Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby
Field Marshal Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, KStJ (23 April 1861 – 14 May 1936) was a senior British Army officer and Imperial Governor. He fought in the Second Boer War and also in the First World War, in which he led the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the conquest of Palestine.
The Viscount Allenby
23 April 1861
Brackenhurst, Nottinghamshire, UK
14 May 1936 (aged 75)
London, UK
Adelaide Mabel Chapman, Viscountess Allenby of Megiddo
The Bloody Bull or The Bull
United Kingdom
1880–1925
The British succeeded in capturing Beersheba, Jaffa, and Jerusalem from October to December 1917. His forces occupied the Jordan Valley during the summer of 1918, then went on to capture northern Palestine and defeat the Ottoman Yildirim Army Group's Eighth Army at the Battle of Megiddo, forcing the Fourth and Seventh Army to retreat towards Damascus. Subsequently, the EEF Pursuit by Desert Mounted Corps captured Damascus and advanced into northern Syria.
During this pursuit, he commanded T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"), whose campaign with Faisal's Arab Sherifial Forces assisted the EEF's capture of Ottoman Empire territory and fought the Battle of Aleppo, five days before the Armistice of Mudros ended the campaign on 30 October 1918. He continued to serve in the region as High Commissioner in Egypt from 1919 until 1925, a position that meant he effectively ruled Egypt during this period.[1]
Early life[edit]
Allenby was born in 1861, the son of Hynman Allenby and Catherine Anne Allenby (née Cane) and was educated at Haileybury College.[2] His father owned 2,000 acres in Norfolk and Felixstowe House, at Felixstowe, then a fishing village. This was a summer home until the family settled there permanently after Hynman Allenby's death in 1878.[3]
Allenby had no great desire to be a soldier, and tried to enter the Indian Civil Service but failed the entry exam.[2]
He sat the exam for the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1880 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons on 10 May 1882.[4] He joined his regiment in South Africa later that year,[5] taking part in the Bechuanaland Expedition of 1884–85.[6] After serving at the cavalry depot in Canterbury, he was promoted to captain on 10 January 1888[7] and then returned to South Africa.[5]
Allenby returned to Britain in 1890 and he sat – and failed – the entry exam for the Staff College at Camberley. Not deterred, he sat the exam again the next year and passed. Captain Douglas Haig of the 7th Hussars also entered the Staff College at the same time, thus beginning a rivalry between the two that ran until the First World War.[5] Allenby was more popular with fellow officers, even being made Master of the Draghounds in preference to Haig who was the better rider; Allenby had already developed a passion for polo.[5] Their contemporary James Edmonds later claimed that the staff at Staff College thought Allenby dull and stupid but were impressed by a speech that he gave to the Farmers' Dinner, which had in fact been written for him by Edmonds and another.[8]
He was promoted to major on 19 May 1897[9] and was posted to the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, then serving in Ireland, as the Brigade-Major in March 1898.[5]
Second Boer War[edit]
Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in October 1899, Allenby returned to his regiment, and the Inniskillings embarked at Queenstown and landed at Cape Town, South Africa, later that year.[5] He took part in the actions at Colesberg on 11 January 1900, Klip Drift on 15 February 1900 and Dronfield Ridge on 16 February 1900,[5] and was mentioned in despatches by the commander-in-chief, Lord Roberts on 31 March 1900.[10]
Allenby, by now a major, was appointed to command the squadron of New South Wales Lancers, who were camped beside the Australian Light Horse outside Bloemfontein. Both men and horses suffered from the continuous rain and men with cases of enteric fever were taken away every day. Allenby soon established himself as a strict disciplinarian, according to A. B. Paterson even imposing a curfew on the officer's mess.[11]
Allenby participated in the actions at Zand River on 10 May 1900, Kalkheuval Pass on 3 June 1900, Barberton on 12 September 1900 and Tevreden on 16 October 1900 when the Boer General Jan Smuts was defeated.[5] He was promoted to local lieutenant-colonel on 1 January 1901,[12] and to local colonel on 29 April 1901.[13] In a despatch dated 23 June 1902, Lord Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief during the latter part of the war, described him as "a popular and capable Cavalry Brigadier".[14] For his services during the war, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the South Africa honours list published on 26 June 1902,[15] and he received the actual decoration of CB from King Edward VII during an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 24 October 1902.[16]
In between wars[edit]
Allenby returned to Britain in 1902 and became commanding officer of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers in Colchester with the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel on 2 August 1902,[17] and the brevet rank of colonel from 22 August 1902.[18] He was promoted to the substantive rank of colonel and to the temporary rank of brigadier general on 19 October 1905.[19] He assumed command of the 4th Cavalry Brigade in 1906.[20] He was promoted again to the rank of major-general on 10 September 1909[21] and was appointed Inspector-General of Cavalry in 1910 due to his extensive cavalry experience.[20] He was nicknamed "The Bull" due to an increasing tendency for sudden bellowing outbursts of explosive rage directed at his subordinates, combined with his powerful physical frame.[20] Allenby stood 6'2 with a barrel chest and his very bad temper made "The Bull" a figure who inspired much consternation among those who had to work under him.[22]
From left to right (holding papers): Weizmann, Allenby and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem delivering a speech.
People gathered for the meeting and speeches of Allenby, Weizmann and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.
Allenby shaking hands with Weizmann after the delivery of the speeches.
General Allenby sitting down after delivering his speech.
Retirement[edit]
Allenby was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Cinque Ports Fortress Royal Engineers on 12 September 1925[65] and made Captain of Deal Castle.[66]
Murray and Allenby were invited to give lectures at Aldershot in 1931 about the Palestine Campaign. Exchanging letters beforehand, Murray asked whether it had been worth risking the Western Front (in the autumn of 1917) to transfer troops to Palestine. Allenby avoided that question, but commented that in 1917 and into the spring of 1918 it had been far from clear that the Allies were going to win the war. Russia was dropping out, but the Americans were not yet present in strength. France and Italy were weakened and might have been persuaded to make peace, perhaps by Germany giving up Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine, or Austria-Hungary giving up the Trentino. In those circumstances, Germany was likely to be left in control of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and it had been sensible for Britain to grab some land in the Middle East to block Germany's route to India. Allenby's views mirrored those of the War Cabinet at the time.[67]
Allenby went to Patagonia for a last fishing trip, aged 74, to see if the salmon really were as big as those in the Tay.[68]
In 1917 while serving in Egypt, Allenby formed a life-long friendship with Lieutenant Colonel Sir Herbert Lightfoot Eason, with Eason later describing Allenby as the greatest man he ever met in his long life of many distinguished contacts.[69]
Death[edit]
He died suddenly from a ruptured cerebral aneurysm on 14 May 1936 at his house in Kensington, London, at the age of 75 years. His body was cremated, and his ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey.[61]
Family[edit]
In 1897, Allenby married Miss Adelaide Chapman (d. 1942), the daughter of a Wiltshire landowner.[70][71] Their only child, Lieutenant Horace Michael Hynman Allenby, MC (1898–1917), was killed in action at Koksijde in Flanders whilst serving with the Royal Horse Artillery.[72] The personal inscription on his gravestone reads: "HOW SHALL I DECK MY SONG FOR THE LARGE SWEET SOUL THAT HAS GONE AND WHAT SHALL MY PERFUME BE FOR THE GRAVE OF HIM I LOVE".[73] This is a quotation from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" by American poet Walt Whitman.[74]
On Allenby's death, leaving no direct issue, his title passed to his nephew Lt-Col. Dudley Allenby, son of Captain Frederick Allenby, who succeeded as 2nd Viscount.[75]