Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount, British And Irish History, Biographies

Related Category: British And Irish History, Biographies

Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby, 1st Viscount[al´unbE] Pronunciation Key, 1861–1936, British field marshal. Educated at Sandhurst, he saw active service in Bechuanaland (1884–85) and Zululand (1888) and in the South African War (1899–1902). When World War I broke out (1914), he commanded first the cavalry and then (1915–17) the 3d Army in France. Appointed commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in June, 1917, he waged the last of the great cavalry campaigns by invading Palestine, capturing Jerusalem, and ending Turkish resistance after the battle of Megiddo (Sept. 18–21, 1918). He served as British high commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan (1919–25). He was made viscount in 1919.

See A. P. Wavell, Allenby (1941) and Allenby in Egypt (1945); B. Gardner, Allenby of Arabia (1965).