December 11, 1917: Allenby Enters Jeusalem

Allenby enters the Jaffa Gate

After the British occupied Jaffa in November, 1917, General Allenby set his sights on the hill country around Jerusalem. On December 11, two weeks before Christmas, Allenby walked through the Jaffa Gate of the Old City ahead of his troops. (The cavalryman entered on foot because when Kaiser Wilhelm II had visited the city, he rode a white horse, leading to comments that "a better man than he rode a donkey."

Allenby did not take Jerusalem by a direct assault. He sent several columns of British and Empire troops to advance to the north of Jerusalem, to cut the road to Nablus and cut the Turkish line of retreat; another column advanced from Hebron toward Bethlehem from the south. On ditionNovember 24 the 75th Division took Nabi Samwil, the traditional tomb of the Prophet Samuel which dominated the Jerusalem northern horizon.

There was a pause in the advance, but on December 8 the southern column reached the outskirts of Bethlehem. That night the last Ottoman troops left the city. On the morning of the ninth, the Mayor of Jerusalem, Hussein Salim al-Husseini of the well-known Husseini family, set out under a white flag with a letter from the Ottoman commander, planning to surrender the city.

Mayor Husseini and the Surrender Delegarion

He encountered two sergeants of the London Regiment, James Sedgewick and Frederick Hurcomb. Essentially feeling this was above their pay grade, the sergeants declined the surrender, but Husseini was eventually passed up the chain of command until finding an officer to accept the surrender.

Allenby was instructed to keep the surrender a secret until Parliament could be notified, and though he wrote his wife on both the ninth and tenth, he did not mention the surrender until the 11th, the day he entered the city.

Jerusalem, as noted in an earlier post, was not a military objective (the Ottoman Seventh Army had moved to Nablus), but it was a powerful religious symbol to the three religions that consider it holy. The Ottomans did try a counterattack later in December, but by the new year the front had stabilized with both Jerusalem and Jaffa securely in British hands.

Some video (Hebrew captions but the first is an Imperial War Museum video) of the entry:

November 1917: Allenby Moves North, Part I

After General Allenby's forces took Beersheba on October 31, 1917, the early days of November were spent occupying Ottoman lines between Beersheba and the coast at Gaza. It took only about another month for Allenby to take Jerusalem.

That was no easy task. Before the construction of the modern road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and other major routes in the modern Israeli road system, the roads approaching Jerusalem were poor, mostly unpaved, and winding through the rough Judaean hill country. As the Ottoman Seventh and Eighth Armies withdrew from the desert around Gaza and Beersheba into the coastal plain and adjacent hill country, it became increasingly difficult to maintain communications between them, leaving the Eight Army in the coastal plain and the Seventh in the hill country unable to cooordinate operations.

Things were no easier for Allenby. The rail line and water pipeline from Egypt ran to Deir al-Balah south of Gaza; from the railhead (nicknamed "Dear Old Bella" by the troops) Allenby had to arrange transport for food and water and other supplies to the advancing troops, and these included the Desert Mounted Corps, this had to include supplies for their mounts as well. Given the lack of deepwater ports, despite the Royal Navy's control of the sea, supplies had to be landed by small boats.

There is an old military axiom that "amateurs talk about strategy; professionals talk about logistics." Though Allenby was a master of tactics, his organizational logistical work in the Palestine campaign was crucial.

Allenby's aide and first biographer General Archibald Wavell (later Field Marshal Lord Wavell), who was a skilled military historian as well as a field commander, noted that Allenby relied on two books during the Palestine Campaign: the Bible and Sir George Adam Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land. Smith's book, first published in 1894 and still valuable to anyone interested in the impact of geography on Israel/Palestine/Jordan (I'll do a separate post about the book soon), places great (though not exaggerated) emphasis on the natural defenses of the Judaean hill country, while recognizing it has frequently been conquered. If he read Smith carefully, Allenby would have understood the challenges ahead of him.

Once embarked on the Palestine campaign, there  was really only one realistic objective: Jerusalem. It was not a major military objective: the Ottoman Seventh Army was already moving its headquarters to Nablus. But while Allenby may have carried a Bible, the Prime Minister for the past year, David Lloyd George, fancied himself something of a Bible scholar. And clearly everyone in Europe (and America, now in the war, though not with Turkey) would pay attention if the British took the Holy City. (Baghdad was a more important military objective than Jerusalem, in terms of importance ro rhe Ottomans but how often do you see photos of Gen. Maude's entry into Baghdad compared to those of Allenby entering Jerusalem?)

On the left, Allenby's forces fought a battle at Ayun Kara (also known as Mughar Ridge) on November 14, forcing the withdrawal of the Ottoman Eighth Army from Jaffa. The British occupied Jaffa November 6, but this did not free up Jaffa for use as a port by the British. The Turkish Eighth Army had only withdrawn behind the al-‘Auja River (today usually known by the Hebrew name, ha-Yarkon), which left the port of Jaffa within range of the Ottoman artillery behind the ‘Auja. (Today, Jaffa, the Yarkon, and everything in between are part of the modern Municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo; Tel Aviv, founded in 1909, was still tiny in 1917.)

In Part 2, which will appear in early December, we will look at Allenby's advance into the hill country.

Balfour After a Century

A century ago:

Many commentators have already analyzed the Balfour Declaration before its centennial, and there is little point in repeating their observations here. Let me make just a few points:

As I noted just two days ago, the occupation of Beersheba by Allenby on October 31,1917, was the first real British foothold inside Ottoman Palestine (unless we count the occupation of Aqaba by the Arab Revolt). Beersheba was seen as the Biblical southern boundary of Ancient Israel (from Dan to Beersheba), and two days after Britain acquired a tenuous hold there, the British Foreign Secretary made a commitment, ambiguous and hedged with conditions as it is, to the future of Palestine, then still under Ottoman control.

Now, under the Sykes-Picot agreement France and Britain had envisioned an international regime for part of Palestine including Jerusalem. But Sykes-Picot was a secret agreement, unknown to Lord Rothschild or Chaim Weizmann on November 2. (But not for long: on November 23, the new Bolshevik regime in Russia published the text in Pravda and Izvestia.) And then of course there was the Hussein-McMahon correspondence which promised Sharif Hussein territories argued about ever since.

