HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

BEING THE RECORD OF ALLENBY'S CAMPAIGN IN PALESTINE

by

W. T. MASSEY

OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE LONDON NEWSPAPERS WITH THE EGYPTIANEXPEDITIONARY FORCE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

LONDON 1919

PREFACE

This narrative of the work accomplished for civilisation by GeneralAllenby's Army is carried only as far as the occupation of Jericho. The capture of that ancient town, with the possession of a line ofrugged hills a dozen miles north of Jerusalem, secured the Holy Cityfrom any Turkish attempt to retake it. The book, in fact, tellsthe story of the twenty-third fall of Jerusalem, one of the mostbeneficent happenings of all wars, and marking an epoch in thewonderful history of the Holy Place which will rank second only tothat era which saw the birth of Christianity. All that occurred in thefighting on the Gaza-Beersheba line was part and parcel of the takingof Jerusalem, the freeing of which from four centuries of Turkishdomination was the object of the first part of the campaign. The HolyCity was the goal sought by every officer and man in the Army; andthough from the moment that goal had been attained all energies wereconcentrated upon driving the Turk out of the war, there was not amember of the Force, from the highest on the Staff to the humblestprivate in the ranks, who did not feel that Jerusalem was the greatestprize of the campaign. 

In a second volume I shall tell of that tremendous feat of arms whichoverwhelmed the Turkish Armies, drove them through 400 miles ofcountry in six weeks, and gave cavalry an opportunity of proving that, despite all the arts and devices of modern warfare, with fightersand observers in the air and an entirely new mechanism of war, theycontinued as indispensable a part of an army as when the legionsof old took the field. This is too long a story to be told in thisvolume, though the details of that magnificent triumph are so firmlyimpressed on the mind that one is loth to leave the narration of themto a future date. For the moment Jerusalem must be sufficient, and ifin the telling of the British work up to that point I can succeed ingiving an idea of the immense value of General Allenby's Army to theEmpire, of the soldier's courage and fortitude, of his indomitablewill and self-sacrifice and patriotism, it will indeed prove the mostgrateful task I have ever set myself. 

_April 1919. _

CONTENTS

Chap. 

 I. PALESTINE'S INFLUENCE ON THE WAR

 II. OLD BATTLEGROUNDS

 III. DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK

 IV. TRAINING THE ARMY

 V. RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE

 VI. PREPARING FOR 'ZERO DAY'

 VII. THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY

 VIII. GAZA DEFENCES

 IX. CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT

 X. THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN

 XI. TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES

 XII. LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM

 XIII. INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS

 XIV. THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY

 XV. GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY

 XVI. MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE

 XVII. A GREAT FEAT OF WAR

 XVIII. BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN

 XIX. THE TOUCH OF THE CIVILISING HAND

 XX. OUR CONQUERING AIRMEN

 APPENDICES

 INDEX

LIST OF MAPS

PLAN OF SOUTHERN PALESTINE

PLAN OF GAZA-BEERSHEBA LINE

PLAN OF THE BETH-HORON COUNTRY

PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF JERUSALEM

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

OFFICIAL ENTRY INTO THE HOLY CITY. GENERAL ALLENBY RECEIVED BY THEMILITARY GOVERNOR OP JERUSALEM, DECEMBER 11, 1917

KANTARA TERMINUS OF THE DESERT MILITARY RAILWAY

EAST FORCE H. Q. DUG-OUTS NEAR GAZA

WADI GHUZZE NEAR SHELLAL

OUR WATERWORKS AT SHELLAL

ON THE MOVE IN THE DESERT

THE GREAT MOSQUE AT GAZA

TURKISH HEADQUARTERS AT GAZA. Note the Crusader Lion in Wall. 

A DESERT MOTOR ROAD NEAR SHELLAL

TURKISH DUG-OUTS AT GAZA

BEERSHEBA RAILWAY STATION WITH MINED ROLLING STOCK

LIEUT. -GEN. SIR HARRY CHAUVEL OUTSIDE BEERSHEBA MOSQUE, NOVEMBER 1, 1917

EL MUGHAR. THE SCENE OF A YEOMANRY CHARGE

BURIAL-PLACE OF ST. GEORGE, PATRON SAINT OF ENGLAND (AT LUDD)

YEOMANRY GRAVES AT BETH-HORON THE UPPER, WHERE JOSHUA COMMANDEDTHE SUN TO REMAIN STILL TO ENABLE THE ISRAELITES TO OVERTHROW THEPHILISTINES

IN THE JUDEAN HILLS

A ROMAN CENTURION'S TOMB, KURYET EL ENAB

ONE OF KING SOLOMON'S POOLS

A TYPICAL NEW ZEALANDER

WADI SURAR, CROSSED BY LONDON TERRITORIALS ON THE MORNING OF THEIRASSAULT ON THE JERUSALEM DEFENCES

THE DEIR YESIN POSITION WEST OF JERUSALEM

EASTERN FACE OF NEBI SAMWIL MOSQUE, SHOWING DESTRUCTION BY TURKISHSHELL-FIRE

OFFICIAL ENTRY INTO THE HOLY CITY. GENERAL ALLENBY ARRIVING OUTSIDETHE JAFFA GATE

OFFICIAL ENTRY. GENERAL ALLENBY RECEIVING THE MAYOR OF JERUSALEM (ADESCENDANT OF MAHOMET)

JERUSALEM FROM MOUNT OF OLIVES

JERUSALEM FROM GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE

PANEL IN THE CHAPEL OF THE KAISERIN AUGUSTA VICTORIA HOSPICE ON THEMOUNT OF OLIVES

BETHLEHEM

CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY, BETHLEHEM

AIN KARIM, PART OF THE JERUSALEM DEFENCES

RIVER AUJA, CROSSED AT NIGHT BY LOWLAND TERRITORIALS

JERISHEH MILL, RIVER AUJA, ONE OF THE LOWLANDERS' CROSSINGS

BARREL BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER AUJA

DESTROYED BRIDGE ON THE JERICHO ROAD

THE WILDERNESS, WITH A GLIMPSE OF THE DEAD SEA

LONDONERS' BRIDGE OVER THE JORDAN. THE RIVER IS IN FLOOD

GERMAN PRISONERS CROSSING THE JORDAN

NEW ZEALAND MOUNTED RIFLES AT BETHLEHEM

A HAIRPIN BEND ON THE JERUSALEM ROAD

CHAPTER I

PALESTINE'S INFLUENCE ON THE WAR

In a war which involved the peoples of the four quarters of the globeit was to be expected that on the world's oldest battleground wouldbe renewed the scenes of conflict of bygone ages. There was perhaps adesire of some elements of both sides, certainly it was the unanimouswish of the Allies, to avoid the clash of arms in Palestine, and toleave untouched by armies a land held in reverence by three of thegreat religions of the world. But this ancient cockpit of warringraces could not escape. The will of those who broke the peaceprevailed. Germany's dream of Eastern Empires and world domination, the lust of conquest of the Kaiser party, required that the tide ofwar should once more surge across the land, and if the conqueringhosts left fewer traces of war wreckage than were to be expected intheir victorious march, it was due not to any anxiety of our foesto avoid conflict about, and damage to, places with hallowedassociations, but to the masterly strategy of the BritishCommander-in-Chief who manoeuvred the Turkish Armies out of positionsdefending the sacred sites. 

The people of to-day who have lived through the war, who have hadtheir view bewildered by ever-recurring anxieties, by hopes shatteredand fears realised, by a succession of victories and defeats on acolossal scale, and by a sudden collapse of the enemy, may fail to seethe Palestine campaign in true perspective. But in a future generationthe calm judgment of the historian in reviewing the greatest of allwars will, if I mistake not, pay a great tribute to General Allenby'sstrategy, not only as marking the commencement of the enemy'sdownfall, but as preserving from the scourge of war those holy placeswhich symbolise the example by which most people rule their lives. Britons who value the good name of their country will appreciate whatthis means to those who shall come after us--that the record of agreat campaign carried out exclusively by British Imperial troops wasunsullied by a single act to disturb the sacred monuments, and leftthe land in the full possession of those rich treasures which standfor the principles that guided our actions and which, if posterityobserves them, will make a better and happier world. 

A few months after the Turks entered the war it was obvious thatunaided they could never realise the Kaiser's hope of cutting the SuezCanal communications of the British Empire. The German commitments inEurope were too overwhelming to permit of their rendering the Turksadequate support for a renewed effort against Egypt after the failureof the attack on the Canal in February 1915. There was an attemptby the Turks in August 1916, but it was crushed by Anzac horse andBritish infantry at Romani, [1] a score of miles from Port Said, andthereafter the Turks in this theatre were on the defensive. Somedeclare the Dardanelles enterprise to have been a mistake; othersbelieve that had we not threatened the Turks there Egypt wouldhave had to share with us the anxieties that war brings alike uponattackers and defenders. Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, however we regardthose expeditions in the first years of the struggle, undoubtedlyprevented the Turks employing a large army against Egypt, and thepossibilities resulting from a defeat there were so full of danger tous, not merely in that half-way house of the Empire but in India andthe East generally, that if Gallipoli served to avert the disasterthat ill-starred expedition was worth undertaking. We had to drivethe Turks out of the Sinai Peninsula--Egyptian territory--and, thataccomplished, an attack on the Turks through Palestine was imperativesince the Russian collapse released a large body of Turkish troopsfrom the Caucasus who would otherwise be employed in Mesopotamia. 

[Footnote 1: _The Desert Campaigns_: London, Constable and Co. , Ltd. ]

When General Allenby took over the command of the EgyptianExpeditionary Force the British public as a whole did not fullyrealise the importance of the Palestine campaign. Most of themregarded it as a 'side show, ' and looked upon it as one of those minorfields of operations which dissipated our strength at a time when itwas imperative we should concentrate to resist the German effort onthe Western Front. They did not know the facts. In our far-flungEmpire it was essential that we should maintain our prestige amongthe races we governed, some of them martial peoples who might remainfaithful to the British flag only so long as we could impress themwith our power to win the war. They were more influenced by a triumphin Mesopotamia, which was nearer their doors, than by a victory inFrance, and the occupation of Bagdad was a victory of greater importto the King's Indian subjects than the German retirement from theHindenburg line. If there ever was a fear of serious trouble in Indiathe advance of General Maude in Mesopotamia dispelled it, and made iteasier not only to release a portion of our white garrison in Indiafor active service elsewhere, but to recruit a large force of Indiansfor the Empire's work in other climes. Bagdad was a tremendous blow toGerman ambitions. The loss of it spelt ruin to those hopes of Easternconquest which had prompted the German intrigues in Turkey, and it wascertain that the Kaiser, so long as he believed in ultimate victory, would refuse to accept the loss of Bagdad as final. Russia'swithdrawal as a belligerent released a large body of Turkish troopsin the Caucasus, and set free many Germans, particularly 'technicaltroops' of which the Turks stood in need, for other fronts. It wasthen that the German High Command conceived a scheme for retakingBagdad, and the redoubtable von Falkenhayn was sent to Constantinoplecharged with the preparations for the undertaking. Certain it is thatit would have been put into execution but for the situation created bythe presence of a large British Army in the Sinai Peninsula. A largeforce was collected about Aleppo for a march down the Euphratesvalley, and the winter of 1917-18 would have witnessed a sternstruggle for supremacy in Mesopotamia if the War Cabinet had notdecided to force the Turks to accept battle where they least wantedit. 

The views of the British War Cabinet on the war in the East, at anyrate, were sound and solid. They concentrated on one big campaign, and, profiting from past mistakes which led to a wastage of strength, allowed all the weight they could spare to be thrown into the EgyptianExpeditionary Force under a General who had proved his high militarycapacity in France, and in whom all ranks had complete confidence, andthey permitted the Mesopotamian and Salonika Armies to contain theenemies on their fronts while the Army in Palestine set out to crushthe Turks at what proved to be their most vital point. As to whetherthe force available on our Mesopotamia front was capable of defeatingthe German scheme I cannot offer an opinion, but it is beyond allquestion that the conduct of operations in Palestine on a plan at oncebold, resolute, and worthy of a high place in military history savedthe Empire much anxiety over our position in the Tigris and Euphratesvalleys, and probably prevented unrest on the frontiers of India andin India itself, where mischief makers were actively working in theGerman cause. Nor can there be any doubt that the brilliant campaignin Palestine prevented British and French influence declining amongthe Mahomedan populations of those countries' respective spheres ofcontrol in Africa. Indeed I regard it as incontrovertible that thePalestine strategy of General Allenby, even apart from his stupendousrush through Syria in the autumn of the last year of war, did as muchto end the war in 1918 as the great battles on the Western Front, for if there had been failure or check in Palestine some British andFrench troops in France might have had to be detached to other fronts, and the Germans' effort in the Spring might have pushed their linefarther towards the Channel and Paris. If Bagdad was not actuallysaved in Palestine, an expedition against it was certainly stopped byour Army operating on the old battlegrounds in Palestine. We lost manylives, and it cost us a vast amount of money, but the sacrificesof brave men contributed to the saving of the world from Germandomination; and high as the British name stood in the East as theupholder of the freedom of peoples, the fame of Britain for justice, fair dealing, and honesty is wider and more firmly established to-daybecause the people have seen it emerge triumphantly from a supremetest. 

In the strategy of the world war we made, no doubt, many mistakes, butin Palestine the strategy was of the best, and in the working out of afar-seeing scheme, victories so influenced events that on this frontbegan the final phase of the war--once Turkey was beaten, Bulgaria andAustria-Hungary submitted and Germany acknowledged the inevitable. Falkenhayn saw that the Bagdad undertaking was impossible so long aswe were dangerous on the Palestine front, and General Allenby's attackon the Gaza line wiped the Bagdad enterprise out of the list of Germanambitions. The plan of battle on the Gaza-Beersheba line resembledin miniature the ending of the war. If we take Beersheba for Turkey, Sheria and Hareira for Bulgaria and Austria, and Gaza for Germany, we get the exact progress of events in the final stage, except thatBulgaria's submission was an intelligent anticipation of the layingdown of their arms by the Turks. Gaza-Beersheba was a rolling up fromour right to left; so was the ending of the Hun alliance. 

CHAPTER II

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS

It was in accordance with the fitness of things that the British Armyshould fight and conquer on the very spots consecrated by the memoriesof the most famous battles of old. From Gaza onwards we made ourprogress by the most ancient road on earth, for this way movedcommerce between the Euphrates and the Nile many centuries before theEast knew West. We fought on fields which had been the battlegroundsof Egyptian and Assyrian armies, where Hittites, Ethiopians, Persians, Parthians, and Mongols poured out their blood in times when kingdomswere strong by the sword alone. The Ptolemies invaded Syria by thisway, and here the Greeks put their colonising hands on the country. Alexander the Great made this his route to Egypt. Pompey marched overthe Maritime Plain and inaugurated that Roman rule which lasted forcenturies; till Islam made its wide irresistible sweep in the seventhcentury. Then the Crusaders fought and won and lost, and Napoleon'sambitions in the East were wrecked just beyond the plains. 

Up the Maritime Plain we battled at Gaza, every yard of which hadbeen contested by the armies of mighty kings in the past thirty-fivecenturies, at Akir, Gezer, Lydda, and around Joppa. All down the agesarmies have moved in victory or flight over this plain, and GeneralAllenby in his advance was but repeating history. And when theTurks had been driven beyond the Plain of Philistia, and theCommander-in-Chief had to decide how to take Jerusalem, we saw theBritish force move along precisely the same route that has been takenby armies since the time when Joshua overcame the Amorites and the daywas lengthened by the sun and moon standing still till the battlewas won. Geography had its influence on the strategy of to-day ascompletely as it did when armies were not cumbered with guns andmechanical transport. Of the few passes from the Maritime Plain overthe Shephelah into the Judean range only that emerging from the greenVale of Ajalon was possible, if we were to take Jerusalem, as thegreat captains of old took it, from the north. The Syrians sometimeschose this road in preference to advancing through Samaria, the Romanssuffered retreat on it, Richard Coeur de Lion made it the path for hisapproach towards the Holy City, and, precisely as in Joshua's day andas when in the first century the Romans fell victims to a tremendousJewish onslaught, the fighting was hardest about the Beth-horons, butwith a different result--the invaders were victorious. The corps whichactually took Jerusalem advanced up the new road from Latron throughKuryet el Enab, identified by some as Kirjath-jearim where thePhilistines returned the Ark, but that road would have been denied tous if we had not made good the ancient path from the Vale of Ajalon toGibeon. Jerusalem was won by the fighting at the Beth-horons assurely as it was on the line of hills above the wadi Surar whichthe Londoners carried. There was fighting at Gibeon, at Michmas, atBeeroth, at Ai, and numerous other places made familiar to us by theOld Testament, and assuredly no army went forth to battle on morehallowed soil. 

Of all the armies which earned a place in history in Palestine, General Allenby's was the greatest--the greatest in size, inequipment, in quality, in fighting power, and not even the invadingarmies in the romantic days of the Crusades could equal it inchivalry. It fought the strong fight with clean hands throughout, andfinished without a blemish on its conduct. It was the best of all theconquering armies seen in the Holy Land as well as the greatest. Will not the influence of this Army endure? I think so. There is anawakening in Palestine, not merely of Christians and Jews, but ofMoslems, too, in a less degree. During the last thirty years therehave grown more signs of the deep faiths of peoples and of theirveneration of this land of sacred history. If their institutions andmissions could develop and shed light over Palestine even while theslothful and corrupt Turk ruled the land, how much faster and more inkeeping with the sanctity of the country will the improvement be underBritish protection? The graves of our soldiers dotted over desertwastes and cornfields, on barren hills and in fertile valleys, ay, andon the Mount of Olives where the Saviour trod, will mark an era moretruly grand and inspiring, and offer a far greater lesson to futuregenerations than the Crusades or any other invasion down the track oftime. The Army of General Allenby responded to the happy thought ofthe Commander-in-Chief and contributed one day's pay for the erectionof a memorial near Jerusalem in honour of its heroic dead. Apart fromthe holy sites, no other memorial will be revered so much, and futurepilgrims, to whatever faith they belong, will look upon it as amonument to men who went to battle to bring lasting peace to a landfrom which the Word of Peace and Goodwill went forth to mankind. 

In selecting General Sir Edmund Allenby as the Palestine Army's chiefthe War Cabinet made a happy choice. General Sir Archibald Murraywas recalled to take up an important command at home after the twounsuccessful attempts to drive the Turks from the Gaza defences. Thetroops at General Murray's disposal were not strong enough to takethe offensive again, and it was clear there must be a long period ofpreparation for an attack on a large scale. General Allenby brought tothe East a lengthy experience of fighting on the Western Front, wherehis deliberate methods of attack, notably at Arras, had given theAllies victories over the cleverest and bravest of our enemies. Palestine was likely to be a cavalry, as well as an infantry, campaign, or at any rate the theatre of war in which the mounted armcould be employed with the most fruitful of results. General Allenby'sachievements as a cavalry leader in the early days of the war markedhim as the one officer of high rank suited for the Palestine command, and his proved capacity as a General both in open and in trenchwarfare gave the Army that high degree of confidence in itsCommander-in-Chief which it is so necessary that a big fighting forceshould possess. A tremendously hard worker himself, General Allenbyexpected all under him to concentrate the whole of their energieson their work. He had the faculty for getting the best out of hisofficers, and on his Staff were some of the most enthusiastic soldiersin the service. There was no room for an inefficient leader in anybranch of the force, and the knowledge that the Commander-in-Chiefvalued the lives and the health of his men so highly that he would notrisk a failure, kept all the staffs tuned up to concert pitch. Wesaw many changes, and the best men came to the top. His own vigourinfected the whole command, and within a short while of arriving atthe front the efficiency of the Army was considerably increased. 

The Palestine G. H. Q. Was probably nearer the battle front than anyG. H. Q. In other theatres of operations, and when the Army had brokenthrough and chased the enemy beyond the Jaffa-Jerusalem line, G. H. Q. Was opened at Bir Salem, near Ramleh, and for several months wasactually within reach of the long-range guns which the Turkspossessed. The rank and file were not slow to appreciate this. Theyknew their Commander-in-Chief was on the spot, keeping his eye andhand on everything, organising with his organisers, planning withhis operation staff, familiar with every detail of the complicatedtransport system, watching his supply services with the keenness of aquartermaster-general, and taking that lively interest in the medicalbranch which betrayed an anxious desire for the welfare and health ofthe men. The rank and file knew something more than this. They saw theCommander-in-Chief at the front every day. General Allenby did notrely solely on reports from his corps. He went to each section of theline himself, and before practically every major operation he saw theground and examined the scheme for attack. There was not a part of theline he did not know, and no one will contradict me when I say thatthe military roads in Palestine were known by no one better than thedriver of the Commander-in-Chief's car. A man of few words, GeneralAllenby always said what he meant with soldierly directness, whichmade the thanks he gave a rich reward. A good piece of work brought awritten or oral message of thanks, and the men were satisfied theyhad done well to deserve congratulations. They were proud to have theconfidence of such a Chief and to deserve it, and they in their turnhad such unbounded faith in the military judgment of the General andin the care he took to prevent unnecessary risk of life, that therewas nothing which he sanctioned that they would not attempt. Suchmutual confidence breeds strength, and it was the Commander-in-Chief'sexample, his tact, energy, and military genius which made his Army apotent power for Britain and a strong pillar of the Allies' cause. 

Let it not be imagined that General Allenby in his victorious campaignshone only as a great soldier. He was also a great administrator. InEngland little was known about this part of the General's work, andowing to the difficulties of the task and to the consideration whichhad, and still has, to be shown to the susceptibilities of a number offriendly nations and peoples, it may be long before the full story ofthe administration of the occupied territory in Palestine is unfoldedfor general appreciation. It is a good story, worthy of Britain'srecord as a protector of peoples, and though from the nature of hisconquest over the Turks in the Bible country the name of GeneralAllenby will adorn the pages of history principally as a victor, itwill also stand before the governments of states as setting a modelfor a wise, prudent, considerate, even benevolent, administration ofoccupied enemy territory. In days when Powers driven mad by militaryambition tear up treaties as scraps of paper, General Allenby observedthe spirit as well as the letter of the Hague Convention, and foundit possible to apply to occupied territory the principles ofadministration as laid down in the Manual of Military Law. 

The natives marvelled at the change. In place of insecurity, extortion, bribery and corruption, levies on labour and property andall the evils of Turkish government, General Allenby gave the countrybehind the front line peace, justice, fair treatment of every race andcreed, and a firm and equitable administration of the law. Every man'shouse became his castle. Taxes were readily paid, the tax gathererswere honest servants, and, none of the revenue going to keep fatpashas in luxury in Constantinople, there came a prospect ofexpenditure and revenue balancing after much money had been usefullyspent on local government. Until the signing of peace internationallaw provided that Turkish laws should apply. These, properlyadministered, as they never were by the Turks, gave a basis of goodgovernment, and, with the old abuses connected with the collectionof revenue removed, and certain increased taxation and customs duesimposed by the Turks during the war discontinued, the people resumedthe arts of peace and enjoyed a degree of prosperity none of them hadever anticipated. What the future government of Palestine may be isuncertain at the time of writing. There is talk of internationalcontrol--we seem ever ready to lose at the conference table what avaliant sword has gained for us--but the careful and perfectly correctadministration of General Allenby will save us from the criticism ofmany jealous foreigners. Certainly it will bear examination by anyimpartial investigator, but the best of all tributes that could bepaid to it is that it satisfied religious communities which did notlive in perfect harmony with one another and the inhabitants of acountry which shelters the people of many different races. 

The Yilderim undertaking, as the Bagdad scheme was described, did notmeet with the full acceptance of the Turks. The 'mighty Jemal', as theGermans sneeringly called the Commander of the Syrian Army, opposed itas weakening his prospects, and even Enver, the ambitious creature andtool of Germany, postponed his approval. It would seem the taking overof the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force by General Allenbyset the Turks thinking, and made the German Military Mission inConstantinople reconsider their plans, not with a view to a completeabandonment of the proposal to advance on Bagdad, as would have beenwise, but in order to see how few of the Yilderim troops they couldallot to Jemal's army to make safe the Sinai front. There was anall-important meeting of Turkish Generals in the latter half ofAugust, and Jemal stood to his guns. Von Falkenhayn could not gethim to abate one item of his demands, and there can be no doubt thatFalkenhayn, obsessed though he was with the importance of gettingBagdad, could see that Jemal was right. He admitted that the Yilderimoperation was only practicable if it had freedom for retirementthrough the removal of the danger on the Palestine front. With thatend in view he advocated that the British should be attacked, andsuggested that two divisions and the 'Asia Corps' should be sent fromAleppo to move round our right. Jemal was in favour of defensiveaction; Enver procrastinated and proposed sending one division tostrengthen the IVth Army on the Gaza front and to proceed with theBagdad preparations. The wait-and-see policy prevailed, but longbefore we exerted our full strength Bagdad was out of the danger zone. General Allenby's force was so disposed that any suggestion ofthe Yilderim operation being put into execution was ruled out ofconsideration. 

Several documents captured at Yilderim headquarters at Nazareth inSeptember 1918, when General Allenby made his big drive through Syria, show very clearly how our Palestine operations changed the whole ofthe German plans, and reading between the lines one can realise howthe impatience of the Germans was increasing Turkish stubbornnessand creating friction and ill-feeling. The German military characterbrooks no opposition; the Turks like to postpone till to-morrow whatshould be done to-day. The latter were cocksure after their twosuccesses at Gaza they could hold us up; the Germans believed thatwith an offensive against us they would hold us in check till the wetseason arrived. [1]

[Footnote 1: See Appendices I. , II. , and III. ]

Down to the south the Turks had to bring their divisions. Their lineof communications was very bad. There was a railway from Aleppothrough Rayak to Damascus, and onwards through Deraa (on the Hedjazline) to Afule, Messudieh, Tul Keram, Ramleh, Junction Station to BeitHanun, on the Gaza sector, and through Et Tineh to Beersheba. Rollingstock was short and fuel was scarce, and the enemy had short rations. When we advanced through Syria in the autumn of 1918 our transport wasnobly served by motor-lorry columns which performed marvels in gettingup supplies over the worst of roads. But as we went ahead we, havingcommand of the sea, landed stores all the way up the coast, and unlessthe Navy had lent its helping hand we should never have got to Aleppobefore the Turk cried 'Enough. ' Every ounce of the Turks' supplies hadto be hauled over land. They managed to put ten infantry divisions andone cavalry division against us in the first three weeks, but theywere not comparable in strength to our seven infantry divisions andthree cavalry divisions. In rifle strength we outnumbered them by twoto one, but if the enemy had been well led and properly rationed he, being on the defensive and having strong prepared positions, shouldhave had the power to resist us more strongly. The Turkish divisionswe attacked were: 3rd, 7th, 16th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 26th, 27th, 53rd, and 54th, and the 3rd Cavalry Division. The latter avoided battle, butall the infantry divisions had heavy casualties. That the moral of theTurkish Army was not high may be gathered from a very illuminatingletter written by General Kress von Kressenstein, the G. O. C. Of theSinai front, to Yilderim headquarters on September 29, 1917. [1]

[Footnote 1: See Appendix IV. ]

The troops who won Palestine and made it happier than it had been forfour centuries were exclusively soldiers of the British Empire. There was a French detachment and an Italian detachment with GeneralAllenby's Army. The Italians for a short period held a small portionof the line in the Gaza sector, but did not advance with our force;the French detachment were solely employed as garrison troops. TheFrench battleship _Requin_ and two French destroyers cooperated withthe ships of the Royal Navy in the bombardment of the coast. Our Armywas truly representative of the Empire, and the units composing itgave an abiding example that in unity rested our strength. From overthe Seven Seas the Empire's sons came to illustrate the unanimityof all the King's subjects in the prosecution of the war. English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh divisions of good men and true fought sideby side with soldiers of varying Indian races and castes. Australia'svaliant sons constituted many brigades of horse and, with New Zealandmounted regiments, became the most hardened campaigners in theEgyptian and Palestine theatre of operations. Their powerful supportin the day of anxiety and trial, as well as in the time of triumph, will be remembered with gratitude. South Africa contributed goodgunners; our dark-skinned brethren in the West Indies furnishedinfantry who, when the fierce summer heat made the air in the JordanValley like a draught from a furnace, had a bayonet charge whicharoused an Anzac brigade to enthusiasm (and Colonial free men canestimate bravery at its true value). From far-away Hong Kong andSingapore came mountain gunners equal to any in the world, Kroomensent from their homes in West Africa surf boatmen to land stores, Raratongas from the Southern Pacific vied with them in boat craft andbeat them in physique, while Egypt contributed a labour corps andtransport corps running a long way into six figures. The communion ofthe representatives of the Mother and Daughter nations on the sternfield of war brought together people with the same ideals, and ifthere are any minor jealousies between them the brotherhood of armswill make the soldiers returning to their homes in all quarters of theglobe the best of missionaries to spread the Imperial idea. Instead ofwrecking the British Empire the German-made war should rebuild iton the soundest of foundations, affection, mutual trust, and commoninterest. 

CHAPTER III

DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK

General Allenby's first problem was of vital consequence. He had topierce the Gaza line. Before his arrival there had been, as alreadystated, two attempts which failed. A third failure, or even acheck, might have spelt disaster for us in the East. The Turks heldcommanding positions, which they strengthened and fortified under thedirection of German engineers until their country, between the sea andBeersheba, became a chain of land works of high military value, welladapted for defence, and covering almost every line of approach. The Turk at the Dardanelles had shown no loss of that quality ofdoggedness in defence which characterised him in Plevna, and though weknow his commanders still cherished the hope of successfully attackingus before we could attempt to crush his line, it was on his system ofdefence that the enemy mainly relied to break the power of the Britishforce. On arriving in Egypt General Allenby was given an appreciationof the situation written by Lieut. -General Sir Philip Chetwode, whohad commanded the Desert Column in various stages across the sands ofSinai, was responsible for forcing the Turks to evacuate El Arish, arranged the dash on Magdaba by General Sir Harry Chauvel's mountedtroops, and fought the brilliant little battle of Rafa. Thisappreciation of the position was the work of a master military mind, taking a broad comprehensive view of the whole military situation inthe East, Palestine's position in the world war, the strategical andtactical problems to be faced, and, without making any exorbitantdemands for troops which would lessen the Allies' powers in othertheatres, set out the minimum necessities for the Palestine force. General Allenby gave the fullest consideration to this document, andafter he had made as complete an examination of the front as anyCommander-in-Chief ever undertook--the General was in one or othersector with his troops almost every day for four months--GeneralChetwode's plan was adopted, and full credit was given to hisprescience in General Allenby's despatch covering the operations up tothe fall of Jerusalem. 

It was General Chetwode's view at the time of writing hisappreciation, that both the British and Turkish Armies werestrategically on the defensive. The forces were nearly equal innumbers, though we were slightly superior in artillery, but we had noadvantage sufficient to enable us to attack a well-entrenched enemywho only offered us a flank on which we could not operate owing tolack of water and the extreme difficulty of supply. General Chetwodethought it was possible the enemy might make an offensive againstus--we have since learned he had such designs--but he gave weightyreasons against the Turk embarking upon a campaign conducted witha view to throwing us beyond the Egyptian frontier into the desertagain. If the enemy contemplated even minor operations in the SinaiDesert he had not the means of undertaking them. We should be retiringon positions we had prepared, for, during his advance across thedesert, General Chetwode had always taken the precaution of having hisforce dug in against the unlikely event of a Turkish attack. Everystep we went back would make our supply easier, and there was no waterdifficulty, the pipe line, then 130 miles long, which carried thepurified waters of the Nile to the amount of hundreds of thousandsof gallons daily, being always available for our troops. It would benecessary for the Turks to repair the Beersheba-Auja railway. Theyhad lifted some of the rails for use north of Gaza, and a raid we hadcarried out showed that we could stop this railway being put into astate of preparedness for military traffic. An attack which aimed atagain threatening the Suez Canal was therefore ruled as outside therange of possibilities. 

On the other hand, now that the Russian collapse had relieved the Turkof his anxieties in the Caucasus and permitted him to concentrate hisattention on the Mesopotamian and Palestine fronts, what hope had heof resisting our attack when we should be in a position to launch it?The enemy had a single narrow-gauge railway line connecting with theJaffa-Jerusalem railway at Junction Station about six miles south-eastof Ramleh. This line ran to Beersheba, and there was a spur linerunning past Deir Sineid to Beit Hanun from which the Gaza positionwas supplied. There was a shortage of rolling stock and, there beingno coal for the engines, whole olive orchards had been hacked down toprovide fuel. The Hebron road, which could keep Beersheba supplied ifthe railway was cut, was in good order, but in other parts there wereno roads at all, except several miles of badly metalled track fromJunction Station to Julis. We could not keep many troops with suchill-conditioned communications, but Turkish soldiers require far lesssupplies than European troops, and the enemy had done such remarkablethings in surmounting supply difficulties that he was given credit forbeing able to support between sixty and seventy battalions in the lineand reserve, with an artillery somewhat weaker than our own. 

If we made another frontal attack at Gaza we should find ourselves upagainst a desperately strong defensive system, but even supposing wegot through it we should come to another halt in a few miles, asthe enemy had selected, and in most cases had prepared, a number ofpositions right up to the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, where he would be ina land of comparative plenty, with his supply and transport troublesvery considerably reduced. No one could doubt that the Turks intendedto defend Jerusalem to the last, not only because of the moral effectits capture would have on the peoples of the world, but because itspossession by us would threaten their enterprise in the Hedjaz, andthe enormous amount of work we afterwards found they had done on theJudean hills proved that they were determined to do all in theirpower to prevent our driving them from the Holy City. The enemy, too, imagined that our progress could not exceed the rate at which ourstandard gauge railway could be built. Water-borne supplies werelimited as to quantity, and during the winter the landing of supplieson an open beach was hazardous. In the coastal belt there were noroads, and the wide fringe of sand which has accumulated for centuriesand still encroaches on the Maritime Plain can only be crossed bycamels. Wells are few and yield but small volumes of water. With thetransport allotted to the force in the middle of 1917 it was notpossible to maintain more than one infantry division at a distance oftwenty to twenty-five miles beyond railhead, and this could only bedone by allotting to them all the camels and wheels of other divisionsand rendering these immobile. This was insufficient to keep the enemyon the move after a tactical success, and he would have ample time toreorganise. 

General Chetwode held that careful preliminary arrangements, suitableand elastic organisation of transport, the collection of material atrailhead, the training of platelaying gangs provided by the troops, the utilisation of the earthwork of the enemy's line for our ownrailway, luck as regards the weather and the fullest use of seatransport, should enable us to give the enemy less breathing time thanappeared possible on paper. It was beyond hope, however, whateverpreparations were made, that we should be able to pursue at a speedapproaching that which the river made possible in Mesopotamia. GeneralChetwode considered it would be fatal to attempt an offensive withforces which might permit us to attack and occupy the enemy's Gazaline but which would be insufficient to inflict upon him a reallysevere blow, and to follow up that blow with sufficient troops. Noless than seven infantry divisions at full strength and three cavalrydivisions would be adequate for the purpose, and they would benone too many. Further, if the Turks began to press severely inMesopotamia, or even to revive their campaign in the Hedjaz, apremature offensive might be necessitated on our part in Palestine. 

The suggestion made by General Chetwode for General Allenby'sconsideration was that the enemy should be led to believe we intendedto attack him in front of Gaza, and that we should pin him down tohis defences in the centre, while the real attack should begin onBeersheba and continue at Hareira and Sheria, and so force the enemyby manoeuvre to abandon Gaza. That plan General Allenby adopted afterseeing all the ground, and the events of the last day of October andthe first week of November supported General Chetwode's predictions tothe letter. Indeed it would be hard to find a parallel in history forsuch another complete and absolute justification of a plan drawn upseveral months previously, and it is doubtful if, supposing the Turkshad succeeded in doing what their German advisers advocated, namelyforestalling our blow by a vigorous attack on our positions, therewould have been any material alteration in the working out of thescheme. The staff work of General Headquarters and of the staffs ofthe three corps proved wholly sound. Each department gave of its best, and from the moment when Beersheba was taken in a day and we securedits water supply, there was never a doubt that the enemy could be kepton the move until we got into the rough rocky hills about Jerusalem. And by that time, as events proved, his moral had had such atremendous shaking that he never again made the most of his manyopportunities. 

The soundness of the plan can quite easily be made apparent to theunmilitary eye. Yet the Turk was absolutely deceived as to GeneralAllenby's intentions. If it be conceded that to deceive the enemy isone of the greatest accomplishments in the soldier's art, it must beadmitted that the battle of Gaza showed General Allenby's consummategeneralship, just as it was proved again, and perhaps to an evengreater extent, in the wonderful days of September 1918, in NorthernPalestine and Syria. A glance at the map of the Gaza-Beersheba lineand the country immediately behind it will show that if a successfulattack were delivered against Gaza the enemy could withdraw his wholeline to a second and supporting position where we should have to beginafresh upon an almost similar operation. The Turk would still have hiswater and would be slightly nearer his supplies. 

Since the two unsuccessful attacks in March and April, Gaza had beenput into a powerful state of defence. The houses of the town aremostly on a ridge, and enclosing the place is a mass of gardens fullya mile deep, each surrounded by high cactus hedges affording completecover and quite impossible for infantry to penetrate. To reduceGaza would require a prolonged artillery bombardment with far morebatteries than General Allenby could ever expect to have at hiscommand, and it is certain that not only would the line in front ofthe town have had to be taken, but also the whole of the western endof the Turks' trench system for a length of at least 12, 000 yards. And, as has been said, with Gaza secured we should still have had toface the enemy in a new line of positions about the wadi Hesi. Gazawas the Turks' strongest point. To attack here would have meant along-drawn-out artillery duel, infantry would have had to advance overopen ground under complete observation, and, while making a frontalattack, would have been exposed to enfilade fire from the 'Tank'system of works to the south-east. It would have proved a costlyoperation, its success could only have been partial in that it did notfollow that we should break the enemy's line, and it would not haveenabled us to contain the remainder of the Turkish force. 

Nor would an attack on the centre have promised more favourably. Herethe enemy had all the best of the ground. At Atawineh, Sausage Ridge, Hareira, and Teiaha there were defences supporting each other on highground overlooking an almost flat plain through which the wadi Ghuzzeruns. All the observation was in enemy possession, and to attack overthis ground would have been inviting disaster. There was little fearthat the Turks would attack us across this wide range of No Man'sLand, for we held secure control of the curiously shaped heaps ofbroken earth about Shellal, and the conical hill at Fara gave anuninterrupted view for several miles northward and eastward. Theposition was very different about Beersheba. If we secured that placewith its water supply, and in this dry country the battle reallyamounted to a fight for water, we should be attacking from high groundand against positions which had not been prepared on so formidablea scale as elsewhere, with the prospect of compelling the enemy toabandon the remainder of the line for fear of being enveloped bymounted troops moving behind his weakened left. That, in briefoutline, was the gist of General Chetwode's report, and with its fullacceptance began the preparations for the advance. These preparationstook several months to complete, and they were as thorough as theenergy of a capable staff could make them. 

CHAPTER IV

TRAINING THE ARMY

Those of us who were fortunate enough to witness the nature of thepreparations for the first of General Allenby's great and triumphantmoves in Palestine can speak of the debt Britain and her Allies owenot merely to the Commander-in-Chief and his Headquarters Staff, but to the three Corps Commanders, the Divisional Commanders, theBrigadiers, and the officers responsible for transport, artillery, engineer, and the other services. The Army had to be put on analtogether different footing from that which had twice failed to drivethe Turks from Gaza. It serves nothing to ignore the fact that themoral of the troops was not high in the weeks following the secondfailure. They had to be tuned up and trained for a big task. They knewthe Turk was turning his natural advantages of ground about Gaza intoa veritable fortress, and that if their next effort was to meet withmore success than their last, they had to learn all that experience onthe Western Front had taught as to systems of trench warfare. 

And, more than that, they had to prepare to apply the art of openwarfare to the full extent of their powers. 

A couple of months before General Allenby took over command, GeneralChetwode had taken in hand the question of training, and in employingthe knowledge gained during the strenuous days he had spent in Franceand Flanders, he not only won the confidence of the troops butimproved their tone, and by degrees brought them up to somethingapproaching the level of the best fighting divisions of our Army inFrance. 

This was hard work during hot weather when our trench systems on awide front had to be prepared against an active enemy, and men couldill be spared for the all-important task of training behind the frontline. It was not long, however, before troops who had got into thatstate of lassitude which is engendered by a belief that they weresettling down to trench warfare for the duration of the war--that, in fact, there was a stalemate on this front--became inspired by theenergy of General Chetwode. They saw him in the front line almostevery day, facing the risks they ran themselves, complimenting themon any good piece of work, suggesting improvements in their defences, always anxious to provide anything possible for their comfort, andgenerally looking after the rank and file with a detailed attentionwhich no good battalion commander could exceed. 

The men knew that the long visits General Chetwode paid them formedbut a small part of his daily task. It has been said that a G. O. C. Ofa force has to think one hour a day about operations and five hoursabout beef. In East Force, as this part of the Egyptian ExpeditionaryForce was then called, General Chetwode, having to look months ahead, had also six worrying hours a day to think about water. For any onewho did not love his profession, or who had not an ardent soldierlyspirit within him, such a daily task would have been impossible. I hadthe privilege of living in General Chetwode's camp for some time, andI have seen him working at four o'clock in the morning and at nineo'clock at night, and the notes on a writing tablet by the side of hisrough camp-bed showed that in the hours when sleep forsook him he wasplanning the next day's work. 

His staff was entirely composed of hard workers, and perhaps nocommand in this war ever had so small a staff, but there was noofficer in East Force who laboured so long or with such concentrationand energy and determination as its Chief. This enthusiasm wasinfectious and spread through all ranks. The sick rate declined, septic sores, from which many men suffered through rough life in thedesert on Army rations, got better, and the men showed more interestin their work and were keener on their sport. The full effects had notbeen wholly realised when the War Cabinet selected General Allenbyfor the control of the big operations, but the improvement in thecondition of the troops was already most marked, and when GeneralAllenby arrived and at once directed that General Headquarters shouldbe moved from Cairo, which was pleasant but very far away from thefront, to Kelab, near Khan Yunus, there was not a man who did not seein the new order of things a sign that he was to be given a chance oftesting the Briton's supremacy over the Turk. 

The improvement in the moral of the troops, the foundations of whichwere thus begun and cemented by General Chetwode, was rapidly carriedon under the new Chief. Divisions like the 52nd, 53rd, and 54th, whichhad worked right across the desert from the Suez Canal, toiling in atorrid temperature, when parched throats, sun-blistered limbs, andseptic sores were a heavy trial, weakened by casualties in action andsickness, were brought up to something like strength. Reinforcingdrafts joined a lot of cheery veterans. They were taught in thestern field of experience what was expected of them, and they workedthemselves up to the degree of efficiency of the older men. 

The 74th Division, made up of yeomanry regiments which had been doingexcellent service in the Libyan Desert, watching for and harassing theelements of the Senussi Army, had to be trained as infantry. Theseyeomen did not take long to make themselves first-rate infantry, andwhen, after the German attack on the Somme in March 1918, they wentaway from us to strengthen the Western Front, a distinguished Generaltold me he believed that man for man the 74th would prove the finestdivision in France. They certainly proved themselves in Palestine, and many an old yeomanry regiment won for itself the right to bear'Jerusalem, 1917' on its standard. 

The 75th Division had brought some of the Wessex Territorials fromIndia with two battalions of Gurkhas and two of Rifles. The 1/4th Dukeof Cornwall's Light Infantry joined it from Aden, but for some monthsthe battalion was not itself. It had spent a long time at that drearysunburnt outpost of the Empire, and the men did not regain theirphysical fitness till close upon the time it was required for the Gazaoperations. 

The 60th Division came over from Salonika and we were delighted tohave them, for they not only gave us General Bulfin as the XXIst CorpsCommander, but set an example of efficiency and a combination of dashand doggedness which earned for them a record worthy of the bestin the history of the great war. These London Territorials weresecond-line men, men recruited from volunteers in the early days ofthe war, when the County of London Territorial battalions went acrossto France to take a part on a front hard pressed by German legions. The 60th Division men had rushed forward to do their duty beforethe Derby scheme or conscription sought out the cream of Britain'smanhood, and no one had any misgivings about that fine cheery crowd. 

The 10th Division likewise came from Salonika. Unfortunately it hadbeen doing duty in a fever-stricken area and malaria had weakened itsranks. A little while before the autumn operations began, as many as3000 of its men were down at one time with malaria, but care and tonicof the battle pulled the ranks together, and the Irish Division, apurely Irish division, campaigned up to the glorious traditions oftheir race. They worked like gluttons with rifle and spade, and theirpioneer work on roads in the Judean hills will always be rememberedwith gratitude. 

The cavalry of the Desert Mounted Corps were old campaigners inthe East. The Anzac Mounted Division, composed of six regiments ofAustralian Light Horse and three regiments of New Zealand MountedRifles, had been operating in the Sinai Desert when they were notwinning fame on Gallipoli, since the early days of the war. They hadproved sterling soldiers in the desert war, hard, full of courage, capable of making light of the longest trek in waterless stretches ofcountry, and mobile to a degree the Turks never dreamed of. There weresix other regiments of Australian Light Horse and three first-lineregiments of yeomanry in the Australian Mounted Division, and nineyeomanry regiments in the Yeomanry Mounted Division. The 7th MountedBrigade was attached to Desert Corps, as was also the Imperial CamelCorps Brigade, formed of yeomen and Australians who had volunteeredfrom their regiments for work as camelry. They, too, were veterans. 

All these divisions had to be trained hard. Not only had the fourinfantry divisions of XXth Corps to be brought to a pitch of physicalfitness to enable them to endure a considerable period of openfighting, but they had to be trained in water abstinence, as, in theevent of success, they would unquestionably have long marches in acountry yielding a quite inadequate supply of drinking water, and thisproblem in itself was such that fully 6000 camels were required tocarry drinking water to infantry alone. Water-abstinence traininglasted three weeks, and the maximum of half a gallon a man for allpurposes was not exceeded, simply because the men had been madeaccustomed to deny themselves drink except when absolutely necessary. But for a systematic training they would have suffered a great deal. The disposition of the force is given in the Appendix. [1]

[Footnote 1: See Appendix v]. 

