Best-Dunkley, Bertram, 1890-1917; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British; Ypres, 3rd Battle of, Ieper, Belgium, 1917
He was fighting with three divisions very far short of their full
strength and several battalions of dismounted yeomanry, four big guns,
and thirty aeroplanes, all of old-fashioned type. His pipe-line was
within distance from which it seemed possible to "snap" the Turks at
Gaza, but fog delayed the start, and the manoeuvre took too long, and
the cavalry fell back from want of water. The snap was so near a success
that they picked up a wireless from the Germans in Gaza to their base
saying "Good-bye," as they were going into captivity. That was the main
point of the story.
According to General Murray's friends what happened in Palestine was
what has happened so often in our history. A general is given a job to
do with insufficient forces, and urged on despite his appeals for a
sufficient force. He fails. Another commander is appointed, and the new
man naturally can exact his own conditions, begins the task with an
adequate force, and succeeds. All this, of course, does not take away a
single leaf from Sir Edmund Allenby's brilliant bays or suggest that
General Murray could have done so well. All that is suggested is that he
did not get the same chance.
APPENDIX II
THE INFANTRY AT MINDEN
The six Infantry Regiments engaged at Minden, on August 1, 1759, were:
12th Foot--Suffolk Regiment.
20th Foot--Lancashire Fusiliers.
23rd Foot--Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
25th Foot--King's Own Scottish Borderers.
37th Foot--Hampshire Regiment.
51st Foot--King's Own (Yorkshire Light Infantry).
Tradition tells that in the course of the operations at Minden, the 20th
were passing through flower gardens and, while doing so, the men plucked
some of the roses and wore them in their coats. This story was the
origin of the "Minden Rose" which is worn annually, on August 1, by all
ranks of the Lancashire Fusiliers.
APPENDIX III
GENERAL RAWLINSON AND OSTEND
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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