prejudice. Rather, the overwhelming disciplinary problem inside the battalions in the Spring of 1919 were AWOL incidents an issue that this chapter has previously examined. While false charges motivated by anti-jewish sentiment must have badly aggrieved battalion members, it seems they rarely moved beyond the initial inquiry phrase, and even if a trial was convened, conviction was not assured. There were, however, significant conflicts between Jewish soldiers and local Egyptian and Palestinians, and Allenby himself notified the War Office of the conflicts in a written opposition to increases in Jewish troops, pointing out the incidents between Jewish troops and non-jewish inhabitants. 716 Much like the other members of the EEF, many Jewish soldiers maintained deeply prejudiced views of the inhabitants of Egypt and Palestine. Captain Salaman, a particularly fond adherent of race-based science, reflected popular views when he noted that without a strong government and police in Egypt, the only alternative was to treat the Gypies and their like as a subject race. 717 With Jewish soldiers Magen David badge an easy identifier for abuse, the widely-shared attitude of Salaman ensured that abuse often escalated. Freulich related how two battalion members ended up in an altercation with an Egyptian Captain in the military police near Rishon a fight that Freulich claims was provoked by the captain s antisemitism. 718 During the fight, one of the Jewish soldiers stabbed the captain in the chest (inadvertently, Freulich claims), an act witnessed by another military policeman. No trial occurred, however. Margolin, according to the probably exaggerated story, had hidden the men in his tent during the inspection parade to find the guilty parties. 719 On another occasion, an Argentinean member of the Legion was attacked (supposedly without cause) by Bedouins near Surafend. Fully aware of the Australian method of reprisal the ANZACs had murdered dozens of Bedouins at Surafend in response to the murder of a New Zealand trooper the battalion members decided to replicate it, without deadly force. 720 Armed with bayonets, the Jewish troops attacked the Bedouin camp before dawn, beating up every Bedouin man they could find. 721 Whether this incident actually occurred is not clear. If it did, just as in the Australian case at Surafend, it would imply the tacit approval of battalion officers for extrajudicial revenge against local natives. While unlikely, this was possible. Salaman had seemed to condone the Australian attacks at Surafend in a letter to his wife, writing that when I get home I will tell you a rather terrible tale concerning the way the Australians avenged a 716 WO 33/981/11194 Allenby to War Office, June 6, 1919, EA Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, Unsurprisingly, the details in this story seem duly weighted to the favor of the Jewish soldiers. Additionally, it would have been unlikely for a native Egyptian to hold a Captain s rank in the British Army. 719 Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, 138. There is no way to corroborate this particular story though and given the severity of the crime, it seems likely that the command would have persisted in looking for the soldier (or, if the allegations of antisemitism were to be believed, simply tried a random soldier for the offense). It s worth noting that in addition to his tendency towards exaggeration, Freulich s vignettes were published after both 1948 and 1956, and it is certainly possible that he wanted to falsely historicize anti-egyptian sentiment, given Israeli-Egyptian tensions. 720 See Harry Granick, An Incident in Cairo Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion Vol, 1 No 3, Aug 15, 1974 (Baltimore and Avichail), pg 8 for evidence that Jewish soldiers knew what had occurred at Surafend. Freulich claims the Australians machine-gunned the Bedouin, and that they publically challenged Allenby when shamed by him during parade. Neither of these seems to have actually happened. 721 Freulich, Soldiers in Judea,

165 155 murder of one of their men here. It was an ordered lynch law a mixture of chivalry and sternest justice, absolutely spontaneous. 722 While tacit approval for the Australians actions was a common sentiment, the furious reaction of Allenby and the EEF command to the massacre makes it unlikely that the Jewish troops would have dared embark on a similar action in its wake. Thus, while there does appear to have been significant hostility between local groups and the Jewish soldiers, there is little to indicate that the British authorities at least during 1918 and 1919 openly sided with locals in persecution of Jewish troops. While the British attempted to keep Jewish troops away from areas where they thought conflict likely a posture that contributed to AWOL violations and allegations of unfair treatment, particularly from Zionist troops there is little empirical evidence to suggest that this translated into severe and retaliatory court-martialing. Judicial Review in the Jewish Battalions While the courts-martial records of the Jewish battalions do not indicate entrenched disciplinary prejudice with regard to localized conflict, the best means of determining systematic prejudice is through the rates of acquittals and sentence modifications. As the preceding chapter has pointed out, racial discrimination could certainly influence the likelihood and nature of courts-martial charges, and non-british soldiers were at significant risk of being over-sentenced. Yet, those differentiated soldiers that enjoyed status as official British Army soldiers were also protected from these abuses by the inherent system of judicial review. Given the Jewish Battalions status as official units of the Royal Fusiliers and not an expressly colonial or minority-national auxiliary unit they should have enjoyed the privilege of review. Excepting the mutiny trials, which significantly increase the not-guilty rates in the service battalions, there was remarkable consistency in the rate of not guilty verdicts. In the 38 th, four soldiers were found not guilty, almost 10% of the total trials. Both the 39 th and 40 th had five soldiers escape conviction rates of 11% and 12% respectively. Not only are these percentages relatively equal across all three battalions, but they are also roughly in-line with the wartime average across the British Army of 10%. 723 In addition, fourteen other trials across the battalions saw soldiers escape conviction for one of their charges, which would have lessened the severity of their overall sentence. 724 Given the period of service the Jewish battalions had in Palestine, it is not possible to meaningfully determine if, like the BWIR, they too were more likely to be convicted while active military operations occurred. However, the broader sweep of British military justice would seem to imply that this sort of punitive letting up probably occurred, at least before political tensions ratcheted up in the Spring of Adding the trials related to the 1919 Mutiny increases the rate of acquittal significantly in both the 38 th and 39 th battalions. In the 38 th, an additional thirty men were acquitted, bringing the battalion s rate to an astounding 35%. For the 39 th, nineteen additional men were acquitted thus leading to a slightly less dramatic 21% acquittal rate, but still double the wartime average. 725 While much of the credit for these additional acquittals was due to a spirited legal defense by the 722 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, Statistics of the military effort of the British Empire during the Great War, (London: HMSO, 1920), Per battalion, the numbers are: 38 th (10 cases), 39 th (1), 40 th (3). 725 For the 38 th, the calculation is based on 96 total trials in Palestine before Jan 1, For the 39 th, the number is 89 total trials.

166 156 brilliant Ze ev Jabotinsky, they still suggest the difficulty in arguing that the Jewish battalions were systematically discriminated against, at least in formal disciplinary terms. Recounting how he helped a peer escape from a detention center, but received no additional punishment, Felix Wolofsky, summed up these broader conclusions: all this is told to prove that we were not handled too severely. 726 However, assessments of systemized prejudice inside the British military justice system must look beyond initial verdicts and examine the role of the DJAG in modifying sentences. The DJAG in Egypt and Palestine appears to have consistently modified sentences it found too harsh, as well as force retrials when necessary for legal reasons. Major Henry Myer, while never mentioning the DJAG explicitly, hinted at their influence when noting in his diary that he had made an error in court martial, so had to go back again, presumably to retry the case. 727 As British Army soldiers, Jewish battalion members were eligible for judicial review. Exempting the mutiny trials, in the 38 th, five sentences were commuted, and eight were remitted a modification rate of 31%. In the 39 th, seven sentences were commuted, and six remitted just over 28% of the total trials. The 40 th, however, saw significantly less judicial review than its sister battalions. Three sentences were commuted, and two remitted only 12% of the total, a figure far below those of the 38 th and 39 th. The 40 th did have two sentences quashed, which brings their judicial revision rate up closer to 17%, but still far below the other two units. One possible explanation for this significant disparity between battalions is that while the 38 th and 39 th featured high numbers of disobedience and insubordination trials, most of the 40 th s FGCMs dealt with AWOL charges. As this and the previous chapter have shown, courts-martial related to the contravention of authority were often over-sentenced to make examples, something the DJAG would late correct. AWOL charges, however, were relatively minor in terms of both severity and punishment. In addition, the 40 th had arrived too late in the war for any pre- Armistice combat experience unlike the 38 th and 39 th, where soldiers might have performed well during the September offensives, members of the 40 th were at a distinct disadvantage for commutation or remittance based on character. Without proven combat experience, they would be unable to convince a panel of officers that they were good soldiers one of the key determining factors in the entire military justice process. If compared to the BWIR battalions, it s clear that the Jewish battalions had significantly lower rates of sentence modification. Depending on the punishment, the West Indian soldiers saw between a 40% and 50% rate of remittance, commutation, or quashing well over the rates extended to the Jewish battalions. Yet these remittance rates were only for punishments that involved some form of bodily detention be it field punishment, imprisonment, or penal servitude. Focusing only on the trials of the Jewish battalions in those categories provides the following: 726 AJHS I-429. Marginal notes by a Legionnaire by Felix Wolofsky. The Canadian Jewish Chronicle, Jan 13, 1933, Pg IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, April 21, 1919, pg 183.

167 157 Figure 4.1 Sentence Modification in the Jewish Battalions The chart details the 163 sentences initially meted out to Jewish battalion soldiers that fall within the same categories as the BWIR remittance analysis. Out of these sentences, 78 were modified in some manner by the DJAG roughly 48% of the total. 728 While this overall number more closely parallels the modification rates in the West Indian battalions, a close examination reveals a more complicated picture. The most immediate issue is that the sentence modification of penal servitude sentences is nearly 100%. Almost all of these commutations are related to the Mutiny sentences, thus demonstrating that even those not acquitted for their participation were not punished with quite the severity as initially appeared. Importantly, this extremely high rate of commutation significantly alters the overall modification percentages; the modification rate of imprisonment sentences for the Jewish battalions is lower than for the BWIR, as is that of Field Punishment sentences. It is difficult to tell whether the lack of remittance around imprisonment is the result of discrimination, or rather simply reflective of appropriate sentencing. The latter seems likely, in part because previous data has shown the lack of sustained or systematic prejudice against Jewish soldiers inside the justice system. Additionally, the Jewish battalion data indicates how much more severely the West Indian soldiers were initially sentenced, given the frequent DJAG involvement in their sentences. For field punishment, however, the Jewish case is slightly more nuanced. As the previous chapter illustrated, field punishment was an extremely common sentence in the British Army during the First World War, but it had two highly distinguishable versions. The punishment was either Number 1 or Number 2, and the difference for the sentenced soldier was significant. Number 2 was the milder variant, requiring soldiers to drill or complete other strenuous physical activities in addition to their regular duties. The idea was to physically punish soldiers, but not seriously reduce the fighting efficacy of army units. Number 1, however, elevated the punishment to a brutal level by adding in crucifixion, a period during 728 This does not include five sentences in which there may have been DJAG intervention. If they are included, the total percentage increases to 51%.

