Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman, 1st Viscount Allenby

Allenby, Edmund Henry Hynman, 1st Viscount Allenby (1861-1936), British soldier, born in Felixstowe, England, and educated at Haileybury College and at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. Between 1884 and 1902 he was stationed with the Inniskilling Dragoons in Bechuanaland (now Botswana) and Zululand (in present-day South Africa) and served in the South African War (Boer War). He had held various cavalry commands before becoming inspector of cavalry in 1910. During World War I he commanded the British cavalry in France. He was given command of the Fifth Army Corps in 1915. Subsequently, as head of the Third Army, he figured prominently in the Second Battle of Ypres and in the capture of Vimy Ridge. As a result, he was promoted to the rank of general and made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath.

Appointed commander in chief of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1917, he led an offensive against the Turkish armies in the Middle East, capturing Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, winning a decisive victory at Megiddo in September 1918, and taking Damascus on October 1, 1918. The campaign forced the Turks to capitulate: Allenby was promoted to the rank of field marshal and made a viscount. From 1919 to 1925 he was British high commissioner in Egypt, and gave Ethiopia its independence in 1922.