CHAPTER V

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE

To ease the supply problem a spur line was laid from Rafa to Shellal, on the wadi Ghuzze. In that way supplies, stores, and ammunition weretaken up to our right flank. Shellal was a position of great strategicimportance. At one time it appeared as if we should have to fight hardto gain it. The Turks had cut an elaborate series of trenches onWali Sheikh Nuran, a hill covering Shellal, but they evacuatedthis position before we made the first attack on Gaza, and left aninvaluable water supply in our hands. 

At Shellal the stony bed of the wadi Ghuzze rests between high mudbanks which have been cut into fantastic shapes by the rushing watersdescending from the southern extremities of the Judean range of hillsduring the winter rains. In the summer months, when the remainderof the wadi bed is dry, there are bubbling springs of good water atShellal, and these have probably been continuously flowing for manycenturies, for close above the spot where the water issues Anzaccavalry discovered a beautiful remnant of the mosaic flooring of anancient Christian church, which, raised on a hundred-feet mound, wasdoubtless the centre of a colony of Christians, hundreds of yearsbefore Crusaders were attracted to the Holy Land. Our engineersharnessed that precious flow. A dam was put across the wadi bed and atleast a million gallons of crystal water were held up by it, whilst the overflow went into shallow pools fringed with grass (adelightfully refreshing sight in that arid country) from which horseswere watered. Pumping sets were installed at the reservoir and pipeswere laid towards Karm, and from these the Camel Transport Corps wereto fill fanatis--eight to twelve gallon tanks--for carriage of waterto troops on the move. 

The railway staff, the department which arranged the making up andrunning of trains, as well as the construction staff, had heavyresponsibilities. It was recognised early in 1917 that if we were tocrush the Turk out of the war, provision would have to be made for alarger army than a single line from the Suez Canal could feed. Itwas decided to double the track. The difficulties of the Director ofRailway Transport were enormous. There was great shortage of railwaymaterial all over the world. Some very valuable cargoes were lostthrough enemy action at sea, and we had to call for more fromdifferent centres, and England deprived herself of rolling stock shebadly needed, to enable her flag of freedom to be carried (though itwas not to be hoisted) through the Holy Land. And incidentally I mayremark that, with the solitary exception of a dirty little piece ofRed Ensign I saw flying in the native quarter in Jerusalem, the onlyBritish flag the people saw in Palestine and Syria was a miniatureUnion Jack carried on the Commander-in-Chief's motor car and by hisstandard-bearer when riding. Thus did the British Army play the game, for some of the Allied susceptibilities might have been wounded if thepeople had been told (though indeed they knew it) that they were underthe protection of the British flag. They had the most convincingevidence, however, that they were under the staunch protection of theBritish Army. The doubling of the railway track went on apace. To savepressure at the Alexandria docks and on the Egyptian State railway, which, giving some of its rolling stock and, I think, the whole ofits reserve of material for the use of the military line east of theCanal, was worked to its utmost capacity, and also to economisemoney by saving railway freights, wharves were built on the Canal atKantara, and as many as six ocean-going steamers could be unloadedthere at one time. By and by a railway bridge was thrown over theCanal, and when the war was over through trains could be run fromCairo to Jerusalem and Haifa. Kantara grew into a wonderful town withseveral miles of Canal frontage, huge railway sidings and workshops, enormous stores of rations for man and horse, medical supplies, ordnance and ammunition dumps, etc. Probably the enemy knew all aboutthis vast base. Any one on any ship passing through the Canal couldsee the place, and it is surprising, and it certainly points to a lackof enterprise on the part of the Germans, that no attempt was made tobomb Kantara by the super-Zeppelin which in November 1917 left itsBalkan base and got as far south as the region of Khartoum on its wayto East Africa, before being recalled by wireless. This same Zeppelinwas seen about forty miles from Port Said and a visit by it wasanticipated. Aeroplanes with experienced pilots and armed with thelatest anti-Zeppelin devices were stationed at Port Said and Aboukirready to ascend on any moonlight night when the hum of aerial motormachinery could be heard. The super-Zeppelin never came and Kantara'sprogress was unchecked. 

The doubled railway track was laid as far as El Arish by the timeoperations commenced, and this was a great aid to the railway staff. Every engine and truck was used to its fullest capacity, and anenormous amount of time was saved by the abolition of passing stationsfor some ninety miles of the line's length. Railhead was at Deir elBelah, about eight miles short of Gaza, and here troops and an armyof Egyptian labourers were working night and day, week in week out, off-loading trucks with a speed that enabled the maximum amount ofservice to be got out of rolling stock. There were large depôts downthe line too. At Rafa there was a big store of ammunition, and atShellal large quantities not only of supplies but of railway materialwere piled up in readiness for pushing out railhead immediately theadvance began. A Decauville, or light, line ran out towards Gamli fromShellal to make the supply system easier, and I remember seeingsome Indian pioneers lay about three miles of light railway withastonishing rapidity the day after we took Beersheba. Every mile theline advanced meant time saved in getting up supplies, and the radiusof action of lorries, horse, and camel transport was considerablyincreased. 

To supply the Gaza front we called in aid a small system of lightrailways. From the railhead at Deir el Belah to the mouth of the wadiGhuzze, and from that point along the line of the wadi to variousplaces behind the line held by us, we had a total length of 21kilometres of light railway. Before this railway got into fulloperation horses had begun to lose condition, and during the summerammunition-column officers became very anxious about their horses. Thelight railway was almost everywhere within range of the enemy's guns, and in some places it was unavoidably exposed, particularly where itran on the banks of the wadi due south of Gaza. I recollect while thetrack was being laid speaking to an Australian in charge of a gang ofnatives preparing an earthwork, and asked why it was that a trench wasdug before earth was piled up. He pointed to the hill of Ali Muntar, the most prominent feature in the enemy's system, and said that fromthe Turks' observation post on that eminence every movement of thelabourers could be seen, and the men were often forced by gunfire tothe refuge of the trenches. 

When the railway was in running order trains had to run the gauntletof shell-fire on this section on bright moonlight nights, and nocamouflage could hide them. But they worked through in a marvellouslyorderly and efficient fashion, and on one day when our guns werehungry this little line carried 850 tons of ammunition to thebatteries. The horses became fit and strong and were ready for the warto be carried into open country. In christening their tiny puffinglocomotives the Tommy drivers showed their strong appreciation oftheir comrades on the sea, and the 'Iron Duke' and 'Lion' were alwaystuned up to haul a maximum load. But the pride of the engine yard wasthe 'Jerusalem Cuckoo'--some prophetic eye must have seen its futureemployment on the light line between Jerusalem and Ramallah--though inpopularity it was run close by the 'Bulfin-ch, ' a play upon thename of the Commander of the XXIst Corps, for which it did sterlingservice. 

The Navy formed part of the picture as well. Some small steamers of1000 to 1500 tons burden came up from Port Said to a little cove northof Belah to lighten the railway's task. They anchored about 150 yardsoff shore and a crowd of boats passed backwards and forwards withstores. These were carried up the beach to trucks on a line connectedwith the supply depôts, and if you wished to see a busy scene whereslackers had no place the Belah beach gave it you. The Army tried allsorts of boatmen and labourers. There were Kroo boys who found theMediterranean waters a comparative calm after the turbulent surf ontheir own West African shore. The Maltese were not a success. TheEgyptians were, both here and almost everywhere else where theirservices were called for. The best of all the fellows on this beach, however, were the Raratongas from the Cook Islands, the islands fromwhich the Maoris originally came. They were first employed at ElArish, where they made it a point of honour to get a job done well andquickly, and, on a given day, it was found that thirty of them haddone as much labourers' work as 170 British soldiers. They were men offine physical strength and endurance, and some one who knew they hadthe instincts of sportsmen, devised a simple plan to get the best outof them. He presented a small flag to be won each day by the crewaccomplishing the best work with the boats. The result was amazing. Every minute the boats were afloat the Raratongas strained theirmuscles to win the day's competition, and when the day's task wasended the victorious crew marched with their flag to their camp, singing a weird song and as proud as champions. Some Raratongas workedat ammunition dumps, and it was the boast of most of them that theycould carry four 60-pounder shells at a time. A few of these stalwartmen from Southern Seas received a promotion which made them themost envied men of their race--they became loading numbers in heavyhowitzer batteries, fighting side by side with the Motherland gunners. 

However well the Navy and all associated with it worked, only a verysmall proportion of the Army's supplies was water borne. The greatbulk had to be carried by rail. Enormously long trains, most of themhauled by London and South-Western locomotives, bore munitions, foodfor men and animals, water, equipment, medical comforts, guns, wagons, caterpillar tractors, motor cars, and other paraphernalia required forthe largest army which had ever operated about the town of Gaza in thethousands of years of its history. The main line had thrown out fromit great tentacles embracing in their iron clasp vital centres for thesupply of our front, and over these spur lines the trains ran withthe regularity of British main-line expresses. Besides 96, 000 actualfighting men, there was a vast army of men behind the line, and therewere over 100, 000 animals to be fed. There were 46, 000 horses, 40, 000camels, 15, 000 mules, and 3500 donkeys on Army work east of theCanal, and not a man or beast went short of rations. We used tothink Kitchener's advance on Khartoum the perfection of militaryorganisation. Beside the Palestine expedition that Soudan campaignfades into insignificance. In fighting men and labour corps, inanimals and the machinery of war, this Army was vastly larger and moreimportant, and the method by which it was brought to Palestine and wassupplied, and the low sick rate, constitute a tribute to the masterminds of the organisers. The Army had fresh meat, bread, andvegetables in a country which under the lash of war yielded nothing, but which under our rule in peace will furnish three times the produceof the best of past years of plenty. 

A not inconsiderable portion of the front line was supplied with Nilewater taken from a canal nearly two hundred miles away. But the Armyonce at the front depended less upon the waters of that Father ofRivers than it had to do in the long trek across the desert. Then alldrinking water came from the Nile. It flowed down the sweet-watercanal (if one may be pardoned for calling 'sweet' a volume of waterso charged with vegetable matter and bacteria that it was harmful forwhite men even to wash in it), was filtered and siphoned under theSuez Canal at Kantara, where it was chlorinated, and passed througha big pipe line and pumped through in stages into Palestine. Theengineers set about improving all local resources over a wide stretchof country which used to be regarded as waterless in summer. Manywater levels were tapped, and there was a fair yield. The engineers'greatest task in moving with the Army during the advance was alwaysthe provision of a water supply, and in developing it they conferredon the natives a boon which should make them be remembered withgratitude for many generations. 

In the months preceding our attack Royal Engineers were also concernedin improving the means of communication between railway depôts and thefront line. Before our arrival in this part of Southern Palestine, wheeled traffic was almost unknown among the natives. There was notone metalled roadway, and only comparatively light loads could betransported in wheeled vehicles. The soil between Khan Yunus and Deirel Belah, especially on the west of our railway line, was very sandy, and after the winter rains had knitted it together it began to crumbleunder the sun's heat, and it soon cut up badly when two or threelimbers had passed over it. The sandy earth was also a great nuisancein the region between Khan Yunus and Shellal, but between Deir elBelah and our Gaza front, excepting on the belt near the sea which wascomposed of hillocks of sand precisely similar to the Sinai Desert, the earth was firmer and yielded less to the grinding action ofwheels. For ordinary heavy military traffic the engineers made goodgoing by taking off about one foot of the top soil and banking iton either side of the road. These tracks lasted very well, but theyrequired constant attention. Ambulances and light motor cars hadspecial arrangements made for them. Hundreds of miles of wire nettingwere laid on sand in all directions, and these wire roads, which, stretching across bright golden sand, appeared like black bands toobservers in aircraft, at first aroused much curiosity among enemyairmen, and it was not until they had made out an ambulance convoy onthe move that they realised the purpose of the tracks. 

The rabbit wire roads were a remarkable success. Motor wheels heldfirmly to the surface, and when the roads were in good condition carscould travel at high speed. Three or four widths of wire netting werelaced together, laid on the sand and pegged down. After a time loosepockets of sand could not resist the weight of wheels and there becamemany holes beneath the wire, and the jolting was a sore trial alike tosprings and to a passenger's temper. But here again constant attentionkept the roads in order, and if one could not describe travelling overthem as easy and comfortable they were at least sure, and one couldbe certain of getting to a destination at an average speed of twelvemiles an hour. In sand the Ford cars have performed wonderful feats, but remarkable as was the record of that cheap American car withus--it helped us very considerably to win the war--you could nevertell within hours how long a journey would take off the wire roads. Once leave the netting and you might with good luck and a skilfuldriver get across the sand without much trouble, but it often meantmuch bottom-gear work and a hot engine, and not infrequently thedigging out of wheels. The drivers used to try to keep to the tracksmade by other cars. These were never straight, and the swing from sideto side reminded you of your first ride on a camel's back. The wireroads were a great help to us, and the officer who first thought outthe idea received our daily blessings. I do not know who he was, but Iwas told the wire road scheme was the outcome of a device suggestedby a medical officer at Romani in 1916, when infantry could not marchmuch more than six miles a day through the sand. This officer made asort of wire moccasin which he attached to the boot and doubled themarching powers of the soldier. A sample of those moccasins shouldfind a place in our War Museum. 

CHAPTER VI

PREPARING FOR 'ZERO DAY'

About the middle of August it was the intention that the attack on theTurks' front line in Southern Palestine should be launched some timein September. General Allenby knew his force would not be then atfull strength, but what was happening at other points in the Turkishtheatres of operations might make it necessary to strike an early blowat Gaza to spoil enemy plans elsewhere. However, it was soon seen thata September advance was not absolutely necessary. General Allenbydecided that instead of making an early attack it would be far moreprofitable to wait until his Army had been improved by a longer periodof training, and until he had got his artillery, particularly some ofhis heavy batteries, into a high state of efficiency. He would riskhaving to take Jerusalem after bad weather had set in rather than beunable, owing to the condition of his troops, to exploit an initialsuccess to the fullest extent. How wholly justified was this decisionthe subsequent fighting proved, and it is doubtful if there was ever amore complete illustration of the wisdom of those directing war policyat home submitting to the cool, balanced calculations of the man onthe spot. The extra six weeks spent in training and preparation wereof incalculable service to the Allies. I have heard it said thata September victory in Palestine would have had its reflex on theItalian front, and that the Caporetto disaster would not have assumedthe gigantic proportions which necessitated the withdrawal to Italyof British and French divisions from the Western Front and preventedCambrai being a big victory. That is very doubtful. On the contrary, aSeptember battle in Palestine before we were fully ready to followthe Turks after breaking and rolling up their line, even if we hadsucceeded in doing this completely, might have deprived us of themoral effect of the capture of Jerusalem and of the wonderfulinfluence which that victory had on the whole civilised world byreason of the sacrifices the Commander-in-Chief made to prevent anyfighting at all in the precincts of the Holy City. Of this I shallspeak later, giving the fullest details at my command, for there is nopage in the story of British arms which better upholds the honour andchivalry of the soldier than the preservation of the Holy Place fromthe clash of battle. 

That last six weeks of preparation were unforgettable. The Londonnewspapers I had the honour to represent as War Correspondent knewoperations were about to begin, but I did not cable or mail them oneword which would give an indication that big things were afoot. Theynever asked for news, but were content to wait till they could tellthe public that victory was ours. In accordance with their practicethroughout the war the London Press set an example to the world byrefraining from publishing anything which would give information ofthe slightest value to the enemy. It was a privilege to see thatvictory in the making. Some divisions which had allotted to them thehardest part of the attack on Beersheba were drawn out of the line, and forming up in big camps between Belah and Shellal set about acourse of training such as athletes undergo. They had long marchesin the sand carrying packs and equipment. They were put on a shortallowance of water, except for washing purposes. They dug, they hadbombing practice, and with all this extra exercise while the days werestill very hot they needed no encouragement to continue their games. Football was their favourite sport, and the British Tommy is such aremarkable fellow that it was usual to see him trudge home to camplooking 'fed up' with exercise, and then, after throwing off his packand tunic, run out to kick a ball. The Italian and French detachmentsused to look at him in astonishment, and doubtless they thought hisenthusiasm for sport was a sore trial. He got thoroughly fit formarches over sand, over stony ground, over shifting shingle. Duringthe period of concentration he had to cross a district desperately badfor marching, and it is more than probable the enemy never believedhim capable of such endurance. He was often tired, no doubt, but healways got to his destination, was rarely footsore, and laughed at theworst parts of his journey. The sand was choking, the flies were anirritating pest, equipment became painfully heavy; but a big, braveheart carried Tommy through his training to a state of perfectcondition for the heavy test. 

To enable about two-thirds of the force to carry on a moving battlewhile the remainder kept half the enemy pinned down to his trenchsystem on his right-centre and right, it was necessary to reinforcestrongly the transport service for our mobile columns. The XXIst Corpsgave up most of its lorries, tractors, and camels to XXth Corps. Thesehad to be moved across from the Gaza sector to our right as secretlyas possible, and they were not brought up to load at the supply depôtsat Shellal and about Karm until the moment they were required to carrysupplies for the corps moving to attack. 

It is not easy to convey to any one who has not seen an army on themove what a vast amount of transport is required to provision twocorps. In France, where roads are numerous and in comparatively goodcondition, the supply problem could be worked out to a nicety, but ina roadless country where there was not a sound half-mile of track, andwhere water had to be developed and every gallon was precious, thequestion of supply needed most anxious consideration, and a big marginhad to be allowed for contingencies. It will give some idea of therequirements when I state that for the supply of water alone the XXthCorps had allotted to it 6000 camels and 73 lorries. To feed thesewater camels alone needed a big convoy. 

We got an impression of the might and majesty of an army in the fieldas we saw it preparing to take the offensive. The camp of GeneralHeadquarters where I was located was situated north of Rafa. Therailway ran on two sides of the camping ground, one line going toBelah and the other stretching out to Shellal, where everything was inreadiness to extend the iron road to the north-east of Karm, on theplain which, because the Turks enjoyed complete observation over it, had hitherto been No Man's Land. We saw and heard the traffic on thissection of the line. It was enormous. Heavily laden trains ran nightand day with a mass of stores and supplies, with motor lorries, cars, and tractors; and the ever-increasing volume of traffic told those ofus who knew nothing of the date of 'Zero day' that it was not far off. The heaviest trains seemed to run at night, and the returning emptytrains were hurried forward at a speed suggesting the urgency ofclearing the line for a fully loaded train awaiting at Rafa the signalto proceed with its valuable load to railhead. Perfect control notonly on the railway system but in the forward supply yards preventedcongestion, and when a train arrived at its destination and was splitup into several parts, well-drilled gangs of troops and Egyptianlabourers were allotted to each truck, and whether a lorry or atractor had to be unshipped and moved down a ramp, or a truck had tobe relieved of its ten tons of tibbin, boxes of biscuit and bully, orof engineers' stores, the goods were cleared away from the vicinity ofthe line with a celerity which a goods-yard foreman at home would haveapplauded as the smartest work he had ever seen. There was no room forslackers in the Army, and the value of each truck was so high thatit could not be left standing idle for an hour. The organisation wasequally good at Kantara, where the loading and making up of trains hadto be arranged precisely as the needs at the front demanded. Thoseremarkable haulers, the caterpillar tractors, cut many a passagethrough the sand, tugging heavy guns and ammunition, stores for theair and signal services, machinery for engineers and mobile workshops, and sometimes towing a weighty load of petrol to satisfy theirvoracious appetites for that fuel. The tractors did well. Sand was notrouble to them, and when mud marooned lorries during the advance inNovember the rattling, rumbling old tractor made fair weather of it. The mechanical transport trains will not forget the service of thetractors on the morning after Beersheba was taken. From railhead tothe spot where Father Abraham and his people fed their flocks thecountry was bare and the earth's crust had yielded all its strengthunder the influence of the summer sun. Loaded lorries under their ownpower could not move more than a few yards before they were severalinches deep in the sandy soil, but a Motor Transport officer deviseda plan for beating down a track which all lorries could use. He got atractor to haul six unladen lorries, and with all the vehicles usingtheir own power the tractor managed to pull them through to Beersheba, leaving behind some wheel tracks with a hard foundation. A hundredlorries followed, the drivers steering them in the ruts, and they madesuch good progress that by the afternoon they had deposited between200 and 300 tons of supplies in Beersheba. The path the tractor cutdid not last very long, but it was sound enough for the immediate andpressing requirements of the Army. 

Within a month of his arrival in Egypt, General Allenby had visitedthe whole of his front line and had decided the form his offensiveshould take. As soon as his force had been made up to seven infantrydivisions and the Desert Mounted Corps, and they had been brought upto strength and trained, he would attack, making his main offensiveagainst the enemy's left flank while conducting operations vigorouslyand on an extensive scale against the Turkish right-centre and right. The principal operation against the left was to be conducted byGeneral Chetwode's XXth Corps, consisting of four infantry divisionsand the Imperial Camel Brigade, and by General Chauvel's DesertMounted Corps. General Bulfin's XXIst Corps was to operate againstGaza and the Turkish right-centre south-east of that ancient town. If the situation became such as to make it necessary to take theoffensive before the force had been brought up to strength, the XXIstCorps would have had to undertake its task with only two divisions, but in those circumstances its operations were to be limited todemonstrations and raids. By throwing forward his right, the XXIstCorps Commander was to pin the enemy down in the Atawineh district, and on the left he would move against the south-western defences ofGaza so as to lead the Turks to suppose an attack was to come in thissector. That movement being made, the XXth Corps and Desert MountedCorps were to advance against Beersheba, and, having taken it, tosecure the valuable water supply which was known to have existed theresince Abraham dug the well of the oath which gave its name to thetown. Because of water difficulties it was considered vital thatBeersheba should be captured in one day, a formidable undertakingowing to the situation of the town, the high entrenched hills aroundit and the long marches for cavalry and infantry before the attack;and in drawing up the scheme based on the Commander-in-Chief's plan, the commanders of XXth Corps and Desert Mounted Corps had always towork on the assumption that Beersheba would be in their hands bynightfall of the first day of the attack. General Barrow's YeomanryMounted Division was to remain at Shellal in the gap between XXthCorps and XXIst Corps in case the enemy should attempt to attack theXXth Corps' left flank. Having dealt with the enemy in Beersheba, General Chetwode with mounted troops protecting his right was to movenorth and north-west against the enemy's left flank, to drive him fromhis strong positions at Sheria and Hareira, enveloping his left flankand striking it obliquely. 

While the XXth Corps was moving against this section of the enemyline, Desert Mounted Corps was to bring up the mounted division leftat Shellal, and passing behind the XXth Corps to march on Nejile, where there was an excellent water supply, and the wadi Hesi, so as tothreaten the left rear and the line of retreat of the Turkish Army. 

It was always doubtful whether XXth Corps would be able to close upthe gap between it and the XXIst Corps owing to the length of itsmarches and the distance it was from railhead, and the schemetherefore provided that the XXIst Corps should confirm successesgained on our right by forcing its way through the tremendously strongGaza position to the line of the wadi Hesi and joining up with DesertMounted Corps. A considerable number of XXth Corps troops would thenreturn to the neighbourhood of railhead and release the greaterpart of its transport for the infantry of XXIst Corps moving up theMaritime Plain. 

This, in summary form, was the scheme General Allenby planned beforethe middle of August, and though the details were not, and could notbe, worked out until a couple of months had passed, it is noteworthyas showing that, notwithstanding the moves an enterprising enemy hadat his command in a country where positions were entirely favourableto him, where he had water near at hand, where the transport ofsupplies was never so serious a problem for him as for us when we goton the move, and where he could make us fight almost every step ofthe way, the Commander-in-Chief foresaw and provided for everyeventuality, and his scheme worked out absolutely and entirely'according to plan, ' to use the favourite phrase of the German HighCommand. 

When the Corps Commanders began working out the details two of thegreatest problems were transport and water. Only patience and skilfuldevelopment of known sources of supply would surmount the waterdifficulty, and we had to wait till the period of concentration beforecommencing its solution. But to lighten the transport load which musthave weighed heavily on Corps Staffs, the Commander-in-Chief agreed toallow the extension of the railway east of Shellal to be begun soonerthan he had provided for. It was imperative that railway constructionshould not give the enemy an indication of our intentions. If he hadrealised the nature and scope of our preparations he would have donesomething to counteract them and to deny us that element of surprisewhich exerted so great an influence on the course of the battle. General Allenby, however, was willing to take some risks to simplifysupply difficulties, and he ordered that the extension to a railwaystation north-east of Karm should be completed by the evening of thethird day before the attack, that a Decauville line from Gamli, not tobe begun before the sixth day prior to the attack, was to be completedto Karm by the day preceding the opening of the fighting at Beersheba, and that a new Decauville line should be started at Karm when fightinghad begun, and should be carried nearly three miles in the Beershebadirection early on the following morning. These new lines, though ofshort length, were an inestimable boon to the conductors of supplytrains. The new railheads both of the standard gauge and light lineswere well placed, and they not only saved time and shortened thejourneys of camel convoys and lorry transport columns, but preventedcongestion at depôts in one central spot. 

A big effort was made to escape detection by enemy aircraft. For thefirst time since the Egyptian Expeditionary Force took the field wehad obtained mastery in the air. On the 8th and 15th October two enemyplanes were shot down behind our lines, and the keenness of our airmenfor combat made the German aviators extremely careful. They had beenbold and resolute, taking their observations several thousand feethigher than our pilots, it is true, but neither anti-aircraft fire northe presence of our machines in the air had up to this time deterredthem. However, just at the moment when airwork was of extremeimportance to the Turks, the German flying men, recognising that ourpilots had new battle planes and were full of resource and daring, showed an unusual lack of enterprise, and we profited from theirinactivity. The concentration of the force in the positions from whichit was to attack Beersheba was to have taken seven days, but owingto the difficulties attending the development of water at Asluj andKhalasa the time was extended to ten days. During this period theuppermost thought of commanders was to conceal their movements. Allmarching was done at night and no move of any kind was permitted tillnearly six o'clock in the evening, when enemy aircraft were usually atrest and the light was sufficiently dull to prevent the Fritzes seeingmuch if they had made an exceptionally late excursion. All the tentsand temporary shelters which had been occupied for weeks were leftstanding. Cookhouses, horse lines, canteens, and so on were untouched, and one had an eerie feeling in passing at night through theseuntenanted camping grounds, deserted and lifeless, and a prey to thejackal and pariah dog. A vast area of many square miles which had heldtens of thousands of troops and animals almost became a wildernessagain, and the few natives hereabouts who had made large profitsfrom the sale of eggs, fruit, and vegetables looked disconsolate andbewildered at the change, hoping and believing that the empty tentsmerely denoted a temporary absence. But the great majority of the Armynever came that way again. 

When the infantry started on the march, divisions and brigades hadallotted to them particular areas for their march routes, and all overthat country, where scarcely a tree or native hut existed to makea landmark, there were dotted small arrow-pointed boards with thedirection 'A road, ' 'B road, ' 'Z road, ' as the case might be. Marchingin the dark hours when a refreshing air succeeded the heat of the day, the troops halted as soon as a purple flush threw into high relief thesouthern end of the Judean hills, and they hid themselves in the wadisand broken ground; and on one unit vacating a bivouac area it wasoccupied by another, thus making the areas in which the troops restedas few as possible. 

The concentration was worked to a time-table. Not only were brigadesallotted certain marches each night, but they were given specifiedtimes to cover certain distances, and these were arranged according tothe condition of the ground. In parts it was very broken and coveredwith loose stones, and the pace of infantry by night was very slightlymore than one mile per hour. The routes for guns were not chosenuntil the whole country had been reconnoitred, and it was a highlycreditable performance for artillery to get their field guns andheavy howitzer batteries through to the time-table. But the clockworkprecision of the movements reflected even more highly on the staffworking out the details than on the infantry and artillery, and it maybe said with perfect truth that the staff made no miscalculationor mistake. The XXth Corps staff maps and plans, and the detailsaccompanying them, were masterpieces of clearness and completeness. The men who fought out the plans to a triumphant finish were glad torecognise this perfection of staff work. [1]

[Footnote 1: See Appendix VI. ]

CHAPTER VII

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY

The XXth Corps began its movement on the night of 20-21st October. The whole Corps was not on the march, but a sufficient force was sentforward to form supply dumps and to store water at Esani for troopscovering Desert Mounted Corps engineers engaged on the development ofwater at Khalasa and Asluj. Some of the Australian and New Zealandtroops engaged on this work had previously been at these places. 

In the early summer it was thought desirable to destroy the Turkishrailway which ran from Beersheba to Asluj and on to Kossaima, in orderto prevent an enemy raid on our communications between El Arish andRafa, and the mounted troops with the Imperial Camel Corps had hada most successful day in destroying many miles of line and severalbridges. The Turks were badly in need of rails for the line they werethen constructing down to Deir Sineid, and they had lifted some of therails between Asluj and Kossaima, but during our raid we broke everyrail over some fifteen miles of track. Khalasa and Asluj being watercentres became the points of concentration for two mounted divisions, and the splendid Colonials in the engineer sections worked at thewells as if the success of the whole enterprise depended upon theirefforts, as, indeed, to a very large extent it did. Theirs was not aneight hours day. They worked under many difficulties, often thigh deepin water and mud, cleaning out and deepening wells and installingpower pumps, putting up large canvas tanks for storage, andmaking water troughs. The results exceeded anticipations, and theCommander-in-Chief, on a day when the calls on his time were many andurgent, made a long journey to thank the officers and men for the workthey had done and to express his high appreciation of their skill andenergy. 

The principal work carried out by the XXth Corps during the period ofconcentration consisted in laying the standard gauge line to Imaraand opening the station at that place on October 28; prolonging therailway line to a point three-quarters of a mile north-north-eastof Karm, where the station was opened on November 3; completing byOctober 30 the light railway from the east bank of the wadi Ghuzze atGamli _via_ Karm to Khasif; and developing water at Esani, Malaga, andAbu Ghalyun for the use first by cavalry detachments and then by the60th Division. Cisterns in the Khasif and Imsiri area were stockedwith 60, 000 gallons of water to be used by the 53rd and 74thDivisions, and this supply was to be supplemented by camel convoys. Apparently the enemy knew very little about the concentration untilabout October 26, and even then he could have had only slightknowledge of the extent of our movements, and probably knew nothing atall of where the first blow was to fall. In the early hours of October27 he did make an attempt to interfere with our concentration, andthere was a spirited little action on our outpost line which had beenpushed out beyond the plain to a line of low hills near the wadiHanafish. The Turks in overwhelming force met a most stubborn defenceby the Middlesex Yeomanry, and if the enemy took these London yeomenas an average sample of General Allenby's troops, this engagement musthave given them a foretaste of what was in store for them. 

The Middlesex Yeomanry (the 1st County of London Yeomanry, to givethe regiment the name by which it is officially known, though the menalmost invariably use the much older Territorial title) and the 21stMachine Gun Squadron, held the long ridge from El Buggar to hill 630. There was a squadron dismounted on hill 630, three troops on hill 720, the next and highest point on the ridge, and a post at El Buggar. Atfour o'clock in the morning the latter post was fired on by a Turkishcavalry patrol, and an hour later it was evident that the enemyintended to try to drive us off the ridge, his occupation of whichwould have given him the power to harass railway construction partiesby shell-fire, even if it did not entirely stop the work. Some 3000Turkish infantry, 1200 cavalry, and twelve guns had advanced from theKauwukah system of defences to attack our outpost line on the ridge. They heavily engaged hill 630, working round both flanks, and broughtheavy machine-gun and artillery fire to bear on the squadron holdingit. The Royal Flying Corps estimated that a force of 2000 men attackedthe garrison, which was completely cut off. 

A squadron of the City of London Yeomanry sent to reinforce was heldup by a machine-gun barrage and had to withdraw. The garrison heldout magnificently all day in a support trench close behind the crestagainst odds of twenty to one, and repeatedly beat off rushes, although the bodies of dead Turks showed that they got as close asforty yards from the defenders. Two officers were wounded, and fourother ranks killed and twelve wounded. 

The attack on hill 720 was made by 1200 cavalry supported by a heavyvolume of shell and machine-gun fire. During the early morning twodesperate charges were beaten off, but in a third charge the enemygained possession of the hill after the detachment had held out forsix hours. All our officers were killed or wounded and all the menwere casualties except three. At six o'clock in the evening the Turkswere holding this position in strength against the 3rd AustralianLight Horse, but two infantry brigades of the 53rd Division weremoving towards the ridge, and during the evening the enemy retired andwe held the ridge from this time on quite securely. The strong defenceof the Middlesex Yeomanry undoubtedly prevented the Turks establishingthemselves on the ridge, and saved the infantry from having to make anight attack which might have been costly. Thereafter the enemy madeno attempt to interfere with the concentration. The yeomanry losses inthis encounter were 1 officer and 23 other ranks killed, 5 officersand 48 other ranks wounded, 2 officers and 8 other ranks missing. 

On the night of October 30-31 a brilliant moon lit up the wholecountry. The day had been very hot, and at sunset an entire absence ofwind promised that the night march of nearly 40, 000 troops of allarms would be attended by all the discomforts of dust and heat. Thethermometer fell, but there was not a breath of wind to shift the pallof dust which hung above the long columns of horse, foot, and guns. Where the tracks were sandy some brigades often appeared to beadvancing through one of London's own particular fogs. Men's facesbecame caked with yellow dust, their nostrils were hot and burning, and parched throats could not be relieved because of the necessityof conserving the water allowance. A hot day was in prospect on themorrow, and the fear of having to fight on an empty water-bottleprevented many a gallant fellow broaching his supply before daybreak. Most of the men had had a long acquaintance with heat in the MiddleEast, and the high temperature would have caused them scarcely anytrouble if there had been wind to carry away the dust clouds. Thecavalry marched over harder and more stony ground than the infantry. They advanced from Khalasa and Asluj a long way south of Beersheba tothe east of the town. It was a big night march of some thirty miles, but it was well within the powers of the veterans of the Anzac MountedDivision and Australian Mounted Division, whose men and horses were inadmirable condition. 

The infantry were ordered to be on their line of deployment by fouro'clock on the morning of October 31, and in every case they werebefore time. There had been many reconnaissances by officers who wereto act as guides to columns, and they were quite familiar with theground; and the guns and ammunition columns were taken by routes whichhad been carefully selected and marked. In places the banks ofwadis had been cut into and ramps made to enable the rough stonywatercourses to be practicable for wheels, and, broken as the countrywas, and though all previous preparations had to be made withoutarousing the suspicions of Turks and wandering Bedouins, there was noincident to check the progress of infantry or guns. Occasional riflefire and some shelling occurred during the early hours, but at alittle after three A. M. The XXth Corps advanced headquarters had thenews that all columns had reached their allotted positions. 

The XXth Corps plan was to attack the enemy's works between theKhalasa road and the wadi Saba with the 60th and 74th Divisions, whilethe defences north of the wadi Saba were to be masked by the ImperialCamel Corps Brigade and two battalions of the 53rd Division, theremainder of the latter division protecting the left flank of theCorps from any attack by enemy troops who might move south from theSheria area. The first objective was a hill marked on the map as'1070, ' about 6000 yards south-west of Beersheba. It was a prominentfeature, 500 yards or perhaps a little more from a portion of theenemy's main line, and the Turks held it strongly and were supportedby a section of German machine-gunners. We had to win this height inorder to get good observation of the enemy's main line of works, andto allow of the advance of field artillery within wire-cutting rangeof an elaborate system of works protecting Beersheba from an advancefrom the west. At six the guns began to bombard 1070, and the volumeof fire concentrated on that spot must have given the Turks a bigsurprise. On a front of 4500 yards we had in action seventy-six18-pounders, twenty 4. 5-inch howitzers, and four 3. 7-inch howitzers, while eight 60-pounders, eight 6-inch howitzers, and four 4. 5-inchhowitzers were employed in counter battery work. The absence of windplaced us at a heavy disadvantage. The high explosive shells burstingabout the crest of 1070 raised enormous clouds of dust which obscuredeverything, and after a short while even the flames of explodingshells were entirely hidden from view. The gunners had to stop firingfor three-quarters of an hour to allow the dust to settle. They thenreopened, and by half-past eight, the wire-cutting being reportedcompleted, an intense bombardment was ordered, under cover of which, and with the assistance of machine-gun fire from aeroplanes, the 181stInfantry Brigade of the 60th Division went forward to the assault. They captured the hill in ten minutes, only sustaining about onehundred casualties, and taking nearly as many prisoners. A Germanmachine-gunner who fell into our hands bemoaned the fact that he hadnot a weapon left--every one of the machine guns had been knocked outby the artillery, and a number were buried by our fire. 

The first phase of the operations having thus ended successfully quiteearly in the day, the second stage was entered upon. Field guns wererushed forward at the gallop over ground broken by shallow wadis andup and down a very uneven stony surface. The gun teams were generallyexposed during the advance and were treated to heavy shrapnel fire, but they swung into action at prearranged points and set aboutwire-cutting with excellent effect. The first part of the second phaseconsisted in reducing the enemy's main line from the Khalasa road tothe wadi Saba, though the artillery bombarded the whole line. The 60thDivision on the right had two brigades attacking and one in divisionalreserve, and the 74th Division attacking on the left of the 60thlikewise had a brigade in reserve. The 74th, while waiting to advance, came under considerable shell-fire from batteries on the north of thewadi, and it was some time before their fire could be silenced. Asa rule the enemy works were cut into rocky, rising ground and thetrenches were well enclosed in wire fixed to iron stanchions. They were strongly made and there were possibilities of prolongedopposition, but by the time the big assault was launched the Turksknew they were being attacked on both sides of Beersheba and they musthave become anxious about a line of retreat. General Shea reportedthat the wire in front of him was cut before noon, but GeneralGirdwood was not certain that the wire was sufficiently broken on the74th Division's front, though he intimated to the Corps Commanderthat he was ready to attack at the same time as the 60th. Itstill continued a windless day, and the dust clouds prevented anyobservation of the wire entanglements. General Girdwood turned thisdisadvantage to account, and ordering his artillery to raise theirfire slightly so that it should fall just in front of and about thetrenches, put up what was in effect a dust barrage, and under coverof it selected detachments of his infantry advanced almost into thebursting shell to cut passages through the wire with wire-cutters. Thedismounted yeomanry of the 231st and 230th Infantry Brigades rushedthrough, and by half-past one the 74th Division had secured theirobjectives. The 179th and 181st Brigades of the 60th Division had wontheir trenches almost an hour earlier, and about 5000 yards of workswere in our hands south of the wadi Saba. The enemy had 3000 yards oftrenches north of the wadi, and though these were threatened from thesouth and west, it was not until five o'clock that the 230th Brigadeoccupied them, the Turks clearing out during the bombardment. Duringthe day, on the left of the 74th Division, the Imperial Camel CorpsBrigade and two battalions of the 53rd Division held the ground tothe north of the wadi Saba to a point where the remainder of the 53rdDivision watched for the approach of any enemy force from thenorth, while the 10th Division about Shellal protected the line ofcommunications east of the wadi Ghuzze, and the Yeomanry MountedDivision was on the west side of the wadi Ghuzze in G. H. Q. Reserve. The XXth Corps' losses were 7 officers killed and 42 wounded, 129 other ranks killed, 988 wounded and 5 missing, a light totalconsidering the nature of the works carried during the day. It wasobvious that the enemy was taken completely by surprise by thedirection of the attack, and the rapidity with which we carried hisstrongest points was overwhelming. The Turk did not attempt anythingin the nature of a counter-attack by the Beersheba garrison, nor didhe make any move from Hareira against the 53rd Division. Had he doneso the 10th Division and the Yeomanry Mounted Division would haveseized the opportunity of falling on him from Shellal, and the Turkchose the safer course of allowing the Beersheba garrison to standunaided in its own defences. The XXth Corps' captures included 25officers, 394 other ranks, 6 guns, and numerous machine guns. 

The Desert Mounted Corps met with stubborn opposition in theiroperations south-east and east of Beersheba, but they were carriedthrough no less successfully than those of the XXth Corps. The mountedmen had had a busy time. General Ryrie's 2nd Australian Light HorseBrigade and the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade had moved southwardson October 2, and on them and on the 1st and 2nd Field SquadronsAustralian Engineers the bulk of the work fell of developing water andmaking and marking tracks which, in the sandy soil, became badly cutup. On the evening of October 30 the Anzac Mounted Division was atAsluj, the Australian Mounted Division at Khalasa, the 7th MountedBrigade at Esani, Imperial Camel Brigade at Hiseia, and the YeomanryMounted Division in reserve at Shellal. The Anzac Division commandedby General Chaytor left Asluj during the night, and in a march oftwenty-four miles round the south of Beersheba met with only slightopposition on the way to Bir el Hamam and Bir Salim abu Irgeig, between five and seven miles east of the town. The 2nd AustralianLight Horse Brigade during the morning advanced north to take the highhill Tel el Sakaty, a little east of the Beersheba-Hebron road, whichwas captured at one o'clock, and the brigade then swept acrossthe metalled road which was in quite fair condition, and whichsubsequently was of great service to us during the advance of oneinfantry division on Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The 1st Australian LightHorse Brigade commanded by General Cox, and the New Zealand MountedRifles Brigade under General Meldrum, moved against Tel el Saba, a1000-feet hill which rises very precipitously on the northern bankof the wadi Saba, 4000 yards due east of Beersheba. Tel el Saba isbelieved to be the original site of Beersheba. It had been made into astrong redoubt and was well held by a substantial garrison adequatelydug in and supported by nests of machine-gunners. The right bank ofthe wadi Khalil was also strongly held, and between the Hebron roadand Tel el Saba some German machine-gunners in three houses offereddetermined opposition. The New Zealanders and a number of GeneralCox's men crept up the wadi Saba, taking full advantage of the coveroffered by the high banks, and formed up under the hill of Saba. Theythen dashed up the steep sides while the horse artillery lashed thecrest with their fire, and driving the Turks from their trenches hadcaptured the hill by three o'clock. At about the same time the 1stLight Horse Brigade suitably dealt with the machine-gunners in thehouses. Much ground east of Beersheba had thus been made good, andthe Hebron road was denied to the garrison of the town as a line ofretreat. The Anzac Mounted Division was then reinforced by GeneralWilson's 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade, and by six P. M. TheDivision held a long crescent of hills from Point 970, a mile northof Beersheba, through Tel el Sakaty, round south-eastwards to Bir elHamam. 

General Hodgson's Australian Mounted Division had a night march ofthirty-four miles from Khalasa to Iswawin, south-east of Beersheba, and after the 3rd Light Horse Brigade had been detached to assist theAnzac Division, orders were given to General Grant's 4th AustralianLight Horse Brigade to attack and take the town of Beersheba from theeast. The orders were received at four o'clock, and until we hadgot an absolute hold on Tel el Saba an attack on the town from thisdirection would have been suicidal, as an attacking force would havebeen between two fires. The shelling of the cavalry during the day hadbeen rather hot, and enemy airmen had occasionally bombed them. It wasgetting late, and as it was of the greatest importance that the town'savailable water should be secured that night, General Grant wasdirected to attack with the utmost vigour. His brigade worthilycarried out its orders. The ground was very uneven and was coveredwith a mass of large stones and shingle. The trenches were well mannedand strongly held, but General Grant ordered them to be taken at thegallop. The Australians carried them with an irresistible charge;dismounted, cleared the first line of all the enemy in it, ran on andcaptured the second and third system of trenches, and then, theirhorses having been brought up, galloped into the town to prevent anydestruction of the wells. The first-line eastern trenches of Beershebawere eight feet deep and four feet wide, and as there were many of theenemy in them they were a serious obstacle to be taken in one rush. This charge was a sterling feat, and unless the town had been occupiedthat night most, if not all, of the cavalry would have had to withdrawmany miles to water, and subsequent operations might have beenimperilled. Until we had got Beersheba there appeared small prospectof watering more than two brigades in this area. 

Luckily there had been two thunderstorms a few days before the attack, and we found a few pools of sweet water which enabled the whole of theCorps' horses to be watered during the night. These pools soon driedup and the water problem again became serious. The Commander-in-Chiefrewarded General Grant with the D. S. O. As an appreciation of his work, and the brigade was gratified at a well-earned honour. The 7th MountedBrigade was held up for some time in the afternoon by a flanking firefrom Ras Ghannam, south of Beersheba, but this was silenced in timeto enable the brigade to assist in the occupation of Beersheba atnightfall. The 4th Light Horse Brigade's captures in the charge were58 officers, 1090 other ranks, and 10 field guns, and the total 'bag'of the Desert Mounted Corps was 70 officers and 1458 other ranks. 

The loss of Beersheba was a heavy blow to the Turk. Yet he did noteven then realise to the full the significance of our capture of thetown. He certainly failed to appreciate that we were to use it asa jumping-off place to attack his main line from Gaza to Sheria byrolling it up from left to right. In this plan there is no doubt thatGeneral Allenby entirely deceived his enemy, for in the next fewdays there was the best of evidence to show that General Kress vonKressenstein believed we were going to advance from Beersheba toJerusalem up the Hebron road, and he made his dispositions to opposeus here. It was not merely the moral effect of the loss of Beershebathat disturbed the Turks; they had been driven out of a notunimportant stronghold. 

