Megiddo V.

This is coolbert:

Guerrilla warfare!

The military experts are generally in agreement [?] that guerrilla warfare as that term is understood is most effective when combined with and as an adjunct to conventional combat operations!

As it was at Megiddo and a very rare event during the Great War [WW1], those irregular guerrilla forces of the Arab revolt attacking and destroying important and vital Turkish lines of communications in support of the general British advance!

"He [Allenby] also incorporated the irregular forces of the Arab Revolt into his operations"

"the Ottoman forces were distracted by attacks against their lines of communication by mainly irregular forces of the Arab Revolt"

"On 16 September 1918 [the main attack at Megiddo set for 19 September], Arabs under T. E. Lawrence and Nuri as-Said began destroying railway lines around the vital rail centre of Deraa, at the junction of the Hedjaz Railway which supplied the Ottoman army at Amman and the Palestine Railway which supplied the Ottoman armies in Palestine."

That rail line vital to continued Turkish re-supply and reinforcement attacked repeatedly in numerous locations, guerrilla warfare as successfully waged by the Arab irregulars an integral and planned effort by the British.

That guerrilla warfare is most effective when combined with and as an adjunct to conventional military operations also made apparent during the Battle of France, 1944.

That German SS division Das Reich taking fifteen days by road march to reach the Normandy battlefield, beset the entire way by the actions of the French resistance, the maquis. Das Reich running a planned gauntlet of ambush and sabotage, reaching the scene of battle in a depleted state, tired and exhausted from a period of continuous combat, in a less than effective state!!

"When ordered to the Normandy battle front, Das Reich was delayed by fifteen days through a concerted programme of sabotage organised by SOE [Special Operations Executive] and the French Resistance [maquis]. This delay was critical to the success of the D-Day advance."

"the French resistance, supported by the British and Americans, and the role they played in disrupting and slowing the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich in its journey from Toulouse to the bocage of Normandy. A journey that should have taken only a few days instead took over 15, due to the efforts of the resistance and of Allied air cover."

"That this journey was slowed . . . did have a significant impact on the second battle of France."

Consideration and planning of the sabotage effort as waged by the Arab forces in those days prior to 19 September not absolutely vital to British success at Megiddo but nonetheless valuable and of worth!

coolbert.