Wingate's Raiders: The Nucleus of a National Army
WINGATE’S RAIDERS:
THE NUCLEUS OF A NATIONAL ARMYHITLER AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
Due Date
Student Number WINGATE’S RAIDERS:
THE NUCLEUS OF A NATIONAL ARMY
Captain Orde Wingate helped to shape the first effective Jewish defense against Arab attacks during the years 1936-1939. When Wingate arrived in Palestine as a British intelligence officer, the Jews were meeting these attacks with strictly defensive measures inherited from the Haganah, an underground resistance organization. When he left three years later, the Jews had learned to defend by preventive guerrilla attack. In bringing about this change Wingate provided a pattern for the creation of a unified Jewish national army. The historical background of the Arab-Jewish conflicts with which this study is concerned may be summarized briefly. After World War I Palestine became the scene of a conflict between the Jewish drive for a national home and the Arab opposition to that drive. The conflict began with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the British government supported the Zionist movement; it increased in intensity as Arabs rioted against the immigration of 100,000 Jews in the 1920 's and another 150,000 between 1930 and 1935.1 In 1935 the Arabs demanded that Britain end its mandate over Palestine and recognize Arab sovereignty in that area.2 When this demand was refused., the Arabs, in 1936, began a series of attacks on the Jews which were to last four years and be known as the Arab Revolt.3 The Revolt quickly expanded into a guerrilla war. Organized into bands of 80 to 150 men,4 well armed with rifles left over from World Wax I or smuggled from Trans-Jordan,5 and led by men experienced in guerrilla tactics, the Arabs destroyed crops and property., cut telegraph lines., dynamited railway tracks and bridges, and ambushed trains and convoys.6 In 1937 alone they made 143 attacks on Jewish settlements, killing 32 civilians and wounding 83.7 In conducting this
THE NUCLEUS OF A NATIONAL ARMYHITLER AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC
Due Date
Student Number WINGATE’S RAIDERS:
THE NUCLEUS OF A NATIONAL ARMY
Captain Orde Wingate helped to shape the first effective Jewish defense against Arab attacks during the years 1936-1939. When Wingate arrived in Palestine as a British intelligence officer, the Jews were meeting these attacks with strictly defensive measures inherited from the Haganah, an underground resistance organization. When he left three years later, the Jews had learned to defend by preventive guerrilla attack. In bringing about this change Wingate provided a pattern for the creation of a unified Jewish national army. The historical background of the Arab-Jewish conflicts with which this study is concerned may be summarized briefly. After World War I Palestine became the scene of a conflict between the Jewish drive for a national home and the Arab opposition to that drive. The conflict began with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in which the British government supported the Zionist movement; it increased in intensity as Arabs rioted against the immigration of 100,000 Jews in the 1920 's and another 150,000 between 1930 and 1935.1 In 1935 the Arabs demanded that Britain end its mandate over Palestine and recognize Arab sovereignty in that area.2 When this demand was refused., the Arabs, in 1936, began a series of attacks on the Jews which were to last four years and be known as the Arab Revolt.3 The Revolt quickly expanded into a guerrilla war. Organized into bands of 80 to 150 men,4 well armed with rifles left over from World Wax I or smuggled from Trans-Jordan,5 and led by men experienced in guerrilla tactics, the Arabs destroyed crops and property., cut telegraph lines., dynamited railway tracks and bridges, and ambushed trains and convoys.6 In 1937 alone they made 143 attacks on Jewish settlements, killing 32 civilians and wounding 83.7 In conducting this
Bibliography: Koestler, Arthur. Promise and Fulfillment. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1949. League of Nations Mandates. British Reports on Palestine and Trans-Jordan, 1937-1938. London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1939. Mosley, Leonard. Gideon Goes to War. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 1955. History Central, “Orde Wingate,” http://www.multied.com/Bio/people/Wingate.html (accessed, October 8, 2007). Primary Sources: The New York Times, March 15, 1937, p The New York Times, September 12, 1938, p. 4. "Palestine," Encyclopedia Britannica, 1959, XVII, 133-135. Royal Institute of International Affairs. Great Britain and Palestine , 1915-1939. London: Oxford University Press, 1939. Sugrue, Thomas. Watch for the Morning. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950. Sykes, Christopher. Orde Wingate. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1959. Syrkin, Maxie. Blessed Is the Match. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1947. Viton, Albert. "It 's War in Palestine," Nation, CXLVII (October 1, 1938), 320-323. Weizmann, Chaim. Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann. 2 vols. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1949. Wells, Linton. "Holy Terror in Palestine," Current History, XLIX (December, 1938), 24-26. "Wingate, Orde Charles," Dictionary of National Biography 1941-1950. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.