Soon after our arrival in Egypt I sent the following letter to the Commander-in-Chief:
Cairo,
5th March, 1918.My dear General,
No doubt you have heard of the arrival of the Jewish Battalion in Egypt. I am very anxious to see you in connection with the formation of a Jewish Brigade, about which the War Office have given me to understand they have made some communication to you.
First of all there will be the position of the Russians to discuss, as I have some hundreds of these with me. They are at present performing their duties cheerfully and well, and I have no fault to find with their attitude; but, as Russia has signed a separate peace, a new situation may arise which I would like to be ready to meet. There are already two more Jewish Battalions formed in England, and one of these, the 39th, was under orders to embark when I left Plymouth. Presumably, it will arrive in Egypt soon. I hear of other battalions for service with the Jewish Brigade being formed in New York; and the Adjutant-General informed me that it was probable that the French authorities would transfer the Polish Jews now serving in France to this Brigade. I am told that there are several hundred young Jews waiting to enlist in Palestine. There are a number more in Cairo and Alexandria.
With your permission I would gladly commence recruiting in these areas, and form a new battalion here. For the purpose of enlisting the Palestine volunteers, it would require a recruiting party to make a trip round the Jewish colonies to collect the recruits. I have an ideal party for such a duty in my present battalion, all speaking Hebrew, headed by an officer who knows Palestine. With your approval I would send this party as soon as possible on tour. Recruiting offices should also be opened in Cairo and Alexandria, where I have promises of every support from the Jewish communities of these cities.
In England the Adjutant-General allowed transfers of Jewish Officers, N.C.O.'s and men. I hope you will be equally indulgent to those who wish to join me from other units now under your command.
I am strongly of the opinion that the training ground of the Jewish Brigade should be in Judæa itself, firstly for its great moral effect on the men; secondly, the climate of Cairo during the training months of March and April will make it practically impossible to do much satisfactory work here. I am convinced that twice the results could be obtained in such a place as Jaffa, or other suitable colony, while the health of the troops would greatly benefit by the cooler climate. It would also enormously stimulate recruiting in Palestine.
I know that the Home Government attach the greatest importance to the moral effect of this Jewish Brigade on the outer world of Jewry—not only in allied and neutral, but also in enemy countries—and such full effect can only be obtained by placing the Brigade in Palestine at the earliest possible moment.
There are some other points which I would like to bring to your notice, but I will not add to the length of this letter by mentioning them now.
I should, however, be very glad to see you, and discuss these matters generally with you, and hope you will send instructions for me to report at your headquarters at an early date.
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) J. H. Patterson.
I got a reply from Major-General Louis Jean Bols, the Chief of Staff, asking me to come to G.H.Q., but at the same time informing me that General Allenby was not in favour of my suggestions.
This was somewhat of a surprise to me, for at a time when men were so badly needed, I thought that a Jewish legion, of say 25,000 men, would have been most acceptable on the Palestine front, and, had General Allenby shown himself at all favourable to the idea of a Jewish legion, it would at that time have been an easy task to have obtained any number of men, from America and elsewhere, to fight in Palestine.
Nothing daunted, however, I proceeded to G.H.Q., where I had an interview with the Commander-in-Chief, who told me quite frankly that he was not in sympathy with the War Office policy in sending this Jewish Battalion to Palestine, and that he did not want any further addition such as I suggested to his Forces.
At a subsequent interview which I had with his Chief of Staff, I gathered that I need expect but little sympathy for my battalion, as Major-General Louis Jean Bols told me quite plainly that he was not favourably disposed towards Jewish aspirations.
This anti-Jewish policy of General Allenby and his Chief of Staff came as a shock to me, for I knew that it was the settled intention of His Majesty's Government to support these Jewish Battalions, and the Jewish claim to Palestine, and I had been expecting quite a different reception for my proposals from the E.E.F. authorities to that which they received. I found, to my amazement, that the policy adopted by the Staff towards this Jewish Battalion, and the Jewish problem generally, ran counter to the declared policy of the Home Government. Alas! it seemed that another Pharaoh had arisen who knew not Joseph; and once again we would be expected to make bricks without straw, and become hewers of wood and drawers of water. Instead of this new unit being helped and encouraged, we were, on the contrary, throughout our service in the E.E.F., made to feel that we were merely Ishmaelites, with every hand uplifted against us.
I knew full well what our fate would be once the policy of G.H.Q. on this question was known, and, as I will show later, the underlings of the Staff did not fail to play up to the attitude of the higher command. I hoped, however, that the battalion would do such good work that we would eventually overcome all prejudice. We looked for no favours, and only wanted to be treated as a battalion "all out" to do its duty.
The Commander-in-Chief was of course aware by this time of the Arab pretensions to Syria, and as his mind was, no doubt, wholly centred on his own war theatre, he was naturally anxious to placate the Arab at all costs. The Arab was at his door, giving him certain assistance by harrying the Turks to the East of the Jordan, and the fact that the Hedjaz Army was fighting on our side kept Bedouins and other marauders from interfering with our lines of communication—no small matter in Palestine and Syria. The intrusion of the Jew was a disturbing factor to his policy, and was therefore resented.