'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎28r] (60/294)

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G-eneral Dill in September did at least remove some of these difficulties,
and made it possible for G-. O.C. Egypt to be relieved of his responsibili
ties in Palestine. Although the Naval forces still remained independent
of the G.O.C., Palestine, even this modified measure of unified control
proved of great advantage.
Command in the Field
Five main factors affected the system of decentralising command
in the field to subordinate commanders
(a) Provision for the maintenance of order in the towns, and the
protection of Jewish colonies and certain vulnerable points.
(b) The necessity for maintaining highly mobile reserves at
selected localities with the object of moving immediately on receipt
of information to attack armed bands and, if possible, to forestall
their intended action.
(c) The necessity for ensuring the free operation of traffic by
rail and road.
(d) The prevention of infiltration of arms and undesirables across
the frontiers.
(e) The provision of a general reserve in the event of the rebellion
spreading to Transjordan Used in three contexts: the geographical region to the east of the River Jordan (literally ‘across the River Jordan’); a British protectorate (1921-46); an independent political entity (1946-49) now known as Jordan , or some other major commitment.
The first two requirements were met by dividing the country into
appropriate military areas, allotting troops to the areas, appointing
area commanders and leaving them as free a hand as possible within
their own boundaries. The rebellion started and ended with Palestine
divided into two principal military areas - Northern and Southern -
the allotment of troops to each area rising from a battalion in April
to a division in September. In the meantime partition into three, four,
five and six areas had been tried at different stages. _ Frequen. changes
in military areas are of course inconvenient, but are difficult to avoid
when re-inforcements are flowing in and new formation headquarters are
arriving one by one. A glance at Appendix I will show how new unios
and headquarters were continually arriving. There was in consequence
a constant divergence between the tendency to allot a complete area to
each rather than break up existing formations on arrival, and the
desirability of mixing new units with seasoned troops who already Knew
an area. Area responsibilities were so heavy that it was rarely
possible to place a new formation in reserve, and the difficulty was
partially met by allotting it to the quietest area and attaching to
each unit for a week or two a substantial cadre of officers and N.C.O s
of the unit being relieved. Sven this was not always possible and was
never very satisfactory, but experience proved that re-mforcements
were surprisingly quick in taking over control of a new area. !n
deciding upon the number of military areas it was noticcaole that ^vision
into an odd number of areas invariably led to difficulty later. bHisrc
the country was divided into two or four areas subsequent sub-division
or amalgamations caused little dislocation. a
probably already subdivided to units, and the ideal was achieved when a
reinforcing battalion could take ovor a former company area, a Brigade
a battalion area, and so on. In selecting boundaries it was necessary
to keep as near as possible to the existing civil district boundaries.
The latter could not bo changed without serious disorganization, ^
if the military boundary did not coincide a commander would find h _.s
compelled to deal with more than one District Commissioner, whose office
might even be in another military area.