Orde Wingate for the JC March 1 2026
Previously unseen papers written by the legendary British commander, Major-General Orde Wingate, prophesying the outbreak of the Second World War, are now being studied at the National Library of Israel (NLI), which received the “thrilling” archive material last month.
Wingate, known in Israel as “HaYedid”, or The Friend, was a high-ranking British Army officer who was posted to Mandate Palestine between 1936 and 1938. But as an ardent Christian Zionist, he swiftly threw in his lot with the Jewish community of the country. He created the Special Night Squads, teaching maverick tactics to future Israeli military leaders such as Moshe Dayan and Yigal Allon.
According to the Library: “Wingate’s combat doctrine and activities in pre-State Israel formed the core of today’s Israel Defence Forces”. He is widely regarded as “the father of modern guerrilla warfare”, and his Special Night Squads — whom he trained, commanded and often accompanied on raids —were a joint British–Jewish counter-insurgency unit which operated to great effect in the Galilee and the Jezreel Valley.
Now Rachel Misrati, the NLI archivist, has discovered two separate “prophecies” written by Wingate predicting the outbreak of war and writing about Palestine’s role in imperial strategy.
Speaking on what was Wingate’s birthday — February 26 — Ms Misrati said: “Wingate was convinced that the Middle East was going to be an important theatre of war”.
Two of the papers in the archive are headed “Prophecy” and are Wingate’s ideas about a future world war. The two papers were written within three weeks of each other and the first, written in 1938, suggested that there would be a war in 1945. But Wingate swiftly revised his opinion and forecast a war in 1939 in which “Hitler would conquer Poland in late summer or early autumn”, and that such actions would bring down the French and British governments of Daladier and Chamberlain.
Wingate predicted a “coalition [post-Chamberlain] in which Churchill will assume an important and ultimately dominating role”. As for Palestine, he wrote, “By June 1939 it will have become clear that the Jews are determined to …their right of return, colonisation and self-defence…. a growing world sympathy for Zionism will be apparent for the first time”. He also forecast the establishment of a “world federation” in 1949 — in fact the United Nations was founded in 1945.
Wingate did not live to see whether any of his prophecies came true. Angered by his overt sympathy for the Jewish community in Mandate Palestine, his British army superiors sent him out of the country in 1938, and after a short stay in England, posted him to Burma where he began to train the Chindits in much the same way he had worked with the Special Night Squads. Wingate died in a plane crash en route from Burma to India in March 1944, aged just 41, and not living to see the birth of the state of Israel.
Working in pre-State Israel as a British intelligence officer only strengthened Wingate’s belief in a future Jewish state, and he taught himself Hebrew — the only way he could communicate with the young men of the Special Night Squads — and began close friendships with many Jewish leaders, including the man who became Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann.
Among the papers now being studied at the NLI are Wingate’s Hebrew studies notebooks (he already knew Arabic from previous service in Sudan), a personal diary documenting his activities in pre-State Israel, rare photographs, maps, reports on surgical commando strikes, reports on weapons seizures, attack plans, intelligence reports and more.
These include documentation on the Special Night Squads and their role in defeating Arab insurgents and protecting numerous kibbutzim, particularly on the northern border — and detailed plans for establishing an army for the Jewish state, which he firmly believed would come into existence.
The Wingate papers were bought for the Library by Londoner Clive Lewis, who heard that they were up for sale and immediately contacted the NLI to ask if they wanted him to acquire them on their behalf.
The answer was an emphatic “yes, please”. So Lewis, himself an avid collector of Zionist and Israeli material, bought Wingate’s personal archive (which had once been owned by American billionaire Steve Forbes, publisher of the business magazine, Forbes), and presented it last month to the Jerusalem-based library.
Clive Lewis said he regarded the NLI “as one of the great libraries in the world” and was delighted to acquire the Wingate archive for it, particularly as the now fragile material will be preserved and digitised for future researchers.
He added: “I’m fascinated by the idea that archives still hold discoveries waiting to be made, with connections that scholars and digital tools can bring to light. To me, if something like this archive is of interest to a major research library, then that is exactly where it belongs. I also felt deeply that it was right that these papers should return to Israel, where Orde Wingate wanted them to be”.
Sallai Meridor, chairman of the National Library of Israel, said: “On behalf of the Library, I want to express our gratitude to Clive Lewis for this gift. This is an archive of particularly important national and public value that contributes to the understanding of Wingate’s character, and his influence on the shaping of the country’s future security and defence forces.”