Allenby's Military Medicine - Life and Death in WWI Palestine - E. Dolev (I B Tauris, 2007) WW

223 Pages·2007·4.72 MB·English

ALLENBY’S MILITARY MEDICINE

Life and Death

in World War I Palestine

eran dolev.indd 1
4/19/2007 10:35:13

eran dolev.indd 2
1/24/2007 12:55:44

ALLENBY’S MILITARY
MEDICINE

Life and Death in World War I Palestine

Eran DolEv

eran dolev.indd 3
4/19/2007 10:35:37

Published in 2007 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com

In the United States of America and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan
a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

Copyright © 2007 Eran Dolev

The right of Eran Dolev to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

International Library of Colonial History 6

ISBN: 978 1 84511 290 5

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

From camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author
Printed and bound by Thomson Press India Limited

Contents

Foreword by Major General Louis Lillywhite
vii

Preface
xi

Acknowledgements
xiii

Prologue
1

Chapter 1:
Military Medicine during the Great War
5

Chapter 2:
The Desert Campaigns:

From the Suez Canal to the Gates of Gaza, 1915–1917
17

Chapter 3:
General Allenby:

The Man and his Attitude towards Military Medicine
41

Chapter 4:
The Third Battle of Gaza:

Victory at Last
56

eran dolev.indd 5
4/19/2007 10:35:52

ALLENBY’S MILITARY MEDICINE
vi

Chapter 5:

Te Long Way to Jerusalem
80

Chapter 6:

Raids across the Jordan
106

Chapter 7:

A Different Battle:
Te Anti-Malaria Campaign, Summer 1918
129

Chapter 8:

Te Battle of Megiddo:
Te Last Offensive
140

Chapter 9:

Te Last Phase:
Te Riders and the Apocalypse
161

Epilogue
177

Notes
181

Index
199

Appendix
204
Appendix

eran dolev.indd 6
4/25/2007 10:25:04

FOREWORD

by

Major General Louis Lillywhite

MBE MSc MB BCh MFOM
T

his book is truly the result of a major piece of research, worthy
of publication for the references alone. Although it has a medical
theme, the story it tells has a much wider appeal. A glance at the
Chapter headings indicates its relevance to those with a specific interest in
General Allenby, and in military or medical history as well as to those with
an interest in why things are as they are in the Middle East. However, the
choice of anecdotes, the clarity of the descriptions, and the examination of
the various participants also make it a book worthy of the attention of the
casual reader. Eran Dolev guides the reader through the story in a manner
that will hold the attention both of those without prior knowledge of the
events described and those whose subject areas it covers.
In an illustrious and distinguished military career, the author has had two
of the qualities that are so important in Medical Commanders, the ability to
see issues from the perspective of the overall Military commander and the
ability to balance the medical requirement with the realities of a military
campaign. A Medical Commander has during the planning of an operation
to on the one hand to fight to obtain the necessary resources and having
obtained them to ensure that they are at the right place at the right time.
However, the Medical Commander also has to take care that his demand for
resources and priority is such that it does not compromise the outcome of
a particular battle or campaign, for to do so may result in casualties being

eran dolev.indd 7
1/24/2007 12:55:45

Allenby’s MilitAry Medicine
viii

well cared for but the battle being lost, the military medical equivalent of
“the operations was successful but the patient died”. Nowhere do medical
commanders face this dilemma more than in campaigns involving significant
advances. This book contains many examples of where this dilemma occurred
and Eran Dolev has managed to bring these dilemmas to life. Eran Dolev asks,
I think rhetorically, in the final paragraph of the book whether the lessons
are relevant to future wars. To those Commanders responsible for planning
some of the campaigns of the late 20th and early 21st Century, the challenges
faced, the issues arising, the arguments advanced, are all familiar. Indeed, the
debate described in the book on the appropriateness or otherwise of forward
surgical teams has continued unabated since their first use by the Australians
under Allenby in 1917. The proponent and detractors of the argument on
forward surgery in 1917 could almost have been present in person during
the first and second Gulf Wars when the very same issue was debated with
the very same emotion!
Allenby’s campaign depended critically on logistic operations. Logistics
is critical to success in most operations but is more so in desert operations
when all that an Army needs for its survival has to be taken with it. Weaved
in amongst the medical logistic challenges are described the approach to wider
logistic planning and the achievements, such as building railway lines and
pipelines behind the advancing Army, would bring credit on any modern day
General. But planning is one thing and execution is another. It seems that
Allenby was blessed by subordinate commanders who for the most part could
understand their orders, were prepared to find ways to implement them, could
respond appropriately when things went wrong and were able to improvise
when faced with the unexpected. Again, many of the problems, such as
blocked evacuation routes or medical units not where they were expected to
be, would be recognised by modern day practitioners, even the unexpected
(which to those with an interest in military history would not perhaps have
been unexpected). In this category are the medical problems faced by Allenby’s
forces as they occupied civilian areas or came across demoralised or abandoned
enemy inured that were faced, for example, by British Forces after the battle
for Basra in the Second Gulf War.
Allenby’s campaign was fought at a time when we were not as in control
of infectious diseases as we are now, and thus some of the challenges that he
faced are not as familiar to us. There are however similarities. The argument
over whether any preventive medicine should be taken to minimise malaria

eran dolev.indd 8
1/24/2007 12:55:45

ix

has merely been replaced by arguments over which medication should be
taken and it might be that the problems faced at the end of the campaign
as a result of the influenza pandemic of that time are soon to be faced by
today’s Commanders.
Campaigns are of course rarely isolated affairs and are usually part of
wider geopolitical events and the campaign in Palestine was no different. At
its commencement the campaign was very much a backwater, overshadowed
by the battles in Europe and by the defeat in the Dardenelles and with an
enemy who seemed to be content with simply maintaining the Status quo.
We gain an insight from the book at how a combination of initial success by
a local commander prepared to take the initiative and local politics interacted
to raise the global profile of the Theatre of operations, in turn leading to
additional national resources being put into the campaign. In so doing the
campaign led directly to the British mandate in Palestine which in due course
led to the current political boundaries in that part of the Middle East. As one
reaches the end of the book, one is prompted to ask oneself the question “If
Allenby had not triumphed, and had not completely defeated the Turkish
Armies and taken Jerusalem, would there today be an Israeli State?” Eran
Dolev has dissected a campaign whose success depended in large part on the
medical contribution, and which arguably led in due course to the existence
of Israel.
The book is set in an area of historic and contemporary interest, addresses
medical issues that remain relevant today, describes an outstanding leader
winning a major victory, and brings it all alive with carefully selected
anecdotes. This then is a book worth reading.

Foreword

eran dolev.indd 9
1/24/2007 12:55:45