'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎85v] (175/294)

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abandoned on the position often bore v/itness to a hasty flight at 1
Certainly it never failed to stop the sniping for the evening.
practicable, picquetting was probably the best defence, but offensive
action was always necessary. Opinion varied as to methods, but
ingenuity was the best recipe for success. Stalking snipers with th
bayonet and rifle-grenade, lying up in ambush near likely positions o
the routes to them, or laying an ambush near a village to catch return'
snipers were all tried and met with mixed success. Good section
leading and a frequent change of method helped to secure results.
Punitive measures against villages were also useful and varied from the
imposition of a curfew to forms of active repression.
g
The last class of intimidator was the unarmed bully, who might
have remained in police care alone had not the anti-intimidation patrol
brought troops into contact with him. 'This type was drawn from the
ranks of the ordinary street corner lounger. They usually worked*
together in small gangs armed with sticks and their role was the beating-
up of strike-breakers, together with the destruction of their stalls
or the smashing of their shop windows. Being essentially bullies "they
respected neither age nor sex, their methods were always brutal and
they seldom operated when troops or police were in the vicinity! * The
best cure for them would probably have been a series of round-ups by
plain clothes police, followed by a liberal award of flogging sentences,
In the absence of this the anti-intimidation patrols were certainly a
good preventive, their moral effect was useful and they undoubtedly
succeeded^ in keeping the shops open. By this they contributed towards
^maintaining the normal life of the country” - but the cost was high.
Anti-intimidation" kept on the streets some two or three hundred
soldiers who were badly needed in the hills, it seriously lov/ered
their own morale and v/as never any more than a palliative in the long run,
DEFENCE OF PROPTTRTy
4 -t,„ 4 -t e ^ Sive ^ easures b0 P r °tect property against saboteurs occupie
en d!' 0 ^, 0 ^ ie rad lit ary garrison, the numbers
rising with the inflow of reinforcements from the equivalent of 14
S and 21 . ln June > to “re than 40 in July. Yet a few
dt, . '' or /e to illustrate that the results obtained hardly
justified this expenditure of effort:-
damage to roads and railways,
damage to Jewish property.
damage to Jewish commercial or industrial premises
m Jaffa alone,
fruit trees destroyed,
forest trees destroyed,
acres of crops destroyed.
individual acts of sabotage on the railways.
s 0 sabotage to telegraph and telephone line
telephone and telegraph wires cut
£35,000
£250,000
£ 100,000
142.000
64,000
350.000
860
some 800
over 10,000
s.
sabotage by defen^ive^e^ ^ im P° ssibili ^ of preventing widespread
large numbers of‘troops raUSt follow that to
will of course always be Purpose is waste of strength. It
and other vital need- —d . Protect certain coimiunications
be diverted to their defence is ex ? eoted , tr00 P s f st
guarded adeau-ttelv \ * rrian y vulnerable points" can be
cases the employment of^solade^ eGonom:Lcall y b 7 police, and in such
are not anough poSce thend^ 3 Nt Seld0nl be there ■ .
etc. rather than to divert troor^ 0 ^ 10 ?,!? t0 enr0:L ra0re su P erouI ® rar:i
, ' °I )o ^ rom their more useful tasks.