April 1 1915 – 17 Nisan 5675
The soldiers of the Zion Mule Corps were sworn in to the British army in Alexandria on the first work-day after the Pesach seder. The Chief Rabbi of the city attended the ceremony, noting its connection to the exodus from Egypt. The hope was that these soldiers, too, were setting out to conquer the Promised Land.
On April 17, after just three weeks of active training, seven hundred Jewish volunteers set sail from Egypt under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, an Irish Catholic, and Joseph Trumpeldor, previously among the few Jewish officers in the Russian army and a veteran of the Russo-Japanese war. Destination: the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey. They disembarked in pouring rain, leading their terrified mules up a cliff above the beachhead, to bring their first supplies to the front. For months, they ferried food and ammunition through the mud under heavy fire, until in December 1915 the British decided to evacuate. By then the Jewish mule drivers’ bravery was an accepted fact. The mule corps was disbanded in May 1916 and Patterson returned to England, wounded and sick.
Just a year later, heavy casualties in France and a severe lack of recruits made the British rethink their opposition to a Jewish combat unit. Jabotinsky recruited throughout the Jewish world, starting in London and including Palestine, where the British were already planning their advance. The first to enlist were the 120 men of the Zion Mule Corps, with Patterson at their head. Each of these three Jewish battalions wore a different colored Star of David armband.