168 158 which soldiers might be tied to a gun, wagon wheel, or post and exposed to the elements without food or water. Although it occurred frequently in France, Number 1 was a less common sentence inside Egypt and Palestine. In fact, one ex-legionnaire claimed [t]his sort of punishment was reserved for the natives and was not practiced in white units. 729 This was a particularly critical piece of misinformation, because it was a sentence of Number 1 that helped spark the second phase of the 1919 Mutiny. A relatively new, and young, soldier in the 39 th s transport division received a summary punishment from an officer for slightly mishandling his mule in this case, FP 1. Stripped of much of his clothing and deprived of water, he was tied to an artillery piece and left in the sun for hours, infuriating many in the 39 th battalion who viewed the summary sentencing as antisemitism. 730 While this particular case certainly resulted in a punishment that did not meet the (minor) infraction, Jewish troops did receive sentences of Number 1 thoughout their service. There are nine confirmed sentences of FP 1 in the 38 th s JAG records, most stemming from the May 1919 FGCM of six privates and two acting lance-corporals. In the 39 th Battalion, there were four confirmed sentences of FP 1, leaving the service battalions with 13 sentences of FP 1 out of 88 courts-martial (excluding the mutiny cases) a percentage of nearly 15%. 731 However, the reserve 40 th battalion had zero sentences of FP 1, but a tremendous number of sentences of Field Punishment 2. In fact, an astounding 56% of the 40 th s courts-martial ended with a sentence of FP 2, compared to 26% in the 38 th and 37% in the 39 th. 732 The difference between the service and reserve units is quite notable the 40 th had the least British composition of any of the Jewish battalions, drawing most of its manpower from Americans, but also local Yemenite, Ottoman, and Palestinian Jews. If the crucifixion of FP 1 was a means for the Army to demonstrate the power of the state and hierarchy, it is somewhat odd to see it not employed in the unit full of those lower on an imperial racial hierarchy. 733 It is worth noting, however, that unlike the West Indians of the BWIR who were certainly tried due to perceived racial notions, there is no clearly discernable tread of sustained, deliberate persecution in the FGCM records of the battalions. No courts-martial occurred due to soldiers resting on the Sabbath, and despite the perceived anti-jewish local atmosphere, the number of trials relating to conflicts with inhabitants is very low only five men were tried and convicted. Instead, the majority of courts-martial seem to have stemmed from the problems of many American volunteers at adapting to the banality and rigors of military life, as well as to the desires of many battalion members to emigrate into Britain s newly occupied territory. Jabotinsky, in a petition for clemency to the King during the mutiny trials, argued that prejudice intensified after the 1918 Armistices, particularly inside the military justice system. 734 Yet, the 729 Gilner, War and Hope, Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, In the 39 th, three of the FP 1 sentences were passed down at trial, and one was a commutation from imprisonment. There were also 3 sentences across the service battalion DJAG records where the FP type was not noted. 732 There were eleven total cases of FP 2 in the 38 th battalion, and seventeen in the 39 th ( total in this case indicating the number of confirmed sentences in addition to any harsher sentences commuted to an FP 2 punishment). The 40 th, in contrast, had twenty-three FP 2 sentences. 733 Somewhat surprisingly, FP 1 seems to have become the dominant form of punishment after the battalions merged into the Judeans in the eleven FGCMs that occurred after January 1920 and convicted a soldier, FP 1 was sentenced and confirmed six times. 734 FO 371/4238/ Typed Petition for Mercy by V. Jabotinsky

169 159 trials of the 38 th that took place in 1918 the period during which Jabotinsky does not allege abuse resulted in comparatively harsher sentences than those in However, the disciplinary history of the Jewish battalions has not been defined by the intricacies of total courts-martial, but by a sequence of events in the summer of 1919 the Mutiny of the Jewish Legion. Mutiny In July of 1919, several dozen men inside the Jewish battalions rebelled against British military authority, a sequence of events that is generally referred to as a single Mutiny. The mutiny was not, as it has sometimes been depicted, an inclusive, simultaneous uprising across the entire Jewish Legion. Rather, it was two separate incidents each involving several dozen men the first occurring in early July in the 38 th battalion, and the second several weeks later in the 39 th. In both cases, minor incidents sparked festering anger over broader issues demobilization and perceived anti-jewish prejudice into open rejection of British authority. The mutiny of soldiers during wartime is a powerful statement of discontent, an explosion of anger usually sparked by a particular incident, but often reflective of longsimmering tension and dissatisfaction. It is especially notable when the mutineers are volunteers, rather than conscripts, for it represents if not a rejection of an original objective, a statement of no-confidence in the manner in which it is pursued. Great War historians, most notably Leonard Smith, have therefore understood mutiny as genuine political expression, the negotiation of command and authority. 735 The mutiny of minority or colonial military groups should also be understood in such terms, for while such men rarely have the rights of full citizenship, their action is a rejection of the governing system by those initially willing to fight on its behalf. The turning of the formerly loyal is then key to any founding post-imperial, national mythology it marks the rejection of the old authority and, in some cases, the embrace of a new one. But mutiny must also be contextualized. Those that occur after the fighting has ended may signify something quite different, and perhaps less politically meaningful, than those that occur at the front-lines in the midst of battle. This was the case in Egypt and Palestine during the period between the Autumn armistices and the signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty. Both Egypt and Palestine were extremely unstable throughout 1919, as the British attempted to balance international diplomacy, local politics, and a disgruntled army of occupation. In March, Egypt had erupted in discontent after more than three decades of temporary British rule, a rebellion that had been brought about, in part, by the EEF s wartime demands on the Egyptian populace and economy. The scale and intensity of the revolt encompassing rural and urban communities frightened the British authorities, particularly after the deaths of eight British soldiers on March 18. For a brief period of time, it seemed that Egypt 1919 might become another India Before Egypt could truly develop into a sustained revolution against the Empire, however, Allenby deployed military units in late March and April to quash it. While this alleviated one major problem, it exacerbated another concern the delay in demobilizing the men of the EEF. During the war, British EEF troops lacked the same opportunities for home leave as their peers in France; healthy, non-commissioned imperials rarely left the secondary 735 Leonard Smith, Between Mutiny and Obedience: The Case of the French Fifth Infantry Division During World War I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 736 Fromkin, A Peace to end all peace, 419. See also Brugger, Australians and Egypt, Op. cit.

170 160 theaters, spending their leaves in places like Cairo and Alexandria. The result was that men who had often been in service for several years became desperate to get home not only to secure postwar employment, but for familial and personal reasons. However, in the first months of 1919, they were generally given lower priority for ships home while the British Government worked to legally stabilize its new mandate in Palestine and suppress Egyptian unrest. Part of this also stemmed from the War Council s concern over similar dissatisfaction in France. Five thousand soldiers at Calais had mutinied in January over delays in demobilization, an incident that left Winston Churchill terrified of Bolshevism infiltrating the army in France and eliminating any British diplomatic leverage at Versailles. 737 Priority for demobilization in early 1919 was in France, not in the sideshows. The EEF command was aware of this decision, and was already concerned with burgeoning unrest inside its army before the Egyptian revolt. One communiqué in February 1919 noted several recent disturbances over pay, bonuses, and demobilization, and a fear that dissatisfaction was beginning to intensify. 738 The issue of demobilization particularly of the Australian contingent, who had served far from home for several years greatly concerned Allenby. In correspondence with the War Office, he noted that the Admiralty had failed to transport the 3,000 troops they had proposed to in February, and that he now had 5,000 men simply awaiting ship transport. More importantly, Allenby foreshadowed what was to come, noting inability to provide shipping causes much disappointment and may lead to discontentment I urge most strongly that the question of repatriation of Australians be taken up as a matter of supreme urgency. 739 The lack of ships for Middle Eastern demobilization, plus further delays in repatriation incurred by the situation in Egypt and negotiations over the Mandate in Palestine, created a combustible atmosphere. As soldiers concentrated for demobilization at massive, converted supply camps the largest being Kantara in Egypt individual concerns cohered into broader, organized unrest. Given the immense and obvious to all human and economic cost of the war, it was not surprising that British soldiers, already encamped en masse and awaiting an uncertain economic climate at home, would organize. At Kantara, men formed soldiers councils that regulated the workings of the camp and agitated for quicker demobilization. Writing to Sir Henry Wilson, now the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Allenby remarked that a Trade union microbe had infiltrated the thousands of soldiers at Kantara Base Camp, but that he can t shoot them all for mutiny. 740 Dissatisfaction culminated in May 1919, when signs stating Remember May 11 began to appear reflecting soldiers belief that their legal obligations to serve ended six months from the November 11 armistice. 741 Patterson saw the phrase chalked up everywhere on the railway station, signal boxes, workshops, on the engines, trucks, and carriages and actively lobbied his men to not participate. 742 When the date passed and no mass 737 Fromkin A Peace to end all peace, On the broad disturbances across the British Army in early 1919, see the problematic, but still useful, Andrew Rothstein, The Soldiers Strikes of 1919 (London: Macmillan 1980). Rothstein had refused an order to fight against the Bolsheviks in 1919, and later became a very significant figure in British Communism (which influences his account). 738 WO 33/960/10771 Commander in Chief Egypt to War Office, Feb 20, MFA This telegram noted four cases of serious unrest at Haifa, Kantara, Aleppo, and Damascus from different units over pay issues, service duties and conditions, and the speed of their return home. 739 WO 33/960/10783a. Commander in Chief Egypt to War Office, Feb 27, 1919, No QKT Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, Patterson, With the Judeans, 196.

171 161 demobilization occurred, Freulich claimed that thousands of troops mutinied and rioted, burning part of Kantara and resulting in courts-martial for many. 743 This appears to be something of an overstatement there was tremendous unrest at Kantara, but no courts-martial for mutiny occurred, and Patterson remarked later that the matter was hushed up the mutineers were not punished. 744 There was, however, a general strike threatened at a mass meeting of EEF soldiers on May 13, and Kantara briefly developed an independent system of internal regulation and work slow-downs. 745 This chronic unrest never developed into the level of revolutionary mutiny that took hold in Germany immediately after the war mostly because demobilization defused some of the general appeal and diluted the base of support. Still, the urgency of the situation throughout the Spring and Summer of 1919 was clear from the communications between the British command in Egypt and the War Office. The British Army and government were in constant communication over the unrest. One communiqué to the War Office from Egypt soon after the Kantara disturbances stated that the desire to return continues strong especially among men with small businesses and married men who fear wives attribute delay to indifference of the men themselves. 746 As the May 11 deadline passed, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June became a new focal point for those awaiting demobilization. A different communiqué stated that the Treaty had inspired belief that demobilization will be hastened Eligible officers impatient, and ask that their release be expedited. Considerable dissatisfaction at difficulty of obtaining leave from this theatre. 747 These communiqués were somewhat understated had Allenby attempted to squelch the unrest with force, he may have completely lost control of his own army. Many of the factors that led to mutinies sheer boredom, meager or unpalatable food, resentment of oppressive superiors, and political soul-searching were precisely the sort of issues that plagued the EEF in 1919 as men waited to demobilized. 748 These symptoms were no less acute in the Jewish battalions. Anger over the pace of demobilization intensified in the Jewish battalions because of two self-reinforcing issues geography and Zionism. Many of the American members of the Jewish battalion had enlisted specifically to fight in Palestine a territory that they hoped to demobilize into from the army. Zionist politicos like Ben Gurion were already active in the local political landscape, and their continued military duties despite the war s apparent conclusion were an unwelcome hindrance. Additionally, the Jews who had previously lived in Ottoman Palestine and enlisted into the EEF were desperate to return home. A telegram to the War Office in early 1919 noted that many in the 40 th battalion own farms or have definite employment in this country to which they are anxious to return; it is important that they should. 749 The Jewish battalions stationed in Palestine felt cruelly taunted British Territorials and ANZACs might demand immediate demobilization as well, but they were not in a position to simply walk several miles into their former home or a Jewish colony. Delays in demobilization also reinforced perceptions of British antisemitism a situation badly exacerbated by the War Office s decision to demobilize many American servicemen back to the United States, rather than into Palestine. 743 Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, Patterson, With the Judeans, Hansard, HC Debates, June 5, 1919, vol 116 c2247w 746 WO 33/981/ GHQ Egypt to War Office, May 30, 1919, No I WO 33/981/11271 GHQ Egypt to War Office, July 11, 1919, No. I9409/D 748 Leonard Guttridge, Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection (New York: Berkeley Books, 1992) WO 33/960/ GHQ Egypt to War Office, Feb 12, EA 2211.

172 162 Dissatisfaction over demobilization ran high amongst many of the Americans Jews, who had enlisted for service in part to ensure demobilization into Palestine after the war. Local military authorities reported to the War Office that hundreds of the American Jewish contingent wanted local demobilization instead of repatriation, but London ruled in July that this was an exception that would only be allowed for those few who qualified under a particular Army Order. 750 While the first outbreak of unrest occurred before troops were fully informed of this decision, the delay in the War Office decision and the signing of the Versailles Treaty was enough to spark a small group of American Jews into outright disobedience. The first wave of unrest occurred near Gaza, at the small village of Deir el Belah where part of the 38 th battalion was stationed at a British outpost and field hospital. A group of younger Americans not under the immediate eye of Patterson had demanded to be demobilized expediently. When their deadline passed, they refused to perform their duties. 751 According to the testimony of the detachment commander, Lieutenant SV Barrett, a large number of the Belah men had congregated outside of his office on July 2, asking for a definitive date of demobilization. When none was given and they were ordered to fall out, the men refused to disperse. 752 After a two minute standoff, the Lieutenant notified them of the potential consequences of their refusal to follow his order, and finally announced that he was reporting their behavior to Patterson. The mention of Patterson ended the stand-off and the men dispersed. The unrest abated for a brief period of time, as the detachment executed its duties and followed orders that evening and the next morning. 753 The next day, however, the situation escalated. That afternoon, a party of men was ordered to travel from Belah to Bir Salem for duty. Upset over the demobilization situation, nine of them refused to obey the order. 754 After ignoring multiple orders to depart, several were detained by the Company Sergeant Major and escorted to the Guard House. Observing this, an unknown number of men from the rest of the detachment crowded around the jail to prevent the CSM from imprisoning their comrades. 755 Around the same time, members of the 38 th serving on nearby guard details at a well and field hospital left their posts and returned to camp to express solidarity with the rest of the detachment, probably over the demobilization issue from the night before. Faced with a very unstable situation, the Lieutenant attempted to regain control by calling for a 6pm parade. Once the entire detachment was at the parade ground, Barrett warned them that those who disobeyed orders would be reported as Bolsheviks and Undesirable Aliens, and receive no character testimony from Patterson (at their likely court-martial). 756 This was no insignificant 750 WO 33/981/ GHQ Egypt to War Office, August 9, 1919, MFA The order in question was #55. Although somewhat unclear, it appears that this decision was not caused by any particular prejudice, but rather by bureaucratic constraints about returning enlistees to their home country. War Office officials were ignorant of how this limiting decision could badly affect the situation in the Jewish battalions 751 Patterson, With the Judeans, 213. It seems very likely that their deadline was tied to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. 752 JI, 31-1K. Testimony of Lt SV Barrett, pg JI, 31-1K. Testimony of Lt SV Barrett, pg JI, 31-1K. Testimony of Sgt A. Schlaferman, pg 68. They also apparently wrote a note to the Lieutenant expressing their refusal, which although entered into evidence, is now missing. It seems likely that the note explained their belief that they were being unjustly held in military service now that the Treaty of Versailles had been signed. 755 JI, 31-1K. Testimony of CSM NE Fineman, Sgt A. Schlaferman, and Cpl BT Cohen, pg It is a little unclear how many of the nine were escorted to jail (Corporal Cohen says one or two, CSM Fineman says several ), and the number of soldiers blocking the jail is unknown although it was likely to be several dozen. 756 JI, 31-1K. Testimony of Lt SV Barrett, pg 67.

