Generals of the British Army/Allenby, General Sir E. H.
GENERAL SIR EDMUND ALLENBY
V
GENERAL SIR EDMUND HENRY
ALLENBY, K.C.B.
SIR EDMUND ALLENBY was born on April 23rd, 1861, and was educated at Haileybury. He entered the Inniskilling Dragoons, with whom he served in the Bechuanaland Expedition of 1884-5. He fought in Zululand in 1888, and in the South African War was a dashing and successful Column Commander. He was one of those who harried General Delarey in the difficult Magaliesberg region.
In 1910 he was promoted to the command of the 4th Cavalry Brigade, was subsequently Inspector of Cavalry, and, when the European War broke out, he was given the Cavalry Division. He fought through the Retreat from Mons and the Battle of the Marne, and after the Battle of the Aisne was promoted to the command of the Cavalry Corps. During the First Battle of Ypres he held the Messines ridge, filling the gap in the line between Sir Henry Rawlinson's yth Division and General Smith-Dorrien's II Corps.
In May, 1915, he succeeded Sir Herbert Plumer in command of the V Infantry Corps. When General Monro went to India he followed him in command of the new Third Army on the Somme.
In the spring of 1916, when Sir Henry Rawlinson's Fourth Army was formed, the Third Army was moved further north to take over the ground around Arras vacated by the French Tenth Army under D'Urbal. Only a small part of the right wing of Sir Edmund Allenby's Army was engaged during the Battle of the Somme, and that only on the first day.
During the winter of 1916-17, apart from many brilliant trench raids, there was no action upon the Third Army front. Its chance came on Easter Monday, 1917, when Sir Edmund Allenby commanded the right wing of the British forces in the great Battle of Arras one of the most successful actions as yet fought by British troops. It was his men who carried the intricate network of trenches east of Arras, fighting their way along the valley of the Scarpe towards Douai.
In June Sir Edmund Allenby was transferred to the command of the British forces in Egypt.
In the European War some of the most brilliant infantry leaders have come from the Cavalry—Haig, Gough, Kavanagh, Allenby. Sir Edmund is a personification of the traditional qualities of an English soldier patient, tenacious, resolute; and his record in many fields has shown that he possesses admirable military judgment and wide military knowledge.