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U.S. Navy receipt for emergency aid supplies destined for the Jews of Palestine from the Joint Distribution Committee 100 years ago, February 21, 1916. According to the JDC file, the supplies included matzot for Passover. (JDC Archives)
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Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta) |
Posted: 29 Sep 2014
To provide some perspective, we present pictures of one of the most utilized tools of that war -- the camel. Tens of thousands were used in the war in Palestine.
The difficult terrain of the Sinai, the Jordan Valley, and the Samarian/Judean hills required extensive use of the sturdy and powerful four-legged "supply truck." Consider this report by a New Zealand officer in his book With the Cameliers in Palestine: In the advance up the coastal plain in Palestine, in November, 1917, General Allenby used thirty thousand (30,000) camels for carrying food, water and ammunition to the troops of one portion of the eastern force of his army.A Turkish account of the war, and specifically the 1914-1915 campaign against the British on the Suez Canal, describes the forces and the logistical nightmare of crossing the Sinai desert:
The gathering point for the VIII Corps was Beersheba, which was inland, well away from the reach of British naval artillery. From there, 25,000 men would march 300 kilometres across the desert and reach Ismailia. However, this was nothing but a mission impossible. Moreover, every man was allowed one kilogram of food and drink water per day and this meant that they needed 15,000 camels. But what they had was just 2,000 animals. [Commander] Cemil Paşa mentioned this problem in his memoirs as follows: “I think there are many people who are wandering why we couldn't find the required 15,000 camels in a place like Syria and Hejaz. We had to find 14,000 camels within one month.” Five kilograms of barley and 18 kilograms of water were allowed per horse and three kilograms of barley and five kilograms of water was allowed per camel.
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on captions to view the original pictures.
The following description is from "With the Cameliers in Palestine:" The field ambulance, instead of using wheeled vehicles, transported the sick and wounded in "caco-lets," on the backs of camels. These consisted of two canvas stretchers balanced horizontally, one on each side of a specially constructed saddle. In these the wounded men could either sit or lie at full length, and were shaded from the sun by a small canvas hood. The jolting
Only male camels were used in the
Horses generally have a strong dislike for camels, but this dislike can be overcome by daily contact. Some of the officers of higher rank of each battalion used horses during part of the campaign, and these soon grew quite accustomed to the company of their more ungainly associates.
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Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta) |
Posted: 26 Mar 2014 12:42 AM PDT
World War I brought widespread devastation to the Middle East as German and Turkish armies fought British, Australian and New Zealand troops in battlefields from the Suez Canal in the south to Damascus in the north. The war also meant a cut-off of aid and relief to the Jews of Palestine from Jewish philanthropists in Europe and the United States. As many as 10,000 Jews were expelled from Jaffa-Tel Aviv in April 1917 by the Turks, and many perished from disease and hunger.
But the famine that struck the residents of Palestine was also caused by a massive plague of locusts that swarmed into Eretz Yisrael in March 1915 and lasted until October. Accounts of the locusts and the subsequent starvation and pestilence recalled the plagues of Bible.
A New York Times account from April 1915 described deaths from starvation. By November 1915, theTimes detailed a cable from the American Counsel General in Jerusalem in which he described "fields covered by the locusts as far as the eye could reach." The diplomat reported on efforts made by the Turkish leader of Palestine to combat the locusts. A Jewish agronomist, "Dr. Aaron Aaronsohn, who is well known to the Department of Agriculture at Washington, was appointed High Commissioner" to the "Central Commission to Fight the Locusts."
[Aaronsohn would go on to establish the anti-Turkish NILI spy ring in 1917. His sister Sarah was captured by the Turks for her involvement in the spy ring, and after torture, she committed suicide.] American funds and food were essential for keeping the Jewish community in Palestine alive, and aid was delivered by U.S. Navy vessels.
The American Colony in Jerusalem established soup kitchens to feed starving residents in Jerusalem. The colony's photographers documented more than 200 pictures of the locusts' devastation, efforts to combat them and the locusts' life cycle. An album of color (hand tinted) photographs is stored in the Library of Congress collection.
Click on photos to enlarge. Click on captions to view the original pictures.
"In Jerusalem and Hebron," the report continued, "the heaviest loss from the onslaught of the locusts has been in connection with the olive groves and vineyards. Olive oil is a staple of food among the peasants and poorer classes....The grape, too, is a similar staple among all classes."
"When the larvae appeared near Jerusalem," the Times related, residents were mobilized "for immediate organized resistance....Tin-lined boxes were sunk in the earth in the direction in which the locusts were advancing." Men, women and children were given flags and "the flaggers would drive the locusts together in a dense column toward the trap..." Both the forces of war and nature combined to take a terrible toll on the residents of Palestine during World War I. Join 3,800 subscribers and receive Israel Daily Picture via email |