The Jews in the Defence of Britain: Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Presidential Address

<plain_text><page sequence="1">The Jews in the Defence of Britain Thirteenth to Nineteenth Centuries By Cecil Roth Presidential Address delivered in the Hall of Magdalen College, Oxford, Sunday, October X]th, 1940 There is a widespread impression that, in the centuries-long interval between the fall of Jerusalem and (shall I say?) the Balfour Declara? tion, the Jews entirely lost the martial qualities that had once distinguished them. Some Rabbis regarded the fact with resignation, some philo-Semites with regret (for instance Macaulay, with his stirring plea : " Let us do justice to them. . . . Till we have done this, let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees "), and some critics with obvious gloating. It is little more than a century and a quarter since the poet Crabbe wrote in The Borough (1810): Nor war nor wisdom yields our Jews delight. They will not study, and they dare not fight. It was in a deliberate attempt to falsify the first part of this stricture that the Jews of the last century turned, as soon as it was legalised, to the learned professions, only to be told later on that their prominence in them constituted for some reason or the other a " problem." As far as soldiering was concerned, Crabbe's criticism was even more unjust, for (though he did not suspect it) an Anglo Jewish military tradition had already begun to establish itself. This is no place for a general disquisition on the Jew as a soldier. But it is necessary for me to point out that to consider the military ability of the Jew negligible, is not only erroneous but is in a</page><page sequence="2">2 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN diametrical opposition to the facts. In the classical world, under the Persians and afterwards under the Ptolemies, the Jewish mercen? aries were famous and were very widely used. (There must have been Jewish military colonies in Egypt for something like five centuries without interruption.) The case was much the same later on, whenever outside pressure was removed. The Beni Israel of India were regarded as being among the most reliable native troops, and rose to the highest ranks under John Company and after, until the reorganisation of the Indian army on denominational lines made this impossible. The proportion of high military officers among Italian Jewry in 1895 was twice as great as among their non-Jewish compatriots, and it would not have been a grotesque exaggeration to speak of them prior to 1938 as a military caste. One name is suffi? cient to exemplify this fact?that of General Giuseppe Ottolenghi, a very gallant soldier, who was Minister for War in 1902-3. In France, there were up to 1939 no fewer man fifty Jewish generals? one of whom, Camille Levi, commanded the army which was sent to save Italy after Caporetto. A similar picture is presented in other countries where equal opportunities have been afforded. In fact, far from it being the case that the Jew lacks military qualities, he seems to have applied himself to a military life when he could with the same devotion, the same persistence, and it may be added the same fatal success, as he did to other callings. In the Middle Ages, in Europe, the picture was of course different: for the career of arms was one of those from which the Jews were methodically excluded in the late Roman Empire. It was a profession which conferred certain privileges, and for this reason the Church Fathers exerted themselves to have it barred to un? believers. Exclusion began as early as the fourth century: it was renewed in 404: in 418 Jews were expelled from the armed forces of the Empire: and there were several later re-enactments. The subsequent growth of the feudal system, linking military service with the holding of land (which was henceforth impossible for Jews) made the prohibition all the more effective. Nevertheless, at intervals throughout the Middle Ages and after, Jews were found</page><page sequence="3">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 3 fighting, if not on the field (though this was often the case in Spain) at least in defence of the cities in which they resided. Contemporary chroniclers often call attention to their services on such occasions, which are sometimes reflected too in the Rabbinic literature. Thus they were associated in the defence of Aries in 508, of Naples in 536, of Cologne in 1106, of Worms in 1201, of Toledo in 1355, of Sienna in 1548, of Corfu in 1537 and 1716, of Prague in 1648 and 1742-3, and so on. A Jewish mounted contingent was almost wiped out in the defence of Warsaw during Kosciusko's revolt in 1794. So frequently were the Jews of Germany called upon for warlike services in the Middle Ages that, in the thirteenth century, certain Rabbinical authorities formally empowered them to take up arms even on the Sabbath in case of necessity: while it is said, with palpable exaggeration, that 40,000 Spanish Jews fell in 1086 fighting on the Christian side against the Moors in the great battle of Zalaca. So far as medieval England is concerned, we cannot hope to find much that is so spectacular. English Jewry was the most narrowly " feudal" of all medieval European communities; it was insignifi? cant in numbers, and its members were restricted with unusual severity to the vocation of money-lending. Moreover, by the Assize of Arms of 1181, they were prohibited to retain with them mail or hauberk, which had to be sold or given away. The intention of this was presumably to ensure that weapons were not immobilised in case of emergency; but the result was to disarm the Jews. The provision was moreover rigorously enforced : and the records show that they were heavily fined for such offences as taking a hauberk in pledge " against the prohibition." Notwithstanding this, a certain bellicosity among the Jews was not to be suppressed. We find them not only brawling among them? selves (sometimes with fatal results) but even having violent alter? cations with soldiers: and their enthusiasm for hunting sometimes blinded them to the niceties of legal rights. Joseph Jacobs even thought that there were medieval English Jews who were called " Knight," not realising that Miles was used simply as the equivalent of the Hebrew name Meir. The present writer must plead guilty too</page><page sequence="4">4 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN to having hastily imagined (not, as it seems to him, without some appearance of verisimilitude) that Abraham of Felmingham, father of Isaac of Felmingham, who once brought Henry II a report that the King of Scotland had been captured in battle, was likewise a Jew: but we can follow the history of the family for some genera? tions, and it is pretty certain, nomenclature notwithstanding, that it was uneventfully Gentile. On the other hand, the medieval English Jews were sufficiently expert in arms, and fond of wielding them, to setde their differences on occasion, like true sons of the age, by the ordeal by battle. Their aggressiveness was not always given a domestic oudet. When in the course of the Barons' Wars the London community were compelled to take refuge in the Tower of London, in the somewhat incongruous company of the Papal Legate, they manned the walls and assisted to defend it against the assailants (February ist, 1266/7). But mv e^rliest Anglo-Jewish soldier is a little earlier. In 1204 a French Jew named Hanuchin (presumably signifying " little Enoch ") was given special license to live in England as a reward for the good work he had done during the recent wars in Normandy. The precise nature of these services cannot now be ascertained. But I fancy that they must have been in connexion with the more highly-skilled branch of soldiering, to which the English Jews of this period had a definite inclination. They did not form part of the feudal system, and social as well as religious prejudice kept them out of the ordinary fighting levies. But they had skill as well as courage, and for this reason there was a long sequence of