88,000 men arranged into seven divisions and a Desert
Mounted Corps consisting of camel- and horse-mounted
soldiers.
Allenby took command of this force and marched
to Beersheba, initiating a surprise attack on the Turks on
31 October 1917. Historian George Bruce writes that
Allenby’s troops “assaulted the 30-mile Turkish Gaza-
Beersheba line at Beersheba, in the western foothills of
the Judaean Hills, and forced the Turkish 7th Army back
to Tel el Sheria. The heavily fortified line was finally re-
duced after a week’s fighting. Gaza fell on November
6–7, Askalon on the 9th, [and] Jaffa on the 16th. Al-
lenby then swung to the east and outflanked Jerusalem
from the north. Turkish resistance to the northwest of it,
on the Nebi Samwil ridge, was overcome by 9 December
and Jerusalem surrendered.” Two days after Jerusalem
fell to the Allies, Allenby entered the city as a hero, hav-
ing liberated it from the Muslims. His first order of busi-
ness was to guarantee that all of the historic holy places
and shrines would be open to all faiths. This was the
end of Muslim control and the beginning of Christian
control of the holy sites in Jerusalem, a period that lasted
until the creation of the state of Israel in 1947.
In early 1918, many of Allenby’s troops were sent
back to France to meet the crisis there, and the sum-
mer was spent training their replacements from India.
On 19 September 1918, after a diversionary attack in
the eastern section of Palestine, which drew off Turk-
ish forces, Allenby launched a combined force of Brit-
ish, French, Indian, and Arab troops—some 70,000
men—against 11 Turkish divisions at Damascus, now
the capital of Syria. Twelve days later his men entered
Damascus; on 8 October, Beirut (now in Lebanon)
fell to the allied forces, and on 18 October, Tripoli was
taken. Aleppo, the last jewel in the crown that was the
Turkish-controlled Middle East, was occupied on 25
October. The Damascus/Beirut/Tripoli offensive was
the final set back in the Ottoman Empire’s chances of
aiding Germany against the Allies. Within weeks of the
fall of Tripoli, the Turks sued for peace, signing the ar-
mistice at Mudros on 30 October 1918 and ending the
war in the Middle East. In 16 months, Allenby’s forces
had completely changed the direction of the war and
killed over 80,000 Turkish soldiers while losing less than- For this service to his nation, he was promoted to
field marshal in 1919 and given the peerage of Viscount
Allenby of Megiddo.
Following the end of the First World War, Allenby
was named high commissioner of Egypt, serving from
1919 to 1925. Although he was considered a moderate
leader, he took strong measures against radical elements
in Egyptian society following the assassination of Sir Ol-
iver Lee Stack, the Egyptian army’s sirdar, or commander
in chief. In 1925, Allenby retired from the military to
serve as rector of Edinburgh University in Scotland.
Viscount Allenby, known as “Bull,” died in London
on 14 May 1936, three weeks after his 75th birthday.
He was buried with full military honors in Westminster
Abbey in London.
References: Falls, Cyril, “Allenby, Edmund Henry Hyn-
man, First Viscount Allenby of Megiddo,” in The Diction-
ary of National Biography 22 vols., 8 supps., edited by Sir
Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee, et al. (London: Oxford
University Press, 1931–40), I:7–12; Dupuy, Arnold C.,
“Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman,” in Brassey’s Ency-
clopedia of Military History and Biography, edited by Col.Sir Edmund Allenby
Allenby, eDmunD henRy hynmAn, FiRSt viScount Allenby oF megiDDo