MELVILLE, WILLIAM• 351emperor of India, after the party had been penetrated by theIndian
Political Intelligence Bureau, then led by Sir Horace Williamson.
After a trial lasting three years, and a judgment of 700 pages, all but
four of the defendants were convicted and the Communist party of
India all but collapsed.MEINERTZHAGEN, RICHARD.In October 1917 Richard Mei-
nertzhagen, a staff officer working for General Sir Edmund Allenby
during the Palestine Campaign, perpetrated an ingeniousdeception
scheme to persuade the Turks that an imminent offensive was to be
concentrated on the town of Gaza. The true objective of the attack
was Beersheba, which was seized easily because Gaza had been rein-
forced, leaving the outpost vulnerable. Meinertzhagen’s plan was to
plant a briefcase containing secret documents on an unsuspecting
enemy, and this he achieved during an encounter with a Turkish pa-
trol, leaving the bloodstained briefcase as though the owner had been
wounded. The documents, supporting by a collection of other plausi-
ble correspondence and personal effects, suggested that Allenby
would be on leave at the end of October, but upon his return the fol-
lowing month he would launch a frontal attack on Gaza. The ruse
proved highly effective and the capture of Beersheba opened the
route to Jerusalem, 60 miles away, and broke a stalemate in the
Negev Desert that had lasted for six months.
Born in 1878, Meinertzhagen was one of the most remarkable
polymaths of his era, distinguishing himself as a soldier, scientist,
explorer, spy, and ornithologist. His bloodthirsty experiences in East
Africa, as an officer in the King’s African Rifles and a big game
hunter, were documented in his diaries, while hisBirds of Arabia
remains a standard textbook on that subject. He also battered a man
to death with a polo stick for maltreating a pony and killed a German
with a knobkerry that is still preserved in the Tower of London. After
his death in June 1967, some doubts were expressed about the au-
thenticity of some of the specimens in the ornithological collection
he had donated to the Natural History Museum, suggesting that he
had perpetrated a gigantic hoax by fabricating some of them.
MELVILLE, WILLIAM.In January 1892 Detective Inspector Wil-
liam Melville ofSpecial Branchled a raid on theWalsall bomb