persons of Jewish birth, though now baptised, in the ranks of the royal crossbowmen and sergeants-at-arms (a select bodyguard consisting of only twenty all told), who though not comprised in the ordinary levy had to reach a high degree of mechanical proficiency. One of the five sergeants who accompanied Henry III. to Gascony on one occasion was Roger le Convers, subsequently sent on an official mission to Spain. Others were John, and a little later, after the Expulsion, Ralph and Alexander, all similarly designated as " Con? vers." Another convert who became a soldier was Philip the cross</page><page sequence="5">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 5 bowman (le Balestier), who was for some time in charge of the armoury in the Tower of London. Sir Henry of Winchester, the first Anglo-Jewish knight, who held the manor of Romford in Essex, probably owed his advance also to prowess in the field. It is perhaps not a coincidence that at this time the maintenance of crossbowmen seems to have been regarded as a special obligation of the Jewish community. Professing Jews who served in the same capacity include Haneth Balistarius of London (1224) and Jose' le Albelester (?), slain?perhaps in the royal service?in 1276. It is probable, more? over, that Benedict le Chivaler of London (1275) was a horse-soldier? a remarkable ascription for a Jew, which demonstrates the unsound ness of the conventional generalisations.1 It will have been noticed that I have not taken in the foregoing passage any account of religious allegiance; for the prejudice against professing Jews was so strong as to constitute an insuperable barrier. (It may be observed, parenthetically, that one can hardly make any theological or psychological deduction from this fact: for even baptism could not be expected to endow the unbeliever with military valour that he previously lacked.) We can still less apply a con? fessional test in the subsequent period, when professing Jews were not admitted into England. Even now, however, the names of a few soldiers of Jewish extraction may be recovered. Noteworthy among them was Sir Edward Brampton, a Portuguese Jew at whose baptism King Edward IV had filled the functions of godfather, who during the Wars of the Roses received a succession of military commands by land and sea, became Governor of Guernsey, was knighted, and in the end prompted Perkin Warbeck with the information regarding his reputed father's court that made possible his preposterous bid for the throne. The little group of Marranos settled in London under Elizabeth also played a slight role in connexion with military operations. Their 1 Cf. for these last names Seiden Society Publications, 1941, p. 3, etc.: and Exchequer of the Jews, ii, 280, and iii, 109. These names make one wonder whether the father of Bruno fil' Benedicti militis, mentioned in the Pipe Roll of 3 Richard I, was not after all " the soldier</page><page sequence="6">6 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN leading member, Dr. Hector Nunes, one of the most active merchants in the City, had wide-spread business and personal con? nexions abroad which were found extremely useful by the govern? ment, and seems to have organised an elaborate information service in Spain and Portugal. He enjoyed the complete confidence both of Burleigh and of Walsingham, and actually brought the latter the earliest news of the arrival of the Great Armada at Lisbon. His brother-in-law, Bernaldo Luis, did extensive espionage work for Burleigh in Spain, where he was arrested in 1588. The military achievements of another of the Marrano group, Francis Anes or Ames, were more immediate. He was a soldier of fortune and after having been employed by Sir Francis Drake for intelligence service in the Azores, held a command in the English garrison at Youghal in Ireland. Subsequently, he became mayor of the town (as Raleigh was in 1588-9), and earned the commendation of the Earl of Ormonde for the gallant manner in which he defended it against the rebels. In view of the fact that one of his brothers was sub? sequently encountered by Coryat as a professing Jew in Constan? tinople, it is probable that Francis, too, had positive Jewish interests. It was generally held in the Peninsula, at this time, that the local crypto-Jews avenged themselves on their persecutors by doing all they could to assist Sir Francis Drake and his associates when they came to singe the King of Spain's beard. We are now at the threshold of the Resettlement Period, during which the leading role in Anglo-Jewish history was played by Marranos, born in Spain or Portugal and brought up ostensibly as Christians. Religious restrictions could not very well be applied to them, and they apparently found the career of arms exceptionally attractive, though forced to abandon it when they embraced Judaism openly. Men like Captain Miguel de Barrios, the poet-in-ordinary to the Amsterdam community: Captain Joseph Semah Arias, who translated Josephus' Contra Apionem into Spanish: Captain Chaves, of the Portuguese service, resident at Leghorn: Captain Moses Cohen Peixotto, poet as well as soldier : David Peixotto, who formed a daring plan to raid the Portuguese coast with a fleet of</page><page sequence="7">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN J eighteen sail and break into the Palace of the Inquisition at Coimbra, are only a few out of the many names that might be assembled to prove this point. Later on, in 1673, Francisco da Silva (son of the Duarte da Silva who came to London to administer the dowry of Catherine of Braganza) was responsible for the defeat of the Duke de Crequi's attempt to relieve Treves and was raised to the dignity of Marquis de Montfort as a reward: his son, the second Marquis (who retained his associations with England) returned publicly to Judaism. When a Jewish settlement was at last constituted again in England, its members included a few persons of this type. Most prominent among them was the fire-eating Simon de Caceres, who made himself useful to the government at the time of the conquest of Jamaica, gave sound advice concerning trade with Barbados, and presented a memorandum in which he actually suggested raising a Jewish force, under the English flag, for the conquest of Chile! Others of his compatriots made themselves invaluable in Crom well's intelligence service. It is said moreover that the pilot upon whom Penn and Venables relied in their attack on Jamaica, Captain Cam poe Sabbatha, was a Marrano, while another, Acosta, superintended the commissariat for the English troops and negotiated the capitula? tion. Later on, under Charles II, a few Jewish soldiers of fortune make their appearance. Francis de Faria, who played an undis? tinguished part at the time of the Popish plot, was at one time a " Captain Lieutenant" under Colonel Montgomery, in the Prince of Orange's service, specialising in the manufacture and throwing of hand-grenades. So too in 1665-6 a certain Paul Gomes, formerly a Jew, who had served at Tangiers for two years under Lord Peter? borough, petitioned the King for a place as Lieutenant in one of the royal ships of war.1 There was one branch of military activity which became a charac? teristic Jewish occupation. On the continent, their organising 1 The historian Lindo tells an improbable tale of a Jewish commander of a man-of-war under Queen Anne, who was deprived of his ship for landing a boat's crew to rescue a kinsman from the Inquisition.