The British troops of this century who served in the deserts of the Middle East shared their battlegrounds with many previous generations of soldiers. Richard the Lionheart’s Third Crusade was far from Britain’s only previous connection with the Middle East. Thousands of regular British troops had already marched and sweated their way across the Egyptian desert by the time the first soldiers of the Great War disembarked in Egypt for the Gallipoli campaign. Abercrombie’s victory over Napoleon’s army at Alexandria in 1801 had inaugurated Britain’s modern involvement with the Middle East. The construction of the Suez Canal in 1869 meant that Egypt was of great strategic importance to Britain, and the Royal Navy’s bombardment of Alexandria in 1881 and the invasion of Egypt that led to the battle of Tel el Kebir in 1882 began the British occupation and domination of Egypt, which lasted until 1952. The numerous campaigns fought subsequently, including the ill-fated attempt to rescue General Gordon at Khartoum in 1885 and the battle of Omdurman in 1898, were all part of Britain’s experience of Empire.
Thus the troops who fought in the Middle East in 1914–18 and 1940–43 were following in the footsteps of previous generations of British soldiers, and in some respects the experience of soldiers this century was little different from their Victorian counterparts. The campaigns fought in the Middle East against the Turks during the First World War can be seen as an extension and continuation of Imperial interests, and even the desert campaigns fought in the Second World War can be seen as a form of traditional ‘defence of Empire’. Yet in a very real sense, these campaigns represented a break from the past. They were not isolated actions fought against native opponents, but major struggles for dominance in the Middle East fought on an unprecedented scale. As an integral part of much wider World Wars, they brought far-reaching change to the region and sparked a new sense of Arab nationalism among the inhabitants.
The armies that Britain sent to the Middle East during the two World Wars were also very different from their forebears. Not only were the forces sent to the Middle East during the two conflicts far larger than any previous forces, but they were composed of volunteers and conscripts rather than the toughened regular soldiers of Victoria’s army. They were also polyglot forces, which contained men and women drawn from across the British Empire. The 51st Highland Division noted proudly in its war diary on the eve of the Second Battle of Alamein that:
‘It is interesting that in this, the biggest organised offensive yet put in by the British Army in this War, the Highland Division is the only Infantry Division representing Great Britain, alongside the Australians, New Zealanders, and the South Africans.’4
Even this list omitted the heavy contribution made by the Indian Army, not to mention the numerous armies in exile, such as the Free French, the Polish Carpathian Brigade and the Greek Brigade, which all served in the desert during the Second World War. Nonetheless, the Highlanders’ pride in being the sole British representative among the Empire infantry was perhaps misplaced; there were many other British units serving alongside the more distinctive Dominion troops. This multi-national pattern was repeated in both wars, and lent a distinctive ‘Imperial’ character to the British armies serving in the desert.
Just as the armies sent by Britain to the Middle East were diverse and polyglot in character, so was there a bewildering variety in the campaigns in which they became involved. There were diverse campaigns fought against a range of enemies and conducted over a vast area of harsh terrain. One of the first took place in the North African desert along the Libyan/Egyptian border when the British suppressed a Senussi-led Arab uprising in 1915–16, while from 1917 onwards T. E. Lawrence, in the Hejaz, helped to support the Arab revolt against Turkish rule. Meanwhile, large-scale conventional campaigns were fought against the Turks in Sinai, Palestine and Mesopotamia. The Second World War saw an even greater variety of campaigns against a wide variety of opponents. There were short but sharp actions against the Vichy French in Syria, an Axis-sponsored revolt in Iraq, and a hard-fought campaign against the Italians in Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, the main campaign took place against the combined German and Italian forces in the Western Desert. This campaign certainly represented a break with the past, as, for the first time, the Western Desert became an enormous battleground for two major conventional opponents utilising high-intensity manoeuvre warfare.
Such a diverse mix of regions, opponents and fighting raises the difficult issue of whether it is possible to make valid comparisons between the experiences of British troops of both World Wars. While the conduct of the campaigns was often different, and the nature of the opponents and terrain often sharply in contrast, nonetheless the British soldiers of both wars who served in the Middle East were connected by their experiences of Egypt and the desert, of soldiering in a harsh environment, and through their experience of the British Army. British soldiers were aware, if only dimly, of the weight of history present in the region, and they were linked by tradition with the previous British soldiers who had served in the desert.
The desert campaigns fought in the First World War certainly influenced the soldiers of the Second World War. T. E. Lawrence, the British hero of the Arab revolt during Allenby’s campaign in Palestine, influenced an entire generation with his book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom5. Many officers of the Eighth Army quite self-consciously modelled themselves on the independent spirit of Lawrence of Arabia. This was reflected in the rejection of army-issue clothing in favour of sheepskin coats, corduroy trousers and desert boots, or ‘brothel creepers’ as they were better known. The glamorous idea of the British officer as guerrilla leader also found its way into Eighth Army tactics. This was most noticeable in the formation of ‘Jock columns’, which were small independent forces of motorised infantry and artillery, designed for raiding and scouting rather than heavy fighting. Lawrence’s influence also encouraged the growth of many raiding groups such as the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), Special Air Service (SAS) and ‘Popski’s private army’, which were used for deep raids and observation of the Axis positions.
All the British troops who served in the Middle East were linked by their experience of travel. While troops serving in Flanders or France travelled to a reasonably familiar corner of Europe, the men who served in the desert had to endure a long sea voyage to a very different part of the world. After the relative inactivity on board ship and the tedium of routine days, the first experience of the Middle East could come as a shock. One Second World War veteran, whose first landfall in the Middle East was on the barren, rocky shores of Aden, remembered that, ‘I think one’s first impressions when you go ashore at a place like Aden are so mixed, you’re bewildered with the difference. It’s all so utterly different from anything one’s ever seen in one’s life.’6 This sense of entering a very different, alien world was common to all British soldiers who served in the Middle East.
Once the long journey was over, there was one experience that linked almost every British soldier sent to the Middle East. The sights and sounds of Cairo and Alexandria were familiar to thousands of British soldiers who first arrived in Egypt and who spent their precious hours of leave taking in the sights and indulging in the bazaars and fleshpots of these two cities. A visit to the surviving Ancient Wonder of the World was obligatory. E. A. Woolley, a First World War veteran, remembered that, ‘I visited the Great Pyramids and went on top and also inside the Great Pyramid… I also went to the Sphinx… seeing them as I did, one could not but be impressed by these fantastic constructions.’7
The pyramids remain a potent symbol of ancient Egypt, and thousands of British soldiers had their photographs taken next to these monuments as a reminder of their visit.8 However, the soldiers’ experience of Egypt went far beyond the ancient world. One veteran remembered being fascinated by:
‘Cairo, the Nile, the souks [markets], the mingling of so many nationalities, the pleasant smells of spices and cooking borne on the warm evening air (but not the ghastly daytime smells of which there were plenty). I suppose it summed up for me what I’d always imagined the Orient should be like.’9
Many troops enjoyed