BOOKS.
SIR ARCHBALD MURRAY'S DESPATCHES.*
TUE Army Council has acted wisely in authorizing Sir Archibald Murray to publish the full text of the despatches which he wrote as Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, from January 10th, 1918, to June 28th, 1917. So much was omitted, for military and political reasons, from the despatches as published in the London Gazette that the work of Sir Archibald Murray's Army has been greatly undervalued. The reader who compares the full text with the despatches as reprinted in the appendices to Colonel Buchan's history of the war will understand why the omissions were made. The British Government, to the surprise of the Allies, maintained the old practice of issuing despatches from the commanders-in-chief for the information of the British people, but they could not be expected, in the midst of a long and terrible war, to publish details of our military formations or indications of Cabinet plans such as Sir Archibald Murray gave in his despatches. The public was left to form its own conclusions from a very imperfect statement of the facts. If Sir Archibald Murray and his staff were misjudged for the time being by thoughtless critics, it was the fortune of war and could not be helped. For our part, we should have supposed that any attentive reader of the expurgated despatches would have recognized the importance of the Sinai campaign of 1918-17, in which Sir Archibald Murray routed a strong Turkish force at the battle of Romani and then advanced by a series of brilliant cavalry actionb to the outskirts of Gaza, building as he went a railway and a pipe-line for water across the desert. Without the railway and the pipe-line, neither he nor anyone else could have entered on a serious campaign in Palestine ; had not the cavalry been extremely well handled, the Turks would have retired in good order, with very little loss, whereas they were, in fact, subjected to a number of heavy blows, especially at Maghdaba and Rafa, which disarranged their plans. All this was known, and should have been remembered. That Sir Archibald Murray twice failed to take Gaza in the spring of 1917 was regrettable, but the circumstances were very far from clear, owing to the strict censorship, and it was unreasonable to expect that even the Egyptian Expeditionary Force would be invariably victorious. The story as now told in full, and illustrated by a portfolio of excellent maps, shows that the operations before Gaza were misunderstood and that, though tactically incomplete, they exercised a considerable influence on the Turkish war.
Sir Archibald Murray's last despatch shows that the War Cabinet's policy, during the winter of 1916-17, was changing from week to week. The Army Council, in the letter giving him permission to print the despatches, says with reason that the War Cabinet had to view the war as a whole and to modify its plans with reference to many events seemingly unconnected with the campaign in Palestine. Sir Archibald Murray was informed in October, 1916, that he was to act on the defensive, though he might, if possible, occupy El Arish. In DeceMber, 1916, he was told that a victory in Southern Palestine would be very desirable, and asked to say how many more troops he would want. He had four divisions and asked for two more. lie was then told that the Cabinet could send no fresh troops and that he must stand on the defensive. In January, 1917, he wee ordered to send his best division to France, leaving only three divisions, and to prepare for an offensive in the autumn, This was the situation when Sir Archibald Murray, early in March, 1917, determined to make a sudden attack on Gaza. The Turks, who had been holding a position at Sheikh Nuran, to the south of Gaza, had retired upon Gaza, where they thought they were out of reach of the British army, whose rail-head was then at Rafe. Sir Archibald Murray's threefold object on March 26th, 1917, was to bring the Turks to fight, to occupy the Wadi Ghuzze, south of Gaza, in order to cover the advance of the railway, and to seize the town. He inflicted a loss of 8,000 men on the Turks, while the British casualties were under 4,000, many of whom were slightly wounded ; and he secured the line of the Wadi. He failed to take the town, partly because the troops were delayed for hours at the start by a dense fog, partly because the cavalry, who had enveloped Gaza, had no water for their horses and were compelled to withdraw in the late afternoon. The battle illustrated the difficulty of an attack in a waterless Country upon a resolute enemy holding the wells ; but for the • SIT AmAikid M,', D.spestokss (June, 1916-Jana. 1517). ,Loadoia: sent. Ras uet.1
fog, however, the attack might have succeeded. After the battle, the War Cabinet, changing its policy once more, instructed Sir Archibald Murray to defeat the Turks and occupy Jerusalem, but declined to send him the two divisions for which he was still asking. He therefore attacked Gaza a second time on April 17th- 20th, 1917. But the enemy had been heavily reinforced and had five divisions of infantry to oppose to three British divisions. The diversion of the Turkish reinforcements to Palestine lightened General Maude's task in Mesopotamia, but made it impossible for Sir Archibald Murray to take Gaza with a rush. The Turkish positions were too formidable to be stormed quickly by a force so inferior in numbers to the defenders, and, at the end of the third day, the Commander-in-Chief yielded to the protests of General Hebell and the divisional conunanders against a continu- ance of the action, on the ground that it would be very costly and might not succeed. The British casualties numbered 7,000. After the battle, tiro Cabinet again asked how many troops were needed to maintain the offensive, and were again told that two more divisions were required. Sir Archibald Murray was informed that he need not occupy Jerusalem, but that Ire met defeat the Turks and follow up airy success. He did not receive any reinforcements, and for the time being he devoted himself to strengthening the lines outside Gaza and hastening the extension of the railway and pipe-line from Rafa to the front.
When General (now Lord) Allenby took over the command at the end of June, 1917, Sir Archibald Murray, as his successor said, had " laid the foundations for the subsequent advances of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force " :—
" I reaped the fruits of his foresight and strategical imagin- ation," says Lord Allenby in his final despatch, " which brought the waters of the Nile to the borders of Palestine, planned the skilful military operations by which the Turks were driven from strong positions in the desert over the frontier of Egypt, and carried a standard gauge railway to the gates of Gaza. The organisation he created, both in Sinai and in Egypt, stood all testa and formed the corner-stone of my successes.'
Lord Allenby's statement is an accurate summary of the long and arduous campaign described in this volume. Sir Archibald Murray may well have been disappointed at not being permitted to complete his task when he had planted the army firmly on the edge of the Promised Land. Nevertheless, he has the satisfactio.i of knowing that the conquest of Palestine was duo primarily to his careful preparations. The Turks became more and more anxious about Jerusalem, and steadily reinforced the army in and near Gaza until it contained, in June, 1916, at least eight divisions, with a strong force of artillery. They were thus brought within reach of Lord Allenby, who with large reinforce- ments that gave him a striking force of seven divisions—or twice as many as his predecessor had at Gaza—was able to deal a decisive blow at the strongest army which Turkey could muster after Gallipoli. The battle of Beersheba-Gaza, which smashed that army in November, 1917, was a most brilliant affair. But it could not have been fought and won if Sir Archibald Murray by long-sustained effort had not prepared the way. His des- patches and the appended maps deserve careful study. The conquest of the Sinai desert in face of a powerful foe was a feat of which the British Army may well be proud.
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