All through the many centuries since Abraham and his people led apastoral life near the wells, Beersheba had been a meanly appointedplace. There were no signs as far as I could see of any elaborateruins to indicate anything larger than a native settlement. Elsewherewe saw crumbling walls of ancient castles and fortresses to tell ofconquerors and glories long since faded away, of relics of an age whengreat captains led martial men into new worlds to conquer, of thetime when the Crusading spirit was abroad and the flower of Westernchivalry came East to hold the land for Christians. Here the nativequarter suggested that trade in Beersheba was purely local and notambitious, that it provided nothing for the world's commerce save afew skins and hides, and that the inhabitants were content to live therude, simple lives of their forefathers. But the enterprising Germanarrived, and you could tell by his work how he intended to compel achange in the unchanging character of the people. He built a handsomeMosque--but before he was driven out he wired and mined it fordestruction. He built a seat of government, a hospital, and abarracks, all of them pretentious buildings for such a town, welldesigned, constructed of stone with red-tiled roofs, and the gardenswere nicely laid out. There were a railway station and storehouses ona scale which would not yield a return on capital expenditure for manyyears, and the water tower and engine sheds were built to last longerthan merely military necessities demanded. They were fashioned byEuropean craftsmen, and the solidity of the structures offered strangecontrast to the rough-and-ready native houses. The primary object ofthe Hun scheme was, doubtless, to make Beersheba a suitable base foran attack on the Suez Canal, and the manner of improving the Hebronroad, of setting road engineers to construct zigzags up hills so thatlorries could move over the road, was part of the plan of men whosevision was centred on cutting the Suez Canal artery of the BritishEmpire's body. The best laid schemes.... 

When I entered Beersheba our troops held a line of outpostssufficiently far north of the town to prevent the Turks shelling it, and the place was secure except from aircraft bombs, of which a numberfell into the town without damaging anything of much consequence. Someof the troops fell victims to booby traps. Apparently harmless whiskybottles exploded when attempts were made to draw the corks, andseveral small mines went up. Besides the mines in the Mosque therewas a good deal of wiring about the railway station, and some rollingstock was made ready for destruction the instant a door was opened. The ruse was expected; some Australian engineers drew the charges, and the coaches were afterwards of considerable service to the supplybranch. 

CHAPTER VIII

GAZA DEFENCES

Meanwhile there were important happenings at the other end of theline. Gaza was about to submit to the biggest of all her ordeals. Shehad been a bone of contention for thousands of years. The Pharaohscoveted her and more than 3500 years ago made bloody strife within theenvirons of the town. Alexander the Great besieged her, and Persiansand Arabians opposed that mighty general. The Ptolemies and theAntiochi for centuries fought for Gaza, whose inhabitants had agreater taste for the mart than for the sword, and when the Maccabeeswere carrying a victorious war through Philistia, the people of Gazabought off Jonathan, but the Jews occupied the city itself about acentury before the Christian era. Later on the place was capturedafter a year's siege and destroyed, and for long it remained a massof mouldering ruins. Pompey revived it, making it a free city, andGabinius extended it close to the harbour, whilst under Caesar andHerod its prosperity and fame increased. In succeeding centuriesGaza's commerce flourished under the Greeks, who founded schoolsfamous for rhetoric and philosophy, till the Mahomedan wave sweptover the land in the first half of the seventh century, when the townbecame a shadow of its former self, though it continued to exist as acentre for trade. The Crusaders made their influence felt, and manyare the traces of their period in this ancient city, but Askalonalways had more Crusader support. Napoleon's attack on Gaza foundAbdallah's army in a very different state of preparedness from vonKress's Turkish army. Nearly all Abdallah's artillery was left behindin a gun park at Jaffa owing to lack of transport, and though he hada numerically superior force he did not like Napoleon's dispositions, and retreated when Kleber moved up the plain to pass between Gaza andthe sea, and the cavalry advanced east of the Mound of Hebron, or AliMuntar, as we know the hill up which Samson is reputed to have carriedthe gates and bar of Gaza. For nearly a century and a quarter sinceNapoleon passed forwards and backwards through the town, Gaza pursuedthe arts of peace in the lethargic spirit which suits the nativetemperament, but in eight months of 1917 it was the cockpit of strifein the Middle East, and there was often crammed into one day asmuch fighting energy as was shown in all the battles of the pastthirty-five centuries, Napoleon's campaign included. 

Fortunately after the battles of March and April nearly all thecivilian population left the town for quieter quarters. Some of themon returning must have had difficulty in identifying their homes. Inthe centre of the town, where bazaars radiated from the quarter ofwhich the Great Mosque was the hub, the houses were a mass of stonesand rubble, and the narrow streets and tortuous byways were filledwith fallen walls and roofs. The Great Mosque had entirely lost itsbeauty. We had shelled it because its minaret, one of those delicatelyfashioned spires which, seen from a distance, lead a traveller toimagine a native town in the East to be arranged on an artistic andorderly plan, was used as a Turkish observation post, and the Mosqueitself as an ammunition store. I am told our guns were never laid onto this objective until there was an accident within it which explodedthe ammunition. Be that as it may, there was ample justification forshelling the Mosque. I went in to examine the structure a few hoursafter the Turks had been compelled to evacuate the town, and whilstthey were then shelling it with unpleasant severity. Amid the wreckedmarble columns, the broken pulpit, the torn and twisted lamps andcrumbling walls were hundreds of thousands of rounds of small-armsammunition, most of it destroyed by explosion. A great shell had cutthe minaret in half and had left exposed telephone wires leadingdirect to army headquarters and to the Turkish gunners' fire controlstation. Most of the Mosque furniture and all the carpets hadbeen removed, but a few torn copies of the Koran, some of them inmanuscript with marginal notes, lay mixed up with German newspapersand some typical Turkish war propaganda literature. That Mosque, whichSaladin seized from the Crusaders and turned from a Christian intoa Mahomedan place of worship, was unquestionably used for militarypurposes, and the Turks cared as little for its religious character orits venerable age as they did for the mosque on Nebi Samwil, where theremains of the Prophet Samuel are supposed to rest. Their stories ofthe trouble taken to avoid military contact with holy places and siteswere all bunkum and eyewash. They would have fought from the walls ofthe Holy City and placed machine-gun nests in the Church of the HolySepulchre and the Mosque of Omar if they had thought it would sparethem the loss of Jerusalem. 

Gaza had, as I have said, been turned into a fortress with a mass offield works, in places of considerable natural strength. If our forcehad been on the defensive at Gaza the Germans would not have attackedwithout an army of at least three times our strength. It is doubtfulif the Turks put as much material in use on Gallipoli as they didhere. Their trenches were deeply cut and were protected by an immenseamount of wire. In the sand-dune area they used a vast quantity ofsandbags, and they met the shortage of jute stuffs by making smallsacks of bedstead hangings and curtains which, in the dry heat of thesummer, wore very well. Looking across No Man's Land one could easilypick out a line of trenches by a red, a vivid blue, or a saffronsandbag. The Turkish dug-outs were most elaborate places of security. The excavators had gone down into the hard earth well beneath thedeep strata of sand, and they roofed these holes with six, eight, andsometimes ten layers of palm logs. We had seen these beautifultrees disappearing and had guessed the reason. But an even greaterprotection than the devices of military engineers had been providedfor the Turks by Dame Nature. Along the southern outskirts of the townall the fields were enclosed by giant cactus hedges, sometimes withstems as thick as a man's body and not infrequently rearing theirstrong limbs and prickly leaves twenty feet above the ground. Thehedges were deep as well as high. They were at once a screen fordefending troops and a barrier as impenetrable as the walls of afortress. If one line of cactus hedges had been cut through, infantrywould have found another and yet another to a depth of nearly twomiles, and as the whole of these thorny enclosures were commanded bya few machine guns the possibility of getting through was almosthopeless. There were similar hedges on the eastern and western sidesof Gaza, but they were not quite so deep as on the south. On thewestern side, and extending south as far as the desert which the Armyhad crossed with such steady, methodical, and one may also say painfulprogression, was a wide belt of yellow sand, sometimes settled downhard under the weight of heavy winds, and in other places yielding tothe pressure of feet. The Turks had laboured hard in this mile anda half width of sand, right down to the sea, to protect their rightflank. There was a point about 4000 yards due west from the edge ofthe West Town of Gaza which we called Sea Post. It was the westernextremity of the enemy's exceedingly intricate system of defences. Thebeach was below the level of the Post. From Sea Post for about 1500yards the Turkish front line ran to Rafa Redoubt. There were wired-inentrenchments with strong points here and there, and a series ofcommunication trenches and redoubts behind them for 3000 yards toSheikh Hasan, which was the port of Gaza, if you can so describe anopen roadstead with no landing facilities. From Rafa Redoubt thecontour of the sand dunes permitted the enemy to construct anexceedingly strong line running due south for 2000 yards, thestrongest points being named by us Zowaid trench, El Burj trench, Triangle trench, Peach Orchard, and El Arish Redoubt, the nomenclaturebeing reminiscent of the trials of the troops in the desert march. Behind this line there was many a sunken passageway and shelter fromgunfire, while backing the whole system, and, for reasons I havegiven, an element of defence as strong as the prepared positions, werecactus hedges enclosing the West Town's gardens. 

From El Arish Redoubt the line ran east again to Mazar trench witha prodigal expenditure of wire in front of it, and then south forseveral hundred yards, when it was thrown out to the south-west toembrace a position of high importance known as Umbrella Hill, a duneof blazing yellow sand facing, about 500 yards away, Samson's Ridge, which we held strongly and on which the enemy often concentrated hisfire. This ended the Turks' right-half section of the Gaza defences. Close by passed what from time immemorial has been called the CairoRoad, a track worn down by caravans of camels moving towards Kantaraon their way with goods for Egyptian bazaars. But there was no breakin the trench system which ran across the plain, a beautiful greentinted with the blooms of myriads of wild flowers when we firstadvanced over it in March, now browned and dried up by absolutelycloudless summer days. In the gardens on the western slopes of thehills running south from Ali Muntar the Turk had achieved muchspadework, but he had done far more work on the hills themselves, andthese were a frame of fortifications for Ali Muntar, on which we oncesat for a few hours, and the possession of which meant the reductionof Gaza. By the end of summer the hill of Muntar had lost its shape. When we saw it during the first battle of Gaza it was a bold featuresurmounted by a few trees and the whitened walls and grey dome of asheikh's tomb. In the earlier battles of 1917 much was done to ruffleMuntar's crest. We saw trees uprooted, others lose their limbs, andnaval gunfire threatened the foundations of the old chief's buryingplace. But Ali Muntar stoutly resisted the heavy shells' attack. Asif Samson's feat had endowed it with some of the strong man's powers, Muntar for a long time received its daily thumps stoically; but bydegrees the resistance of the old hill declined, and when agentsreported that the sheikh's tomb was used as an observation post, 8-inch howitzers got on to it and made it untenable. There was a bitof it left at the end, but not more than would offer protection from arifle bullet, and the one tree left standing was a limbless trunk. Thecrest of the hill lost its roundness, and the soil which had workedout through the shell craters had changed the colour of the summit. Old Ali Muntar had had the worst of the bombardment, and if somefuture sheikh should choose the site for a summer residence he willcome across a wealth of metal in digging his foundations. 

To capture Gaza the Formidable it was proposed first to take thewestern defences from Umbrella Hill to Sea Post, to press on to SheikhHasan and thus turn the right flank of the whole position. That wouldcompel the enemy to reinforce his right flank when he was beingheavily attacked elsewhere, and if he had been transferring hisreserves to meet the threat against the left of his main line afterBeersheba had been won for the Empire he would be in sore trouble. Gaza had already tasted a full sample of the war food we intended itshould consume. Before the attack on Beersheba had developed, ships ofwar and the heavy guns of XXIst Corps had rattled its defences. Thewarships' fire was chiefly directed on targets our land guns couldnot reach. Observers in aircraft controlled the fire and notified thedestruction of ammunition dumps at Deir Sineid and other places. Thework of the heavy batteries was watched with much interest. Some wereentirely new batteries which had never been in action against anyenemy, and they only arrived on the Gaza front five weeks before thebattle. These were not allowed to register until shortly before thebattle began, and they borrowed guns from other batteries in order totrain the gun crews. So desirous was General Bulfin to conceal theconcentration of heavies that the wireless code calls were only thoseused by batteries which were in position before his Corps was formed, and the volume of fire came as an absolute surprise to the enemy. Itcame as a surprise also to some of us in camp at G. H. Q. One night atthe end of October. Suddenly there was a terrific burst of fire onabout four miles of front. Vivid fan-shaped flashes stabbed the sky, the bright moonlight of the East did not dim the guns' lightning, andtheir thunderous voices were a challenge the enemy was powerless torefuse. He took it up slowly as if half ashamed of his weakness. Thenhis fire increased in volume and in strength, but it ebbed again andwe knew the reason. We held some big 'stuff' for counter battery work, and our fire was effective. 

The preliminary bombardment began on October 27 and it grew inintensity day by day. The Navy co-operated on October 29 andsubsequent days. The whole line from Middlesex Hill (close to OutpostHill) to the sea was subjected to heavy fire, all the routes to thefront line were shelled during the night by 60-pounder and field-gunbatteries. Gas shells dosed the centres of communication and bivouacareas, and every quarter of the defences was made uncomfortable. Thesound-ranging sections told us the enemy had between sixteen andtwenty-four guns south of Gaza, and from forty to forty-eight north ofthe town, and over 100 guns were disclosed, including more than thirtyfiring from the Tank Redoubt well away to the eastward. On October 29some of the guns south of Gaza had been forced back by the severity ofour counter battery work, and of the ten guns remaining between us andthe town on that date all except four had been removed by November2. For several nights the bombardment continued without a move byinfantry. Then just at the moment von Kress was discussing the loss ofBeersheba and his plans to meet our further advance in that direction, some infantry of the 75th Division raided Outpost Hill, the southernextremity of the entrenched hill system south of Ali Muntar, andkilled far more Turks than they took prisoners. There was anintense bombardment of the enemy's works at the same time. The nextnight--November 1-2--was the opening of XXIst Corps' great attack onGaza, and though the enemy did not leave the town or the remainder ofthe trenches we had not assaulted till nearly a week afterwards, thevigour of the attack and the bravery with which it was thrust home, and the subsequent total failure of counter-attacks, must have madethe enemy commanders realise on the afternoon of November 2 that Gazawas doomed and that their boasts that Gaza was impregnable were thinair. Their reserves were on the way to their left where they wereurgently wanted, there was nothing strong enough to replace such heavywastage caused to them by the attack of the night of November 1 andthe morning of the 2nd, and our big gains of ground were an enormousadvantage to us for the second phase in the Gaza sector, for we hadbitten deeply into the Turks' right flank. 

Like the concentration of the XXth Corps and the Desert Mounted Corpsfor the jump off on to Beersheba, the preparations against the Turks'extreme right had to be very secretly made. The XXIst Corps Commanderhad to look a long way ahead. He had to consider the possibility ofthe enemy abandoning Gaza when Beersheba was captured, and fallingback to the line of the wadi Hesi. His troops had been confined totrench warfare for months, digging and sitting in trenches, puttingout wire, going out on listening patrols, sniping and doing all thedrudgery in the lines of earthworks. They were hard and strong, theirhealth having considerably improved since the early summer, but at theend of September the infantry were by no means march fit. Realisingthat, if General Allenby's operations were successful, and no onedoubted that, we should have a period of open warfare when troopswould be called upon to make long marches and undergo the privationsentailed by transport difficulties, General Bulfin brought as manymen as he could spare from the trenches back to Deir el Belah and thecoast, where they had route marches over the sand for the restorationof their marching powers. Gradually he accumulated supplies insheltered positions just behind the front. In three dumps werecollected seven days' mobile rations, ammunition, water, andengineers' material. Tracks were constructed, cables buried, concealedgun positions and brigade and battalion headquarters made, and fromthe 25th October troops were ready to move off with two days' rationson the man. Should the enemy retire, General Hill's 52nd (Lowland)Division was to march up the shore beneath the sand cliffs, get acrossthe wadi Hesi at the mouth, detach a force to proceed towards Askalon, and then move eastward down to the ridge opposite Deir Sineid, and, bysecuring the bridge and crossings of the wadi Hesi, prevent the enemyestablishing himself on the north bank of the wadi. The operationson the night of November 1-2 were conducted by Major-General Hare, commanding the 54th Division, to which General Leggatt's 156thInfantry Brigade was temporarily attached. The latter brigade wasgiven the important task of capturing Umbrella Hill and El ArishRedoubt. Umbrella Hill was to be taken first, and as it wasanticipated the enemy would keep up a strong artillery fire for aconsiderable time after the position had been taken, and that his firewould interfere with the assembly and advance of troops detailedfor the second phase, the first phase was timed to start four hoursearlier than the second. For several days the guns had opened intensefire at midnight and again at 3 A. M. So that the enemy should notattach particular importance to our artillery activity on the night ofaction, and a creeping barrage nightly swept across No Man's Land toclear off the chain of listening posts established 300 yards in frontof the enemy's trenches. Some heavy banks of cloud moved across thesky when the Scottish Rifle Brigade assembled for the assault, but themoon shed sufficient light at intervals to enable the Scots to filethrough the gaps made in our wire and to form up on the tapes laidoutside. At 11 P. M. The 7th Scottish Rifles stormed Umbrella Hill withthe greatest gallantry. The first wave of some sixty-five officers andmen was blown up by four large contact mines and entirely destroyed. The second wave passed over the bodies of their comrades without amoment's check and, moving through the wire smashed by our artillery, entered Umbrella Hill trenches and set about the Turks with theirbayonets. They had to clear a maze of trenches and dug-outs, but theybombed out of existence the machine-gunners opposing them and hadsettled the possession of Umbrella Hill in half an hour. 

The 4th Royal Scots led the attack on El Arish Redoubt. It was abigger and noisier 'show' than the Royal Scots had had some monthsbefore, when in a 'silent' raid they killed with hatchets only, forthe Scots had seen the condition of some of their dead left in Turkishhands and were taking retribution. Not many Turks in El Arish Redoubtlived to relate that night's story. The Scots were rapidly in theredoubt and were rapidly through it, cleared up a nasty corner knownas the 'Little Devil, ' and were just about to shelter from the shellswhich were to answer their attack when they caught a brisk fire from aBedouin hut. A platoon leader disposed his men cleverly and rushedthe hut, killing everybody in it and capturing two machine guns. Thevigorous resistance of the Turks on Umbrella Hill and El Arish Redoubtresulted in our having to bury over 350 enemy dead in these positions. 

The second phase was to attack the enemy's front-line system from ElArish Redoubt to the sea at Sea Post. At 3 A. M. , after the enemyguns had plentifully sprinkled Umbrella Hill and had given it up asirretrievably lost, we opened a ten-minutes' intense bombardment ofthe front line, exactly as had been done on preceding mornings, butthis time the 161st and 162nd Infantry Brigades followed up our shellsand carried 3000 yards of trenches at once. Three-quarters of anhour afterwards the 163rd Infantry Brigade tried to get the supporttrenches several hundred yards in rear, but the difficulties were toomany and the effort failed. Having secured Sea Post and Beach Post the162nd Brigade completed the programme by advancing up the coast andcapturing the 'port' of Gaza, Sheikh Hasan, with a considerable bodyof prisoners. 

The enemy's guns remained active until seven o'clock, when theyreserved their fire till the afternoon. Then a heavy counter-attackwas seen to be developing by an aerial observer, whose timelywarning enabled the big guns and warships to smash it up. Anothercounter-attack against Sheikh Hasan was repulsed later in the day, anda third starting from Crested Rock which aimed at getting back ElBurj trench was a complete failure. After the second phase our troopsburied 739 enemy dead. Without doubt there were many others killed andwounded in the unsuccessful counter-attacks, particularly the firstagainst Sheikh Hasan, when many heavy shells were seen to fall in theenemy's ranks. We took prisoners 26 officers, including two battalioncommanders, and 418 other ranks. Our casualties were 30 officers and331 other ranks killed, 94 officers and 1869 other ranks wounded, and10 officers and 362 other ranks missing. Considering the enormousstrength of the positions attacked, the numbers engaged, and the factthat we secured enemy front 5000 yards long and 3000 yards deep, thelosses were not more severe than might have been expected. 

The Turks clung to their trenches with a tenacity equal to that whichcharacterised their defences on Gallipoli, and officer prisoners toldus they had been ordered to hold Gaza at all costs. That was goodnews, though even if they had got back to the wadi Hesi line it isdoubtful if, when Sheria was taken, they could have done more thantemporarily hold us up there. During the next few days the workagainst the enemy's right consisted of heavy bombardments on the lineof hills running from the north-east to the south of Gaza, and on theprominent position of Sheikh Redwan, east of the port. The enemy madesome spirited replies, notably on the 4th, but his force in Gaza wasgetting shaken, and prisoners reluctantly admitted that the heavynaval shells taking them in flank and rear were affecting the moralof the troops. The gunfire of Rear-Admiral Jackson's fleet of H. M. S. _Grafton_, _Raglan_, Monitors 15, 29, 31, and 32, river-gunboats_Ladybird_ and _Amphis_, and the destroyers _Staunch_ and _Comet_, wasworthy of the King's Navy. They were assisted by the French battleship_Requin_. We lost a monitor and destroyer torpedoed by a submarine, but the marks of the Navy's hard hitting were on and about Gaza, andwe heard, if we could not see, the best the ships were doing. On oneday there was a number of explosions about Deir Sineid indicating thedestruction of some of the enemy's reserve of ammunition, and whilethe Turks were still in Gaza they received a shock resemblingnothing more than an earthquake. One of the ships--the _Raglan_, Ibelieve--taking a signal from a seaplane, got a direct hit on anammunition train at Beit Hanun, the railway terminus north of Gaza. The whole train went up and its load was scattered in fragments overan area of several hundred square yards, an extraordinary scene ofwreckage of torn and twisted railway material and destroyed ammunitionpresenting itself to us when we got on the spot on November 7. Therewas another very fine example of the Navy's indirect fire a shortdistance northward of this railway station. A stone road bridge hadbeen built over the wadi Hesi and it had to carry all heavy traffic, the banks of the wadi being too steep and broken to permit wheelspassing down them as they stood. During our advance the engineers hadto build ramps here. A warship, taking its line from an aeroplane, fired at the bridge from a range of 14, 000 yards, got two direct hitson it and holed it in the centre, and there must have been thirty orforty shell craters within a radius of fifty yards. The confounding ofthe Turks was ably assisted by the Navy. 

CHAPTER IX

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT

Now we return to the operations of XXth Corps and Desert Mounted Corpson our right. After the capture of Beersheba this force was preparingto attack the left of the Turkish main line about Hareira and Sheria, the capture of which would enable the fine force of cavalry to getto Nejile and gain an excellent water supply, to advance to theneighbourhood of Huj and so reach the plain and threaten the enemy'sline in rear, and to fall on his line of retreat. It was proposedto make the attack on the Kauwukah and Rushdi systems at Hareira onNovember 4, but the water available at Beersheba had not been equalto the demands made upon it and was petering out, and mounted troopsprotecting the right flank of XXth Corps had to be relieved everytwenty-four hours. The men also suffered a good deal from thirst. Theweather was unusually hot for this period of the year, and the dustchurned up by traffic was as irritating as when the khamseen windblew. The two days' delay meant much in favour of the enemy, who wasenabled to move his troops as he desired, but it also permitted ourinfantry to get some rest after their long marches, and supplies werebrought nearer the front. 'Rest' was only a comparative term. Brigadeswere on the move each day in country which was one continual rise andfall, with stony beds of wadis to check progress, without a tree tolend a few moments' grateful relief from a burning sun, and nothingbut the rare sight of a squalid native hut to relieve the monotony ofa sun-dried desolate land. 

The troops were remarkably cheerful. They were on their toes, as thecavalry told them. They had drawn first blood profusely from the Turkafter many weary months of waiting and getting fit, and they knew thatthose gaunt mountain ridges away on their right front held behind themBethlehem and Jerusalem, goals they desired to reach more than anyother prizes of war. They had seen the Turk, and had soundly thrashedhim out of trenches which the British could have held against a muchstronger force. Their confidence was based on the proof that they werebetter men, and they were convinced that once they got the enemy intothe open their superiority would be still more marked. The events ofthe next six weeks showed their estimate of the Turkish soldier wasjustified. 

The 53rd Division with the Imperial Camel Corps on its right moved toTowal Abu Jerwal on November 1 to protect the flank guard of the XXthCorps during the pending attack on the Kauwukah system. The infantryhad some fighting on that day, but it was mild compared with thestrenuous days before them. The 10th Division attacked Irgeig railwaystation north-west of Beersheba and secured it, and waited there withthe 74th Division on its right while the Welsh Division went forwardto fight for Khuweilfeh on November 3. The Welshmen could not obtainthe whole of the position on that day, and it was not until the 6ththat it became theirs. Khuweilfeh is about ten miles due east ofSheria, the same distance north of Beersheba, and some five miles westof the Hebron road. It is in the hill country, difficult to approach, with nothing in the nature of a road or track leading to it, and therewas no element in the position to suggest the prospect of an easycapture. When General Mott advanced to these forbidding heights thestrength of the enemy in these parts was not realised. Prisonerstaken during the day proved that there were portions of three or fourTurkish divisions in the neighbourhood, and the strong efforts made toprevent the Welsh troops gaining the position and the furious attemptsto drive them out of it suggested that most of the Turkish reserveshad been brought over to their left flank to guard against a widemovement intended to envelop it. It afterwards turned out that vonKressenstein believed General Allenby intended to march on Jerusalemup the Hebron road, and he threw over to his left all his reserves tostop us. That was a supreme mistake, for when we had broken through atHareira and Sheria the two wings of his Army were never in contact, and their only means of communication was by aeroplane. 

The magnificent fight the 53rd Division put up at Khuweilfeh againstvastly superior forces and in the face of heavy casualties played avery important part in the overwhelming defeat of the Turks. For fourdays and nights the Welsh Division fought without respite and with theknowledge that they could not be substantially reinforced, since theplan for the attack on Hareira and Sheria entailed the employment ofall the available infantry of XXth Corps. Attack after attack waslaunched against them with extreme violence and great gallantry, theirpositions were raked by gunfire, whilst water and supplies were notover plentiful. But the staunch Division held on grimly to what it hadgained, and its tenacity was well rewarded by what was won on otherportions of the field. 

During the night of November 5-6 and the day of the 6th, the 74th, 60th, and 10th Divisions concentrated for the attack on the Kauwukahsystem. The enemy's positions ran from his Jerusalem-Beersheba railwayabout five miles south-east of Hareira, across the Gaza-Beersheba roadto the wadi Sheria, on the northern bank of which was an exceedinglystrong redoubt covering Hareira. The eastern portion of this linewas known as the Kauwukah system, and between it and Hareira wasthe Rushdi system, all being connected up by long communication andsupport trenches, while a light railway ran from the Rushdi line todumps south of Sheria. At the moment of assembly for attack our linefrom right to left was made up as follows: the 158th Infantry Brigadewas on the right, south of Tel Khuweilfeh. Then came the 160th Brigadeand 159th Brigade. The Yeomanry Mounted Division held a long lineof country and was the connecting link between the 53rd and 74thDivisions. The latter division disposed from right to left the 231stBrigade, the 229th Brigade, and 230th Brigade, who were to march fromthe south-east to the north-west to attack the right of the Kauwukahsystem of entrenchments on the railway. The 181st Brigade, 180thBrigade, and 179th Brigade of the 60th Division were to march in thesame direction to attack the next portion of the system on the left ofthe 74th Division's objectives, then swinging to the north to marchon Sheria. The 31st Brigade, 30th Brigade, and 29th Brigade were tooperate on the 60th Division's left, with the Australian MountedDivision watching the left flank of XXth Corps. The Turkish VIIthArmy and 3rd Cavalry Division were opposing the XXth Corps, anotherDivision was opposite the 53rd Division and the Imperial Camel Corpswith the 12th Depôt Regiment at Dharahiyeh on the Hebron road, the16th Division opposite our 74th, the 24th and 26th Divisions oppositeour 69th, and the 54th against the 10th Division. The 3rd, 53rd, and7th Turkish Divisions were in the Gaza area. 

At daybreak the troops advanced to the attack. The first part of theline in front of the 231st Brigade was a serious obstacle. Two orthree small outlying rifle pits had to be taken before the Divisioncould proceed with its effort to drive the enemy out of Sheria andprotect the flank of the 60th Division, which had to cross the railwaywhere a double line of trenches was to be tackled, the rear line abovethe other with the flank well thrown back and protected by smalladvanced pits to hold a few men and machine guns. The Turks held onvery obstinately to their ground east of the railway, and kept the74th Division at bay till one o'clock in the afternoon, but theartillery of that Division had for some time been assisting in thewire-cutting in front of the trenches to be assaulted by the 60thDivision, and the latter went ahead soon after noon, and with theassistance of one brigade of the 10th Division, had won about 4000yards of the complicated trench system and most of the Rushdi systemby half-past two. The Londoners then swung to the north and occupiedthe station at Sheria, while the dismounted yeomanry worked roundfarther east, taking a series of isolated trenches on the way, theIrish troops relieving the 60th in the captured trenches at Kauwukah. The 60th Division, having possession of the larger part of Sheria, intended to attack the hill there at nightfall, and the attack was inpreparation when an enemy dump exploded and a huge fire lighted up thewhole district, so that all troops would have been exposed to thefire of the garrison on the hill. General Shea therefore stopped theattack, but the hill was stormed at 4. 30 next morning and carried atthe point of the bayonet. A bridgehead was then formed at Sheria, andthe Londoners fought all day and stopped one counter-attack when itwas within 200 yards of our line. On that same morning the Irishtroops had extended their gains westwards from the Rushdi system tillthey got to Hareira Tepe Redoubt, a high mound 500 yards across thetop, which had been criss-crossed with trenches with wire hangingabout some broken ground at the bottom. Here there was a hot tussle, but the Irishmen valiantly pushed through and not only gave XXth Corpsthe whole of its objectives and completed the turn of the enemy's leftflank, but joined up with the XXIst Corps. The working of XXth Corps'scheme had again been admirable, and once more the staff work hadenabled the movements to be timed perfectly. 

The Desert Mounted Corps was thus able to draw up to Sheria inreadiness to take up the pursuit and to get the water supply atNejile. This ended the XXth Corps' task for a few days, though the60th Division became temporarily attached to Desert Mounted Corps. XXth Corps had nobly done its part. The consummate ability, energy, and foresight of the corps commander had been supported throughout bythe skill of divisional and brigade commanders. For the men no praisecould be too high. The attention given to their training was wellrepaid. They bore the strain of long marches on hard food and a smallallowance of water in a way that proved their physique to be onlymatched by their courage, and that was of a high order. Theirdiscipline was admirable, their determination alike in attack anddefence strong and well sustained. To say they were equal to thefinest troops in the world might lay one open to a charge ofexaggeration when it was impossible to get a fair ground ofcomparison, seeing the conditions of fighting on different frontswas so varied, but the trials through which the troops of XXthCorps passed up to the end of the first week of November, and theirmagnificent accomplishments by the end of the year, make me doubtwhether any other corps possessed finer soldierly qualities. The menwere indeed splendid. The casualties sustained by the XXth Corps fromOctober 31 to November 16 were: killed, officers 63, other ranks 869;wounded, officers 198, other ranks 4246; missing, no officers, 108other ranks--a total of 261 officers and 5223 other ranks. 

During the period after Beersheba when the XXth Corps troops wereconcentrating to break up the Turks' defensive position on the left, the Desert Mounted Corps was busily engaged holding a line eight orten miles north and north-east of Beersheba, and watching for anymovement of troops down the Hebron road. The 2nd Australian LightHorse Brigade and 7th Mounted Brigade tried to occupy a line fromKhuweilfeh to Dharahiyeh, but it was not possible to reach it--a factby no means surprising, as in the light of subsequent knowledge it wasclear that the Turks had put much of their strength there. A patrolof Light Horsemen managed to work round to the north of Dharahiyeh, a curious group of mud houses on a hill-top inhabited by natives whohave yet to appreciate the evils of grossly overcrowded quarters aswell as some of the elementary principles of sanitation, and they sawa number of motor lorries come up the admirably constructed hill roaddesigned by German engineers. The lorries were hurrying from theJerusalem area with reinforcements. Prisoners--several hundreds ofthem in all--were brought in daily, but no attempt was made to forcethe enemy back until November 6, when the 53rd Division, which for thetime being was attached to the Desert Mounted Corps, drove the Turksoff the whole of Khuweilfeh, behaving as I have already said withfine gallantry and inflicting severe losses. There were alsocounter-attacks launched against the 5th Mounted Brigade, the NewZealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, but these were likewise beaten off with considerable casualties tothe enemy. When the XXth Corps had captured the Khauwukah system, adetachment for the defence of the right flank of the Army was formedunder the command of Major-General G. De S. Barrow, the G. O. C. Yeomanry Mounted Division, consisting of the Imperial Camel CorpsBrigade, 53rd Division, Yeomanry Mounted Division, New Zealand MountedRifles Brigade, and two squadrons and eight machine guns of the 2ndAustralian Light Horse Brigade. The Australian Mounted Divisionmarched from Karm, whither it had been sent on account of waterdifficulties, to rejoin Desert Mounted Corps to whom the 60th Divisionwas temporarily attached. The Desert Corps had orders on November 7 topush through as rapidly as possible to the line wadi Jemmameh-Huj, andfrom that day the Corps commenced its long march to Jaffa, a marchwhich, though strongly opposed by considerable bodies of troops, wasmore often interfered with by lack of water than by difficulty indefeating the enemy. 

The scarcity of water was a sore trouble. There was an occasional poolhere and there, but generally the only water procurable was in deepwells giving a poor yield. The cavalry will not forget that longtrek. No brigade could march straight ahead. Those operating in thefoothills on our right had to fight all the way, and they were oftencalled upon to resist counter-attacks by strong rearguards issuingfrom the hills to threaten the flank and so delay the advance inorder to permit the Turks to carry off some of their material. It wasnecessary almost every day to withdraw certain formations from thefront and send them back a considerable distance to water, replacingthem by other troops coming from a well centre. In this way brigadeswere not infrequently attached to divisions other than their own, andthe administrative services were heavily handicapped. Several timeswhole brigades were without water for forty-eight hours, and thoughsupplies reached them on all but one or two occasions they were oftenlate, and an exceedingly severe strain was put on the transport. During that diagonal march across the Maritime Plain I heard infantryofficers remark that the Australians always seemed to have theirsupplies up with them. I do not think the supplies were always there, but they generally were not far behind, and if resource and energycould work miracles the Australian supply officers deserve the creditfor them. The divisional trains worked hard in those strenuous days, and the 'Q' staff of the Desert Mounted Corps had many a sleeplessnight devising plans to get that last ounce out of their transport menand to get that little extra amount of supplies to the front whichmeant the difference between want and a sufficiency for man and horse. 

On the 7th November the 60th Division after its spirited attack onTel el Sheria crossed the wadi and advanced north about two miles, fighting obstinate rearguards all the way. The 1st Australian LightHorse took 300 prisoners and a considerable quantity of ammunitionand stores at Ameidat, and with the remainder of the Anzac Divisionreached Tel Abu Dilakh by the evening, and the Australian MountedDivision filled the gap between the Anzacs and the Londoners, buthaving been unable to water could not advance further. The 8thNovember was a busy and brilliantly successful day. The Corps' effortwas to make a wide sweeping movement in order first to obtain thevaluable and urgently required water at Nejile, and then to pushacross the hills and rolling downs to the country behind Gaza toharass the enemy retreating from that town. The Turks had a bigrearguard south-west of Nejile and made a strong effort to delay thecapture of that place, the importance of which to us they realisedto the full, and they were prepared to sacrifice the whole of therearguard if they could hold us off the water for another twenty-fourhours. The pressure of the Anzac Division and the 7th Mounted Brigadeassisting it was too much for the enemy, who though holding on to thehills very stoutly till the last moment had to give way and leave thewater in our undisputed possession. The Sherwood Rangers and SouthNotts Hussars were vigorously counter-attacked at Mudweiweh, but theyseverely handled the enemy, who retired a much weakened body. 

By the evening the Anzacs held the country from Nejile to the northbank of the wadi Jemmameh, having captured 300 prisoners and two guns. The Australian Mounted Division made an excellent advance roundthe north side of Huj, which had been the Turkish VIIIth ArmyHeadquarters, and the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade was in touchwith the corps cavalry of XXIst Corps at Beit Hanun, while the 3rdAustralian Light Horse Brigade had taken prisoners and two of thetroublesome Austrian 5. 9 howitzers. 

It was the work of the 60th Division in the centre, however, whichwas the outstanding feature of the day, though the Londoners readilyadmitted that without the glorious charge of the Worcester andWarwickshire Yeomanry in the afternoon they would not have been in theneighbourhood of Huj when darkness fell. The 60th were in the centre, sandwiched between the Anzacs and Australian Mounted Division, andtheir allotted task was to clear the country between Sheria and Huj, adistance of ten miles. The country was a series of billowy downs withvalleys seldom more than 1000 yards wide, and every yard of the waywas opposed by infantry and artillery. Considering the opposition theprogress was good. The Londoners drove in the Turks' strong flankthree times, first from the hill of Zuheilika, then from thecultivated area behind it, and thirdly from the wadi-torn districtof Muntaret el Baghl, from which the infantry proceeded to the highground to the north. It was then between two and three o'clock in theafternoon, and maps showed that between the Division and Huj there wasnearly four miles of most difficult country, a mass of wadi beds andhills giving an enterprising enemy the best possible means for holdingup an advance. General Shea went ahead in a light armoured car toreconnoitre, and saw a strong body of Turks with guns marching acrosshis front. It was impossible for his infantry to catch them and, seeing ten troops of Warwick and Worcester Yeomanry on his right abouta mile away, he went over to them and ordered Lieut. -Colonel H. Cheapeto charge the enemy. It was a case for instant action. The enemy werea mile and a half from our cavalry. The gunners had come into actionand were shelling the London Territorials, but they soon had toswitch off and fire at a more terrifying target. Led by their gallantColonel, a Master of Foxhounds who was afterwards drowned in theMediterranean, the yeomen swept over a ridge in successive lines andraced down the northern slope on to the flat, at first making directfor the guns, then swerving to the left under the direction of ColonelCheape, whose eye for country led him to take advantage of a mound onthe opposite side of the valley. Over this rise the Midland yeomenspurred their chargers and, giving full-throated cheers, dashedthrough the Turks' left flank guard and went straight for the guns. Their ranks were somewhat thinned, for they had been exposed to aheavy machine-gun fire as well as to the fire of eight field guns andthree 5. 9 howitzers worked at the highest pressure. The gunners werenearly all Germans and Austrians and they fought well. They splashedthe valley with shrapnel, and during the few moments' lull when theyeomanry were lost to view behind the mound they set their shell fusesat zero to make them burst at the mouth of the guns and act as caseshot. They tore some gaps in the yeomen's ranks, but nothing couldstop that charge. The Midlanders rode straight at the guns and sabredevery artilleryman at his piece. The Londoners say they heard all theguns stop dead at the same moment and they knew they had been silencedin true Balaclava style. Having wiped out the batteries the yeomenagain answered the call of their leader and swept up a ridge to dealeffectively with three machine guns, and having used the white armagainst their crews the guns were turned on to the retreating Turksand decimated their ranks. This charge was witnessed by General Shea, and I know it is his opinion that it was executed with the greatestgallantry and élan, and was worthy of the best traditions of Britishcavalry. The yeomanry lost about twenty-five per cent. Of theirnumber in casualties, but their action was worth the price, for theycompletely broke up the enemy resistance and enabled the LondonDivision to push straight through to Huj. The Warwick andWorcester Yeomanry received the personal congratulations of theCommander-in-Chief, and General Shea was also thanked by GeneralAllenby. 

During this day General Shea accomplished what probably no otherDivisional Commander did in this war. When out scouting in a lightarmoured car he was within 500 yards of a big ammunition dump whichwas blown up. He saw the three men who had destroyed it running away, and he chased them into a wadi and machine-gunned them. They held uptheir hands and were astonished to find they had surrendered to aGeneral. These men were captured in the nick of time. But for theappearance of General Shea they would have destroyed another dump, which we captured intact. 

I was with the Division the night after they had taken Huj. It wastheir first day of rest for some time, but the men showed few signsof fatigue. No one could move among them without being proud of theLondoners. They were strong, self-reliant, well-disciplined, bravefellows. I well remember what Colonel Temperley, the G. S. O. Of theDivision, told me when sitting out on a hill in the twilight thatnight. Colonel Temperley had been brigade major of the first NewZealand Infantry Brigade which came to Egypt and took a full share inthe work on Gallipoli on its way to France. He had over two years ofactive service on the Western Front before coming out to Palestine forduty with the 60th Division, and his views on men in action were basedon the sound experience of the professional soldier. Of the LondonCounty Territorials he said: 'I cannot speak of these warriors withouta lump rising in my throat. These Cockneys are the best men in theworld. Their spirits are simply wonderful, and I do not think anydivision ever went into a big show with higher moral. After threeyears of war it is refreshing to hear the men's earnestly expresseddesire to go into action again. These grand fellows went forwardwith the full bloom on them, there never was any hesitation, theirdiscipline was absolutely perfect, their physique and courage werealike magnificent, and their valour beyond words. The Cockney makesthe perfect soldier. ' I wrote at the time that 'whether the men camefrom Bermondsey, Camberwell or Kennington, or belonged to what wereknown as class corps, such as the Civil Service or Kensingtons, beforethe war, all battalions were equally good. They were trained formonths for the big battle till their bodies were brought to such astate of fitness that Spartan fare during the ten days of ceaselessaction caused neither grumble nor fatigue. The men may well berewarded with the title "London's Pride, " and London is honoured byhaving such stalwarts to represent the heart of the British Empire. Ineight days the Londoners marched sixty-six miles and fought a numberof hot actions. The march may not seem long, but Palestine is notSalisbury Plain. A leg-weary man was asked by an officer if his feetwere blistered, and replied: "They're rotten sore, but my heart'sgay. " That is typical of the spirit of these unconquerable Cockneys. Ihave just left them. They still have the bloom of freshness and I donot think it will ever fade. Scorching winds which parched the throatand made everything one wore hot to the touch were enough to oppressthe staunchest soldier, but these sterling Territorials, costersand labourers, artisans and tradesmen, professional men and men ofindependent means, true brothers in arms and good Britons, left theirbivouacs and trudged across heavy country, fearless, strong, proud, and with the cheerfulness of good men who fight for right. ' What Isaid in those early days of the great advance was more than borne outlater, and in the capture of Jerusalem, in taking Jericho, and inforcing the passage of the Jordan this glorious Division of Londonerswas always the same, a pride to its commander, a bulwark of the XXthCorps, and a great asset of the Empire. 

CHAPTER X

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN

On the Gaza section of the front the XXIst Corps had been busilyoccupied with preparations for a powerful thrust through the remainderof the defences on the enemy's right when the XXth Corps should havesucceeded in turning the main positions on the left. The 52nd Divisionon the coast was ready to go ahead immediately there was any sign thatthe enemy, seeing that the worst was about to happen, intended toorder a general retirement, and then it would be a race and a fight toprevent his establishing himself on the high ground north of the wadiHesi. Should he fail to do that there was scarcely a possibility ofthe Turks holding us up till we got to the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, though between Gaza and that metalled highway there were many pointsof strength from which they could fight delaying actions. It is verydoubtful whether the Turkish General Staff gave the cavalry credit forbeing able to move across the Plain in the middle of November when thewadis are absolutely dry and the water-level in the wells is lowerthan at any other period of the year. Nor did they imagine that thetransport difficulties for infantry divisions fed as ours were couldbe surmounted. They may have thought that if they could secure thewadi Hesi line before we got into position to threaten it in flankthey would immobilise our Army till the rains began, and there was apossibility of sitting facing each other in wet uncomfortable trenchquarters till the flowers showed themselves in the spring, by whichtime, the Bagdad venture of the German Higher Command proving hopelessbefore it was started, a great volume of reinforcements might bediverted to Southern Palestine with Turkish divisions from theSalonika front and a stiffening of German battalions spared fromEurope in consequence of the Russian collapse. 

Whatever they may have been, the Turkish calculations were completelyupset. The cavalry's water troubles remained and no human foresightcould have smoothed them over, but the transport problem was solved inthis way. During the attack on Beersheba XXIst Corps came to the aidof XXth Corps by handing over to it the greater part of its camelconvoys and lorries, so much transport, indeed, that a vast amount ofwork in the Gaza sector fell to be done by a greatly depleted supplystaff. When Beersheba had been won and the enemy's left flank had beensmashed and thrown back, the XXth Corps repaid the XXIst Corps, notonly by returning what it had borrowed, but by marching back into theregion of railhead at Karm, where it could live with a minimum oftransport and send all its surplus to work in the coastal sector. Theswitching over of this transport was a fine piece of organisation. Onthe allotted day many thousands of camels were seen drawn out in hugelines all over the country intersected by the wadi Ghuzze, slowlyconverging on the spots at which they could be barracked and restedbefore loading for the advance. The lorries took other paths. Therewas no repose for their drivers. They worked till the last moment onthe east, and then, caked with the accumulated dust of a week's wearylabour in sand and powdered earth, turned westward to arrive just intime to load up and be off again in pursuit of infantry, some makingthe mistake of travelling between the West and East Towns of Gaza, while others took the longer and sounder but still treacherous routeeast of Ali Muntar and through the old positions of the Turks. Theselorry drivers were wonderful fellows who laughed at their trials, butin the days and nights when they bumped over the uneven tracks andnegotiated earth rents that threatened to swallow their vehicles, theyput their faith in the promise of the railway constructors to open thestation at Gaza at an early date. Even Gaza, though it saved them somany toilsome miles, did not help them greatly because of a terriblepiece of road north-east of the station, but Beit Hanun wascomfortable and for the relief brought by the railway's arrival atDeir Sineid they were profoundly grateful. 

But this is anticipating the story of Gaza's capture. The XXIst Corpshad not received its additional transport when it gained the ancientcity of the Philistines, though it knew some of it was on the way andmost of it about to start on its westward trek. On the day of November4 and during the succeeding night the Navy co-operated with the Corps'artillery in destroying enemy trenches and gun positions, and theAli Muntar Ridge was a glad sight for tired gunners' eyes. The enemyshowed a disposition to retaliate, and on the afternoon of the 4th heput up a fierce bombardment of our front-line positions from OutpostHill to the sea, including in his fire area the whole of the trencheswe had taken from him from Umbrella Hill to Sheikh Hasan. Manyobservers of this bombardment by all the Turks' guns of heavy, medium, and small calibre declared it was the prelude not of an attack butof a retirement, and that the Turks were loosing off a lot of theammunition they knew they could not carry away. They were probablyright, though the enemy made no sign of going away for a couple ofdays, but if he thought his demonstration by artillery was going tohasten back to Gaza some of the troops assembling against the left ofhis main line he was grievously in error. The XXIst Corps was strongenough to deal with any attack the Turks could launch, and they wouldhave been pleased if an attempt to reach our lines had been made. 

