Arthur Nelson Searle

Arthur Nelson Searle was born in Probus in the summer of 1892.  His was a large farming family.  His parents were William and Jane and in 1911 there were living at ‘Trenython’, Grampound Road.  William had been born in Probus, and Jane was from Camborne.  Arthur had six siblings: William, Florence, Kate, Olive, Edward and Olga.  They were well off enough to employ a general servant, one Henry Turner who was from far off Skipton in Yorkshire.  Arthur was educated at Probus School (now demolished) which had been once an eminent boys boarding school.  Arthur was employed on his father’s farm, and must have been familiar with the handling of horses, as within a year of the outbreak of the war he had travelled to Truro to enlist into the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry, a cavalry unit.  This unit was composed of four squadrons, three of which were at various locations in Devon.  The fourth, ‘D’ Squadron was based in Bodmin here in Cornwall, with drill stations at Launceston, Camelford, Liskeard, Truro, Helston and Penzance.

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The Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry

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The regiment had a long tradition as it was formed in the 1790s.  Arthur must have been with the regiment from before it left these shores.  Mobilized in August 1914, it moved to Colchester and became a dismounted unit. It had been found, that is this new highly mechanized form of warfare a body of mounted horsemen were no match for artillery and machine guns.  So Arthur was to fight as an infantryman.  He embarked with his regiment on RMS Olympic at Liverpool on 23rd September 1915, arriving at Moudros, Greece on 1st October.  They then went on to Suvla Bay and the Gallipoli Peninsula, arriving on the 9th.  This campaign had begun in April and had made little progress against the Turks, and was in fact failing. Arthur with his regiment was at first employed digging trenches, but by November was in the firing line only to be evacuated to Imbros in December when this disastrous campaign was abandoned. On the 30th December the regiment landed at Alexandria to defend Egypt along the line of the vital Suez Canal. The regiment became part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (E.E.F.)

 

In January 1917, Arthur’s regiment was amalgamated with the Royal North Devon Yeomanry, to become the 16th Battalion Devonshire Regiment. As such, it took part in the 2nd & 3rd Battles of Gaza, including the capture of Beersheba.  At the end of 1917, it was present at the capture of Jerusalem from the Ottoman Turks.

 

The Battle of Jerusalem or the ‘Jerusalem Operations’ Nov-Dec 1917

This campaign developed from about the 17th November 1917 up until the end of December.  It was fought in Sinai, Palestine and in the Judean Hills.  Before Jerusalem was captured, two major battles were fought together with some minor actions.  Empire forces were opposed with fierce resistance from the Ottoman Seventh Army and the Eight Army, near Jaffa.  The British forces were led by the C-in-C of the E.E.F., General Edmund Allenby. 

 

The fight for Jerusalem was nearing its end when Arthur’s regiment attacked and temporarily recaptured Beit Ur el Foqa.  The attack began at 1am on the morning of the 3rd December.  In two and a half hours of fighting the village was captured along with 17 prisoners, and three machine guns.  The victory was however short lived.  The Turks had positions on high ground that overlooked Beit Ur el Foqa, and so it was always going to be impossible to hold.  Bombing, counter bombing and hand to hand fighting went on long into the daylight hours until the 16th Devons were forced out.  They had taken approximately 300 casualties.  Private Arthur Searle, who must have been quite a veteran after Gallipoli and the operations in Palestine, was killed outright in this fight. He would not return home to Cornwall, to work the familiar fields of Trenython.

 

Only a few days later, Jerusalem was surrendered to General Allenby’s forces. The Turk’s formal declaration of surrender ran as follows: “Due to the severity of the siege of the city and the suffering that this peaceful country has endured from your heavy guns; and for fear that these deadly bombs will hit the holy places, we are forced to hand over to you through Hussein al Husseini, the mayor of Jerusalem, hoping that you will protect Jerusalem the way we have protected it for more than five hundred years.”  It was signed by Izzat, the Mutasarrif of Jerusalem. 

 

On 11th December 1917, out of respect for this town so sacred to many faiths, General Allenby entered the city through the Jaffa Gate, on foot. The Turks had lost Jerusalem and Jaffa along with 50 miles of territory.  It was a great setback for the Ottoman Army and the Ottoman Empire as a whole.  David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, described it as a “Christmas present” for the British people, while Allenby declared that “the wars of the crusaders are now complete.” By September 1918 Allenby had taken Damascus and Aleppo.  With these considerable territorial gains he had helped secure Baghdad and the oilfields around Basra in Mesopotamia, now Iraq.  He had encouraged the Arab Revolt against the Turks, and inflicted losses on the Ottoman army that could not be recovered.  One hundred years on, we are still living with the repercussions that this campaign set in motion.

 

Arthur is buried in the Jerusalem War Cemetery, Israel & Palestine.  This cemetery holds 2,437 of our war dead.