How the EEF Redrew the Map

0:00Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along, which is why you should try Zippercrooter for free. At zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, Zippercrooter finds you what you're looking for. The needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post a job on Zippercrooter get a quality candidate within the first day. Zippercrooter, the smartest way to hire. And right now, you can try Zippercrooter for free. That's right. Free. Zippercrooter.com slash zip. That's Zippercrooter.com slash zip. Zippercrooter.com slash zip. Welcome to today's custom tailor dip dive.

1:02Great to be here. Yeah. I want you to start by picturing something in your mind's eye. Imagine a military guard detail. Their assignment is straight forward. I mean, almost boring. Stand watch, protect a single shipping canal and make sure nobody crosses a specific line in the sand. A classic static defense. Exactly. But then through this bizarre sequence of historical events, momentum shifts and just sheer strategic brilliance, that same defensive guard detail accidentally ends up conquering 50 miles of territory. It really is wild when you lay it out like that. They destroy three entire enemy armies and ultimately they redraw the map of the modern world. Yeah, it really sounds like the plot of a geopolitical thriller. It does. It's exactly what happened during the First World War. And for a curious learner like you who wants to understand not just what happened in history, but the mechanics of how and why it happened, this deep dive is going to be incredibly rewarding. We aren't just looking at a dry sequence of battles here.

2:05This is a masterclass in adaptability. It's a study in overcoming massive seemingly impossible bottlenecks. Right. And a prime example of how a few strategic pivots can just completely alter a prolonged bloody stalemate. Yeah. Okay, let's unpack this from the very beginning. Our mission today is to trace the dramatic evolution of the Egyptian expeditionary force or the EES. The EES. Yeah. We have a highly detailed historical overview of this force from World War One. And we're going to follow them from their birth as this small reactive unit all the way to their transformation into an unstoppable offensive juggernaut. It's a massive transformation. So let's look at the early phases of the war. And on March 10th, 1916, General Archibald Murray is in charge. Right. The British Empire throws together this sort of mashup force. They take the Mediterranean expeditionary force and combine it with the force in Egypt. Exactly. So what was their actual practical mandate at this point? Well, their original job description was incredibly narrow and entirely defensive.

3:05They had one overarching objective which was to guard the Suez Canal and protect the British protectorate of the Sultan of Egypt. Just hold the line. Just hold the line. But to remember the context of the era for the British Empire, the Suez Canal was the vital lifeline. The jugular vein. Yes, the absolute jugular vein. It connected the troops and resources of India and the Pacific directly to the European theater. Right. If the canal fell to the Ottoman Empire, the entire war effort could effectively starve. So this newly formed EES was essentially parked in the sand to act as a massive shield. But then we see this massive catalyst for growth. And ironically, it comes from a catastrophic failure elsewhere. Good. Good. Exactly. The British and allied forces were withdrawing from the infamous disastrous Gallupoli campaign. And as they pull out those surviving troops, compouring into Egypt. You need to where to go. Right. So suddenly the EES swells in size. It turns into this massive reserve pool.

4:06And the original idea was just to let these exhausted troops rest, refit, and then ship them off as reinforcements to the meat grinder of the Western Front in Europe. That was the plan on paper, but war rarely adheres to a schedule. Tell me about it. While they are gathering this massive force in Egypt, local threats force their hand. You have the Western Frontier Force, which is a component of this overall structure, fighting the Snewse campaign out in the Western desert from 1915 to 1917. Okay. And more critically for our timeline, the Eastern Force actually gets attacked. They have to actively defend the canal at the Battle of Romani in August, 1916. And this is where we see the first major momentum shift because they don't just hold the line at Romani and sit back down in their trenches. No, they don't. They repel the Ottoman invading force and then they completely flip the script. They push the Ottomans all the way back across the Sinai Peninsula toward Palestine. It's a huge turning point. They start racking up active victories at Magtaba in December, 1916, and then at Rafa in

5:08January, 1917. The shield has suddenly become a sword. Exactly. But moving an army across the Sinai isn't just a matter of marching as it, I mean, it's a desert. Not at all. And what's fascinating here is the structural and psychological shift that takes place to make that pursuit possible. Moving across the Sinai is a logistical nightmare. Yeah, I can imagine. You are fighting the environment as much as the enemy. You have to lay railway tracks and water pipelines just to keep your men and horses alive in the deep desert. Building infrastructure while under fire. Basically yes. And to facilitate this push, the command forms something called the desert column within the Eastern force, which sounds like a pretty significant tactical evolution. It is a massive leap. You don't dedicate resources to forming a specialized desert column if your only plan is passive defense. Right. You only do that if you plan to move precisely. This represents an organizational awakening. They realize they have the capacity for active pursuit. And by doing this, they successfully recapture substantial Egyptian territory that had been

6:12threatened. And they push the front line all the way to the edge of Ottoman controlled Palestine. It is an incredible pivot, but you know, you can't just march forward indefinitely without hitting a wall. No, you inevitably hit resistance. And in this next phase of the campaign, the EEF hits a massive, painful wall. In March and April of 1917, the Eastern force suffers two crushing bloody defeats on Ottoman territory at Gaza. Yes. The first and second battles of Gaza, the momentum they have built up just completely evaporates. Those defeats at Gaza were a harsh reality check. What follows is a miserable grinding period known as the stalemate in southern Palestine. This lasts from April, all the way to October 1917. Just brutal. General Murray, the commander at the time, tries to consolidate his position, but the offensive spirit is completely dead. The energy is gone. The army is bogged down, staring across the lines at a heavily entrenched enemy. They're taking casualties, exhausting their supplies, and are completely unable to move forward.