Next day the Turks were much quieter. They had to sit under a terrificfire both on the 5th and 6th November, when in order to assistXXth Corps' operations the Corps' heavy artillery, the divisionalartillery, and the warships' guns carried out an intense bombardment. The land guns searched the Turks' front line and reserve systems, while the Navy fired on Fryer's Hill to the north of Ali Muntar, Sheikh Redwan, a sandhill with a native chief's tomb on the crest, north of Gaza, and on trenches not easily reached by the Corps' guns. 

During the night of November 6-7 General Palin's 75th Division, asa preliminary to a major operation timed for the following morning, attacked and gained the enemy's trenches on Outpost Hill and thewhole of Middlesex Hill to the north of it, the opposition being lessserious than was anticipated. At daylight the 75th Division pushed onover the other hills towards Ali Muntar and gained that dominatingposition before eight o'clock. The fighting had not been severe, and it was soon realised that the enemy had left Gaza, abandoning astronghold which had been prepared for defence with all the ingenuityGerman masters of war could suggest and into which had been worked anenormous amount of material. It was obvious from the complete successof XXth Corps' operations against the Turkish left, which had beenworked out absolutely 'according to plan, ' that General Allenby had sothoroughly mystified von Kressenstein that the latter had put allhis reserves into the wrong spot, and that the 53rd Division's stoutresistance against superior numbers had pinned them down to the wrongend of the line. There was nothing, therefore, for the Turk to do butto try to hold another position, and he was straining every nerve toreach it. The East Anglian Division went up west of Gaza and held fromSheikh Redwan to the sea by seven o'clock, two squadrons of the Corps'cavalry rode along the seashore and had patrols on the wadi Hesi alittle earlier than that, and the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade, composed of troops raised and maintained by patriotic Indian princes, passed through Gaza at nine o'clock and went out towards Beit Hanun. To the Lowland Division was given the important task of getting to theright or northern bank of the wadi Hesi. These imperturbable Scotsleft their trenches in the morning delighted at the prospect of oncemore engaging in open warfare. They marched along the beach undercover of the low sand cliffs, and by dusk had crossed the mouth ofthe wadi and held some of the high ground to the north in face ofdetermined opposition. The 157th Brigade, after a march through veryheavy going, got to the wadi at five in the afternoon and saw theenemy posted on the opposite bank. The place was reconnoitred and thebrigade made a fine bayonet charge in the dark, securing the positionbetween ten and eleven o'clock. On this and succeeding days thedivision had to fight very hard indeed, and they often met the enemywith the bayonet. One of their officers told me the Scot was twiceas good as the Turk in ordinary fighting, but with the bayonet hisadvantage was as five to one. The record of the Division throughoutthe campaign showed this was no too generous an estimate of theirpowers. After securing Ali Muntar the 75th Division advanced overFryer's Hill to Australia Hill, so that they held the whole ridgerunning north and south to the eastward of Gaza. The enemy still heldto his positions to the right of his centre, and from the AtawinehRedoubt, Tank Redoubt, and Beer trenches there was considerableshelling of Gaza and the Ali Muntar ridge throughout the day. A largenumber of shells fell in the plantations on the western side of theridge; our mastery of the air prevented enemy aviators observing fortheir artillery, or they would have seen no traffic was passing alongthat way. We were using the old Cairo 'road, ' and as far as I couldsee not an enemy shell reached it, though when our troops were in thetown of Gaza there were many crumps and woolly bears to disturb thenew occupation. But all went swimmingly. It was true we had onlycaptured the well-cracked shell of a town, but the taking of it wasfull of promise of greater things, and those of us who looked on themutilated remnants of one of the world's oldest cities felt we wereindeed witnesses of the beginning of the downfall of the TurkishEmpire. Next morning the 75th Division captured Beer trenches and Tankand Atawineh Redoubts and linked up with the Irish Division of XXthCorps on its right. They were shelled heavily, but it was the shellingof rearguards and not attackers, and soon after twelve o'clock wehad the best of evidence that the Turks were saying good-bye to aneighbourhood they had long inhabited. I was standing on RaspberryHill, the battle headquarters of XXIst Corps, when I heard a terrificreport. Staff officers who were used to the visitations of aerialmarauders came out of their shelters and searched the pearly vault ofthe heavens for Fritz. No machine could be found. Some one lookingacross the country towards Atawineh saw a huge mushroom-shaped cloud, and then we knew that one enormous dump at least contained no moreprojectiles to hold up an advance. This ammunition store must havebeen eight miles away as the crow flies, but the noise of theexplosion was so violent that it was a considerable time before someofficers could be brought to believe an enemy plane had not laid anegg near us. The blowing up of that dump was a signal that the Turkwas off. 

The Lowlanders had another very strenuous day in the sand-dune belt. First of all they repulsed a strong counter-attack from the directionof Askalon. Then the 155th Infantry Brigade went forward and, swingingto the right, drove the Turks off the rising ground north-west of DeirSineid, the possession of which would determine the question whetherthe Turk could hold on in this quarter sufficiently long to enable himto get any of his material away by his railway and road. The enemy putin a counter-attack of great violence and forced the Scots back. 

The 157th Brigade in the early evening attacked the ridge and gainedthe whole of their objectives by eight o'clock. There ensued somesanguinary struggles on this sandy ground during the night. The Turkswere determined to have possession of it and the Scots were willing tofight it out to a finish. The first counter-attack in the dark hoursdrove the Lowlanders off, but they were shortly afterwards back on thehills again. The Turks returned and pushed the Highland Light Infantryand Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders off a second time. A thirdattack was delivered with splendid vigour and the enemy left manydead, but they renewed their efforts to get the commanding ground andsucceeded once more. The dogged Scots, however, were not to be denied. They re-formed and swept up the heavy shifting sand, met the Turk onthe top with a clash and knocked him down the reverse slope. Soonafterwards there was another ding-dong struggle. The Turks, putting inall their available strength, for a fourth time got the upper hand, and the Lowlanders had to yield the ground, doing it slowly andreluctantly and with the determination to try again. They were RobertBruces, all of them. It's the best that stays the longest. After abrief rest these heroic Scots once more swarmed up the ridge. Theircheers had the note of victory in them, they drove their bayonetshome with the haymakers' lift, and what was left of the Turks fledhelter-skelter down the hill towards Deir Sineid, broken, dismayed, beaten, and totally unable to make another effort. The H. L. I. Brigade's victory was bought at a price. The cost of that hill washeavy, but the Turks' tale of dead was far heavier than ours, andwe had won and held the hills and consolidated them. The Turks thenturned their faces to the north and the Scots hurried them on. TheImperial Service Cavalry Brigade had also met with considerableresistance, but they worked up to and on the ridge overlooking BeitHanun from the east and captured a 5. 9. By evening these Indianhorsemen were linked up with the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade ontheir right and the 52nd Division on their left, and pursued the enemyas far as Tumrah and Deir Sineid. 

General Headquarters directed that two infantry divisions shouldadvance to the line Julis-Hamameh in support of mounted troops, andthe 75th Division was accordingly ordered from its position east ofGaza up to Beit Hanun. On the 9th November the 52nd Division was againadvancing. The 156th Brigade had moved forward from the Gaza trenches. One officer, five grooms, and two signallers mounted on second horsesformed a little party to reconnoitre Askalon, and riding boldly intothe ancient landing place of the Crusader armies captured the ruinedtown unaided. There are visible remains of its old strength, but thepower of Askalon has departed. It still stands looking over the blueMediterranean as a sort of watch tower, a silent, deserted outpost ofthe land the Crusaders set their hearts on gaining and preserving forChristianity, but behind it is many centuries' accumulation of sandencroaching upon the fertile plain, and no effort has been made tostop the inroad. The gallant half-dozen having reported to the 156thBrigade that Askalon was open to them--the Brigade occupied the placeat noon--rode across the sand-dunes to the important native town ofMejdel, where there was a substantial bazaar doing a good trade in theessentials for native existence, beans and cereals in plenty, fruit, and tobacco of execrable quality. At Mejdel the six accepted thesurrender of a body of Turks guarding a substantial ammunition dumpand rejoined their units, satisfied with the day's adventure. TheTurks had retired a considerable distance during the day. Theprincipal body was moving up what is called the main road from DeirSineid, through Beit Jerjal to Julis, to get to Suafir esh Sherkiyeh, Kustineh, and Junction Station, from which they could reach Latron bya metalled road, or Ramleh by a hard mud track by the side of theirrailway. They were clearly going to oppose us all the way or theywould lose the whole of their material, and their forces east and westof the road were well handled in previously selected and partiallyprepared positions. 

They left behind them the unpleasant trail of a defeated army. Turkshad fallen by the way and the natives would not bury them. Ouraircraft had bombed the road, and the dead men, cattle and horses, and smashed transport were ghastly sights and made the air offensive. There they lay, one long line of dead men and animals, and if a Londonfog had descended to blind the eyes of our Army the sense of smellwould still have carried a scout on the direct line of the Turkishretreat. 

I will break off the narrative of fighting at this point to describe ascene which expressed more eloquently than anything else I witnessedin Palestine how deeply engraved in the native mind was the convictionthat Britain stood for fair dealing and freedom. The inhabitants, likethe Arabs of the desert, do not allow their faces to betray theirfeelings. They preserve a stolid exterior, and it is difficult to tellfrom their demeanour whether they are friendly or indifferent toyou. But their actions speak aloud. Early on the morning after theLowlanders had entered Mejdel I was in the neighbourhood. Our gunsbanging away to the north were a reminder that there was to be nopromenade over the Plain, and that we had yet to make good theformidable obstacle of the wadi Sukereir, when I passed a curiousprocession. People whom the Turks had turned out of Gaza and thesurrounding country were trekking back to the spots where they andtheir forefathers had lived for countless generations. All theirworldly goods and chattels were packed on overloaded camels anddonkeys. The women bore astonishingly heavy loads on their heads, themen rode or walked carrying nothing, while patriarchs of familieswere either held in donkey saddles or were borne on the shoulders ofyounger men. Agriculturists began to turn out to plough and till thefields which had lain fallow while the Turkish scourge of war was onthe land, and the people showed that, now they had the security ofBritish protection, they intended at once to resume their industry. The troops had the liveliest welcome in passing through villages, though the people are not as a rule demonstrative; and one could pointto no better evidence of the exemplary behaviour of our soldiers thanthe groups of women sitting and gossiping round the wells during theprocess of drawing water, just as they did in Biblical days, heedlessof the passing troops whom they regarded as their protectors. The manbehind a rude plough may have stopped his ill-matched team of ponyand donkey to look at a column of troops moving as he had never seentroops march before, a head of a family might collect the animalscarrying his household goods and hurry them off the line of routetaken by military transport, but neither one nor the other had anyfear of interference with his work, and the life of the whole country, one of the most unchanging regions of the world, had suddenly againbecome normal, although only yesterday two armies had disputedpossession of the very soil on which they stood. The moment we werevictorious old occupations were resumed by the people in the way thatwas a tradition from their forefathers. Our victory meant peaceand safety, according to the native idea, and an end to extortion, oppression, and pillage under the name of requisitions. It also meantprosperity. The native likes to drive a bargain. He will not sellunder a fair price, and he asks much more in the hope of showing abuyer who has beaten him down how cheaply he is getting goods. TheArmy chiefly sought eggs, which are light to carry and easy to cook, and give variety to the daily round of bully, biscuit, and jam. Thesoldier is a generous fellow, and if a child asked a piastre (2-1/2d. )for an egg he got it. The price soon became four to five for ashilling in cash, though the Turks wanted five times that number foran equivalent sum in depreciated paper currency. The law of supplyand demand obtained in this old world just as at home, and it becamesufficient for a soldier to ask for an article to show he wanted itand would pay almost anything that was demanded. It was curious to seehow the news spread not merely among traders but also among villagers. The men who first occupied a place found oranges, vegetables, freshbread, and eggs cheap. In Ramleh, for example, a market was opened forour troops immediately they got to the town, and the goods were soundand sold at fair rates. The next day prices were up, and the standardsfixed behind the front soon ruled at the line itself. There was noreal control attempted, and while the extortionate prices charged byJews in their excellent agricultural colonies and by the natives madea poor people prosperous, it gave them an exaggerated idea of the sizeof the British purse, and they may be disappointed at the limitationof our spending powers in the future. Also it was hard on the bravestand most chivalrous of fighting men. But it opened the eyes of thenative, whose happiness and contentment were obvious directly wereached his doors. 

Our movements on November 9 were limited by the extent to whichGeneral Chauvel was able to use his cavalry of the Desert MountedCorps. Water was the sole, but absolute handicap. The Yeomanry MountedDivision rejoined the Corps on that day and got south of Huj, but could not proceed further through lack of water and supplydifficulties. The Australian Mounted Division also had to halt forwater, and it was left to Anzac Mounted Division, plus the 7th MountedBrigade, to march eighteen miles north-westwards to occupy the lineEt Tineh-Beit Duras-Jemameh-Esdud (the Ashdod of the Bible). The 52ndDivision occupied the area Esdud-Mejdel-Herbieh by the evening of the10th, and on the way, Australian cavalry being held up on a ridgenorth of Beit Duras, the 157th Brigade made another of its finebayonet charges at night and captured the ground, enabling the cavalryto get at some precious water. The brigade made the attack just aftercompleting a fourteen miles' march in heavy going, achieving theremarkable record of having had three bayonet battles on threenights out of four. On this occasion the Turks again suffered heavycasualties in men and lost many machine guns. The 75th Divisionprolonged the infantry line through Gharbiyeh to Berberah. The 54thDivision was in the Gaza defences with all its transport allotted tothe divisions taking part in the forward move, but as the 54th hadfive days' rations in dumps close at hand it was able to maintainitself, and the railway was being pushed on from the wadi Ghuzze withthe utmost speed. The iron road in war is an army's jugular vein, and each mile added to its length was of enormous value during theadvance. 

General Allenby, looking well ahead and realising the possibilitiesopened out by his complete success in every phase of the operations onthe Turks' main defensive line, on the 10th November ordered the 52ndand 75th Divisions to concentrate on their advanced guards so asto support the cavalry on their front and to prevent the Turkconsolidating on the line of the wadi Sukereir. The enemy wasdeveloping a more organised resistance on a crescent-shaped line fromEt Tineh through Yasur to Beshshit, and it was necessary to adoptdeliberate methods of attack to move him. The advance on the 11th wasthe preliminary to three days of stirring fighting. The Turks put upa very strong defence by their rearguards, and when one says thatat this time they were fighting with courage and magnificentdetermination one is not only paying a just tribute to the enemy butdoing justice to the gallantry and skill of the troops who defeatedhim. The Scots can claim a large share of the success of the next twodays, but British yeomanry took a great part in it, and their chargeat Mughar, and perhaps their charge at Abu Shushe as well, will find aplace in military text-books, for it has confounded those critics whodeclared that the development of the machine gun in modern warfare hasbrought the uses of cavalry down to very narrow limits. 

The 156th Brigade was directed to take Burkah on the 12th so as togive the infantry liberty of manoeuvre on the following day. Burkahwas a nasty place to tackle. The enemy had two lines of beautifullysited trenches prepared before he fell back from Gaza. The Scots hadto attack up a slope to the first line, and having taken this to passdown another slope for 1000 yards before reaching the glacis in frontof the second line. The Scottish Rifles assaulted this position by daywithout much artillery support, but they took it in magnificent style. It looked as if the Turks had accepted the verdict, but at night theyreturned to a brown hill on the right and drove the 4th Royal Scotsfrom it. This battalion came back soon afterwards and retook thehill with the assistance of some Gurkhas of General Colston's 233rdInfantry Brigade, and the Turk retired to another spot, hoping thathis luck would change. While this fighting was going on about Burkahthe 155th Brigade went ahead up a road which the cavalry said wasstrongly held. They got eight miles north of Esdud, and were inadvance of the cavalry, intending to try to secure the two heightsand villages of Katrah and Mughar on the following day. Katrah was avillage on a long mound south of Mughar, native mud huts constitutingits southern part, whilst separated from it on the northern side bysome gardens was a pretty little Jewish settlement whose red-tiledhouses and orderly well-cared-for orchards spoke of the industry ofthese settlers in Zion. All over the hill right up to the houses thecactus flourished, and the hedges were a replica of the terribleobstacles at Gaza. From Katrah the ground sloped down to the flat onall four sides, so that the village seemed to stand on an island inthe plain. A mile due west of it was Beshshit, while one mile to thenorth across more than one wadi stood El Mughar at the southern end ofan irregular line of hills which separated Yebnah and Akir, which willbe more readily recognised, the former as the Jamnia of the Jews andthe latter as Ekron, one of the famous Philistine cities. While the75th Division was forcing back the line Turmus-Kustineh-Yasur andMesmiyeh athwart the road to Junction Station the 155th Brigadeattacked Katrah. The whole of the artillery of two divisions opened abombardment of the line at eight o'clock, but the Turks showed morewillingness to concede ground on the east than at Katrah, where themachine-gun fire was exceptionally heavy. General Pollak M'Calldecided to assault the village with the bulk of his brigade, andseizing a rifle and bayonet from a wounded man, led the chargehimself, took the village, and gradually cleared the enemy out of thecactus-enclosed gardens. The enemy losses at Katrah were very heavy. In crossing a rectangular field many Turks were caught in a cross firefrom our machine guns, and over 400 dead were counted in this onefield. 

CHAPTER XI

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES

In front of the mud huts of Mughar, so closely packed together on thesouthern slope of the hill that the dwellings at the bottom seemed tokeep the upper houses from falling into the plain, there was a longoval garden with a clump of cypresses in the centre, the wholesurrounded by cactus hedges of great age and strength. In thecypresses was a nest of machine guns whose crews had a perfect viewof an advance from Katrah. The infantry had to advance over flat openground to the edge of the garden. The Turkish machine-gunners andriflemen in the garden and village were supported by artillery firingfrom behind the ridge at the back of the village, and although thebrigade made repeated efforts to get on, its advance was held up inthe early afternoon, and it seemed impossible to take the place byinfantry from the south in the clear light of a November afternoon. The 6th Mounted Brigade commanded by Brigadier-General C. A. C. Godwin, D. S. O. , composed of the 1/1st Bucks Hussars, 1/1st Berkshire Yeomanry, and 1/1st Dorset Yeomanry, the Berkshire battery Royal HorseArtillery, and the 17th Machine Gun Squadron--old campaigners withthe Egyptian Expeditionary Force--had worked round to the left ofthe Lowlanders and had reached a point about two miles south-west ofYebnah, that place having been occupied by the 8th Mounted Brigade, composed of the 1/1st City of London Yeomanry, 1/1st County of LondonYeomanry, and the 1/3rd County of London Yeomanry. At half-past twelvethe Bucks Hussars less one squadron and the Berks battery, which werein the rear of the brigade, advanced _via_ Beshshit to the wadi Janus, a deep watercourse with precipitous banks running across the plaineast of Yebnah and joining the wadi Rubin. One squadron of the BucksHussars had entered Yebnah from the east, co-operating with the 8thBrigade. General Godwin was told over the telephone that the infantryattack was held up and that his brigade would advance to take Mughar. This order was confirmed by telegram a quarter of an hour later asthe brigadier was about to reconnoitre a line of approach. The Berksbattery began shelling Mughar and the ridge behind the village from aposition half a mile north of Beshshit screened by some trees. Brigadeheadquarters joined the Bucks Hussars headquarters in the wadi Janushalf a mile south-east of Yebnah, where Lieut. -Colonel the Hon. F. Cripps commanding the Bucks Hussars had, with splendid judgment, already commenced a valuable reconnaissance, the Dorset and BerksYeomanry being halted in a depression out of sight a few hundred yardsbehind. The Turks had the best possible observation, and, knowing theywere holding up the infantry, concentrated their attention upon thecavalry. Therein they showed good judgment, for it was from themounted troops the heavy blow was to fall. Lieut. Perkins, BucksHussars, was sent forward to reconnoitre the wadi Shellal el Ghor, which runs parallel to and east of the wadi Janus. He became thetarget of every kind of fire, guns, machine guns, and rifles openingon him from the ridge whenever he exposed himself. Captain Patron, ofthe 17th Machine Gun Squadron, was similarly treated while examininga position from which to cover the advance of the brigade withconcentrated machine-gun fire. It was not an easy thing to get cavalryinto position for a mounted attack. Except in the wadis the plainbetween Yebnah and Mughar offered no cover and was within easy rangeof the enemy's guns. The wadi Janus was a deep slit in the ground withsides of clay falling almost sheer to the stony bottom. It was hard toget horses into the wadi and equally troublesome to get them to bankagain, and the wadi in most places was so narrow that horses couldonly move in single file. The Dorsets were brought up in small partiesto join the Bucks in the wadi, and they had to run the gauntlet ofshell and rifle fire. The Berks were to enter the wadi immediately theBucks had left it. Behind Mughar village and its gardens the groundfalls sharply, then rises again and forms a rocky hill some 300 yardslong. There is another decline, and north of it a conical shaped hill, also stony and barren, though before the crest is reached there issome undulating ground which would have afforded a little cover if thecunning Turks had not posted machine guns on it. The Dorset Yeomanrywere ordered to attack this latter hill and the Bucks Hussars theridge between it and Mughar village, the Berks Yeomanry to be kept insupport. There seems to be no reason for doubting that Mughar wouldnot have been captured that day but for the extremely brilliant chargeof these home counties yeomen. The 155th Brigade was still held fastin that part of the wadi Janus which gave cover south-west and southof Mughar, and after the charge had been completely successful and theyeomanry were working forward to clear up the village a message wasreceived--timed 2. 45 P. M. , but received at 4 P. M. --which shows thedifficulties facing that very gallant infantry brigade: '52nd Divisionunable to make progress. Co-operate and turn Mughar from the north. '

It was a hot bright afternoon. The dispositions having been made, theBucks Hussars and Dorset Yeomanry got out of the wadi and commencedtheir mounted attack, the Berks battery in the meantime havingregistered on certain points. The Bucks Hussars, in column ofsquadrons extended to four yards interval, advanced at a trot fromthe wadi, which was 3000 yards distant from the ridge which was theirobjective. Two machine guns were attached to the Bucks and two to theDorsets, and the other guns under Captain Patron were mounted in aposition which that officer had chosen in the wadi El Ghor from whichthey could bring to bear a heavy fire almost up to the moment theBucks should be on the ridge. This machine-gun fire was of the highestvalue, and it unquestionably kept many Turkish riflemen inactive. 'B'squadron under Captain Bulteel, M. C. , was leading, and when 1000 yardsfrom the objective the order was given to gallop, and horses sweptover the last portion of the plain and up the hill at a terrific pace, the thundering hoofs raising clouds of dust. The tap-tap of machineguns firing at the highest pressure, intense rifle fire from all partsof the enemy position, the fierce storm of shells rained on the hillby the Berks battery, which during the charge fired with splendidaccuracy no fewer than 200 rounds of shrapnel at a range of 3200 to3500 yards, and the rapid fire of Turkish field guns, completelydrowned the cheers of the charging yeomen. 'C' squadron, commanded byLord Bosebery's son, Captain the Hon. Neil Primrose, M. C. , who waskilled on the following day, made an equally dashing charge and cameup on the right of 'B' squadron. Once the cavalry had reached thecrest of the hill many of the Turks surrendered and threw down theirarms, but some retired and then, having discovered the weakness of thecavalry, returned to some rocks on the flanks and continued the fightat close range. Captain Primrose's squadron was vigorously attacked onhis left flank, but Captain Bulteel was able to get over the ridge andacross the rough, steep eastern side of it, and from this point heutilised captured Turkish machine guns to put down a heavy barrage onto the northern end of the village. 'A' squadron under Captain Lawsonthen came up from Yebnah at the gallop, and with his support the wholeof the Bucks' objectives were secured and consolidated. 

The Dorset Yeomanry on the left of the Bucks had 1000 yards fartherto go, and the country they traversed was just as cracked and broken. Their horses at the finish were quite exhausted. At the base of thehills Captain Dammers dismounted 'A' squadron, which charged on theleft, and the squadron fought their way to the top of the ridge onfoot. The held horses were caught in a cone of machine-gun fire, andin a space of about fifty square yards many gallant chargers perished. 'B' squadron (Major Wingfield-Digby) in the centre and 'C' squadron(Major Gordon, M. C. ) on the right, led by Colonel Sir Randolf Baker, M. P. , formed line and galloped the hill, and their horse losses wereconsiderably less than those of the dismounted squadron. The BerksYeomanry moved to the wadi El Ghor under heavy machine-gun and riflefire from the village and gardens on the west side, and two squadronswere dismounted and sent into the village to clear it, the remainingsquadron riding into the plain on the eastern side of the ridge, wherethey collected a number of stragglers. Dotted over this plain weremany dead Turks who fell under the fire of the Machine-Gun Squadronwhile attempting to get to Ramleh. The Turkish dead were numerous andtheir condition showed how thoroughly the sword had done its work. Isaw many heads cleft in twain, and Mughar was not a sweet place tolook upon and wanted a good deal of clearing up. The yeomanry took 18officers and 1078 other ranks prisoners, whilst fourteen machine gunsand two field guns were captured. But for the tired state of thehorses many more prisoners would have been taken, large numbers beingseen making their way along the red sand tracks to Ramleh, andan inspection of the route on the morrow told of the pace of theretirement brought about by the shock of contact with cavalry. Machineguns, belts and boxes of ammunition, equipment of all kinds werestrewn about the paths, and not a few wounded Turks had given up theeffort to escape and had lain down to die. 

The casualties in the 6th Mounted Brigade were 1 officer killed and6 wounded, 15 other ranks killed and 107 wounded and 1 missing, aremarkably small total. Among the mortally wounded was Major deRothschild, who fell within sight of some of the Jewish colonies whichhis family had founded. Two hundred and sixty-five horses and twomules were killed and wounded in the action. 

Mughar was a great cavalry triumph, and the regiments which took partin it confirmed the good opinions formed of them in this theatreof war. The Dorsets had already made a spirited charge against theSenussi in the Western Desert in 1916, [1] and having suffered from thewhite arm once those misguided Arabs never gave the cavalry anotherchance of getting near them. The Bucks and Berks, too, had taken partin that swift and satisfactory campaign. All three regiments on thefollowing day were to make another charge, this time on one of themost famous sites in the battle history of Palestine. The 6th MountedBrigade moved no farther on the day of Mughar because the 22nd MountedBrigade, when commencing an attack on Akir, the old Philistine city ofEkron, were counter-attacked on their left. During the night, however, the Turks in Akir probably heard the full story of Mughar, and did notwait long for a similar action against them. The 22nd Mounted Brigadedrove them out early next morning, and they went rapidly away acrossthe railway at Naaneh, leaving in our hands the railway guard ofseventy men, and seeking the bold crest of Abu Shushe. They moved, asI shall presently tell, out of the frying-pan into the fire. 

[Footnote 1: _The Desert Campaigns_: Constable. ]

The 155th Infantry which helped to finish up the Mughar business tooka gun and fourteen machine guns. Then with the remainder of the 52ndDivision it had a few hours of hard-earned rest. The Division had hada severe time, but the men bore their trials with the fortitude oftheir race and with a spirit which could not be beaten. For severaldays, when water was holding up the cavalry, the Lowlanders kept aheadof the mounted troops, and one battalion fought and marched sixty-ninemiles in seven days. Their training was as complete as any infantry, even the regimental stretcher-bearers being taught the use of Lewisguns, and on more than one occasion the bearers went for the enemywith Mills bombs till a position was captured and they were requiredto tend the wounded. A Stokes-gun crew found their weapon very usefulin open warfare, and at one place where machine guns had got on to alarge party of Turks and enclosed them in a box barrage, the Stokesgun searched every corner of the area and finished the whole party. The losses inflicted by the Scots were exceptionally severe. Farthereastwards on the 13th, the 75th Division had also been giving ofits best. The objective of this Division was the important JunctionStation on the Turks' Jaffa-Jerusalem railway, and a big step forwardwas made in the early afternoon by the overcoming of a stubbornresistance at Mesmiyeh, troops rushing the village from the south andcapturing 292 prisoners and 7 machine guns. The 234th Brigade beganan advance on Junction Station during the night, but were stronglycounter-attacked and had to halt till the morning, when at dawn theysecured the best positions on the rolling downs west of the station, and by 7. 30 the station itself was occupied. Two engines and 45vehicles were found intact; two large guns on trucks and over 100prisoners were also taken. The enemy shelled the station during themorning, trying in vain to damage his lost rolling stock. This bootywas of immense value to us, and to a large extent it solved thetransport problem which at this moment was a very anxious one indeed. The line was metre gauge and we had no stock to fit it, though laterthe Egyptian State Railways brought down some engines and trucks fromthe Luxor-Assouan section, but this welcome aid was not availabletill after the rains had begun and had made lorry traffic temporarilyimpossible between our standard gauge railhead and our fighting front. Junction Station was no sooner occupied than a light-railway staffunder Colonel O'Brien was brought up from Beit Hanun. The whole of theline to Deir Sineid was not in running order, but broken culverts weregiven minor repairs, attention was bestowed on trucks, and the engineswere closely examined while the Turks were shelling the station. Thewater tanks had been destroyed, as a result of which two men spenthours in filling up the engines by means of a water jug and basinfound in the station buildings, and the Turks had the mortification ofseeing these engines steam out of the station during the morning toa cutting which was effective cover from their field-gun fire. Thelight-railway staff were highly delighted at their success, and thetrains which they soon had running over their little system wereindeed a boon and a blessing to the fighting men and horses. 

On this morning of November 14 the infantry were operating with DesertMounted Corps' troops on both their wings. The Australian MountedDivision was on the right, fighting vigorous actions with the enemyrearguards secreted in the irregular, rocky foothills of the Shephelahwhich stand as ramparts to the Judean Mountains. It was a difficulttask to drive the Turks out of these fastnesses, and while they heldon to them it was almost impossible to outflank some of the placeslike Et Tineh, a railway station and camp of some importance on theline to Beersheba. They had already had some stiff fighting at Tel elSafi, the limestone hill which was the White Guard of the Crusaders. The Division suffered severely from want of water, particularly the5th Mounted Brigade, and it was necessary to transfer to it the 7thMounted Brigade and the 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade. On theleft of the infantry the Yeomanry Mounted Division was moving forwardfrom Akir and Mansura, and after the 22nd Mounted Brigade had takenNaaneh they detailed a demolition party to blow up one mile ofrailway, so that, even if the 75th Division had not taken JunctionStation, Jerusalem would have been entirely cut off from railwaycommunication with the Turkish base at Tul Keram, and Haifa andDamascus. 

Between Naaneh and Mansura the 6th Mounted Brigade was preparing foranother dashing charge. The enemy who had been opposing us for twodays consisted of remnants of two divisions of both the Turkish VIIthand VIIIth Armies brought together and hurriedly reorganised. Thevictory at Mughar had almost, if not quite, split the force in two, that is to say that portion of the line which had been given the dutyof holding Mughar had been so weakened by heavy casualties, and theloss of moral consequent upon the shock of the cavalry charge, thatit had fallen back to Ramleh and Ludd and was incapable of furtherserious resistance. There was still a strong and virile force on theseaside, though that was adequately dealt with, but the centre wasvery weak, and the enemy's only chance of preventing the mountedtroops from working through and round his right centre was to fallback on Abu Shushe and Tel Jezar to cover Latron, with its good watersupply and the main metalled road where it enters the hills on the wayto Jerusalem. The loss of Tel Jezar meant that we could get to Latronand the Vale of Ajalon, and the action of the 6th Mounted Brigade onthe morning of the 14th gave it to us. 

The Berks Yeomanry had had outposts on the railway south-east ofNaaneh since before dawn. They had seen the position the previous day, and at dawn sent forward a squadron dismounted to engage the machineguns posted in the walled-in house at the north of the village. Fromthe railway to the Abu Shushe ridge is about three miles of up anddown country with two or three rises of sufficient height to affordsome cover to advancing cavalry. General Godwin arranged that sixmachine guns should go forward to give covering fire, and, supportedby the Berks battery R. H. A. From a good position half a mile westof the railway, the Bucks Hussars were to deliver a mounted attackagainst the hill, with the assistance on their left of two squadronsof Berks Yeomanry. The Dorset Yeomanry were moved up to the red hillof Melat into support. 

At seven o'clock the attack started, the 22nd Mounted Brigadeoperating on foot on the left. The Bucks Hussars, taking advantage ofall the dead ground, galloped about a mile and a half until they cameto a dip behind a gently rising mound, when, it being clear that theenemy held the whole ridge in strength, Colonel Cripps signalled toBrigade Headquarters at Melat for support. The Dorset Yeomanry movedout to the right of the Bucks, and the latter then charged the hill alittle south of the village and captured it. It was a fine effort. Thesides of the hill were steep with shelves of rock, and the crest was amass of stones and boulders, while from some caves, one or two of themquite big places, the Turks had machine guns in action. When the Buckswere charging there was a good deal of machine-gun fire from theright, but the Dorsets dealt with this very speedily, assisted by theBerks battery which had also moved forward to a near position fromwhich they could command the ridge in flank. A hostile counter-attackdeveloped against the Dorsets, but this was crushed by the Berksbattery and some of the 52nd Division's guns. Two squadrons of theBerks Yeomanry in the meantime had charged on the left of the Bucksand secured the hill immediately to the south-east of Abu Shushevillage, and at nine o'clock the whole of this strong position wasin our hands, the brigade having sustained the extremely slightcasualties of three officers and thirty-four other ranks killed andwounded. So small a cost of life was a wonderful tribute to good anddashing leading, and furnished another example of cavalry's power whenmoving rapidly in extended formation. To the infinite regret of thebrigade, indeed of the whole of General Allenby's Army, one of theofficers killed that day was the Hon. Neil Primrose, an intrepidleader who, leaving the comfort and safety of a Ministerialappointment, answered the call of duty to be with his squadron of theBucks Hussars. He was a fine soldier and a favourite among his men, and he died as a good cavalryman would wish, shot through the headwhen leading his squadron in a glorious charge. His body rests in thegarden of the French convent at Ramleh not far from the spot wherehumbler soldiers take their long repose, and these graves withinvisual range of the tomb of St. George, our patron saint, will standas memorials of those Britons who forsook ease to obey the stern callof duty to their race and country. 

The overwhelming nature of this victory is illustrated by a comparisonof the losses on the two sides. Whereas ours were 37 all told, wecounted between 400 and 500 dead Turks on the field, and the enemyleft with us 360 prisoners and some material. The extraordinarydisparity between the losses can only be accounted for first by thecare taken to lead the cavalry along every depression in the ground, and secondly by rapidity of movement. The cavalry were confronted byconsiderable shell fire, and the volume of machine-gun fire was heavy, though it was kept down a good deal by the covering fire of the 17thMachine Gun Squadron. 

I have referred to the importance of Jezar as dominating theapproaches to Latron on the north-east and Ramleh on the north-west. Jezar, as we call it on our maps, has been a stronghold since men ofall races and creeds, coloured and white, Pagan, Mahomedan, Jew, andChristian, fought in Palestine. It is a spot which many a great leaderof legions has coveted, and to its military history our home countyyeomen have added another brilliant page. Let me quote the descriptionof Jezar from George Adam Smith's _Historical Geography of the HolyLand_, a book of fascinating interest to all students of the SacredHistory which many of the soldiers in General Allenby's Army read withgreat profit to themselves:

'One point in the Northern Shephelah round which these tides of warhave swept deserves special notice--Gezer, or Gazar. It is one of thefew remarkable bastions which the Shephelah flings out to the west--ona ridge running towards Ramleh, the most prominent object in view ofthe traveller from Jaffa towards Jerusalem. It is high and isolated, but fertile and well watered--a very strong post and strikinglandmark. Its name occurs in the Egyptian correspondence of thefourteenth century, where it is described as being taken from theEgyptian vassals by the tribes whose invasion so agitates thatcorrespondence. A city of the Canaanites, under a king of itsown--Horam--Gezer is not given as one of Joshua's conquests, thoughthe king is; but the Israelites drave not out the Canaanites who dweltat Gezer, and in the hands of these it remained till its conquest byEgypt when Pharaoh gave it, with his daughter, to Solomon and Solomonrebuilt it. Judas Maccabeus was strategist enough to gird himselfearly to the capture of Gezer, and Simon fortified it to cover the wayto the harbour of Joppa and caused John his son, the captain of thehost, to dwell there. It was virtually, therefore, the key of Judea ata time when Judea's foes came down the coast from the north; and, withJoppa, it formed part of the Syrian demands upon the Jews. But this isby no means the last of it. M. Clermont Ganneau, who a number of yearsago discovered the site, has lately identified Gezer with the MontGisart of the Crusades. Mont Gisart was a castle and feif in thecounty of Joppa, with an abbey of St. Katharine of Mont Gisart, "whoseprior was one of the five suffragans of the Bishop of Lydda. " It wasthe scene, on the 24th November 1174, seventeen years before the ThirdCrusade, of a victory won by a small army from Jerusalem under theboy-king, the leper Baldwin IV. , against a very much larger army underSaladin himself, and, in 1192, Saladin encamped upon it during hisnegotiations for a truce with Richard. 

'Shade of King Horam, what hosts of men have fallen round that citadelof yours. On what camps and columns has it looked down through thecenturies, since first you saw the strange Hebrews burst with thesunrise across the hills, and chase your countrymen down Ajalon--thatday when the victors felt the very sun conspiring with them to achievethe unexampled length of battle. Within sight of every Egyptian andevery Assyrian invasion of the land, Gezer has also seen Alexanderpass by, and the legions of Rome in unusual flight, and the armies ofthe Cross struggle, waver and give way, and Napoleon come and go. Ifall could rise who have fallen around its base--Ethiopians, Hebrews, Assyrians, Arabs, Turcomans, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Saxons, Mongols--what a rehearsal of the Judgment Day it would be. Few ofthe travellers who now rush across the plain realise that the firstconspicuous hill they pass in Palestine is also one of the mostthickly haunted--even in that narrow land into which history has socrowded itself. But upon the ridge of Gezer no sign of all this nowremains, except in the Tel Jezer, and in a sweet hollow to the north, beside a fountain, where lie the scattered Christian stone of DeirWarda, the Convent of the Rose. 

'Up none of the other valleys of the Shephelah has history surged asup and down Ajalon and past Gezer, for none are so open to the north, nor present so easy a passage to Jerusalem. '

CHAPTER XII

LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM

The Anzac Mounted Division had only the 1st Australian Light Horse andthe New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade operating with it on the 14th. The Australians, by the evening, were in the thick olive groves on thesouth of Ramleh, and on the ridges about Surafend. On their left theTurks were violently opposing the New Zealanders who were workingalong the sand-dunes with the port and town of Jaffa as their ultimateobjective. There was one very fierce struggle in the course of theday. A force attacked a New Zealand regiment in great strength and forthe moment secured the advantage, but the regiment got to grips withthe enemy with hand-grenades and bayonets, and so completely repulsedthem that they fled in hopeless disorder leaving many dead and woundedbehind them. It was unfortunate that there was no mobile reserveavailable for pursuit, as the Turks were in such a plight that a largenumber would have been rounded up. General Cox's brigade seized Ramlehon the morning of the 15th, taking ninety prisoners, and then advancedand captured Ludd, being careful that no harm should come to thebuilding which holds the grave of St. George. In Ludd 360 prisonerswere taken, and the brigade carried out a good deal of demolition workon the railway running north. The New Zealanders made Jaffa by noonon the 16th, the Turks evacuating the town during the morning withoutmaking any attempt to destroy it, though there was one gross piece ofvandalism in a Christian cemetery where monuments and tombstones hadbeen thrown down and broken. In the meantime, in order to protect therear of the infantry, five battalions of the 52nd Division with threebatteries were stationed at Yebnah, Mughar, and Akir until they couldbe relieved by units of the 54th Division advancing from Gaza. Toenable the 54th to move, the transport lent to the 52nd and 75thDivisions had to be returned, which did not make the supply of thosedivisions any easier. The main line of railway was still a long way inthe rear, and the landing of stores by the Navy at the mouth of thewadi Sukereir had not yet begun. A little later, and before Jaffa hadbeen made secure enough for the use of ships, many thousands of tonsof supplies and ammunition were put ashore at the wadi's mouth, and ata time when heavy rains damaged the newly constructed railway tracksthe Sukereir base of supply was an inestimable boon. Yet there weretimes when the infantry had a bare day's supply with them, thoughthey had their iron rations to fall back upon. It speaks well forthe supply branch that in the long forward move of XXIst Corps theinfantry were never once put on short rations. 

While the 54th were coming up to take over from the 52nd, plans wereprepared for the further advance on Jerusalem. The Commander-in-Chiefwas deeply anxious that there should be no fighting of any descriptionnear the Holy Places, and he gave the Turks a chance of beingchivalrous and of accepting the inevitable. We had got so far that theancient routes taken by armies which had captured Jerusalem were justbefore us. The Turkish forces were disorganised by heavy and repeateddefeats, the men demoralised and not in good condition, and there wasno hope for them that they could receive sufficient reinforcementsto enable them to stave off the ultimate capture of Bethlehem andJerusalem, though as events proved they could still put up a stoutdefence. We know from papers taken from the enemy that the Turksbelieved General Allenby intended to go right up the plain to getto the defile leading to Messudieh and Nablus and thus threaten theHedjaz railway, in which case the position of the enemy in the HolyCity would be hopeless, and the Turks formed an assault group of threeinfantry divisions in the neighbourhood of Tul Keram to prevent this, and continued to hold on to Jerusalem. General Allenby proposed tostrike through the hills to the north-east to try to get across theJerusalem-Nablus road about Bireh (the ancient Beeroth), and in thisoperation success would have enabled him to cut off the enemy forcesin and about the Holy City, when their only line of retreat would havebeen through Jericho and the east of the Jordan. The Turks decidedto oppose this plan and to make us fight for Jerusalem. That wasdisappointing, but in the end it could not have suited us better, forit showed to our own people and to the world how after the Turks haddeclined an opportunity of showing a desire to preserve the HolyPlaces from attack--an opportunity prompted by our strength, not byany fear that victory could not be won--General Allenby was still ableto achieve his great objective without a drop of blood being spillednear any of the Holy Sites, and without so much as a stray riflebullet searing any of their walls. That indeed was the triumph ofmilitary practice, and when Jerusalem fell for the twenty-third time, and thus for the first time passed into the hands of British soldiers, the whole force felt that the sacrifices which had been made on thegaunt forbidding hills to the north-west were worth the price, andthat the graves of Englishman, Scot and Colonial, of Gurkha, Punjabi, and Sikh, were monuments to the honour of British arms. The scheme wasthat the 75th Division would advance along the main Jerusalem road, which cuts into the hills about three miles east of Latron, and occupyKuryet el Enab, and that the Lowland Division should go through Ludd, strike eastwards and advance to Beit Likia to turn from the north thehills through which the road passes, the Yeomanry Mounted Divisionon the left flank of the 52nd Division to press on to Bireh, on theNablus road about a dozen miles north of Jerusalem. A brief surveyof the country to be attacked would convince even a civilian of theextreme difficulties of the undertaking. North and east of Latron(which was not yet ours) frown the hills which constitute thisimportant section of the Judean range, the backbone of Palestine. The hills are steep and high, separated one from another by narrowvalleys, clothed here and there with fir and olive trees, butelsewhere a mass of rocks and boulders, bare and inhospitable. Practically every hill commands another. There is only one road--themain one--and this about three miles east of Latron passes up a narrowdefile with rugged mountains on either side. There is an old Romanroad to the north, but, unused for centuries, it is now a road only inname, the very trace of it being lost in many places. In this strongcountry men fought of old, and the defenders not infrequently heldtheir own against odds. It is pre-eminently suitable for defence, andif the warriors of the past found that flint-tipped shafts of woodwould keep the invader at bay, how much more easily could a modernarmy equipped with rifles of precision and machine guns adapt Natureto its advantage? It will always be a marvel to me how in a countrywhere one machine gun in defence could hold up a battalion, we madesuch rapid progress, and how having got so deep into the range it waspossible for us to feed our front. We had no luck with the weather. In advancing over the plain the troops had suffered from the abnormalheat, and many of the wells had been destroyed or damaged by theretreating enemy. In the hills the troops had to endure heavy rainsand piercingly cold winds, with mud a foot deep on the roads andthe earth so slippery on the hills that only donkey transport wasserviceable. Yet despite all adverse circumstances the infantry andyeomanry pressed on, and if they did not secure all objectives, theirdash, resource, and magnificent determination at least paved the wayfor ultimate triumph. 

To the trials of hard fighting and marching on field rations the wetadded a severe test of physical endurance. The troops were in enemycountry where they scrupulously avoided every native village, and nowall or roof stood to shelter them from wind or water. The heat ofthe first two weeks of November changed with a most undesirablesuddenness, and though the days continued agreeably warm on the plaininto December, the nights became chilly and then desperately cold. Thesingle blanket carried in the pack--most of the infantry on the marchhad no blanket at all--did not give sufficient warmth to men whoseblood had been thinned by long months of work under a pitiless Easternsun, and lucky was the soldier who secured even broken sleep in theearly morning hours of that fighting march across the northern part ofthe Maritime Plain. The Generals, with one eye on the enemy and theother on the weather, must have been dismayed in the third week ofNovember at the gathering storm clouds which in bursting flooded theplain with rains unusually heavy for this period of the year. Thesurface is a very light cotton soil several feet deep. When baked bysummer sun it has a cracked hard crust giving a firm foothold for manand horse, and yielding only slightly to the wheels of light cars;even laden lorries made easy tracks over the country. The lorriesgenerally kept off the ill-made unrolled Turkish road which had beenconstructed for winter use and, except for slight deviations to avoidwadis and gullies cut by Nature to carry off surplus water, the supplycolumns could move in almost as direct a course as the flying men. When the heavens opened all this was altered. The first storm turnedthe top into a slippery, greasy mass. In an hour or two the rainsoaked down into the light earth, and any lorry driver pulling out ofthe line to avoid a skidding vehicle ahead, had the almost certaintyof finding his car and load come to a full stop with the wheels heldfast axle deep in the soft soil. An hour's hard digging, the fixingof planks beneath the wheels, and a towing cable from another lorrysometimes got the machine on to the pressed-down track again andenabled it to move ahead for a few miles, but many were the supplyvehicles that had to wait for a couple of sunny days to dry a path forthem. 

