“By Way of Deception, Thou Shall Do War” (Proverbs 24:6)

So the Bible Commanded, and So It Was in World War One, in World War Two, and Today (The verse once served as the motto of the Mossad)

New chapter of Secrets of World War I in the Holy Land

The Haversack Ruse – During World War I in Palestine, a British military courier, pursued by Turkish cavalry, deliberately dropped a pouch filled with fabricated documents. This episode—known as the Haversack Ruse—became one of the most effective intelligence deceptions of the war. (Image Credit: © LookandLearn.com, and “Studies in Intelligence,” CIA. AI colorized by licensee.)

During World War II in Europe, the Allies employed several strategic deception tactics to mislead Axis forces and secure advantageous military positions. Among these, two particularly notable operations exemplify the sophistication and effectiveness of wartime deception: the strategic misinformation regarding the invasion of southern Europe in 1943, considered the continent’s “soft underbelly,” and the elaborate misdirection campaign surrounding the Normandy landings in 1944, including the timing and launch location of the Allied invasion across the English Channel.

One of the most famous deception operations was Operation Mincemeat, launched in 1943. The operation involved the use of a deceased and homeless alcoholic, Glyndwr Michael, who was transformed into a fictitious British military officer, Major William Martin of the Royal Marines. The body was dressed in a complete military uniform, with pockets filled with fabricated documents, personal letters, and official communications designed to mislead German intelligence. The body was then placed on a submarine, the Seraph, and released off the coast of Spain. Local fishermen discovered the body, which was subsequently handed over to Spanish authorities, who, despite their official neutrality, shared the documents with German agents. This operation successfully fed false information to the Germans, contributing significantly to the Allied strategic deception efforts.

The corpse of “Major William Martin” just before his intelligence “mission” to the Spanish coast. (National Archives UK)

Subsequently, the German army shifted troops away from the Sicily front to Greece and Sardinia prior to the Allied invasion of Sicily. “The Man Who Never Was” (the name of a 1956 British film) had successfully completed his mission.

An interesting note: An essential player in the British Navy’s intelligence operation was Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming, “Fleming, Ian Fleming,” the creator of James Bond.

The Haversack Ruse – 26 Years Earlier

On the Sinai/Palestine front in World War I, the British Army and its allies had hit a formidable Turkish wall twice in 1917 as they attempted to capture Gaza in March and April. A third major attack on Gaza was planned for October, but General Edmund Allenby, commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, decided to focus his forces on capturing Beersheba to the east. Allenby was persuaded by a Jewish advisor (and head of the NILI spy ring), Aaron Ahronson, that a cavalry foray through the desert to Beersheba could find water along the route. When the third Gaza attack was launched, it would be with fewer troops, almost a feint, while the critical battle was unfolding in Beersheba.

A British intelligence officer developed a clever gambit to draw Turkish forces away from their Beersheba base. Col. Richard Meinertzhagen devised and executed the “Haversack Ruse,” in which he rode near a Turkish mounted patrol near Gaza. The horsemen chased him, firing at the British military courier. He slumped in his saddle as if wounded, “accidentally” dropped his haversack, and escaped. The Haversack was full of intelligence reports, money, and the rider’s personal papers. The official reports showed that the British-led forces would make another attempt to capture Gaza, all the while preparing an attack on Beersheba

The attacks on Gaza and Beersheba, October 31, 1917. Meinertzhagen’s ruse is featured as part of the battle plan. (New Zealand government archives)

Did the German/Turkish forces fall for the Haversack ruse? Yes. They moved troops from the Beersheba region west to Gaza and the coastline. The way for the British, Australians, and New Zealanders to move against Beersheba was made infinitely easier. Most of the vital wells in Beersheba were captured intact; the road to Jerusalem was opening.

This illustration of the Australian Light Horsemen attacking Turkish defenses of Beersheba, found by the author in the Ottoman Imperial Archives, was labeled “British propaganda.” The page appears to be taken from a publication, “The Illustrated War News.” (AI Colorized by the author.)

Throughout his military career – and beyond – Meinertzhagen was a scoundrel, a character trait likely desired in an intelligence officer. Historians debate whether Meinertzhagen himself devised the Haversack Ruse, and whether he actually carried out the treacherous ride. Was the claim for purposes of self-aggrandizement? Meinertzhagen was not a “one hit” espionage agent. He is credited with being a “front-line legend” for arranging an aerial drop of cigarettes for tobacco-starved front-line Turkish soldiers. They probably never realized that the tobacco was laced with opium, which befuddled their behavior.

Meinertzhagen was a supporter of Jewish self-determination in Palestine, a position he argued with Col. T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”), who strongly identified with the Arab people.