</page><page sequence="8">8 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN abilities found an outlet in the supervision of the military commis? sariat, and from the seventeenth century onwards it was they who to a large extent looked after the stomach on which the various armies marched. The profession was not without its dangers: and if we admit members of the R.A.S.C. as soldiers, we can hardly refuse that title to these military purveyors, some of whom served in the field at no little personal risk. William of Orange's expedition to England had its commissariat supervised by Francisco de Cordova, acting on behalf of Isaac Pereira, who provided bread and forage for the troops; and*the firm of Machado and Pereira performed the same function in the Campaign of the Boyne. Sir Solomon de Medina carried on the tradition during Marlborough's campaigns in Flanders, and was involved in the charges against him: while at the same period Joseph Cortissos, of Amsterdam, rendered the same service for Peterborough in Spain?and was all but ruined in conse? quence. During the Continental wars under George II, a consider? able part in this work was taken by Abraham Prado of Twickenham, the friend of Horace Walpole. The diary and letter-book of one of his subordinates, David Mendes da Costa, preserved in the British Museum, throws much new light on the organisation of the military commissariat at this period. None of the persons thus far in question held military commis? sions. This was, in fact, impossible for a professing Jew, since the Test Act of 1673 made it necessary for any person holding a civil or military commission under the Crown to take the Sacrament accord? ing to the rites of the Church of England. James Picciotto, the pioneer nineteenth-century historian of Anglo-Je wry, spoke about a Commodore Chamberlain who flourished under William and Mary, but it has recently been shown that he was after all not a Jew. There was no specific objection on the other hand to Jews serving before the mast: and in this category many Jews can be traced in the middle of the eighteenth century. I cite one typical instance only out of many: Aaron Hart, mariner on the privateer Caxtor under Captain Charles Fielding, who died at sea in 1759 leaving all his property to his brother, David Hart, and his sister,</page><page sequence="9">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 9 Rachael, wife of Isaac Levi, tailor, of St. James's, Dukes' Place. The combination of name, calling and residence would seem to be con? clusive evidence of origin. So, too, in the American plantations, Zacariah Cohen was a gunner in the sloop Queen of Hungary in 1744. In 1778, the representative Jewish organisations very properly decided not to apply for exemption from the provisions of the act for pressing men into the King's service; and during the French Revolutionary Wars there was an increasing number of Jewish sailors. The marriage-documents in the Archives of the Great Syna? gogue often contain incidental details such as " His brothers are at sea, in the King's Ships " or " His brother is on the Expedition." Some years ago, a letter from a Jewish tar who fought under Nelson at the Nile was offered for sale in London. There was another Jew, Richard Barnett (uncle of Samuel Phillips, the literary critic and essayist), who served in this battle on Nelson's flagship, Vanguard, and left an account of his experiences which was discovered among his papers on his death in 1819. Another Jew who served under Nelson was Moses Benjamin, who was discharged from Victory in August 1805, and whose son was licensed to trade in the City of London under the law granting special privileges to the families of men who had served in the forces. In the Trafalgar Roll of Victory there is more than one name (e.g. William Abrahams, of Amster? dam, and John Jacobs, of Arundel) which perhaps indicates Jewish birth. Family traditions, moreover*tell of other Jews who fought at Trafalgar, whose descendants are prominent in the Jewish com? munity today: Isaac Salaman, who was bought out of the Navy some time after the battle: Barnett Abraham Simmons, subsequendy minister in the Penzance synagogue, who according to report lost a finger in the service; and one De Saxe, who served under Nelson (according to family legend, in the flagship) at Trafalgar. Dr. Martin, of Bevis Marks, a well-known London practitioner a century ago, was also said to have been an old Navy man : and Isaac Vallen tine, the founder of the Jewish Chronicle, was yet another well known English Jew who served before the mast in the Napoleonic</page><page sequence="10">10 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN wars. In George Sanger's memoirs, Seventy Years a Showman (London, 1927) an account is given of a couple of Jewish performers, Israel and Benjamin Hart, who were pressed for service on Pompey and turned out to be good sailors and brave fighting-men. There were three Jews?all man-o'-war's men?among the old salts in Greenwich Hospital in 1850 : and in the West Ham cemetery of the United Synagogue there lie the remains of an old Greenwich pensioner named Solomons, who had served in the Marines during the wars against the French, had been awarded several medals and died in January 1871. For the commissioned ranks, a different stratum of the Anglo Jewish community was of course drawn on. Moreover, as has been mentioned before, it was impossible for professing Jews to hold His Majesty's commission, and accordingly there can be question only of those who changed or dissembled their faith. Yet, once again, it is possible to discover some significant names. The Gentle? man's Magazine, in the single year 1745, mentions Captain Solomon Gideon, R.N.; Commander Israel, of the privateer Adventure', and Commander Veil (a son of the well-known Justice, and grandson ot the learned apostate, of the name) of the privateer Hunter. The same periodical announced in 1854 the recent death of Benjamin da Costa, " one of the few remaining officers engaged in the Battle of Trafalgar," in his seventy-fifth year?obviously a member of the illustrious Sephardi family. Less distinctive are the names of other officers who fought at Trafalgar, such as Philip Mendel, Lieutenant on H.M.S. Conqueror. A Commander Donald Fernandez (1771 1851) is also recorded, who obviously served during the Napoleonic wars, and presumably under Nelson. In the medical department, there was Isaac Alvarenga (uncle of Sergeant Sir John Simon), who after forty years' service retired with the rank of Rear-Admiral. But the record of the Jewish association with the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century is bound up especially with one family, which played a really noteworthy part in English naval history; though in order to do so they had to abandon their Judaism. Their progenitor was Dr. Meyer Low Sch?mberg (1690?1761) who, born at Fetzburg</page><page sequence="11">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN II in Germany, came to London about 1720, was for many years Physician to the Great Synagogue and wrote a sort of Apology for his life, Emunath Omen, in Hebrew. His sons, all of whom were probably born on the Continent and were certainly brought up in the traditions of stern though hardly uncompromising Judaism, played a considerable part in English life. Isaac (1714-1780), one of the first persons of Jewish birth to graduate at Cambridge, was a physician like his father and attended Garrick in his last illness. Raphael or Ralph (1714-1792) practised the calling of poetry as well as of medicine, but with less satisfactory results. The youngest of the brood, however, Alexander (1720-1804) entered the navy in 1743, was promoted Captain in 1757, and served in Canada in the Seven Years' War. In 1759-60 he took part in the Siege of Louisburg and in the various engagements in the St. Lawrence, and later assisted in the reduction of the Straits of Belle Isle. At the capture of Quebec, he was in command of the frigate Diana which covered the British landing, and his journal, containing four pages of notes and a plan from Wolfe's own hand, is still preserved. He was knighted in 1777, his portrait being painted by Hogarth and subsequently pub? lished under the title " A Sea Officer." (History repeats itself. Upwards of a century later, when a tobacco manufacturing firm desired to reproduce for publicity purposes the portrait of a typical English tar?still one of the best-known pieces of advertising in this country?it was the head of a Jewish sailor born in the East End that as it happens served as model for the purpose.) Sir Alexander Sch?mberg founded a naval and military dynasty, with fighting in its blood. He was the father of two gallant