7:13It is the classic definition of a military bottleneck. I look at this scenario and I think of it through a modern organizational lens. How so? Well, what do you do when a massive organization is failing? The current leadership is stuck and you are just bleeding resources. You bring in new leadership. You bring in a turnaround CEO, enter General Edmund Allenby in June 1917. He arrives to take command and he doesn't just give a motivational speech. He initiates a total systemic reorganization. He really does. He looks at the force and realizes the old operational architecture simply isn't suited for the breakthrough they need. So to use your analogy, he completely restructures the departments. I love this. That desert column we mentioned, he upgrades it, turning it into the desert-matted core. He also formally organizes the infantry troops into two distinct bodies. The XX core and the XXI core. Exactly. Now, I buy the turnaround CEO analogy, but restructuring on paper is one thing. How did he actually get these exhausted defeated troops to execute a completely new style

8:16of warfare? I mean, what does renaming a column to a core actually achieve on the battlefield? It achieves a crucial separation of capabilities. Think of it like a surgeon separating the heavy blunt instruments from the precision tools. OK, I'm with you. By creating the desert-mounted core, Allenby is separating his highly mobile cavalry from the slower-moving infantry. The infantry becomes the hammer, designed to strike hard, fix the enemy in place, and brave fortifications. And the cavalry? The cavalry becomes the scalpel. They are designed to move independently, exploit gaps with incredible speed, and operate on the flanks without being tied to the slow pace of the foot soldiers. If we connect this to the bigger picture for you listening, this Gaza bottleneck is a phenomenal example of why doing the same thing twice and failing both times requires a total systemic reorganization. It's the definition of insanity to try it a third time. Exactly. Allenby knew that if he just threw the same army with the same structure at Gaza for a third time, he'd get the exact same bloody failure.

9:18So he didn't just bring new orders, he brought a new operational structure. He spent months drilling this new structure, making sure his hammer and his scalpel knew exactly how to operate independently. And he had to, because the Ottoman defenses at this point were formidable. They stretched in an almost continuous, heavily fortified line from the coastal city of Gaza all the way inland to a desert town called Bershiba. Here's where it gets really interesting. The obvious move, the one that the Ottomans were almost certainly bracing for, was another head-on clash at Gaza. Of course. But Allenby makes a massive lateral move. Instead of banging their heads against the wall at Gaza a third time, on October 31, 1917, he sends two of his corps to attack the inland anchor of the line. Bershiba. Bershiba. The tactical brilliance of targeting Bershiba cannot be overstated. Why is that? Well, Bershiba was held by the Ottoman III Corps. These were battle-hardened veterans who had fought at Gallipoli. Furthermore, the Ottomans assumed the deep desert itself protected that flank.

10:19I thought the environment was their defense. Right. But Allenby recognized that a continuous defensive line is essentially a chain under tension. Bershiba was the anchor holding that tension. Break the anchor, break the chain. Exactly. If you shatter the anchor, the entire defensive structure is compromised. Furthermore, Bershiba had vital water wells. In the desert, capturing the enemy's water supply is just as devastating as capturing their ammunition. And once that line broke at Bershiba, the Ottoman defense completely unraveled. It wasn't just one localized victory. It was a devastating domino effect. A cascade of victories. Within days, the EEF rolled through the defenses. You get the Battle of Tele-El-Quelfe, the Third Battle of Gaza, the Battle of Herrera, and Sharia. It's relentless. The pressure is so immense that the Ottomans are forced to abandon Gaza entirely under the cover of night on November 6th and 7th. The EEF essentially chases the unraveling Ottoman forces all the way across the map. Because the bottleneck was broken, the pursuit could finally begin.

11:20And the ultimate prize of this phase was Jerusalem. The big prize. The momentum was back, but this time it was fueled by Alibis highly organized, efficient machine. Following a crucial victory at the Battle of Mugar Ridge, the pursuit to Jerusalem begins. And the culmination of that push is historic. Starting from mid-November, all the way to December 30th, the campaign pushes directly into the Judean Hills and Jerusalem is captured. A massive psychological blow to the Ottoman. Huge. By the end of this campaign phase, the EEF has swallowed up 50 miles of Ottoman territory in a stunning reversal of fortune. From the miserable stalemate, they were stuck in just a few months prior. Right. It is a textbook example of how a shift in strategy, combined with the proper reorganization of assets, can completely shatter a deadlock. They achieved exactly what they set out to do. But as often happens in large-scale conflicts, you are never operating in a vacuum. No. Geopolitics in the wider war always find a way to interfere with local success. Enter the massive plot twist.

