IMPERIAL CAMEL CORPS – WORLD WAR ONE

Images of the ICC in Sinai and Palestine, including entering Bethlehem.

[Photograph album, Palestine, 1918.] 48 photographs (52 x 79 mm.) of Jerusalem, Jaffa, Bethlehem, Haifa, Jordan, Lebanon and others, each with manuscript annotations, mounted on 12 leaves, plus 6 photographs in a loosely inserted envelope, 4to (205 x 150 mm.) (Light staining not affecting photographs). Original green cloth (extremities rubbed).
Provenance:
‘With tons of love/Bert/Egypt October 1918’ (inscription to front pastedown).

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS SHOWING THE ICC IN PALESTINE, probably assembled by an ICC serviceman at the end of the war after the defeat of the Ottomans in the Sinai and Palestine campaign. Formed in 1916 and consisting of battalions from Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, the ICC has the distinction of operating in more areas of the Middle East campaign than any other unit. Their presence was of particular use in Sinai and Palestine where terrain often did not allow for wheeled transport. They are represented in this album by seven photographs showing operations including the crossing of Jordan and entry into Bethlehem. Other photographs show Palestinian natives, street vendors, holy sites across the region, a destroyed German aeroplane, and of course the ‘ship of the Desert’ itself, the camel. Also included is two photographs of General Allenby, including 1 of the important moment in which he enters Jerusalem on foot.