173 163 threat. A statement of character, particularly from a senior officer, could be the difference between life and death in a court-martial, and often resulted in substantially shorter sentences for those who had good character. Barrett s threat was then twofold: the mutineers could not count on Patterson to protect them despite his past support, and second, that they would be tagged as the most dangerous type of rebel a Bolshevik. Not only would they likely face severe penal sentences, but the tag of Bolshevik would undoubtedly bar them from ever officially settling in British Palestine. This was a particular problem for the accused, who were mostly American and Canadian, and were interested in demobilizing into Palestine. In an attempt to sift out the resistors from the rest of the detachment, Barrett ordered those unwilling to continue their duties to fall out to the right. Seven of those who chose this option were on guard duty, and although reminded of this, refused the order and remained where they were. 757 What happened next and during the night of July 3 is not documented, but the battalion officers were not prepared to accept the situation. The next morning at 8am, all soldiers who had refused orders or declared their future unwillingness to obey were arrested. Who actually arrested the Jewish troops at Belah is unclear. Gilner provides two possible versions one in which West Indian troops had an armed standoff with the Jewish troops, and another in which the several dozen members of the Irish Rifles did the arresting. 758 The lack of clarity in who effected the British command s orders is indicative of both rumor and conflation of memory. Jewish troops had been involved in tense situations with both the West Indians and the Irish Rifles previously the former over gambling and the latter over a minor mutiny in their unit and these incidents appear to have grafted onto the mutiny. More likely, however, was that other members of the 38 th arrested their peers. Court-martial transcripts reveal that members of the 38 th provided the armed guard after the arrests, apparently without any objections. 759 In fact, despite the conforming solidarity that pervades the postwar accounts of the 38 th s disobedience, there were certainly members of the unit averse to the actions of their peers. The courts-martial of the Belah men are filled with the testimony of various low-level NCOs from the 38 th, as well as two privates who refused to leave their guard posts when their peers returned to the camp. 760 Patterson s sentiment towards the disobedient soldiers was critical as their commanding officer, he was responsible for filing the initial set of courts-martial charges. Despite his view of the disobedient Americans at Belah as young and a bit wild and difficult to handle because of inadequate training, he felt that their actions warranted court-martialing. 761 In his memoir, Patterson claimed that he had framed the charge sheets most carefully to teach these foolish youths at Belah a lesson, but not a deeply punitive one. 762 Yet initially, the 54 men at Belah found themselves facing the very serious charge of mutiny a charge that Patterson appears to have approved on July 23, He later claimed in his memoir that the mutiny charge had been 757 JI, 31-1K. Testimony of Lt SJB Brannon, CSM NE Fineman, Sgt A. Schlaferman, Gilner, War and Hope, JI 31-1K. Testimony of L/Cpl C. Asher, pg JI 31-1K. Testimony of Privates S. Rosenblatt and I. Katz, pg Katz claimed that he did not know the reason why members of his detail departed their posts a statement that indicates some degree of cover for the men. NCO s like Sgt A. Schlaferman, and Corporals BT Cohen and A. Duze offered critical testimony for the prosecution. Fracture inside the units was nothing unique, given their size and diversity. Salaman himself noted disconnects inside his 39th battalion back in 1918, writing: Lately our men have rather got on my nerves; we have so many who don t care a damn about anything Jewish, English, military, or, indeed, their own comfort. Redcliffe Salaman, pg 55 August 18, Patterson, With the Judeans, Patterson, With the Judeans, 214.

174 164 substituted in for his initial charges by his commander, and that he had only signed off on the change because he was a very obedient soldier. 763 Whether Patterson chose to simply cover his actions in his memoir, or whether he lacked the political capital to challenge a charge of mutiny is not clear. The symbolic leader of the Jewish battalions Jabotinsky also claimed not to have sympathized with the actions of the mutineers. Yet he too found himself wrapped up in their trials, this time as their defense counsel. Consequences Several days after the parade ground incidents, the trials of the arrested men began at Kantara. Unlike many other men in their situation, the Jewish soldiers were represented by an intellectually formidable man, one whose persistence perhaps even rivaled his intellect. In his initial defense, Jabotinsky argued that in order to be tried for mutiny, men had to be warned that they would be charged with mutiny if they continued to disobey. Since this exact statement was never uttered, and since many of the disobeying soldiers had completed their duties before the incident, Jabotinsky argued the Belah men were not mutinying. Additionally, he pointed out that the names of those in question had not been written down anywhere it was not entirely clear how many, or who, had failed to follow orders. 764 This was a well-thought out defense, and one that the presiding officers of the court had little choice but to accept. But even though the mutiny charges were dropped, the incident was too grievous, at too sensitive of a time, for the men to completely escape punishment. Lesser, more specific charges (possibly the originals from Colonel Patterson) were now levied, and a new round of courts-martial began. On August 11, the new trials began. The first was of the men who had refused guard duty at the July 3 parade, all of whom faced disobedience charges. Next was the court-martial of the men who had quit their posts in solidarity the hospital guards tried on August 12, and the well guards the next day. On August 14, the men who sparked the entire affair the Americans who had refused to travel to Bir Salem were court-martialed on charges of disobedience and conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline (Section 40). The largest and most minor court-martial the trial of the men who had fallen out to the right at the July 3 parade on Section 40 charges was the last to occur. The following table outlines the new round of trials: Table F: Courts-Martial of the 38 th Battalion Related to the 1919 Mutiny Last Name Trial and Charge Initial Sentence Final Sentence August 11 Dubin Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Ginsberg Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Kermerman Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Kass Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Pine Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Plonsky Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Shaber Disobedience 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment August 12 Cohen Quitting Post Not Guilty Patterson, With the Judeans, JI, 31-1K. Contents of Statement by Prisoners Friend, Undated. Pg

175 Levinsky Quitting Post 7 yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Aranovitz Quitting Post Not Guilty - Gutwrinowitz Quitting Post Not Guilty - Krinsky Quitting Post Not Guilty - Juditsky Quitting Post Not Guilty - Lane Quitting Post Not Guilty - August 13 Stransman Quitting Post 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Novokovsky Quitting Post 5 Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Chalem Quitting Post Not Guilty - Klapkin Quitting Post Not Guilty - August 14 Katzenelson Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Kaaz Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Sher Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Litchtenfeld Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Barr Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Adleson Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Streletzky Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Chizikofsky Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment Levene Disobedience, Sect Yrs Penal Servitude 2 Yrs Imprisonment August 16 Zichlinsky Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Cadesky Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Weingold Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Tuton Sect Yrs Imprisonment - Goldfarb Sect Yrs Imprisonment - Marcus Sect Yrs Imprisonment - Richman Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Haze Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Barkan Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Fishkin Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Heines Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Indenbaum Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Sherer Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Jaffe Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Schwartzbein Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Beldfosky Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Wolfson Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Kaplan Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Winkler Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Parker Sect Yrs Imprisonment - Yarmofsky Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Kovinsky Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Melonchick Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Poreles Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Newstone Sect Yrs Imprisonment - Friehorn Sect. 40 Not Guilty - Cohen Sect. 40 Not Guilty - 165

176 166 The trials, on the whole, resulted in two bifurcated outcomes. Convicted soldiers initially faced terms of penal servitude far outstripping the normal punishments for their actual charges. Patterson thought that the court had savagely sentenced the offenders in the 38 th, and openly speculated that they would all have been shot had the mutiny charge been allowed to stand. 765 Execution was an unlikely sentence however there had been no physical violence during the incidents, and the offenders were relatively isolated from both their battalion and the rest of the British army. Conversely, despite some initially severe punishments, the courts-martial had also resulted in a tremendous number of acquittals. Fifty-four men had been tried for the disturbances at Belah. Well over half thirty total had been acquitted, with the rest (with one exception) all subject to a universal punishment: five years of penal servitude, commuted down to two years of hard labor. 766 The extraordinary rate of acquittals was not normal, and was probably a product of Jabotinsky s vigorous defense. Jabotinsky, a noted disciplinarian, had initially been unenthused about defending the accused members of the 38 th. Patterson claimed that although Jabotinsky thought the men had a legitimate grievance, he felt that they should have carried out their duties faithfully to the end. 767 Whether this is true is unclear, in part because Jabotinsky mounted a vigorous defense getting the mutiny charges dismissed, and also pointing out that in the case of twenty-seven men tried on Section 40, the offender s names had not been written down, nor could Lt Barrett remember the faces of those involved, only identifying five men (the five who were found guilty). 768 Having already admitted to misremembering another detail while under crossexamination, Barrett s failure to identify faces was extremely significant. 769 A similar claim helped acquit two of the well-guard on trial for quitting their posts. Jabotinsky proved that one key witness had not actually seen the faces of the accused, and that another had never actually seen the men carrying their gear and leaving the well (just that he saw two taking it off a donkey and two other[s] had it already dumped ). 770 Without a competent and active defense, the court might have simply accepted the judgment of the lieutenant as to the participants. Jabotinsky s vigor was also on display after the trials; a few weeks after their conclusion, he penned a letter to the DJAG noting several technical points. His first point was that the initial FGCM had been for mutiny, and that it had then devolved into several, separate trials on lesser charges. This, in Jabotinsky s interpretation, was not legally justifiable since no new evidence had been provided in the new trials. Jabotinsky s second point was that the substitution of new charges took place after 33 days a period that he felt eliminated any prospect of men establishing genuine alibis, and was unfair to the demobilization of well over 300 men who might have been available as witnesses. 771 The rest of his long and substantive points revolved around a wide range of issues his inability to inspect prior proceedings, the use of precedent in 765 Patterson, With the Judeans, Lance-Corporal Levinsky initially received a 7 year sentence of penal servitude, but this was also commuted to 2 years of imprisonment. 767 Patterson, With the Judeans, JI, 31-1K. Jabotinsky Draft Letter of Oct 1, 1919, Pg JI, 31-1K. Testimony of Lt SV Barrett, pg 67. Barrett had originally claimed that he had discussed Patterson s plans to demobilize the men when they congregated outside the Orderly Room on July 2. When cross-examined, he admitted that he had actually not done this until the July 3 evening parade. 770 JI, 31-1K. Typed notes in Summary of Evidence, pg JI, 31-1K. Jabotinsky Draft Letter of Oct 1, 1919, Pg Jabotinsky claimed there were at least six demobilized men whom he would have called for the defense.

