Abstract
On 11 November 1918, Lieutenant Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote a reply to a letter he had received from Leo Amery, then political secretary to the War Cabinet, celebrating the end of the military campaign against the Turks. Jabotinsky opened his note with remarks concerning the Britishness of the victory in Palestine. The fact that the Legion had large numbers of ‘Americans’ was also credited to ‘British magnetism’, an assertion that does not take into account the independent actions of the Zionist Jews in the United States. This lack of understanding may have been due to his limited contact with the American volunteers, the early drafts of whom arrived in the 39th Battalion whilst he was at the front with the 38th. On the other hand it also demonstrates his pro-British attitude, especially as he appreciated that Britain, notwithstanding the vicissitudes caused by the local military, had, through the Balfour Declaration and victory, placed itself in a very strong and influential position regarding the future of the Jews in Palestine.
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Notes
Elias Gilner, War and Hope: a History of the Jewish Legion (New York: Herzl, 1969), pp. 271–2.
A.P. Wavell, Allenby in Egypt (London: Harrap, 1943), pp. 27–34. See also later chapters in
Lawrence James, Imperial Warrior: the Life and Times of Field-Marshal Allenby (London: Weidenleld, 1993).
For a brief but illuminating explanation see E. Monroe, Britain’s Moment in the Middle East 1914–1971 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1981), pp. 55–9.
See, for example, J. Putkowski, British Army Mutineers 1914–1922 (London: Boutle, 1999);
G. Oram, Death Sentences Passed by Military Courts of the British Army 1914–1920 (London: Boutle, 1998).
J.H. Patterson, With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign (London: Hutchinson, 1922), p. 205.
Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Story of the Jewish Legion (New York: Ackerman, 1945), pp. 146–7.
Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991), p. 48. Letter written 9 June 1919 in private possession of Mr. J.H. Money. In the same passage Wasserstein reveals a document from the CZA which records his view that ‘their (Jews) manner wherever they are given authority is often domineering and objectionable to others’.
Edward Horne, A Job Well Done: a History of the Palestine Police Force (London: Anchor, 1982).
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© 2004 Martin Watts
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Watts, M. (2004). Disturbance and Decline. In: The Jewish Legion and the First World War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514546_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230514546_9
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