Generations have noted that the "Promised Land" was promised to several different parties, even though Britain did not even control the territory in question. But 1917 was still an age of imperialism, and the idea that Great Powers could decide the fate of "lesser" countries. (Bonus question: Has this really changed that much?)

Israelis today are more likely to point to the League of Nations Palestine Mandate and/or the 1947 UN Partition Resolution as the legal basis for the state, since these had international legitimacy, and were not simply the diktat of a single Great Power.

To save space, I will avoid the question of what a "national home" meant or how it could be created without prejudicing the rights of "the non-Jewish communties of Palestine."

Arthur James Balfour had served as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Admiralty before becoming Foreign Secretary. But despite his long political career, his name will forever be attached to a single, run-on 67-word sentence sent a century ago today.

October 31, 1917: The Light Horse Charge at Beersheba

George Lambert, The Charge of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheba, 1917

When we last discussed the centenary of the Palestine campaign last June, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) was stalled after te First and Second Battles of Gaza, with the Ottomans secure behind strong fortifications along a line running from Gazainland to Beersheba at the edge of the Negev. Archibald Murray had been relieved and a new general, Edmund Allenby, dispatched to take over the campaign.

Over the summer, Allenby moved his headquarters from Cairo to the front, received only limited reinforcement, but was ordered to advance with the forces he had.

The Ottomans had reinforced their defenses, but Minister of War Enver Pasha wanted to move to retake Baghdad from the British, and so assembled a joint Turkish-German force near Aleppo intended to move into Mesopotamia under German command, known as the Yıldırım Force. Enver's generals objected, both to being put under German command and to leaving the Palestine defenses undermanned in order to concentrate on retaking Baghdad when there were threats on other fronts.

The British operated best along the coast, where they could depend on the guns of the Royal Navy, but Murray having twice failed to break the line at Gaza, Allenby resolved to try something different. As I've noted in earlier posts, the British had slowly extended the railroad and a pipeline carrying fresh water across Sinai to the borders of Palestine. But to operate inland beyond the end of the pipeline required a source of water for the troops, and for the horses of the Desert Mounted Corps.

Allenby's first biographer, Archibald Wavell (who would himself command in Egypt in a later war), wrote that Allenby carried with him two books, the Bible and Sir George Adam Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land, a wonderful Victorian description of the historical landscape of Palestine. He would, then, understand the importance of finding water once he abandoned the coast road.

Gaza to Beersheba

The Ottoman lines were solidly fortified from the coast at Gaza to Hareira (modern Tel Haror in Israel), and beyond that lay the Ottoman garrison at Beersheba (Beer-Sheva) on the edge of the Negev. And, as Allenby would have known from George Adam Smith, that ancient town's Hebrew name means "Seven Wells." Allenby decided to take Beersheba by surprise with a fast-moving column and seize its wells; then, with water available, he would roll up the Turkish line along the 43 kilometers from Beersheba to Gaza.

Every effort was made to persuade the Turks that the main attack would be along the coast. Beginning october 27, field artillery and naval guns bombarded the Turkish lines at Gaza, and the main force of British and Empire forces, centered on XXI Corps, remained in front of Gaza. Meanwhile the British XX Corps and the largely Australian Desert Mounted Corps were moved quietly and by night far to the right. Allenby's center was weak and potentially vulnerable to Turkish attack, but Allenby gambled that the Turks would remain secure in their defenses.

Beersheba in 1917

Both Allenby himself and the new German overall commander of the Yıldırım Force, Erich von Falkenhayn, were veterans of the stalemated trench warfare on the Western Front (which at this moment was undergoing the bloodletting of Passchendaele), and Allenby had served with the cavalry in the Boer War, and so appreciated the importance of mobility on the battlefield. Though tanks had been used at Second Gaza, mobility at this time still meant horses, and at Beersheba that meant the Australian Light Horse and the New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade.

Sir Harry Chauvel

On October 31, the infantry force approached Beersheba from the West while the mounted troops concentrated against an Ottoman outpost at Tel el Saba east of Beersheba. Once Tel el Saba was taken, the Ottomans  began withdrawing from Beersheba, unknown to the British.

After a long day of fighting, Allenby urged Sir Harry Chauvel, commander of the Desert Mounted Corps, to take Beersheba by nightfall. This produced one of history's famous cavalry charges, by the 4th and 12th Light Horse. It was the 12th that actually occupied the center of Beersheba, but the 4th got most of the credit.

The Charge

Sometimes called the last great cavalry charge, there would actually be many more in this war and later ones; cavalry charges have occurred in Afghanistan in recent times. But Beersheba became an iconic moment for the Light Horse and thus a key moment or Australian national identity; the Prime Minister and other Australian dignitaries were in Israel today for the centennial observations.

Harry Chauvel had one knighthood already; he won another (Knight Commander of the Bath) for Beersheba. At a moment when the Western Front was being bled dry at Passchendaele, Allenby had struck the first blow in a campaign that would have him in Jerusalem before Christmas.

May 9, 1917: Origins of the ‘Aqaba Campaign, Part I

A century ago today, on May 9, 1917, a small party of 45 Arab men and a single Englishman rode out of the Red Sea port of Wejh into the desert country to the north. The small raiding party was ostensibly going on a typical raiding expedition of the Arab Revolt. The overall Arab commander, Prince Faisal, knew where they were headed, but the Arab Army's British and French advisors did not. In fact, the one British officer accompanying them knew, but just two months before had been explicitly ordered against such a venture, an order not yet rescinded. The Englishman was T.E. Lawrence; the tactical commander of the raid was the most famous tribal warrior in northern Arabia and southern Syria, the Howeitat chieftain ‘Auda Abu Tayeh; and their goal was the last Red Sea port under Ottoman occupation, ‘Aqaba.

You've heard of ‘Aqaba, of course. Its capture is the centerpiece of the first half of David Lean's epic 1962 Lawrence of Arabia. As I've noted before, the film takes considerable liberties with historical fact and may be a better movie for it. Surely the six foot two inch Peter O'Toole is a more heroic cinematic presence than the five foot five inch Lawrence would have been, but the blond hair and blue eyes are right. And Anthony Quinn was no Arab and his real role is if anything shortchanged, but he's a memorable ‘Auda Abu Tayeh.