12:21Yes. Just as the EEF is dominating, just as they have captured Jerusalem and have the Ottomans entirely on their heels, a massive crisis erupts in Europe. This is early 1918. Exactly. March 1918. The German Army launches a devastating spring offensive known as Operation Michael on the Western Front. And the British high command panics. Absolute panic. They are taking massive casualties in France, and they desperately need veteran troops to plug the holes in their own lines. So London looks at the map, sees the EEF having success in the Middle East, and makes a brutal pragmatic calculation. They strip Alan B of his best guys. They do. They transfer these crucial veteran forces out of the EEF and send them directly to France. Suddenly, Alan D loses his veteran punch right when he has the enemy on the ropes. And they're replaced by who? Largely untested. Green troops. Wow. The struggle of that sudden deficit is immediate. You can't just lose a huge chunk of your experienced fighting force and maintain the same level of aggression.

13:21No. The blunt force approach no longer works. Without those troops, the EEF launches two attacks in the spring. The first and second transjordan attacks on Eman, Shunet Nimrin, and assault in March in April 1918. And they fail. They both fail. They just don't have the sheer punching power they had a few months ago. This raises an important question, one that military strategists still study to this day. How do you achieve total victory when your best resources are suddenly taken away from you? It's the ultimate test of leadership. It is. You can no longer rely on overwhelming veteran force. You have to rely on overwhelming cunning. You have to outthink the enemy rather than just outfight them. Right. These answer to this severe deficit in manpower is a breathtaking execution of maneuver warfare, culminating in the Battle of Magito. I love the mechanics of this battle because it is so perfectly orchestrated. I want you to visualize this like a heavy door swinging on a hinge. That's a great way to picture it. Allen B uses his infantry, his hammer on the coast.

14:21Their job isn't to destroy the whole enemy or army. Their job is simply to kick the door open. Just breach the line. Right. The Ottoman defences incredibly hard with infantry attacks at Tulkarm and Tabsar, and they punch a massive hole in the front line. And this is exactly where that reorganization from a year prior pays off brilliantly. The separation of forces. Yes. Once the infantry kicks the door open, the desert-mounted core, the scalpel that highly mobile calorie force slips straight through the gap. They don't even engage the front line troops. They completely bypass them. They ride rapidly up the coast, turn inland, and wrap around the back of the enemy before the Ottomans even realize what is happening. They completely encircle the Ottoman infantry who are still actively fighting in the Judean hills. The Ottomans are suddenly trapped in a massive net. They are fighting the British infantry in front of them, and the British cavalry has already cut off their escape routes miles behind them. It is a total systemic collapse of the Ottoman military presence in the region.

15:22The scale of the destruction is just staggering. As of this encirclement, the EEF achieves lightning-fast captures of key strategic points across the region. Just one after another. Nazareth, Afula, Bison, Jenin, Semak, Tiberius, they all fall in rapid succession. And the human cost for the Ottoman side is devastating. During the ensuing battles of Sharon and Nablus, the EEF utterly destroys three entire Ottoman army. Three entire armies. But they take thousands of prisoners and secure massive stockpiles of weapons and equipment. The Ottoman military machine in the theater is essentially wiped off the map in a matter of days. And from there, it's just a relentless sprint to the finish line. They chase the German and Ottoman remnants all the way to Damascus and then push even further north to Aleppo. The Ottoman Empire is completely broken by this unstoppable advance. They have absolutely no choice left but to surrender, which forces the Ottoman Empire to sign the Armistice of Moodrose on October 30, 1918.

16:24Which officially ends the campaign and completely shifts the geopolitical reality of the globe. The fighting stops, but the administrative reality of that victory takes hold immediately. The captured territories are carved up. So what does this all mean? It means the implementation of a totally new world order in the region. The ground captured by this specific military force leads directly to the creation of the British mandate of Palestine, as well as the mandate for Syria and Lebanon. The modern map begins to form. Exactly. I want to bring this back to the very beginning. A defensive force raised merely to stand in the sand and watch a shipping canal, ended up dismantling an empire and drafting the borders of the modern Middle East. We often think of historical victories as a result of having the best troops, the most supplies, and overwhelming force. But I want to leave you with a final thought to ponder. Please do. Next time you look at a modern political map of the Middle East. Consider the nature of how those lines were actually drawn.

17:25Consider how the specific dusty paths taken by the desert-mounted corps in 1918, chasing an army from Bir Shiba to Damascus, literally through the geographical boundary lines that continue to define the geopolitics of our world today. It's wild to think that a cavalry maneuver over a hundred years ago is still dictating the map. It truly is. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive. We hope you walk away with a totally new understanding of how adaptability, strategic reorganization, and turning a massive bottleneck into a breakthrough can quite literally change history. It's been a fascinating journey. It really has. Thanks for tuning in, and until next time, keep exploring. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure, you can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right person comes along. Which is why you should try Zip Recruiter for free. Find ziprecruiter.com slash zip. Zip Recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. Its powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites

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