177 167 courts-martial, the ability of prosecuting witnesses to correctly identify the accused after delays, and the specifics of individual cases. 772 But Jabotinsky was not content with simply lobbying the official mechanisms inside the justice system he went well over the chain of command and began to lobby both Arthur Balfour and the King himself. In his ten-page petition to the King, a copy of which went to Balfour, Jabotinsky complained of a distinctly anti-jewish attitude inside GHQ Egypt albeit one that was only evident to the Jewish soldiers after the September 1918 offensives. 773 Almost none of the petition deals with the actual events of the mutiny. Instead, Jabotinsky focused on what he argued was a prevailing climate of antisemitism fostered by both the military command and British subalterns. Railing against the decisions that prevented Jewish troops from openly garrisoning (and in some cases visiting) major areas in Palestine, as well as the obstacles to demobilization into Palestine, Jabotinsky closed his petition by arguing that the moral responsibility for the mutinous behavior lay with the British command in Egypt and Palestine. 774 This accusatory sentiment did not sit well in London, particularly in the Foreign Office, which received a copy of the petition as well. The mutiny was discussed in a circulated memo sheet, one with the general belief that the Jewish troops had performed poorly one official going as far to note that if they had proved their worth they would have lived down their unpopularity and that the matter was really within the purview of the War Office. 775 Yet, due to the sensitive political nature of the situation, another official opined that the Foreign Office might suggest an amnesty a little later on, when the mandate is given if not before. 776 A few days after the discussion, an appeal for clemency was made for the mutineers in Parliament by Colonel Wedgewood, basing his request on the grounds that the guilty were American volunteers. 777 Ultimately, the imprisoned soldiers were released short of their already reduced sentences. According to Gilner, the convicted soldiers were released after eight months of imprisonment a statement corroborated by DJAG notations of quashed convictions in February More importantly, Jabotinsky was also released, but in a different manner. His politicking in Palestine, as well as his willingness to detour around official channels of communication, had become a severe nuisance to the British command. He was officially demobilized on September 6, 1919 with the honorary rank of lieutenant, although that did little to halt his involvement in the Mandate JI, 31-1K. Jabotinsky Draft Letter of Oct 1, 1919, Pg As it turns out, this was not the first time Jabotinsky had petitioned the DJAG. A typed letter from July 30, 1919 to Lt. Branstone, a Judge Advocate, complained about having to establish alibis well after the fact, and that the Presiding officer of the court had blocked two of his in his view, acceptable questions. See JI, 31-1K. Jabotinsky to Lt Branstone, July 30, 1919, pg FO 371/4238/ Typed Petition for Mercy by V. Jabotinsky, pg FO 371/4238/ Typed Petition for Mercy by V. Jabotinsky, pg FO 371/4238/ Handwritten Memorandum by Major OG Scott, October 24, FO 371/4238/ Handwritten Memorandum by ND Peterson, October 27, Hansard, HC Debates, November 3, 1919 vol 120, c1142w. 778 Gilner, War and Hope, 314. The specific date indicated by the DJAG in the trial records is February 17, If pre-trial imprisonment is included in Gilner s total, this would add up to roughly eight months. 779 WO 374/36592 Lt V. Jabotinsky. It should come as no surprise that Jabotinsky has an immense personnel file, filled with assessments and correspondence.

178 168 Beyond the 38th But the actions of the 38 th battalion are only half the story for shortly after the disturbances in the 38 th, members of the 39 th battalion also disobeyed commands, but unlike their sister battalion, their mutiny charges stuck. More importantly, unlike the trials of the 38 th where portions of the court-martial proceedings were preserved in the Jabotinsky Institute, there is no transcript for the mutiny trials of the 39 th, just the DJAG records. 780 The broad conflation in both Freulich and Gilner of the incidents in the 38 th and 39 th as one Mutiny against British discrimination and prejudice has, therefore, made evaluating the separate incidents difficult. Tensions in the 39 th mirrored those of the 38 th over the pace of demobilization and perceived anti-jewish prejudice. Unrest, however, was sparked into open revolt not by an order, but by an instance of Field Punishment 1. According to Gilner, a relatively inexperienced soldier in the 39 th s transport division had mishandled his pack mule in a minor fashion. Yet rather than a pay stoppage, detention, or the lesser variant of field punishment, the officer in charge declared a summary punishment of Field Punishment 1. Stripped of much of his clothing and deprived of water, the young soldier a Private Lipner was tied to an artillery piece and left in the sun. 781 While on parade on July 18, his peers protested such treatment, which to them was proof of prejudice, a sentiment only deepened by what Gilner claims was the apparent antisemitic language of the Major who first attempted to disperse the protesting Jews, and then decided to arrest them for mutiny when they refused to obey his orders. 782 The trials took place over two days in August at the camp in Sarafend, and all those prosecuted were privates a significant difference from the 38 th s trials, where several of the men were low-level NCOs. Jabotinsky appears to have served as the prisoners friend again, and once again managed to protect some of the Jewish soldiers. The Summary of Evidence brought against the forty-four men of the Transport Section stated that when on morning Stable Parade, they had refused an order for a right turn. 783 When the commanding Lieutenant inquired what the problem was, Private D. Tobin apparently the chosen spokesperson for the group stepped forward and stated that the men wanted the release of Lipner. They then quietly refused to follow orders until the issue was resolved, remaining at their places. The exact order of what happened next is unclear, but what is clear is that the protestors were imprisoned, but only after being addressed by Captain Smalley and warned of the consequences of continued refusal. 784 Just as had occurred at the trials of the 38 th, several Jewish NCO s broke with their peers and provided evidence against them in court. 785 Forty-four men from the 39 th were court-martialed for mutiny in August 1919, fourteen of whom were acquitted. As in the 38 th s trials, this was not an insignificant number of acquittals it represented very nearly one-third of the total men on trial. 786 Of the remaining 780 Patterson, chose to simply ignore the 39 th mutiny in his memoir. 781 Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, 145. Gilner, War and Hope, Gilner, War and Hope, 313. According to multiple sources, Colonel Margolin was absent during the incident, causing the acting leadership of the 39 th to fall to a Major Smolley a man reviled by the Jewish soldiers for his deep prejudices. See Gilner for more. 783 JI 34-1K, Summary of Evidence, July 21, 1919 pg JI 34-1K, Summary of Evidence, July 21, 1919 pg It s unclear whether the men demanded to be imprisoned, and whether they were supposed to be taken to Smalley after their protest, or simply detoured past him. 785 JI 34-1K, Summary of Evidence, July 21, 1919, Three Lance-Corporals from the Transport section: Hyam Platkin, Israel Weigensberg, and Benjamin Ryder. 786 WO 213/31/23-25

179 169 thirty men, all but three initially received five years of penal servitude, the others receiving six years instead. But twenty-nine of these men had their sentences commuted to one year of imprisonment; the one exception was noted as having his initial sentence simply remitted. It seems, therefore, that even if the British were prejudiced against Jewish soldiers, the review mechanisms still performed adequately. More importantly, while some injustice could be felt that the May rioters at Kantara were never prosecuted, the starker reality was that the sentences meted out to the Jewish troops were roughly in line with similar cases across the British Army. There was also a massive breach of discipline in the 40 th battalion in July 1919, but one which resulted, surprisingly, in no mutiny trials. In fact, the British response to the incident seems to illustrate a relative flexibility and understanding of Jewish discontent. 165 members of the 40 th had been ordered to take on Prisoner-of-War guard duties at six camps mostly in Egypt, but one in Cyprus. 787 When they were due to depart three weeks later, the men refused, claiming that they would not serve outside of Palestine. After a warning, and a series of explanation of the severity of their actions, including personal discussions between Lt Colonel MF Scott and the men under his command, 110 still refused to depart, but continued their other duties 788 The rest of the battalion refused to arrest the men, presenting a tense situation. Rather than use force probably a neighboring unit to suppress the dissent, Scott employed a surprisingly flexible approach. First, he allowed the visiting chairman of the Zionist Commission, Dr. David Eder, to speak with the men about their actions. Eder essentially informed them they were potentially jeopardizing British support for a Jewish Palestine. Secondly, Scott sent the three ringleaders of the protest away not to jail but to a different area in Palestine to perform other duties. Unlike what had happened in the 38 th and 39 th, there were no arrests, no open mutiny, and GHQ decided not to send any Jewish soldiers to Cypress (nor hold prejudice against the dissenting troops). 789 It was a remarkably even-keeled response to a potentially serious situation, and one that demonstrated the situational flexibility that British officers in Egypt and Palestine might use to prevent disturbances. Just as in the case of the 38 th, a British officer had attempted, this time successfully, to talk the Jewish men under his command out of major disciplinary consequences. Surprisingly, it had happened before. Major Henry Myer had dealt with the 40 th s refusal to follow orders in a similar manner in December 1918, with similar results. 790 Equally important, given the concurrence between this event and other disturbances in the 38 th and 39 th, was the British command s surprisingly non-punitive attitude, not least in the rescinding of its original orders and not pursuing the court-martialing of offenders. These conclusions, however, have not been the prevailing opinion in the few works to discuss the mutinies. The opinions expressed in the memoirs of those involved with the Jewish battalions Patterson, Jabotinsky, Gilner, and Freulich seem to have influenced the one historian, Martin Watts, who has grappled with the subject. In his generally excellent The Jewish Legion, Watts argued that the sentences meted out to the mutineers were excessive, and therefore reflective of prejudice: 787 WO 95/ th Battalion War Diary July 4, The breakdown was 1 NCO and 21 privates to Cyprus; 2 privates to Kantara; 1 Private to Rafa; 1 NCO to Salhia; 5 NCOs and 35 privates to Tel-el-Kebir; 12 NCOs and 87 privates to Bel-Beis 788 WO 95/ th Battalion War Diary July 28, WO 95/ th Battalion War Diary August 1-5, IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, December 28, 1918, p150.

180 170 What makes these prison terms (five to seven years) appear particularly severe is that earlier post hostilities cases of mutiny or disobedience, involving men of the Jewish Battalions, resulted in sentences of six months or one year only It therefore seems clear that the Jewish soldiers were treated in a discriminatory manner by the military authorities that indicates, yet again, the presence of an underlying anti-semitism within the OETA Southern command. 791 The problem, however, is that the sentences of the Jewish soldiers involved in these disturbances were almost all revised downwards from the initial prison term, and that the broader comparative context of the Legion s courts-martial reveal not antisemitic prejudice, but panic over the spread of Bolshevism across Europe. Despite the repeated disturbances rippling through the EEF in 1919, there s little in the way of available comparison for the Jewish Mutiny. This, of course, could in itself suggest prejudice; soldiers striking at Kantara and refusing orders were not tried for mutiny, but Jewish troops were. More likely, however, is that as Allenby expressed in his letter to Wilson, there was simply no way he could punish the thousands of disobedient troops at Kantara without completely losing control of the situation. The result is that units that did not have the luxury of a duty assignment that afforded them strength in numbers were more vulnerable to mutiny courtsmartial. For this reason, there are mostly only small-scale trials for mutiny in 1919 Egypt and Palestine like the six men from the 2 nd Royal Irish Fusiliers tried for mutiny in June Perhaps most similar to the Jewish Mutiny was that of the 2 nd battalion West India regiment (not the BWIR) who had thirty-two of its soldiers face mutiny charges for protesting their exclusion from a pay increase. Their trial was on May 11, 1919, and just as the case of the 39 th battalion, the West Indians were initially sentenced to a hefty five to seven years penal servitude. Yet, in all cases, this was commuted to either one or two years of imprisonment with hard labor fitting the same profile of punishment and commutation as the Legion mutineers. 793 The major distinction between the two, however, was that a not insignificant number of the court-martialed soldiers of the 39 th were not convicted. Still, the sentences of the convicted Jewish and West Indian troops seem grossly disproportionate to that of British soldiers in Egypt and Palestine. For example, four privates attached to the 53 rd Welsh Divison only received three months of Field Punishment 2 after mutiny courts-martial. 794 The incidents of July 1919 inside the Jewish battalions had been nothing more than a minor mutiny, and the heavy sentences of penal servitude that they received were generally reserved for more serious (and violent) affairs. However, when the comparative scope is broadened, their final sentences of one to two years imprisonment with hard labor was roughly equitable to the sentences passed on to a variety of other mutineers in other theaters in the Summer of Watts, Jewish Legion, Putkoski, British Army Mutineers, 165. They received punishments ranging from not guilty to field punishment to shorter terms of imprisonment with hard labor. Incidentally, it seems the Jewish troops may have been involved with the Royal Irish s mutiny having been ordered to quell the disturbance, by force if necessary. According to the story, the Irish soldiers appealed to their brothers not to shoot a decision that the Jewish soldiers respected by planning to fire into the air if ordered to disperse the Irish with force. See Freulich, Soldiers in Judea, Putkoski, British Army Mutineers, Putkowski, British Army Mutineers, 159, See for example, the 30 th Machine Gun Company (1 year HL), the Royal Engineers (1 year HL), and the 6 th battalion of the 2 nd Royal Warwickshires (2 years HL, with 1 year remitted. The 2 nd Machine Gun Company had a similar sentencing profile 5 years penal servitude, commuted down in many cases to 2 years HL. See Putkowski, British Army Mutineers,

