Welcome to today's custom tailored dipedive.
Great to be here. Yeah, I want you to start by
picturing something in your mind's eye. Imagine
a military guard detail. Right. Their assignment
is straightforward. I mean, almost boring. Stand,
watch, protect a single shipping canal and make
sure nobody crosses a specific line in the sand.
A classic static defense. Exactly. But then through
this bizarre sequence of historical events, momentum
shifts, and just sheer strategic brilliance,
that same defensive guard detail accidentally
ends up conquering 50 miles of territory. It
really is wild when you lay it out like that.
They destroy three entire enemy armies, and ultimately
they redraw the map of the modern world. Yeah,
it really sounds like the plot of a geopolitical
thriller. It does. But this is exactly what happened
during the First World War. And for a curious
learner like you who wants to understand not
just what happened in history, but the mechanics
of how and why it happened, this deep dive is
going to be incredibly rewarding. We aren't just
looking at a dry sequence of battles here. This
is a master class in adaptability. It's a study
in overcoming mass. seemingly impossible bottlenecks.
Right and a prime example of how a few strategic
pivots can just completely alter a prolonged
bloody stalemate. Yeah. Okay let's unpack this
from the very beginning. Our mission today is
to trace the dramatic evolution of the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force, or the EEF. The EEF. We
have a highly detailed historical overview of
this force from World War I, and we're going
to follow them from their birth as this small
reactive unit all the way to their transformation
into an unstoppable offensive juggernaut. It's
a massive transformation. So let's look at the
early phases of the war. Formed on March 10th,
1916, General Archibald Murray is in charge.
The British Empire throws together this sort
of mashup force. They take the Mediterranean
Expeditionary Force and combine it with the force
in Egypt. Exactly. So what was their actual practical
mandate at this point? Well, their original job
description was incredibly narrow and entirely
defensive. They had one overarching objective,
which was to guard the Suez Canal and protect
the British protectorate of the Sultanate of
Egypt. Just hold the line. Just hold the line.
You have to remember the context of the era for
the British Empire. The Suez Canal was the vital
lifeline. The jugular vein. Yes, the absolute
jugular vein. It connected the troops and resources
of India and the Pacific directly to the European
theater. Right. If the canal fell to the Ottoman
Empire, the entire war effort could effectively
starve. So this newly formed EEF was essentially
parked in the sand to act as a massive shield.
But then we see this massive catalyst for growth.
And ironically, it comes from a catastrophic
failure elsewhere. Gallipoli. Exactly. The British
and allied forces were withdrawing from the infamous
disastrous Gallipoli campaign. And as they pull
out, those surviving troops come pouring into
Egypt. You need somewhere to go. Right. So suddenly
the EEF swells in size. It turns into this massive
reserve pool. And the original idea was just
to let these exhausted troops rest, refit, and
then ship them off as reinforcements to the meat
grinder of the Western Front in Europe. That
was the plan on paper. But war rarely adheres
to a schedule. Tell me about it. While they are
gathering this massive force in Egypt, local
threats force their hand. You have the Western
Frontier Force, which is a component of this
overall structure, fighting the Senussi campaign
out in the western desert from 1915 to 1917.
And more critically for our timeline, the Eastern
force actually gets attacked. They have to actively
defend the canal of the Battle of Romani in August
1916. And this is where we see the first major
momentum shift, because they don't just hold
the line at Romani and sit back down in their
trenches. No, they don't. They repel the Ottoman
invading force and then they completely flip
the script. They push the Ottomans all the way
back across the Sinai Peninsula toward Palestine.
It's a huge turning point. They start racking
up active victories. At Maktaba, in December
1916, and then at Rafa in January 1917. The shield
has suddenly become a sword. Exactly. But moving
an army across the Sinai isn't just a matter
of marching, is it? I mean, it's a desert. Not
at all. And what's fascinating here is the structural
and psychological shift that takes place to make
that pursuit possible. Moving across the Sinai
is a logistical nightmare. I can imagine. You
are fighting the environment as much as the enemy.