My own experience of the first of the winter rains was so like that ofothers in the force who moved on wheels that I may give some idea ofthe conditions by recounting it. We had taken Ludd and Ramleh, andguided by the ruined tower of the Church of the Forty Martyrs I hadfollowed in the cavalry's wake. I dallied on the way back to see ifAkir presented to the latter-day Crusader any signs of its formerstrength when it stood as the Philistine stronghold of Ekron. Nearwhere the old city had been the ghastly sight of Turks cut down byyeomanry during a hot pursuit offended the senses of sight and smell, and when you saw natives moving towards their village at a ratesomewhat in excess of their customary shuffling gait you were almostled to think that their superstitious fears were driving them homebefore sundown lest darkness should raise the ghosts of the Turkishdead. A few of the Jewish settlers, whose industry has improved thelandscape, were leaving the fields and orchards they tended so well, though there was still more than an hour of daylight and their taskswere not yet done. They were weatherwise. They could have been deaf tothe rumblings in the south and still have noticed the coming of thestorm. I was some forty miles from the spot at which my despatch couldbe censored and passed over land wire and cable to London, when avivid lightning flash warned me that the elements were in forbiddingmood and that I had misread the obvious signal of the natives'homeward movement. 

The map showed a path from Akir through Mansura towards JunctionStation, from which the so-called Turkish road ran south. In thegathering gloom my driver picked up wheel tracks through an oliveorchard and, crossing a nullah, found the marks of a Ford car's wheelson the other side. The rain fell heavily and soon obliterated allsigns of a car's progress, and with darkness coming on there wasa prospect of a shivering night with a wet skin in the open. AnAustralian doctor going up to his regiment at grips with the Turk toldme that he had no doubt we were on the right road, for he had beengiven a line through Mansura, which must be the farmhouse ahead of us. These Australians have a keen nose for country and you have a senseof security in following them. The doctor's horse was slipping in themud, but my car made even worse going. It skidded to right and left, and only by the skill and coolness of my driver was I saved a duckingin a narrow wadi now full of storm water. After much low-gear work wepulled up a slight rise and saw ahead of us one or two little fires. Under the lee of a dilapidated wall some Scottish infantry werebrewing tea and making the most of a slight shelter. It was Mansura, and if we bore to the right and kept the track beaten down by lorriesacross a field we might, by the favour of fortune, reach JunctionStation during the night. The Scots had arranged a bivouac in thatfield before it became sodden. They knew how bad it had got, and anative instinct to be hospitable prompted an invitation to share thefire for the night. However, London was waiting for news and I decidedto press on. The road could not be worse than the sea of mud in whichI was floundering, and it might be better. We turned right-handedand after a struggle came up against three lorry drivers hopelesslymarooned. They had turned in. Up a greasy bank we came to a stop andslid back. We tried again and failed. I relieved the car of my weightand made an effort to push it from behind, but my feet held fast inthe mud and the car cannoned into me when it skidded downhill. 'Bettergive it up till the morning, ' said an M. T. Driver whose sleep wasdisturbed by the running of our engine. 'Can't? Who've you got there?Eh? Oh, very well. Here, Jim, give them a hand or we'll have no sleepto-night'--or words to that effect. Three of the lorry men and theengine got us on the move, and before they took mud back with them tothe dry interiors of the lorries they hoped, they said, that we wouldreach G. H. Q. , but declared that it was hopeless to try. 

Before getting much farther a light, waved ahead of us, told of someone held up. I walked on and found General Butler, the chief of theArmy Veterinary Service with the Force, unable to move an inch. Theefforts of two drivers failed to locate the trouble, and everythingremovable was taken off the General's car and put into ours, and withthe heavier load we started off again for Junction Station. This wasnot difficult to pick up, for there were many flares burning to enableworking parties to repair engines, rolling stock, and permanent way. We got on to the road ultimately, carrying more mud on our feet than Iimagined human legs could lift. Leaving a driver and all spare gear atthe station, we thrashed our way along a road metalled with a soft, friable limestone which had been cut into by the iron-shod wheels ofGerman lorries until the ruts were fully a foot deep, and the softearth foundation was oozing through to the surface. It was desperatelyhard to steer a course on this treacherous highway, and a number oflorries we passed had gone temporarily out of action in ditches. TheGermans with the Turks had blown up most of the culverts, and the roadbridges which had been destroyed had only been lightly repaired withplanks and trestles, no safety rails being in position. To negotiatethese dangerous paths in the dark the driver had to put on allpossible speed and make a dash for it, and he usually got to the otherside before a skid became serious. Most of the lorry drivers put outno light because they thought no car would be able to move on such anight, and we had several narrow escapes of finishing our career on ahalf-sunken supply motor vehicle. 

Reinforcements for infantry battalions moved up the road as we camedown it. They were going to the front to take the place of casualties, for weather and mud are not considered when bayonets are wanted in theline. So the stolid British infantryman splashed and slipped his waytowards the enemy, and he would probably have been sleeping that nightif there had not been a risk of his drowning in the mud. The CamelTransport Corps fought the elements with a courage which deservedbetter luck. The camel dislikes many things and is afraid of some. Butif he is capable of thinking at all he regards mud as his greatestenemy. He cannot stand up in it, and if he slips he has not anunderstanding capable of realising that if all his feet do not gothe same way he must spread-eagle and split up. This is what oftenhappens, but if by good luck a camel should go down sideways he seemsquite content to stay there, and he is so refractory that he prefersto die rather than help himself to his feet again. On this wild nightI had a good opportunity of seeing white officers encourage theEgyptian boys in the Camel Transport Corps. At Julis the roadwaypasses through the village. There was an ambulance column indifficulties in the village, and while some cars were being extricateda camel supply column came up in the opposite direction. The camelsliked neither the headlights nor the running engines, and these had tobe made dark and silent before they would pass. The water was runningover the roadway several inches deep, carrying with it a mass ofgarbage and filth which only Arab villagers would tolerate. Officersand Gyppies coaxed and wheedled the stubborn beasts through Julis, but outside the place the animals raised a chorus of protest and wentdown. They held me up for an hour or more, and though officers andboys did their utmost to get them going again it was a fruitlesseffort, and the poor beasts were off-loaded where they lay. That nightof rain and thunder, wind and cold, was bad alike for man and beast, but beyond a flippant remark of some soldier doing his best and thecurious chant of the Gyppies' chorus you heard nothing. Tommy couldnot trust himself to talk about the weather. It was too bad for words, for even the strongest. 

It took our car ten hours to run forty miles, and as the last tenmiles was over wet sand and on rabbit wire stretched across thesand where the car could do fifteen miles an hour, we had averagedsomething under three miles an hour through the mud. Wet through, cold, with a face rendered painful to the touch by driven rain, Ireached my tent with a feeling of thankfulness for myself and deepsympathy for the tens of thousands of brave boys enduring intensediscomfort and fatigue, coupled with the fear of short rations for thenext day or two. The men in the hills which they were just enteringhad a worse time than those in the waterlogged plain, but no stormscould damp their enthusiasm. They were beating your enemies and mine, and they were facing a goal which Britain had never yet won. Jerusalemthe Golden was before them, and the honour and glory of winning itfrom the Turk was a prize to attain which no sacrifice was too great. Those who did not say so behaved in a way to show that they felt it. They were very gallant, perfect knights, these soldiers of the King. 

CHAPTER XIII

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS

When the 52nd Division were moving out of Ludd on the 19th Novemberthe 75th Division were fighting hard about Latron, where the Turksheld the monastery and its beautiful gardens and the hill about Amwasuntil late in the morning. Having driven them out, the 75th pushedon to gain the pass into the hills and to begin two days of fightingwhich earned the unstinted praise of General Bulfin who witnessed it. For nearly three miles from Latron the road passes through a flatvalley flanked by hills till it reaches a guardhouse and khan at thefoot of the pass which then rises rapidly to Saris, the differencein elevation in less than four miles being 1400 feet. Close to theguardhouse begin the hills which tower above the road. The Turks hadconstructed defences on these hills and held them with riflemen andmachine guns, so that these positions dominated all approaches. Ourguns had few positions from which to assist the infantry, but they didsterling service wherever possible. In General Palin the Divisionhad a commander with wide experience of hill fighting on the Indianfrontier, and he brought that experience to bear in a way which musthave dumb-founded the enemy. Frontal attacks were impossible andsuicidal, and each position had to be turned by a wide movementstarted a long way in rear. All units in the Division did well, theGurkhas particularly well, and by a continual encircling of theirflanks the Turks were compelled to leave their fastnesses and fallback to new hill crests. Thus outwitted and outmatched the enemyretreated to Saris, a high hill with a commanding view of the pass forhalf a mile. The hill is covered with olive trees and has a village onits eastern slope, and as the road winds at its foot and then takesa left-handed turn to Kuryet el Enab its value for defence wasconsiderable. 

The Turks had taken advantage of the cover to place a large body ofdefenders with machine guns on the hill, but with every conditionunfavourable to us the 75th Division had routed out the enemy beforethree o'clock and were ready to move forward as soon as the gunscould get up the pass. Rain was falling heavily, the road surface wasclinging and treacherous, and, worse still, the road had been blown upin several places. The guns could not advance to be of service thatday, and the infantry had, therefore, to remain where they were forthe night. There was a good deal of sniping, but Nature was moreunkind than the enemy, who received more than he gave. The troops werewearing light summer clothing, drill shorts and tunics, and the suddenchange from the heat and dryness of the plain to bitter cold and wetwas a desperate trial, especially to the Indian units, who had littlesleep that night. They needed rest to prepare them for the rigour ofthe succeeding day. A drenching rain turned the whole face of themountains, where earth covered rock, into a sea of mud. On thepositions about Saris being searched a number of prisoners were taken, among them a battalion commander. Men captured in the morning told usthere were six Turkish battalions holding Enab, which is somethingunder two miles from Saris. 

The road proceeds up a rise from Saris, then falling slightly itpasses below the crest of a ridge and again climbs to the foot of ahill on which a red-roofed convent church and buildings stand as alandmark that can be seen from Jaffa. On the opposite side of the roadis a substantial house, the summer retreat of the German Consul inJerusalem, whose staff traded in Jordan Holy Water; and this house, now empty, sheltered a divisional general from the bad weather whilethe operations for the capture of the Holy City were in preparation. Ihave a grateful recollection of this building, for in it the militaryattachés and I stayed before the Official Entry into Jerusalem, andits roof saved us from one inclement night on the bleak hills. On the20th November the Turks did their best to keep the place under Germanownership. The hill on which it stands was well occupied by men undercover of thick stone walls, the convent gardens on the opposite sideof the highway was packed with Turkish infantry, and across the deepvalley to the west were guns and riflemen on another hill, all of themholding the road under the best possible observation. The enemy'showitzers put down a heavy barrage on all approaches, and on thereverse of the hill covering the village lying in the hollowthere were machine guns and many men. Reconnaissances showed thedifficulties attending an attack, and it was not until the afternoonthat a plan was ready to be put into execution. No weak points in thedefences could be discovered, and just as it seemed possible that adaylight attack would be held up, a thick mist rolled up the valleyand settled down over Enab. The 2/3rd Gurkhas seized a welcomedopportunity, and as the light was failing the shrill, sharp notesof these gallant hillmen and the deep-throated roar of the 1/5thSomersets told that a weighty bayonet charge had got home, and thatthe keys of the enemy position had been won. The men of the bold 75thwent beyond Enab in the dark, and also out along the old Roman roadtowards Biddu to deny the Turks a point from which they could see theroad as it fell away from the Enab ridge towards the wadi Ikbala. Thatnight many men sought the doubtful shelter of olive groves, and builtstone sangars to break the force of a biting wind. A few, as many ascould be accommodated, were welcomed by the monks in a monastery ina fold in the hills, whilst some rested and were thankful in a cryptbeneath the monks' church, the oldest part of the building, believedto be the work of sixth-century masons. The monks had a tale of woe totell. They had been proud to have as their guest the Latin Patriarchin Jerusalem, who was a French protégé, and this high ecclesiasticremained at the monastery till November 17, when Turkish gendarmeriecarried him away. The Spanish Consul in Jerusalem lodged a vigorousprotest, and, so the monks were told, he was supported by the GermanCommandant. But to no purpose, for when General Allenby enteredJerusalem he learned that the Latin Patriarch had been removed toDamascus. For quite a long time the monks did many kindly things forour troops. They gave up the greater part of the monastery and churchfor use as a hospital, and many a sick man was brought back to healthby rest within those ancient walls. Some, alas, there were whosewounds were mortal, and a number lie in the monks' secluded garden. They have set up wooden crosses over them, and we may be certain thatin that quiet sequestered spot their remains will rest in peace andwill have the protection of the monks as surely as it has been givento the grave of the Roman centurion which faces those of our braveboys who fell on the same soil fighting the same good fight. 

While the 75th Division were making their magnificent effort at Enabthe Lowlanders had breasted other and equally difficult hills to thenorth. General Hill had posted a strong force at Beit Likia, and thenmoved south-east along the route prepared by Cestius Gallus nearly1900 years ago to the height of Beit Anan, and thence east againto Beit Dukku. On the 21st the road and ground near it were inexceedingly bad condition, and the difficulty of moving anything onwheels along it could hardly have been greater. Already the 52ndDivision had realised it was hopeless to get all their divisionalartillery into action, and only three sections of artillery werebrought up, the horses of the guns sent back to Ramleh being used todouble the teams in the three advanced sections. It was heavy work, too, for infantry who not only had to carry the weight of mud-cakedboots, but were handicapped by continual slipping upon the rockyground. The 75th advancing along the road from Enab to Kustul got anidea of the Turkish lack of attention to the highway, the main roadbeing deep in mud and full of dangerous ruts. They won Kustul aboutmidday, and officers who climbed to the top got their first glimpseof the outskirts of Jerusalem from the ruined walls of a Roman castlethat gives its name to the little village perched on the height. Theydid not, however, see much beyond the Syrian colony behind the mainTurkish defences, and the first view of Jerusalem by the troops ofthe British Army was obtained by General Maclean's brigade when theyadvanced from Biddu to Nebi Samwil, that crowning height on which manycenturies before Richard the Lion Heart buried his face in his casqueand exclaimed: 'Lord God, I pray that I may never see Thy Holy City, if so be that I may not rescue it from the hands of Thine enemies. '

What a fight it was for Nebi Samwil! The Turk had made it his advancedwork for his main line running from El Jib through Bir Nabala, BeitIksa to Lifta, as strong a chain of entrenched mountains as anycommander could desire. General Maclean's brigade advanced from Biddualong the side of a ridge and up the exposed steep slope of NebiSamwil, not all of which, in the only direction he could select for anadvance, was terraced, as it was on the Turks' side. He was allthe time confronted by heavy artillery and rifle fire, and, thoughsupported by guns firing at long range from the neighbourhood of Enab, he could not make Nebi Samwil in daylight. Round the top of the hillthe Turk had dug deeply into the stony earth. He knew the valueof that hill. From its crest good observation was obtained in alldirections, and if, when we had to attack the main Jerusalem defenceson December 8, the summit of Nebi Samwil had still been in Turkishhands, not a movement of troops as they issued from the bed of thewadi Surar and climbed the rough face of the western buttresses ofJerusalem would have escaped notice. The brigade won the hill and heldit just before midnight, but the battle for the crest ebbed and flowedfor days with terrific violence, we never giving up possession of it, though it was stormed again and again by an enemy who, it is fair toadmit, displayed fine courage and not a little skill. That hill-top atthis period had to submit to a thunderous bombardment, and the Mosqueof Nebi Samwil became a battered shell. Here are supposed to lie theremains of the Prophet Samuel. The tradition may or may not be wellfounded, but at any rate Mahomedans and Christians alike have heldthe place in veneration for centuries. The Turk paid no regard to thesanctity of the Mosque, and, as it was of military importance to himthat we should not hold it, he shelled it daily with all his availableguns, utterly destroying it. There may be cases where the Turks willdeny that they damaged a Holy Place. They could not hide their guilton Nebi Samwil. I was at pains to examine the Mosque and the immediatesurroundings, and the photographs I took are proof that the wreckageof this church came from artillery fired from the east and north, thedirection of the Turkish gun-pits. It is possible we are apt to bea little too sentimental about the destruction in war of a place ofworship. If a general has reason to think that a tower or minaretis being used as an observation post, or that a church or mosque issheltering a body of troops, there are those who hold that he isjustified in deliberately planning its destruction, but here was asacred building with associations held in reverence by all classes andcreeds in a land where these things are counted high, and to have setabout wrecking it was a crime. The German influence over the Turkasserted itself, as it did in the heavy fighting after we had takenJerusalem. We had batteries on the Mount of Olives and the Turksearched for them, but they never fired one round at the KaiserinAugusta Victoria Hospice near by. That had been used as Falkenhayn'sheadquarters. General Chetwode occupied it as his Corps Headquarterssoon after he entered Jerusalem. There was a wireless installation andthe Turks could see the coming and going of the Corps' motor cars. Ihave watched operations from a summer-house in the gardens, and noenemy plane could pass over the building without discovering thepurpose to which it was put. And there were spies. But not one shellfell within the precincts of the hospice because it was a Germanbuilding, containing the statues of the Kaiser and Kaiserin, and (oh, the taste of the Hun!) with effigies of the Kaiser and his consortpainted in the roof of the chapel not far from a picture of theSaviour. Britain is rebuilding what the Turks destroyed, and therewill soon arise on Nebi Samwil a new mosque to show Mahomedans thattolerance and freedom abide under our flag. 

When the 75th Division were making the attack on Nebi Samwil the 52ndDivision put all the men they could spare on to the task of makingroads. To be out of the firing line did not mean rest. In fact, asfar as physical exertion went, it was easier to be fighting than inreserve. From sunrise till dark and often later the roadmakers were atwork with pick, shovel, and crowbar, and the tools were not too manyfor the job. The gunners joined in the work and managed to take theirbatteries over the roads long before they were considered suitablefor other wheels. The battery commanders sometimes selected firingpositions which appeared quite inaccessible to any one save a mountainclimber, but the guns got there and earned much credit for theirteams. 

On the 22nd Nebi Samwil was thrice attacked. British and Indian troopswere holding the hill, but the Turks were on the northern slopes. Theywere, in fact, on strong positions on three sides, and from El Burj, a prominent hill 1200 yards to the south-east, and from the woodedvalley of the wadi Hannina, they could advance with plenty of cover. There was much dead ground, stone walls enclosed small patches ofcultivation, and when troops halted under the terraces on the slopesno gun or rifle fire could reach them. The enemy could thus get quiteclose to our positions before we could deal with them, and theirattacks were also favoured by an intense volume of artillery fire from5. 9's placed about the Jerusalem-Nablus road and, as some people inJerusalem afterwards told me, from the Mount of Olives. The attackerspossessed the advantage that our guns could not concentrate on themwhile the attack was preparing, and could only put in a torrent offire when the enemy infantry were getting near their goal. These threeattacks were delivered with the utmost ferocity, and were pressed homeeach time with determination. But the 75th Division held on with astubbornness which was beyond praise, and the harder the Turk triedto reach the summit the tighter became the defence. Each attack wasrepulsed with very heavy losses, and after his third failure the enemydid not put in his infantry again that day. 

The 75th Division endeavoured to reach El Jib, a village on the hill amile and a half to the north of Nebi Samwil. The possession of El Jibby us would have attracted some of the enemy opposing the advanceof the Yeomanry Mounted Division on the left, but not only was theposition strongly defended in the village and on the high ground onthe north and north-west, but our infantry could not break down theopposition behind the sangars and boulders on the northern side ofNebi Samwil. The attack had to be given up, but we made some progressin this mountainous sector, as the 52nd Division had pushed out fromDukku to Beit Izza, between 3000 and 4000 yards from El Jib, andby driving the enemy from this strong village they made it morecomfortable for the troops in Biddu and protected the Nebi Samwilflank, the securing of which in those days of bitter fighting wasan important factor. It was evident from what was happening on thisfront, not only where two divisions of infantry had to strain everynerve to hold on to what they had got but where the Yeomanry MountedDivision were battling against enormous odds in the worse country tothe north-west, that the Turks were not going to allow us to getto the Nablus road without making a direct attack on the Jerusalemdefences. They outnumbered us, had a large preponderance in guns, werenear their base, and enjoyed the advantage of prepared positions and acomparatively easy access to supplies and ammunition. Everything wasin their favour down to the very state of the weather. But our armystruggled on against all the big obstacles. On the 23rd the 75thDivision renewed their attack on El Jib, but although the men showedthe dash which throughout characterised the Division, it had to bestopped. The garrison of El Jib had been reinforced, and the enemyheld the woods, wadi banks, and sangars in greater strength thanbefore, while the artillery fire was extremely heavy. Not only was the75th Division tired with ceaseless fighting, but the losses they hadsustained since they left the Plain of Ajalon had been substantial, and the 52nd Division took over from them that night to preparefor another effort on the following day. The Scots were no moresuccessful. They made simultaneous attacks on the northern andsouthern ends of Nebi Samwil, and a brigade worked up from Beit Izzato a ridge north-west of El Jib. Two magnificent attempts were madeto get into the enemy's positions, but they failed. The officercasualties were heavy; some companies had no officers, and the troopswere worn out by great exertions and privations in the bleak hills. The two divisions had been fighting hard for over three weeks, theyhad marched long distances on hard food, which at the finish was nottoo plentiful, and the sudden violent change in the weather conditionsmade it desirable that the men should get to an issue of warmerclothing. General Bulfin realised it would be risking heavy losses toask his troops to make another immediate effort against a numericallystronger enemy in positions of his own choice, and he thereforeapplied to General Allenby that the XXth Corps--the 60th Division wasalready at Latron attached to the XXIst Corps--might take over theline. The Commander-in-Chief that evening ordered the attack on theenemy's positions to be discontinued until the arrival of freshtroops. During the next day or two the enemy's artillery was as activeas hitherto, but the punishment he had received in his attacks madehim pause, and there were only small half-hearted attempts to reachour line. They were all beaten off by infantry fire, and the reliefsof the various brigades of the XXIst Corps were complete by November28. It had not been given to the XXIst Corps to obtain the distinctionof driving the Turks for ever from Jerusalem, but the work ofthe Corps in the third and fourth weeks of November had laid thefoundation on which victory finally rested. The grand efforts of the52nd and 75th Divisions in rushing over the foothills of the Shephelahon to the Judean heights, in getting a footing on some of the mostprominent hills within three days of leaving the plain, and inholding on with grim tenacity to what they had gained, enabled theCommander-in-Chief to start on a new plan by which to take the HolyCity in one stride, so to speak. The 52nd and 75th Divisions and, aswill be seen, the Yeomanry Mounted Division as well, share the gloryof the capture of Jerusalem with the 53rd, 60th, and 74th Divisionswho were in at the finish. 

The fighting of the Yeomanry Mounted Division on the left of the 52ndwas part and parcel of the XXIst Corps' effort to get to the Nablusroad. It was epic fighting, and I have not described it when narratingthe infantry's daily work because it is best told in a connectedstory. If the foot sloggers had a bad time, the conditions wereinfinitely worse for mounted troops. The ground was as steep, but thehillsides were rougher, the wadis narrower, the patches of open flatfewer than in the districts where infantry operated. So bad indeed wasthe country that horses were an encumbrance, and most of them werereturned to the plain. After a time horse artillery could proceed nofarther, and the only guns the yeomanry had with them were those ofa section of the Hong Kong and Singapore mountain battery, manned bySikhs, superb fellows whose service in the Egyptian deserts and inPalestine was worthy of a martial race. But their little guns wereoutranged by the Turkish artillery, and though they were often rightup with the mounted men they could not get near the enemy batteries. The supply of the division in the nooks and crannies where there wasnot so much as a goat-path was a desperate problem, and could not havebeen solved without the aid of many hundreds of pack-donkeys whichdumped their loads of supplies and ammunition on the hillsides, leaving it to be carried forward by hand. The division were fightingalmost continually for a fortnight. They got farther forward thanthe infantry and met the full force of an opposition which, if notstronger than that about Nebi Samwil, was extremely violent, and theycame back to a line which could be supplied with less difficultywhen it was apparent that the Turks were not going to accept theopportunity General Allenby gave them to withdraw their army fromJerusalem. The Division's most bitter struggle was about theBeth-horons, on the very scene where Joshua, on a lengthened day, threw the Canaanites off the Shephelah. 

The Yeomanry Mounted Division received orders on the afternoon ofNovember 17 to move across Ajalon into the foothills and to pressforward straight on Bireh as rapidly as possible. Their trials theybegan immediately. One regiment of the 8th Brigade occupied Annabeh, and a regiment of the 22nd Brigade got within a couple of miles ofNalin, where a well-concealed body of the enemy held it up. Soon thereport came in that the country was impassable for wheels. Bythe afternoon of the next day the 8th Brigade were at Beit ur elFoka--Beth-horon the Upper--a height where fig trees and pomegranatesflourish. Eastwards the country falls away and there are severalragged narrow valleys between some tree-topped ridges till the eyemeets a sheikh's tomb on the Zeitun ridge, standing midway betweenFoka and Beitunia, which rears a proud and picturesque head to bar theway to Bireh. The wadis cross the valleys wherever torrent water cantear up rock, but the yeomanry found their beds smoother going, filledthough they were with boulders, than the hill slopes, which generallyrose in steep gradients from the sides of watercourses. During everystep of the way across this saw-toothed country one appreciated tothe full the defenders' advantage. If dead ground hid you from onehill-top enemy marks-men could get you from another, and it wasimpossible for the division to proceed unless it got the enemy out ofall the hills on its line of advance. The infantry on the right werevery helpful, but the brigade on the left flank had many difficulties, which were not lessened when, on the second day of the movement, allRoyal Horse Artillery guns and all wheels had to be sent back owing tothe bad country. Up to this point the fight against Nature was morearduous than against the enemy. Thenceforward the enemy became morevigilant and active, and the hills and stony hollows more trying. Allavailable men were set to work to make a road for the Hong Kong andSingapore gunners, a battery which would always get as far into themountains as any in the King's Army. The road parties laboured nightand day, but it was only by the greatest exertions that the batterycould be got through. The heavy rain of the 19th added to thetroubles. The 8th Brigade, having occupied Beit ur et Tahta(Beth-horon the Lower) early on the morning of the 19th, proceededalong the wadi Sunt until a force on the heights held them up, andthey had to remain in the wadi while the 6th Mounted Brigade turnedthe enemy's flank at Foka. The 22nd Mounted Brigade on the north metwith the same trouble--every hill had to be won and picqueted--andthey could not make Ain Arik that day. As soon as it was light on thefollowing morning the 6th Mounted Brigade brushed away opposition inFoka and entered the village, pushing on thence towards Beitunia. Theadvance was slow and hazardous; every hill had to be searched, a taskdifficult of accomplishment by reason of the innumerable caves andboulders capable of sheltering snipers. The Turk had become an adeptat sniping, and left parties in the hills to carry on by themselves. When the 6th Brigade got within two miles of the south-west ofBeitunia they were opposed by 5000 Turks well screened by woods on theslopes and the wadi. Both sides strove all day without gaining ground. Divisional headquarters were only a short distance behind the 6th, andthe 8th Brigade was moved up into the same area to be ready to assist. By two o'clock in the afternoon the 22nd Brigade got into Ain Arik andfound a strong force of the enemy holding Beitunia and the hill ofMuntar, a few hundred yards to the north of it, thus barring the wayto Ramallah and Bireh. Rain fell copiously and the wind was chilly. After a miserable night in bivouac, the 6th Brigade was astir beforedaylight on the 21st. They were fighting at dawn, and in the halflight compelled the enemy to retire to within half a mile of Beitunia. A few prisoners were rounded up, and these told the brigadier that3000 Turks were holding Beitunia with four batteries of field guns andfour heavy camel guns. That estimate was found to be approximatelyaccurate. A regiment of the 8th Brigade sent to reinforce the 6thBrigade on their left got within 800 yards of the hill, when the gunsabout Bireh and Ramallah opened on them and they were compelled towithdraw, and a Turkish counter-attack forced our forward line backslightly in the afternoon. The enemy had a plentiful supply ofammunition and made a prodigal use of it. While continuing to shellfiercely he put more infantry into his fighting line, and as we hadonly 1200 rifles and four mountain guns, which the enemy's artilleryoutranged, it was clear we could not dislodge him from the Beituniacrest. The 22nd Mounted Brigade had made an attempt to get to Ramallahfrom Ain Arik, but the opposition from Muntar and the high groundto the east was much too severe. Our casualties had not beeninconsiderable, and in face of the enemy's superiority in numbers andguns and the strength of his position it would have been dangerous anduseless to make a further attack. General Barrow therefore decided towithdraw to Foka during the night. All horses had been sent back inthe course of the afternoon, and when the light failed the retirementbegan. The wounded were first evacuated, and they, poor fellows, hada bad time of it getting back to Foka in the dark over four miles ofrock-strewn country. It was not till two o'clock on the followingmorning that all the convoys of wounded passed through Foka, but bythat time the track to Tahta had been made into passable order, andsome of these helpless men were out of the hills soon after daylight, journeying in comparative ease in light motor ambulances over thePlain of Ajalon. 

The arrangements for the withdrawal worked admirably. The 8th MountedBrigade, covering the retirement so successfully that the enemy knewnothing about it, held on in front of Beitunia till three o'clock, reaching Foka before dawn, while the 22nd Brigade remained coveringthe northern flank till almost midnight, when it fell back to Tahta. The Division's casualties during the day were 300 killed and wounded. We still held the Zeitun ridge, observation was kept on Ain Arik fromEl Hafy by one regiment, and troops were out on many parts north andeast of Tahta and Foka. 

On the next two days there was nothing beyond enemy shelling andpatrol encounters. On the 24th demonstrations were made againstBeitunia to support the left of the 52nd Division's attack on El Jib, but the enemy was too strong to permit of the yeomanry proceedingmore than two miles east of Foka. The roadmakers had done an enormousamount of navvy work on the track between Foka and Tahta. They hadlaboured without cessation, breaking up rock, levering out boulderswith crowbars, and doing a sort of rough-and-ready levelling, and bythe night of the 24th the track was reported passable for guns. The Leicester battery R. H. A. Came along it next morning withoutdifficulty. I did not see the road till some time later and itssurface had then been considerably improved, but even then one feltthe drivers of those gun teams had achieved the almost impossible. TheLeicester battery arrived at Foka just in time to unlimber and getinto action behind a fig orchard in order to disperse a couple ofcompanies of enemy infantry which were working round the left flank ofthe Staffordshire Yeomanry at Khurbet Meita, below the Zeitun height. The enemy brought up reinforcements and made an attack in the lateafternoon, but this was also broken up. The Berkshire battery reachedTahta the following day and, with the Leicester gunners, answered theTurks' long-range shelling throughout the day and night. On the 27ththe enemy made a determined attempt to compel us to withdraw from theZeitun ridge, which is an isolated hill commanding the valleys on bothsides. The 6th Mounted Brigade furnished the garrison of 3 officersand 60 men, who occupied a stone building on the summit. Against themthe enemy put 600 infantry with machine guns, and they also brought aheavy artillery fire to bear on the building from Beitunia, 4000 yardsaway. The garrison put up a most gallant defence. They were compelledto leave the building because the enemy practically destroyed it bygunfire and the infantry almost surrounded the hill, but theyobtained cover on the boulder-strewn sides of the hill and held theirassailants at bay. At dusk, although the garrison was reduced to 2officers and 26 men, they refused to give ground. They were instructedto hold on as long as possible, and a reinforcement of 50 men was sentup after dark--all that could be spared, as the division was holding aseries of hills ten miles long and every rifle was in the line. Thisfront was being threatened at several points, and the activity ofpatrols at Deir Ibzia and north of it suggested that the enemy wastrying to get into the gap of five miles between the yeomanry and theright of the 54th Division which was now at Shilta. It was an anxiousnight, and No. 2 Light Armoured Car battery was kept west of Tahtato enfilade the enemy with machine guns should he appear in theneighbourhood of Suffa. The 7th Mounted Brigade was ordered up toreinforce. The fresh troops arrived at dawn on the 28th, and had nosooner got into position at Hellabi, half a mile north-west of Tahta, than their left flank was attacked by 1000 Turks with machine guns. The 155th Brigade of the 52nd Division was on its way through BeitLikia to rest after its hard work in the neighbourhood of Nebi Samwiland El Jib, and it was ordered up to assist. At midday the brigadeattacked Suffa but could not take it. The Scots, however, preventedthe Turks breaking round the left flank of the yeomanry. The postwhich had held Zeitun so bravely was brought into Foka under cover ofthe Leicester and Berkshire batteries' fire, and very heavy fightingcontinued all day long on the Foka-Tahta-Suffa line, but though theenemy employed 3000 infantry in his attack, and had four batteriesof 77's and four heavy camel guns, he was unsuccessful. At dusk theattack on Tahta, which had been under shell-fire all day, was beatenoff and the enemy was compelled to withdraw one mile. Suffa was stillhis, but his advanced troops on the cairn south of that place hadsuffered heavily during the day at the hands of the 7th MountedBrigade, who several times drove them off. Some howitzers of the 52ndDivision were hauled over the hills in the afternoon and shelledthe cairn so heavily that the post sought shelter in Suffa. To thesouth-east of the line of attack the Turks were doing their utmost tosecure Foka. They came again and again, and their attacks were alwaysmet and broken with the bayonet by yeomen who were becoming fatiguedby continuous fighting, and advancing and retiring in this terriblecountry. They could have held the place that night, but there was nopossibility of sending them reinforcements, and as the enemy had beenseen working round to the south of the village with machine guns itmight have been impossible to get them out in the morning. GeneralBarrow accordingly withdrew the Foka garrison to a new position on awooded ridge half-way between that place and Tahta, and the enemy madeno attempt to get beyond Foka. Late at night he got so close to Tahtafrom the north that he threw bombs at our sangars, but he was drivenoff. 

During the evening the Yeomanry Mounted Division received welcomereinforcements. The 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade were placedin support of the 6th Mounted Brigade and a battalion of the 156thInfantry Brigade assisted the 7th Mounted Brigade. 

On the 29th the Turks made their biggest effort to break through theimportant line we held, and all day they persisted with the greatestdetermination in an attack on our left. At midnight they had againoccupied the cairn south of Suffa, and remained there till 8 A. M. , when the 268th Brigade Royal Field Artillery crowned the hill with atremendous burst of fire and drove them off. The machine-gunnersof the 7th Mounted Brigade caught the force as it was retiring andinflicted many casualties. The Turks came back again and again, andthe cairn repeatedly changed hands, until at last it was unoccupied byeither side. Towards dusk the Turks' attacks petered out, though theguns and snipers continued busy, and the Yeomanry Mounted Division wasrelieved by the 231st Infantry Brigade of the 74th Division and the157th Infantry Brigade of the 52nd Division, the Australian MountedDivision ultimately taking over the left of the line which XXth Corpstroops occupied. 

The Yeomanry Mounted Division had made a grand fight against a vastlysuperior force of the enemy in a country absolutely unfavourable tothe movement of mounted troops. They never had more than 1200 riflesholding a far-flung barren and bleak line, and the fine qualitiesof vigorous and swift attack, unfaltering discipline and heroicstubbornness in defence under all conditions, get their proof inthe 499 casualties incurred by the Division in the hill fighting, exclusive of those sustained by the 7th Mounted Brigade whichreinforced them. The Division was made up entirely of first-lineyeomanry regiments whose members had become efficient soldiers intheir spare time, when politicians were prattling about peace anddeluding parties into the belief that there was little necessity toprepare for war. Their patriotism and example gave a tone to thedrafts sent out to replace casualties and the wastage of war, and werea credit to the stock from which they sprang. 

While the Yeomanry Mounted Division had been fighting a great battlealongside the infantry of the XXIst Corps in the hills, the remainderof the troops of the Desert Mounted Corps were employed on the plainand in the coastal sector, hammering the enemy hard and establishinga line from the mouth of the river Auja through some rising groundacross the plain. They were busily engaged clearing the enemy out ofsome of the well-ordered villages east of the sandy belt, several ofthem German colonies showing signs of prosperity and more regardfor cleanliness and sanitation than other of the small centres ofpopulation hereabouts. The village of Sarona, north of Jaffa, analmost exclusively German settlement, was better arranged than anyothers, but Wilhelma was a good second. 

The most important move was on November 24, when, with a view tomaking the enemy believe an attack was intended against his rightflank, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade was sent across theriver Auja to seize the villages of Sheikh Muannis near the sea, andHadrah farther inland, two companies of infantry holding each of thetwo crossings. The enemy became alarmed and attacked the cavalry inforce early next morning, 1000 infantry marching on Muannis. TheHadrah force was driven back across the Auja and the two companies ofinfantry covering the crossing suffered heavily, having no supportfrom artillery, which had been sent into bivouac. Some of the men hadto swim the river. A bridge of boats had been built at Jerisheh millduring the night, and by this means men crossed until Muannis wasoccupied by the enemy later in the morning. The cavalry crossed theford at the mouth of the Auja at the gallop. The 1/4th Essex held onto Hadrah until five out of six officers and about fifty per cent. Ofthe men became casualties. There was a good deal of minor fighting onthis section of the front, and in a number of patrol encounters theresource of the Australian Light Horse added to their bag of prisonersand to the Army's store of information. Nothing further of importanceoccurred in this neighbourhood until we seized the crossings of theAuja and the high ground north of the river a week before the end ofthe year. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY

The impossibility of getting across the road north of Jerusalem bymaking a wide sweep over the Judean hills caused a new plan to be putinto execution. This necessitated a direct attack on the well-preparedsystem of defences on the hills protecting Jerusalem from the west, but it did not entail any weakening of General Allenby's determinationthat there should be no fighting by British troops in and about theprecincts of the Holy City. That resolve was unshaken and unshakable. When a new scheme was prepared by the XXth Corps, the question was putwhether the Turks could be attacked at Lifta, which was part of theirsystem. Now Lifta is a native village on one of the hill-faces to thewest of Jerusalem, about a mile from the Holy City's walls, and, asit is not even connected by a road with any of the various coloniesforming the suburbs of Jerusalem, could not by any stretch ofimagination be described by a Hun propaganda merchant as partof Jerusalem. I happen to know that on the 26th November theCommander-in-Chief sent this communication to General Chetwode: 'Iplace no restriction upon you in respect of any operation which youmay consider necessary against Lifta or the enemy's lines to the southof it, except that on no account is any risk to be run of bringingthe City of Jerusalem or its immediate environs within the area ofoperations. ' The spirit as well as the letter of that order wascarried out, and in the very full orders and notes on the operationsissued before the victorious attack was made, there is the mostelaborate detail regarding the different objectives of divisions andbrigades, and scrupulous care was taken that no advance should be madeagainst any resisting enemy within the boundaries not only of theHoly City but of the suburbs. We shall see how thoroughly theseinstructions were followed. 

When it became obvious that Jerusalem could not be secured without theadoption of a deliberate method of attack, there were many mattersrequiring the anxious consideration of the XXth Corps staff. They tookover from XXIst Corps at a time when the enemy was still very activeagainst the line which they had gained under very hard conditions. TheXXth Corps, beginning with the advantage of positions which the XXIstCorps had won, had to prepare to meet the enemy with equal gun powerand more than equality in rifle strength. We had the men and theguns in the country, but to get them into the line and to keepthem supplied was a problem of considerable magnitude. Time was animportant factor. The rains had begun. The spells of fine weather weregetting shorter, and after each period of rain the sodden state of thecountry affected all movement. To bring up supplies we could only relyon road traffic from Gaza and Deir Sineid, and the light soil hadbecome hopelessly cut up during the rains. The main line of railwaywas not to be opened to Mejdel till December 8, and the capturedTurkish line between Deir Sineid and Junction Station had a maximumcapacity of one hundred tons of ordnance stores a day, and these hadto be moved forward again by road. An advance must slow down whilecommunications were improved. The XXth Corps inherited from the XXIstCorps the track between Beit Likia and Biddu which had been preparedwith an infinity of trouble and exertion, but this and the mainLatron-Jerusalem road were the only highways available. 

General Chetwode's Corps relieved General Bulfin's Corps duringthe day of November 28, and viewed in the most favourable light itappeared that there must be at least one week's work on the roadsbefore it would be possible for heavy and field batteries, insufficient strength to support an attack, to be got into themountains. A new road was begun between Latron and Beit Likia, andanother from Enab to Kubeibeh, and these, even in a rough state ofcompletion, eased the situation very considerably. An enormous amountof labour was devoted to the main road. The surface was in bad orderand was getting worse every hour with the passage of lorry traffic. Itbecame full of holes, and the available metal in the neighbourhoodwas a friable limestone which, under heavy pressure during rains, wasground into the consistency of a thick cream. Pioneer battalions werereinforced by large parties of Egyptian labour corps, and these workedceaselessly, clearing off top layers of mud, carrying stones down fromthe hills and breaking them, putting on a new surface and repairingthe decayed walls which held up the road in many places. Theroadmakers proved splendid fellows. They put a vast amount of energyinto their work, but when the roads were improved rain gravelyinterfered with traffic, and camels were found to be mostunsatisfactory. They slipped and fell and no reliance could be placedon a camel convoy getting to its destination in the hills. Twothousand donkeys were pressed into service, and with them the troopsin the distant positions were kept supplied. It would not be possibleto exaggerate the value of this donkey transport. In anticipation ofthe advance the Quartermaster-General's department, with the foresightwhich characterised that department and all its branches throughoutthe campaign, searched Egypt for the proper stamp of asses for packtransport in the hills. The Egyptian donkey is a big fellow witha light-grey coat, capable of carrying a substantial load, hardy, generally docile, and less stubborn than most of the species. He ismuch taller and heavier than the Palestine donkey, and our Army neversubmitted him to the atrociously heavy loads which crush and break thespirit of the local Arabs' animals. It is, perhaps, too much to hopethat the natives will learn something from the British soldier'streatment of animals. It was one of the sights of the campaign to seethe donkey trains at work. They carried supplies which, having beenbrought by the military railway from the Suez Canal to railhead, wereconveyed by motor lorries as far as the state of the road permittedself-propelled vehicles to run, were next transhipped into limbers, and, when horse transport could proceed no farther, were stowed on tothe backs of camels. The condition of the road presently held up thecamels, and then donkey trains took over the loads. Under a whiteofficer you would see a chain of some two hundred donkeys, each ropedin file of four, led by an Egyptian who knew all that was worthknowing about the ways of the ass, winding their way up and downhills, getting a foothold on rocks where no other animal but a goatcould stand, and surmounting all obstacles with a patient endurancewhich every soldier admired. They did not like the cold, and therain made them look deplorably wretched, but they got rationsand drinking-water right up to the crags where our infantry werepractising mountaineering. Shell-fire did not disturb them much, and they would nibble at any rank stuff growing on the hillsides tosupplement the rations which did not always reach their lines atregular intervals. The Gyppy boys were excellent leaders, and to themand the donkeys the front-line fighting men in the hill country owemuch. They were saved a good deal of exhausting labour in manhandlingstores from the point where camels had to stop, and they couldtherefore concentrate their attention on the Turk. 

By December 2 the fine exertions of the troops on the line ofcommunications had enabled the XXth Corps Commander to make his plansfor the capture of Jerusalem, and at a conference at Enab on thefollowing day General Chetwode outlined his scheme, which, put ina nutshell, was to attack with the 60th and 74th Divisions in aneasterly direction on the front Ain Karim-Beit Surik and, skirting thewestern suburbs of Jerusalem, to place these two divisions astride theJerusalem-Nablus road, while the 53rd Division advanced from Hebron tothreaten the enemy from the south and protect the right of the 60thDivision. I will not apologise for dealing as fully as possible withthe fighting about Jerusalem, because Jerusalem was one of the greatvictories of the war, and the care taken to observe the sanctity ofthe place will for all time stand out as one of the brightest examplesof the honour of British arms. But before entering upon those detailsI will put in chronological sequence the course of the fighting onthis front from the moment when the XXth Corps took over thecommand, and show how, despite enemy vigilance and many attacks, thepreparations for the outstanding event of the campaign were carriedthrough. It is remarkable that in the short period of ten daysthe plans could be worked out in detail and carried through to atriumphant issue, notwithstanding the bad weather and the almostoverwhelming difficulties of supply. Only the whole-heartedco-operation of all ranks made it possible. On the day after theXXth Corps became responsible for this front General Chetwode had aconference with Generals Barrow, Hill, and Girdwood, and after a fulldiscussion of the situation in the hills decided to abandon the planof getting on to the Jerusalem-Nablus road from the north in favourof attempting to take Jerusalem from the west and south-west. Thecommanders of the Yeomanry Mounted Division and the 52nd Division wereasked to suggest, from their experience of the fighting of the pastten days, what improvement in the line was necessary to make itcertain that the new plan would not be interfered with by an enemycounter-attack. They were in favour of taking the western portionof the Beitunia-Zeitun ridge. Preparations were made immediatelyto relieve the Yeomanry Mounted Division by the Australian MountedDivision, and when the 10th Division arrived--it was marching up fromGaza--the 52nd Division was to be returned to the XXIst Corps. Thehard fighting and the determined attacks of the Turks had made itunavoidable that some portions of the divisions should be mixed, andthe reliefs were not completed till the 2nd of December. 

