"The English field marshal Edmund Henry Hynman
Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby (1861-1936), was a commander during World War I.
His fame rests largely on his leadership in the Allied victory over the Turkish
armies in 1917-1918.
Edmund Allenby was born on April 23, 1861, in
Southwell, Nottinghamshire, England. He attended the school of a local clergyman
and then went to public school. After twice failing to pass the Indian civil
service examination, he succeeded in passing the examination for the Royal
Military College at Sandhurst.
Allenby was commissioned in the army in 1882 and
sent with his unit to South Africa, too late for the battle of Majuba Hill, won
by Boer force. He returned to England in 1886 and continued to advance in the
army. He accompanied his regiment to South Africa again after the Boer War
started in 1899, and there he made his reputation as an officer in action. The
forces under his command were invariably successful in that long war.
At the end of the Boer War, Allenby was promoted
from colonel to brigadier general and then to major general by the time World
War I began. He was sent to France in command of a cavalry division. He later
commanded the V Corps and the 3d Army. He was not an outstanding commander in
Europe; his forte was cavalry, and traditional cavalry units were not useful
where the front was bogged down in trench warfare. With the need for a new
commander in chief in the Middle East, Allenby, because of his unequaled cavalry
experience, was chosen. Allenby and Douglas Haig, the British commander in chief
in Europe, never had great confidence in each other, and the new assignment for
Allenby removed a source of friction on the Western front in Europe. He had
unlimited success in his new command. His armies captured Jerusalem and
Damascus, defeating the Turkish armies in a brilliant campaign—the last time
that cavalry was to be decisive in modern warfare. Allenby and the
soldier-scholar T. E. Lawrence of Arabia emerged from that phase of the war as
the greatest names.
After the war ended, Allenby was promoted to field
marshal, made a viscount, and treated as a hero at home. He was also given the
post of high commissioner for Egypt, which he retained until his retirement from
public life in 1925.
Lord Allenby was married and had one son. He died on
May 14, 1936. Known to his troops as "the Bull," he had exhibited that animal's
positive traits of strength and determination but also its weaknesses of bad
temper and rash action."