2 The Zion Mule Corps The origin of the Zion Mule Corps and its association with the founding of the Jewish Legion is an important and vital part of the history of Russian Jewish service in the British Army. In Chapter 1 mention was made of Pinhas Rutenberg and Vladimir Jabotinsky, who shared the idea of raising a Jewish force under the aegis of the western Allies. They were not alone. Russian Jewish exiles living in Palestine and Turkey were also considering Zionist participation in the war, but on the Ottoman side. Two of the leading activists, David Ben-Gurion and Isaac Ben-Zvi (the pair were known as the ‘Benim’), both of whom were to play a crucial part in the formation of an independent Israel, then saw the future interests of Zion as being best served by assisting the Turks. They feared that the neu- trality officially espoused by the Zionist movement could discredit and endanger the Jews who had settled in Palestine under a benign Ottoman regime.1 The ‘Benim’ were socialist writers, journalists and publishers who had practised what they preached. By working on the land in Palestine following the rise of the ‘Young Turks’ in 1908, they demonstrated their belief that some sort of Jewish self-government in Palestine was more likely to be acquired by living there rather than by pursuing the cause at a distance through slow and complex diplomatic means. This was in marked contrast to the appreciation formed by Ahad Ha’am fol- lowing his visits to Palestine. He understood that local Arabs benefited from Jewish agricultural settlement, and that the Ottoman authorities were perfectly aware of the bribery and corruption of local Turkish officials that enabled the settlers to bypass some of the legal restrictions imposed upon them. Nevertheless, he concluded that the Turks would only permit a certain amount of Jewish settlement, and as soon as the 20 M. Watts, The Jewish Legion and the First World War © Martin Watts 2004 The Zion Mule Corps 21 threshold was crossed, and the Turks felt threatened, then vigorous action against the Jews was bound to follow.2 As part of their commitment to working for Zion from within the Ottoman Empire, the ‘Benim’ spent a couple of years before 1914 studying law at the university in Constantinople, where they discussed using their qualifications, knowledge and experience so that ‘Maybe someday we can sit as representatives of the Jewish people in the Turkish Parliament.’3 After their return to Palestine and, following Turkey’s entry into the war, the Benim volunteered for service in the Turkish Army. They pro- posed to the Turkish military commander in Jerusalem that Jews be allowed to form a fighting force to assist in the defence of Palestine, presumably in the event of an Allied attack from Egypt. Not surpris- ingly, this proposal was turned down, although a small number of Jewish volunteers (forty according to one source)4 were permitted to train as a militia, before the authorities closed it down. The extent of Ben Gurion’s and Ben Zvi’s misjudgement regarding Turkey’s attitude towards the future of Jewish settlers in Palestine was soon made apparent, however, for in December 1914 the Ottoman authorities began arresting Jews, and the Benim found themselves in prison in Jerusalem before being deported to Alexandria, in British- controlled Egypt. Here they were arrested as enemy aliens by the British authorities, although this was strictly not the case, as they did not possess Turkish citizenship. Eventually they obtained, like many similar exiles, travel papers that enabled them to proceed to the United States, finally arriving in New York in May 1915. During their time in Alexandria, Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi witnessed the efforts of Vladimir Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor to raise a Jewish military unit from among local and exiled Jewish refugees for service with the British Army. Trumpeldor, whom they had first met in Constantinople during his journey back to Palestine from the Zionist congress in Vienna, had been a Russian army hero during the Russo- Japanese war, when he lost an arm at Port Arthur. Following a year as a prisoner of war in Japan, where he organised Zionist classes and a ‘Jewish Prisoners’ Organisation’, Trumpeldor and his comrades were returned to Russia. In recognition of his military services he was both decorated for gallantry and commissioned into the Army Reserve; it is probable that he was the only Jewish officer in the Tsarist army. By December 1914 Trumpeldor was living in Alexandria on a Russian military pension.5 Vladimir Jabotinsky was a roving journalist employed by the Russian Monitor whose profession gave him an opportunity for extensive travel, 22 The Jewish Legion and the First World War an opportunity denied the vast majority of Russian Jews. In 1909 he had been the editor of