officers in the senior service. The elder, Alexander Wilmot Sch?mberg (1774-1850), served with distinction in the French Revolutionary Wars, became Admiral of the Blue, and published a standard work on shipbuilding: the younger, Sir Charles Marsh Sch?mberg (1779 1835), fought at the Battle of the Nile and elsewhere and was subse? quently Commander in Chief at the Cape of Good Hope and Lieutenant Governor of Dominica. Their footsteps were followed in the next generation by the former's sons, Rear-Admiral Herbert</page><page sequence="12">12 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN Sch?mberg (i 804-1867) : Vice-Admiral Charles Frederick Sch?m? berg (d. 1874) : and General Sir George Augustus Sch?mberg (1821 1907). In the next generation there was the explorer, Lieutenant General Herbert St. George Sch?mberg, C.B. (1845-1915), of the Royal Marines, a great-great-grandson of the physician to the Great Synagogue two hundred years ago, whose family have continued his fighting traditions. Reverting to an earlier generation of this family, Isaac Sch?mberg (1753-1813), son of the poetaster Ralph Sch?mberg and grandson of the founder, commanded a ship on the Glorious First of June, served under Nelson and Cornwallis, was Commissioner and Deputy Comptroller of the navy from 1808 to his death, and wrote a once-famous work on naval chronology. Thus, in the classical period of British naval history, Jewish blood was adequately represented.1 So far as the land forces were concerned, we have to look in the first instance at Home Defence. On the very morrow of the Resetde ment, members of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in London were to be found in the ranks of the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest English volunteer association: and this connexion has known hardly any interruption thereafter. Moreover, the Syna? gogue was under obligation to supply three men to the local Com? pany of the Trainbands of London, and to furnish them with muskets, powder, bandoliers and pay (at the rate usually of a half a crown a day). At the time of the unrest at the close of the reign of Charles II, as well as at the time of the Coronation of William and Mary in 1689, they were frequently called out for musters and double guard-duty. During the " Forty-five " Rebellion, the London Jews rallied whole-heartedly to the Government, and enlisted freely in the City Militia hastily raised to repel the invader. (One of the volunteers on this occasion was apparently the Rabbi, Isaac Nieto, whose critics subsequently sneered at him for adding the pro 1 Among the representatives of the family to-day are Brigadier Harold St. George Sch?mberg, D.S.O., Lt.-Col. R. C. F. Sch?mberg, D.S.O., and Vice-Admiral Geoffrey Sch?mberg Arbuthnot, C.B., D.S.O., a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty.</page><page sequence="13">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 13 fession of soldier to those of Minister of religion and Notary Public.) This is not the place to speak of the financial support of the Jewish merchants at this time, headed by the great Samson Gideon, though it may be mentioned that it was he who set the example of offering a bounty to recruits at a black period of the Seven Years' War. In 1779?when, just as now, England seemed to be isolated in a hostile Europe, and when, just as now, she triumphandy sur? mounted the danger?a meeting was called for July 7th in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Bevis Marks. The proceed? ings were opened by the Parnas Presidente with a speech in Portu? guese : " Sirs, you are called to this meeting in consequence of a con? ference which we have held with the Deputies of the Nation, in order to give your opinion whether it will be needful and proper on the present occasion that something be done for us to shew our zeal and the extent to which we are interested in the welfare and prosperity of this nation." Two resolutions were then moved and carried, to the following effect: (1) " That it be recommended to the Yehidim or Members of our Community in Case of Publick subscriptions for the Defence of the Kingdom to enter Liberally in such Subscrip? tions." (2) " That in case of an Actual Invasion in any part of Great Brittain it is recommended that Our Yehidim &amp; Others of our Community should enter Chearfully Personally or otherwise into such Loyal Associations which may be formed." Matters did not in fact come to such an extreme. Yet even with? out this stimulus, Jews were not backward in their duty; indeed, six years previous, in 1773, there were twelve Jewish names among 200 in the roll of a single regiment?the White Regiment of the City Militia, commanded by Captain Alexander Dodd. The invasion scare was repeated twenty years later, during the Napoleonic wars. On the renewal of hostilities in 1803, when the arrival of the French was anticipated almost daily, a patriotic wave swept through the country, and volunteers thronged to the colours.</page><page sequence="14">14 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN The Jews were not backward. On August 15th, the newly-appointed Chief Rabbi, Solomon Hirschell, preached in the Great Synagogue on the moral duty of arming in the defence of the country, though he deplored the infringement of the Jewish ceremonial laws except in case of emergency. So effective was his appeal that on October 19th alone, three hundred of what the news-sheets called " the most respectable individuals of the Jewish persuasion " took the oaths of allegiance on the Old Testament on the drill grounds or in the vestry-rooms of Churches as "by an order from their High Priest they were prohibited from attending in our churches during the time of Divine Service." It is told how on one occasion George III, reviewing an East End regiment in Hyde Park, was struck by the number of zoophoric names (such as Lyon, Wolf, Hart and so on) borne by those in its ranks. A contemporary ballad, The Jew Volunteer, satirised this display of enthusiasm, not altogether kindly; while a caricature dated September 1803, entitled "The Loyal Jew," shows a bearded paladin informing a French infantry? man who summons him to surrender, in broken English : " Never, while I am a Shew. I'll let you know Mounsheer, dat I fight for King Sheorge and de Shynagogue." The Jewish Museum in London possesses an oil-painting of Private Alexander Cohen (" of swarthy complexion and five feet five inches high ") with a certificate attached from the commanding officer of the Tenth London Volun? teers to the effect that he had taken the oath of allegiance as prescribed. There is still extant in the possession of his family the commission in the Whitechapel Fencibles issued in 1813 to Louis Lucas. Moses Montefiore, too, held a commission at this time. Outside London, the number of Jews was as yet relatively small. Nevertheless, the case here was the same. At Dover, Plymouth, Bristol, Exeter, Liverpool, Gosport and other towns the Jews en? rolled themselves in the Volunteers. At Portsmouth, indeed, the Mayor refused them admittance, on the grounds that it was contrary to precedent. Jacob Levy, the leading member of the community (ancestor incidentally of Sir Robert Waley Cohen and of Arthur Waley) wrote to the Home Secretary in protest. His co-religionists,</page><page sequence="15">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 15 he stated, were greatly hurt by this attitude, for none were more loyal than they and they had been able to serve in the Militia with? out difficulty. A provincial Jewish volunteer of these days, whose portrait has been preserved, was Jacob Moseley, of Swansea, a Sergeant in the Glamorganshire Yeomanry. The boxer, Daniel Mendoza, records in his autobiography that he served at this time as Sergeant and Colour-Sergeant in the Fifeshire and then in the Aberdeenshire Fencibles.1 Meanwhile, scions of Jewish families, necessarily camouflaged as Christians, had begun to percolate into the commissioned ranks of the regular army. They were mostly in the first instance Sephardim, who as we have seen already had a