The Yeomanry Mounted Division troops gave over the Tahta defences tothe 157th Infantry Brigade on the night of November 29-30, and theenemy made an attack on the new defenders at dawn, but were swiftlybeaten off. A local effort against Nebi Samwil was easily repulsed, but the 60th Division reported that the enemy had in the past few dayscontinued his shelling of the Mosque, and had added to his destructionof that sacred place by demolishing the minaret by gunfire. The 231stInfantry Brigade with one battalion in the front line took over fromthe 8th Mounted Brigade from Beit Dukku to Jufna, and while thereliefs were in progress there was continual fighting in the EtTireh-Foka area. The former place was won and lost several times, andfinally the infantry consolidated on the high ground west of thosevillages. Early on the 30th a detachment of the 231st Brigade tookFoka, capturing eight officers and 298 men, but as it was not possibleto hold the village the infantry retired to our original line. OnDecember 1 the 10th Division relieved the 52nd in the sector wadiZait-Tahta-Kh. Faaush, but on that day the 155th Brigade had hadanother hard brush with the Turks. A regiment of the 3rd AustralianLight Horse on a hill north of El Burj in front of them was heavilyattacked at half-past one in the morning by a specially preparedsturmtruppen battalion of the Turkish 19th Division, and a footingwas gained in our position, but with the aid of a detachment of theGloucester Yeomanry and the 1/4th Royal Scots Fusiliers the enemywas driven out at daybreak and six officers and 106 unwounded and 60wounded Turks, wearing steel hats and equipped like German stormingtroops, were taken prisoners. The attack was pressed with the greatestdetermination, and the enemy, using hand grenades, got within thirtyyards of our line. During the latter part of their advance the Turkswere exposed to a heavy cross fire from machine guns and rifles ofthe 9th Light Horse Regiment, and this fire and the guns of the 268thBrigade Royal Field Artillery and the Hong Kong and Singapore batteryprevented the retirement of the enemy. The capture of the prisonerswas effected by an encircling movement round both flanks. Ourcasualties were 9 killed and 47 wounded. That storming battalion leftover 100 dead about our trenches. At the same time a violent attackwas made on the Tahta defences held by the 157th Brigade; the enemy, rushing forward in considerable strength and with great impetus, captured a ridge overlooking Tahta--a success which, if they hadsucceeded in holding the position till daylight, would have renderedthat village untenable, and would have forced our line back somedistance at an important point. It proved to be a last desperateeffort of the enemy at this vital centre. No sooner were the Scotsdriven off the ridge than they re-formed and prepared to retake it. Reinforced, they attacked with magnificent courage in face of heavymachine-gun fire, but it was not until after a rather prolonged periodof bayonet work that the Lowland troops got the upper hand, the Turkstrying again and again to force them out. At half-past four they gaveup the attempt, and from that hour Tahta and the rocks about it wereobjects of terror to them. 

Nor did the Turks permit Nebi Samwil to remain in our possessionundisputed. The Londoners holding it were thrice attacked with extremeviolence, but the defenders never flinched, and the heavy losses ofthe enemy may be measured by the fact that when we took Jerusalemand an unwonted silence hung over Nebi Samwil, our burying partiesinterred more than 500 Turkish dead about the summit of that loftyhill. Their graves are mostly on the eastern, northern, and southernslopes. Ours lie on the west, where Scot, Londoner, West Countryman, and Indian, all equally heroic sons of the Empire, sleep, as theyfought, side by side. 

The last heavy piece of fighting on the XXth Corps' front before theattack on Jerusalem was on December 3, when a regiment of yeomanry, which like a number of other yeomanry regiments had been dismountedto form the 74th Division, covered itself with glory. The 16th (RoyalDevon Yeomanry) battalion of the Devon Regiment belonging to the 229thBrigade was ordered to make an attack on Beit ur el Foka in the darkhours of the morning. All the officers had made reconnaissances andhad learned the extreme difficulties of the ground. At 1 A. M. Theseyeomen worked their way up the wadi Zeit to the head of that narrowwatercourse at the base of the south-western edge of the hill on whichthe village stands. The attack was launched from this position, thecompany on the right having the steepest face to climb. Here thevillagers, to get the most out of the soil and to prevent the winterrains washing it off the rocks into the wadi, had built a series ofterraces, and the retaining walls, often crumbling to the touch, offered some cover from the Turkish defenders' fire. With theadvantage of this shelter the troops on the right reached the southernend of the village soon after 2 o'clock, but the company on the leftmet with much opposition on the easier slope, and had to call in aidthe support of a machine-gun section posted in the woods on a ridgenorth-west of the village. By 3 o'clock the whole battalion was inthe village, using rifle and bayonet in the road scarcely more thana couple of yards wide, and bombing the enemy out of native mud andstone houses and caves. Two officers and fifteen unwounded men weretaken prisoners with three machine guns, but before any consolidationcould be done the Turks began a series of counter-attacks which lastedall day. As we had previously found, Foka was very hard to defend. It is overlooked on the north, north-east, and east by ridges a fewhundred yards away, and by a high hill north of Ain Jeruit, 1200 yardsto the north, by another hill 1000 yards to the east, and by thefamous Zeitun ridge about 1500 yards beyond it, and attacks from thesedirections could be covered very effectively by overhead machine-gunfire. To enlarge the perimeter of defence would be to increase thedifficulties and require a much larger force than was available, andthere was no intention of going beyond Foka before the main operationagainst Jerusalem was started. To hold Foka securely a force must bein possession of the heights on the north and east, and to keep theseBeitunia itself must be gained. Before daylight arrived some work ondefences was begun, but it was interfered with by snipers and not muchcould be done. Immediately the sun rose from behind the Judean hillsthere was a violent outburst of fire from machine guns and rifles onthree sides, increasing in volume as the light improved. The enemycounter-attacked with a determination fully equal to that which he haddisplayed during the past fortnight's battle in the hills. He had theadvantage of cover and was supported by artillery and a hurricane ofmachine-gun fire, but although he climbed the hill and got into thesmall gardens outside the very houses, he was repulsed with bomb andbayonet. At one moment there was little rifle fire, and the two sidesfought it out with bombs. The Turks retired with heavy losses, butthey soon came back again and fought with the same determination, though equally unsuccessfully. The Devons called for artillery, andthree batteries supported them splendidly, though the gunners wereunder a great disadvantage in that the ground did not permit theeffect of gunfire to be observed and it was difficult to follow theattackers. The supplies of bombs and small-arms ammunition weregetting low, and to replenish them men had to expose themselves to atorrent of fire, so fierce indeed that in bringing up two boxes ofrifle ammunition which four men could carry twelve casualties wereincurred. A head shown in the village instantly drew a hail of bulletsfrom three sides. Reinforcements were on the way up, and the Fife andForfar Yeomanry battalion of the Royal Highlanders were prepared tomake a flank attack from their outpost line three-quarters of amile south-east of Foka to relieve the Devons, but this would haveendangered the safety of the outpost line without reducing the firefrom the heights, and as the Fife and Forfar men would have had tocross two deep wadis under enfilade fire on their way to Foka theiradventure would have been a perilous one. By this time three out offour of the Devons' company commanders were wounded and the casualtieswere increasing. The officer commanding the battalion thereforedecided, after seven hours of terrific fighting, that the village ofFoka was no longer tenable, and authority was given him to withdraw. In their last attack the enemy put 1000 men against the village, and it was not until the O. C. Devons had seen this strength that heproposed the place should be evacuated. His men had put up a greatfight. The battalion went into action 762 strong; it came out 488. Three officers were killed and nine wounded, and 49 other ranks killedand 132 wounded. Thirteen were wounded and missing and 78 missing. InFoka to-day you will see most of the battered houses repaired, butprogress through the streets is partially barred by the graves ofDevon yeomen who were buried where they fell. It was not possible tohew a grave in rock, therefore earth and stone were piled up round thebodies, so that in at least two spots you find several graves servingas buttresses to rude dwellings. On one of these graves, beside theidentification tablet of two strong sons of Devon, you will find, ona piece of paper inserted in a slit cut into wood torn from anammunition box, the words 'Grave of unknown Turk. ' Friend and foeshare a common resting-place. The natives of this village are morethan usually friendly, and those graves seem safe in their keeping. 

Between the 4th and 7th December there was a reshuffling of the troopsholding the line to enable a concentration of the divisions entrustedwith the attack on the defences covering Jerusalem. The 10th Divisionrelieved the 229th and 230th Brigades of the 74th Division andextended its line to cover Beit Dukku, a point near and west of EtTireh, to Tahta, and when the enemy retired from the immediate frontof the 10th Division's left, Hellabi and Suffa were occupied. TheAustralian Mounted Division also slightly advanced its line. On thenight of December 5 the 231st Brigade relieved the 60th Division inthe Beit Izza and Nebi Samwil positions, and on December 6 the lineheld by the 74th was extended to a point about a mile and a half northof Kulonieh. The 53rd Division had passed through Hebron, and itsadvance was timed to reach the Bethlehem-Beit Jala district onDecember 7. The information gained by the XXth Corps led the staff toestimate the strength of the enemy opposite them to be 13, 300 riflesand 2700 sabres, disposed as follows: east of Jerusalem the 7thcavalry regiment, 500 sabres; the 27th Division covering Jerusalem andextending to the Junction Station-Jerusalem railway at Bitter Station, 1200 rifles; thence to the Latron-Jerusalem road with strong points atAin Karim and Deir Yesin, the 53rd Turkish Division, 2000 rifles; fromthe road to Nebi Samwil (Beit Iksa being very strongly held) the 26thTurkish Division, 1800 rifles; Nebi Samwil to Beit ur el Foka, 19thTurkish Division with the 2/61st regiment and the 158th regimentattached, 4000 rifles; Beit ur el Foka to about Suffa, the 24thDivision, 1600 rifles; thence to the extreme left of the XXth Corpsthe 3rd Cavalry Division, 1500 sabres. The 54th Turkish Division wasin reserve at Bireh with 2700 rifles. The enemy held a line coveringBethlehem across the Hebron road to Balua, then to the hill Kibryansouth-west of Beit Jala, whence the line proceeded due north to AinKarim and Deir Yesin, both of which were strongly entrenched, on tothe hill overlooking the Jerusalem road above Lifta. From thispoint the line crossed the road to the high ground west of BeitIksa--entrenchments were cut deep into the face of this hill to coverthe road from Kulonieh--thence northward again to the east of NebiSamwil, west of El Jib, Dreihemeh (one mile north-east of Beit Dukku)to Foka, Kh. Aberjan, and beyond Suffa. 

During the attack the Australian Mounted Division was to protect theleft flank of the 10th Division, which with one brigade of the 74thDivision was to hold the whole of the line in the hills from Tahtathrough Foka, Dukku, Beit Izza to Nebi Samwil, leaving the attack tobe conducted by two brigade groups of the 74th Division, the whole ofthe 60th Division, and two brigade groups of the 53rd Division, withthe 10th regiment of Australian Light Horse watching the right flankof the 60th Division until the left of the 53rd could join up withit. One brigade of the 53rd Division was to advance from theBethlehem-Beit Jala area with its left on the line drawn from Sherafatthrough Malhah to protect the 60th Division's flank, the other brigademarching direct on Jerusalem, and to move by roads south of thetown to a position covering Jerusalem from the east and north-east, but--and these were instructions specially impressed on thisbrigade--'the City of Jerusalem will not be entered, and all movementsby troops and vehicles will be restricted to roads passing outside theCity. ' The objective of the 60th and 74th Divisions was a general linefrom Ras et Tawil, a hill east of the Nablus road about four milesnorth of Jerusalem, to Nebi Samwil, one brigade of the 74th Divisionholding Nebi Samwil and Beit Izza defences and to form the pivot ofthe attack. The dividing line between the 60th and 74th Divisions wasthe Enab-Jerusalem road as far as Lifta and from that place to thewadi Beit Hannina. The form of the attack was uncertain until it wasknown how the enemy would meet the advance of the 53rd Division, which, on the 3rd December, was in a position north of Hebron withintwo ten-mile marches of the point at which it would co-operate onthe right of the 60th. If the enemy increased his strength south ofJerusalem to oppose the advance of the 53rd Division, General Chetwodeproposed that the 60th and 74th Divisions should force straightthrough to the Jerusalem-Nablus road, the 60th throwing out a flankto the south-east, so as to cut off the Turks opposing the 53rd fromeither the Nablus or the Jericho road. It was not considered probablethat the enemy would risk the capture of a large body of troops southof Jerusalem. On the other hand, should the Turks withdraw from infront of the Welsh Division, the alternative plan provided that thelatter attack should take the form of making a direct advance onJerusalem and a wheel by the 60th and 74th Divisions, pivoting onthe Beit Izza and Nebi Sainwil defences, so as to drive the enemynorthwards. The operations were to be divided into four phases. Thefirst phase fell to the 60th and 74th Divisions, and consisted in thecapture of the whole of the south-western and western defences ofJerusalem. 

These ran from a point near the railway south-west of Malhah round tothe west of Ain Karim, then on to the hill of Khurbet Subr, down acleft in the hills and up on to the high Deir Yesin ridge, thenceround the top of two other hills dominating the old and new roads toJerusalem from Jaffa as they pass by the village of Kulonieh. North ofthe new road the enemy's line ran round the southern face of a boldhill overlooking the village of Beit Iksa and along the tortuouscourse of the wadi El Abbeideh. In the second phase the 60th Divisionwas to move over the Jaffa-Jerusalem road with its right almost upto the scattered houses on the north-western fringe of Jerusalem'ssuburbs, and its left was to pass the village of Lifta on the slope ofthe hill rising from the wadi Beit Hannina. The objective of the 60thDivision in the third phase was the capture of a line of a trackleaving the Jerusalem-Nablus road well forward of the northern suburband running down to the wadi Hannina, the 74th Division advancing downthe spur running south-east from Nebi Samwil to a point about 1000yards south-west of Beit Hannina, the latter a prominent height with aslope amply clothed with olive trees. The fourth phase was an advanceastride the road to Ras et Tawil. As will be seen hereafter all theseobjectives were not obtained, but the first, and chief of them, was, and the inevitable followed--Jerusalem became ours. 

Let us now picture some of the country the troops had to cross and thedefences they had to capture before the Turks could be forced outof Jerusalem. We will first look at it from Enab, the ancientKir-jath-jearim, which the Somersets, Wilts, and Gurkhas had taken atthe point of the bayonet. From the top of Enab the Jaffa-Jerusalemroad winds down a deep valley, plentifully planted with olive and figtrees and watered by the wadi Ikbala. A splendid supply of waterhad been developed by Royal Engineers near the ruins of a Crusaderfortress which, if native tradition may be relied on, housed Richardof the Lion Heart. From the wadi rises a hill on which is Kustul, a village covering the site of an old Roman castle from which, doubtless, its name is derived. Kustul stands out the next boldestfeature to Nebi Samwil, and from it, when the atmosphere is clear, the red-tiled roofs of houses in the suburbs of Jerusalem are plainlyvisible. A dozen villages clinging like limpets to steep hillsides arebefore you, and away on your right front the tall spires of Christianchurches at Ain Karim tell you you are approaching the Holy Sites. Looking east the road falls, with many short zigzags in its length, toKulonieh, crosses the wadi Surar by a substantial bridge (which theTurks blew up), and then creeps up the hills in heavy gradients tillit is lost to view about Lifta. The wadi Surar winds round the foot ofthe hill which Kustul crowns, and on the other side of the watercoursethere rises the series of hills on which the Turks intended to holdour hands off Jerusalem. The descent from Kustul is very rapid and therise on the other side is almost as precipitous. On both sides of thewadi olive trees are thickly planted, and on the terraced slopes vinesyield a plentiful harvest. Big spurs run down to the wadi, the sidesare rough even in dry weather, but when the winter rains are fallingit is difficult to keep a foothold. South-west of Kustul is Soba, avillage on another high hill, and below it and west of Ain Karim, onlower ground, is Setaf, both having orchards and vineyards in whichthe inhabitants practise the arts of husbandry by the same methodsas their remote forefathers. An aerial reconnaissance nearly a yearbefore we took Jerusalem showed the Turks busily making trenches onthe hills east of the wadi Surar. An inspection of the defences provedthe work to have been long and arduous, though like many thingsthe Turk began he did not finish them. What he did do was doneelaborately. He employed masons to chisel the stone used forrevetting, and in places the stones fit well and truly one upon theother, while an enormous amount of rock must have been blasted toexcavate the trenches. The system adopted was to have three firetrenches near the top of the hills, one above the other, so that werethe first two lines taken the third would still offer a difficultobstacle, and, if the defenders were armed with bombs, it would behard for attackers to retain the trenches in front of them. There wasmuch dead ground below the entrenchments, but the defences were soarranged that cross fire from one system swept the dead ground on thenext spur, and, if the hills were properly held, an advance up themwould have been a stupendous task. The Turk had put all his eggs intoone basket. Perhaps he considered his positions impregnable--theywould have been practically impregnable in British hands--and he madeno attempt to cut support trenches behind the crest. There was onesystem only, and his failure to provide defences in depth cost himdear. 

Looking eastwards from Kustul, the Turkish positions south of theJaffa-Jerusalem road, each of them on a hill, were called by us the'Liver Redoubt' (near Lifta), the 'Heart Redoubt, ' 'Deir Yesin, ' and'Khurbet Subr, ' with the village of Ain Karim in a fold of the hillsand a line of trenches south-west of it running down to the railway. Against the 74th Division's front the nature of the country wasequally difficult. From Beit Surik down to the Kulonieh road the hillsfell sharply with the ground strewn with boulders. Our men had toadvance across ravines and beds of watercourses covered withlarge stones, and up the wooded slopes of hills where stone wallsconstituted ready-made sangars easily capable of defence. The hardestposition they had to tackle was the hill covering Beit Iksa, duenorth of the road as it issued from Kulonieh, where long semicirculartrenches had been cut to command at least half a mile of the mainroad. In front of the 53rd Division was an ideal rearguard countrywhere enterprising cavalry could have delayed an advance by infantryfor a lengthened period. To the south of Bethlehem, around Beit Jalaand near Urtas, covering the Pools of Solomon, an invaluable watersupply, there were prepared defences, but though the Division wasmuch delayed by heavy rain and dense mist, the fog was used to theiradvantage, for the whole of the Division's horses were watered atSolomon's Pools one afternoon without opposition from the Urtasgarrison. 

December 8 was the date fixed for the attack. On December 7 rainfell unceasingly. The roads, which had been drying, became a mass ofslippery mud to the west of Jerusalem, and on the Hebron side theWelsh troops had to trudge ankle deep through a soft limy surface. Itwas soon a most difficult task to move transport on the roads. Lorriesskidded, and double teams of horses could only make slow progress withlimbers. Off the road it became almost impossible to move. The groundwas a quagmire. On the sodden hills the troops bivouacked without astick to shelter them. The wind was strong and drove walls of waterbefore it, and there was not a man in the attacking force with a dryskin. Sleep on those perishing heights was quite out of the question, and on the day when it was hoped the men would get rest to preparethem for the morrow's fatigue the whole Army was shivering and awake. So bad were the conditions that the question was considered as towhether it would not be advisable to postpone the attack, but GeneralChetwode, than whom no general had a greater sympathy for his men, decided that as the 53rd Division were within striking distance by theenemy the attack must go forward on the date fixed. That night wascalculated to make the stoutest hearts faint. Men whose blood had beenthinned by summer heat in the desert were now called upon to endurelong hours of piercing cold, with their clothes wet through and wateroozing out of their boots as they stood, with equipment made doublyheavy by rain, caked with mud from steel helmet to heel, and thetoughened skin of old campaigners rendered sore by rain driven againstit with the force of a gale. Groups of men huddled together in theeffort to keep warm: a vain hope. And all welcomed the order to fallin preparatory to moving off in the darkness and mist to a battlewhich, perhaps more than any other in this war, stirred the emotionsof countless millions in the Old and New Worlds. Yet their spiritsremained the same. Nearly frozen, very tired, 'fed up' with theweather, as all of them were, they were always cheerful, and the manwho missed his footing and floundered in the mud regarded the incidentas light-heartedly as his fellows. An Army which could face the trialsof such a night with cheerfulness was unbeatable. One section of theforce did regard the prospects with rueful countenances. This was theDivisional artillery. Tractors, those wonderfully ugly but efficientengines which triumphed over most obstacles, had got the heavies intoposition. The 96th Heavy Group, consisting of three 6-inch howitzerbatteries, one complete 60-pounder battery, and a section of another60-pounder battery, and the Hong Kong and Singapore Mountain Battery, were attached to and up with the 74th Division. The 10 and B 9Mountain Batteries were with the 60th Division waiting to try theirluck down the hills, and the 91st Heavy Battery (60-pounders)was being hauled forward with the 53rd. The heavies could getin long-range fire from Kustul, but what thought the 18-pounderbatteries? With the country in such a deplorable state it lookedhopeless for them to expect to be in the show, and the prospect ofremaining out of the big thing had more effect upon the gunners thanthe weather. As a matter of fact but few field batteries managed toget into action. Those which succeeded in opening fire during theafternoon of December 8 did most gallant work for hours, with enemyriflemen shooting at them from close range, and their work formed aworthy part in the victory. The other field gunners could consolethemselves with the fact that the difficulties which were too greatfor them--and really field-gun fire on the steep slopes could not bevery effective--prevented even the mountain batteries, which can goalmost anywhere, from fully co-operating with the infantry. 

The preliminary moves for the attack were made during the night. The179th Infantry Brigade group consisting of 2/13th London, 2/14thLondon, 2/15th London, and 2/16th London with the 2/23rd Londonattached, the 10th Mountain Battery and B 9 Mountain Battery, asection of the 521st Field Coy. R. E. , C company of Loyal NorthLancashire Pioneers, and the 2/4th Field Ambulance specially equippedon an all-mule scale, moved to the wadi Surar in two columns. Theright column was preceded by an advance guard of the Kensingtonbattalion, the Loyal North Lancashire Pioneers, and the section ofR. E. , which left the brigade bivouacs behind Soba at five o'clockon the afternoon of the 7th to enable the pioneers and engineers toimprove a track marked on the map. For the greater part of the way thetrack had evidently been unused for many years, and all traces of ithad disappeared, but in three hours' time a way had been made down thehill to the wadi, and the brigade got over the watercourse just northof Setaf a little after midnight. As a preliminary to the attack onthe first objective it was necessary to secure the high ground southof Ain Karim and the trenches covering that bright and picturesquelittle town. At two o'clock, when rain and mist made it so dark it wasnot possible to see a wall a couple of yards ahead, the Kensingtonsadvanced to gain the heights south of Ain Karim in order to enablethe 179th Brigade to be deployed. A scrambling climb brought theKensingtons to the top of the hill, and, after a weird fight ofan hour and a half in such blackness of night that it was hard todistinguish between friend and foe, they captured it and beat offseveral persistent counter-attacks. The 179th Brigade thus had theground secured for preparing to attack their section of the maindefences. The 180th Infantry Brigade, whose brigadier, Brig. -GeneralWatson, had the honour of being the first general in Jerusalem, thefirst across the Jordan, and the first to get through the Turkish linein September 1918 when General Allenby sprang forward through theTurks and made the mighty march to Aleppo, was composed of the 2/17thLondon, 2/18th London, 2/19th London, and 2/20th London, 519th Coy. R. E. , two platoons of pioneers, and the 2/5th Field Ambulance. Itreached its position of assembly without serious opposition, though adetachment which went through the village of Kulonieh met some enemyposts. These, to use the brigadier's phrase, were 'silently dealtwith. '

It was a fine feat to get the two brigades of Londoners into theirpositions of deployment well up to time. The infantry had to get fromKustul down a precipitous slope of nearly a thousand feet into a wadi, now a rushing torrent, and up a rocky and almost as steep hill on theother side. Nobody could see where he was going, but direction waskept perfectly and silence was well maintained, the loosened stonesfalling into mud. The assault was launched at a quarter-past five, andin ten minutes under two hours the two brigades (the 181st Brigadebeing in reserve just south of Kustul) had penetrated the whole of thefront line of the defences. The Queen's Westminsters on the leftof the Kensingtons had cleared the Turks out of Ain Karim and thenclimbed up a steep spur to attack the formidable Khurbet Subrdefences. They took the garrison completely by surprise, and thosewho did not flee were either killed or taken prisoners. The Queen'sWestminsters were exposed to a heavy flanking fire at a range of abouta thousand yards from a tumulus south-east of Ain Karim, above theroad from the village to the western suburbs of Jerusalem. Turkishriflemen were firmly dug in on this spot, and their two machineguns poured in an annoying fire on the 179th Brigade troops whichthreatened to hold up the attack. Indeed preparations were being madeto send a company to take the tumulus hill in flank, but two gallantLondon Scots settled the activity of the enemy and captured theposition by themselves. Corporal C. W. Train and Corporal F. S. Thornhill stalked the garrison. Corporal Train fired a rifle grenadeat one machine gun, which he hit and put out of action, and then shotthe whole of the gun team. Thornhill was attacking the other gun, andhe, with the assistance of Train, accounted for that crew as well. Thetwo guns were captured and Tumulus Hill gave no more trouble. Boththese Scots were rewarded, and Train has the unique honour of wearingthe only V. C. Awarded during the capture of Jerusalem. 

At about the same time there was another very gallant piece of workbeing done by two men of the Queen's Westminsters above the KhurbetSubr ridge. When the battalion got to the first objective an enemybattery of 77's was found in action on the reverse slope of the hill. The guns were firing from a hollow near the Ain Karim-Jerusalem track, some 600 yards behind the forward trenches on Subr, and were showingan uncomfortable activity. A company was pushed forward to engage thebattery. The movement was exposed to a good deal of sniping fire, andit was not a simple matter for riflemen to work ahead on to a knoll onthe east of the Subr position to deal with the guns. To two men may begiven the credit for capturing the battery. Lance-Corporal W. H. Whinesof the Westminsters got along quickly and brought his Lewis gun tobear on the battery and, with an admirably directed fire, caused manycasualties. Two gun teams were wiped out, either killed or wounded, bythe corporal. At the same time Rifleman C. D. Smith, who had followedhis comrade, rushed in on another team and bombed it. Smith's riflehad been smashed and was useless, but with his bombs he laid low allexcept one man. His supply was then exhausted, but before the Turkcould use his weapons Smith got to grips and a rare wrestlingbout followed. The Turk would not surrender, and Smith gave him astranglehold and broke his neck. The enemy managed to get one of thefour guns away. The battery horses were near at hand, but while thisone gun was escaping at the gallop the Westminsters' fire broughtdown one horse and two drivers, and I saw their bodies on the road asevidence of how the Westminsters had developed the art of shooting ata rapidly moving target. The two incidents I have described in detailmerely as examples of the fighting prowess, not only of one but of allthree divisions alike in the capture of Jerusalem. Perhaps it wouldbe fairer to say that they were examples of the spirit of GeneralAllenby's whole force, for English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, cavalry, infantry, andartillery, had all, during the six weeks of the campaign, shown thesame high qualities in irresistible attack and stubborn defence. 

The position of the 179th Brigade at this time was about one mile eastof Ain Karim, where it was exposed to heavy enfilade fire from itsright and, as it was obvious that the advance of the 53rd Division hadbeen delayed owing to the fog and rain, the brigadier decided not togo further during the early part of the day but to wait till he couldbe supported by the mountain batteries, which the appalling state ofthe ground had prevented from keeping up with him. 

Now as to the advance of the 180th Infantry Brigade. Their principalobjective was the Deir Yesin position, the hill next on the northernside of Subr, from which it was separated by a deep though narrowvalley. The trenches cut on both sides of this gorge supported Subras well as Deir Yesin, and the Subr defences were also arranged to behelpful to the Deir Yesin garrison by taking attackers in flank. The180th Brigade's advance was a direct frontal attack on the hill, thejumping-off place being a narrow width of flat ground thickly plantedwith olive trees on the banks of the wadi Surar. The 2/19th Londons, the right battalion of the 180th Brigade, had not got far when itbecame the target of concentrated machine-gun fire and was unable tomove, with the result that a considerable gap existed between it andthe 179th Brigade. The stoppage was only temporary, for, with theadvance of the centre and right, the 19th battalion pushed forward inseries of rushes and, with the other battalions, carried the crest ofDeir Yesin at the point of the bayonet, so that the whole system ofentrenchments was in their hands by seven o'clock. The brigade at onceset about reorganising for the attack on the second objective, which, as will be remembered, was a wheel to the left and, passing well onthe outside of the western suburbs of Jerusalem, an advance to therocky ground to the north-west of the city down to the wadi BeitHannina. The commander of the 2/18th Londons in his preparationshad pushed out a platoon in advance of his left, and these men athalf-past nine saw 200 of the enemy with pack mules retiring down awadi north-east of Kulonieh. The platoon held its fire until the Turkswere within close range, and then engaged them with rifles and machineguns, completely surprising them and taking prisoners the whole of thesurvivors, 5 officers and 50 men. The Turks now began to develop aserious opposition to the 180th Brigade from a quarry behind DeirYesin and from a group of houses forming part of what is known as theSyrian colony, nearly a mile from the Deir Yesin system. There weresome Germans and a number of machine guns in these houses, and by noonthey held up the advance. 

The brigade was seriously handicapped by the difficulty in movingguns. The road during the morning had got into a desperate state. Itwas next to impossible to haul field guns anywhere off the road, andas the Turks had paid no attention to the highway for some time--orwhere they had done something it was merely to dump down large stonesto fill a particularly bad hole--it had become deeply rutted andcovered with a mass of adhesive mud. The guns had to pass down fromKustul by a series of zigzags with hairpin bends in full view of enemyobservers, and it was only by the greatest exertion and devotion toduty that the gunners got their teams into the neighbourhood ofthe wadi. The bridge over the Surar at Kulonieh having been whollydestroyed, they had to negotiate the wadi, which was now in torrentand carrying away the waters which had washed the face of the hillsover a wide area. The artillery made a track through a garden on theright of the village just before the road reached the broken bridge, and two batteries, the 301st and 302nd, got their guns and limbersacross. They went up the old track leading from Kulonieh to Jerusalem, when first one section and then another came into action at a spotbetween Deir Yesin and Heart Redoubt, where both batteries weresubjected to a close-range rifle fire. 

For several hours the artillery fought their guns with superb courage, and remained in action until the fire from the houses was silenced bya brilliant infantry attack. At half-past one General Watson decidedhe would attack the enemy on a ridge in front of the houses of theSyrian colony with the 18th and 19th battalions. With them were unitsof other battalions of the Brigade. Soon after three o'clock theyadvanced under heavy fire from guns, machine guns, and rifles, and ata quarter to four a glorious bayonet charge, during which the Londonboys went through Germans and Turks in one overwhelming stride, sealedthe fate of the Turk in Jerusalem. That bayonet charge was withinsight of the Corps Commander, who was with General Shea at hislook-out on Kustul, and when he saw the flash of steel driven homewith unerring certainty by his magnificent men, General Chetwode maywell have felt thankful that he had been given such troops with whichto deliver Jerusalem from the Turks. The 74th Division, having takenthe whole of its first objectives early in the morning and havingthroughout the day supported the left of the London Division, wasready to commence operations against the second objective. Thedismounted yeomanry, whose condition through the wet and mud wasprecisely similar to that of the 60th Division troops, for they, too, had found the hills barren of shelter and equally cold, did extremelywell in forcing the enemy from his stronghold on the hill coveringBeit Iksa and the Kulonieh-Jerusalem road, from which, had he not beenejected, he could have harassed the Londoners' left. The Beit Iksadefences were carried by a most determined rush. A gallant attempt wasalso made to get the El Burj ridge which runs south-east from NebiSamwil, but owing to strong enfilade fire from the right they couldnot get on. 

There was no doubt in any minds that Jerusalem would be ours, but thedifficulties the 53rd Division were contending with had slowed downtheir advance. Thus the right flank of the 60th Division was exposedand a considerable body of Turks was known to be south of Jerusalem. Late in the afternoon the advance was ordered to be stopped, and thepositions gained to be held. With a view to continuing the advancenext day the 181st Brigade (2/21st London, 2/22nd London, 2/23rdLondon, and 2/24th London) was ordered to get into a position ofreadiness to pass through the 179th Brigade and resume the attackon the right of the 180th Brigade. On the evening of December 8 theposition of the attacking force was this. The 53rd Division (I willdeal presently with the advance of this Division) was across theBethlehem-Hebron road from El Keiseraniyeh, two miles south ofBethlehem, to Ras el Balua in an east and west direction, thennorth-west to the hill of Haud Kibriyan with its flank thrown south tocover Kh. El Kuseir. The 10th Australian Light Horse were at Malhah. The 179th and 180th Brigades of the 60th Division occupied positionsextending from Malhah through a line more than a mile east of thecaptured defences west of Jerusalem to Lifta, with the 181st Brigadein divisional reserve near Kustul. The 229th and 230th Brigades of the74th Division held a due north and south line from the Jaffa-Jerusalemroad about midway between Kulonieh and Lifta through Beit Iksa to NebiSamwil. The 53rd Division had not reached their line without enormoustrouble. But for the two days' rain and fog it is quite possible thatthe whole of the four objectives planned by the XXth Corps would havebeen gained, and whether any substantial body of Turks could have leftthe vicinity of Jerusalem by either the Nablus or Jericho roads isdoubtful. The weather proved to be the Turks' ally. The 53rd Divisionbattled against it. Until fog came down to prevent reconnaissancein an extremely bad bit of country they were well up to their marchtable, and in the few clear moments of the afternoon of the 7th, General Mott, from the top of Ras esh Sherifeh, a hill 3237 feet high, the most prominent feature south of Jerusalem, caught a glimpse ofBethlehem and the Holy City. It was only a temporary break in theweather, and the fog came down again so thick that neither thepositions of the Bethlehem defences nor those of Beit Jala could bereconnoitred. 

The Division, after withstanding the repeated shocks of enemy attacksat Khuweilfeh immediately following the taking of Beersheba, had had acomparatively light time watching the Hebron road. They constructeda track over the mountains to get the Division to Dharahiyeh whenit should be ordered to take part in the attack on the Jerusalemdefences, and while they were waiting at Dilbeih they did much toimprove the main road. The famous zigzag on the steep ridge betweenDharahiyeh and Dilbeih was in good condition, and you saw Germanthoroughness in the gradients, in the well-banked bends, and in themasonry walls which held up the road where it had been cut in the sideof a hill. It was the most difficult part of the road, and theGermans had taken as much care of it as they would of a road in theFatherland--because it was the way by which they hoped to get to theSuez Canal. Other portions of the road required renewing, and thelabour which the Welshmen devoted to the work helped the feeding ofthe Division not only during the march to Jerusalem but for severalweeks after it had passed through it to the hills on the east andnorth-east. The rations and stores for this Division were carried bythe main railway through Shellal to Karm, were thence transported bylimber to a point on the Turks' line to Beersheba, which had beenrepaired but was without engines, were next hauled in trucks by muleson the railway track, and finally placed in lorries at Beershebafor carriage up the Hebron road. At this time the capacity of theLatron-Jerusalem road was taxed to the utmost, and every bit of theWelshmen's spadework was repaid a hundredfold. The 159th Brigade gotinto Hebron on the night of the 5th of December, but instead of goingnorth of it--if they had done so an enemy cavalry patrol would haveseen them--they set to work to repair the road through the oldBiblical town, for the enemy had blown holes in the highway. Next daythe infantry had a ten-miles' march and made the wadi Arab, a brigadebeing left in Hebron to watch that area, the natives of which werereported as not being wholly favourable to us. There were many riflesin the place, and a number of unarmed Turks were believed to be in therough country between the town and the Dead Sea ready to return totake up arms. Armoured cars also remained in Hebron. The infantry andfield artillery occupied the roads during the day, and the heavy gunscame along at night and joined the infantry as the latter were aboutto set off again. 

On the night of the 6th the Division got to a strong line unopposedand saw enemy cavalry on the southern end of Sherifeh, on which theTurks had constructed a powerful system of defences, the traverses andbreastworks of which were excellently made. In front of the hill theroad took a bend to the west, and the whole of the highway from thispoint was exposed to the ground in enemy hands south of Bethlehem, andit was necessary to make good the hills to the east before we couldcontrol this road. Next morning the 7th Cheshires, supported by the4th Welsh, deployed and advanced direct on Sherifeh and gained thesummit soon after dawn in time to see small parties of enemy cavalrymoving off; then the fog and rain enveloped everything. The 4th Welshheld the hill during the night in pouring rain with no rations--packmules could not get up the height--and the men having no greatcoatswere perished with the cold. Colonel Pemberton, their C. O. , came downto report the men all right, and asked for no relief till the morningwhen they could be brought back to their transport. The General wentbeyond Solomon's Pools and was within rifle fire from the Turkishtrenches in his efforts to reconnoitre, but it was impossible to seeahead, and instead of being able to begin his attack in the BeitJala-Bethlehem area on the morning of the 8th, that morning arrivedbefore any reconnaissance could be made. He decided to attack on thehigh ground of Beit Jala (two miles north-west of Bethlehem) from thesouth, to send his divisional cavalry, the Westminster Dragoons, onthe infantry's left to threaten Beit Jala from the west and to refuseBethlehem. 

Before developing this attack it was essential to drive the enemy offthe observation post looking down upon the main road along which theguns and troops had to pass. The fog enabled the guns to pass up theroad, although the Turks had seven mountain guns in the gardens of abig house south of Bethlehem and had registered the road to a yard. They also had a heavy gun outside the town. The weather cleared atintervals about noon, but about two o'clock a dense fog came downagain and once more the advance was held up. Late in the afternoon theWelsh Division troops reached the high ground west and south-west ofBeit Jala, but the defences of Bethlehem on the south had still to betaken. Advance guards were sent into Bethlehem and Beit Jala duringthe night, and by early morning of the 9th it was found that the enemyhad left, and the leading brigade pressed on, reaching Mar Elias, midway between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, by eleven o'clock, and thesouthern outskirts of Jerusalem an hour later. 

Meanwhile the 60th and 74th Divisions had actively patrolled theirfronts during the night, and the Turks having tasted the quality ofBritish bayonets made no attempt to recover any of the lost positions. We had outposts well up the road above Lifta, and at half-past eightthey saw a white flag approaching. The nearest officer was a commanderof the 302nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery, to whom the Mayor, thehead of the Husseiny family, descendants of the Prophet and hereditarymayors of Jerusalem, signified his desire to surrender the City. The Mayor was accompanied by the Chief of Police and two of thegendarmerie, and while communications were passing between GeneralShea, General Chetwode and General Headquarters, General Watson rodeas far as the Jaffa Gate of the Holy City to learn what was happeningin the town. I believe Major Montagu Cooke, one of the officers of the302nd Artillery Brigade, was the first officer actually in the town, and I understand that whilst he and his orderly were in the PostOffice a substantial body of Turks turned the corner outside thebuilding and passed down the Jericho road quite unconscious of thenear presence of a British officer. General Shea was deputed by theCommander-in-Chief to enter Jerusalem in order to accept the surrenderof the City. It was a simple little ceremony, lasting but a minuteor two, free from any display of strength, and a fitting prelude toGeneral Allenby's official entry. At half-past twelve General Shea, with his aide-de-camp and a guard of honour furnished by the 2/17thLondons, met the Mayor, who formally surrendered the City. To theChief of Police General Shea gave instructions for the maintenanceof order, and guards were placed over the public buildings. Then thecommander of the 60th Division left to continue the direction of histroops who were making the Holy City secure from Turkish attacks. Ibelieve the official report ran: 'Thus at 12. 30 the Holy City wassurrendered for the twenty-third time, and for the first time toBritish arms, and on this occasion without bloodshed among theinhabitants or damage to the buildings in the City itself. '

Simple as was the surrender of Jerusalem, there were scenes in thestreets during the short half-hour of General Shea's visit whichreflected the feeling of half the civilised world on receiving thenews. It was a world event. This deliverance of Jerusalem from Turkishmisgovernment was bound to stir the emotions of Christian, Jewish, andMoslem communities in the two hemispheres. In a war in which themoral effect of victories was only slightly less important than abig strategical triumph, Jerusalem was one of the strongest possiblepositions for the Allies to win, and it is not making too great aclaim to say that the capture of the Holy City by British arms gavemore satisfaction to countless millions of people than did the winningback for France of any big town on the Western Front. The latter mightbe more important from a military standpoint, but among the people, especially neutrals, it would be regarded merely as a passing incidentin the ebb and flow of the tide of war. Bagdad had an importantinfluence on the Eastern mind; Jerusalem affected Christian, Jew, andMoslem alike the world over. The War Cabinet regarded the taking ofJerusalem by British Imperial troops in so important a light thatorders were given to hold up correspondents' messages and anytelegrams the military attachés might write until the announcement ofthe victory had been made to the world by a Minister in the House ofCommons. This instruction was officially communicated to me before wetook Jerusalem, and I believe it was the case that the world receivedthe first news when the mouthpiece of the Government gave it tothe chosen representatives of the British people in the Mother ofParliaments. 

The end of Ottoman dominion over the cradle of Christianity, a placeheld in reverence by the vast majority of the peoples of the Old andNew World, made a deep and abiding impression, and as long as peoplehold dearly to their faiths, sentiment will make General Allenby'svictory one of the greatest triumphs of the war. The relief of thepeople of Jerusalem, as well as their confidence that we were thereto stay, manifested itself when General Shea drove into the City. Thenews had gone abroad that the General was to arrive about noon, andall Jerusalem came into the streets to welcome him. They clapped theirhands and raised shrill cries of delight in a babel of tongues. Women threw flowers into the car and spread palm leaves on the road. Scarcely had the Turks left, probably before they had all gone andwhile the guns were still banging outside the entrances to Jerusalem, stray pieces of bunting which had done duty on many another day werehung out to signify the popular pleasure at the end of an old, hard, extortionate regime and the beginning of an era of happiness andfreedom. 

After leaving Jerusalem the enemy took up a strong position on thehills north and north-east of the City from which he had to be drivenbefore Jerusalem was secure from counter-attack. During the morningGeneral Chetwode gave orders for a general advance to the line laiddown in his original plan of attack, which may be described as thepreliminary line for the defence of Jerusalem. The 180th and 181stBrigades were already on the move, and some of the 53rd Division hadmarched by the main road outside the Holy City's walls to positionsfrom which they were to attempt to drive the enemy off the Mount ofOlives. The 180th Brigade, fresh and strong but still wet and muddy, went forward rapidly over the boulders on the hills east of the wadiBeit Hannina and occupied the rugged height of Shafat at half-pastone. Shafat is about two miles north of Jerusalem. In anotherhalf-hour they had driven the Turks from the conical top of Tel elFul, that sugar-loaf hill which dominates the Nablus road, and whichbefore the end of the year was to be the scene of an epic strugglebetween Londoner and Turk. The 181st Brigade, on debouching fromthe suburbs of Jerusalem north-east of Lifta, was faced with heavymachine-gun and rifle fire on the ridge running from the western edgeof the Mount of Olives across the Nablus road through Kh. Es Salah. On the left the 180th Brigade lent support, and at four o'clock the2/21st and 2/24th Londons rushed the ridge with the bayonet and droveoff the Turks, who left seventy dead behind them. The London Divisionthat night established itself on the line from a point a thousandyards north of Jerusalem and east of the Nablus road through RasMeshari to Tel el Ful, thence westwards to the wadi behind theolive orchards south of Beit Hannina. The 74th Division reached itsobjective without violent opposition, and its line ran from north ofNebi Samwil to the height of Beit Hannina and out towards Tel elFul. The 53rd Division was strongly opposed when it got round thesouth-east of Jerusalem on to the Jericho road in the direction ofAziriyeh (Bethany), and it was necessary to clear the Turks from theMount of Olives. Troops of the Welsh Division moved round the HolyCity and drove the enemy off the Mount, following them down theeastern spurs, and thus denied them any direct observation overJerusalem. The next day they pushed the enemy still farther eastwards, and by the night of the 10th held the line from the well at Azad, 4000yards south-east of Jerusalem, the hill 1500 yards south of Aziriyeh, Aziriyeh itself, to the Mount of Olives, whence our positionscontinued to Ras et Tawil, north of Tel el Ful across the Nablus roadto Nebi Samwil. This was our first line of positions for the defenceof Jerusalem, and we continued to hold these strong points for sometime. They were gradually extended on the east and north-east by theWelsh Division in order to prevent an attack from the direction ofJericho, where we knew the Turks had received reinforcements. Indeed, during our attack on the Jerusalem position the Turks had withdrawn aportion of their force on the Hedjaz railway. A regiment had passedthrough Jericho from the Hedjaz line at Amman and was marching upthe road to assist in Jerusalem's defence, but was 'Too late. 'The regiment was turned back when we had captured Jerusalem. Ourcasualties from November 28 to December 10--these figures include theheavy fighting about Tahta, Foka, and Nebi Samwil prior to the XXthCorps' attack on the Jerusalem defences--were: officers, 21 killed, 64 wounded, 3 missing; other ranks, 247 killed, 1163 wounded, 169missing, a total of 1667. The casualties of the 60th Division duringthe attack on and advance north of Jerusalem on December 8-9 areinteresting, because they were so extremely light considering thestrength of the defences captured and the difficulties of the ground, namely: 8 officers killed and 24 wounded, 98 other ranks killed, 420wounded and 3 missing, a total of 553. The total for the whole of theXXth Corps on these days was 12 officers killed, 35 wounded, and 137other ranks killed, 636 wounded and 7 missing--in all 47 officers and780 other ranks. The prisoners taken from November 28 to December 10were: 76 officers, 1717 other ranks--total, 1793. On December 8 and 9, 68 officers and 918 other ranks--986 in all--were captured. Thebooty included two 4-2 Krupp howitzers, three 77-mm. Field guns andcarriages, nine heavy and three light machine guns, 137 boxes ofsmall-arms ammunition, and 103, 000 loose rounds. 

CHAPTER XV

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY

Jerusalem became supremely happy. 

