The Carmel Plan

A Europa House Rule for War in the Desert and Wavell's War

Background

Eastern Mediterranean — The Middle East and Near East Region, 1942

At the start of World War II, Palestine was a League of Nations mandate assigned to the United Kingdom. Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations created the mandate system, which had three levels of mandates ranging from Class A, which were lands under the “advice and assistance” of a mandatory power until they were ready to stand as fully independent countries, to Class C, which were places "best administered under the laws of the Mandatory as integral portions of its territory." Even for Class A mandates, however, the system gave tremendous latitude to the mandatory over administering the territories. In the case of Palestine, for example, the mandate stated, “The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances permit, encourage local autonomy.” The UK administered the territory through the British Colonial Office, and in actuality rarely permitted much local autonomy.

The situation in Palestine was complicated by the various commitments the Allies made during World War I. To attract Jewish backing for the Allies, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, which supported the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. However, the British also, through the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, instigated the Great Arab Revolt of the Ottoman Empire’s Arabs against their Turkish overlords. While not legally binding, the correspondence seemed to promise independence under Arab rule for the Arab areas of Ottoman Empire, including Palestine. Finally, the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between Britain and France divided the Near East into spheres of influence for the two countries. While the agreement did state that France and Britain were “prepared to recognize and protect” an independent Arab state or confederation of states, in practice the agreement made it impossible for Britain to honor the promises in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence. The conflicting expectations these declarations and agreements created would cause great problems for the region, problems that still continue today.

Unlike other mandates, the one for Palestine called for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, Jewish immigration, and Jewish settlement, although the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine were to be respected. The resulting Jewish settlement in the area caused great tension with the Arab inhabitants, and Jewish-Arab clashes occurred throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The Palestinian Arab resentment against British control and Jewish immigration led to the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, which Britain eventually defeated by use of British troops, Jewish auxiliaries, and other forces. Britain then issued the MacDonald White Paper, outlining an official policy that intended to create a single state in Palestine (rather than partitioning the land between the Arabs and the Jews) and to restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases without Arab consent. While this white paper attempted to mend Britain’s relations with the Arabs, the Jews saw it as an act of betrayal, repudiating the Balfour Declaration and hopes for a Jewish state. The outbreak of World War II, however, patched things up a bit between Britain the Jews of Palestine. Whatever their grievances with Britain, the Jews did not want to see Britain defeated by Nazi Germany. Many Jews (and some Arabs) volunteered to fight for Britain against the Axis, and during the war, about 30,000 Jews served in labor, support, and, eventually, combat units, particularly the 5,000-man Jewish Brigade in the British forces. These men would bring invaluable military experience back to Palestine after the war.

In 1939, Palestine had a population estimated to be about 1,500,000, approximately consisting of 930,000 Moslems, 450,000 Jews, 120,000 Christians, and 12,000 "Others" (the figures do not include British/British Empire citizens in the mandate's administration or security force). Note that the population figures track religious affiliation. The vast majority of the Moslem segment and very many in the Christian segment were Arabs.

World War II

At first, Palestine seemed distant from Germany and the Nazis, who had to face the combined might of France and Britain. As the war unfolded, however, events brought the war almost to the gates of Palestine. France was defeated and became a collaborationist regime that allowed German forces passage through neighboring Syria. Italy entered the war on Germany’s side, bringing the conflict to the African and Asian lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

German Africa Corps — German Africa Emblem

Although Italian arms turned out to be no real threat to the British in Egypt and the Near East, the arrival of Rommel and German forces (at first the German Africa Corps, Deutsches Afrika-Korps, later growing into Panzer Army Africa) dramatically changed the situation. By the summer of 1942, a string of British defeats had routed the British back to El Alamein, the gateway to the Egyptian Nile Delta. Many feared another the Axis drive might overrun Egypt, cross the Suez Canal, and push into Palestine and beyond, perhaps to link up with Axis forces on the offensive in the southern regions of the Soviet Union.