And I'm sure if you know anything about the fall of ‘Aqaba, it probably is derived from one of the great scenes in epic cinema, as the attackers charge down a long plain, ride through the Turkish guard post and the awakening camp, and then, with the theme song rising in the background, fan out through the village and ride down to the sea in triumph. it's a hell of a memorable scene. If you've never seen the movie (what's wrong with you?), here it is:

As cinema, it's magnificent. As history, not so much. Nothing remotely like the above actually took place. The actual battle took place many miles to the north at Abu al-Lissal, nowhere near the sea.. There were no fixed guns pointed out to sea that could not be turned (that was Singapore in 1942); in fact the Royal Navy routinely shelled ‘Aqaba and had even put a landing party ashore in late 1916 and taken prisoners, some of whom defected. And as shown, Lawrence was riding a camel and firing a pistol, but in reality he accidentally shot his mount in the head and was injured when it threw him.

The actual history is less cinematic, but worthy of telling. in Part II, I hope later today I'll begin the tale.

April 17-19, 1917: The Second Battle of Gaza, First Use of Tanks and Poison Gas in Middle East

Of eight Mark I tanks at 2nd Gaza, Turkish fire destroyed three

The past three days mark the 100th anniversary of the Second Battle of Gaza, part of the Palestine Campaign in World War I. In an ironic echo of the present, it also marked the first use of poison gas in the Middle East campaign, as well as the first use of tanks.

As we saw in discussing the First Battle of Gaza in March (Part I and Part II), the British command in effect snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by ordering a retreat, despite the fact that ANZAC Mounted troops were already in the midst of Gaza town. They feared the arrival of Turkish reinforcements and the fall of darkness.

The overall commanders, Egyptian Expeditionary Force commander General Sir Archibald Murray, and Eastern Force Commander General Sir Charles Dobell began preparing for another attempt. Both minimized the first loss in their reports and predicted a successful second attack. Both men in effect were putting their reputations on the line.

After the first battle, the Ottoman forces had be reinforced. There were now three regiments defending Gaza proper, with additional regiments at Hareira (now Tel Haror in Israel)nd others at other points along the road between Gaza and Beersheba. The Ottomans and their German allies had fortified a series of trenches interspersed with strong defensive redoubts and enfilading fire. New German aircraft had arrived, making the air war component more equal. Both sides had discovered the advantages of aircraft in open desert reconnaissance.

Meanwhile, the British had been reinforced with two weapons already in use on the Western Front: a supply of poison gas shells, in this case containing a 50/50 blend of phosgene and chlorine gas; and eight Mark I tanks. The Mark I was the British first generation tank introduced in 1915. Though history would prove desert to be excellent tank country in future wars, the gullies and arroyos around Gaza and the Turkish trenches made it hard to pass; and the Mark I had a maximum speed of only six kilometers per hour and a tendency to break down. Of the eight tanks, two were knocked out in the opening attack and a third later. And though the Turks had no gas masks, the gas attack, when launched, reportedly dissipated in the desert air without significant effect.

Dobell favored a direct frontal attack, accompanied by a swing to the right around the main Gaza lines by the Desert Column. Desert Column Commander Sir Philip Chetwode and ANZAC Commander Harry Chauvel expressed doubts, favoring an attack on the coastal flank of the Turkish lines.

On April 17 and 18, the advance began with the British infantry advancing from the Wadi Ghuzze to engage the forward Turkish outposts. Turkish resistance was fierce and after two days of fighting, they were at their desired position but had captured only outlying outposts.

 

The fighting on the 19th was complex and need not be described in tactical detail. Resistance was fierce and casualties mounted. British and Empire forces succeeded in penetrating the Ottoman lines in several places, but each time they were met with counterattack which drove them back. The next morning, British positions were bombed by German aircraft, and Turkish cavalry was massing near Hareira. It was decided to withdraw. Losses were high, and the defeat more decisive than in the first battle.

Aftermath


With its manpower depleted, the EEF campaign to take Jerusalem was put on hold. Murray decided to make the Canadian Dobell the scapegoat. He was relieved of command and packed off to India. Chetwode, a better and more experienced general, replaced him ans head of Eastern Force; and Harry Chauvel, the ANZAC Light Horseman, took over the Desert Column. In August it would be renamed the Desert Mounted Force, and Chauvel, one of the last great cavalry commanders, would lead it in a series of charges at Beersheba, Megiddo, and into Jerusalem, Damascus, and Aleppo. The Light Horse would win fame for Australian arms, and Chauvel would become Australia's first full General.

Murray (Seven Pillars)

But not under Murray's command. Murray has been a patron of the Arab revolt, a sponsor of T.E. Lawrence (the David Lean film does him an injustice), and a victor over the Senussi (Sanusi) and in the Sinai. But the two defeats at Gaza in two months, after his confident predictions, was too much and he was recalled and given command of the Army training center at Aldershot. He continued to recive promotions, but held no more field commands.

Though the military high command continued to believe that victory would be won on the hemorrhaging Western Front, the man who had become Prime Minister the previous December, David Lloyd George, was an enthusiast for the Eastern Front, and particularly for taking Jerusalem. The Bible-quoting Lloyd George favored naming a "dashing" sort of commander for the Palestine Front.

Allenby (Seven Pillars)

The search for a new commander was not smooth.  General Jan Smuts, Commander of the South African Army and a member of the Imperial War Council, refused the assignment. In June, a former cavalry commander and Boer War veteran (though in that war he was the opposite side from Smuts), but who had been enjoying a rapid rise on the Western Front until suffering a setback. Still a believer that the West was the real war, he first considered it a joke, but accepted. His name: Edmund Allenby.

The First Battle of Gaza, Part II: Snatching Defeat from Victory

It has been a week (because I was down with a bug and on deadline) since I published Part I on the First Battle of Gaza. If you haven't already read that post, I would urge you to do so today before reading this one.

The main events of the battle took place on March 26, 1916, with some final movements the next day so we're slightly past the 100th anniversary.

By the morning of the 26th, the British were deployed for attack. As noted in Part I, the British lines were extended along the coast as the rail and water lines advanced. This left their right flank hanging in the air and vulnerable to an attack from the Ottoman forces at Beersheba. To protect his flanks and secure his lines of communication General Sir Charles Dobell, Commander of the Eastern Force, kept significant forces around Rafa and elsewhere along the line. (For the dramatis personae, see Part I.)

