Lord Allenby's campaign is de- scribed with great skill and
judgment by Captain Cyril Falls in the con- cluding section of his official history of the Military Operations: Egypt and Palestine (H.M. Stationery Office, 2 vols. and case of maps, 80s.). His narrative, with Major A. F. Becke's excellent maps, gives the first really intelligible account of the third battle of Gaza and explains why the pursuit was delayed and therefore
leas effective than had been hoped. The Turks under German leadership were- a formidable foe, and their machine guns, no less than the difficulties of our cavalry in an ill-mapped, rough and waterless country, saved them after Gaza from the complete disaster that overtook them a year later at Megiddo. Captain Falls shows how Lord Allenby, like Wellington in Spain, was seriously hampered by the War Cabinet, which was continually changing its mind, and which apparently had little conception of the realities of Eastern warfare. Sir Henry Wilson, on July 10th, 1918, suggested that three or four divisions might be spared from France for the winter and inquired what Lord Allenby could do with them. After receiving a non-committal reply, Sir Henry cabled ten days later to say that the troops could not be spared and. that Lord Allenby had better confine himself to active defence. It may be inferred that the War Cabinet in July, 1918, had no hope of finishing the War till the next year.
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