'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎97r] (198/294)

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The second requirement, and quite the most difficult one to ensure,
was good information. It is unnecessary to recount again all the
difficulties which combined to maiie it so hard to obtain, but such were
the workings of the Arab mind that the supply would generally be propor
tionate to the offensiveness of the Government forces. So long as
troops occupied a village the inhabitants would feel secure from intimi
dation and might stc-irt to curry favour with their new masters by producing
information. But of course once the troops had left the same villagers
would be at pains to get back into the good books of the rebels, and for
this reason it wno sometimes necessary to stay on in a village in order
to prevent the rebels returning the moment the troops had gone to wreck
vengeance on "traitorous" inhabitants. It was most noticeable that
once a strong line had been taken by the Government in September and
large numbers of troops began to flow into Palestine, so the villagers
- always anxious to be on the winning side - at last began to give
sufficient information for deliberate operations to be planned. Prior
to that, owing to the shortage of troops available for offensive action,
good information was practically unknown and it was necessary to rely
almost entirely upon chance encounters to produce a fight.
The third, requirement was a matter of legislation which perhaps
Martial Law alone can provide, and for the lack of which offensive opera
tions in Palestine often failed to achieve the results which, from a
purely military point of view, they probably deserved. -That was needed
was some form of control over the civil population which would have
enabled troops to detect strangers who were present in a village with no
good reason, or equally inhabitants v/ho were absent from their homes
without legitimate excuse. It would almost certainly have involved
compulsory identification cards and perhaps measures to make all civilians
sleep in their own homes unless given v/ritten permission to do otherwise.
This admittedly would have been difficult to enforce, but was by no means
impossible and would have been of incalculable value to the troops in
their task of rounding up rebels. It would have done much to have
removed their greatest problem, v/hich was to deal with armed men v/ho hid
their arms on the approach of troops and posed as peaceful citizens of
the nearest village to which they happened to be at the time. It would
also have been a strong deterrent against sabotage by providing a means
v/hereby absentees from a village could be apprehended on their return
and called upon to provide an explanation of their movements during the
previous hours. The difficulty of separating the genuinely peaceful
fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. from armed rebels v/ho had temporarily adopted that pose was in
fact one of the greatest handicaps of all offensive operations.
Night Operations
Daylight may almost be classed as a fourth requirement of successful
offensive action, since any engagement at night inevitably favoured an
enemy v/ho was usually met behind good cover in a carefully chosen posi
tion with a well-reconnoitred line of retreat behind him. ^ To carry ou
offensive night operations of any extent v/as therefore to invite casua -
ties from an opponent more at home in tne dark than the Bn is ^ r ,
whom night deprived of most of the advantages of his superior weapons.
On the other hand darkness was a valuable ally to troops v/ho c ® u use
it effectively to gain surprise, as in the staging of an ambuo ^ a
patrol or in an approach march designed to place a cordon in posi ion e
fore daylight. M.T. on the move at night v/as extremely vu nen xe an
dispelled any hopes of secrecy by having to use some sort of ligr ts >
but night marches across countrv by both cavalry and infan °
useful, though in the hills tiring to both men and animals and denk. g
a thorough knowledge of the ground. Pbr the latter purpose air p.n o-
graphs were most valuable. With good moonlight however progress was
nearly as fast as by day, fatigue from the heat was avoided, and goo
chances afforded of finding the enemy asleep. Typical progress in a
single night under such conditions over rocky country wi eep a