The British plan of attack called for a frontal assault by infan try to seize Gaza before the Turkish garrison could withdraw, The frontal assault would be carried out by the 53rd (Welsh) Division  and one brigade from the 52nd (East Anglian) Division.Meanwhile the ANZAC Mounted Division and the Imperial Mounted Division would envelop the Turkish line and hold off any attempts to reinforce the garrison by Turkish troops from Beersheba or Jaffa. The Turkish defenders were already 4,000, while the British expected only 2,000.

The infantry attack met with stiff resistance; the Turks were well-dug in and the arid terrain provided open fields of fire. Adding to the British problems, a heavy fog set in before dawn, preventng visual reconnoitering of the Turkish lines.

The infantry attack, delayed by the fog and a generally slow start had as its initial objective the shrine of ‘Ali Muntar. But difficult communications between 53rd Division Commander Maj. Gen. A.G. Dallas and Desert Column Commander General Sir Philip Chetwode created much confusion, as did delays in bringing up the artillery and a failure to register the artillery on the Turkish lines.

bell and Chetwode sent Dallas his orders to launch his attack; orders were sent at 11, again at 11:30, and with increasing urgency at noon. Still without adequate artillery, Dallas finally attacked.n

The infantry assault did eventually make progress, reaching the Turkish defenses around ‘Ali Muntar.
They captured German and Austrian troops as  well as Ottoman.

Situation 2:00 PM

Meanwhile, Chetwode named Harry Chauvel of the ANZAC Mounted Division to command both it and the Imperial Mounted Division for the day. The Imperials were to patrol the approaches in the east to block reinforcements, while the ANZACs attacked Gaza from the north.

Dobell and Chetwode were increasingly worried, however, that Gaza would not be taken before dark due to the morning delays, and that the British right flank might be vulnerable to an attack in the darkness.

By 5:30 PM. the Infantry had finally taken ‘Ali Muntar, wile to the north, the ANZACs managed to actually enter the town of Gaza. By a bit after 6:00 PM. the British Empire forces seemed to be nearly victorious.

Situation 6;00 PM

Ottoman reinforcements had meanwhile arrived on the east in the afternoon, further raising concerns.

Sunset on March 26 was expected at 6:00 PM. Neither Dobell nor Chetwode yet knew that the infantry had taken ‘Ali Muntar.

At 6:10 PM, Chetwode, after consulting with Dobell, ordered the withdrawal of the mounted divisions. Even when he learned the British position was better than he realized, he did not change his position.

And thus, not for the first time, caution and bad intelligence managed to snatch defeat from the very jaws of victory.

March 10-11, 1917: General MaudeTakes Baghdad

Following the Second Battle of Kut, in February, the renewed British advance on Baghdad paused

Maude

only briefly. General Frederick Maude (who had been the last man off the beach at Gallipoli), continuing to show far more speed than his predecessors, advanced to ‘Aziziyya, paused there, and on March 5 began his final approach to Baghdad.

The British had been uncertain about the value of taking Baghdad due to its limited strategic value but eventually saw it as a symbolic goal; in addition it was seen as a way to close a pincer on the Turks with British advances from Baghdad and Russia pushing south from Mosul. That was not to be: at this same moment the February (March New Style) Revolution was under way in Petrograd.

Khalil Pasha

The defense of Baghdad was commanded by the hero of the 1916 victory at Kut, Khalil Pasha, who was the uncle of Ottoman Minister of War Enver Pasha and was both governor of Baghdad and Commander of the Ottoman Sixth Army. After the war he would take the surname Kut from his victory and be known under the Turkish Republic as Halil Kut. He had the Turkish XIII and XVIII Corps defending the Baghdad region.

Maude marched his main force up the east bank of the Tigris, arriving March 8 at the banks of its big tributary the Diyala. With the Turks defending the opposite banks of the Diyala, Maude moved most of his force downstream and crossed to the west bank of the Tigris. Detecting the movement (both sides had aircraft now with Germans flying for the Turks), Khalil moved most of his force to the west bank, leaving one regiment on the Diyala. The British soon pushed this aside, and Khalil, facing British advances on both banks, resolved on a retreat from Baghdad. By the evening of March 10, the Ottoman evacuation of Baghdad was under way, with no major battle having been fought.

On the next day, March 11, the British and Indian forces entered Baghdad. The northward advance would be put on hold after Baghdad as the war unfolded on other fronts. Photo of Maude entering Baghdad on March 11, 1917:

Second Act in Mesopotamia: the Second Battle of Kut, February 23-24, 1917

We stopped following the centennial of the British Mesopotamian campaign in World War I after General Townshend's disastrous surrender of British and Indian troops at Kut in April 1916. The twin shocks of Gallipoli and Kut stalled British efforts in the Middle East for much of the rest of 1916, despite a successful advance across Sinai.

Maude

After Kut, the British had to reorganize the forces in Mesopotamia, and the new commander, Lt. Gen. Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, who in January had been the last man off the beach at Gallipoli, was ordered to consolidate in the south rather than resume the advance on Baghdad.

Baratov (on right)

In fact the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir William Robertson, considered that Baghdad was not a major strategic prize. But as 1916 wore on, the British felt that Russian successes in the Caucasus and northwestern Iran under Gen Nikolai Baratov justified resuming an offensive toward Baghdad, squeezing the Turks between the British and the Russians and isolating Iran from German influence..  (In 1916, of course, no one foresaw the Russian collapse into revolution the next year.)

Kazem Karabekir Bey

By September 1916, British policy began to shift to a new advance on Baghdad, and in December Maude launched his advance up the Tigris. Advancing initially on both banks, supported by riverine forces, he was able to defeat or brush aside small Ottoman garrisons throughout January. Winter rains and several fortified positions delayed the advance. The main Ottoman force opposing Maude were elements of the Ottoman XVIII Corps under Kazim Karabekir Bey, with some 17,000 troops around the town of Kut. were faced by 50,000 frontline troops under Maude. Requests for reinforcements sent to overall commander Khalil Pasha (Halil Kut) were to no avail. The mistakes of 1915 would not be repeated.

Situation at Kut, February 22, 1917 ("1915" is a typo)

The "Second Battle of Kut" was more a battle of maneuver than of combat. As Maude's superior force approached Kut, he crossed the Tigris at Shumran Bend on February 17, threatening the Turkish right, while the rest of the force moved on its left. Outflanked and outnumbered, and certainly mindful of Townshend's disaster after letting himself be besieged, Karabekir Bey chose to extract himself from his untenable position. By February 24, the Ottoman force was retreating up the river, ursued by Maude's riverboats.

