TWO British defeats at the same place within three weeks required changes. Dobell was the first to go, and Murray's position was obviously much weakened. Explanations were also needed. Dobell might prove a useful scapegoat, but there were necessarily deeper issues to be considered. These defeats would have to be avenged, but first the real reasons for them had to be discovered, and lessons learned.

In some ways the reasons were obvious. They had been seen, at least by some commanders, on the Western Front in France already: the futility of infantry advancing across open land in the face of artillery and machine-gun fire, the wastefulness of employing tanks singly, the absolute necessity of proper artillery power and preparation. In one counter-factual scenario one could imagine all eight of the tanks at Dobell's disposal being used as a group, perhaps to break the line for the East Anglian Division, which would then get through to take the city from the east, as intended. Two of the tanks on their own did indeed break into their target redoubts – suppose all had been used, against a softer target?

There was also the insistence on attacking the strongest points of the enemy line, Ali el-Muntar and its preliminary hills, and the redoubts along the road. This might be unavoidable in France, where the whole line was strong, but hardly so in Palestine. The advance of the battalion of the 10th London into the space between the city and the fortified road was certainly foolhardy and ultimately futile, but it gave a clear idea of the possibilities inherent in attacking the less well-defended parts of the line; the other ‘farthest advance’ took place between the Tank and Atawine Redoubts, but here the penetration was no further than the road. (The claim was disbelieved, but in November three Australian skeletons found there were held to prove it – but the dead cannot conquer.) To men who had fought in France these ideas might have been obvious, but few men in the British forces in Palestine or Egypt had seen action there; Chetwode was one, but he was a cavalryman and had commanded only cavalry in France, which was not a good preparation for assaulting trenches.