181 171 In fact, the convicted Jewish soldiers received sentences generally in line with British Army standards. In his study of First World War mutinies in the British Army, Julian Putkowski noted that of the over 1500 men charged with mutiny while overseas, half of those found guilty were jailed for more than three years, and almost 200 were sentenced to penal servitude for at least ten years. 796 Putkowski also identified an important phenomenon sentencing increased in severity after the Armistice. The reasons for why mutiny intensified after the war political dissatisfaction, desire for demobilization, and a general feeling that the war was over also help to explain the British Army s increased harshness in mutiny courts-martial. Not only did the British feel that they needed the diplomatic leverage at Paris provided by their Army, but they also had to react to the shifting global political climate, most notably the sudden and sustained rise of Bolshevism. 797 The success of the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917 terrified British policy-makers and military commanders, many of many of whom developed a sustained paranoia of possible Bolshevism inside their own forces. The Jewish units were natural targets for this many of their men were of Russian origin, and the prevalence of Jews inside the Russian Bolsheviks underscored British prejudices. In fact, no sooner had the 38 th battalion arrived in Egypt than Allenby began conferring with the War Office about potential conflicts in loyalty. In a March 10 telegram to the Imperial General Staff, he noted that the Russian Jews may now be an element of danger and speculated further that the battalions might contain Jews of other nationalities who sympathize with our enemies. 798 The implications were twofold. First, Russian Jews were assumed to be inherently tied, or overly susceptible, to Bolshevism. Secondly, that non-british Jews on the whole were a possible 5 th column inside the British Army the rest of Allenby s telegram suggested that German and Austrian Jews could infiltrate the battalion via recruitment in the United States or Egypt and Palestine. The War Office s response was illuminating. While agreeing that it was now undesirable to enlist Russian Jews any further, they felt that other recruitment was fine, since Colonel Patterson should be able to ensure that undesirable characters do not remain undetected. 799 While following these instructions, Allenby also used a report from Patterson about Russian Jews asking to be released from service on account of Russia s withdrawal from the conflict to recommend their demobilization in essence, quietly purging the unit of men whom he considered potentially subversive. 800 Several weeks later, Allenby directly conceded the entire issue of recruitment in Palestine, arguing that the combination of his intelligence branch and the Zionist Commission could weed out subversives, even though the majority of candidates for enlistment are of Russian nationality. 801 Paranoia, however, persisted into the Armistice period. Incidents amongst the American troops in the North Russia Expeditionary Force in 1919 and the refusal of French naval crews to fire on revolutionaries at both Odessa and Sevastopol underlined British fears, as did the revolt in Egypt. 802 More locally, British concerns were exacerbated by blocs, often American, inside the 796 Putkowski, British Army Mutineers, Putkowski, British Army Mutineers, WO 33/946/9160 Telegram EA 946, CinC Egypt to Chief of the Imperial General Staff, March 10, WO 33/946/9207 Telegram 54424, War Office to CinC Egypt, March 17, WO 33/946/9237, Telegram EA 996, CinC Egypt to War Office, March 20, WO 33/946/9536 CinC Egypt to War Office, May 10, Guttridge, Mutiny, The French refused orders to shell revolutionaries in Odessa, and many went ashore with workers at Sevastopol. As for the Egyptian revolt in March, the British speculated heavily that it had Bolshevist influence and tendencies. See Fromkin, A Peace to end all Peace, 419 for more.

182 172 Jewish battalions who rejected military authority in an organized manner, particularly when they declared that they were on strike. One soldier recalled how dissatisfaction with their rations led some to strike shortly after the Armistice, and little incidents such as the formation of a picket line by New York City union members to protest the summary judgment of a Sergeant as unfair to organized labor did nothing to assuage the military hierarchy s fears. 803 Nor did some attitudes towards the May 1919 protests at Kantara; Alex Linsk noted a few members of A company calling themselves Bolsheviks [and] distributing pamphlets for a general strike to mark six months of the end of the war. 804 In addition, the large-scale disobedience in the 38 th and 39 th in July was perceived by some as an intensification of syndicalism Lieutenant Barrett had, after all, warned the disobedient members of the 38 th that they would be branded Bolsheviks and Undesirable Aliens. During the protests of the 39 th battalion, Captain Smalley had expressly warned them that soldiers committees and unions essentially any form of organized protest was forbidden. 805 This sentiment extended up the chain of command, as well. In a piece of confidential correspondence from July 11, 1919, the British Political Officer attached to the EEF referred to Jabotinsky as both anti-british and Bolshevist, recommending his immediate demobilization. 806 The casual labeling of Jabotinsky and any other annoyances as Bolshevists may have been antisemitism masquerading as anti-bolshevism at the time roughly compatible with imperial patriotism or may have simply reflected paranoia of political radicalization that lacked a suitable accompanying vocabulary. Yet as earlier portions of this chapter have demonstrated, there is little evidence to support the idea that the functioning of the military justice system became compromised over fears of Bolshevism. If it had, it is likely that there would have been a far more punitive reaction to the broad unrest in July Rather, the persistent dialogue on Bolshevism and other political radicalism indicates that the British were hoping to both formally and informally blunt such ideologies during the Armistice period. Should anger over the pace of demobilization escalate, more men would become susceptible to political ideologies that could destabilize the Empire when brought back to the Dominions and colonies. It was these fears, completely encapsulated within the Jewish mutiny trial, that reveal a subtle process of imperial communitybuilding that the British undertook in the Middle East inside their own army, and the countercommunities that developed in response. 803 YIVO RG 1530, Diary of Private Joe Davidson, 119A (The story was reprinted by Freulich as well); Gilner, War and Hope, 287. According to the story, the New Yorkers marched up and down in front of the battalion guardhouse with a sign that read Sergeant Brainin unfair to organized labor. 804 YIVO 15/9604. Reprinted letter, Alex Linsk to Herman Lehman, April 20, 1919 in Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion (Vol 1, No 5) May 1976 (Baltimore/Avichail) p 35. Linsk concluded, I am absolutely against this Bolshevism. It is a foolish step to take at the present moment when the situation in Palestine is yet not clear and we don t know where we stand. 805 JI 34-1K, Summary of Evidence, July 21, 1919 pg YIVO US Territorial Collection RG 117 (Box 59), Folder 592, Letter of Major G. Walley (probably to Allenby), July 11, The story behind this piece of correspondence is important. A member of the 38 th battalion, Jay Pearlstein, was working in GHQ and made a copy of the letter, which he passed on to Patterson in August 1922 because this phase of the history needs to be told.

183 173 Chapter 5 Time Wasted in Waste Places : Athletics and Imperial Conditioning in the War for Empire Just a crowd of people killing time. Time wasted in waste places. This was how the well-known soldier, writer, and pacifist Siegfried Sassoon described the massive EEF base at Kantara, Egypt. 807 Sassoon was only stationed at Kantara briefly in 1918 and he left the Palestine theater before the Megiddo Offensive and subsequent armistice. However, his sentiments effectively described how many in the EEF felt about their time once the actual fighting had ended the military duties that had once required so much energy dwindled in both scope and importance as they waited for formalized peace and to demobilize home. The war was over, they were just wasting time. One of the many ways EEF soldiers spent their newly-acquired free time was to play sports. Organized athletics had steadily increased in popularity in Britain and its empire throughout the Victorian and Edwardian period, and by the First World War, the vast majority of the British Army had some experience with games. 808 The result was that cricket, football, rugby, or hockey matches, as well as Olympic-style athletics, horse racing, and boxing competitions were commonplace wherever the British Army happened to be fighting. In the Palestine theater, athletic competition might take place against local clubs or in organized battalion and army competitions, while other contests were simply improvised on the spot. 809 But athletic games were more than recreation during the First World War and the immediate postwar period; they also were a form of military training, as well as a process of imperial conditioning a way for the British Army to defuse potential postwar tensions by inculcating British values into its soldiers, particularly minorities. This chapter examines athletic competition inside the Palestine theater and argues that it represents part of a broader process, albeit somewhat diffuse and indirect in its application, of cultural and social training. This process involved forcing soldiers to compete athletically, as well as transitioning military education to vocational and civic education. The goal, in both cases, was to impart, transfer, and nurture a particular set of values and norms thought to be inherent in British identity. Athletic success, as this chapter shows, was an important corollary to perceived military ability, and thus to broader notions of belonging and importance. This attempt 807 Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon: The Making of a War Poet: A Biography ( ) (New York: Routledge: 1998), 448. Located on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, Kantara had evolved during the war to become the strategic nexus of British operations in Palestine. Adjoined to the British rail network that traversed newly occupied territory in the Sinai and Palestine, Kantara was the major transfer station between Cairo and points eastward. Far from the front lines by 1917, it had warehouses, a large hospital, and served as a major headquarters for the EEF. Kantara was also one of the principal points of demobilization from Egypt and Palestine a critical supply and logistics base during the war, it became the focal point for soldiers departing the EEF and returning home. Almost every single soldier who fought in Palestine passed through Kantara at some point. 808 There are numerous works on the growth of sport in Britain, but good starting points include Tony Mason, Sport in Britain (London: Faber and Faber, 1988), Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), and Derek Birley, Sport and the making of Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) and Land of sport and glory: Sport and British Society, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). 809 Famously, two well-regarded amateur cricket players in the EEF constructed an improvised pitch at Kantara. See IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, April 5, 1919, p 180. The players were ER Wilson, who played for Yorkshire, and Morgan, who played for Glamorgan. For a description of popular sports in Palestine, see also JI 27-1K. The Zionist Volunteers from America, by Lt Col JH Patterson, pg 84. Undated.

184 174 at conditioning intensified after the armistices, suggesting that its intent was preserving the postwar stability of Britain s empire; a partial response to the growing unrest inside the stillmobilized British forces and the newly released specter of Bolshevik revolution. This was of particular importance in the EEF, where slow demobilization, growing political unrest, and a wide swath of imperial, colonial, and minority soldiers could form a potentially combustible cocktail of anti-british sentiment. While the act of playing games supposedly made them more amenable to the existence of the Empire, imperial and minority troops could also contest their place in the Empire through these same games. Demonstrations of athletic ability coupled with shared understandings of military service to help form unique friendships and nascent community between minority troops and ANZACs. In the Palestine theater the newest imperial acquisition for Britain and also the location of its most diverse, multi-imperial military force sports were a critical component of enhancing imperial cohesion from both above and below. The history of sports has begun to move into the mainstream in recent decades, as scholars particularly those of Britain and its empire begin to understand athletics as a broader cultural, social, economic, and political force. More than a distraction or leisure pursuit, sport, as Ross McKibbin and others have argued, was one of the most powerful of England s civil cultures. 810 Games like cricket, football, and rugby had become crucial to English understandings of self, society, and nation in the nineteenth century, and by the Victorian period, they had become a critical component of the public school curriculum. There they grafted smoothly onto a hierarchical and exceptionalist ethos to create a games ethic designed to promote a moral core centered on Christian masculinity. These concepts centered on developing elite virtues of self-confidence, self-reliance, leadership, team spirit, and loyalty to comrades, the latter of which translated to teammates, house, school, nation, and ultimately, empire. 811 This curriculum, therefore, was designed in part to prepare pupils for careers in the colonial service, with the result that games and their ethic were carried out from Britain into the empire, where both were remodeled to fit frameworks of governance and Britain s broader imperial mission. Thus, British games like cricket became, to some historians, part of the imperial civilizing process a process of cultural imperialism that transmitted a particular set of ideals into the colonies. 812 JA Mangan and others have continually argued that athletics 810 Ross McKibbin, Classes and Cultures: England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 332. See also Holt, op cit. and JA Mangan, ed. Pleasure, Profit, Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad (London: Frank Cass and Co, 1988). 811 JA Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism: Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (Middlesex: Viking 1985) and JA Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School: The Emergence and Consolidation of an Educational Ideology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Harold Perkin, Teaching the Nations How to Play: Sport and Society in the British Empire and Commonwealth, in The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society, ed J.A. Mangan (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1992), For perhaps the most well-known discussion of cricket as imperial transmitter, see CLR James, Beyond a Boundary 1963 Reprint (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993). For a good introduction to sport and imperialism, see the collection alliteratively republished as JA Mangan, Manufactured Masculinity: Making Imperial Manliness, Morality and Militarism (New York: Routledge 2012), especially the reprinting of Mangan s Britain s Chief Spiritual Export: Imperial Sport as Moral Metaphor, Political Symbol and Cultural Bond. On sport and cultural imperialism, see Patrick McDevitt, May the Best Man Win: Sport Masculinity, and Nationalism in Great Britain and the Empire, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), Chapter 1 and the work of Brian