The Second Battle of Kut in some small measure may have offset the shock of the surrender, but it also marked the arrival of a much more competent commander, Less than three weeks later, Maude would enter Baghdad.

Changing Horses a Century Ago: Lloyd George Becomes Prime Minister

David Lloyd George

This particular 100th anniversary post notes an event which, while not directly related to the Middle East, would have enormous effects on the Middle East in the remaining two years of the First World War. On December 7, 1916, David Lloyd George replaced Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Internal Liberal Party politics, which I need not go into here, propelled Asquith to step down.
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Lloyd George, a proud Welshman and veteran Liberal politician, had been serving as Minister of Munitions until June, when Lord Kitchener went down with HMS Hampshire in the North Sea. and Lloyd George took over as Secretary of State for War.

Even before becoming Prime Minister, Lloyd George became a strong advocate for emphasizing the Eastern Theaters of the war, particularly Palestine, Greece, and the Balkans, and as Prime Minister continued this focus, echoing his younger (then still) Liberal Party colleague Winston Churchill. Though he never got War Cabinet approval to shift troops from the Western Front, he did preside over more aggressive efforts in Palestine and the Balkan Front.

The 1917 Overture (Punch cartoon)

An avid reader of the Bible who said he preferred the Old Testament over the New, he had a fascination with Biblical geography. (During the Paris Peace negotiations he reportedly asked Clemenceau to cede to Britain the Mandate over "Palestine from Dan to Beersheba," though the Biblical definition was less than the eventual Mandate.) Though the Balfour Declaration of 1917 bears the name of the Foreign Secretary, Alfred James Balfour, Lloyd George was at least its godfather. And in the 1919 peacemaking, Lloyd George was deeply involved in bringing Palestine and Mosul into Britain's sphere.

Herbert Asquith had been easily dominated by his Cabinet colleagues, with stronger men like Kitchener at the War Office and Churchill at the Admiralty (until Gallipoli). Lloyd George would be a very different sort of leader.

The Battle of Romani, August 4-5, 1916: Part II

In yesterday's Part I, we discussed the forces engaged and the initial deployments before the Battle of Romani in the Sinai a century ago. The advancing Ottoman and German force had been closely tracked by the British in their trek across Sinai, thanks to the new tool of aerial reconnaissance. the  The Turkish force had an extended logistical line, while the British fortifications were at the railhead of the line they were building across Sinai, and could be quickly rushed reinforcements from Qantara on the Canal. They had had the time to fortify the defensive position at Romani. While the Turco-German force slightly outnumbered the British Imperial forces (mostly ANZACs), they faced the challenges of being on the offense and far from potential reinforcements. Both the head of the German Military Mission, Liman von Sanders, and the local German commander on the scene, Kress von Kressenstein, complained about the decision to advance against the well-entrenched British forces.

As the British lines were anchored on the left by the sea, the Turkish attack was aimed at turning the right of the lines, in the desert. The hope was to drive in the flank and attack the rail line.

This was exactly what Harry Chauvel expected. Initially his main force consisted of the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade; the 2nd Brigade was scattered in outposts and on patrol.

At around midnight on August 3/4. the Turkish advance force suddenly encountered the Light Horse on the right of the line. Fire was exchanged, and the Turks fell back to regroup. They began an organized attack around 1 AM. Through the night the Turks advanced, and the 1st Light Horse was forced to steadily fall back to a sand ridge they called Wellington Ridge. Various dunes and sandhills had been given names (Mount Meredith, Mount Royston) which appear in the battle narratives.

With first light around 4:00, it became clear that the 1st Light Horse was in a tenuous position, with its right being outflanked. At 4:30 Chauvel ordered two regiments of the 2nd Light Horse into the line to the right of the 1st, extending the flank. He also moved troops from the left of the line to extend his right, replacing them with troops of the 52nd (Lowland) Division, a British Territorial (or Yeomanry) unit intended got home defense. The Ottoman 32nd and 39th Regiments continued to try to outflank the Australian right, while the 31st Infantry pushed forward against the Territorials. As the morning wore on, the Light Horse were forced to fall back until they threatened to reach the ANZAC camps. But the horse artillery of the Light Horse stopped their advance. The Australians were reinforced by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and the 5th Mounted Yeomanry, with the 42nd (Lancashire) Division of Territorial troops arriving by train.

As the day wore on and the Anglo-ANZAC line was reinforced, the Turkish and Germans, who had no reinforcements available or convenient railroad, and ho had marched all night and fought all day in August in the Sinai with little water, found their advance blocked and many began to surrender. By evening, the reinforced ANZACs and British counterattacked against enemy positions on the sandhill they had named Mount Royston.

As darkness fell, the battle had clearly shifted to the British side, By the next day, the reinforced British and ANZAC force would swell to some 50,000, vastly outnumbering their adversaries.

Tomorrow: Pursuit.

The Battle of Romani, August 4-5, 1916, Part I

On July 19 we discussed the Turkish advance into Sinai a century ago. This week marks the centenary of the Battle of Romani, a small but key turning point in the Middle Eastern campaign in World War I: Britain's first victory against the Ottomans after the retreat from Gallipoli and the surrender at Kut. It has also conventionally been seen as the transition between the Defense of the Suez Canal and the beginning of the Palestine Campaign.

Kress von Kressensten

The July post described the beginning of the Turkish advance, largely tracked by aircraft. The advancing column of Turkish and allied forces consisted of the Ottoman 3rd Infantry Division (31st, 32nd and 39th Regiments), veterans of Gallipoli, plus the German "Pasha" Force, including a German aircraft detachment, German light and heavy artillery and mortar, and one Austrian artillery unit. The German Forces were under the command of Freiherr Friederich Kress von Kressenstein, the German Chief of Staff to Jemal Pasha's Fourth Army. As they had advanced toward the British lines, they had established a series of defensive lines in case of falling back.

The British were under the overall command of Egyptian Expeditionary Force Commander General Sir Archibald Murray, at Cairo, and under him the commander of the northern (Number 3) Sector of Canal Defenses, General Herbert A. Lawrence, headquartered at Qantara.

