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Megiddo

Megiddo's Shadow

About the book Introduction letter My Grandfather's Story Palestine Map Megiddo Podcasts Megiddo Trailer (new!) "Making of Megiddo" Movie Bibliography

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In spring of 1918 the Germans made a series of advances on the Western front so Allenby, the general in charge of the Palestine campaign, was forced to send almost 3/4's of his experienced British troops back to France. This included the Lincolnshire Yeomanry who had to leave all their horses in the Middle East. Herbert would have returned to France with the regiment, so now there were only two Slade brothers in the Middle East. The 18th Mounted Machine gun section remained in Palestine. Indian regiments were sent over to fill in the gaps in Palestine and grandfather's section was attached to one of these (in the photo he is wearing a turban so his section was "Indianized" so that they fit in with the rest of the regiment--that puts the date of the photo after April of 1918. Also of note he is holding a lance in his hand, something he would be trained to use in a charge).


Palestine The Final Battle for Megiddo
According to the regimental diary NIL happened for the next few months. But by September of that year the British had organized themselves to make a "big" push against the Turks that was called the battle for Megiddo (Megiddo is the ruins of city on a high rock platform. It is famous in the Bible because it is the root of the word Armageddon, which means Òthe armies will gather at MegiddoÓ). Imagine a line drawn west to east above Jerusalem then curving down the Jordan Valley. Allenby secretly moved a great portion of his forces to the western coast. On Sept. 19th at 4:30 AM the British began bombarding the Turkish lines near the Mediterranean. Over 1000 shells per minute were fired, the Turks line was broken, and about 20,000 horsemen cut through the opening, streaming northwards. Grandfather and Cecil would have been one of these men. It's hard to know exactly where they would have fought along this line, since I don't know which regiment he was attached to, but he would have gone towards Nazareth and then on to a place called Beisan (it's south east of Nazareth on the map).
Here is the final entries from the Machine Gun Squadron Diary:
28/10 marched to Mezerib
29/9 Marched to Dilli Syria Haifa
30/9 Marched to Zerakia Syria Beyrout
1/10 Marched to outskirts of Damascus.
14/10 Marched to Baalbek Damascus
18-31/10 Nil. Report from hospital of the deaths of 18 men received during the month.
 The Turks surrendered on the 31st of October. Oddly enough there is no mention of the end of the war in the diary. Typical British understatement. It is in these last few weeks of the war that Grandfather most likely caught malaria, as most everyone did. As the British were rushing across the Turk lines they were also rushing into mosquitoes with new strains of malaria. It is also around this time that the Spanish influenza began to seriously affect the battle readiness of the British forces. Grandfather would have been demobilized in May or June of 1919 and sent home to England.