Osprey Campaign 61 : Megiddo 1918 : The Last Great Cavalry Victory

After securing the capture of Jerusalem General Allenby planned a campaign that would knock Turkey out of World War 1. Through a series of deceptions which led the Turks to believe he planned to attack elsewhere, his Desert Mounted Corps succeeded in sweeping through the Turkish lines in an action which was to take them all the way through Palestine, supported on their right flank by Lawrence and his Arab irregulars. Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force had achieved the breakthrough in Palestine that commanders on the Western Front had only dreamed of. Turkey's war was over, and the days of the tottering Ottoman Empire were numbered. The lasting legacy of the battle of Megiddo was that it revealed the nature of a modern 'Blitzkrieg' style campaign, producing a profound change in military thought and tactics - and foreshadowing the advance of Hitler's Panzers across Europe 20 years later. Bryan Perrett examines this campaign, possibly the most successful of World War I, in detail, accompanied by illustrations by Ed Dovey. After examining the armies and their respective commanders he shows how Allenby conducted his Blitzkrieg two decades before the term was invented. The important roles of the RAF, irregular Arab forces, armoured cars and cavalry are all explained, and the impressive effects of their cooperation analysed: although by and large the British advanced units were mounted rather than mechanised they still managed to advance faster than both the German panzer corps during the 1941 invasion of the USSR and the Israeli armoured divisions of the Six Day War of 1967.

Contents

• Origins of the Campaign
• Opposing Commanders
• Opposing Armies
• Opposing Plans
• The Battle of Megiddo
• The Legacy of Megiddo
• The Battlefield Today
• Chronology
• Wargaming Megiddo
• Further Reading