185 175 maintained a dual nature that made them a natural fit for the British Empire they not only produced the supposed abilities to rule, but they also developed the compulsion to follow, essentially reflecting the duality of dominion and discipline present in empire. 813 These discussions, however, tend to end by 1914 or bypass the war, creating a curious gap in the literature on sport and the British empire. Despite the broad focus on athletics and imperialism, there has been little discussion of sports and minority soldiers in the British forces during the First World War. The white dominions as is often the case in Great War studies are the exception to the rule, and a number of diverse articles on sport and the war in both Canada and the Antipodes have emerged in the International Journal of the History of Sport. 814 But sport in the British Army during the war has generally been treated as a leisure activity, albeit one that could improve unit morale, mood, and relationship. 815 Football has earned notice for its role in the 1914 Christmas truce and as a symbolic over-the-top motivator the famed kicking of footballs towards German trenches while some focused scholarship has used the prism of athletics as a way to explore British society during the war, generally focusing on football or rugby on both the Western and home fronts. 816 Recently, new work has suggested that athletic competition became codified as Stoddart, including Sport, Cultural Imperialism, and Colonial Response in the British Empire, Comparative Studies in Society and History 30, no. 4 (October 1988): and Cricket and Colonialism in the English- Speaking Caribbean to 1914: Towards a Cultural Analysis in JA Mangan, ed. Pleasure, Profit, Proselytism: British Culture and Sport at Home and Abroad (London: Frank Cass and Co, 1988) For more on cricket and culture, see Brian Stoddart and Keith AP Sandiford, eds. The imperial game: Cricket, Culture, and Society (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998) and Hilary McD Beckles and Brian Stoddart, eds. Liberation cricket: West Indies cricket culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). 813 Mangan, Games Ethic, 18; Mangan, Athleticism, 32-5; and Mangan Manufactured Masculinity, See also Stoddart, Sport, Cultural Imperialism 653, which points out that sports entailed a variety of cultural values key to the maintenance of imperial order not least was obedience to a system of rules and regulations, as well as respect for the enforcing authority. These aforementioned arguments could be considered auxiliary to a range of Foucauldian, Gramscian, and neo-marxist interpretations, which argue that games essentially allowed for a form of monitoring and social control by placing all participants in a contained and refereed area. For an introduction to these critiques, particularly related to the issue of postmodernity, see Patrick McDevitt, May the Best Man Win, 4-6. See also Tony Mason, Sport in Britain, for a critique of neo-marxist interpretations. Although it recognizes elements of attempted institutional control, the interpretation provided throughout this chapter is not intended to cement these theories. Rather, it works to understand certain entrenched attitudes inside British society in the First World War through the context of minority soldiers, and to provide a fuller, empirical understanding of transformations, mitigations, and contestations of imperial rule in the First World War. 814 Murray G. Phillips, Sport, war and gender images: The Australian Sportsmen s battalions and the First World War, The International Journal of the History of Sport 14, no. 1 (1997): 78-96; Rodney Noonan Offside: Rugby League, the Great War and Australian Patriotism, The International Journal of the History of Sport 26, no. 15 (2009): ; Rob Hess, Playing with Patriotic Fire : Women and Football in the Antipodes during the Great War The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no. 10 (2011): ; JJ Wilson, Skating to Armageddon: Canada, Hockey and the First World War, The International Journal of the History of Sport 22 no. 3 (2005): Hess article offers an interesting comparative parallel to the football teams of British female factory workers during the war. 815 See, for example, JG Fuller Troop Morale and Popular Culture in the British Dominion Armies, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991) Fuller s discussion of sport exists in a broader chapter on Leisure. Similar structural placement of athletics is also present in Denis Winter, Death s Men: Soldiers of the Great War (New York: Penguin Books, 1979) Colin Veitch, Play up! Play up! And Win the War! Football, the Nation and the First World War, Journal of Contemporary History 20, no. 3 (July 1985): ; Brandon Luedtke, Playing Fields and Battlefields: The Football Pitch, England and the First World War, Britain and the World 5 (March 2012): ; Tony Collins, English Rugby Union and the First World War, The Historical Journal 45, no. 4 (December 2002)

186 176 a form of military training in the latter stages of the war, tracing how army commanders sought to enhance tactical and strategic ability through a supposed leisure activity. 817 Yet, outside of the links between sports and military training, much fertile ground lies uncovered. Specifically, why were soldiers forced to play sports after the Armistices marked the end of fighting, and why were games an area of focus in the EEF, especially in minority battalions like the BWIR and Jewish battalions? Does the concurrent onset of various forms of educational training often shifting from purely military subjects into topics like civics and agriculture suggest a link between the two and, therefore, a broader process? The role of sports as an important cultural, social, and even political identifier in the Empire did not disappear when minority and empire men enlisted for military service. Rather, it may have intensified in meaning, for military ability and athletic ability were conjoined in many British minds, and athletic success was often a statement of values, norms, and belonging. From Fair Play to Military Training When war with Germany broke out, many of the underlying cornerstones of the games ethic a Christian masculinity, assumed British superiority in culture and morality, and broad notions of loyalty featured prominently in British language, motivations, and propaganda. Much of this stemmed directly from the ideal of playing the game, the idea that the virtues of the sporting ground should be recreated on the battlefield. Henry Newbolt had famously codified this sentiment in his 1898 poem, Vitaї Lampada, which exhorted both a losing public school cricket team and a nearly defeated regiment fighting in the empire to Play up! play up! and play the game! as if the situations were parallel. 818 Upholding the supposed ideals of the game permeated many discussions of military service; Patterson, for example, lavished high praise on his 38 th battalion when he wrote that they drilled, marched, fought, and generally played the game, as well as any Battalion in the Army. 819 The ideal also physically manifested itself in the general recruiting of volunteers to the British Army, as well as through the formation of various sportsmen and footballer s battalions earlier in the war For a focused discussion, see Tony Mason and Eliza Riedi, Leather and the fighting spirit: sport in the British Army in World War I Canadian Journal of History 41 no. 3 (Winter 2006): For the more broadly contextualized argument, see Tony Mason and Eliza Riedi, Sport and the Military: The British Armed Forces (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 818 Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), Fussell points out that Newbolt was a good friend of General Haig s. The final stanza reads: The sand of the desert is sodden red-- /Red with the wreck of a square that broke;/the Gatling s jammed and the Colonel dead/ And the regiment blind with dust and smoke;/ The river of death has brimmed his banks,/ And England s far, and Honor a name;/ But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:/ Play up! play up! and play the game! 819 Patterson, With the Judeans, 15. The ideal could be used to enforce fairness as well. Patterson later wrote that he had to ensure that officers prejudiced against the Jewish battalions played the game. See pg See Phillips, Sport, war and gender images,

187 177 Figure 5.1 British Recruiting Posters, c This type of recruitment reinforced the idea that sport was essentially a metaphor for war, which in and of itself played off decades of cultural and scholastic training about empire and the value of athletics. 822 Deeply embedded within this was an assumed link between Britain s imperial dominance and a sense of Britishness partially predicated on notions of fair play a universal commitment to the sporting spirit in all things, including war. 823 These ideas were critical to Britain s understanding of its role in the Great War it was the defender of little Belgium and the counterweight to imperial Germany, the committer of atrocity, and therefore the enforcer of geopolitical fair play. 824 As the war progressed, the spirit of playing the game receded somewhat, but athletics became an increasingly tangible and institutionalized part of army service. 821 The poster on the left was published by the Publicity Department of the Central London Recruiting Depot either in 1914 or 1915, and possibly reprinted by others. National Army Museum , Online: The poster on the right was published by PC Burton and Company in National Army Museum , Online: [Accessed on June 2, 2013]. 822 Tony Collins English Rugby Union in the First World War, 797; Derek Birley, Sportsmen and the Deadly Game British Journal of Sports History 3, no. 3 (1986): ; John MacKenzie, Propaganda and empire: the manipulation of British public opinion, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986). 823 Fussell, Modern Memory, 25. Mangan, Tribal Identities, On this vastly complicated issue, see the provocative and important John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).

188 178 The focus on games stemmed, in part, from an operational perspective; the assumption of senior military commanders that athletic techniques could be redirected as various tactical and martial skills. Any sport that stressed competition and unit cohesion (which, frankly, was most sports) was viewed as beneficial to both individual and unit development. 825 Team games like rugby, hockey, and especially football were encouraged due to parallels with perceived unit training. Each participant had an independent role to play, but individual glory was less important than the victory of the whole. This confluence had been sketched out by Lord Robert Baden-Powell years before, but took firm and institutionalized root in the General Staff during the middle of the war. 826 By 1916, games were formally integrated into the military system as both recreational training and as an officially sanctioned form of leisure. 827 Two years later, the British General Staff ordered officers to utilize sport, particularly football, to train platoons for combat, arguing that those who produce the best football team in the battalion will have done a great deal to make it the best platoon in every way." 828 Games were no longer civilian preparation for war or a mere recruitment device, but now an omnipresent part of sustained service in the British forces during the war and military training by other means. The explicit sanction of athletic competition inside the military affected the BWIR and Jewish battalions, who both played organized sport from their first days in service. Shortly after the first West Indian contingents arrival in England, the WICC immediately requested donations of footballs, cricket sets, [and] boxing gloves in part as a (vainly optimistic) means of therapy for the cold and wet weather. 829 Similarly, members of the Jewish battalions were involved in football matches early in their service, as the photos of football teams of the 38 th and 40 th demonstrate: 825 Woodward, Forgotten Soldiers, Veitch, Play Up, 374. Baden-Powell achieved fame for the Siege of Mafeking during the Second Anglo-Boer War, as well as for his role in developing the boy scouts. 827 Mason and Riedi, Leather and the fighting spirit, 486, 508. Colin Veitch has challenged assumptions about the immediacy of athletics and war service by pointing out disconnects between the public schools, athletic training, and the role of sports in the war until See Veitch, Play Up, Mason and Riedi, Leather and the fighting spirit, ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Meeting of Feb 9, 1916, Meeting of June 30, 1916, pg 3. As the WICC Secretary Algernon Aspinall informed the readers of Sporting Life: Coming, as they do, from a tropical climate, the men naturally feel the cold acutely, and nothing would be better for them than an occasional game of football. In the West Indies, it may surprise your readers to know, the game is played in all the larger islands, even though the thermometer may be standing well over 85 degrees in the shade! See Algeron Aspinall to Editor of Sporting Life, Nov 1, 1915, in WICC Scrap book, ICS 96/2/3, pg 6.

189 179 Figure 5.2 The football team of the 38 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, Plymouth Figure 5.3 Members of the 40 th Battalion outfitted for football, Date and Location unknown JML/ / I.p78. Online: [Accessed January 30, 2006] 831 JML/ / I. p100. Online: [Accessed January 30, 2006]. It s difficult to ascertain whether this photo was taken in England or the Middle East, but my guess would be the former.

190 180 As the photograph of the 38 th depicts, battalion teams could take games quite seriously when they were allowed to, wearing matching uniforms and playing on real pitches with goals. Of course, once near the front lines, these formalities were usually immediately dispensed with, although competition continued. Once on service abroad, athletic competition frequently took place inside individual battalions, but also against other units, particularly ones with a shared identity or a past relationship. These competitions supposedly enhanced espirit de corps, and were relatively common inside the EEF in Palestine, often pitting one imperial or minority battalion against a sister unit. When stationed near each other, the officers of the 39 th and 40 th Jewish battalions competed in field hockey, football, and equestrian sports. 832 These occurrences were not uncommon. The first issue of the 39 th battalion s newspaper, The Judean, featured a full-page sports section, complete with illustrations and a detailed account of athletic competition against the 38 th, including various foot and horse races, high-jumping, and a tug-of-war contest. 833 Similar events took place inside the BWIR, with at least one occasion of games between all three battalions taking place at Mex in February These contests may have succeeded in their goal of battalion espirit-de-corps even in supposedly homogenous units like the Jewish Legion; the 39 th closed their report by pointing out, cheekily, that even though junior in status, they had won the games. In addition to encouraging broad cooperation inside units, there were also attempts to focus on the individual soldier, a result of the belief that certain individual skills mapped out immediately from the sporting field onto the battlefield. Football, for example, was believed to nurture a crafty individuality in British soldiers in addition to its team dimensions. 835 While unit cohesion was the immediate tactical focus of athletic training, the army also wanted individual skills and not merely physical ones to be nurtured through games. Boxing improved hand-tohand combat and agility, football and rugby promoted situational awareness and individual discipline, while cricket could parallel bomb throwing: 832 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, December 17, 1918, pg IWM MS/E/S, E.149 The Judean, 32. Interestingly, a fair amount of competitive and battalion pride seeped through the article. The games took place on May 22, One popular equestrian competition was a race between teams of battalion officers, be they from the 38 th, 39 th, or 40 th, on either mules or horses. This competition, known as, the Derby, took place several times as the culmination of battalion games, and despite the rather limited involvement of most of the men, was quite popular for gambling purposes. Although it was not officially addressed, officers were aware that the American Jews of the 39 th Battalion provided an adequate supply of professional bookmakers, and that soldiers frequently made wagers on inter and intra-regimental competitions. At one point, the odds for an upcoming Derby were posted every morning on the door of the 39 th s medical hut. For more, see IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, January 1, 1919, pg 153 and Salaman, It is, frankly, a little unclear how these bookmakers, mostly from the Jewish Underworld of New York, ended up in the Jewish regiments. It was, apparently, equally puzzling to their fellow soldiers. 834 WO 95/ th BWIR War Diary, Feb 8, Fussell, Modern Memory, 26.