It had passed through the trials, if not the perils, of war. It hadbeen the headquarters and base of a Turkish Army. Great bodiesof troops were never quartered there, but staffs and depôts wereestablished in the City, and being in complete control, the militarypaid little regard to the needs of the population. Unfortunately a notinconsiderable section of Jerusalem's inhabitants is content to live, not by its own handiwork, but on the gifts of charitable religiouspeople of all creeds. When war virtually shut off Jerusalem from theouter world the lot of the poor became precarious. The food of thecountry, just about sufficient for self-support, was to a large extentcommandeered for the troops, and while prices rose the poor could notbuy, and either their appeals did not reach the benevolent or fundswere intercepted. Deaths from starvation were numbered by thethousand, Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike suffering, and therewere few civilians in the Holy City who were not hungry for months ata time. 

When I reached Jerusalem the people were at the height of theirexcitement over the coming of the British and they put the best faceon their condition, but the freely expressed feeling of relief thatthe days of hunger torture were nearly past did not remove the signsof want and misery, of infinite suffering by father, mother, andchild, brought about by a long period of starvation. That a people, pale, thin, bent, whose movements had become listless under the lashof hunger, could have been stirred into enthusiasm by the appearanceof a khaki coat, that they could throw off the lethargy which comesof acute want, was only to be accounted for by the existence of aprofound belief that we had been sent to deliver them. Some hoursbefore the Official Entry I was walking in David Street when a Jewishwoman, seeing that I was English, stopped me and said: 'We have prayedfor this day. To-day I shall sing "God Save our Gracious King, LongLive our Noble King. " We have been starving, but what does thatmatter? Now we are liberated and free. ' She clasped her hands acrossher breasts and exclaimed several times, 'Oh how thankful we are. ' Anelderly man in a black robe, whose pinched pale face told of a longperiod of want, caught me by the hand and said: 'God has delivered us. Oh how happy we are. ' An American worker in a Red Crescent hospital, who had lived in Jerusalem for upwards of ten years and knew thepeople well, assured me there was not one person in the Holy City whoin his heart was not devoutly thankful for our victory. He told methat on the day we captured Nebi Samwil three wounded Arab officerswere brought to the hospital. One of them spoke English--it wasastonishing how many people could speak our mother tongue--andwhile he was having his wounds dressed he exclaimed: 'I can shoutHip-hip-hurrah for England now. ' The officer was advised to becareful, as there were many Turkish wounded in the hospital, but hereplied he did not care, and in unrestrained joy cried out, 'Hurrahfor England. '

The deplorable lot of the people had been made harder by profiteeringofficers. Those who had money had to part with it for Turkish paper. The Turkish note was depreciated to about one-fifth of its face value. German officers traded in the notes for gold, sent the notesto Germany where, by a financial arrangement concluded betweenConstantinople and Berlin, they were accepted at face value. TheGerman officer and soldier got richer the more they forced Turkishpaper down. Turkish officers bought considerable supplies of wheat andflour from military depôts, the cost being debited against their paywhich was paid in paper. They then sold the goods for gold. Thataccounted for the high prices of foodstuffs, the price in gold beingtaken for the market valuation. 

In the middle of November when there was a prospect of the Turksevacuating Jerusalem, the officers sold out their stocks of provisionsand prices became less prohibitive, but they rose again quickly whenit was decided to defend the City, and the cost of food mounted toalmost famine prices. The Turks by selling for gold that which wasbought for paper, rechanging gold for paper at their own prices, made huge profits and caused a heavy depreciation of the note at theexpense of the population. Grain was brought from the district east ofthe Dead Sea, but none of it found its way to civilian mouths exceptthrough the extortionate channel provided by officers. Yet when we gotinto Jerusalem there were people with small stocks of flour who werewilling to make flat loaves of unleavened bread for sale to ourtroops. The soldiers had been living for weeks on hard biscuit andbully beef, and many were willing to pay a shilling for a small cakeof bread. They did not know that the stock of flour in the town wasdesperately low and that by buying this bread they were almost takingit out of the mouths of the poor. Some traders were so keen on gettinggood money, not paper, that they tried to do business on this footing, looking to the British Army to come to the aid of the people. The Armysoon put a stop to this trade and the troops were prohibitedfrom buying bread in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As it was, theQuarter-master-General's branch had to send a large quantity offoodstuffs into the towns, and this was done at a time when it was amost anxious task to provision the troops. Those were very trying daysfor the supply and transport departments, and one wonders whetherthe civilian population ever realised the extent of the humanitarianefforts of our Army staff. 

During the period when no attempt was made to alleviate the lot of thepeople the Turks gave them a number of lessons in frightfulness. Therewere public executions to show the severity of military law. Gallowswere erected outside the Jaffa Gate and the victims were left hangingfor hours as a warning to the population. I have seen a photograph ofsix natives who suffered the penalty, with their executioners standingat the swinging feet of their victims. Before the first battle of Gazathe Turks brought the rich Mufti of Gaza and his son to Jerusalem, and the Mufti was hanged in the presence of a throng compulsorilyassembled to witness the execution. The son was shot. Their only crimewas that they were believed to have expressed approval of Britain'spolicy in dealing with Moslem races. Thus were the people terrorised. They knew the Turkish ideas of justice, and dared not talk of eventshappening in the town even in the seclusion of their homes. The evilsof war, as war is practised by the Turk, left a mark on Jerusalem'spopulation which will be indelible for this generation, despite thewondrous change our Army has wrought in the people. 

When General Allenby had broken through the Gaza line the Turks inJerusalem despaired of saving the City. That all the army papers werebrought from Hebron on November 10, shows that even at that date vonKress still imagined we would come up the Hebron road, though he hadlearnt to his cost that a mighty column was moving through the coastalsector and that our cavalry were cutting across the country to joinit. The notorious Enver reached Jerusalem from the north on November12 and went down to Hebron. On his return it was reported that theTurks would leave Jerusalem, the immediate sale of officers' stocks offoodstuffs giving colour to the rumour. Undoubtedly some preparationswere made to evacuate the place, but the temptation to hold on was toogreat. One can see the influence of the German mind in the Turkishcouncils of war. At a moment when they were flashing the wireless newsthroughout the world that their Caporetto victory meant the driving ofItaly out of the war they did not want the icy blast of Jerusalem'sfall to tell of disaster to their hopes in the East. Accordingly onthe 16th November a new decision was taken and Jerusalem was to bedefended to the last. German officers came hurrying south, lorrieswere rushed down with stores until there were six hundred German lorrydrivers and mechanics in Jerusalem. Reinforcements arrived and thehouses of the German Colony were turned into nests of machine guns. The pains the Germans were at to see their plans carried outwere reflected in the fighting when we tried to get across theJerusalem-Nablus road and to avoid fighting in the neighbourhoodof the Holy City. But all this effort availed them nought. Ourdispositions compelled the enemy to distribute his forces, and whenthe attack was launched the Turk lacked sufficient men to man hisdefences adequately. And German pretensions in the Holy Land, foundedupon years of scheming and the formation of settlements for Germancolonists approved and supported by the Kaiser himself, were shatteredbeyond hope of recovery, as similar pretensions had been shattered atBagdad by General Maude. The Turks had made their headquarters at theHospice of Notre Dame in Jerusalem, and, taking their cue from theHun, carried away all the furniture belonging to that French religiousinstitution. They had also deported some of the heads of religiousbodies. Falkenhayn wished that all Americans should be removed fromJerusalem, issuing an order to that effect a fortnight before weentered. Some members of the American colony had been running the RedCrescent hospital, and Turkish doctors who appreciated their good workinsisted that the Americans should remain. Their protest prevailed inmost cases, but just as we arrived several Americans were carried off. 

I have asked many men who were engaged in the fight for Jerusalem whattheir feelings were on getting their first glimpse of the central spotof Christendom. Some people imagine that the hard brutalities of warerase the softer elements of men's natures; that killing and the roughlife of campaigning, where one is familiarised with the tragedies oflife every hour of every day, where ease and comfort are forgottenthings, remove from the mind those earlier lessons of peace on earthand goodwill toward men. That is a fallacy. Every man or officer Ispoke to declared that he was seized with emotion when, looking fromthe shell-torn summit of Nebi Samwil, he saw the spires on the Mountof Olives; or when reconnoitring from Kustul he got a peep of the redroofs of the newer houses which surround the old City. Possibly only asmall percentage of the Army believed they were taking part in a greatmission, not a great proportion would claim to be really devout men, but they all behaved like Christian gentlemen. One Londoner told mehe had thought the scenes of war had made him callous and that theruthless destruction of those things fashioned by men's hands inprosecuting the arts of peace had prompted the feeling that there waslittle in civilisation after all, if civilisation could result in sobitter a thing as this awful fighting. Man seemed as barbaric as inthe days before the Saviour came to redeem the world, and whetherwe won or lost the war all hopes of a happier state of things werefutile. So this Cockney imagined that his condition showed noimprovement on that of the savage warrior of two thousand years ago, except in that civilisation had developed finer weapons to kill withand be killed by. The finer instincts had been blunted by the nakedand unashamed horrors of war. But the lessons taught him before warscourged the world came back to him on getting his first view of theHoly City. He felt that sense of emotion which makes one wish to bealone and think alone. He was on the ground where Sacred History wasmade, perhaps stood on the rock the Saviour's foot had trod. In thedeep stirring of his emotions the rougher edges of his nature becamerounded by feelings of sympathy and a belief that good would come outof the evil of this strife. That view of Jerusalem, and the knowledgeof what the Holy Sites stand for, made him a better man and a betterfighting man, and he had no doubt the first distant glimpse of theHoly City had similarly affected the bulk of the Army. That badlanguage is used by almost all troops in the field is notorious, but in Jerusalem one seldom heard an oath or an indecent word. WhenJerusalem was won and small parties of our soldiers were allowed tosee the Holy City, their politeness to the inhabitants, patriarch orpriest, trader or beggar, man or woman, rebuked the thought that theage of chivalry was past, while the reverent attitude involuntarilyadopted by every man when seeing the Sacred Places suggested that noCrusader Army or band of pilgrims ever came to the Holy Land under amore pious influence. Many times have I watched the troops of GeneralAllenby in the streets of Jerusalem. They bore themselves as soldiersand gentlemen, and if they had been selected to go there simply toimpress the people they could not have more worthily upheld the goodfame of their nation. These soldier missionaries of the Empire leftbehind them a record which will be remembered for generations. 

If it had been possible to consult the British people as to thedetails to be observed at the ceremony of the Official Entry intoJerusalem, the vast majority would surely have approved GeneralAllenby's programme. Americans tell us the British as a nation donot know how to advertise. Our part in the war generally proves theaccuracy of that statement, but the Official Entry into Jerusalem willstand out as one great exception. By omitting to make a greatparade of his victory--one may count elaborate ceremonial asadvertisement--General Allenby gave Britain her best advertisement. The simple, dignified, and, one may also justly say, humble order ofceremony was the creation of a truly British mind. To impress theinhabitant of the East things must be done on a lavish ostentatiousscale, for gold and glitter and tinsel go a long way to form anative's estimate of power. But there are times when the native isshrewd enough to realise that pomp and circumstance do not alwaysindicate strength, and that dignity is more powerful than display. Contrast the German Emperor's visit to Jerusalem with GeneralAllenby's Official Entry. The Kaiser brought a retinue clothed inwhite and red, and blue and gold, with richly caparisoned horses, and, like a true showman, he himself affected some articles of Arab dress. He rode into the Holy City--where One before had walked--and a widebreach was even made in those ancient walls for a German progress. Allthis to advertise the might and power of Germany. 

In parenthesis I may state we are going to restore those walls to thecondition they were in before German hands defiled them. The Generalwho by capturing Jerusalem helped us so powerfully to bring Germanyto her knees and humble her before the world, entered on foot by anancient way, the Jaffa Gate, called by the native 'Bab-el-Khalil, 'or the Friend. In this hallowed spot there was no great pageantry ofarms, no pomp and panoply, no display of the mighty strength of avictorious army, no thunderous salutes to acclaim a world-resoundingvictory destined to take its place in the chronicles of all time. There was no enemy flag to haul down and no flags were hoisted. Therewere no soldier shouts of triumph over a defeated foe, no bells inancient belfrys rang, no Te Deums were sung, and no preacher mountedthe rostrum to eulogise the victors or to point the moral to themultitude. A small, almost meagre procession, consisting of theCommander-in-Chief and his Staff, with a guard of honour, less than150 all told, passed through the gate unheralded by a single trumpetnote; a purely military act with a minimum of military display toldthe people that the old order had changed, yielding place to new. Thenative mind, keen, discerning, receptive, understood the meaning anddepth of this simplicity, and from the moment of high noon on December11, 1917, when General Allenby went into the Mount Zion quarter of theHoly City, the British name rested on a foundation as certain and sureas the rock on which the Holy City stands. Right down in the hearts ofa people who cling to Jerusalem with the deepest reverence and pietythere was unfeigned delight. They realised that four centuries ofOttoman dominion over the Holy City of Christians and Jews, and 'thesanctuary' of Mahomedans, had ended, and that Jerusalem the Golden, the central Site of Sacred History, was liberated for all creeds fromthe blighting influence of the Turk. And while war had wrought thisbeneficent change the population saw in this epoch-marking victory amerciful guiding Hand, for it had been achieved without so much as astone of the City being scratched or a particle of its ancient dustdisturbed. The Sacred Monuments and everything connected with theGreat Life and its teaching were passed on untouched by our Army. Rightly did the people rejoice. 

When General Allenby went into Jerusalem all fears had passed away. The Official Entry was made while there was considerable fighting onthe north and east of the City, where our lines were nowhere more than7000 yards off. The guns were firing, the sounds of bursts of musketrywere carried down on the wind, whilst droning aeroplane engines in thedeep-blue vault overhead told of our flying men denying a passage toenemy machines. The stern voices of war were there in all their harshdiscordancy, but the people knew they were safe in the keeping ofBritish soldiers and came out to make holiday. General Allenby motoredinto the suburbs of Jerusalem by the road from Latron which thepioneers had got into some sort of order. The business of war wasgoing on, and the General's car took its place on the highway on eventerms with the lorry, which at that time when supplying the front wasthe most urgent task and had priority on the roads. The people had puton gala raiment. From the outer fringe of Jerusalem the Jaffa road wasblocked not merely with the inhabitants of the City but with peoplewho had followed in the Army's wake from Bethlehem. It was apicturesque throng. There were sombre-clad Jews of all nationalities, Armenians, Greeks, Russians, and all the peoples who make Jerusalemthe most cosmopolitan of cities. To the many styles of European dressthe brighter robes of the East gave vivid colour, and it was obviousfrom the remarkably free and spontaneous expression of joy of thesepeople, who at the end of three years of war had such strong faith inour fight for freedom, that they recognised freedom was permanentlywon to all races and creeds by the victory at Jerusalem. The mostsignificant of all the signs was the attitude of Moslems. The Turkshad preached the Holy War, but they knew the hollowness of the cry, and the natives, abandoning their natural reserve, joined in loudexpression of welcome. From flat-topped roofs, balconies, and streetsthere were cries of 'Bravo!' and 'Hurrah!' uttered by men and womenwho probably never spoke the words before, and quite close to theJaffa Gate I saw three old Mahomedans clap their hands while tears ofjoy coursed down their cheeks. Their hearts were too full to utter aword. There could be no doubt of the sincerity of this enthusiasm. Thecrowd was more demonstrative than is usual with popular assemblies inthe East, but the note struck was not one of jubilation so much asof thankfulness at the relief from an insufferable bondage of badgovernment. Outside the Jaffa Gate was an Imperial guard of honourdrawn from men who had fought stoutly for the victory. In the BritishGuard of fifty of all ranks were English, Scottish, Irish, and Welshtroops, steel-helmeted and carrying the kit they had an hour or twoearlier brought with them from the front line. Opposite them werefifty dismounted men of the Australian Light Horse and New ZealandMounted Rifles, the Australians, under the command of CaptainThrossel, V. C. , being drawn from the 10th Light Horse regiment, whichhad been employed in the capture of Jerusalem on the right of theLondon Division. These Colonial troops had earned their place, forthey had done the work of the vanguard in the Sinai Desert, and theirvictories over the Turks on many a hard-won field in the torrid heatof summer had paved the way for this greater triumph. A French and anItalian guard of honour was posted inside the Jaffa Gate. As I havepreviously said, the Italians had held a portion of the line in frontof Gaza with a composite brigade, but the French troops had not yetbeen in action in Palestine, though their Navy had assisted with abattleship in the Gaza bombardment. We welcomed the participation ofthe representatives of our Allies in the Official Entry, as it showedto those of their nationality in Jerusalem that we were fightingthe battle of freedom for them all. Outside the Jaffa Gate theCommander-in-Chief was received by Major-General Borton, who hadbeen appointed Military Governor of the City, and a procession beingformed, General Allenby passed between the iron gates to within theCity walls. Preceded by two aides-de-camp the Commander-in-Chiefadvanced with the commander of the French Palestine detachment on hisright and the commander of the Italian Palestine detachment on hisleft. Four Staff officers followed. Then came Brigadier-GeneralClayton, Political Officer; M. Picot, head of the French Mission; andthe French, Italian, and United States Military Attachés. The Chiefof the General Staff (Major-General Sir L. J. Bols) and theBrigadier-General General Staff (Brigadier-General G. Dawnay) marchedslightly ahead of Lieutenant-General Sir Philip W. Chetwode, the XXthCorps Commander, and Brigadier-General Bartholomew, who was GeneralChetwode's B. G. G. S. The guard closed in behind. That was all. 

The procession came to a halt at the steps of El Kala, the Citadel, which visitors to Jerusalem will better remember as the entrance toDavid's Tower. Here the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff formed up onthe steps with the notables of the City behind them, to listen to thereading of the Proclamation in several languages. That Proclamation, telling the people they could pursue their lawful business withoutinterruption and promising that every sacred building, monument, holyspot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customaryplace of prayer of whatsoever form of three of the great religionsof mankind would be maintained and protected according to existingcustoms and beliefs to those to whose faiths they are sacred, madea deep impression on the populace. So you could judge from theexpressions on faces and the frequent murmurs of approval, and it wasinteresting to note how, when the procession was being re-formed, manyChristians, Jews, and Moslems broke away from the crowd to run andspread the good news in their respective quarters. How faithfully andwith what scrupulous care our promises have been kept the religiouscommunities of Jerusalem can tell. 

The procession next moved into the old Turkish barrack square lessthan a hundred yards away, where General Allenby received the notablesof the City and the heads of religious communities. The Mayor ofJerusalem, who unfortunately died of pneumonia a fortnight later, andthe Mufti, who, like the Mayor, was a member of a Mahomedan familywhich traces its descent back through many centuries, were presented, as were also the sheikhs in charge of the Mosque of Omar, 'the Tombof the Rock, ' and the Mosque of El Aksa, and Moslems belonging to theKhaldieh and Alamieh families. The Patriarchs of the Latin, GreekOrthodox, and Armenian Churches and the Coptic bishop had been removedfrom the Holy City by the Turks, but their representatives wereintroduced to the Commander-in-Chief, and so too were the heads ofJewish communities, the Syriac Church, the Greek Catholic Church, theAbyssinian bishop, and the representative of the Anglican Church. Anotable presentation was the Spanish Consul, who had been in charge ofthe interests of almost all countries at war, and whom General Allenbycongratulated upon being so busy a man. The presentations over, theCommander-in-Chief returned to the Jaffa Gate and left for advancedGeneral Headquarters, having been in the Holy City not more than aquarter of an hour. 

For succinctness it would be difficult to improve upon theCommander-in-Chief's own description of his Official Entry intoJerusalem. Cabling to London within two hours of that event, GeneralAllenby thus narrated the events of the day:

(1) At noon to-day I officially entered this City with a few of myStaff, the commanders of the French and Italian detachments, the headsof the Picot Mission, and the Military Attachés of France, Italy, andthe United States of America. 

The procession was all on foot. 

I was received by Guards representing England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, India, New Zealand, France, and Italy at the JaffaGate. 

(2) I was well received by the population. 

(3) The Holy Places have had Guards placed over them. 

(4) My Military Governor is in touch with the Acting Custos of Latins, and the Greek representative has been detailed to supervise ChristianHoly Places. 

(5) The Mosque of Omar and the area round it has been placed underMoslem control and a military cordon composed of Indian Mahomedanofficers and soldiers has been established round the Mosque. Ordershave been issued that without permission of the Military Governorand the Moslem in charge of the Mosque no non-Moslem is to pass thiscordon. 

(6) The Proclamation has been posted on the walls, and from the stepsof the Citadel was read in my presence to the population in Arabic, Hebrew, English, French, Italian, Greek, and Russian. 

(7) Guardians have been established at Bethlehem and on Rachel's Tomb. The Tomb of Hebron has been placed under exclusive Moslem control. 

(8) The hereditary custodians of the Wakfs at the Gates of the HolySepulchre have been requested to take up their accustomed duties inremembrance of the magnanimous act of the Caliph Omar who protectedthat Church. 

As a matter of historical interest I give in the Appendix the ordersissued on the occasion of the Official Entry into Jerusalem, the orderof General Allenby's procession into the Holy City for the reading ofthe Proclamation, together with the text of that historic document, and the special orders of the day issued by the Commander-in-Chief tohis troops after the capture of Jerusalem. [1]

[Footnote 1: See Appendix VII. ]

CHAPTER XVI

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE

General Allenby within two days of capturing Jerusalem had secured aline of high ground which formed an excellent defensive system, buthis XXth Corps Staff was busy with plans to extend the defences togive the Holy City safety from attack. Nothing could have had sodamaging an influence on our prestige in the East, which was growingstronger every day as the direct result of the immense success of theoperations in Palestine, as the recapture of Jerusalem by the Turks. We thought the wire-pulling of the German High Command would have itseffect in the war councils of Turkey, and seeing that the regaining ofthe prize would have such far-reaching effect on public opinion no onewas surprised that the Germans prevailed upon their ally to make theattempt. It was a hopeless failure. The attack came at a moment whenwe were ready to launch a scheme to secure a second and a third lineof defences for Jerusalem, and gallantly as the Turks fought--theydelivered thirteen powerful attacks against our line on the morningof December 27--the venture had a disastrous ending, and instead ofreaching Jerusalem the enemy had to yield to British arms seven milesof most valuable country and gave us, in place of one line, fourstrong lines for the defence of the Holy City. By supreme judgment, when the Turks had committed themselves to the attack on Tel el Ful, without which they could not move a yard on the Nablus road, GeneralChetwode started his operations on the left of his line with the 10thand 74th Divisions, using his plan as it had been prepared for somedays to seize successive lines of hills, and compelled the enemy, in order to meet this attack, to divert the fresh division held inwaiting at Bireh to throw forward into Jerusalem the moment thestorming troops should pierce our line. With the precision ofclockwork the Irish and dismounted yeomanry divisions secured theirobjectives, and on the second day of the fighting we regained theinitiative and compelled the Turks to conform to our dispositions. On the fourth day we were on the Ramallah-Bireh line and secured forJerusalem an impregnable defence. Prisoners told us that they had beenpromised, as a reward for their hoped-for success, a day in Jerusalemto do as they liked. We can imagine what the situation in the HolyCity would have been had our line been less true. The Londoners whohad won the City saved it. Probably only a few of the inhabitants hadany knowledge of the danger the City was in on December 27. Theirconfidence in the British troops had grown and could scarcely bestronger, but some of them were alarmed, and throughout the earlymorning and day they knelt on housetops earnestly praying that oursoldiers would have strength to withstand the Turkish onslaughts. Fromthat day onward the sound of the guns was less violent, and as ourartillery advanced northwards the people's misgivings vanished andthey reproached themselves for their fears. 

It will be remembered how the troops of the XXth Corps were disposed. The 53rd Division held the line south-east and east of Jerusalem fromBir Asad through Abu Dis, Bethany, to north of the Mount of Olives, whence the 60th Division took it up from Meshari, east of Shafat toTel el Ful and to Beit Hannina across the Jerusalem-Nablus road. The74th Division carried on to Nebi Samwil, Beit Izza to Beit Dukku, withthe 10th Division on their left through Foka, Tahta to Suffa, the gapbetween the XXth Corps to the right of the XXIst Corps being heldby the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade of the Australian MountedDivision. Against us were the 27th Turkish Division and the 7th and27th cavalry regiments south of the Jericho road, with the 26th, 53rd, 19th, and 24th Divisions on the north of that road and to the west ofthe Jerusalem-Nablus road, one division being in reserve at Bireh, thelatter a new division fresh from the Caucasus. The 6th and 8th Turkishcavalry regiments were facing our extreme left, the estimated strengthof the enemy in the line being 14, 700 rifles and 2300 sabres. Just asit was getting dark on December 11 a party of the enemy attacked the179th Brigade at Tel el Ful but were repulsed. There was not muchactivity the following day, but the 53rd Division began a series ofminor operations by which they secured some features of tacticalimportance. On the 13th the 181st Brigade made a dashing attack on Rasel Kharrabeh and secured it, taking 43 prisoners and two machine guns, with 31 casualties to themselves. 

It was about this time the Corps Commander framed plans for theadvance of our front north of Jerusalem. There had been a few days offine weather, and a great deal had been done to improve the conditionof the roads and communications. An army of Egyptian labourers hadset to work on the Enab-Jerusalem road and from the villages had comestrong reinforcements of natives, women as well as men (and the womendid quite as much work as the men), attracted by the unusual wagepayable in cash. In Jerusalem, too, the natives were sent to labour onthe roads and to clean up some of the filth that the Turks had allowedto accumulate for years, if not for generations, inside the Holy City. The Army not merely provided work for idle hands but enabled starvingbodies to be vitalised. Food was brought into Jerusalem, and with thecash wages old and young labourers could get more than a sufficiency. The native in the hills proved to be a good road repairer, and theboys and women showed an eagerness to earn their daily rates of pay;the men generally looked on and gave directions. It was some timebefore steam rollers crushed in the surface, but even rammed-in stoneswere better than mud, and the lorry drivers' tasks became lighter. 

General Chetwode's plan was to secure a line from Obeid, 9000 yardseast of Bethlehem, the hill of Zamby covering the Jericho road threemiles from Jerusalem, Anata, Hismeh, Jeba, Burkah, Beitun, El Balua, Kh. El Burj, Deir Ibzia to Shilta. The scheme was to strike with the53rd and 60th Divisions astride the Jerusalem-Nablus road, and at thesame time to push the 10th Division and a part of the 74th Divisioneastwards from the neighbourhood of Tahta and Foka. The weather againbecame bad on December 14 and the troops suffered great discomfortfrom heavy rains and violent, cold winds, so that only lightoperations were undertaken. On the 17th the West Kent and Sussexbattalions of the 160th Brigade stalked the high ground east of AbuDis at dawn, and at the cost of only 26 casualties took the ridge with5 officers and 121 other ranks prisoners, and buried 46 enemy dead. One battalion went up the hill on one side, while the Sussex crept upthe opposite side, the Turks being caught between two fires. The 53rdDivision also improved their position on the 21st December. As oneleaves Bethany and proceeds down the Jericho road one passes along asteep zigzag with several hairpin bends until one reaches a guardhousenear a well about a mile east of Bethany. The road still fallssmartly, following a straighter line close to a wadi bed, but hillsrise very steeply from the highway, and for its whole length untilit reaches the Jordan valley the road is always covered by high baremountains. Soon after leaving the zigzag there is a series of threehills to the north of the road. It was important to obtain possessionof two of these hills, the first called Zamby and the second named bythe Welsh troops 'Whitehill, ' from the bright limestone outcrop at thecrest. The 159th Brigade attacked and gained Zamby and then turnednearer the Jericho road to capture Whitehill. The Turks resisted verystoutly, and there was heavy fighting about the trenches just belowthe top of the hill. By noon the brigade had driven the enemy off, butthree determined counter-attacks were delivered that day and thenext and the brigade lost 180 killed and wounded. The Turks sufferedheavily in the counter-attacks and left over 50 dead behind them; alsoa few prisoners. At a later date there was further strong fightingaround this hill, and at one period it became impossible for eitherside to hold it. 

By the 21st there was a readjustment of the line on the assumptionthat the XXth Corps would attack the Turks on Christmas Day, the 53rdDivision taking over the line as far north as the wadi Anata, the 60thDivision extending its left to include Nebi Samwil, and the 74th goingas far west as Tahta. As a preliminary to the big movement the 180thBrigade was directed to move on Kh. Adaseh, a hill between Tel el Fuland Tawil, in the early hours of December 23, and the 181st Brigadewas to seize a height about half a mile north of Beit Hannina. Thelatter attack succeeded, but despite the most gallant and repeatedefforts the 180th Brigade was unable to gain the summit of Adaseh, though they got well up the hill. The weather became bad once more, and meteorological reports indicated no improvement in the conditionsfor at least twenty-four hours, and as the moving forward of artilleryand supplies was impossible in the rain, General Chetwode with theconcurrence of G. H. Q. Decided that the attack should not be made onChristmas Day. The 60th Division thereupon did not further prosecutetheir attack on Adaseh. On the 24th December, while General Chetwodewas conferring with his divisional commanders, information was broughtin that the Turks were making preparations to recapture Jerusalem byan attack on the 60th Division, and the Corps Commander decided thatthe moment the enemy was found to be fully committed to this attackthe 10th Division and one brigade of the 74th Division would fall onthe enemy's right and advance over the Zeitun, Kereina, and Ibziaridges. How well this plan worked out was shown before the beginningof the New Year, by which time we had secured a great depth of groundat a cost infinitely smaller than could have been expected if theTurks had remained on the defensive, while the Turkish losses, at amoment when they required to preserve every fighting man, were muchgreater than we could have hoped to inflict if they had not come intothe open. There was never a fear that the enemy would break through. We had commanding positions everywhere, and the more one studied ourline on the chain of far-flung hills the more clearly one realised theprevision and military skill of General Chetwode and the staff of theXXth Corps in preparing the plans for its capture before the advanceon Jerusalem was started. The 'fourth objective' of December 8-9 welland truly laid the foundations for Jerusalem's security, and relievedthe inhabitants from the accumulated burdens of more than three yearsof war. We had nibbled at pieces of ground to flatten out the linehere and there, but in the main the line the Turks assaulted was thatfourth objective. The Turks put all their hopes on their last card. Itwas trumped; and when we had won the trick there was not a soldier inGeneral Allenby's Army nor a civilian in the Holy City who had not aprofound belief in the coming downfall of the Turkish Empire. 

Troops in the line and in bivouac spent the most cheerless ChristmasDay within their memories. Not only in the storm-swept hills but onthe Plain the day was bitterly cold, and the gale carried with itheavy rain clouds which passed over the tops of mountains and rolledup the valleys in ceaseless succession, discharging hail and rain incopious quantities. The wadis became roaring, tearing torrents fed byhundreds of tributaries, and men who had sought shelter on the leeside of rocks often found water pouring over them in cascades. Thewhole country became a sea of mud, and the trials of many months ofdesert sand were grateful and comforting memories. Transport columnshad an unhappy time: the Hebron road was showing many signs ofwear, and it was a long journey for lorries from Beersheba when theretaining walls were giving way and a foot-deep layer of mud invited askid every yard. The Latron-Jerusalem road was better going, but thesoft metal laid down seemed to melt under the unceasing traffic in thewet, and in peace time this highway would have been voted unfitfor traffic. The worst piece of road, however, was also the mostimportant. The Nablus road where it leaves Jerusalem was wanted tosupply a vital point on our front. It could not be used during the daybecause it was under observation, and anything moving along it wasliberally dosed with shells. Nor could its deplorable condition beimproved by working parties. The ground was so soft on either side ofit that no gun, ammunition, or supply limber could leave the track, and whatever was required for man, or beast, or artillery had to becarried across the road in the pitch-black hours of night. Supplieswere only got up to the troops after infinite labour, yet no one wenthungry. Boxing Day was brighter, and there were hopes of a period ofbetter weather. During the morning there were indications that anenemy offensive was not far off, and these were confirmed about noonby information that the front north of Jerusalem would be attacked inthe night. General Chetwode thereupon ordered General Longley to starthis offensive on the left of the XXth Corps line at dawn next morning. Shortly before midnight the Turks began their operations against theline held by the 60th Division across the Nablus road precisely whereit had been expected. They attacked in considerable strength at Ras etTawil and about the quarries held by our outposts north of that hill, and the outposts were driven in. About the same time the 24th WelshRegiment--dismounted yeomanry--made the enemy realise that we were onthe alert, for they assaulted and captured a hill quite close to EtTireh, just forestalling an attack by a Turkish storming battalion, and beat off several determined counter-attacks, as a result of whichthe enemy left seventy killed with the bayonet and also some machineguns on the hill slopes. 

The night was dark and misty, and by half-past one the Turks haddeveloped a big attack against the whole of the 60th Division's front, the strongest effort being delivered on the line in front of Tel elFul, though there was also very violent fighting on the west of thewadi Ed Dunn, north of Beit Hannina. The Turks fought with desperatebravery. They had had no food for two days, and the commander of oneregiment told his men: 'There are no English in front of you. I havebeen watching the enemy lines for a long time; they are held byEgyptians, and I tell you there are no English there. You have only tocapture two hills and you can go straight into Jerusalem and get food. It is our last chance of getting Jerusalem, and if we fail we shallhave to go back. ' This officer gave emphatic orders that Britishwounded were not to be mutilated. Between half-past one and eight A. M. The Turks attacked in front of Tel el Ful eight times, each attackbeing stronger than the last. Tel el Ful is a conical hill coveredwith huge boulders, and on the top is a mass of rough stones andruined masonry. The Turks had registered well and severely shelled ourposition before making an assault, and they covered the advancewith machine guns. In one attack made just after daybreak the enemysucceeded in getting into a short length of line, but men of the2/15th Londons promptly organised a counter-attack and, advancingwith fine gallantry, though their ranks were thinned by a tremendousenfilade fire from artillery and machine guns, they regained thesangars. For several hours after eight o'clock this portion of theline was quieter, but the Turk was reorganising for a last effort. Avery brilliant defence had been made during the night of Beit Hanninaby the 2/24th Londons, which battalion was commanded by a captain, thecolonel and the majors being on the sick list. The two companiesin the line were attacked four times by superior numbers, the lastassault being delivered by more than five hundred men, but thedefenders stood like rocks, and though they had fifty per cent, of their number killed or wounded, and the Turks got close to thetrenches, the enemy were crushingly defeated. 

The morning lull was welcome. Our troops got some rest though theirvigilance was unrelaxed, and few imagined that the Turks had yet givenup the attempt to reach Jerusalem. We were ready to meet a fresheffort, but the strength with which it was delivered surprisedeverybody. The Turk, it seemed, was prepared to stake everything onhis last throw. He knew quite early on that morning that his CaucasusDivision could not carry out the role assigned to it. General Chetwodehad countered him by smashing in with his left with a beautifulweighty stroke precisely at the moment when the Turk had compromisedhimself elsewhere, and instead of being able to put in his reserves tosupport his main attack the enemy had to divert them to stave off anadvance which, if unhindered, would threaten the vital communicationsof the attackers north of Jerusalem. 

It was a remarkable situation, but all the finesse in the art of warwas on one side. Every message the Turkish Commander received from hisright must have reported progress against him. Each signal from theJerusalem front must have been equally bitter, summing up want ofprogress and heavy losses. With us, Time was a secondary factor; withthe Turk, Time was the whole essence of the business, so he pledgedhis all on one tremendous final effort. It was almost one o'clock whenit started, and it was made against the whole front of our XXth Corps. It was certainly made in unexpected strength and with a couragebeyond praise. The Turk threw himself forward to the assault with theviolence of despair, and his impetuous onrush enabled him to get intosome small elements of our front line; but counter-attacks immediatelyorganised drove him out. Over the greater portion of the front theadvance was stopped dead, but in some places the enemy tried awhirlwind rush and used bomb against bomb. He had met his match. 

The 60th Division which bore the brunt of the onslaught, as it wasbound to do from its position astride the main road, was absolutelyunbreakable, and at Tel el Ful there lay a dead Turk for every yardof its front. The enemy drew off, but to save the remnants of hisstorming troops kept our positions from near Ras et Tawil, Tel el Fulto the wadi Beit Hannina under heavy gunfire for the rest of the day. The Turk was hopelessly beaten, his defeat irretrievable. He haddelivered thirteen costly attacks, and his sole gains were the exposedoutpost positions at the Tawil and the quarries. All his reserves hadbeen vigorously engaged, while at two o'clock in the afternoon GeneralChetwode had in reserve nineteen battalions less one company stillunused, and the care exercised in keeping this large body of troopsfresh for following up the Turkish defeat undoubtedly contributedto the great success of the advances on the next three days. Simultaneously with their attack on the 60th Division positions theTurks put in a weighty effort to oust the 53rd Division from thepositions they held north and south of the Jericho road. Whether intheir wildest dreams they imagined they could enter Jerusalem by thisroute is doubtful, but if they had succeeded in driving in our line onthe north they would have put the 53rd Division in a perilous positionon the east with only one avenue of escape. The Turks concentratedtheir efforts on Whitehill and Zamby. A great fight raged round theformer height and we were driven off it, but the divisional artilleryso sprinkled the crest with shell that the Turk could not occupy it, and it became No Man's Land until the early evening when the 7th RoyalWelsh Fusiliers recaptured and held it. The contest for Zamby lastedall day, and for a long time it was a battle of bombs and machineguns, so closely together were the fighting men, but the Turks nevergot up to our sangars and were finally driven off with heavy loss, over 100 dead being left on the hill. The Turkish ambulances were seenhard at work on the Jericho road throughout the day. There was a stoutdefence of a detached post at Ibn Obeid. A company of the 2/10thMiddlesex Regiment had been sent on to Obeid, about five miles eastof Bethlehem, to watch for the enemy moving about the rough tracksin that bare and broken country which falls away in jagged hills andsinuous valleys to the Dead Sea. The little garrison, whose soleshelter was a ruined monastic building on the hill, were attacked atdawn by 700 Turkish cavalry supported by mountain guns. The garrisonstood fast all day though practically surrounded, and every attack wasbeaten off. The Turks tried again and again to secure the hill, whichcommands a track to Bethlehem, but, although they fired 400 shellsat the position, they could not enter it, and a battalion sent up torelieve the Middlesex men next morning found that the company haddriven the enemy off, its casualties having amounted to only 2 killedand 17 wounded. Thus did the 'Die Hards' live up to the traditions ofthe regiment. 

Having dealt with the failure of the Turkish attacks against the 60thand 53rd Divisions in front of Jerusalem, let us change our view pointand focus attention on the left sector of XXth Corps, where the enemywas feeling the full power of the Corps at a time when he most wishedto avoid it. General Longley had organised his attacking columns inthree groups. On the right the 229th Brigade of the 74th Division wasset the task of moving from the wadi Imeish to secure the high groundof Bir esh Shafa overlooking Beitunia; the 31st Brigade, starting fromnear Tahta, attacked north of the wadi Sunt, to drive the enemy from aline from Jeriut through Hafy to the west of the olive orchardsnear Ain Arik; while the left group, composed of the 29th and 30thBrigades, aimed at getting Shabuny across the wadi Sad, and SheikhAbdallah where they would have the Australian Mounted Division ontheir left. The advance started from the left of the line. The29th Brigade leading, with the 30th Brigade in support, left theirpositions of deployment at six o'clock, by which time the Turk had hadmore than he had bargained for north and east of Jerusalem. The 1stLeinsters and 5th Connaught Rangers found the enemy in a stubborn moodwest of Deir Ibzia, but they broke down the opposition in the properIrish style and rapidly reached their objectives. The centre groupstarted one hour after the left and got their line without muchdifficulty. The right group was hotly opposed. Beginning their advanceat eight o'clock the 229th Brigade had reached the western edge of thefamous Zeitun ridge in an hour, but from this time onwards they wereexposed to incessant artillery and machine-gun fire, and the forwardmovement became very slow. In five hours small parties had workedalong the ridge for about half its length, fighting every yard, and itwas not until the approach of dusk that we once more got control ofthe whole ridge. It was appropriate that dismounted yeomen should gainthis important tactical point which several weeks previously had beenwon and lost by their comrades of the Yeomanry Mounted Division. Descending from the ridge the brigade gave the Turk little chance tostand, and with a bayonet charge they reached the day's objectivein the dark. At two o'clock, when the Turks' final effort againstJerusalem had just failed, the 60th and 74th Divisions both sentin the good news that the Turkish commander was moving his reservedivision from Bireh westwards to meet the attack from our left. Airmenconfirmed this immediately, and it was now obvious that GeneralChetwode's tactics had compelled the enemy to conform to his movementsand that we had regained the initiative. At about ten o'clock the 24thRoyal Welsh Fusiliers of the 231st Brigade captured Kh. Ed Dreihemehon the old Roman road a mile east of Tireh, and at eleven o'clockadvanced to the assault of hill 2450, a little farther eastward. Theygained the crest, but the enemy had a big force in the neighbourhoodand counter-attacked, forcing the Welshmen to withdraw some distancedown the western slope. They held this ground till 4. 30 when our gunsheavily bombarded the summit, under cover of which fire the infantrymade another attack. This was also unsuccessful owing to the intensevolume of fire from machine guns. The hill was won, however, nextmorning. 

The night of December 27-28 was without incident. The Turk had stakedand lost, and he spent the night in making new dispositions to meetwhat he must have realised was being prepared for him on the followingday. 

It is doubtful whether there was a more successful day for our Army inthe Palestine campaign than December 27. The portion of our line whichwas on the defensive had stood an absolutely unmovable wall, againstwhich the enemy had battered himself to pieces. Our left, or attackingsector, had gained all their objectives against strong opposition ina most difficult country, and had drawn against them the very troopsheld in reserve for the main attack on Jerusalem. The physical powersof some of our attacking troops were tried highly. One positioncaptured by the 229th Brigade was a particularly bad hill. Theslope up which the infantry had to advance was a series of almostperpendicular terraces, and the riflemen could only make the ascent byclimbing up each others' backs. When dismounted yeomen secured anotherhill some men carrying up supplies took two hours to walk from thebase of the hill to the summit. The trials of the infantry were sharedby the artillery. What surprises every one who has been over the routetaken by the 10th and 74th Divisions is that any guns except thosewith the mountain batteries were able to get into action. The roadwork of engineers and the 5th Royal Irish Regiment (Pioneers) wasmagnificent, and they made a way where none seemed possible; butthough these roadmakers put their backs into their tasks, it was onlyby the untiring energies of the gunners and drivers that artillery wasgot up to support the infantry. The guns were brought into action wellahead of the roads, and were man-hauled for considerable distances. Two howitzers and one field gun were kept up with the infantry on thefirst day of the advance where no horses could get a foothold, and themanner in which the gunners hauled the guns through deep ravinesand up seemingly unclimbable hills constituted a wonderful physicalachievement. The artillery were called upon to continue their arduouswork on the 28th and 29th under conditions of ground which were evenmore appalling than those met with on the 27th. The whole country wasdevoid of any road better than a goat track, and the ravines becamedeeper and the hills more precipitous. In some places, particularlyon the 10th Division front, the infantry went forward at a remarkablepace; but guns moved up with them, and by keeping down the fire ofmachine guns dotted about on every hill, performed services whichearned the riflemen's warm praise. The 9th and 10th Mountain Batterieswere attached to the 10th Division, but field and howitzer batterieswere also well up. On the 28th the 53rd Division bit farther into theenemy's line in order to cover the right of the 60th Division, whichwas to continue its advance up the Nablus road towards Bireh. The158th Brigade captured Anata, and after fighting all day the 1/7thRoyal Welsh Fusiliers secured Ras Urkub es Suffa, a forbidding-lookingheight towering above the storm-rent sides of the wadi Ruabeh. The1/1st Herefords after dark took Kh. Almit. 

In front of the 60th Division the Turks were still holding some strongpositions from which they should have been able seriously to delaythe Londoners' advance had it not been for the threat to theircommunications by the pressure by the 10th and 74th Divisions. TheLondoners had previously tested the strength of Adaseh, and had foundit an extremely troublesome hill. They went for it again--the 179thBrigade this time--and after a several hours' struggle took it atdusk. Meanwhile the 181st Brigade had taken the lofty villages of BirNebala and El Jib, and after Adaseh became ours the Division wentahead in the dark and got to the line across the Nablus road from ErRam to Rafat, capturing some prisoners. The 74th Division also madesplendid progress. In the early hours the Division, with the 24thRoyal Welsh Fusiliers and the 24th Welsh Regiment attached, securedJufeir and resumed their main advance in the afternoon, the 230th and231st Brigades cooperating with the 229th Brigade which was under theorders of the 10th Division. Before dark they had advanced their linefrom the left of the 60th Division in Rafat past the east of Beituniato the hill east of Abu el Ainein, and this strong line of hillsonce secured, everybody was satisfied that the Turks' possession ofRamallah and Bireh was only a question of hours. Part of this line hadbeen won by the 10th Division, which began its advance before noon inthe same battle formation as on the 27th. Soon after the three groupsstarted the heavy artillery put down a fierce fire on the finalobjectives, and before three o'clock the Turks were seen to beevacuating Kefr Skyan, Ainein, and Rubin. The enemy put up a stoutfight at Beitunia and on a hill several hundred yards north-west ofthe village, but the 229th Brigade had good artillery and machine-gunassistance, and got both places before four o'clock, capturing seventyprisoners, including the commander of the garrison, and a number ofmachine guns. The left group was hotly opposed from a hill a mile westof Rubin and from a high position south-west of Ainein. The nature ofthe ground was entirely favourable to defence and for a time the Turktook full advantage of it, but our artillery soon made him lose hisstomach for fighting, and doubtless the sound of many shell-burstsbeyond Ramallah made him think that his rock sangars and the deepravines in front of him were not protection against a foe who foughtNature with as much determination as he fought the Turkish soldier. Six-inch howitzers of the 378th Siege Battery had been brought up toFoka in the early hours, and all the afternoon and evening theywere plastering the road from Ramallah along which the enemy wereretreating. The left group defied the nests of machine guns hiddenamong the rocks and broke down the defence. The centre group had beendelayed by the opposition encountered by the left, but they took Skyanat six o'clock and all of the objectives for one day were in our handsby the early evening. An advance along the whole front was ordered tobegin at six o'clock on December 29. On his right flank the enemy waswilling to concede ground, and the 159th Brigade occupied Hismeh, Jeba, and the ridges to the north-west to protect the flank of the60th Division. The 53rd Division buried 271 enemy dead on their frontas the result of three days' fighting. The 181st Brigade made a rapidadvance up the Nablus road until they were close to Bireh and Tahunah, a high rocky hill just to the north-west of the village. The Turks hadmany machine guns and a strong force of riflemen in these places, andit was impossible for infantry to advance against them over exposedground without artillery support. The 303rd Field Artillery Brigadewas supporting the brigade, and they were to move up a track fromKullundia while the foot-sloggers used the high road, but the trackwas found impassable for wheels and the guns had to be brought to theroad. The attack was postponed till the guns were in position. Thegunners came into action at half-past two, and infantry moved to theleft to get on to the Ramallah-Bireh metalled road which runs at rightangles to the trunk road between Nablus and Jerusalem. The 2/22ndand the 2/23rd Londons, working across the road, reached the Tahunahridge, and after a heavy bombardment dashed into the Turkishpositions, which were defended most stubbornly to the end, and thuswon the last remaining hill which commanded our advance up the Nablusroad as far as Bireh. On the eastern side of the main highway the180th Brigade had once more done sterling service. There is a boldeminence called Shab Saleh, a mile due south of Bireh. It rises almostsheer from a piece of comparatively flat ground, and the enemy held itin strength. The 2/19th and the 2/20th Londons attacked this feature, and displaying great gallantry in face of much machine-gun fire seizedit at half-past three. Once again the gunners supported the infantryadmirably. The 2/17th and 2/18th Londons pushed past Saleh in anorth-easterly direction and, leaving Bireh on their left, got intoextremely bad country and took the Turks by surprise on a wooded ridgeat Sheikh Sheiban. The two brigades rested and refreshed for a coupleof hours and then advanced once more, and by midnight they had routedthe Turks out of another series of hills and were in firm possessionof the line from Beitin, across the Nablus road north of the BaluaLake, to the ridge of El Burj, having carried through everything whichhad been planned for the Division. 

