Description

With nearly two mounted divisions engaged against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East for almost three years the Palestine Campaign was Australia's longest running militarily significant endeavour of the First World War after the Western Front. And yet apart from the battle of Beersheba, the Palestine Campaign receives little attention in Australia compared to Gallipoli and the Western Front. In contrast to the years of grinding trench warfare in France and Belgium, the Palestine Campaign was a war of relative movement and manoeuvre. Cavalry, including Australia's light horse, played a prominent role, but it was a hard fought fully modern war, in which the latest military technologies and techniques were all used.

About the author(s)

Dr Jean Bou is a historian and lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Australian National University, where his teaching responsibilities include lecturing at the Australian Command and Staff College. A historian of war with an interest in operations in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, he is the author and co-editor of several books on Australian military history, including Light Horse: A History of Australia's Mounted Arm and Duty First: the Royal Australian Regiment, 1946-2006. He is also the lead author for the forthcoming fourth volume of the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations.

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