'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎8v] (21/294)

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invariably poor marksmen. Traditional Arab warfare is an affair of much
noise and the minimum of casualties, and many an Arab rebel was content
to ”do his bit" by firing off his ammunition at night at long range with
the least possible risk to himself but as often as not without any
definable target. Sven the more offensive and energetic showed them
selves remarkably conservative in habit: a site where an effective
hold-up or successful sabotage had been achieved assumed a lasting
popularity, and was used time and again, often in exactly the same way
and even at the same hour. There were of course many notable exceptions
but on the whole it would be difficult to find a more obliging adversary,
and risks could be and frequently were taken which would have been quite
unjustifiable in any other country. This factor, together with the
constant restrictions on the employment of force, coloured the whole
course of the operations and both must be taken into full account in
drawing any deductions from them.
The subject matter contained in the following pages has been
selected from the mass of data recorded immediately after the operations
by those who had taken part in them and collated by every Formation in
Palestine in November 1936. The interval which has since elapsed has
made it possible for the events of the year to be seen in better perspec
tive and the lessons to be drawn from them more clearly defined. It is
not intended in this book to describe the course of the Rebellion or the
scene of its happenings any more than is necessary to form a background
to the military lessons. Geographical references have been avoided as
far as possible, and any lessons peculiar to Palestine alone and unlikely
to be generally applicable elsewhere have been omitted. For those who
require a more complete picture, accounts of the rebellion and of the
country are to be found in two publications of H.M. Stationery Office -
"Report by His Majesty *3 Government in the United Kingdom of Gr eat
Britain and Northern Ireland to the Council of the League of Na tions on
t he Administration of Palestine and Trans-J o rdan for the year 19 56"
(Colo nial No . 129) and ’ Palestine Royal Commission Rep ort" (Cmd._ 5479).
A detailed description of Palestine is contained in " The Handbook of
Ik-A lP.'fci - 16 Q^ad Trans-Jord an", issued under the authority of the Government
or? Palestine and published by Macmillan & Co., Ltd, St. Martin’s St.,
F u ’.don.
The arrangement of chapters has been designed to give a picture of
the setting and the actors before continuing with the action, and the
operations themselves are described mostly in Chapters 11 to 15. As
much derailed matter as possible has been removed from the text to the
Appendices. All important place names occurring in the text are to be
found in Map No. 2 illustrating aircraft zones.