strong military tradition: and the dynasties which they founded can still be recognised in the Army List even at the present day. Already in the middle of the eighteenth century, Solomon d'Aguilar (fourth son of the Marrano magnate, Moses Lopes Pereira, and brother of the eccentric Baron d'Aguilar, of Starvation Farm, Islington) entered the Militia, and his brother Joseph became a Captain in the Second Dragoon Guards (the Queen's Bays). The former founded a military dynasty, no less distinguished than that of the Sch?mbergs in the sister service. His son, George Charles d'Aguilar (i784-1855), entered the army as an ensign in 1799, served with distinction in India, took part in the ill-fated Walcheren Expedition, was promoted Lieutenant Colonel when he brought back from the Peninsula the news of the victory of Castalla, was with Wellington in Flanders in 1815, commanded 1 The Jewish participation in the volunteer movement during the Napoleonic Wars is commemorated in Archibald Maclarin's musical drama, Britons to Arms I (London, 1803), Act II, Scene 3 : ? Thomas: Reuben, wou'd not you fight them? Reuben: Fight them! ... By all the ancient hero's of my race, if Bonaparte himself was to come, I wou'd let him see that I am a Jew and a Briton, ready to fight and die in defence of my king and country, and my property. Thomas: Mr. Reuben, give me your hand?I hear that your people in London have shew'd a spirit of patriotism Reuben: Not inferior to any of their neighbours, I hope. Of course, Jews did their duty in subsequent volunteer movements; in 1861 the nth Tower Hamlets Rifles was recruited exclusively among East End Jews.</page><page sequence="16">l6 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN in the Chinese war of 1847, and ended as Lieutenant-General Sir George d'Aguilar, K.C.B. He in turn was father of General Sir Charles Laurence d'Aguilar, K.C.B. (1821-1912), who distinguished himself in the Crimean War. It may be added that Admiral Keith Stewart was a grandson of Baron d'Aguilar through his mother. The Lopes Pereira family, related to the Barons d'Aguilar, had a similar military tradition. Manasseh Lopes Pereira (1776-1853) entered the service as a cadet in 1796, served in the French Revolu? tionary and Napoleonic wars, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant General. Isaac Pereira (d. 1847), a cadet of 1805, became Lieutenant Colonel in the Bengal Artillery in 1837. These two were the founders of the military dynasty now represented by Colonel Arthur Pereira and Major-General Sir Cecil Pereira. Allied families were little less prominent. A Henry de Castro, promoted Major in 1798, died as a General in 1828 at Holies Place, Brompton, in his seventy eighth year; he must therefore have entered the service about 1770. Contemporary with him and probably a kinsman was Charles de Castro, of the 75 th regiment, who died in 1792. The Governor of Trinidad in 1828 was Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Capadose, of the ist West India Regiment (d. 1848), son of a runaway marriage in the best Smollett tradition which sorely troubled the Bevis Marks synagogue at the time, and author of sundry books of travel. To the same period belongs Sir David Ximenes (1777-1848), of the 62nd Foot, who after service in America and Italy, led his regiment at the siege of Genoa, was promoted to the rank of Major-General, and was knighted in 1832. His eldest son, Morris, followed his father's profession, but died in India in 1839, while still a lieutenant; while his brother, Sir Morris (originally Moses) Ximenes (1762 1837), helped to raise the Windsor Foresters, and subsequently com? manded the Wargrave Yeoman Cavalry. A more impressive figure is that of Antonio Lopez Suasso (1776-1857), descendant and homonym of the Dutch Jewish magnate who financed William III, created in 1676 Baron d'Avernas le Gras. Assuming his mother's name, Diaz de Fonseca, he renounced Judaism, became an officer in the English army, fought in the wars with France, wrote a</page><page sequence="17">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN standard work on infantry movements, retired as a Captain in 1829, and spent his last days in literary pursuits. It should not be imagined that only members of the Spanish and Portuguese section of the Anglo-Jewish community showed military tastes. Indeed, the earliest traceable Anglo-Jewish army officer was Henry, yet another son of Dr. Meyer Low Sch?mberg, who became a Lieutenant as early as 1755 and rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. There were several similar cases in the Goldsmid family who, headed by the brothers Abraham and Benjamin, Nelson's friends, had contributed gready to England's financial stability during the early stages of the wars of the French Revolution. Three at least of Benjamin's sons adopted a military career. One of them, Jacob or James (1793?1814), Lieutenant in the 58th Regiment, perished at sea in 1814 through the foundering of a troopship, while on his way on active service to Canada : another, Lionel (1797-1866), held a commission in the 19th Dragoons : while a third, Albert (1793-1861), of the 12th Royal Lancers, took part in the principal engagements of the Peninsula War, fought as a cornet at Waterloo?where he had two horses shot under him?and subsequently rose to the rank of Major-General. In this distinction he was followed by his nephew, Major-General Sir Frederick John Goldsmid, K.C.S.I. (1818-1908). Another Great Synagogue family ?among the oldest, this time?was represented by Jacob Adolphus, M.D. (1770-1845) who, beginning his army career in 1795 as Hospital Mate, became Inspector-General of Hospitals and died as Major-General Sir Jacob Adolphus. Less distinguished was Isaac Moses, formerly a Captain in the 60th Regiment, who after resign? ing his commission settled in 1817 in Cape Town as a money? changer, and even contributed to the local synagogue in its early days. Jewish extraction is less apparent in the name of Sir Francis Bond Head (1793-1875), who served at Waterloo in the Royal Engineers?a grandson of Moses Mendes the poet, whose children had adopted their mother's maiden name. He subsequendy was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, where he suppressed the rising of 1837-8, and was the author of several books. (The present B</page><page sequence="18">18 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN Baronet has been twice wounded in this war.) His brother, Sir George Head (1782-1855), served in the commissariat during the Peninsula War and subsequently in North America, was appointed Assistant Commissary General in 1814, and acted as Deputy Marshal at the coronations of William IV and Queen Victoria. It is a difficult task to trace officers who were of Jewish extraction in the female line. It may, however, be mentioned that General Sir George Powell Higginson (d. 1866), an eminent nineteenth-century soldier, was son of the Anglo-Jewish woman artist, Martha Isaacs. He was in turn the father of General Sir G. W. A. Higginson (1826-1928), Private Secretary to Queen Alexandra, who fought in the Crimean War and from 1879 to 1884 was in command of the Brigade of Guards. Among the half-Jews who served under Wellington at Waterloo (there must have been several) was Sir Henry Allen Johnson (1785-1860), whose mother was Rebecca Franks, the famous American beauty: a brother of his had fallen in the Peninsular War, and his family after him have produced many distinguished soldiers down to our own day. Colonel Henry Charles Mellish (1782-1817), grandson of the famous Catherine Villareal and a member of the circle of the Prince Regent, served in the Peninsula as Wellington's aide-de-camp. One of the most intriguing figures we have to take into account in the course of this survey is Joshua Montefiore, a kinsman of Sir Moses, concerning whose career a legend seems to have grown up in his lifetime. He is said to have graduated at Oxford, and if this were true was the first Jew to achieve that distinction : but his name does not figure in any official university record, and we are given no inkling