You have to lay railway tracks and water pipelines
just to keep your men and horses alive in the
deep desert. Building infrastructure while under
fire. Basically, yes. And to facilitate this
push, the command forms something called the
Desert Column within the Eastern Force. Which
sounds like a pretty significant tactical evolution.
It is a massive leap. You don't dedicate resources
to forming a specialized Desert Column if your
only plan is passive defense. Right. You only
do that if you plan to move. Precisely. This
represents an organizational awakening. They
realize they have the capacity for actor pursuit.
And by doing this, they successfully recapture
substantial Egyptian territory that had been
threatened, and they pushed the front line all
the way to the edge of Ottoman -controlled Palestine.
It is an incredible pivot. But you know, you
can't just march forward indefinitely without
hitting a wall. No, you inevitably hit resistance.
And in this next phase of the campaign, the EEF
hits a massive, painful wall. In March and April
of 1917, the Eastern Force suffers two crushing,
bloody defeats on Ottoman territory. At Gaza.
Yes, the first and second battles of Gaza. The
momentum they had built up just completely evaporates.
Those defeats at Gaza were a harsh reality check.
What follows is a miserable grinding period known
as the stalemate in southern Palestine. This
lasts from April all the way to October 1917.
It's just brutal. General Murray, the commander
at the time, tries to consolidate his position,
but the offensive spirit is completely dead.
The energy is gone. The army is bogged down,
staring across the lines at a heavily entrenched
enemy. They are taking casualties, exhausting
their supplies, and are completely unable to
move forward. It is the classic definition of
a military bottleneck. I look at this scenario
and I think of it through a modern organizational
lens. How so? Well, what do you do when a massive
organization is failing, the current leadership
is stuck, and you are just bleeding resources?
You bring in new leadership. You bring in a turnaround
CEO. Enter General Edmund Allenby in June 1917.
He arrives to take command and he doesn't just
give a motivational speech. Right. He initiates
a total systemic reorganization. He really does.
He looks at the forest and realizes the old operational
architecture simply isn't suited for the breakthrough
they need. So to use your analogy, he completely
restructures the departments. I love this. That
desert column we mentioned, he upgrades it, turning
it into the desert -matted corps. He also formally
organizes the infantry troops into two distinct
bodies. The XX Corps and the XXI Corps. Exactly.
I buy the turnaround CEO analogy, but restructuring
on paper is one thing. How did he actually get
these exhausted defeated troops to execute a
completely new style of warfare? I mean, what
does renaming a column to a core actually achieve
on the battlefield? It achieves a crucial separation
of capabilities. Think of it like a surgeon separating
the heavy blunt instruments from the precision
tools. Okay, I'm with you. By creating the desert
mounted core, Allenby is separating his highly
mobile cavalry from the slower moving infantry.
The infantry becomes the hammer designed to strike
hard, fix the enemy in place, and brave fortifications.
And the cavalry? The cavalry becomes the scalpel.
They are designed to move independently, exploit
gaps with incredible speed, and operate on the
flanks without being tied to the slow pace of
the foot soldiers. If we connect this to the
bigger picture for you listening, this Gaza bottleneck
is a phenomenal example of why doing the same
thing twice and failing both times requires a
total systemic reorganization. It's the definition
of insanity to try it a third time. Exactly.
Allen B knew that if he just threw the same army
with the same structure at Gaza for a third time,
he'd get the exact same bloody failure. So he
didn't just bring new orders. He brought a new
operational structure. He spent months drilling
this new structure, making sure his hammer and
his scalpel knew exactly how to operate independently.
And he had to, because the Ottoman defenses at
this point were formidable. They stretched in
an almost continuous, heavily fortified line
from the coastal city of Gaza all the way inland
to a desert town called Beersheba. Here's where
it gets really interesting. The obvious move,
the one that Ottomans were almost certainly bracing
for, was another head -on clash at Gaza. Of course.
