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In 1914 Gaza City was described by a travel writer as a beautiful white walled city in a fertile valley.By 1917 Gaza was in ruins. As many times before, through its 3000 years long history, Gaza had a bad luck to become a battleground.
This time it was Britain fighting by than the ‘Sick man of Bosporus’, the Ottoman Empire, which ruled for 5 centuries in the Middle East and Europe all the way to the walls of Vienna.
The Turks were fortified in Gaza and British were besieging them and pounding Gaza mercilessly.
Until 1917 an exceptionally incompetent Sir Archibald Murray was in charge of 44 thousand British soldier . He did not spare his man because he previously lied to the War Cabinet in London that the war in Gaza was going really well and he was desperate for success.
Some of the 4 thousand soldiers he lost are buried in the war cemeteries in Gaza City and Deir Al Balah, a town about 15 kilometers to the south.
In 1917 Murray was replaced by Sir Edmund Allenby (of the Allenby Bridge fame (-: ) who continued with the waves of attacks on the fortified Turks.
He entered destroyed and deserted Gaza on 7 November 1917 after a 9 month long battle and 30 years of UK occupation followed.
There was nothing left of historical Gaza or otherwise and even the English Hospital, set up by the English missionaries in 1880 was in ruins.
Over 10 thousand British soldiers and soldiers from the colonies died in Gaza. I am sure there are figures of how many Gazans were killed but they are not so easy to come by. Some things never change!
Looking at the gravestones 19 April 1917 and 2 November 1917 seem to have been a particularly bloody. Possibly 2 November because the battle was raging just before Allenby entered Gaza.
In the Gaza Cemetery there are also some graves from WW2. Brits, Australians, Polish, New Zealanders, Greeks, one Yugoslav and remarkably there are 4 enemy German graves!
There is a memorial to 12 ‘Musliman’ soldiers form Indian Army, 25 Indians, and there is a little separate cemetery for Canadians killed in ‘ate 50s and 60s.
I came across the graves of two women one English, Staff Nurse Mary who died in the WW1 and a Lieutenant Jean from New Zeland who died in WW2. There are a few more medics one from a dental unit. This kind of detail brings the whole horrible war thing a bit closer and a bit more real after almost 100 years. Soldiers had toothaches on the top of all the other suffering, of course and than the dentist soldier was killed.
Walking around on the soft English grass in the late afternoon in this beautiful and well looked after cemetery it would be easy to forget where one is – there is nothing Gazan an about this place.
It is like a bit of Britain was created in this faraway place so that soldiers can be in a familiar place.
During the WW1 Brits encouraged Arabs to revolt against the Turks and were promised independence and than betrayed. After the WW1 was over the Arab lands were divided between Britain and France and the rest is history.
Tags: Gaza, occupation, The Gret War, The Second World War, War Cemeteries, War Cenetery Gaza, war reporting