as to how he managed to evade the statutory obstacles which effectively barred the way to his co-religionists. The same applies to the story that he was called to the Bar in 1784 (the first recorded Jewish barrister is half a century later). But it is certainly a fact that he took part in the expedition led to West Africa in 1791 by Captain Moses Ximenes, taking charge of the military side of the operations. The party occupied the island of Bolama, in what is now Portuguese Guinea, and raised the British flag: but after</page><page sequence="19">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN IQ several engagements they were compelled to withdraw. I have pointed out elsewhere how characteristic it was of the Jew that one of Montefiore's first cares was to organise a system of education for the children of his companions. The account of the expedition that he published subsequently shows a distinct ability with the pen as well as with the sword. Later he entered the army and (again one must speak guardedly) is reported to have obtained a military commission, being present as a captain at the capture of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1809. If this report is correct, he was the first professing Jew to hold a commission in the British army : but I have not been able to find any confirmation of it or to discover how he was able to circumvent the legal provisions that stood as obstacle in the way of others. When Jewish emancipation was being discussed in Parliament in 1833, the Duke of Wellington admitted that fifteen Jewish officers had fought under him at Waterloo. It should not be difficult, with the assistance of the data given in the foregoing pages and detailed research in the military records of the time, to identify them individually; though owing to the operation of the Test Act it is out of the question (as has already been pointed out) that any of them can have openly professed their religion. On the other hand, there were serving under him in the allied forces (besides medical men like Dr. George Hartwig Gerson, of Hamburg, who superin? tended the Hopital des Visitandines during the batde) numbers of others, in the Dutch and Prussian contingents, where military policy was at this time a good deal more liberal. It is said, indeed, that no fewer than thirty-five allied militia officers who were Jews fell at La Belle Alliance. For obvious reasons, private soldiers cannot be traced so easily. Moreover, though the Test Act did not apply as a bar in their case, no religion other than Christianity was recognised in the army, and a Jew who took the King's Shilling must have had a particularly uncomfortable time. Nevertheless, a few avoided all such obstacles, and even managed (how, I do not know) to preserve their Jewish fidelities. Noah Davis, an active communal worker of the last</page><page sequence="20">20 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN generation, used to tell how his father, Mark Davis, of Walworth, had served in the British army under Wellington. We know too of a veteran of the Peninsula, Sergeant Cohen, who fought at Water? loo in the King's German Legion. (His son, Lehmann Cohen, served forty years later in the Crimea and at the Siege of Delhi.) The Waterloo Muster Rolls provide a number of other fairly distinctive names, as for example, those of Henry and James Jacobs of the 7th Light Dragoons; Corporal Henry Myer of the 10th; and James Levy of the 15th. And one of the last survivors of the battle (accord? ing to the St. James s Gazette of April 12th, 1899), was Jacob Myers, who had died in the previous September at the ripe old age of 103 years. Interesting evidence of Jewish service in the military forces of the Crown at this time comes from South Africa. A certain old soldier named Sergeant Isaac da Costa was permitted to settle in the Cape Colony on receiving his discharge in 1824. Nearly a quarter of a century later, he began to suffer from twinges of conscience, and made provision in his will for a handsome legacy to the newly established Synagogue at Cape Town, on condition that he was buried in its cemetery. His religion and extraction being certain, there does not seem any need to question the origin of Samuel Moses, of the 25th Regiment, who had been given a similar license in 1817, or his contemporary, Joseph Kahn, of the 60th Regiment, who obtained his authorisation two years later; nor perhaps of one or two others (e.g. Michael Simons, 60th Regiment, 1817) whose names are somewhat less distinctive. We are enabled to establish the fact from all this evidence that a sprinkling of Jews served in the ranks, too, at the time of the Napoleonic wars without (as was necessary in the case of those who held commissions) formally abandoning, even though they concealed, their faith. While intolerance continued at home in the matter of the admission of Jews to military commissions, the force of circum? stances imposed a greater degree of liberality abroad. Hence, in every part of the British Colonies and Dependencies, there is ample record of Jewish participation in soldiering activities in times of</page><page sequence="21">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 21 emergency. In India, it was James de Paiba (d. 1685), the earliest European Jewish settler in Madras, who first suggested the forma? tion of the European militia subsequently used to such good effect by Clive. In the Siege of Gibraltar in 1779-82, the Jews worked on the defences, and they fought in the defence of Minorca (particularly Fort St. Philip) in 1781. In the American Colonies, one finds a long succession of names that seem to be indicative of Jewish origin. Isaac Myers, of New York, organised a company of " bateau-men " during the French and Indian war in 1754, when Michael Franks served as a private. In 1756, there was an ensign in the American Regiment named Abraham Hart. During the operation that led to the reduction of Canada, in which Alexander Sch?mberg played such an important part, military commissions were held (according to report) by Isaac Miranda, Emanuel de Cordova, Hananel Garcia, and above all Aaron Hart. The last-named, born in London in 1724 and originally a Lieutenant in the German Legion, was Commissary Officer to Sir Jeffrey Amhurst's forces, and rode among the staff when they entered Montreal. He later became seignior of Becan court, and as such took an active part in repulsing Montgomery's invasion in the winter of 1775. Four of his sons held commissions in the war of 1812-4, and eight of his grandsons (as well as various members of the allied David, Joseph and Judah families) during the suppression?by Sir Francis Bond Head?of the rebellion in Lower Canada in 1837-8, when Colonel Benjamin Hart took a particularly important part in the opening operations and Aaron Philip Hart raised and commanded a company of militia. Other members of the family served against the Fenians in 1870 and in France during the war of 1914-8, when two of them were killed in action. Thus, for five generations, Harts have fought in every war in which their country has been engaged?a remarkable record.1 In the West Indies, it was necessary for every white settler to be prepared to take up the sword from time to time. The Jews in Dutch Surinam, for example, were particularly active in the various P In the sixth generation David Lloyd Hart was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in the Dieppe raid of August 1942.]