But the man at the front, in the forward defense lines, was Maj. Gen. Harry Chauvel, an Australian commanding the ANZAC Mounted Division, consisting of the 1st and 2nd Brigades of Australian Light Horse with the British Territorial 52nd (Lowland) Division, and soon reinforced by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade and other units.

A Young Harry Chauvel

Any readers from Down Under will need no introduction to the Light Horsemen, or to Harry Chauvel. Already bloodied at Gallipoli, where they had fought without their mounts, the Light Horse would ride into fame in the Palestine Campaign, from Beersheba to the victory at Megiddo and the capture of Damascus.

Chauvel After the War

Harry Chauvel would go on to become the first Australian to command a Corps and was later Chief of General Staff.

Kress von Kressenstein might be the Prussian professional soldier,  with a name to match, but a horse soldier from New South Wales was going to be master of the coming battle.

The British front line was at Romani, to which the British had built a rail line, and which lay near the ruins of ancient Pelusium.

By the battle, British and ANZAC forces would number some 14,000, Ottoman/German/Austrian some 17,000.

The British were entrenched with their left on the Mediterranean and the Bardawil lagoon, the main force on a ridge they called Wellington Ridge, and built a line of fortifications along sand hills to a large dune called Katib Gannit.

The action would begin the night of August 3, and develop on August 4 and 5. We'll pick up the story tomorrow.

Light Horse Encampment at Romani

June 1916: Outbreak of the Great Arab Revolt

First let me say I'm recovering from my surgery, and let me thank the many kind wishes I received in the comments.

Sharif Hussein in 1916

Between my health and the Journal's deadlines, it's been a while since I dealt with the centennial of the First World War in the Middle East. But June marks a century since the outbreak of the Arab Revolt led by Sharif Hussein of Mecca, or the Great Arab Revolt as it is sometimes known.

We've talked about the Hussein-McMahon correspondence and the genesis of the idea on more than one occasion, Interpretations of the significance (or peripheral nature) of the Revolt have differed widely, with what might be called the British and Hashemite view of history playing up its importance. The role of T.E. Lawrence has enhanced the mythology surrounding the Revolt, and added to the emphasis on the tribal and guerrilla aspects of the Revolt, at the expense of the regular Sharifian Army. There will be plenty of time to debate the myths versus the realities; let's begin with the outbreak.

On May 28, 1916, Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary, left Cairo, accompanied by Lt. Cdr. D.G.Hogarth, archaeologist and intelligence agent, and Captain Kinahan Cornwallis, the latter two attached to the Arab Bureau. With them was £10,000 destined for Amir ‘Abdullah, son of Sharif Hussein and their main interlocutor with him at this time. They were also authorized to promise another £50,000 to the Sharif after the actual outbreak of the promised revolt.

Reaching Jidda on June 5 they did not find  ‘Abdullah as expected (who was in fact preparing for the revolt), but rather a message saying his youngest brother Zayd was coming instead. Zayd arrived with a message promising simultaneous attacks at Mecca, Medina, Ta'if, and Jidda. Indeed, on June 5, Hussein's sons ‘Ali and Faisal made an initial attack against Medina, and on June 6 Zayd met with Storrs and informed him of this. The main revolt had been moved up from June 16 to June 10.

But Medina was a very different target than Mecca would prove to be. A strong Ottoman garrison of 10,000 under Fakhri Pasha defended it, and it was the railhead of the Hejaz Railway, which allowed easy resupply from Damascus.

Ironically, the very same day as the attempt on Medina, far away in the North Sea north of Scotland, HMS Hampshire, en route to Russia, was torpedoed and sunk with all hands. One passenger was far more famous than the others: the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, former virtual ruler of Egypt and Storrs' former boss. A failed tribal raid on an Ottoman provincial capital would garner no headlines in London.

Kitchener was a national hero. Liberator of Khartoum, master of Egypt and, since the outbreak of war, the most famous recruiting poster. Though disliked by his subordinate officers and the rest of the Cabinet, he was idolized by the public and by Tommy Atkins in the trenches,and his death was a national shock. Egypt, where Kitchener was still known just as "the Lord" (al-Lurd) as Cromer had been before him, was also in shock.

Meanwhile, on June 10, Sharif Hussein proclaimed revolt in Mecca, declared the Young Turk regime had betrayed Islam, proclaimed an Arab Caliphate, and attacked the Turkish garrison in the Holy City. After a short siege, Mecca mostly was  under control by June 13, though resistance continued until July 9. 

HMS Fox

On June 10 also, ‘Abdullah attacked Ta'if. The town was soon taken but the garrison hunkered down in the fort.

The port of Jidda was critical as a means of supplying Mecca and the rebels. The Royal Navy moved an aging, obsolete warship, HMS Fox, and a seaplane tender, HMS Ben-My-Chree, a converted Manx packet steamer.

HMS Ben-My-Chree (note hangars)

The rebels attacked Jidda with support from Fox's guns and air cover from Ben-My-Chree's seaplanes, and the garrison surrendered on June 16.,

Once Jidda was taken, the British began creating a series of ports along the coast controlled by the Royal Navy, provided Hussein with artillery from the Egyptian Army, and began assembling a regular Sharifian Army from Arab officers and men of the Ottoman Army assembled from POWs and deserters.The Arab Revolt had begun.






 

April 29, 1916: Surrenders in Dublin and Kut

Part III of my series on the Middle Eastern echoes of the Easter Rising will be up later today but  I thought I should note an important anniversary today: on April 29, 1916, the very same day the last of the Dublin rebels surrendered to the British, in Iraq another British general was surrendering a British and Indian force in the largest surrender of British forces in history up to that time. It would only be exeeded by Singapore in 1942. After a months-long siege marked by four failed relief expeditions and even a blatant attempt at bribing the Turkish commanders (under the guise of a "ransom"), in which T.E. Lawrence and Aubrey Herbert were negotiators. General Charles Townshend, a military incompetent even by British World War I standards, surrendered more men than Cornwallis had at Yorktown.

In 2014 I ran three posts on the siege and surrender of Kut (Part I; Part II; Part III); because I told the story then I have not noted the centennials of each of the failed British attempts to lift the siege. But it marked a disaster for British arms compared to which Gallipoli, that other disaster in the war with the Turks, seems almost successful in that the troops were successfully withdrawn.