But Allenby makes a massive lateral move. Instead
of banging their heads against the wall at Gaza
a third time, on October 31, 1917, he sends two
of his corps to attack the inland anchor of the
line. Beersheba. Beersheba. The tactical brilliance
of targeting Beersheba cannot be overstated.
Why is that? Well, Beersheba was held by the
Ottoman III Corps. These were battle -hardened
veterans who had fought at Gallipoli. Furthermore,
the Ottomans assumed the deep desert itself protected
that flank. They thought the environment was
their defense. Right. But Allenby recognized
that a continuous defensive line is essentially
a chain under tension. Beersheba was the anchor
holding that tension. Break the anchor, break
the chain. Exactly. If you shatter the anchor,
the entire defensive structure is compromised.
Furthermore, Beersheba had vital water wells.
In the desert, capturing the enemy's water supply
is just as devastating as capturing their ammunition.
And once that line broke at Beersheba, the Ottoman
defense completely unraveled. It wasn't just
one localized victory. It was a devastating domino
effect. A cascade of victories. Within days,
the EEF rolled through the defenses. You get
the Battle of Tela -il -Kuelfe, the Third Battle
of Gaza, the Battle of Herrera and Sharia. It's
relentless. The pressure is so immense that the
Ottomans are forced to abandon Gaza entirely
under the cover of night on November 6th and
7th. The EEF essentially chases the unraveling
Ottoman forces all the way across the map. Because
the bottleneck was broken, the pursuit could
finally begin. And the ultimate prize of this
phase was Jerusalem. The big prize. The momentum
was back, but this time it was fueled by Allenby's
highly organized, efficient machine. Following
a crucial victory at the Battle of Mugar Ridge,
the pursuit to Jerusalem begins. And the culmination
of that push is historic. Lasting from mid -November...
All the way to December 30th, the campaign pushes
directly into the Judean Hills and Jerusalem
is captured. A massive psychological blow to
the Ottomans. Huge. By the end of this campaign
phase, the EEF has swallowed up 50 miles of Ottoman
territory in a stunning reversal of fortune.
From the miserable stalemate they were stuck
in just a few months prior. Right. It is a textbook
example of how a shift in strategy, combined
with the proper reorganization of assets, can
completely shatter a deadlock. They achieved
exactly what they set out to do. But as often
happens in large -scale conflicts, you are never
operating in a vacuum. No. Geopolitics and the
wider war always find a way to interfere with
local success. Enter the massive plot twist.
Yes. Just as the EEF is dominating, just as they
have captured Jerusalem and have the Ottomans
entirely on their heels, a massive crisis erupts
in Europe. This is early 1918. Exactly. March
1918. The German army launches a devastating
spring offensive known as Operation Michael.
on the Western Front. And the British high command
panics. Absolute panic. They are taking massive
casualties in France and they desperately need
veteran troops to plug the holes in their own
lines. So London looks at the map, sees the EEF
having success in the Middle East, and makes
a brutal, pragmatic calculation. They strip Allenby
of his best guys. They do. They transfer these
crucial veteran forces out of the EEF and send
them directly to France. Suddenly, Allende loses
his veteran punch right when he has the enemy
on the ropes. And they're replaced by who? Largely
untested, green troops. Wow! The struggle of
that sudden deficit is immediate. You can't just
lose a huge chunk of your experienced fighting
force and maintain the same level of aggression.
No, the blunt force approach no longer works.
Without those troops, the EEF launches two attacks
in the spring. The first and second trans -Jordan
attacks on Amman, Shunet, Nimran, and Es -Salt
in March and April 1918. And they fail. They
both fail. They just don't have the sheer punching
power they had a few months ago. This raises
an important question, one that military strategists
still study to this day. How do you achieve total
victory when your best resources are suddenly
taken away from you? It's the ultimate test of
leadership. It is. You can no longer rely on
overwhelming veteran force. You have to rely
on overwhelming cunning. You have to outthink
the enemy rather than just outfight them. Right.
