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IR EDMUND ALLENBY was born on April 23rd, 1861, and was educated at Haileybury. He entered the Inniskilling Dragoons, with whom he served in the Bechuanaland Expedition of 1884-5. He fought in Zululand in 1888, and in the South African War was a dashing and successful Column Commander. He was one of those who harried General Delarey in the difficult Magaliesberg region.

In 1910 he was promoted to the command of the 4th Cavalry Brigade, was subsequently Inspector of Cavalry, and, when the European War broke out, he was given the Cavalry Division. He fought through the Retreat from Mons and the Battle of the Marne, and after the Battle of the Aisne was promoted to the command of the Cavalry Corps. During the First Battle of Ypres he held the Messines ridge, filling the gap in the line between Sir Henry Rawlinson's yth Division and General Smith-Dorrien's II Corps.

In May, 1915, he succeeded Sir Herbert Plumer in command of the V Infantry Corps. When General Monro went to India he followed him in command of the new Third Army on the Somme.

In the spring of 1916, when Sir Henry Rawlinson's Fourth Army was formed, the Third Army was moved further north to take over the ground around Arras vacated by the French Tenth Army under D'Urbal. Only a small part of the right wing of Sir Edmund Allenby's Army was engaged during the Battle of the Somme, and that only on the first day.

During the winter of 1916-17, apart from many brilliant trench raids, there was no action upon the Third Army front. Its chance came