THE FIRST JUDÆANS.
Nothing but a sense of the duty which I owed to my officers and men
induced me to continue serving in such a hostile atmosphere after the
armistice had been declared.
We suffered, but we suffered in silence, and just "carried on."
In the midst of our tribulations we, however, scored a decided triumph,
for the year-old decision of the War Office was at last announced by the
local Staff that we had won a special name, viz., the Judæans, and that
H.M. the King had sanctioned the Menorah as a special badge for the
Battalion.
The withholding of this information from us for a full year could not
have been an oversight, for I had repeatedly written to ask if the War
Office had not sanctioned this name and badge for the Battalion, but
received no reply. I can only presume that the object of G.H.Q. in
withholding this information, which would have brought prestige to the
Jews, was that they had hoped to get the Battalion disbanded and
abolished so that it might never have the gratification of knowing that
the Imperial Authorities considered that the Jewish Battalion had
distinguished itself, and was therefore entitled to the special name and
badge promised in 1917 by Lord Derby when Secretary of State for War.
Just after we had received this good news, I was gladdened by receiving
from the Council of Jews at Jerusalem a beautifully illuminated
parchment scroll, thanking me for the stand I had made in upholding the
ideals expressed in the Balfour Declaration, and for having led the
Jewish Battalions successfully in the great struggle which resulted in
the "Crown of Victory."
Yet one more triumph was in store for the 1st Judæans, for, in the
beginning of December, 1919, orders came from the War Office that it was
to be retained to garrison Palestine, and that the 39th and 40th
Battalions were to be amalgamated with it.
It was a great satisfaction to me to learn that it was to be retained,
for a time at least, as a unit of the British Army, and that it was to
be officially known as the First Judæans Battalion.
I now felt that my work was done and I could chant my "Nunc Dimittis." I
had seen my child weather the storms which had beaten so fiercely about
it, and in the end specially chosen to garrison its own Home Land.
A permanent force of Judæans in Palestine is an essentially sound
measure from every point of view.
World Jewry would, I am sure, be willing to take the entire cost of the
maintenance of this Force on its own shoulders; the money spent on it
would be well invested, for it would be the training centre of
Palestinian volunteers. Such a training would instil a sense of
responsibility, and enable young Jewry the more readily to follow
steadfastly in the simple but sublime footsteps of their heroic
forefathers.
As soon as I got back to England, I had an interview with the
Adjutant-General at the War Office, and requested that the savage
sentences passed on the young Americans at Belah should be revised.
Although the Adjutant-General was most sympathetic, he could not, at the
moment, see his way to interfere, so I then wrote to the Prime Minister
to let him know that these American soldiers had been very harshly
treated and were still imprisoned in the Citadel at Cairo. I pointed out
that it was hardly sound policy to offend a powerful ally by inflicting
such a barbarous sentence on men who had come over the seas as
volunteers to help us in the Great War. I therefore begged him to have
their case investigated.
The result of this letter was that the men were speedily released and
went back to their homes in the United States.