And Allen B.'s answer to this severe deficit
in manpower is a breathtaking execution of maneuver
warfare, culminating in the Battle of Megiddo.
I love the mechanics of this battle because it
is so perfectly orchestrated. I want you to visualize
this like a heavy door swinging on a hinge. That's
a great way to picture it. Allenby uses his infantry,
his hammer on the coast. Their job isn't to destroy
the whole enemy army. Their job is simply to
kick the door open. just breach the line. Right.
They hit the Ottoman defenses incredibly hard
with infantry attacks at Tulkarm and Tabsar,
and they punch a massive hole in the front line.
And this is exactly where that reorganization
from a year prior pays off brilliantly. The separation
of forces. Yes. Once the infantry kicks the door
open, the desert -mounted corps The scalpel,
that highly mobile cavalry force, slips straight
through the gap. They don't even engage the frontline
troops. They completely bypass them. They ride
rapidly up the coast, turn inland, and wrap around
the back of the enemy before the Ottomans even
realize what is happening. They completely encircle
the Ottoman infantry who are still actively fighting
in the Judean hills. The Ottomans are suddenly
trapped in a massive net. They are fighting the
British infantry in front of them, and the British
cavalry has already cut off their escape routes
miles behind. them. It is a total systemic collapse
of the Ottoman military presence in the region.
The scale of the destruction is just staggering.
Because of this encirclement, the EEF achieves
lightning fast captures of key strategic points
across the region. Just one after another. Nazareth,
Afula, Baisan, Jenin, Samak, Tiberias, they all
fall in rapid succession. And the human cost
for the Ottoman side is devastating. During the
ensuing battles of Sharon and Nablus, the EEF
utterly destroys three entire Ottoman armies.
Three entire armies. Wiped out. They take thousands
of prisoners and secure massive stockpiles of
weapons and equipment. The Ottoman military machine
in the theater is essentially wiped off the map
in a matter of days. And from there, it's just
a relentless sprint to the finish line. They
chase the German and Ottoman remnants all the
way to Damascus and then push even further north
to Aleppo. The Ottoman Empire is completely broken
by this unstoppable advance. They have absolutely
no choice left but to surrender, which forces
the Ottoman Empire to sign the Armistice of Mudros
on October 30th, 1918. Which officially ends
the campaign and completely shifts the geopolitical
reality of the globe. The fighting stops, but
the administrative reality of that victory takes
hold immediately. The captured territories are
carved up. So what does this all mean? It means
the implementation of a totally new world order
in the region. The ground captured by this specific
military force leads directly to the creation
of the British mandate of Palestine, as well
as the mandate for Syria and Lebanon. The modern
map begins to form. Exactly. I want to bring
this back to the very beginning. A defensive
force raised merely to stand in the sand and
watch a shipping canal ended up dismantling an
empire and drafting the borders of the modern
Middle East. We often think of historical victories
as a result of having the best troops, the most
supplies, and overwhelming force. But I want
to leave you with a final thought to ponder.
Please do. The next time you look at a modern
political map of the Middle East, consider the
nature of how those lines were actually drawn.
Consider how the specific dusty paths taken by
the desert -mounted corps in 1918 chasing an
army from Beersheba to Damascus literally drew
the geographical boundary lines that continue
to define the geopolitics of our world today.
It's wild to think that a cavalry maneuver over
100 years ago is still dictating the map. It
truly is. Well, thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive. We hope you walk away with
a totally new understanding of how adaptability,
strategic reorganization, and turning a massive
bottleneck into a breakthrough can quite literally
change history. It's been a fascinating journey.
It really has. Thanks for tuning in and until
next time, keep exploring.