Northern Palestine — Approximate topography of northern Palestine. (Megiddo is an archaeological site of an ancient series of settlements and an ancient Egyptian-Canaanite battle was fought nearby. The 15th Century BC Battle of Megiddo is believed to have been the source for the Biblical story of Armageddon, the future final battle between good and evil. In modern times, Megiddo also lent its name to the 1918 Battle of Megiddo during World War I, in which Entente forces inflicted a massive defeat on the Ottoman Empire.)

In Palestine, the Jewish leaders considered the situation very dangerous and potentially catastrophic. A British defeat in Egypt could very well cause the British to withdraw from the area into Iraq and Kuwait, abandoning the territory to the Axis—and the Jews to persecution and execution at the hands of the Nazis. As a desperate last stand against the Axis, in 1942 the Jewish leaders in Palestine devised the Carmel Plan. The Haganah, the unofficial Jewish defense organization, would fortify and defend the area around Haifa, the Zebulon valley just to the north of Haifa, and Mt. Carmel in northern Palestine. The plan envisioned that the entire Jewish population of Palestine (about 500,000 by this time) would withdraw into the fortified area and resist the Axis invaders. Although the terrain of Mount Carmel was not ideal for defensive purposes (despite its name, the area is hilly rather than mountainous), the area could accommodate 500,000 people. Also, the deep-water port at Haifa gave hopes, however remote, that Allied naval forces and reinforcements might arrive to rescue the defenders. Nearby Mt. Meron would have made a much better defensive position, as it was over twice as high as Mt. Carmel and more rugged, but the area neither could support 500,000 people nor provide access to the sea. Also, the Mt. Meron area did not have much in the way of Jewish settlement at this time, while a substantial Jewish population was already in the Haifa-Mt. Carmel region.

Although the Haganah numbered on the order of 50,000 men, its military capabilities were very limited. Officially, it had 10,000 active men and 40,000 reservists. In actuality, it was a militia in which most of the men had little formal military experience and many were farmers who served as part-time guards for their fields and villages. Various Haganah members did have some paramilitary experience, arising from the frequent Arab-Jewish clashes in the 1920s and 1930s. During the Palestinian Arab Revolt, the British used hundreds of Jewish volunteers as police and auxiliaries to help secure the territory. This paramilitary security work constituted the closest thing most Haganah members had to actual military training or experience, until the Jewish volunteers in the British forces returned home in 1945-46.

The Haganah also mostly lacked military equipment. The British for many years tried to prevent the Jews and Arabs of Palestine from acquiring military weapons, correctly believing that these groups would only use such weapons against one another as well as against the British themselves. Of course, both groups smuggled weapons into the region, mainly small arms. The Haganah had also workshops that made hand grenades.

In 1941, the Haganah consolidated its most military-capable men in the underground Palmach (the Plugoth Mahatz, “Shock Companies”). By 1942 the Palmach numbered perhaps 1,000 men, rising to perhaps 2,000 later. It is estimated that the Palmach had four battalions capable of military operations by the end of the war. Palmach soldiers were highly capable and motivated, with some becoming special forces serving in the British forces during the war. Overall, however, most Palmach units lacked heavy military equipment and training for large-scale operations. The four battalions were essentially “light” infantry, in the sense that they mostly lacked infantry heavy weapons like machineguns and mortars, never mind light artillery.

Mt. Carmel in 1918 — Photograph of Mount Carmel, from *Album of Views* published in 1918. The structures at the top of the hill comprise the Carmelite monastery. The buildings lower down are near the Cave of Elijah. The Bahai’s Shrine of Bab is also on Mount Carmel (not pictured).

Mount Carmel is a series of hills extending from the Mediterranean Sea at Haifa and running southeast for about 14 miles (23 km), with a maximum width of about 6 miles (10 km). The highest hill is about 1,800 feet (540 meters) in elevation. The slopes on its northeast face are steep, while those on the southwest face are more gradual.

Mount Carmel is known for its natural beauty. Its name, “Carmel,” derives from the Hebrew *karmel*, meaning garden. Large parts of Mount Carmel are wooded with pine, eucalyptus, and cypress.

