Allenby, Lord (1861-1936), was a British military leader. During World War I (1914-1918), he led British forces in Egypt and Palestine. By skillfully combining attacks by his own forces with those of Arab guerrillas led by Major T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), he defeated the troops of the Ottoman Empire in 1917 and 1918 (see Lawrence, T. E. ). The Ottoman Empire was based in what is now Turkey. His victory at Megiddo in Palestine on Sept. 18, 1918, gave the British control of Syria and Palestine.
Allenby served as British high commissioner for Egypt from 1919 to 1925. Arabs were bitter because the British and French refused to give them independence, and because the Allies had promised the Jews a national home in Palestine. Allenby handled this difficult situation with tact and sympathy.
Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby was born on April 23, 1861, in Suffolk, England. When World War I began, he commanded first a cavalry division and then a corps of the British Expeditionary Force in France. He became an army commander in 1915. His full title was Viscount Allenby of Megiddo and Felixstowe. He was known as “The Bull” because of his fierce temper. He died on May 14, 1936. Allenby was the model for the title character in The General (1936), a novel by English author Cecil Scott Forester.