191 181 Figure 5.4 Cartoon of Geoffrey Stobie 836 This satirical drawing by the New Zealand war artist, Geoffrey Stobie, depicted the supposed symmetry between the proper form of a cricket bowler and that of a soldier preparing to throw a bomb suggesting that the successful cricket player would become a successful combatant. The immediate tactical parallels, as Stobie implies, were essentially imagined. Bowling could hardly be said to be of much practical value in terms of an extension onto a military setting, as it relied on a luxury of time and space unheard of to the average Great War infantryman. 837 However, Stobie s cartoon also illustrates a more important underlying emphasis the idea that cricket encouraged the proper sportsmanship needed to be a good soldier. 838 More important than the transfer of physical abilities was the belief that the cultural and social norms embedded into games created the best soldiers. Sport [was] the best preparation for battle because it supposedly trained British men to compete, and fight, in a particular way. 839 While the physical aspects of games enhanced martial techniques and physical abilities, the values believed inherent to games fair play, humility, teamwork, and loyalty were more important. Winning the right way in either athletic competition or in war was critical to the British worldview, for it enhanced their right to imperial rule. Demonstrating these values was particularly important for minority soldiers especially the West Indians, whose racial backgrounds visibly marked them as different. When they arrived in England in 1915, the Liverpool Courier noted that there is plenty of sporting spirit in the West Indian Contingent, reassuring their readers that the West Indian troops, despite being 836 Archives New Zealand, National Collection of War Art. AAAC 898 / Box : 608 / N : NCWA Q549, Online: There is very little in the way of information on Stobie or his sketches. Many appear to be of gymnastics and drill instructions captioned onto images of daily trench activities, offering a deeply satirical take on military training. 837 Peter Parker, The Old Lie: The Great War and the Public School Ethos (London: Constable, 1987), 213. An emphasis on perfect form and stance while hurling a grenade was an open invitation to a gunshot wound 838 Williams, Cricket and England, Fussell, Modern Memory, 25. Mangan, Tribal Identities, 31.

192 182 of African descent, were acceptable military representatives. 840 Both the WICC and the JRC emphasized their units athletic success in reports, thus underlining the weight athletic prowess carried for minorities in demonstrating their imperial standing and broader acceptability. 841 Later, a BWIR officer publicly stated that The West Indians made splendid soldiers. They excelled also in games, at which they had simply cleared the board. 842 The pronouncement of athletic ability nearly as important as whether or not the West Indians were effective soldiers was an assurance that the BWIR embodied the correct spirit. Athletic success was a barometer of imperial desirability because it reflected a willingness to internalize the embedded value structure of games, and therefore, Britain. This was particularly clear in the postwar applications of minority soldiers for imperial positions. In supporting the application of Sergeant FAC Clairmonte from the 5 th BWIR for a position in the East Africa civil service, his commanding officer noted that he had performed acceptably in his duties in the orderly room, but critically had also taken a prominent part in Regimental Games and Sports, being active, energetic and a good athlete. 843 The Colonial Office denied Clairmonte the post (likely on race-based criteria), but the implications of the letter could not have been clearer: athletic enthusiasm and success was a key qualification for acceptance within the imperial hierarchy. Nor was Clairmonte s case an anomaly in its presentation. David Killingray noted how a 20 year old West Indian was able to gain entry into an Officer Training Course despite his mixed-race background in part because he was a good athlete. 844 These incidents not only reflected the extent of internalization of the games ethic, but also the result of the British implicit assumption that the values associated with [athletic success] [we]re directly translatable. 845 As the previous examples have shown, some officers viewed black and coloured men as capable of this internalization, complicating ideas about who might be able to reflect the imperial mission, and suggesting a crack in the racial underpinnings of the colonial hierarchy. For minorities inside the EEF, the belief that values could transfer through games led to a particular unique aspect of military service they were forced to play games. Forced to Play: Games as Imperial Conditioning While post-armistice sport (and its generally accompaniment gambling) was of enjoyment to many soldiers, it was not simply leisure inside the EEF. In fact, members of the EEF were forced to play sports after the Armistice; one soldier wrote in his diary of Troops 840 Liverpool Courier, Happy West Indians, Nov 20, 1915 in WICC Scrap book ICS 96/2/3, pg 8. Many Europeans maintained assumptions that all men of African descent fought like savages (a critique that could also be extended to the sporting arena). On the former point, see Fogarty, Race and War in France, On the latter, see L. O Brien Thompson, How cricket is West Indian cricket? Class, racial, and color conflict, in Hilary McD Beckles and Brian Stoddart, eds. Liberation cricket: West Indies cricket culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), JI 21-1K, Report of the Jewish Regiment Committee, p5. ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, June 6, ICS 97/1/6/1 WICC Minute Book, Newspaper Report of Nov 25, 1917 Meeting 843 CO 28/294/1030 Lt. Col. A Wilson to Colonial Office, December 24, For more on the importance of games in imperial officialdom, see Anthony Kirk-Greene, Badge of Office: Sport and His Excellency in the British Empire, in The Cultural Bond: Sport, Empire, Society, ed. J.A. Mangan (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1992) Killingray, All the King s Men, 174. He was also a public school boy. His social class, plus his demonstrated athletic ability, was enough to override racial assumptions. 845 Levene, Going Against the Grain, 85.

193 183 being forcibly fed with football, and have to play 846 Compelling soldiers to play sports when they might otherwise not, particularly after the armistice, suggests that athletics were more than another form of military training or mere recreation. Whereas military training was meant to develop martial characteristics, sports also had a secondary purpose to acculturate troops to a particular set of values believed to be embedded within the game itself. When athletic competition is viewed as one aspect of a multi-faceted postwar educational program, its broader purpose becomes clearer. What began during the war as a means of better-training soldiers for both combat and a variety of other military tasks took on a different function after the Armistices. No longer was generating combat-capable manpower the primary goal of the Armed forces; rather, its focus now turned to transforming its troops into Armies of Occupation or back into ordinary civilians. Athletics were a natural counter, in the mind of British officers, to the enticements of political radicalism. By participating, soldiers would internalize the British values embedded within games, essentially vaccinating themselves from a host of political infections. The relative isolation of the Palestine front from the homes of the EEF meant that in Palestine in particular, unrest would run high at the slow pace of demobilization. Games and educational training intensified inside the EEF after the October 1918 armistice, the result of a decision from the British command that athletics promoted desirable characteristics in soldiers, but also a reflexive approach to dissent by EEF officers. Days after the November 11 armistice, the War Office created the Army Sport Control Board, which instructed the Commanders of all theaters to promote the universal participation of all ranks in the National sports of the Country as a way of keeping soldiers occupied during demobilization. 847 The (redundant) emphasis on National Sports of the Country implied that particular values resided inside British games, as other games were less desirable. After all, if the goal was merely to distract and amuse, why would the type of game matter? Yet its unclear how specifically constructed these orders were, and officers in the EEF should also be understood as trying to contain dissenting communities via a means that they themselves understood as a conformity-enforcing mechanism. The similarities of the games ethic inside the British and Commonwealth education system, as well its past diffusion into imperial popular culture, helped ensure a semi-uniform response. Most of the forced athletics in the EEF began after fighting ended in October 1918, and emerged similarly across different units. In the ANZAC forces, Chaytor instituted a routine that mandated at least a half-hour of games per day, educational instruction, and normal training. 848 A similar program emerged in a totally different unit: the Bedfordshire Territorials maintained a constant daily cycle of military drill, educational activities, and sport (football, field hockey, running, and boxing) throughout the start of 1919, and while not exact in its parallel, it seems the BWIR were engaged in similarly scheduled processes. 849 In the Jewish battalions not only were there language lessons and educational lectures, but vigorous sports [were] encouraged wrote Gershon Agronsky, proudly noting Jewish success at boxing without contemplating why there 846 Quoted in Woodward, Forgotten Soldiers, 131. His italics. Despite the keen eye that caught this quote, Woodward does not go much further than referencing how this exhausted soldiers, as well as implicitly noting the bizarreness of its occurence. 847 Quoted in Mason and Riedi, Leather and the fighting spirit, 512. Haig held a meeting on November 11, 1918 itself to make this point to his commanders (See pg 511). 848 Kinloch, Devils on Horses, Mason and Riedi, Sport and the Military, 108.

194 184 was such a focus on athletics. 850 In the 40 th battalion of the Jewish Legion, the constant organization of athletic contests prompted the men to complain: We know we have to guard the dumps, but why expect us to run and jump when we are off duty? 851 When interest in sports had predictably waned during the intense heat of summer, the 40 th s officers not only instituted Recreational training in football, cricket, and baseball as a means of maintaining unit functionality, but resorted to mandatory sports lessons. 852 These emphases marked a significant shift in official attitudes; Haig, for example, had complained in 1915 about men falling asleep on sentry duty because they played football instead of resting. 853 Now, with the war over, men were expected not to rest, but to compete. More importantly, he frequency of games and the intensity with which they were forced upon soldiers during the post-armistice period suggests deeper fears and motivations. The emphasis on sport inside Egypt and Palestine reflected an inherent solution to potential discord that had been internalized by the British officer corps via schooling and popular culture. The most prominent generals in the British Army including Allenby and Murray had been educated by public school systems that promoted the importance of athletics. 854 This system had replicated itself throughout England and the empire, yielding a host of other institutions with similar methods and goals. 855 Officers inside imperial and minority units were often drawn from the same groups that promoted athletics as a form of cultural instruction in empire, and public school ideals featured prominently in officer-training schools, ensuring a broad diffusion of the idea that athletic prowess reflected both military ability and character. 856 While the exact pedigree of the BWIR officers is unclear, important officers in the Jewish battalions had attended schools like Sandhurst (Lt Colonel Patterson, 38 th ), the City of London School (Lt Colonel Samuel, 40 th ), Cambridge (Major Hopkin, 39 th ) and Westminster (Major Myer, 40 th ). There they had clearly internalized the discourse of athletics; Myer often described Hopkin, for example, in terms of his athletic focus and ability Hopkin had distinguished himself at University in part though excellence at games. 857 The question, of course, is what exactly EEF officers were reacting to? The first motivation for conditioning was the most immediate: the pace of demobilization. Patterson assumed that the competitions in football, cricket, boxing, and other 850 WO 95/4470, Unnumbered War Diary, June 24, 1919; JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg 117. Agronsky noted that the sport failed to attract the Palestinians. 851 Henry Myer, A Brief Glance in a Spring Mirror, in Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion 1, no 5 (May 1976) p WO 95/4470, Unnumbered War Diary of the 40 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. July 1, Fuller, Troop Morale, 87. See also Winter, Death s Men, 156 for the observation of Captain JL Jack: However tired the rascals may be for parades, they always have enough energy for football. 854 Allenby had gone to Haileybury, and Murray had been at Cheltenham. Other particularly prominent figures educated at roughly the same time and in the same manner were Haig and Sir Henry Wilson. See Lawrence James, Imperial Warrior, For an overview on these developments, see the collection of essays in JA Mangan, ed. The Cultural Bond (1992). See also Colm Fintan Hickey, A Potent and Pervasive Ideology : Athleticism and the English Elementary School, The International Journal of the History of Sport 28, no 13 (September 2011): and for a specific example from the colonies, see Keith AP Sandiford, Cricket Nurseries of Colonial Barbados: The Elite Schools, (Barbados: Press University of the West Indies, 1998). 856 James, Imperial Warrior, 9; Stoddart, Cultural Imperialism, Stoddart in Stoddart and Sandiford, eds., 82. For a wide-lens examination of this process throughout the empire, see the chapters in JA Mangan, ed. The Cultural Bond. 857 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, According to Myer, this aptitude at games fitted him well to organise all kinds of sporting fixtures. The CO of Hopkin s battalion, Margolin, had little experience with Britain s athletic culture, so it s likely Hopkin took the lead in the 39 th about sports.