The port city of Haifa is located on the northwestern flank of Mount Carmel. In World War I, the British captured the city from the Ottoman Empire. The port was expanded after the war, with a modern deep-water harbor being completed in 1933.

In Europa terms, Mount Carmel is neither high enough to qualify as a mountain hex or hexside. If its area were more extensive, it would have been shown as rough terrain, but its limited extent (only about a third of the land area of *WITD* hex 4305) led to the hex being rated as clear terrain.

As the situation worsened in 1942, the British changed their policy and agreed to train some of the Palmach and arm them with small arms. In mid-1942 when the Axis threat was at its greatest, the British undertook to train an additional 300 Palmach members in sabotage and guerrilla tactics, clearly with the hope that they would wage guerrilla warfare should the Axis occupy Palestine. After the Axis defeat at El Alamein, the British reverted to their earlier policy and withdrew their support for the Palmach, which promptly went back underground.

Besides the Haganah and Palmach, the Jews of Palestine would almost certainly have been reinforced in 1942 with Jews who had had actual military training, including infantry weapons training, although they had only very limited actual military experience. These Jews had been trained by the British themselves.

British Palestinian Forces

At the start of World War II in September 1939, the British remained opposed to allowing the Jews and Arabs access to weapons, for obvious reasons. However, waging war needed tremendous amounts of manpower, not just for combat forces themselves but also to support the combat forces with supplies, transport, communications, medical services, construction services, and so on. The British raised manpower for the war across their empire: Britain itself, the Dominions (Commonwealth countries), the British Colonies, and the British mandates. For the Palestine mandate, the British recruited both the Jewish and Arab populations there, at first for non-combat support units but later for combat units. Since Palestine was a mandate, these units were not technically British Colonial forces, although in effect they were no different than Colonial troops: they were raised, trained, and armed by the British, under control of the British Army, and commanded by British officers.

It seems that British recruitment of Jews (and likely Arabs) began in late 1939, with the first units forming in 1940. These were military support units, lightly-armed "pioneer" companies used for labor and construction tasks wherever the British needed their services in the Eastern Mediterranean region. (In 1941, all seven of these pioneer companies were sent to mainland Greece and were lost there or on Crete when the Germans overran the region in April-May 1941.) Other support units were also raised, such as transport companies, at least one of which was sent to help supply support combat units fighting the Axis in Egypt and Libya.

In June 1940, near-disaster struck the Allies. Italy entered the war on the side of Germany, making the Mediterranean an active war zone, with large Italians forces in Libya and East Africa threatening Egypt and Palestine. Then, France, being overrun by the Germans, surrendered. Britain, now without the large French Army at its side, faced the forces of Germany and Italy. The need to raise combat troops led the British in 1940 to begin raising, training, and arming infantry forces from the inhabitants of Palestine. They were organized in infantry companies, segregated into separate Arab and Jewish units. The first Jewish company was established by Sept. 1940, and a total of three Jewish and three Arab companies soon were formed. More companies were eventually formed, including a total of 15 Jewish companies. (I have not yet found a good source on the total number of Arab companies formed. All sources agree that there were more Jewish soldiers than Arab ones but disagree on the numbers.) The companies were administered as independent (not part of a battalion) infantry companies of a regular British Army regiment, the Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment). The Buffs apparently were chosen as their 1st Battalion was in Egypt and Palestine in 1940. The companies were given basic combat training and at first equipped mainly with left-over World War I infantry weapons. The "Palestine Buffs" were only used for guard and garrison duties in Palestine. Some were eventually grouped into an infantry battalion for the first time in Sept. 1942. In Oct.-Nov. 1942, the Axis were decisively defeated in Egypt in the Battle of El Alamein. With the Axis threat removed from Egypt and Palestine, these companies were reformed as the Palestine Regiment, with three Jewish and one Arab infantry battalions.*

* From 1943, battalions of the Palestine Regiment would guard places not only in Palestine but also in Egypt and Libya (where some Jewish soldiers were caught attempting to steal military weapons to smuggle back to Palestine). In 1944, the three Jewish battalions were used to form the Jewish Brigade Group in the British Army, which finally went into combat in 1945 in Italy against the Germans. All this, however, is outside the scope of this article.

