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God, Guns &
Israel
EXTRACT from the Daily Telegraph
World of books
By A N Wilson
(Filed: 23/02/2004)
If it's history you're after, the Bible isn't the place
I have been reading a fascinating book by Jill Hamilton, God, Guns and Israel, published by Sutton Publishing at £20. Its subtitle explains its huge range - "Britain, the First World War and the Jews in the Holy Land". Running through the book like a Golden Thread is the contention that nearly all the key gentile players in the Zionist story were in origin Bible Protestants. Lloyd George was not notably religious but, as he said: "I was taught in school far more about the history of the Jews than about the history of my own land. I could tell you all the kings of Israel. But I doubt whether I could have named half a dozen of the kings of England and no more of the kings of Wales."
Incidentally, Jill Hamilton says, what was new to me, that from 1903 onwards, Lloyd George was the solicitor employed by the Zionists to put their case to the Colonial Secretary. He was engaged by Leopold Greenberg, later editor of the Jewish Chronicle, but at the time Herzl's representative in London .
But I do not want to review Jill Hamilton's excellent book here, merely to reflect upon the part which Bible-reading had in that story. So many of the key players had been brought up as Bible Protestants. Jill Hamilton convinced me that Lloyd George was even more crucial than Balfour. But he, too, in spite of being the nephew of a great Anglican Prime Minister, learnt his faith from his mother - Lord Salisbury's sister - who was a Presbyterian. When, as an old man, Balfour finally visited Jerusalem in 1925, he made an emotional speech with tears rolling down his cheeks: "All of the English-speaking people have been brought up on a translation into English of the Hebrew scripture and that translation is one of the great literary treasures of all who speak the English tongue." The same could probably have been said by almost all the Protestants who supported the Zionist cause, right down to President Truman, whose immediate recognition of the State of Israel in 1948 was so fundamental.
Opponents of Zionism included such Cabinet ministers as Edwin Samuel Montagu who, as Secretary of State for India, rounded on Lloyd George, saying he thought of himself as a "Jewish Englishman" and, he added: "All my life I have been trying to get out of the ghetto. You want to force me back there!"
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Gallipoli
to Gaza
The
Sydney Morning Herald, 2002
And with shrapnel
holes in his splintered wing come home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars,
he may look from his clouds on high,
He may follow the flight of the wheeling kite in the blue Egyptian
sky.
But he's only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Service
Schools,
And I sing of the thankless, thankless man who hustles the Army
Mules.
Army Poems, A.B.
Paterson, April 1918
The rhythm and the
sentiment are unmistakable. Classic Banjo Paterson, written about
his experiences during the desert campaigns of World War I. Few
Australians realise Paterson not only witnessed key battles of the
Great War, but did so as a combatant. As a younger man he served six
months as a war correspondent in the Boer War. But in 1915, though
more than 50, he was determined to be among the fighting troops.
Initially he went to
London, hoping to join the British Army. Frustrated, he then heard a
Remount Unit was being formed in Australia to take care of the 8000
horses being sent to the Middle East with the Australian forces. He
raced back to Sydney, qualified as a voluntary vet, knocked two
years off his age - lying that he had been born on February 17,
1866, not 1864 - and secured a position as lieutenant (later major)
in the so-called "Horsedung Hussars".
The men he commanded,
he wrote approvingly, were "rough riders, jackaroos,
horse-breakers, ex-jockeys and buck-jumping riders from country
shows".
Arriving in Suez in
December 1915, he and his unit took charge of the horses of the
Light Horsemen who were away fighting at Gallipoli. When the
battered remnants of that army returned to Egypt after the
evacuation, Paterson followed them through Palestine and Syria.
That little is known
about Paterson's war is unsurprising. According to Australian author
Jill Hamilton - who writes under her official title, Jill, Duchess
of Hamilton - history has largely forgotten the poets who fought in
the Turkish and Middle Eastern campaigns, concentrating on those who
recorded the horrors of the trenches on the Western Front.
Determined to redress the balance, she's researching a book on what
she calls "the Anzac poets" - including not just
Australians and New Zealanders, but those from other nations who
personally fought at Gallipoli or other theatres of war involving
the Anzacs.
"The poets who
fought in World War I were the first to describe the horror of war
as it actually was," says Hamilton. "War poetry had not
really changed from the days of the Crusades. War was depicted as a
chivalrous, heroic encounter."
But men like Rupert
Brooke, Siegfried Sassoon and Paterson saw it differently. "The
harsh reality of the war poets at the front was very different to
the often romantic attitude of those poets and writers, such as C.J.
Dennis and Dame Mary Gilmore, who stayed at home."
Apart from Paterson
and fellow Australian Edwin Gerard (who wrote as Trooper Gerardy),
many of the best poets who wrote about Gallipoli and the Middle East
were British. Again, few people realise men like Brooke, Sassoon,
John Masefield and E.M. Forster served in theatres of war now
regarded as the forge of Australian nationhood.
"Only Brooke did
not make it home," says Hamilton. "His most famous poem,
which begins 'If I should die, think only this of me ...', is often
quoted in Anzac Day services. But it is seldom mentioned that he
died on April 23, the day before he was due to sail for Gallipoli.
Had he lived he would have been a member of the Marine Light
Infantry at Anzac Cove."
A mosquito bite
turned septic. "His body was taken to Skyros," says
Hamilton. "His coffin was carried to an olive grove by 12
Australian soldiers who acted as pallbearers. Within six weeks, two
of those pallbearers were dead, and all but one of the others had
been wounded."
Masefield, best known
for the poem which begins, "I must go down to the sea again, to
the lonely sea and the sky ...", was also at Gallipoli. A
pacifist, he spotted a notice in The Times calling for
reinforcements for the motorboat ambulance service. He raised enough
money to buy a 32-horse power twin-screw motorboat, two smaller
launches, and a barge - which he led himself on a perilous journey
through the Bay of Biscay and the straits of Gilbraltar to the
Dardanelles.
Hamilton says:
"Each night, under cover of darkness, the new ambulances sped
across the 60 miles of sea to Gallipoli, to fetch British, French
and Anzac wounded from the beaches. Among those rescued and taken to
a hospital ship in October was Siegfried Sassoon's brother, Hamo. He
died on board."
Siegfried then penned
his poem
To My Brother:
Give me your hand, my
brother, search my face;
Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame;
For we have made an end of all things base.
We are returning by the road we came.
Your lot is with the ghosts of soldiers dead,
And I am in the field where men must fight.
But in the gloom I see your laurelld head,
And through your victory I shall win the light.
Marengo The
Myth of Napoleon's Horse
‘Jill Hamilton has done some wonderful
detective work, and written a gem of a book suggesting a side to
Bonaparte not previously explored. Hamilton tracks the Napoleonic
horses through all the campaigns, and lays bare the myths, yet in a
way that leaves the reader enthralled still by the thought of
Bonaparte’s criss-crossing Europe on the back of a horse no bigger
than a pony.’ The Times
‘A gem of a book.’ The Times
‘Jill Hamilton casts light on a
fascinating and neglected aspect of Napoleon’s career: his
horses.’ Daily Telegraph
‘The Emperor’s beloved steed, Marengo,
caused a sensation during a London exhibition in 1823. Now he is
again a source of fascination.’ Daily Express
‘A fascinating subject.’ Scotsman
‘Formidable and imaginative. Ideal for
anyone with an interest in horses or Napoleon.’ Country Life
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