195 185 sports were established to help combat the great deal of unrest and unhealthy excitement during demobilization. 858 There was serious unrest that cannot fail to become acute in the BWIR in Palestine by the Spring of1919, the result of priority for demobilization to the Caribbean going to their sister units in France and Italy who, incidentally, were sent home hastily due to the emergence of organized, anti-imperial politics within the units. 859 Other unrest plagued the entire EEF throughout 1919, marked in May by strikes at Kantara and mutinies in the Jewish Legion that summer. Particularly worrisome to the British were the emergence of soldiers councils at Kantara, as well as other types of political organization. 860 Some potentially high risk imperial troops seem to have simply been sent out of the theater, as in case of some Muslim Indian troops who were sent on pilgrimage to Mecca. 861 Thus, defusing disgruntlement over the pace of demobilization was merely the tip of the iceberg. In the wrong circumstances, initial dissatisfaction could transform into a more dangerous political force; soldiers were both organized and military-trained. Well before the 1918 armistices and concerns over demobilization delays emerged, the British government and the army command had worried about the spread of illiberal politics amongst its soldiers. The Colonial Office expressed concern during the war over socialist organizations in the West Indies, inquiring in Summer 1917 about whether the International Workers of the World were generating unrest and undermining recruiting in the Bahamas. 862 The British also maintained particular fears over Bolshevism infiltrating newly acquired Palestine, and often fixated on the Jewish Legion as a source of potential Bolshevik incubation. Allenby demobilized some Russians in the Jewish battalions in March 1918 over fears of Bolshevik tendencies, and it s likely that protests and strikes over the pace of demobilization inside the EEF re-aggravated these fears. 863 One letter from a female doctor forwarded to the Foreign Office claimed that the American Jews in Palestine were practically Bolshevists to a man! 864 Such sentiments, although clearly exaggerated and decontextualized, were indicative of broader British fears about Jewish politics in Palestine in the post-russian Revolution era. Later intelligence reports from the Admiralty reiterated these fears, one claiming that there was a 858 Patterson, With the Judeans, 190. The British were not the only ones looking to blunt demobilization anger through sports; there was an Inter-Allied Games held at Pershing Stadium in Paris from June 22 until July 6, 1919, although the British did not participate. See Major George Wythe, Captain Joseph Mills Hanson, Captain Carl V. Burger eds. The Inter-Allied Games: Paris 22 nd June to 6 th July 1919 (Paris: Société anonyme de publications périodiques, 1919); Mason and Riedi, Sport and the Military, WO 33/960/ GHQ Egypt to War Office, April 3, 1919, MFAB The immediate question would be why the more politically dangerous European BWIR battalions did not go through the games process, and the answer is twofold. First, their anger was far past the point of being resolved through athletic conditioning, and the best solution to the British was to break up the units. Second, the better socioeconomic class of the BWIR in Palestine meant that conditioning was more likely to take, because they had more interest in preserving their place in the system. 860 Hughes, Allenby in Palestine, Over 2000 Indian soldiers, along with 80 of their officers, went on a multi-week pilgrimage to Mecca as guests of the King of Hedjaz, with their transport paid for by the British Government. See WO 33/981/ GHQ Egypt to Commander in Chief, India; Sept 13, 1919, No. I 45/BX. 862 CO 23/280/36589 Recruiting for Contingent July 2, WO 33/946/9237, Telegram EA 996, CinC Egypt to War Office, March 20, FO 371/4237/ Situation in Palestine and Lebanon, Sept 25, The letter in question was forwarded to the Foreign Office by DR WJ Simpson in August 1919.

196 186 strong Bolshevist element amongst Russians near Jaffa, and another that the soldiers of the Jewish Battalions are said to be displaying Bolshevist tendencies. 865 Importantly, officers inside the Jewish battalions were well aware of events in Russia and sought to ensure nothing similar developed on their watch. Shortly after the Armistice, Salaman wrote to his wife that he had heard that the conditions in Russia transcend imagination, and that more people are executed in a month than the French Revolution swallowed throughout its course. 866 Critically, he noted that Lt Colonel Samuels of the 40 th perhaps the battalion most focused on games and educational training was particularly anxious about the potential spread of Bolshevism inside England and the Empire. A broad collection of notes, letters, and diary entries about athletics in the 40 th battalion of the Jewish Legion, as well as the battalion s confluence of assimilationist Anglo-Jewish officers and Zionists that needed to be amenable to British rule, reveal a clearer picture of the focus on games. First, there was the need to make the newest and rawest recruits to the Jewish battalions into a viable British Army unit athletic pursuits that encouraged this were essentially secondary training. The War Diary for the 40 th Battalion specifically noted that amongst the sportsmen there is a strong feeling of Esprit de Corps. Every possible step is being taken to spread this feeling throughout the Battalion. 867 Perhaps more important, however, was that officers also wanted to instill, through sport, a set of values that would be shared with British citizens and conducive to British rule. This was particularly important, given the large contingents of Palestinian Jews and American Zionists inside the 40 th, as well as a much smaller number of captured Jewish soldiers and officers from the Turkish Army who had been integrated into the unit. 868 There is evidence that Anglo-Jewry viewed the Palestinians as particularly key inside the British Mandate; Salaman, for example, felt that after proper training, they could provide a nucleus for a national militia. 869 A January 1919 letter from Leo Amery to General GMW Macdonogh indicated that from an official British perspective, such a thing might be desirable. Wondering about the role of Jewish soldiers in the post-war army, Amery argued that linked battalions of Jews in Palestine could be a means of settling British minded and military trained Jews in Palestine. 870 There, they would ostensibly form a key bloc of support for the British mandate. The dual emphases of sport physical prowess and a British state of mind made it, therefore, a perfect training tool for the officers of the Jewish Battalions to wield. Accompanying the push for athletics training were two educational initiatives, both of which suggest the importance of conditioning the American and Palestinian Jews inside the 865 FO 371/4238/ Situation in Egypt, Syria and Arabia November 14, 1919 and 371/4238/ Situation in Palestine, Syria, and Arabia December 14, These summaries appear to be based on information in the weeks leading up to their transmittance by the Admiralty. These worries only intensified, as British newspapers panicked during the beginning of the Mandate over Bolshevism infiltrating Palestine, and rapidly spreading into other Arab communities. See Teveth, Ben Gurion, Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, WO 95/4470, Unnumbered War Diary of the 40 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. June 22, FD Samuel relinquished command and returned home in March 1919, but the new CO was Lt Col MF Scott of the 2 nd London Regiment. 868 IWM 79/17/1, Memoir of Major HD Myer, September 21, 1918, pg The Ottoman Jews were from across the Ottoman Empire, but some who had lived in prewar Palestine knew, or were related to, some of the Palestinian Jews. Myer claimed that some of them had been drilled by the Germans and goose-stepped, much to the amusement of the soldiers, and, presumably, dislike of the British officers. 869 Salaman, Palestine Reclaimed, JI 8-1K. Letter from Leo Amery to Major-General Sir GMW Macdonagh, Jan 25, The original is located in WO 32/1539.

197 th. By June 1919, the 40 th Battalion was offering lectures in a variety of subjects, but most notably, classes in Hebrew and English (Elementary, Intermediate, or Advanced) and the officers of the 40 th made every effort to enlarge the English classes as much as possible. 871 The drive to enroll Palestinian Jews in English language classes coincided with the push to have them play sports, which both occurred as the Paris Peace Conference wound to its finish. The British, it seems, recognized that they were running out of time to pave the way for a smoother mandate by having a core of Jewish settlers that related to British values and spoke English. Similar processes occurred in the 39 th battalion, which by December 1918 spent much of its time on educational work, in the form of lectures and courses of instruction. 872 Already militarily trained, the key in 1919 was ensuring that the demobilized men were British minded. Given the necessity of cooperation between local elites and British officials to the imperial system, it was extremely important that future British officials be able to communicate easily with the discharged Jewsiliers. Educational training in the EEF was actually quite common, and seems to have developed as a parallel attempt at preventing soldiers from radicalizing. The thrust was two-fold: to train troops for postwar employment, but also to instill a particular attachment to the Empire through civic engagement. As one Brigadier General opined, the goal was to produce a scheme that would stimulate in each individual soldier ideas of good citizenship and assist to make him a useful member of society. 873 While some education namely lectures on a range of professional topics were vocationally specific and optional, other topics were compulsory. The mounted ANZACs of Chaytor s force could choose which vocational classes to attend after fighting ceased, but they had to attend lectures on economics and civics. 874 Of the subjects taught, no others offered a clearer intellectual defense of the empire against Bolshevism that they were compulsory suggests fears of postwar imperial destabilization. More formal education was also offered through various schools of instruction inside Egypt and Palestine, many of which had been created during the war to provide courses for officers and specialists. The various components of Chaytor s former force dispatched soldiers to these schools, and while some enrolled in courses of military instruction that had developed during the war, many more seem to have attended vocational training, especially for agriculture. 875 One letter noted that hundreds [of Jewish soldiers] are studying agriculture at the School of Agriculture in Mikve (sic) Izrael; others are perfecting themselves in other necessary professions. (Of course, by the benevolent aid of the British Government.) In the near future, as soon as political conditions permit, the work will commence. 876 Implied throughout this letter 871 WO 95/4470, Unnumbered War Diary, 40 th Btn. Royal Fusiliers,June 24 and 27, WO 95/4456, 39 th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, War Diary 9, December 1, Brigadier-General GS Richardson, quoted Ashley Gould, Preparation for a Rural Future: Agricultural Training of New Zealand s First World War Soldiers, in New Zealand s Great War: New Zealand, the Allies and the First World War, John Crawford and Ian McGibbon, eds. (Auckland: Exisle, 2007), Kinloch, Devils on Horses, 334. They also had to attend hygiene lectures, possibly in response to the tremendous rates of illness following Megiddo. 875 Ten soldiers left on May 26, 1919 to attend the Imperial School of Instruction at Zeitoun, and the following day, fifty-three soldiers departed for Jaffa to take a course at the Agricultural School. The 40 th Battalion also sent its soldiers off, dispatching them to both the General Course and Musketry & Bayonet Training Court at the Imperial School of Instruction, as well as some to the Agricultural school at Jaffa. See WO 95/4459, 38 th RF War Diary, May 26-27, 1919 and WO 95/ th RF War Diary, August 11 and September 7, Reprinted letter Harry Frankel to Sol Rosenbloom, Ludd, March 20, 1919, Bulletin Veterans Jewish Legion 1, no 5 (May 1976) p 36. Salaman also noted the hundreds of Jewish troops at Mikveh in March. See pg 210-1, Letter of March 14, Other Jews attempted often with the support of the Zionist Commission to engage in work that

198 188 was a direct link between agricultural training and settlement into the British mandate, which was not surprising given Mikveh s establishment as an agricultural training facility for Zionists several decades prior. However, the school was not limited to Jewish troops in this period; like all British training schools, there were other imperial troops there, including Australians and New Zealanders. 877 Figure 5.5 Jewish Soldiers at Mikveh, While Mikveh s foundation was distinct from other imperial schools, its utilization in 1918 and 1919 appears to have been in line with the broader British mission. Nearby, other EEF troops studied a variety of agricultural subjects at Ismailia, as well as tractor and truck driving at Ramleh. 879 The goal, it seems, was to ensure demobilized soldieres could work when they returned home, thus decreasing the possibility of unemployment and discontent. Athletics and the various educational programs inside most of the EEF after the armistices appear to have worked hand-in-hand. While at face value, these activities merely kept soldiers occupied, the mandatory nature of both athletic training and particular educational would immediately transfer into the postwar period. Roughly two dozen worked in sanitation for the American Zionist Medical Unit in the Jewish section of Jerusalem, with the idea that they would continue precisely this work after swapping khaki for civilian clothing. See JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg JI 27-1K Gershon Agronsky, A Survey of the Jewish Battalions June 1919, pg Courses were not of insignificant length; they ran between one and two months 878 JI-PH 479. Jewish Legion receiving lessons in agriculture Online: &ist8=&basic=yes&islist= [Accessed August 14, 2013] 879 Gould, Preparation for a Rural Future, 385. Gould speculates that training in orcharding and viticulture was offered at Mikveh, and agricultural science, fruit farming, and wool-classing at Ismailia.