The Road to Habbaniya (I)

Background to a Decision-Forcing Case

Your name is James Joseph Kingstone. In 1912, when you were twenty years old, you graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst and were commissioned as a second lieutenant in a famous cavalry regiment, the 2nd Dragoon Guards.

You spent all of World War I on the Western Front, earning both the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross. After the war, you served on staffs in both France and India and commanded a company of cadets at Sandhurst.

In 1932, you took command of the 9th Lancers, a cavalry regiment that had just been converted into a motorized reconnaissance unit. Four years later, you become the commanding officer of the 5th Cavalry Brigade of the Territorial Army, one of the last horse cavalry formations then serving with the British Army. You spent the last year before the outbreak of war (in September of 1939) commanding the British Army School of Equitation.

You are currently serving as the commanding officer of the 4th Cavalry Brigade, a formation that is stationed in Palestine. You are addressed as ‘Brigadier’.

May 1941

The Second World War is in its twenty-first month, and things have not been going well for the British Empire. In the first year of the war, it lost its two most important allies (France and Poland) and saw the British Expeditionary Force driven off of the continent of Europe. In this, the second year of the war, the situation is even worse. To begin with, there is the very real possibility that the home islands might be invaded, bombed into ruins, or starved into submission. To make matters worse, British forces in the Eastern Mediterranean have just suffered a series of painful defeats.

Europe in May of 1941

Europe

At present, the continent of Europe is dominated by two great dictatorships. In past two years, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has conquered three complete countries (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) and taken substantial portions of three others (Finland, Romania, and Poland). In the same period, National Socialist Germany has occupied the territory of six small states (Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Greece), half of Czechoslovakia, those parts of Po- land not occupied by the Soviets, and substantial parts of both France and Yugoslavia. In addition to this, those countries of central and southern Europe that are not occupied by one of the two great dictatorships (Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Slovakia) are allied with Germany.

At present, the two great dictatorships are cooperating with each other. In particular, while the Soviet Union supplies Germany with raw materials (particularly oil and coal), Germany provides the Soviet Union with manufactured goods and high technology. How long this ‘marriage of convenience’ will last, however, is anybody’s guess.

The Near East

Most of the regimes in the Near East are monarchies. Persia, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen are kingdoms. Transjordan, Kuwait, and Qatar are emirates. Each of the six Trucial States (on the Arabian peninsula) are ruled by sheiks. The exceptions to this general rule are the British mandate of Palestine, French mandate of Syria, and the independent Republic of Turkey.

Apart from the kings of Persia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, the monarchs of the Middle East are all dependent upon the United Kingdom. British subsidies help these monarchs balance their budgets. British officers and non-commissioned officers train their armies. British weapons fill their arsenals. In return, the United Kingdom enjoys basing rights and a great deal of political influence. At the least, British influence means that it is hard for foreign powers - and, in particular, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union - from using the resources or territory of the monarchies in question. At times, moreover, British commanders can call upon the armed forces of the more reliable monarchies (such as that of the Emirate of Transjordan) for assistance of various kinds.

The War in North Africa

The war in North Africa has been a see-saw affair, a contest in which an advance of several hundred miles might be followed by a retreat of similar length. It began in earnest on 9 September 1940, when an Italian field army based in Libya invaded Egypt. On 9 December 1940, the British Empire forces in Egypt counterattacked, capturing all that had been lost in the past three months, as well as a significant portion of the long Libyan coastline.

In February of 1941, National Socialist Germany came to the aid of its ally, sending a small expeditionary force to Libya. After fulfilling its original mission of stopping the British advance into Italian territory, this formation went on the offensive. By 15 April 1941, the German and Italian forces in North Africa had retaken most of the territory that had been lost to British Empire forces just a few months before. Thus, at the start of the month of May of 1941, the forward elements of the British Empire forces in North Africa are where they were at the start of the war, on the border between Egypt and Libya.

The 1st Cavalry Division

The 1st Cavalry Division was the last formation of the British Army to be composed mostly of men mounted on horseback. Early in the war, it was transferred to Palestine in order to per-form a variety of local security missions. These include patrol- ling the long coastline, guarding the oil pipeline that terminates at Haifa, and supporting the local civil government.

