During the
First World War, Allenby initially served on the
Western Front. At the outbreak of war in August 1914, a
British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to France, under the command of
Field Marshal Sir John French. It consisted of four infantry divisions (the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th, with the 4th and 6th being held in Britain) and one
cavalry division, the latter commanded by Allenby. The cavalry division first saw action in semi-chaotic circumstances covering the retreat after the
Battle of Mons opposing the
German Army's invasion of France. One of Allenby's subordinates claimed at the time: "He cannot explain verbally, with any lucidity at all, what his plans are". When a headquarters officer asked why Brigadier-General
Hubert Gough's cavalry brigade was miles from where it was supposed to be, he received the reply: "He told me he was getting as far away from the Bull as possible. It was a most scandalous affair, and he was in an almost open rebellion against Allenby at the time". The division distinguished itself under Allenby's direction in the subsequent fighting, with minimal resources at its disposal, at the
First Battle of Ypres.
Western Front Allenby was promoted to temporary
lieutenant general on 10 October 1914. As the BEF was expanded in size to two
armies, he was rewarded by being made commander of the
Cavalry Corps. On 6 May 1915, Allenby voluntarily left the Cavalry Arm to take up command of
V Corps which was engaged at that moment in severe fighting at the
Second Battle of Ypres. Commanding a corps seemed to make Allenby's bad temper even worse where anything from a split infinitive in a staff paper to discovering a corpse in the field without the tin helmet that Allenby ordered his men to wear sent Allenby off into a rage. In October 1915, Allenby was promoted to the temporary rank of general to lead the
Third Army of the BEF, being made lieutenant general (substantive rank) on 1 January 1916 "for distinguished service in the Field". In the mid-summer of 1916, he was the army commander in support of the launch of the
Battle of the Somme, with responsibility for the abortive assault by Third Army troops on the trench fortress of the
Gommecourt salient, which
failed with severe casualties to the units under his command in the operation. By this time in 1916,
Archibald Wavell, who was one of Allenby's staff officers and supporters, wrote that Allenby's temper seemed to "confirm the legend that 'the Bull' was merely a bad-tempered, obstinate hot-head, a 'thud-and-blunder' general". However, despite Allenby's rages and obsession with applying the rules in a way that often seemed petty, Allenby's staff officers found an intellectually curious general who was interested in finding new ways of breaking the stalemate.
J. F. C. Fuller called Allenby "a man I grew to like and respect", a man who always asked his staff if they had any new ideas about how to win the war. Many of Allenby's officers believed that he was incapable of any emotion except rage, but he was in fact a loving father and husband who was intensely concerned about his only child, Michael, who was serving at the front. Allenby rejected the normal week-long bombardment of the German trenches before making an assault, instead planning on a 48-hour bombardment before the assault went ahead. As the Zero Hour for the offensive at 5:30 am on 9 April 1917 approached, Allenby was thus unusually worried as he knew his entire career was in the balance. In a letter to his wife on 10 April 1917, Allenby wrote: There were weeks of heavy fighting during the Third Army's offensive at the
Battle of Arras in the spring of the 1917, where an initial breakthrough had deteriorated into trench-fighting positional warfare—once more with heavy casualties to the Third Army's units involved. Allenby lost the confidence of the BEF's commander, Haig. He was promoted to substantive full general on 3 June 1917, "for distinguished service in the Field", but he was replaced at the head of the Third Army by Lieutenant-General
Sir Julian Byng on 9 June 1917 and returned to England.
Egypt and Palestine British change of grand strategy The British
War cabinet was divided in debate in May 1917 over the allocation of British resources between the Western Front and other fronts, with Allied victory over Germany far from certain.
George Curzon and
Maurice Hankey recommended that Britain seize ground in the Middle East.
David Lloyd George also wanted more effort on other fronts. Previously, leaders had been concerned that taking over Palestine would divide it and leave it for other countries to take, but repeated losses to the Turkish Army and the stalled Western Front changed their minds. Lloyd George wanted a commander "of the dashing type" to replace Lieutenant General
Sir Archibald Murray in command of the
Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF).
