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Published by Tempus.

Drawing heavily on unpublished letters and diaries, this book examines the fighting advance of the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force from the banks of the Suez Canal 500 miles across the Sinai Desert to Jerusalem and Damascus under two successive commanders: Sir Archibald Murray; and, Sir Edmund “Bull” Allenby. Murray is described as a distant and meticulous staff officer unwilling to delegate authority, while ultimately victorious Allenby is a much more intuitive and free-wheeling commander, a cavalryman who left detailed planning and execution to subordinates while developing a real bond with his troops.

Both men faced conditions far different from the muddy trench stalemate of France and Flanders. This was a war of feint and maneuver also involving frontal infantry attacks with rifle and bayonet, and, occasionally, cavalry charges. British supply lines were stretched tenuously across a dry and often mountainous terrain largely devoid of roads, rail and waterways. Murray was obliged to build both a water pipeline and a railway across the Sinai. Even then, men suffered mightily from thirst and lack of nourishing rations brought up by always-scarce trucks and camels. Indeed, British logistics broke down entirely after the December 1917 capture of Jerusalem delaying their advance across the Jordan Valley toward the Hejaz Railway, Amman and, ultimately, Damascus.

The British troops involved were also different from most of those deployed to the Western Front. These were territorial force infantry and yeomanry rather than the raw volunteers of the new Kitchener armies. As such, they had a considerable unit cohesion that came from common peacetime training and from long established civilian relationships.

Moreover, the campaigns in Egypt and Palestine (not to mention Mesopotamia) were not sideshows. The Suez Canal, the British lifeline to India, and other key British assets in Egypt were under threat. The Ottomans and Germans had designs on oil-rich Persia (from where the Royal Navy drew 25% of its fuel oil), and sought to foment rebellion against the Raj in volatile Afghanistan and India. The Ottoman Turks, ably supported by German officers, air power and specialist troops were a tenacious and formidable foe. If Lloyd George had prevailed and the Germans not attacked in the West in the spring of 1918, Britain would have mightily reinforced Allenby in an attempt to knock the Ottomans out of the war in early 1918. As it was, some 60 thousand of Allenby’s best troops were redeployed to Flanders and replaced by British Indian Army infantry.

Finally, British troops, steeped in a Protestant Christian ethic, were mindful of advancing through the Holy Land where Jesus had trod and Crusaders had fought the infidel. They respected the Turk as a skilled and valiant fighter, but scorned the Arab as dirty and uneducated. Treatment of conscripted Arab laborers -- upon whom the army depended for logistical support -- was often brutal.

In all, this is a well crafted and extremely readable political military history from a distinguished scholar who already written much on the British army in World War One. The author paints a more considered, vastly more nuanced and far less romantic picture of war in the desert than that depicted in such films as Lawrence of Arabia and The Light Horsemen.

Reviewer: Len Shurtleff