In the end. Townshend surrendered unconditionally. In the campaign Britain had lost between 23,000 and 30,000 killed and wounded (the relief expeditions lost more men than were in the besieged garrison at Kut) and surrendered some 12,000. Townshend and other British officers were given comfortable quarters in detention; the largely Indian rank and file were sent to turkis prisons in the east from which few survived the war. For more, see my earlier posts.

January 1916:The Rise of the Arab Bureau

One of the most famous institutions in the Middle East in World War I, though its work was largely secret at the time, was the famous Arab Bureau. This small but growing section of the British Military Intelligence section  in Cairo would eventually count among its members T.E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, David Hogarth, Aubrey Herbert, Herbert Garland, George Lloyd (later Lord Lloyd), Stewart Newcombe, Leonard Woolley, and others.

You may want to review my posts of a little over a year ago on the British Intelligence Section in Cairo and the complicated chain of command, as well as the new men assigned there. Most of the intelligence section discussed there would either join or work closely with the Arab Bureau; some in Cairo, others with the Arab Revolt which the Arab Bureau would strongly support.

The Bureau's creation was the brainchild of Sir Mark Sykes (later of Sykes-Picot fame) who, after a tour of the Middle East from Egypt to India had ben impressed by the facts that Germany and the Ottomans were doing a better job than Britain in propaganda to the Muslim world outside of India.

In my earlier posts on the Cairo Intelligence Section, we discussed the rivalries between the Indian Government in Delhi and Simla and India Office in London on the one hand, and the Foreign Office and War Office on the other. India was resistant to putting the Arab Bureau in Cairo, since India wanted to maintain control of the Mesopotamia Campaign and its influence on the Arab tribes in the Gulf.

After bureaucratic maneuvering, a compromise was reached: Gilbert Clayton would have direct responsibility for the Bureau bu i would report not to the British military leadership (Archibald Murray) alone, but directly to the Foreign Office (via the High Commissioner for Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon), and he Governor General of the Sudan/Sirdar of he Egyptian Army, Reginald Wingate. The confusing chain of command masked the fact that Clayton's intelligence section had direct control. David Hogarth, the archaeologist, an occasional spy, became Director,  with Kinahan Cornwallis as Deputy Director

The Bureau and its secret intelligence publication The Arab Bulletin would be major players in the remaining years of the Great War.

January 1916: Murray Takes Command in Egypt; Arab Bureau Formed

Murray

In January 1916, following the withdrawal of British and Allied forces from Gallipoli, the British reshuffled the command of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force and the military force in Egypt. At the same time, the intelligence structure in Cairo was reorganized with the creation of the famous Arab Bureau. This post will deal with the command change; a later post will address the Arab Bureau. You may want to review my posts of a little over a year ago on the British Intelligence Section in Cairo and the complicated chain of command, as well as the new men assigned there.

With the withdrawal from Gallipoli, the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force's sole remaining front was at Salonika in Greece. Overall command returned to Cairo, with General Sir Archibald Murray taking over command from Sir Charles Monro in early January. Murray would continue to be responsible for the logistics of the Salonika front, but a French general took over operational command. The residual British force that had remained in Egypt was left, for the moment, under the command of Sir John Maxwell, but it was responsible only for the Senussi campaign; in March the Force in Egypt would be merged with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force to form the new Egyptian Expeditionary Force under Murray's command; in April Maxwell would be sent to Ireland to deal with the Easter Rising.

Murray trading card

"Archie" Murray arrived in Egypt after a stint as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, but like each CIGS who served under Lord Kitchener's War Office, he was soon replaced. A veteran of the Zulu and Second Boer Wars, he began the Great War as Chief of Staff to Sir John French on the Western Front. Well hear a lot about Murray over the coming year.

Murray does not fare well in David Lean's 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia, which portrays him (via actor Donald Wolfit) as irascible, skeptical of the prospects of the Arab Revolt, and contemptuous of Lawrence. In reality he backed the Revolt after being persuaded, and he and Lawrence got along. But the film has probably formed most people's view of the period. Murray was not greatly successful and after two failures to take Gaza he would be replaced by Edmund Allenby,

January 8-9, 1916: the Last Man at Gallipoli

General Maude

 A century ago tonight Britain's Gallipoli adventure ended. The decision to evacuate was made the previous November.  Beginning in December, Britain had been evacuating its troops, under cover of darkness and keeping up artillery cover to distract the Turks. By the new year 1916 the  beaches at Anzac and Suvla were cleared, and troops remained only at Cape Helles. On the evening of January 8, they too began embarking under cover of darkness. By 1:15 am on January 9, the troops were assembled on the evacuation beaches. Guns and ammunition dumps were prepared to be blown up and other supplies burned.

At 2;30 am the 13th Division troops were mostly embarked from Gully Beach but there were insufficient boats for the Headquarters Staff and a storm was rising, so Division Commander then-Major General Sir Frederick Stanley Maude, with his staff and the beach pickets, had to make their way overland to W Beach instead. Carrying a valise and  stumbling through underbrush, Maude an his party were an hour late reaching the beach where the last lighter was preparing to leave.

Maude, the later conqueror of Baghdad, came to be known as the last man on the beach on Gallipoli, though some of his staff or the naval landing party may have followed him.

As this page notes, one of his staff composed a parody of the verse "Come Into the Garden, Maud" for the occasion:

Come into the lighter, Maude,
For the fuse has long been lit,
Come into the lighter, Maude,
And never mind your kit,
I’ve waited here an hour or more,
The news that your march is  o’er.

The sea runs high, but what care I,
It’s better to be sick than blown sky high,
So jump into the lighter, Maude,
The allotted time is flown,
Come into the lighter, Maude,
I’m off in the launch alone,
I’m off in the lighter a-lone.

The Senussi Campaign: Action at Wadi Majid and Gebel Medwa, Christmas Day, 1915

The holidays and a strained back have impeded blogging for a few days, but I wanted to continue my series on the Senussi Campaign in World War  (see Parts I, II, and III) with a discussion of actions which took place on December 25, Christmas Day, 1915. a century ago last week.

After the mid-December clashes at Wadi Senab and Umm al-Rakham, weather conditions made operations impossible between December 15 and Christmas Eve, so the Western Frontier Force remained in Mersa Matruh, where it was reinforced by a battalion of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade while the Senusi and their Turkish advisers concentrated at Gebel Medwa to the west.