a number of Zionist journals in Constantinople, and formed an opinion of the Turkish authorities that was in stark contrast to the original appreciation of the Benim. In short, he believed that the breakup of the Ottoman Empire was a prerequisite for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, a development that also required the co-operation of the (victorious) western powers. When Turkey entered the war, Jabotinsky, who was then in France, immediately reckoned that Turkey would be defeated, and calculated that a Jewish force raised to fight on the side of the western Allies against the Turks could play a vital role in achieving Zionist objectives. This puts Jabotinsky about two months behind Rutenberg in thought, but not in deed. He obtained permission from his editor to tour the Muslim coun- tries of North Africa to report on the effect of the extension of hostilities. En route to Morocco he visited Dr Max Nordau, one of Zionism’s elder statesmen, then living in exile in Madrid. In conversation Jabotinsky clearly expressed his anti-Turkish views, even to the extent of dismissing the widely held Jewish view of Turks as Semitic cousins. Such sympathy, which was implicit in the pro-Turkish stance of the Benim, played no part in the Zionist thinking of Vladimir Jabotinsky: ‘Doctor,’ I said, ‘we cannot let idiots (Jews regarding Turks as their cousins) dictate our policy. Not only are the Turks no cousins of ours; even with the real Ishmael [i.e. Arabs] we have nothing in common. We belong to Europe, thank God; for two thousand years we helped to build European civilisation. And here comes another quotation from one of your speeches: “We are going to Palestine to extend the moral boundaries of Europe as far as the Euphrates. Our worst enemy in this undertaking is the Turk. Now that the hour of his downfall has struck, we cannot possibly stand by and do nothing, can we?”’6 Jabotinsky then travelled to Alexandria where, in December 1914, he saw the plight of the Jewish refugees from Turkey. The British authorities set up two refugee camps at Gabbari and Mafruza, in close proximity, which contained an estimated 1,200 inmates, of whom three-quarters were Russian Ashekenazim, and the remainder Sephardim of local and Palestinian origin.7 Jabotinsky devoted his time to relief work in the camps, and to estab- lishing, with others, a Hebrew community. For example, he enlisted the assistance of Edgar Suares, a banker and local Sephardi leader, in The Zion Mule Corps 23 prevailing upon the British authorities not to co-operate with the Russian consul, Count Petrov, who was obliged by his government to secure all Russian citizens in Egypt for military service in the Russian Army. Petrov’s efforts ended in vain, but this was not the first time that he had experienced difficulty in dealing with Jews because, some- what ironically, he had unsuccessfully attempted to force the local Sephardim to surrender Pinhas Rutenberg for arrest following his revolutionary activities in Russia.8 Count Petrov did, however, perform one very valuable service for Jabotinsky by introducing him to Joseph Trumpeldor. The journalist and the soldier worked to form a military unit from the Russian Jews in the camps, in anticipation of a British advance from Egypt to Palestine. News of further Turkish restrictions and actions against Jews remaining in Palestine continued to be received in the camps. A meeting was held in the evening of (Tuesday) 2 March 1915, attended by Jabotinsky, Trumpeldor, Mordecai Margolis an Oil Company representative, Dr Weitz a Jerusalem doctor, Victor Gluskin a wine grower, Z.D. Levontin a banker and Akiva Ettinger an agronomist. They duly resolved ‘To form a Jewish Legion and to propose to England to make use of it in Palestine.’9 A week later nearly 200 Jewish refugees had pledged to join the Legion, and the next step for Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor was to take a delegation to the British civil and military authorities in Cairo, repre- sented by Ronald Graham, the minister of interior and the general officer commanding, General Sir John Maxwell. The delegation included Levontin, Gluskin and a local Sephardi leader named Kattawi Pasha. Unfortunately, their proposal was not welcomed with the enthusiasm that Jabotinsky in particular had expected. General Maxwell pointed out that he was unable, under the Army Acts, to recruit alien soldiers as a unit into the British army, but he was willing to consider employing the Jewish volunteers in a transport and supply unit. Again, and much to Jabotinsky’s disgruntlement, General Maxwell informed the delegation that there was no planned British offensive in Palestine and he could only hint at employment on ‘another Turkish front’.10 Jabotinsky took this as a rebuff, and left Egypt to pursue his cause in the capitals of the western Allies.