1 The Finest Feats of the War? The Captures of Baghdad and Jerusalem during the First World War and Public Opinion throughout the British Empire (Dr. Justin Fantauzzo, Assistant Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
[email protected]) ***Please do not cite until publication, forthcoming in War in History. Introduction Addressing the House of Commons on 20 December 1917, less than two weeks after the fall of Jerusalem, Prime Minister David Lloyd George implored his fellow Parliamentarians to contemplate the importance of the British Empire’s Middle Eastern victories: The British Empire owes a great deal to side-shows. I have no doubt at all that, when the history of 1917 comes to be written, and comes to be read, ages hence, these events in Mesopotamia and Palestine will hold a much more conspicuous place in the minds and the memories of people than many an event which looms much larger for the moment in our sight.1 At the time, the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force’s (MEF) victory at Baghdad in March and the Egyptian Expeditionary Force’s (EEF) capture of Jerusalem were rare bright spots in a year of dismal failures that included the unsuccessful Nivelle and Kerensky Offensives, Bolshevik revolt in Russia, the Italian collapse at Caporetto, and stalemate at Ypres. Nonetheless, Lloyd George’s speech hinted that neither the success in Mesopotamia nor in Palestine had been given their proper due. The war’s periphery in the Middle East, he claimed, was like the British victory over French settlers in Quebec during the Seven Years’ War. Initially, it would struggle to gain the public’s attention.