A British spotter aircraft identified the Senussi concentration as consisting of 900 troops in three battalions, four mountain guns and two machine-guns, under Gebel Medwa, on the Khedivial Motor Road to the west.

The overall commander of the Western Frontier Force, Maj. Gen. Alexander Wallace, decided to dispatch an expedition to disperse the Senussi buildup. Once again, the force was divided between infantry moving on the Khedivial Motor Road, and the cavalry making a wide flanking movement through the desert. The infantry column was commanded by Lt. Col. J.L.R. Gordon and included the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs, a battalion of the 1st New Zealand Rifle Brigade, and the 2/8 Middlesex, a British Territorial unit.The cavalry column was commanded by the WFF's overall cavalry commander, Brig. Gen. J.D.T. Tyndale Briscoe, and consisted of elements of the 1/1 Buckinghamshire Yeomanry Regiment (Yeomanry were the cavalry equivalent of Territorials), Hertfordshire and Dorsetshire squadrons of the Composite Yeomanry Regiment, and Squadron A of the Australian Composite Light Horse Regiment. General Wallace and his headquarters were to follow the infantry as a reserve.

The map above shows the thinking: the infantry would push back the Senussi while the cavalry would come up in their rear and block their retreat.

Beginning the campaign under cover of darkness, Gordon moved the infantry out of Matruh at 5 am Christmas Day. As they proceeded towards their objective, the Senussi sighted them around dawn and the engagement began to develop. The 15th Sikhs were in the lead and Gordon noticed that the Senussi were not in position on Gebel Medwa, he sent one o the two Sikh companies to hold he hill and protect his right flank.  By 8 am the Senussi had brought up a mountain gun, which slowed the advance. A Nottinghamshire battery and the guns of HMS Clematis offshore and firing at a range of 10,000 yards. Once the hostile gun was silent,  Middlesex unit replaced the Sikhs on the Gebel, and ll the Sikhs plus the New Zealanders advanced against a ridge line, which thy had secured by 10 am. The infantry side of the action was largely a success, but the cavalry had still not appeared, having been delayed by difficulty moving its guns over rugged terrain, and had also been delayed by a skirmish with Senussi cavalry that occurred in the morning. The cavalry arrived around 3 pm and sought to drive the enemy towards the coast, but by 5 pm the late December light was failing and Gordon broke off pursuit. Both columns were ordered to return to Mersa Matruh.

But the bulk of the Senussi forces retreated to the west. On paper, it was a British victory. They dispersed the concentration of Senussi. he Empire forces lost 13 dead and 51 wounded; they estimated Senussi losses at between 300 and 400 dead and took 80 prisoners. But the bulk of the Senusi force escaped and lived to fight another day.

November 22-23, 1915: The Battle of Ctesiphon, Part II

As noted in Part I of this post, the Turkish position at Ctesiphon was a strong one. General Townshend arrived before the Turkish position late on November 21,  planning to attack at dawn on the 22nd.

We discussed the numbers and units involved in Part I. Nureddin had the 35th division deployed on the west (right) bank of the Tigris, the 38th division on the east bank in an L-shape, with the inexperienced 45th division refusing the flank in the short leg of he L. The 51st division was the reserve, with Arab units in support.

Both sides had poor intelligence. The Turks overestimated the size of Townshend's force, and he British underestimated Nureddin's numbers.

Townshend divided his 6th (Poona) Division into three infantry columns plus a "Flying Column" of cavalry and some infantry with transports.. He labeled the infantry columns A, B, and C, each consisting of several battalions with artillery and sapper support.

Column C was intended to attack the Turkish forces west of the river, B and the Flying Column were to carry out a turning movement against the Ottoman left flank, and A was intended to attack the center. The river flotilla was intended to support the attack.

General Nixon, the overall Mesopotamia Commander, was presen with the Army but left the tactical command to Townshend.

But he British found ground conditions on the west bank unsuitable so all the columns attacked east of te river, with C along the riverbank. The flotilla, meanwhile, came under artillery fire from the Turkish guns and also discovered the Tigris was heavily mined, so the boats provided little support.

In the attack, C and A encountered strong resistance but Colmn B, on the right, successfully carried the forward Turkish trench line. Nureddin fell back to his second defense line and committed his reserves and brought the 35th division from the west bank. The Flying Column encountered resistance from  Turkish and Arab cavalry and failed to turn the Turkish flank.

By the end of November 22, the British held the first line of Ottoman trenches but both sides.had suffered heavy casualties. On November 23, the Turks counterattacked. Casualties continued to mount with the British unable to make a decisive breakthrough.

British-Indian forces lost over 4600 dead and wounded; the Turks over 6000; in both cases nearly a third of their strength. Townshend who had complained of insufficient strengt all along realized he could ot hope to take Baghdad and decided to withdraw to Kut a decision that would prove fateful. Ironically, Nureddin also planned to fall back due to his losses but changed his mind when he realized the British were withdrawing.

The battle was essentially a draw, but it ended the first British attempt to take Baghdad.

Official History, Campaign in Mesopotamia, Volume II

The #1in5Muslims Internet Meme: Once Again, the Best Response to Ignorance is Ridicule

Amid all the deeply depressing news: a ray of humor;

The Sun, Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid that until fairly recently was best known for its "Page 3 Girls," bare-breasted models who must have been a major support of Britain's silicon industry based on their improbably ample attributes, is not generally known for its news quality, which at times makes The Daily Mail look reliable. (Page 3 girls have apparently put tops on after years of feminist protest.) In the present Islamophobic hysteria gripping all US Republican candidates and some Europeans, it featured this front page splash:

While still managing to keep its audience by getting female breasts on the front page (though covered with a bikini), it also sensationalized and apparently misstated a poll result.

Longtime readers may recall that back in 2012, Newsweek ran a cover story on "Muslim Rage" that provoked a hilarious response on Twitter as I duly reported then.

Well the hashtag #1in5Muslims is replicating that with posters posting made-up "factoids" thst are often funny. (Warning: there are hostile posts under the hashtag, too.) A selection:

Nor were the Page 3 Girls forgotten:

And finally at least for now:

That's Murdoch of course. I  think he should go back to Page 3 Girls. Bare boobs may be sexist but don't provoke hate crimes and racism.