There actually was one unit the British raised in Palestine that had combat experience, No. 51 Commando. This was a battalion-size special operations force of 300 Jewish and Arab volunteers that was formed in Oct. 1940. In 1941, it was used to assist in the British conquest of Italian East Africa. However, most of the men in the unit were lost during the campaign. The few survivors went into the later Middle East Commando, although most of the men in this later commando were British.

Had the Axis defeated the British in Egypt in 1942 and advanced into Palestine, it is certain that the Jews serving in the British-raised units would have tried to join the defense of Mt. Carmel. I do not know what British policy would have been on this, but since the British were training and arming part of the Palmach in case the Axis did reach Palestine, it seems likely that they would have released their Jewish soldiers and auxiliaries to fight at Mt. Carmel. (Even if the British did not do this, most of the Jews in these British units would try to desert, likely successfully, to go defend their families in Palestine.) Thus, the Haganah and Palmach would have been bolstered by hundreds of Jews with military training and light weapons but no actual combat experience.

Analysis

The Carmel Plan was a desperation plan to try to defend the Jewish population of Palestine against an Axis invasion of the region following a British defeat in Egypt. It was a desperation plan because the Axis would attack with veteran combat troops equipped with a full range of weapons including artillery, tanks, and aircraft, which the Jews could oppose only with poorly- equipped and trained forces. The largest force, the 50,000-man Haganah, was essentially a part-time militia mostly of farmers only some of whom had earlier paramilitary experience. Even the best Jewish force, the 1,000-man Palmach, lacked heavy weapons, antitank guns, artillery, air support, ammunition, large-unit training, and almost everything else that military forces needed to operate successfully in World War II. These forces would have been bolstered by some hundreds or so trained Jewish soldiers and auxiliaries who had been in British service, plus a tiny group of Jewish commandos who were well trained and experienced. It is also likely that if the British forces did evacuate Palestine, they would abandon some military equipment and supplies, which the Haganah and Palmach would seize and use. Still, the scale of this seems likely to be small.

Some fortification work was undertaken in the Carmel Plan zone, but it is unclear how extensive this was. (Supposedly, some railroad rails driven into the ground as antitank barriers still exist in parts of Haifa.) I suspect the work did not progress far enough for the fortifications to show up at Europa level as a fort. As far as I know, the British did not supply engineering expertise, construction troops, or material to fortify the area.

As for Jewish guerrilla operations against a German occupation of Palestine, this unfortunately assumes that the Jewish population was going to be left in place and thus could provide refuge for guerrilla forces. This was extremely unlikely. Like what happened in Poland and the USSR, it was more likely that Germany would send in police, security, and SS paramilitary forces to round up all “undesirable” elements and imprison them in concentration camps. Without a friendly populace to hide among, Jewish guerrillas would find it extremely difficult to sustain operations. However, commando-style raids behind Axis lines might have been possible.

Overall, my conclusion is that the Carmel Plan was unlikely to have a significant impact at Europa level. While undoubtedly the Jewish defenders would fight heroically, likely fanatically, their extensive lack of training, equipment, and experience indicates their effectiveness against a well-equipped, mechanized military force would be limited. This is why the Carmel Plan does not show up in War in the Desert. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a house rule about it!

Carmel Plan House Rules

Use the following rules for the Carmel Plan when playing any War in the Desert or Wavell’s War scenario in which the hex of Haifa (19A:4305) is in play.

Carmel Plan Zone

The Carmel Plan zone consists of the hex of Haifa. The Carmel Plan is triggered in any Allied initial phase in which one of the following conditions prevails:

The Axis owns all cities in the Delta.
The Axis has any unit in general supply either in Egypt east of the Suez Canal or in Palestine.

Carmel Plan Forces

Once the plan is triggered, the following reinforcement schedule is used: