Hell in the Holy Land

Most descriptions of the British Army's campaign in the Turkish theater during World War I focus on the popular notion that the conflict there was somehow less brutal than on the European battlefields. This view was encouraged by such films as Lawrence of Arabia and The Light Horsemen. However, in Hell in the Holy Land, David R. Woodward uses graphic personal accounts from the diaries and letters of British soldiers to describe in rigorous detail the genuine experience of the...
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Most descriptions of the British Army's campaign in the Turkish theater during World War I focus on the popular notion that the conflict there was somehow less brutal than on the European battlefields. This view was encouraged by such films as Lawrence of Arabia and The Light Horsemen. However, in Hell in the Holy Land, David R. Woodward uses graphic personal accounts from the diaries and letters of British soldiers to describe in rigorous detail the genuine experience of the fighting and dying in Egypt and Palestine. The voices of these British soldiers offer an overlooked perspective of the Great War, describing not only the horrors of combat but the daily struggles of soldiers who were stationed in an unfamiliar environment that often proved just as antagonistic as the enemy. A soldier of the Dorset Yeomanry, stationed in Egypt, wrote: "There are three sounds in Egypt which never cease--the creaking of the waterwheels, the song of the frogs, and the buzz of flies.Letter writing is an impossibility in the evening, for as soon as the sun goes down, if a lamp is lighted, the air all round is thick with little grey sand-flies which bite disgustingly." Using archival records, many of which are housed in the Imperial War Museum in London, England, Woodward paints a vivid picture of life for British soldiers in the Middle East by allowing them to speak for themselves.