Because these missions require little in the way of artillery, engineer work, and mobile logistics, most of the support elements of the 1st Cavalry Division have been transferred to other formations. The division thus consists largely of a small headquarters and three cavalry brigades.

The War Office has already issued orders for the conversion of the 1st Cavalry Division into an armored division. However, because so many support units are missing and tanks are in short supply, the process of conversion is taking a long time. In the meantime, elements of the 1st Cavalry Division have begun to exchange their horses for light trucks of various sorts.

The 4th Cavalry Brigade

The 4th Cavalry Brigade consists of three cavalry regiments.

The first of these, the Household Cavalry Regiment, is a unit of the Regular Army. (Most of the men in this regiment are career soldiers who enlisted before the war.) The other two regiments, the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry and the Warwickshire Yeomanry, are units of the Territorial Army. (Before it was mobilized at the start of the war, the Territorial Army was a force of ‘Saturday afternoon soldiers’ who served on a part-time basis in the communities in which they lived.)

At present, the 4th Cavalry Brigade is well below its authorized strength. Each regiment is supposed to have 783 officers and men. However, the Household Cavalry Regiment has only 654 officers and men on hand, the Warwickshire Yeomanry is making due with 693, and the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry has but 445. (The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry is so badly understrength because one of its three line squadrons is serving in North Africa.)

Cavalry Regiments

The cavalry regiments of the 4th Cavalry Brigade might better be described as battalions. Commanded by a lieutenant colonel, each has an authorized strength of 783 officers, warrant officers, non-commissioned officers, and men. Similarly, the component ‘squadrons’ of the cavalry regiments might well be described as companies. Commanded by a captain or a major, each has an authorized strength of 190 or so (all ranks).

Each cavalry regiment is organized into four squadrons. Three of the squadrons are line squadrons. Designated by a letter of the alphabet (‘A’, ‘B’, or ‘C’), each of these consists of four ‘troops’ (platoons) of men armed largely with rifles and light ma- chine guns. The fourth squadron is the headquarters squadron. It consists of a machine gun troop, an anti-tank rifle troop, a signal troop, an administrative group (which performs a variety of support functions), and a motor transport group. (The signal troop, administrative group, and motor transport group have long been provided with cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Until the start of motorization, however, all other elements depended upon their horses to get from one place to another.)

Motorization

The motorization of the 4th Cavalry Brigade has been a slow process. It began in November of 1940 but was not complete until the first week of May of 1941, when the Household Cavalry Regiment turned in the last of its horses.

One reason the switch from horses to motor vehicles took so long was a shortage of the right sort of trucks. Another was the fact that the brigade has been busy with various sorts of internal security duties. These range from chasing down bands of kid- nappers to protecting the oil pipeline that ran from Iraq to the city of Haifa.

Though it requires the training of a large number of drivers, the process of motorization has had little effect on the organization of either the 4th Cavalry Brigade or its component regiments. The brigade continues to be a triangular formation, with three cavalry regiments. Likewise, each regiment has retained its traditional structure, with a headquarters squadron and three line squadrons.

Heavy Weapons

Before they were motorized, the cavalry regiments of the 4th Cavalry Brigade were armed with three types of heavy weapons: Bren light machine guns, Boys anti-tank rifles, and Vickers medium machine guns. The first two are shoulder-fired, bipod- mounted weapons that were fed by magazines. The third is a belt-fed, water-cooled, tripod-mounted weapon with an enviable reputation for reliability.

Motorization has increased the allowance of heavy weapons for cavalry regiments. In particular, each ‘special motorized cavalry regiment’ is supposed to get twelve 2-inch (51mm) mortars and four 3-inch (81mm) mortars. Unfortunately, 3-inch mortars are in short supply. Thus, while the regiments of the 4th Cavalry Brigade have received all of the 2-inch mortars that they rate, only one (the Household Cavalry Regiment) has been supplied with the 3-inch mortars.