Lecture Summaries: 12 April, 2007

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Egypt and Palestine in the 1st World War - Memoirs of a British Army Officer

by
Julian M.C. Bowsher

This talk is based on some recently discovered family papers. It concerns Major Ronald Wyman who was (initially) a Staff Officer with the 53rd (Welsh) Divisional Artillery. The 53rd Artillery did not go to Gallipoli with the rest of the Division but after a short period in France went straight to Egypt. Wyman was with the Division for the first battles of Gaza but was subsequently stationed in Cairo for the rest of 1917. He returned to Palestine in early 1918 to command an Artillery Battery during Allenby's final advance. The papers do not offer any fresh insight into the conduct of the war but contain observations on military, social, "archaeological" and other topics. Combined with other material; official archives, histories and photographs, the Wyman papers provide an interesting excursion to Palestine in the early 20th Century.