Jan Smuts refused the command (late May) unless promised resources for a decisive victory. Afterwards, Allenby kept his grief to himself and his wife, and instead threw himself into his work with icy determination, working very long hours without a break. The logistics of getting water to the soldiers and through the desert is thought to be the biggest challenge and accomplishment Allenby made in the Middle East campaign. Allenby also saw the importance of good medical treatment and insisted that proper medical facilities be created to treat all of the diseases common to the Middle East like
ophthalmia and
typhoid fever. Due to his having seemingly fulfilled the prophecy which held that the Turks would leave Palestine "only when a prophet of God brought the Nile to Palestine," Arabs dubbed Allenby "Allah an-nabi, a prophet of God." Allenby moved the EEF's
GHQ from the Egyptian capital city to
Rafah, nearer to the front lines at
Gaza, and re-organized the disparate forces of the EEF into a three primary corps order of battle:
XX,
XXI, and the
Desert Mounted Corps. He also approved the use of Arabic irregular forces which were
operating at that time to the Turkish Army's open left flank in the Arabian interior, under the direction of a young British Army intelligence officer named
T. E. Lawrence. He sanctioned £200,000 a month for Lawrence to facilitate his work amongst the tribes involved. In early October 1917, Robertson asked Allenby to state his extra troop requirements to advance from the Gaza–
Beersheba line (30 miles wide) to the
Jaffa–Jerusalem line (50 miles wide), urging him to take no chances in estimating the threat of a German-reinforced threat. Allenby's estimate was that he would need 13 extra divisions (an impossible demand even if Haig's forces went on the defensive on the Western Front) and that he might face 18 Turkish and 2 German divisions. Yet, in private letters, Allenby and Robertson agreed that sufficient British Empire troops were already in place to take and hold Jerusalem. Having reorganised his regular forces, Allenby won the
Third Battle of Gaza (31 October – 7 November 1917) by surprising the defenders with an
attack at Beersheba. The first step in capturing Beersheba was to send out false radio messages prompting the Turkish forces to think Britain was going to attack Gaza. After that, an intelligence officer, by the name of Colonel
Richard Meinertzhagen, rode right up to the Turkish line, barely evading capture. In the fray, he dropped a bloodstained bag, smeared with horse blood, with fake military plans in it. The plans falsely described how the British force was on its way to capture Gaza. Instead, they went through with the capture of Beersheba. Allenby reported His force captured the water supply there, and was able to push onward through the desert. Allenby sent his
Indian Muslim soldiers to guard Islamic religious sites, feeling that this was the best way of reaching out to the Muslim population of Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem saw Allenby's entrance on foot as a sign of his modesty. He subsequently stated in his official report: "[The citizens of Jerusalem were] at first welcoming because they were glad the Ottomans were gone and they wanted a good relationship with the British. [They were] also cautious as they did not want the British to stay." The crusade imagery was used to describe the campaign by the British press and later by the British
Ministry of Information. There were reports that on entering the city Allenby had remarked "only now have the crusades ended." However, mindful of the Pan-Islamic propaganda of the Ottomans who had
proclaimed a jihad against the Allies in 1914, Allenby himself discouraged the use of the crusader imagery, banned his press officers from using the terms
crusade and
crusader in their press releases and always went out of his way to insist that he was fighting merely the Ottoman Empire, not Islam. In May 1918, Allenby publicly met with
Chaim Weizmann and the
Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem in Jerusalem. File:Allenby delivering speech, Jerusalem, May 1918.jpg|From left to right (holding papers): Weizmann, Allenby and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem delivering a speech. File:People Gathered for Allenby-Weizman meeting, Jerusalem.jpg|People gathered for the meeting and speeches of Allenby, Weizmann and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. File:General Allenby Shakes Hands with Chaim Weizmann.jpg|Allenby shaking hands with Weizmann after the delivery of the speeches. File:Allenby Sitting Down After Delivering His Speech.jpg|General Allenby sitting down after delivering his speech.
Defeat of the Ottoman Empire Asked again after the Fall of Jerusalem, Allenby wrote that he could complete the conquest of Palestine with his existing forces, but would need 16–18 divisions, on top of the 8–10 he already had, for a further advance of 250 miles to the
Damascus–
Beirut Line and then to
Aleppo to cut Turkish communications to
Mesopotamia (where by early 1918, 50,000 Turks were tying down a
British Empire ration strength of over 400,000, of whom almost half were non-combatants, and 117,471 were British troops). Smuts was sent to Egypt to confer with Allenby and Lieutenant General
Sir William Marshall (C-in-C Mesopotamia), with Robertson's clash with the government now moving to its final stages, and the new
Supreme War Council at Versailles drawing up plans for more efforts in the Middle East. Allenby told Smuts of Robertson's private instructions (sent by hand of
Walter Kirke, appointed by Robertson as Smuts' adviser) that there was no merit in any further advance. Allenby worked with Smuts to draw up plans to reach
Haifa by June and Damascus by the autumn, reinforced by 3 divisions from Mesopotamia. The speed of the advance was limited by the need to lay fresh rail track. This met with War Cabinet approval (6 March 1918). , to whom he was about to present
decorations, Palestine, August 1918. The
German spring offensive on the Western Front meant that Allenby was without reinforcements after his forces failed to capture
Amman in March and April 1918. He halted the offensive in the spring of 1918 and had to send 60,000 men to the Western Front, although the
Dominion prime ministers in the
Imperial War Cabinet continued to demand a strong commitment to the Middle East in case Germany could not be beaten. New troops from the British Empire (specifically Australia,
New Zealand,
India, and
South Africa) led to the resumption of operations in August 1918. Following an extended series of deceptive moves, the Ottoman line was broken at the
Battle of Megiddo (19–21 September 1918), and the Allied cavalry passed through and blocked the Turkish retreat. The EEF then advanced at an impressive rate, as high as 60 miles in 55 hours for cavalry, and infantry slogging 20 miles a day and encountering minimal resistance. Damascus fell on 1 October,
Homs on 16 October, and
Aleppo on 25 October. With the threat of Asia Minor being invaded, the Ottoman Empire capitulated on 30 October 1918 with the signing of the
Armistice of Mudros. ==Governor of Egypt==