esopotamia if the War Cabinet had not
decided to force the Turks to accept battle where they least wanted
it.

The views of the British War Cabinet on the war in the East, at any
rate, were sound and solid. They concentrated on one big campaign,
and, profiting from past mistakes which led to a wastage of strength,
allowed all the weight they could spare to be thrown into the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force under a General who had proved his high military
capacity in France, and in whom all ranks had complete confidence, and
they permitted the Mesopotamian and Salonika Armies to contain the
enemies on their fronts while the Army in Palestine set out to crush
the Turks at what proved to be their most vital point. As to whether
the force available on our Mesopotamia front was capable of defeating
the German scheme I cannot offer an opinion, but it is beyond all
question that the conduct of operations in Palestine on a plan at once
bold, resolute, and worthy of a high place in military history saved
the Empire much anxiety over our position in the Tigris and Euphrates
valleys, and probably prevented unrest on the frontiers of India and
in India itself, where mischief makers were actively working in the
German cause. Nor can there be any doubt that the brilliant campaign
in Palestine prevented British and French influence declining among
the Mahomedan populations of those countries' respective spheres of
control in Africa. Indeed I regard it as incontrovertible that the
Palestine strategy of General Allenby, even apart from his stupendous
rush through Syria in the autumn of the last year of war, did as much
to end the war in 1918 as the great battles on the Western Front,
for if there had been failure or check in Palestine some British and
French troops in France might have had to be detached to other fronts,
and the Germans' effort in the Spring might have pushed their line
farther towards the Channel and Paris. If Bagdad was not actually
saved in Palestine, an expedition against it was certainly stopped by
our Army operating on the old battlegrounds in Palestine. We lost many
lives, and it cost us a vast amount of money, but the sacrifices
of brave men contributed to the saving of the world from German
domination; and high as the British name stood in the East as the
upholder of the freedom of peoples, the fame of Britain for justice,
fair dealing, and honesty is wider and more firmly established to-day
because the people ha