After the war, Meinertzhagen became an internationally renowned ornithologist, but it was discovered that some of his research had been plagiarized and that some of his many bird specimens had been stolen or counterfeit.

Meinertzhagen with a Kori bustard in Nairobi, 1915, one of the 25,000 bird skins in his collection, of which 5,000 were believed to be forgeries or stolen from other collections. (Wikimedia Commons)

In 1921, he married fellow ornithologist Anne Jackson, and they had three children. In 1928, the couple was on a practice target range when Anne supposedly accidentally shot herself in the head and died. Some historians claim Meinertzhagen shot her because she was going to expose his scientific forgeries.

Perhaps Col. T.E. Lawrence described Meinertzhagen best: “Meinertzhagen was a silent laughing masterful man who took as blithe a pleasure in deceiving his enemy (or his friend) by some unscrupulous jest, as in splattering the brains of a cornered mob one by one with his African knobkerrie.”

When Is a Tank Not a Tank and a Horse Not a Horse?

In the Second World War, Operation Fortitude was the primary deception strategy in the overall Allied plan, Operation Bodyguard, designed to mislead the Germans about the timing and location of the D-Day landings in Normandy. To convince the Germans that the Allies were going to cross the narrowest point of the English Channel from southeast England and invade Pas-de-Calais, they created a phantom army with a fictitious formation called the “First United Army Group (FUSAG). The revered General George S. Patton would command it. The massive, fully equipped force consisted of tanks, trucks, jeeps, and landing craft.

But it was a “Ghost Army” unit. Hundreds of vehicles and weapons were inflatable or constructed of wood and canvas, and the most critical component was the 23rd Special Headquarters, made up of set designers, artists, and sound engineers who created the illusion of a well-equipped base and the sounds of bustling preparations for combat.

An inflatable Sherman tank. (Imperial War Museum, UK)

An inflatable M4 tank in the factory. It was designed by Bill Blass, who later became a world-famous fashion designer. (Bill Blass Legacy)

The Germans bought the ruse, and on June 6, 1944, the D-Day invasion in Normandy, the German army kept a large reserve force of its 15th Army in Pas-de-Calais and failed to deploy them at the Normandy invasion site. According to historian Gunter Hartnagel, German general Erwin Rommel — “the Desert Fox”— also deployed inflatable tanks in the AfrikaKorps’ battles with the British army.

The Cavalry Ruse: Up and Down the Jordan Valley

The state of forces after the capture of Jerusalem and until September 1918. After a hiatus in the fighting due to weather, troop deployments from Palestine to Europe, and disease, the British and allied troops moved north. But in one instance, the British planners feigned a deployment of the Anzac Mounted Division north through the Jordan River Valley toward Turkish positions in Daraa in southern Syria and Damascus. (Maps, West Point Department of History and War Studies)

British General Allenby sought to control the Mediterranean coast, which explains the attempts in 1917 to capture Gaza and, finally, Jaffa. His chance finally came later in September 1918. Australian Light Horsemen ostensibly moved its entire force north through the Jordan River Valley, while the Turkish/German forces under its new commander, Liman von Sanders, were based in the Judean hills region of Tulkarm, Nablus, Megiddo, and the lower Galilee, prepared to counter the British attack along the Jordan.

The British/Anzac ruse in effect froze Sanders in the central region. Allenby’s troops moved toward the Mediterranean coast unseen at night. Meanwhile, mounted units rode north during the day and were secretly taken back at night. Dust clouds were created to suggest large numbers of cavalry on the move. By that point in the war, British air forces had secured near-total air supremacy over German planes, and the deception had not been discovered.

An Australian Light Horse unit raising dust on the move in the Jordan Valley. One soldier moved several horses. (Australian War Memorial, black and white original)

Below are the same photo and other photographs of the fake “horse line” constructed from sticks and blankets, colored-enhanced by AI:

The Turkish and the German Air Forces Never Discovered the Deceptions

Walz was a war survivor, unlike many of his companions.

A memorial plaque in Jenin, dedicated to “the honorable memory of our dead and missing.” They fell between October 1917 and October 1918. They held the ranks of private, corporal, second lieutenant, and squadron leader. (Wikimedia Commons)

A funeral for a fallen German airman in Nazareth with German and Turkish officers in attendance. Temporary grave markers were crosses made from the propellers of crashed aircraft. (Unknown photographer)

The execution of the “horse ruse” depended on the destruction of the German air force in Palestine, which could have detected the stratagem. Twenty-six years later, would those “horses” have been inflated and designed by Bill Blass?