Imperial Warrior: The life and times of Field-Marshal Viscount Allenby 1861-1936

‘Bull’ Allenby, a cavalryman with a massive frame and ferocious temper, was the general who liberated Jerusalem in December 1917.

For this he became a public hero – that rare creature, a First World War commander who won battles. He won more in 1918 when, after a dazzling campaign, he conquered Syria and Lebanon. He had succeeded where Richard the Lionheart had failed, but his glory faded and he was superseded in the public imagination by his enigmatic protйgй, T.E. Lawrence.

Allenby was an intriguing mass of contradictions. In private he was a gentle husband and father and a keen and well-informed naturalist who loved poetry and intelligent conversation; in public he was the ‘bull’, a short-tempered martinet who browbeat his subordinates and once, when asked to withdraw soldiers because the offensive was futile, barked, ‘What the hell does that matter? There are plenty more men in England!’

This is the first biography for over thirty years of Edmund Hynman Allenby, a Victorian gentleman soldier who made a name for himself hunting down Boer guerrillas. Success in the small wars of empire qualified him for high command on the Western Front, where he foundered trying to come to terms with the new technological warfare. Addicted to suicidal offensives, Allenby was dismissed by Haig when it became clear that he no longer trusted Haig’s judgements. This proved his lucky break, for he was transferred in 1917 to the Middle East where his unused talents were released.

Drawing extensively on unpublished material, this fine biography reassesses a general characterised by George Orwell as ‘the best of a bad lot’ and sheds new light on the high command in the First World War, the history of the Middle East, and on Allenby’s relations with Lawrence of Arabia.

Praise for Imperial Warrior:
’An excellent biography’ – The Spectator

‘The strength of Imperial Warrior is its author's grasp of history’ - Financial Times

Lawrence James has written on various aspects of nineteenth and twentieth-century imperial history; his works include The Golden Warrior: The life and legend of Lawrence of Arabia and The Iron Duke: a military biography of the Duke of Wellington.