</page><page sequence="22">22 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN campaigns against the Bush Negroes, and one of them, David Nasi, fell in battle in 1743 in the course of his forty-third campaign. Those in the British possessions were certainly not backward. When Surinam was attacked by the Dutch in 1668, the local Jewish settlers rallied to the defence, and several lost their lives in the course of the operations. Like their neighbours, Jews were expected to take up arms whenever the occasion demanded. There is an echo of this in a communication of January 15th, 1699/1700 from the Commis? sioners of Trade to the Governor of Jamaica, requesting him to see that the Jews of the island were gently treated and " more particu? larly to take care (as desired by the Baron de Belmonte's Memorial), that they be not obliged to be in Arms on their Sabaths or other Solemn Feasts, unless it be when an Enemy is in View." As to how they acquitted themselves, the answer of the Governor (no friend of the Jews) is sufficient testimony: "As for their beareing Armes, it must be owned that when any publick occasion has happened or an Enemy appeared, they have been ready and behaved themselves very well." In the early years of the nineteenth century, there were in the Jamaica militia three companies of light infantry composed entirely of Jews. In other parts of the West Indies, conditions were of course similar. Alexander Lindo, of Finsbury Square, a member of a well-known English family allied to the Disraelis, was killed in artion in Barbados in 1804; while at the dawn of a more tolerant age we find Moses Quixano Henriques gazetted an ensign there in 1832. A souvenir of active service in this part of the world was displayed in the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition of 1887 in the form of a dagger presented to a certain Mr. de Castro (perhaps Hananel de Castro, a great figure in the Bevis Marks synagogue in his day, who served in the West Indies with the English Volunteer Force about this time) for having headed a volunteer company against the negro rioters in 1820. Of all the colonies, it was in South Africa that a state of war was least uncommon. Here Joshua Norden, one of the most devoted members of the original Jewish community, raised and commanded the Grahamstown Yeomanry in 1838, and was killed in action in</page><page sequence="23">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 23 1846. (There is a tablet to his memory in Grahamstown Cathedral!) His brother, Samuel, died in the Kaffir War of 1858 as the result of an accident. Elias de Pass (1829-1913), a native of King's Lynn, and member of a family which played a very notable part in the development of South Africa, also served in the Kaffir Wars, was wounded and became Lieutenant. An Alfred Solomons is also mentioned in 1856 as having been an officer in two Kaffir Wars. The Jewish names in South African military history at a later stage, from Colonel Sir David Harris downwards, are too numerous to mention individually. It was only after the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1829 that it became at last legally possible for a Jew to obtain a commission in the armed forces of the Crown: for naval and military officers below the rank of Rear Admiral and Major-General were specifically exempted from the necessity of making the new Declaration " upon the true faith of a Christian " which assisted in holding up Jewish political emancipation for another generation. I have not been able to discover who was the first person to avail himself of the privileges that were now opened. Captain Lionel Gomez da Costa, who died of wounds at Lucknow in 1857 and was universally considered to be a man of outstanding gallantry, and Edmund Helbert Ellis, Ensign in the Bombay Native Infantry, who died in 1851 at the age of 22, are the first professing Jews of whom I have certain knowledge who obtained military commissions in the regular army, though it is hardly possible that they had no prede? cessors.1 Indeed, Jews were by now beginning to figure with increas? ing frequency on the army list, a notable military tradition being built up by some families which merged in the end in the general community. It will be noticed, incidentally, that the Indian army seems to have exercised an especial attraction for them?possibly because social prejudice was less strong or because it may have 1 The latter was a younger brother of Sir Barrow Ellis, the Colonial administrator (1823-87). It is uncertain whether Captain Frederick John Helbert (1829-1908), of the Madras Light Infantry, was a professing Jew when he obtained his commission; the same applies to Lieutenant Frederick Levien (a grandson of Abraham Goldsmid), of the Bombay Native Infantry (d. 1857).</page><page sequence="24">24 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN recognised, as the Horse Guards did not as yet, the possibility (apart from the legality) of professing Judaism in the army. The record of the Barrow family was indeed exceptional. Four distinguished officers?Major-General Joseph Lyon Barrow (1812 1890): Major-General Lousada Barrow, Chief Commissioner of Oude (1816-1877) : Major-General de Symons Barrow (1823-1905) : and Captain Francis Octavius Barrow (1825-1859)?were all sons of Simon Barrow, a prominent member of the Spanish and Portu? guese synagogue in London. His grandsons included Captain Hugh Lousada Barrow, who was killed in the engagement at Tokar in 1891 : Captain Percy Barrow, of the 19th Hussars, one of the most dashing cavalry leaders in the British army, who died of wounds received at Tel-el-Kebir : Colonel Arthur Frederick Barrow (1850-1903) : and General Sir George de Symons Barrow (b. 1864), a gallant officer with a magnificent record. Another member of the family was Seymour Barrow, of the Cameronian Scottish Rifles (d. 1886), who commanded the mounted cavalry in Egypt. Similarly the Gompertz family, long closely associated with the Hambro' Synagogue, had produced by the end of the nineteenth century a Major-General, a Colonel and more than one Major (not to mention a military chaplain!), and is now represented by Brigadier M. L. A. Gompertz. And from time to time we encounter other noteworthy figures, such as Daniel Mocatta, son of Elias Mocatta, who distin? guished himself in the India Mutiny, was promoted Captain at the siege of Delhi, and died a Major-General; or Ensign Cohen, of the 21 st Regiment (d. 1866), the first army officer to be awarded the medal of the Royal Humane Society.1 1 It is convenient to mention here Major Danneberg (d. 1857), a Hungarian soldier who had served under Kossuth and held a commission in the British forces in the Second China War; Lt.-Col. Michael Clare Garsia (1838-1903), and his two brothers, all of whom held commissions; and Lt.-Colonel Emanuel Montefiore, R.A. (1842-1933) who entered the Bombay Artillery in i860 and whose Jewish loyalties were so positive that in later life he was a member of the council of the West London Synagogue. In the navy were Commander Henry Aguilar, R.N. (d. 1893), and a Captain Levy, who distinguished himself in command of a vessel during the operations in New Zealand. Captain T. A. de Wahl, R.N. (1836-67) was also a</page><page sequence="25">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 25 Meanwhile, under more favourable conditions (though even now it was impossible for them to make public profession of Judaism), members of the communal proletariat were trickling in greater numbers in the ranks. It is less easy to trace them after this lapse of time, but occasionally one comes across unmistakable names. The Jews are, for example, linked up (as it would seem) with one of the classical military disasters of the nineteenth century by Private H. Jacobs, of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who went down with the Bir\enhead in 1852. A number fought in the Crimea?Sergeant Isaac Jacobs of the 62nd Foot; Lehman Cohen of the 52nd (whose father had served as a sergeant under Wellington, as has been mentioned); Corporal Henry Jessel, a cousin of the famous lawyer; Nathan Henry, who rode in the charge of the Light Brigade and was captured; and, in the navy, Master Gunner J. C. Lyons and Samuel Nathan, son of an Exeter centenarian, who gained two medals while serving in Queen. Other veterans of mid-Victorian campaigns were Lewis Levy, of the 14th Light Dragoons, who marched in the Persian Expeditionary Force in 1857 and subsequendy in the Central Indian Field Force in 1857-8; Sergeant Walter Rooney (Bucks), R.A., who fought in India throughout the Mutiny and died when on the point of returning home; and Sergeant H. P. Moseley, who served in Canada at the time of the Fenian Risings, long a familiar figure in London in his scarlet uniform as a Chelsea Pensioner. Sergeant Henry Bennett, of the Dorset Regiment, a grandson of* the polemist-engraver Solomon Bennett, fell in the Afridi campaign after serving in Egypt and elsewhere. At one time, Warrant-Officer Mendez, of the Army Ordnance Corps, who had enlisted in 1867, was the oldest serving soldier in the British Army.1 member of a well-known Anglo-Jewish house. William Quixano Henriques, R.N., served at Alexandria in 1882 and received medals for life-saving from the Royal Humane Society. Other Jewish families which figured in the army list in the last century include those of Ricardo, Bernal, Uzielli, and Lousada. Lieutenant-Colonel Moss Defries obtained his commission in the H.A.C. in 1863. The name of Lieutenant General Perez Lachman, of the Indian Native Army, is suggestive. 