Yet there was one general of whom this charge was never made.
His name was John Monash, and was considered one of the best and most intelligent generals in World War 1. That he isn’t better known is probably because he was an Australian, and since the war the focus has been of the British and French Generals.
I doubt even if he is well known amongst Jewish people, and yet he had a State funeral with 250,000 attending, 50,000 at the graveside, and at one time was regarded as the greatest living Australian.
Perhaps it is time to revive our memories of this remarkable figure.
He was actually born in Melbourne of German/Polish parents. His father had moved to Australia in 1854 possibly because of poor business deals, and John was born in 1856. He went to a Church of England School, and was bilingual in German and English. From a very middle class family, he didn’t speak any Yiddish, and his family followed a largely secular life, although Monash sang in shool and celebrated his Barmitzvah.
After a time in business he went into the army, and moved slowly through the ranks. After serving at Gallipoli as a Colonel he finally was given command of the Australian Corps despite the opposition of the influential war historian, Charles Bean, who said “We do not want Australia represented by men mainly because of the ability, natural and inborn in Jews, to push themselves forward”.
As Mark Dapin in The Australian wrote in 2015 “Bean carried the moral corruption of his class, who believed they were born to rule the empire, and couldn’t conceive of the son of a German-born Jewish store-holder succeeding in a military career through aptitude alone”
As a General, Monash proved himself one of the most brilliant of the war. He was not hamstrung by old and outdated tactics, and under his stewardship effectively helped finished the war for the allies in 1918. His war was a mobile one – the infantry would move forward supported by artillery, tanks, and air support. In my humble opinion, they represented more of the Second World War than the First, and unsurprisingly, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was quoted as saying “I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the western front in Europe.”
He was known as a brilliant tactician, and his generalship certainly helped bring the war to a quicker end than otherwise.
How fundamental his contribution to the end of the war is summed up in this extract from Wikipedia "Allied troops ....predominantly Rawlinson's British 4th Army (consisting of the Australian Corps under Monash and the Canadian Corps under Arthur Currie, and the British III Corps) attacked the Germans. The allied attack was spearheaded by the Australian Corps, who had been given the capture of enemy artillery as a key objective in the first phase by Monash in order to minimize the potential harm to the attacking forces. The battle was .......the first decisive win for the British Army of the war,causing the Germans to recognise that for them the War was lost. Post - war he headed up the repatriation of Australian soldiers, and served in various civilian positions, including organising ANZAC day.
Monash and his Judaism Monash often expressed his pride in his ancestry. He was, after all the great grandson of a Talmud scholar. However, he could never be said to be anything other than secular in his behaviour, although it is noticeable that he married within the religion. He could hardly read Hebrew, and never participated in services until late in his life, and from the date he became adult, the only occasion he seems to have attended synagogue was when his father died.
He had no Jewish friends and as he became older left behind any interest in Jewish affairs.
What is interesting, then, is how the war changed his viewpoint.
According to Rabbi Raymond Apple of the Great Synagogue, Sydney, writing in the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society in June 1993, Liddell Hart, the War Historian said that “Monash had probably the greatest capacity for command in modern war among all who held command in the last war”. Rabbi Apple considered him “certainly the greatest Jewish soldier in Diaspora history”. Because of the anti-semitism of the time, he would find it an uphill task to reach the highest levels of command. Rabbi Apple tells us that “Monash, himself, knew his Jewishness was held against him. He told Maurice Ashkanasy, “Remember you are a Jew and that if you muck it up our people will be blamed”. He accorded religious facilities to the Jewish chaplains, including the provision of kosher food for officers and men who wanted it”
It is clear that the war changed him, and afterwards he was much more willing to appear on Jewish platforms, and work in communal affairs - he was involved with Jewish war memorials, had links with Zionist organisations, and even joined a shool and served on its Board – the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation – and even went to one or two services - especially on Yom Kippur.
Towards the end of his life, he became more involved in Zionist affairs. He became President of the Zionist Federation in Australia in 1927, and for such a figure to give the movement his support was crucial to the organisations success. It was said of him that he had made antisemitism, as a ‘respectable’ attitude, impossible in Australia”, such was his standing in that country.
.....and in the end Monash died in 1931 in his 66th year.
Monash reached the top of the pile despite his origins. He never, however, lost sight of where he came from, nor of his Jewish identity. Rabbi Apple writes “Neville Wran, then Premier of New South Wales, put it succinctly in 1978 at the Great Synagogue’s centenary dinner at the Sydney Town Hall, when he said, “With the exception of modern Israel itself, only one nation in more than 2000 years has called upon Jews to be head of its armies. Not since the Diaspora has this happened in any other nation in the world”.
Monash was truly a giant of the Jewish people.
For further reading
1) Wkipedia of course
2) http://www.oztorah.com/2012/09/isaacs-monash-the-jewish-connection/
Kosher Foxtrot
Jews and the Sea
The Definitive Guide to Jewish Miscellany and Trivia
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