With the Judæans in the Palestine CampaignPatterson, J. H. (John Henry)
History
With the Judæans in the Palestine Campaign
Patterson, J. H. (John Henry)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Palestine; World War, 1914-1918 -- Participation, Jewish
A few days afterwards, on 30th August, General Chaytor had a conference
with all his Brigade and Infantry Commanders, and as he had heard
General Allenby saying to me that he considered his information with
regard to Jewish reinforcements better than mine, he remarked: "Well,
Patterson, your information about the coming of the other Jewish
Battalions was better than the Chief's after all, for one of my officers
has just come from England, and he tells me that a strong Jewish
Battalion came out with him in the same ship and landed in Egypt a
couple of days ago."
As I considered it only right to let the Commander-in-Chief know that
the information he had received was not accurate, I wrote and told him
that I understood that another Jewish Battalion, some 1,400 strong, had
already arrived in Egypt.
In reply to this I got a memorandum from the Chief of Staff,
Major-General Louis Jean Bols, intimating that in future I was only to
address the Commander-in-Chief through the ordinary channels of
communication.
It was evident from this that the Chief of Staff was not pleased that
the Commander-in-Chief should have any sidelight from me on Jewish
affairs. Of course this had long been apparent, for anything I had
previously written through the ordinary channels--no matter how
important to the welfare of the battalion--had invariably been returned
to me with the remark that it was not considered necessary to refer the
matter further.
Some months after my interview with the Commander-in-Chief yet another
thousand men arrived from England, and altogether there were over five
thousand Jewish soldiers serving in the Jewish units in Palestine. The
formation of a Jewish Brigade had been the definite policy of the War
Office, and an intimation to this effect had been sent to General
Allenby. The Commander-in-Chief of the E.E.F. had himself written to me
to say that a Jewish Brigade would be formed, yet this promise, which
meant so much to the comfort and efficiency of the men and to the
prestige of Jews the world over, was never fulfilled; instead, we were
pushed about from Brigade to Brigade and from Division to Division in
the most heart-breaking manner, with the result that we got all the
kicks and none of the traditional halfpence!
In the space of three months we were shunted about like so many cattle
trucks and found ourselves, in that brief period, attached to no less
than twelve different formations of the British Army!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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