1 Jewish devotion to what England stands for was manifested during the Crimean War in a very remarkable manner. Several Russian Jews, captured before Sebastopol,</page><page sequence="26">26 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN However, conscientious Jews were still excluded from the army by reason of the fact that Judaism was not recognised in the official list as one of the denominations that could be recorded on attestation. That this was altered in the end was due in particular to the efforts of two persons. When Colonel Albert Goldsmid was gazetted from Sandhurst in 1866, he had no difficulty, for he was barely conscious of his Jewish origin. Later on, his ancestral loyalties had been revived and he embraced the faith of his forebears, and when in 1884 he became a member of Headquarters Staff he began to work for the removal of the old obstacle. At the other end of the military scale, Private Woolf Cohen, of the Fifth Lancers, with a handful of others, had insisted notwithstanding all difficulties in reporting themselves as Jews. In the end their efforts were successful, and in the revised edition of the Queen's Regulations of 1886 Judaism at last received recognition. Only now the way was clear. Had con? forming Jews previously been quite absent from the British army (and the facts as we have seen show a completely different picture) the fault would not have been theirs. It is superfluous to pursue this enquiry further. Once English Jewry was fully emancipated, it took its place, simply and naturally, by the side of other Englishmen; and in recent wars the proportion of Jews serving, the proportion of Jewish casualties, and the propor? tion of Jewish decorations has been slightly higher rather than lower than among the general population.1 But they did not await emanci regarded their release from the " Russian Haman " of the time as providential and enlisted in the British forces. A couple of them are mentioned in the Jewish Chronicle of 30, vi, 1893 and 22, ix, 1893 - F. Gust, captured at Balaclava, who then entered the 4th Regiment of Foot, and a certain Fisher Cohen, likewise a prisoner, who served in the British forces from 1854 to the end of the war. I fancy that another of the group died some years back at Plymouth: and Isaac Weber, long a familiar figure in the East End, was another. For other Crimean veterans, see Jewish Chronicle, 20, vi, 1873; 29, ix, 1899; 22, iv, 1904. 1 In the decade 1893-1903, the number of Jews holding a commission doubled, of those in the ranks increased six times. In the Boer War, between 3,000 and 4,000 Jews served all told, 127 fell in action, and 42 were mentioned in despatches; in the war of 1914-8, there were nearly 10,000 Jewish casualties among the 50,000 Jews serving, 1,596 were decorated, and 6 were awarded the Victoria Cross.</page><page sequence="27">THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN 27 pation. Like most extremely pacific persons, the Jew is a good fighting-man, and he has never failed to demonstrate his devotion (not merely his loyalty) to this country on the battlefield when the opportunity has offered. This is no cause for pride. It is a question of duty; and the whole of Jewish history is a demonstration that we of all people do not shirk our duty wherever it may lead us. In this grim hour of crisis, we can thank God that we live in an age when our duty as men, as Jews and as Englishmen points out our path so clearly. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Detailed references for every statement would drastically increase the bulk and diminish the readability of this paper, but a few general references are here given for the assistance of the student who may desire to investigate the matter further. There is a good but rather gullible survey or the subject in general in The Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. " Army," and much information about Jewish soldiers of fortune in an engaging work by Fritz Heymann, Der Chevalier von Geldern (Amster? dam, 1937). For the exclusion of the Jews from military service in the late Roman Empire, which had a very great influence on subsequent developments, see Juster, Les Juifs dans VEmpire Romain, ii, 265 ff. A fascinating collection of personal records of Jews who fought in the Napoleonic wars has been published by M. Grunwald, Die Feldz?ge Napoleons (Vienna, 1913). The most detailed account of Beni Israel soldiers may now be found in H. S. Kehimkar's The History of the Bene-Israel of India (Tel-Aviv, 1935). Detailed references for my state? ments about the Jews in England in the Middle Ages will be found in my History of the Jews in England (Oxford, 1941), pp. 122, 134, 140, etc., with additional information in M. Adler, Jews of Medieval England (London, 1939), pp. 141, 294?7, and the sources there cited. The career of Sir Edward Brampton is described in my first published paper in Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, vol. ix; while for Hector Mendes and the Marrano group, down to the middle of the next century, the fullest source is Lucien Wolf's writings in Transactions, vols. 1 and xi and various papers in his Essays in Jewish History (London, 1934); other references relating to this period may be found in my History of the Marranos (2nd ed., Philadelphia, 1941). The Jewish army-purveyors and their work are described in an article of Wolf's in Jewish Chronicle, 28, vi, 1889; see a^so mv History of the Jews in England, pp. 194, 283-4,</page><page sequence="28">28 THE JEWS IN THE DEFENCE OF BRITAIN and the sources there cited. For Jewish participation in the London train-bands and militia at this period cf. Lionel D. Barnett, Bet/is Mar\s Records (Oxford, 1940), i, 13, 21, etc., and for the volunteers of 1803, my forthcoming History of the Great Synagogue. There are interesting data on the Transatlantic plantations in S. Wolf, The American few as Patriot, Soldier and Citizen (Philadelphia, 1895): a systematic collection of great importance about Canada in The Jews in Canada,td. A.D.Hart (Toronto and Montreal, 1926): and some information about Jewish soldiers in South Africa in L. Herrman, History of the Jews in South Africa (Lon? don, 1930). Much information has been garnered from the Gentleman s Magazine and similar publications, largely by the courtesy of Mr. A. M. Hyamson, while for the nineteenth century considerable use has been made of the files of The Jewish Chronicle (cf. especially the issues of 18, vi, 1869; 27, ii, 1891; 6, Hi, 1891; 17, iv, 1895; 22, i, 1897; 22, iv, 1904; 9, xii, 1904; 22, ix, 1905; 20, x, 1905; etc.). For biographical data?which might be greatly expanded?recourse must be had to the current works of reference, Jewish and general. Finally, I have drawn some statements and phrases from a previous paper of my own, The Challenge to Jewish History (London, 1936). Additional sources that may now be consulted are the following: ? B. Fleischer, From Dan to Megiddo (Outline of Jewish Military History Throughout the Ages), New York, 1941; J. G. Fredman and L. A. Falk, The Jews in American Wars, New York, 1942; J. A. P. M. Andrade, Jews in Jamaica, Kingston, 1941, pp. 176-8; Guido Kisch in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, x (1940), pp. 106-30.</page></plain_text>