[6] Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in October 1899, Allenby returned to his regiment, and the Inniskillings embarked at Queenstown and landed at Cape Town, South Africa, later that year.

[12] Allenby participated in the actions at Zand River on 10 May 1900, Kalkheuval Pass on 3 June 1900, Barberton on 12 September 1900 and Tevreden on 16 October 1900 when the Boer General Jan Smuts was defeated.

[21] He was nicknamed "The Bull" due to an increasing tendency for sudden bellowing outbursts of explosive rage directed at his subordinates, combined with his powerful physical frame.

At the outbreak of war in August 1914, a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to France, under the command of Field Marshal Sir John French.

[25] When a headquarters officer asked why Brigadier General Hubert Gough's cavalry brigade was miles from where it was supposed to be, he received the reply: "He told me he was getting as far away from the Bull as possible.

[21] On 6 May 1915, Allenby voluntarily left the Cavalry Arm to take up command of V Corps which was engaged at that moment in severe fighting at the Second Battle of Ypres.

They executed a minor attack in the Hooge Sector in the Ypres Salient under Allenby's direction, which once again incurred substantial losses to its units involved in the affair.

[32] Allenby had wider interests than many other British generals, reading books on every conceivable subject from botany to poetry and was noted for his critical intellect.

[32] An officer who had dinner with Allenby at his headquarters in a French château recalled: His keen grey-blue eyes, under heavy brows, search the face while he probes the mind with sharp, almost staccato questions about everything under the sun except what is expected.

[33]Many of Allenby's officers believed that he was incapable of any emotion except rage, but he was in fact a loving father and husband who was intensely concerned about his only child, Michael, who was serving at the front.

[34] In March 1917, the Germans pulled back to the Hindenburg Line, which led Allenby to argue that the planned offensive in the Arras sector in April should be changed, a request Haig refused.

[40] Although many of the War Cabinet wanted more efforts on the Palestine Front, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir William Robertson, believed that Western Front commitments did not justify a serious attempt to capture Jerusalem (Third Ypres was in progress from 31 July until November), and throughout 1917 he put pressure on Allenby to demand unrealistically large reinforcements to discourage the politicians from authorising Middle East offensives.

[41] Allenby assessed the Turkish Army's fighting force that he was facing to be 46,000 rifles and 2,800 sabres, and estimated that he could take Jerusalem with 7 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions.

[42] Allenby was eventually ordered to attack the Turks in southern Palestine, but the extent of his advance was not yet to be decided, advice which Robertson repeated in "secret and personal" notes (1 and 10 August).

[44] Allenby quickly won the respect of his troops by making frequent visits to the EEF's front-line units, in a marked change from the leadership style of his predecessor Murray, who had commanded primarily from Cairo.

When he asked about their meanings, he was told that they were of the seasonal incidence of malignant malaria in the Plain of Sharon, then he replied: I think it is the reason why Richard Coeur de Lion never got to Jerusalem.

The hereditary custodians at the gates of the Holy Sepulchre have been requested to take up their accustomed duties in remembrance of the magnanimous act of the Caliph Omar, who protected that church.

[52] Allenby dismounted and entered the city on foot through the Jaffa Gate, together with his officers, in deliberate contrast to the perceived arrogance of the Kaiser's entry into Jerusalem on horseback in 1898,[53] which had not been well received by the local citizens.

The procession was all afoot, and at Jaffa gate I was received by the guards representing England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, India, France and Italy.

"[43] The British press printed cartoons of Richard Coeur de Lion – who had himself failed to capture Jerusalem – looking down on the city from the heavens with the caption reading, "The last Crusade.

[61] Smuts was sent to Egypt to confer with Allenby and Marshall (C-in-C Mesopotamia), with Robertson's clash with the government now moving to its final stages, and the new Supreme War Council at Versailles drawing up plans for more efforts in the Middle East.

He halted the offensive in the spring of 1918 and had to send 60,000 men to the Western Front, although the Dominion Prime Ministers in the Imperial War Cabinet continued to demand a strong commitment to the Middle East in case Germany could not be beaten.

Following an extended series of deceptive moves, the Ottoman line was broken at the Battle of Megiddo (19–21 September 1918), and the Allied cavalry passed through and blocked the Turkish retreat.

Progress was made: Egypt was granted limited self-government, and a draft constitution was published in October 1922 leading to the formation of a Zaghlul government in January 1924.

In those circumstances, the Central Powers were likely to be left in control of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and it had been sensible for Britain to grab some land in the Middle East to block Germany's route to India.

[6][75] Their only child, Lieutenant Horace Michael Hynman Allenby, MC (1898–1917), was killed in action at Koksijde in Flanders whilst serving with the Royal Horse Artillery.

[83] The epic film Lawrence of Arabia depicts the Arab Revolt during World War I. Allenby is given a major part in it and is portrayed by Jack Hawkins in one of his best-known roles.

[87] Into the 1990s, residents of Ismaïlia in north-eastern Egypt burned effigies to mark an annual spring holiday, including one of Allenby more than 70 years after he led forces in the Sinai.

[88] The British journalist Mark Urban has argued that Allenby is one of the most important British generals who ever lived, writing that Allenby's use of air power, mechanised forces and irregulars led by Lawrence marked one of the first attempts at a new type of war while at the same time he had to act as a politician holding together a force comprising men from many nations, making him "the first of the modern supreme commanders".

[90] If the Ottoman Empire had continued in its pre-war frontiers after the war—and before Allenby arrived in Egypt the British had not advanced very far—then it is probable that the nations of Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq would not exist today.