Ramallah had been taken at nine o'clock in the morning withoutopposition by the 230th and 229th Brigades, and at night the 74thDivision held a strong line north of the picturesque village as far asEt Tireh. The 10th Division also occupied the Tireh ridge quiteearly in the day, and one of their field batteries and both mountainbatteries got within long range of the Nablus road, and not onlyassisted in shelling the enemy in Bireh but harassed with a hot fireany bodies of men or transport seen retreating northwards. The FlyingCorps, too, caused the Turks many losses on the road. The airmenbombed the enemy from a low altitude and also machine-gunned them, andmoreover by their timely information gave great assistance duringthe operations. By the 30th December all organised resistance to ouradvance had ceased and the XXth Corps consolidated its line, the 60thDivision going forward slightly to improve its position and the otherdivisions rearranging their own. The consolidation of the line was notan easy matter. It had to be very thoroughly and rapidly done. Thesupply difficulty compelled the holding of the line with as few troopsas possible, and when it had been won it was necessary to put it in aproper order in a minimum of time, and to bring back a considerablenumber of the troops who had been engaged in the fighting to holdthe grand defensive chain which made Jerusalem absolutely safe. Thestandard gauge railway was still a long way from Ramleh, and therailway construction parties had to fight against bad weather andwashouts. The Turkish line from Ramleh to Jerusalem was in bad order;a number of bridges were down, so that it was not likely the railwaycould be working for several weeks. Lorries could supply the troops inthe neighbourhood of the Nablus road, though the highway wasgetting into bad condition, but in the right centre of the line thedifficulties of terrain were appalling. The enemy had had a painfulexperience of it and was not likely to wish to fight in that countryagain; consequently it was decided to hold this part of the line withlight forces. 

In this description of the operations I have made little mention ofthe work of the Australian Mounted Division which covered the gapbetween XXth and XXIst Corps. These Australian horsemen and yeomanryguarded an extended front in inaccessible country, and every man inthe Division will long remember the troubles of supply in the hills. They had some stiff fighting against a wily enemy, and not for aminute could they relax their vigilance. When, with the Turks' fataleffort to retake Jerusalem, the 10th Division changed their frontand attacked in a north-easterly direction, the Australian MountedDivision moved with it, and they found the country as they progressedbecome more rugged and bleak and extremely difficult for mountedtroops. The Division was in the fighting line for the whole month ofDecember, and when they handed over the new positions they had reachedto the infantry on the last day of the year, their horses fully neededthe lengthened period of rest allotted to them. 

CHAPTER XVII

A GREAT FEAT OF WAR

From the story of how Jerusalem was made secure (for we may hope theclamour of war has echoed for the last time about her Holy Shrines andvenerable walls) we may turn back to the coastal sector and see howthe XXIst Corps improved a rather dangerous situation and laid thefoundations for the biggest break-through of the world struggle. Forit was the preparations in this area which made possible GeneralAllenby's tremendous gallop through Northern Palestine and Syria, and gave the Allies Haifa, Beyrout, and Tripoli on the seaboard, andNazareth, Damascus, and Aleppo in the interior. The foundations weresoundly laid when the XXIst Corps crossed the Auja before Christmas1917, and the superstructure of the victory which put Turkey aswell as Bulgaria and Austria out of the war was built up with manydifficulties from the sure base provided by the XXIst Corps line. Thecrossing of the Auja was a great feat of war, and this is the firsttime I am able to mention the names of those to whom the credit of theoperation is due. It was one of the strange regulations of the ArmyCouncil in connection with the censorship that no names of thecommanders of army corps, divisions, brigades, or battalions should bementioned by correspondents. Nor indeed was I permitted to identifyin my despatches any particular division, yet the divisionsconcerned--the 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 60th, and so on--had often beenmentioned in official despatches; the enemy not only knew they were inPalestine but were fully aware of their positions in the line; theircommanders and brigadiers were known by name to the Turks. On theother hand, in describing a certain battle I was allowed to speak ofdivisions of Lowland troops, Welshmen and Londoners, allusions whichwould convey (if there were anything to give away) precisely as muchinformation to the dull old Turk and his sharper Hun companion inarms as though the 52nd, 53rd, and 60th Divisions had been explicitlydesignated. This practice seemed in effect to be designed more withthe object of keeping our people at home in the dark, of forbiddingthem glory in the deeds of their children and brothers, than ofpreventing information reaching the enemy. Some gentleman enthroned inthe authority of an official armchair said 'No, ' and there was anend of it. You could not get beyond him. His decision was final, complete--and silly--and the correspondent was bound hand and foot byit. Doubtless he would have liked one to plead on the knee for somelittle relaxation of his decision. Then he would have answered 'No'in a louder tone. Let me give one example from a number entered inmy notebooks of how officers at home exercised their authority. In January 1917 the military railway from the Suez Canal had beenconstructed across the Sinai Desert and the first train was run intoEl Arish, about ninety miles from the Canal. I was asked by GeneralHeadquarters to send a cablegram to London announcing the fact thatrailhead was at El Arish, the town having been captured a fortnightpreviously after a fine night march. That message was never published, and I knew it was a waste of time to ask the reason. I happened to bein London for a few days in the following August and my duties took meto the War Office. A Colonel in the Intelligence Branch heard I wasthere and sent for me to tell me I had sent home information of valueto the enemy. I reminded him there was a G. H. Q. Censorship in Egyptwhich dealt with my cablegrams, and asked the nature of the valuableinformation which should have been concealed. 'You sent a telegramthat the railway had reached El Arish when the Turks did not know itwas beyond Bir el Abd. ' Abd is fifty miles nearer the Suez Canal thanEl Arish. What did this officer care about a request made by G. H. Q. Totransmit information to the British public? He knew better than G. H. Q. What the British public should know, and he was certain the enemythought we were hauling supplies through those fifty miles of sandto our troops at El Arish, an absolutely physical impossibility, forthere were not enough camels in the East to do it. But he did notknow, and he should have known, being an Intelligence officer, thatthe Turks were so far aware of where our railhead was that they werefrequently bombing it from the air. I had been in these bombing raidsand knew how accurately the German airmen dropped their eggs, and hadthis Intelligence officer taken the trouble to inquire he would havefound that between thirty and forty casualties were inflicted by onebomb at El Arish itself when railhead was being constructed. Thiscritic imagined that the Turk knew only what the English papers toldhim. If the Turks' knowledge had been confined to what the War OfficeIntelligence Branch gave him credit for he would have been in aparlous state. While this ruling of the authorities at home prevailedit was impossible for me to give the names of officers or to mentiondivisions or units which were doing exceptionally meritorious work. Unfortunately the bureaucratic interdict continued till within afew days of the end of the campaign, when I was told that, 'havingfrequently referred to the work of the Australians, which wasdeserved, ' the mention of British and Indian units would be welcomed. We had to wait until within a month of the end of the world war beforethe War Office would unbend and realise the value of the best kindof propaganda. No wonder our American friends consider us the worstnational advertisers in the world. 

The officer who was mainly responsible for the success of the Aujacrossing was Major-General J. Hill, D. S. O. , A. D. C. , commanding the52nd Division. His plan was agreed to by General Bulfin, although theCorps Commander had doubts about the possibility of its success, andhad his own scheme ready to be put into instant operation if GeneralHill's failed. In the state of the weather General Hill's ownbrigadiers were not sanguine, and they were the most loyal and devotedofficers a divisional commander ever had. But despite the mostunfavourable conditions, calling for heroic measures on the part ofofficers and men alike to gain their objectives through mud and waterand over ground that was as bad as it could be, the movements of thetroops worked to the clock. One brigade's movements synchronised withthose of another, and the river was crossed, commanding positions wereseized, and bridges were built with an astoundingly small loss toourselves. The Lowland Scots worked as if at sport, and they could nothave worked longer or stronger if the whole honour of Scotland haddepended upon their efforts. At a later date, when digging at Arsuf, these Scots came across some marble columns which had graced a hallwhen Apollonia was in its heyday. The glory of Apollonia has longvanished, but if in that age of warriors there had been a beliefthat those marble columns would some day be raised as monuments tocommemorate a great operation of war the ancients would have had aspecial veneration for them. Three of the columns marked the spotswhere the Scots spanned the river, and it is a pity they cannot tellthe full story to succeeding generations. 

The river Auja is a perennial stream emptying itself into the blueMediterranean waters four miles north of Jaffa. Its average width isforty yards and its depth ten feet, with a current running at aboutthree miles an hour. Till we crossed it the river was the boundarybetween the British and Turkish armies in this sector, and all theadvantage of observation was on the northern bank. From it the town ofJaffa and its port were in danger, and the main road between Jaffa andRamleh was observed and under fire. The village of Sheikh Muannis, about two miles inland, stood on a high mound commanding the groundsouth of the river, and from Hadrah you could keep the river in sightin its whole winding course to the sea. All this high ground concealedan entrenched enemy; on the southern side of the river the Turks wereon Bald Hill, and held a line of trenches covering the Jewish colonyof Mulebbis and Fejja. A bridge and a mill dam having been destroyedduring winter the only means of crossing was by a ford three feet deepat the mouth, an uncertain passage because the sand bar over which onecould walk shifted after heavy rain when the stream was swollen withflood water. Reconnaissances at the river mouth were carried out withgreat daring. As I said, all the southern approaches to the river werecommanded by the Turks on the northern bank, who were always alert, and the movement of one man in the Auja valley was generally thesignal for artillery activity. So often did the Turkish gunners salutethe appearance of a single British soldier that the Scots talked ofthe enemy 'sniping' with guns. To reconnoitre the enemy's positionsby daylight was hazardous work, and the Scots had to obtain theirfirst-hand knowledge of the river and the approaches to it in the darkhours. 

An officers' patrol swam the river one night, saw what the enemy wasdoing, and returned unobserved. A few nights afterwards two officersswam out to sea across the river mouth and crept up the right bank ofthe stream within the enemy's lines to ascertain the locality of theford and its exact width and depth. They also learnt that there wereno obstacles placed across the ford, which was three feet deep innormal times and five feet under water after rains. It was obviousthat bridges would be required, and it was decided to force thepassage of the river in the dark hours by putting covering troopsacross to the northern bank, and by capturing the enemy's positions toform a bridgehead while pontoon bridges were being constructed for theuse of guns and the remainder of the Division. 

Time was all-important. December and January are the wettest monthsof the season at Jaffa, and after heavy rains the Auja valley becomeslittle better than a marsh, so that a small amount of traffic will cutup the boggy land into an almost impassable condition. 

The XXIst Corps' plan was as follows: At dawn on December 21 a heavybombardment was to open on all the enemy's trenches covering thecrossings, the fire of heavy guns to be concentrated on enemybatteries and strong positions in the rear, while ships of the RoyalNavy bombarded two strong artillery positions at Tel el Rekket and ElJelil, near the coast. When darkness fell covering troops were to beferried across the river, and then light bridges would be constructedfor the passage of larger units charged with the task of getting theTurks out of their line from Hadrah, through El Mukras to Tel elRekket. After these positions had been gained the engineers were tobuild pontoon bridges to carry the remainder of the Division and gunson the night of the 22nd-23rd December, in time to advance at daylighton the 23rd to secure a defensive line from Tel el Mukhmar throughSheikh el Ballatar to Jelil. On the right of the 52nd Division the54th Division was to attack Bald Hill on the night of 21st-22ndDecember, and on the following morning assault the trench systemcovering Mulebbis and Fejja; then later in the day to advance toRantieh, while the 75th Division farther east was to attack Bireh andBeida. This plan was given to divisional commanders at a conference inJaffa on December 12. Two days later General Hill submitted anotherscheme which provided for a surprise attack by night with no navalor land artillery bombardment, such a demonstration being likely toattract attention. General Hill submitted his proposals in detail. General Bulfin gave the plan most careful consideration, but decidedthat to base so important an operation on the success of a surpriseattack was too hazardous, and he adhered to his scheme of a deliberateoperation to be carried through systematically. He, however, gaveGeneral Hill permission to carry out his surprise attack on thenight of December 20, but insisted that the bombardment should beginaccording to programme at daylight on the 21st unless the surprisescheme was successful. 

A brigade of the 54th Division and the 1st Australian Light HorseBrigade relieved the Scots in the trenches for three nights before theattempt. Every man in the Lowland Division entered upon the work ofpreparation with whole-hearted enthusiasm. There was much to be doneand materials were none too plentiful. Pontoons were wired for andreached Jaffa on the 16th. There was little wood available, and someold houses in Jaffa were pulled down to supply the Army's needs. Thematerial was collected in the orange groves around the German colonyat Sarona, a northern suburb of Jaffa, and every man who could use atool was set to work to build a framework of rectangular boats to astandard design, and on this framework of wood tarpaulins and canvaswere stretched. These boats were light in structure, and were sodesigned that working parties would be capable of transferring themfrom their place of manufacture to the river bank. Each boat was tocarry twenty men fully armed and equipped over the river. They becameso heavy with rain that they in fact only carried sixteen men. Theboat builders worked where enemy airmen could not see them, andwhen the craft were completed the troops were practised at night inembarking and ferrying across a waterway--for this purpose the craftwere put on a big pond--and in cutting a path through thick cactushedges in the dark. During these preparations the artillery was alsoactive. They took their guns up to forward positions during the night, and before the date of the attack there was a bombardment group ofeight 6-inch howitzers and a counter battery group of ten 60-poundersand one 6-inch Mark VII. Gun in concealed positions, and the artillerydumps had been filled with 400 rounds for each heavy gun and 700rounds for each field piece. The weather on the 18th, 19th, and 20thDecember was most unfavourable. Rain was continuous and the valley ofthe Auja became a morass. The luck of the weather was almost alwaysagainst General Allenby's Army, and the troops had become accustomedto fighting the elements as well as the Turks, but here was asituation where rain might have made all the difference betweensuccess and failure. General Bulfin saw General Hill and hisbrigadiers on the afternoon of the 20th. The brigadiers were depressedowing to the floods and the state of the ground, because it was thenclear that causeways would have to be made through the mud to theriver banks. General Hill remained enthusiastic and hopeful and, theCorps Commander supporting him, it was decided to proceed with theoperation. For several nights, with the object of giving the enemythe impression of a nightly strafe, there had been artillery andmachine-gun demonstrations occurring about the same time and lastingas long as those planned for the night of the crossing. After dusk onDecember 20 there was a big movement behind our lines. The ferryingand bridging parties got on the move, each by their particular road, and though the wind was searchingly cold and every officer and manbecame thoroughly drenched, there was not a sick heart in the force. The 157th Brigade proceeded to the ford at the mouth of the Auja, the156th Brigade advanced towards the river just below Muannis, and the155th Brigade moved up to the mill and dam at Jerisheh, where it wasto secure the crossing and then swing to the right to capture Hadrah. The advance was slow, but that the Scots were able to move at all isthe highest tribute to their determination. The rain-soaked canvasof the boats had so greatly added to their weight that the partiesdetailed to carry them from the Sarona orange orchards found the taskalmost beyond their powers. The bridge rafts for one of the crossingscould not be got up to the river bank because the men were continuallyslipping in the mud under the heavy load, and the attacking battalionat this spot was ferried over in coracles. On another route a sectioncarrying a raft lost one of its number, who was afterwards found sunkin mud up to his outstretched arms. The tracks were almost impassable, and a Lancashire pioneer battalion was called up to assist inimproving them. The men became caked with mud from steel helmet toboots, and the field guns which had to be hauled by double teamswere so bespattered that there was no need for camouflage. In thosestrenuous hours of darkness the weather continued vile, and the stormwind flung the frequent heavy showers with cutting force against thestruggling men. The covering party which was to cross at the fordfound the bar had shifted under the pressure of flood water and thatthe marks put down to direct the column had been washed away. Thecommanding officer reconnoitred, getting up to his neck in water, andfound the ford considerably out of position and deeper than he hadhoped, but he brought his men together in fours and, ordering eachsection to link arms to prevent the swirling waters carrying them outto sea, led them across without a casualty. In the other placesthe covering parties of brigades began to be ferried over at eighto'clock. The first raft-loads were paddled across with muffled oars. A line was towed behind the boats, and this being made fast on eitherside of the river the rafts crossed and recrossed by haulage on therope, in order that no disturbance on the surface by oars on even sucha wild night should cause an alarm. As soon as the covering partieswere over, light bridges to carry infantry in file were constructed bylashing the rafts together and placing planks on them. One of thesebridges was burst by the strength of the current, but the delay thuscaused mattered little as the surprise was complete. When the bridgesof rafts had been swung and anchored, blankets and carpets were laidupon them to deaden the fall of marching feet, and during that silenttramp across the rolling bridges many a keen-witted Scot found itdifficult to restrain a laugh as he trod on carpets richer by far thanany that had lain in his best parlour at home. He could not see thepatterns, but rightly guessed that they were picked out in the brightcolours of the East, and the muddy marks of war-travelled men wereleft on them without regret, for the carpets had come fromGerman houses in Sarona. How perfectly the operation wasconducted--noiselessly, swiftly, absolutely according totime-table--may be gathered from the fact that two officers andsixteen Turks were awakened in their trench dug-outs at the fordby the river mouth two hours after we had taken the trenches. Theofficers resisted and had to be killed. Two miles behind the river theLowlanders captured the whole garrison of a post near the sea, noneof whom had the slightest idea that the river had been crossed. Anofficer commanding a battalion at Muannis was taken in his bed, whilstanother commanding officer had the surprise of his life on beinginvited to put his hands up in his own house. He looked as if he hadjust awakened from a nightmare. In one place some Turks on beingattacked with the bayonet shouted an alarm and one of the crossingswas shelled, but its position was immediately changed and the passageof the river continued without interruption. The whole of the Turkishsystem covering the river, trenches well concealed in the riverbanks and in patches of cultivated land, were rushed in silence andcaptured. Muannis was taken at the point of the bayonet, the strongposition at Hadrah was also carried in absolute silence, and atdaylight the whole line the Scots had set out to gain was won and theassailants were digging themselves in. And the price of their victory?The Scots had 8 officers and 93 other ranks casualties. They buriedover 100 Turkish dead and took 11 officers and 296 other ranksprisoners, besides capturing ten machine guns. 

The forcing of the passage of the Auja was a magnificent achievement, planned with great ability by General Hill and carried out with thatskill and energy which the brigadiers, staff, and all ranks of theDivision showed throughout the campaign. One significant fact servesto illustrate the Scots' discipline. Orders were that not a shot wasto be fired except by the guns and machine guns making their nightlystrafe. Death was to be dealt out with the bayonet, and though theLowlanders were engaged in a life and death struggle with the Turks, not a single round of rifle ammunition was used by them till daylightcame, when, as a keen marksman said, they had some grand running-manpractice. During the day some batteries got to the north bank by wayof the ford, and two heavy pontoon bridges were constructed and abarrel bridge, which had been put together in a wadi flowing into theAuja, was floated down and placed in position. There was a good dealof shelling by the Turks, but they fired at our new positions andinterfered but little with the bridge construction. 

On the night of the 21st-22nd December the 54th Division assaultedBald Hill, a prominent mound south of the Auja from which amagnificent view of the country was gained. Stiff fighting resulted, but the enemy was driven off with a loss of 4 officers and 48 otherranks killed, and 3 officers and 41 men taken prisoners. At dawn theDivision reported that the enemy was retiring from Mulebbis and Fejja, and those places were soon in our hands. H. M. S. _Grafton_, withAdmiral T. Jackson, the monitors M29, M31, and M32, and the destroyers_Lapwing_ and _Lizard_, arrived off the coast and shelled Jelil andArsuf, and the 52nd Division, advancing on a broad front, occupied thewhole of their objectives by five o'clock in the afternoon. The 157thBrigade got all the high ground about Arsuf, and thus prevented theenemy from obtaining a long-range view of Jaffa. A few rounds of shellfired by a naval gun at a range of nearly twenty miles fell in Jaffasome months afterwards, but with this exception Jaffa was quite freefrom the enemy's attentions. The brilliant operation on the Auja hadsaved the town and its people many anxious days. By the end of theyear there were three strong bridges across the river, and threeothers substantial enough to bear the weight of tractors and theirloads were under construction. The troops received their winterclothing; bivouac shelters and tents were beginning to arrive. Bathsand laundries were in operation, and the rigours of the campaign beganto be eased. But the XXIst Corps could congratulate itself that, notwithstanding two months of open warfare, often fifty to sixty milesfrom railhead, men's rations had never been reduced. Horses and muleshad had short allowances, but they could pick up a little in thecountry. The men were in good health, despite the hardships in thehills and rapid change from summer to winter, and their spirit couldnot be surpassed. 

CHAPTER XVIII

BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN

We have seen how impregnable the defences of Jerusalem had become asthe result of the big advance northwards at the end of December. As far as any military forecast could be made we were now in animpenetrable position whatever force the Turk, with his poorcommunications, could employ against us either from the direction ofNablus or from the east of the Jordan. There seemed to be no riskwhatever, so long as we chose to hold the line XXth Corps had won, of the Turks again approaching Jerusalem, but the Commander-in-Chiefdetermined to make the situation absolutely safe by advancingeastwards to capture Jericho and the crossings of the Jordan. This wasnot solely a measure of precaution. It certainly did provide a meansfor preventing the foe from operating in the stern, forbidding, desolate, and awe-inspiring region which has been known as theWilderness since Biblical days, and doubtless before. In that roughcountry it would be extremely difficult to stop small bands ofenterprising troops getting through a line and creating diversionswhich, while of small military consequence, would have beentroublesome, and might have had the effect of unsettling the natives. A foothold in the Jordan valley would have the great advantage ofenabling us to threaten the Hedjaz railway, the Turks' sole meansof communication with Medina, where their garrison was holding outstaunchly against the troops of the King of the Hedjaz, and anyassistance we could give the King's army would have a far-reachingeffect on neutral Arabs. It would also stop the grain trade on theDead Sea, on which the enemy set store, and would divert traffic infoodstuffs to natives in Lower Palestine, who at this time were to aconsiderable extent dependent on supplies furnished by our Army. TheQuartermaster-General carried many responsibilities on his shoulders. Time was not the important factor, and as General Allenby was anxiousto avoid an operation which might involve heavy losses, it was atfirst proposed that the enemy should be forced to leave Jericho by thegradually closing in on the town from north and south. The Turks hadgot an immensely strong position about Talat ed Dumm, the 'Mound ofBlood, ' where stands a ruined castle of the Crusaders, the ChastelRouge. One can see it with the naked eye from the Mount of Olives, and weeks before the operation started I stood in the garden of theKaiserin Augusta Victoria hospice and, looking over one of the mostinhospitable regions of the world, could easily make out the Turkswalking on the road near the Khan, which has been called the GoodSamaritan Inn. The country has indeed been rightly named. Gaunt, baremountains of limestone with scarcely a patch of green to relieve thenakedness of the land make a wilderness indeed, and one sees a dropof some four thousand feet in a distance of about fifteen miles. Thehills rise in continuous succession, great ramparts of the Judeanrange, and instead of valleys between them there are huge clefts inthe rock, hundreds of feet deep, which carry away the winter torrentsto the Jordan and Dead Sea. Over beyond the edge of hills are thegreen wooded banks of the Sacred River, then a patch or two of stuntedtrees, and finally the dark walls of the mountains of Moab shuttingout the view of the land which still holds fascinating remains ofGreek civilisation. 

But there was no promise of an early peep at such historic sights, andthe problem of getting at the nearer land was hard enough for presentdeliberation. It was at first proposed that the whole of theXXth Corps and a force of cavalry should carry out operationssimultaneously on the north and east of the Corps front which shouldgive us possession of the roads from Mar Saba and Muntar, and alsofrom Taiyibeh and the old Roman road to Jericho, thus allowing twocavalry forces supported by infantry columns to converge on Jerichofrom the north and south. However, by the second week of Februarythere had been bad weather, and the difficulties of supplying a lineforty miles from the railway on roads which, notwithstanding avast amount of labour, were still far from good, were practicallyinsuperable, and it was apparent that a northerly and easterly advanceat the same time would involve a delay of three weeks. 

New circumstances came to light after the advance was first arranged, and these demanded that the enemy should be driven across the Jordanas soon as possible. General Allenby decided that the operationsshould be carried out in two phases. The first was an easterly advanceto thrust the enemy from his position covering Jericho, to force himacross the Jordan, and to obtain control of the country west of theriver. The northerly advance to secure the line of the wadi Aujah wasto follow. This river Aujah which flows into the Jordan must not beconfused with the Auja on the coast already described. 

The period of wet weather was prolonged, and the accumulation ofsupplies of rations and ammunition did not permit of operationscommencing before February 19. That they started so early is aneloquent tribute to the hard work of the Army, for the weather by thedate of the attack had improved but little, and the task of gettingup stores could only be completed by extraordinary exertions. GeneralChetwode ordered a brigade of the 60th Division to capture Mukhmasas a preliminary to a concentration at that place. On the 19th theDivision occupied a front of about fourteen miles from near Muntar, close to which the ancient road from Bethlehem to Jericho passes, through Ras Umm Deisis, across the Jerusalem-Jericho road to ArakIbrahim, over the great chasm of the wadi Farah which has cliff-likesides hundreds of feet deep, to the brown knob of Ras et Tawil. Theline was not gained without fighting. The Turks did not oppose us atMuntar--the spot where the Jews released the Scapegoat--but therewas a short contest for Ibrahim, and a longer fight lasting till theafternoon for an entrenched position a mile north of it; Ras et Tawilwas ours by nine in the morning. Tawil overlooks a track which hasbeen trodden from time immemorial. It leads from the Jordan valleynorth-west of Jericho, and passes beneath the frowning height of JebelKuruntul with its bare face relieved by a monastery built into therock about half-way up, and a walled garden on top to mark the Mountof Temptation, as the pious monks believe it to be. The track thenproceeds westwards, winding in and out of the tremendous slits inrock, to Mukhmas, and it was probably along this rough line thatthe Israelites marched from their camp at Gilgal to overthrow thePhilistines. On the right of the Londoners were two brigades of theAnzac Mounted Division, working through the most desolate hills andwadis down to the Dead Sea with a view to pushing up by Nebi Musa, which tradition has ascribed as the burial place of Moses, and thenceinto the Jordan valley. Northward of the 60th Division the 53rd wasextending its flank eastwards to command the Taiyibeh-Jericho road, and the Welsh troops occupied Rummon, a huge mount of chalk giving agood view of the Wilderness. This was the position on the night of19th February. 

At dawn on the 20th the Londoners were to attack the Turks in threecolumns. The right column was to march from El Muntar to Ekteif, thecentre column to proceed along the Jerusalem-Jericho road between thehighway and the wadi Farah, and the left column was to go forward bythe Tawil-Jebel Kuruntul track. The 1st Australian Light Horse Brigadeand the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade were, if possible, to makeNebi Musa. 

The infantry attack was as fine as anything done in the campaign. Ihad the advantage of witnessing the centre column carry out the wholeof its task and of seeing the right column complete as gallant aneffort as any troops could make, and as one saw them scale frowningheights and clamber up and down the roughest of torrent beds, onerealised that more than three months' fighting had not removed the'bloom' from these Cockney warriors, and that their physique andcourage were proof against long and heavy trials of campaigning. Thechief objective of the centre column was Talat ed Dumm which, lying onthe Jericho road just before the junction of the old and the new roadto the Jordan valley, was the key to Jericho. It is hard to imagine abetter defensive position. To the north of the road is the wadi Farah, a great crack in the rocks which can only be crossed in a few places, and which a few riflemen could cover. Likewise a platoon distributedbehind rocks on the many hills could command the approaches from alldirections, while the hill of Talat ed Dumm, by the Good SamaritanInn, and the height whereon the Crusader ruins stand, dominated abroad flat across which our troops must move. This position the 180thBrigade attacked at dawn. The guns opened before the sun appearedabove the black crest line of the mountains of Moab, and well beforelong shadows were cast across the Jordan valley the batteries weretearing to pieces the stone walls and rocky eyries shelteringmachine-gunners and infantry. This preliminary bombardment, if short, was wonderfully effective. From where I stood I saw the heaviespouring an unerring fire on to the Crusader Castle, huge spurts ofblack smoke, and the dislocation of big stones which had withstoodthe disintegrating effect of many centuries of sun power, telling theForward Observing Officer that his gunners were well on the target andthat to live in that havoc the Turks must seek the shelter of vaultscut deep down in the rock by masons of old. No enemy could delayour progress from that shell-torn spot. Lighter guns searched otherpositions and whiffs of shrapnel kept Turks from their business. Thereare green patches on the western side of Talat ed Dumm in the earlymonths of the year before the sun has burned up the country. Overthese the infantry advanced as laid down in the book. The whirringrap-rap of machine guns at present unlocated did not stop them, andas our machine-gun sections, ever on the alert to keep down rivalautomatic guns, found out and sprayed the nests, the enemy was seento be anxious about his line of retreat. One large party, harried byshrapnel and machine-gun fire, left its positions and rushed towardsa defile, but rallied and came back, though when it reoccupied itsformer line the Londoners had reached a point to enfilade it, and itsuffered heavily. We soon got this position, and then our troops, ascending some spurs, poured a destructive fire into the defile and soharassed the Turks re-forming for a counterattack as to render feebletheir efforts to regain what they had lost. 

By eight o'clock we had taken the whole of the Talat ed Dumm position, and long-range sniping throughout the day did not disturb our securepossession of it. Immediately the heights were occupied the guns wentahead to new points, and armoured cars left the road to try to find away to the south-east to protect the flank of the right column. Theyhad a troublesome journey. Some of the crews walked well ahead of thecars to reconnoitre the tracks, and it speaks well for the efficiencyof the cars as well as for the pluck and cleverness of the driversthat in crossing a mile or two of that terribly broken mountainouscountry no car was overturned and all got back to the road withoutmishap. 

Throughout the night and during the greater part of the day ofFebruary 20 the right column were fighting under many difficulties. Intheir march from the hill of Muntar they had to travel over ground socracked and strewn with boulders that in many parts the brigade couldonly proceed in single file. In some places the track chosen had ahuge cleft in the mountain on one side and a cliff face on the other. It was a continual succession of watercourses and mountains, of uphilland downhill travel over the most uneven surface in the blackness ofnight, and it took nearly eight hours to march three miles. The natureof the country was a very serious obstacle and the column was late indeploying for attack. But bad as was the route the men had followedduring the night, it was easy as compared with the position they hadset out to carry. This was Jebel Ekteif, the southern end of the rangeof hills of which Talat ed Dumm was the northern. Ekteif presented tothis column a face as precipitous as Gibraltar and perhaps half ashigh. There was a ledge running round it about three-quarters of theway from the top, and for hours one could see the Turks lying flat onthis rude path trying to pick off the intrepid climbers attempting aprecarious ascent. Some mountain guns suddenly ranged on the enemy onthis ledge, and, picking up the range with remarkable rapidity, forcedthe Turks into more comfortable positions. The enemy, too, had somewell-served guns, and they plastered the spurs leading to the crestfrom the west, but our infantry's audacity never faltered, andafter we had got into the first lines on the hill our men proceededmethodically to rout out the machine guns from their nooks andcrannies. This was a somewhat lengthy process, but small partiesworking in support of each other gradually crushed opposition, andthe huge rocky rampart was ours by three o'clock in the afternoon. Meanwhile two brigades of the Anzac Mounted Division were movingeastwards from Muntar over the hills and wadis down to the Dead Sea, whence turning northwards they marched towards Nebi Musa to try toget on to the Jordan valley flats to threaten the Turks in rear. Theterrain was appallingly bad and horses had to be led, the troopsfrequently proceeding in Indian file. No guns could be got over thehills to support the Anzacs, and when they tried to pass through anarrow defile south of Nebi Musa it was found that the enemy coveredthe approach with machine guns, and progress was stopped deaduntil, during the early hours of the following morning, some of theLondoners' artillery managed by a superhuman effort to get a few gunsover the mountains to support the cavalry. By this time the Turkshad had enough of it, and while it was dark they were busy trekkingthrough Jericho towards the Ghoraniyeh bridge over the river, coveredby a force on the Jebel Kuruntul track which prevented the left columnfrom reaching the cliffs overlooking the Jordan valley. By dawn on the21st Nebi Musa was made good, the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigadeand the New Zealand Brigade were in Jericho by eight o'clock andhad cleared the Jordan valley as far north as the river Aujah, theLondoners holding the line of cliffs which absolutely prevented anypossibility of the enemy ever again threatening Jerusalem or Bethlehemfrom the east. This successful operation also put an end to the Turks'Dead Sea grain traffic. They had given up hope of keeping theirlanding place on the northern shores of the Dead Sea when we tookTalat ed Dumm, and one hour after our infantry had planted themselveson the Hill of Blood we saw the enemy burning his boats, wharves, andstorehouses at Rujm el Bahr, where he had expended a good deal oflabour to put up buildings to store grain wanted for his army. Subsequently we had some naval men operating motor boats from thispoint, and these sailors achieved a record on that melancholy waterwayat a level far below that at which any submarine, British or German, ever rested. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE TOUCH OF THE CIVILISING HAND

It is doubtful whether the population of any city within the zones ofwar profited so much at the hands of the conqueror as Jerusalem. Ina little more than half a year a wondrous change was effected in thecondition of the people, and if it had been possible to search theOriental mind and to get a free and frank expression of opinion, one would probably have found a universal thankfulness for GeneralAllenby's deliverance of the Holy City from the hands of the Turks. And with good reason. The scourge of war so far as the British Armywas concerned left Jerusalem the Golden untouched. For the 50, 000people in the City the skilfully applied military pressure whichput an end to Turkish misgovernment was the beginning of an eraof happiness and contentment of which they had hitherto had noconception. Justice was administered in accordance with Britishideals, every man enjoyed the profits of his industry, traders nolonger ran the gauntlet of extortionate officials, the old timecorruption was a thing of the past, public health was organised as faras it could be on Western lines, and though in matters of sanitationand personal cleanliness the inhabitants still had much to learn, theappearance of the Holy City and its population vastly improved underthe touch of a civilising hand. Sights that offended more than one ofthe senses on the day when General Allenby made his official entry haddisappeared, and peace and order reigned where previously had been butmisery, poverty, disease, and squalor. 

One of the biggest blots upon the Turkish government of the City wasthe total failure to provide an adequate water supply. What theycould not, or would not, do in their rule of four hundred years HisMajesty's Royal Engineers accomplished in a little more than twomonths, and now for the first time in history every civilian inJerusalem can obtain as much pure mountain spring water as he wishes, and for this water, as fresh and bright as any bubbling out of Welshhills, not a penny is charged. The picturesque, though usuallyunclean, water carrier is passing into the limbo of forgotten things, and his energies are being diverted into other channels. The germsthat swarmed in his leathern water bags will no longer endanger thelives of the citizens, and the deadly perils of stagnant cistern waterhave been to a large extent removed. 

For its water Jerusalem used to rely mainly upon the winter rainfallto fill its cisterns. Practically every house has its undergroundreservoir, and it is estimated that if all were full they wouldcontain about 360, 000, 000 gallons. But many had fallen into disrepairand most, if not the whole of them, required thorough cleansing. Onewhich was inspected by our sanitary department had not been emptiedfor nineteen years. To supplement the cistern supply the Mosque ofOmar reservoir halved with Bethlehem the water which flowed from nearSolomon's Pools down an aqueduct constructed by Roman engineers underHerod before the Saviour was born. This was not nearly sufficient, norwas it so constant a supply as that provided by our Army engineers. They went farther afield. They found a group of spring-heads in anabsolutely clean gathering ground on the hills yielding some 14, 000gallons an hour, and this water which was running to waste is liftedto the top of a hill from which it flows by gravity through a longpipe-line to Jerusalem, where a reservoir has been built on a highpoint on the outskirts of the city. Supplies of this beautiful waterrun direct to the hospitals, and at standpipes all over the city theinhabitants take as much as they desire. The water consumption of thepeople became ten times what it was in the previous year, and thisfact alone told how the boon was appreciated. 

The scheme did not stop at putting up standpipes for those who fetchedthe water. A portion of the contents of the cisterns was taken forwatering troop horses in the spring--troops were not allowed to drinkit. The water level of these cisterns became very low, and as theygot emptied the authorities arranged for refilling them on the onecondition that they were first thoroughly cleansed and put in order. The British administration would not be parties to the perpetuationof a system which permitted the fouling of good crystal water. Ahouseholder had merely to apply to the Military Governor for water, and a sanitary officer inspected the cistern, ordered it to becleansed, and saw that this was done; then the Department of PublicHealth gave its certificate, and the engineers ran a pipe to thecistern and filled it, no matter what its capacity. Two cisterns werereplenished with between 60, 000 and 70, 000 gallons of sparkling waterfrom the hills in place of water heavily charged with the accumulationof summer dust on roofs, and the dust of Jerusalem roads, as we hadsampled it, is not as clean as desert sand. 

The installation of the supply was a triumph for the Royal Engineers. In peace times the work would have taken from one to two years tocomplete. A preliminary investigation and survey of the ground wasmade on February 14, and a scheme was submitted four days later. Owingto the shortage of transport and abnormally bad weather work could notbe commenced till April 12. Many miles of pipe line had to be laid anda powerful pumping plant erected, but water was being delivered to thepeople of Jerusalem on the 18th of June. Other military works havedone much for the common good in Palestine, but none of them were ofgreater utility than this. Mahomedans seeing bright water flow intoJerusalem regarded it as one of the wonders of all time. It isinteresting to note that the American Red Cross Society, which sent alarge and capable staff to the Holy Land after America came into thewar, knew of the lack of an adequate water supply for Jerusalem, andwith that foresight which Americans show, forwarded to Egypt fortransportation to Jerusalem some thousand tons of water mains toprovide a water service. When the American Red Cross workers reachedthe Holy City they found the Army's plans almost completed, andthey were the first to pay a tribute to what they described as the'civilising march of the British Army. '

Those who watched the ceaseless activities of the Public HealthAdministration were not surprised at the remarkable improvement in thesick and death rates, not only of Jerusalem but of all the towns anddistricts. The new water supply will unquestionably help to lower thefigures still further. A medical authority recently told me thatthe health of the community was wonderfully good and there was nosuspicion of cholera, outbreaks of which were frequent under theTurkish regime. Government hospitals were established in all largecentres. In this country where small-pox takes a heavy toll the'conscientious objector' was unknown, and many thousands of nativesin a few months came forward of their own free will to be vaccinated. Typhus and relapsing fever, both lice-borne diseases, used to claimmany victims, but the figures fell very rapidly, due largely, nodoubt, to the full use to which disinfecting plants were put in allareas of the occupied territory. The virtues of bodily cleanlinesswere taught, and the people were given that personal attention whichwas entirely lacking under Turkish rule. It is not easy to overcomethe prejudices and cure the habits of thousands of years, but progressis being made surely if slowly, and already there is a gratifyingimprovement in the condition of the people which is patent to anyobserver. 

In Jerusalem an infants' welfare bureau was instituted, wheremothers were seen before and after childbirth, infants' clinics wereestablished, a body of health was formed, and a kitchen was opened toprovide food for babies and the poor. The nurses were mainly localsubjects who had to undergo an adequate training, and there was no onewho did not confidently predict a rapid fall in the infant mortalityrate which, to the shame of the Turkish administration, was fully adozen times that of the highest of English towns. The spadeworkwas all done by the medical staff of the Occupied Enemy TerritoryAdministration. The call was urgent, and though labouring underwar-time difficulties they got things going quickly and smoothly. Somevoluntary societies were assisting, and the enthusiasm of the AmericanRed Cross units enabled all to carry on a great and beneficent work. 

CHAPTER XX

OUR CONQUERING AIRMEN

The airmen who were the eyes of the Army in Sinai and Palestinecan look back on their record as a great achievement. Enormousdifficulties were faced with stout hearts, and the Royal Flying Corpsspirit surmounted them. It was one long test of courage, endurance, and efficiency, and so triumphantly did the airmen come through theordeal that General Allenby's Army may truthfully be said to havesecured as complete a mastery of the air as it did of the plainsand hills of Southern Palestine. Those of us who watched the airmen'carrying on, ' from the time when their aeroplanes were inferior tothose of the Germans in speed, climbing capacity, and other qualitieswhich go to make up first-class fighting machines, till the positionduring the great advance when few enemy aviators dared cross ourlines, can well testify to the wonderful work our airmen performed. 

With comparatively few opportunities for combat because the enemy knewhis inferiority and declined to fight unless forced, the pilots andobservers from the moment our attack was about to start were alwaysaggressive, and though the number of their victims may seem smallcompared with aerial victories on the Western Front they weresubstantial and important. In the month of January 1917 the flying menaccounted for eleven aeroplanes, five of these falling victims toone pilot. The last of these victories I myself witnessed. In asingle-seater the pilot engaged two two-seater aeroplanes of a latetype, driving down one machine within our line, the pilot killed byeleven bullets and the observer wounded. He then chased the otherplane, whose pilot soon lost his taste for fighting, dropped into aheavy cloud bank, and got away. No odds were too great for our airmen. I have seen one aeroplane swoop down out of the blue to attack aformation of six enemy machines, sending one crashing to earth anddispersing the remainder. In one brief fight another pilot drove downthree German planes. The airman does not talk of his work, and we knewthat what we saw and heard of were but fragments in the silent recordsof great things done. Much that was accomplished was far behind ourvisual range, high up over the bleak hills of Judea, above even therain clouds driven across the heights by the fury of a winter gale, orskimming over the dull surface of the Dead Sea, flying some hundredsof feet below sea level to interrupt the passage of foodstuffs ofwhich the Turk stood in need. 

All through the Army's rapid march northwards from the crushedGaza-Beersheba line the airmen's untiring work was of infinite value. When the Turkish retreat began the enemy was bombed and machine-gunnedfor a full week, the railway, aerodromes, troops on the march, artillery, and transport being hit time and again, and five smashedaeroplanes and a large quantity of aircraft stores of everydescription were found at Menshiye alone. The raid on that aerodromewas so successful that at night the Germans burnt the whole of theequipment not destroyed by bombs. Three machines were also destroyedby us at Et Tineh, five at Ramleh and one at Ludd, and the countrywas covered with the debris of a well-bombed and beaten army. AfterJerusalem came under the safe protection of our arms airmen harassedthe retiring enemy with bombs and machine guns. The wind was strong, but defying treacherous eddies, the pilots came through the valleysbetween steep-sloped hills and caught the Turks on the Nablus road, emptying their bomb racks at a height of a few hundred feet, andgiving the scattered troops machine-gun fire on the return journey. 

A glance at the list of honours bestowed on officers and other ranksof the R. F. C. Serving with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1917is sufficient to give an idea of the efficiency of the service of ourairmen. It must be remembered that the Palestine Wing was small, ifthoroughly representative of the Flying Corps; its numbers were fewbut the quality was there. Indeed I heard the Australian squadron offlying men which formed part of the Wing described by the highestpossible authority as probably the finest squadron in the whole of theBritish service. This following list of honours is, perhaps, the mosteloquent testimony to the airmen's work in Palestine:

 Victoria Cross . . . . . 1 Distinguished Service Order . . . 4 Military Cross . . . . . 34 Croix de Guerre . . . . 2 Military Medal . . . . . 1 Meritorious Service Medal . . . 14 Order of the Nile . . . . 2

The sum total of the R. F. C. Work was not to be calculated merely fromdeath and damage caused to the enemy from the air. Strategical andtactical reconnaissances formed a large part of the daily round, and the reports brought in always added to our Army's store ofinformation. In Palestine, possibly to a greater extent than in anyother theatre of war, our map-makers had to rely on aerial photographsto supply them with the details required for military maps. The bestmaps we had of Palestine were those prepared by Lieutenant H. H. Kitchener, R. E. , and Lieutenant Conder in 1881 for the PalestineExploration Fund. They were still remarkably accurate so far as theywent, but 'roads, ' to give the tracks a description to which they werenot entitled, had altered, and villages had disappeared, and newer andadditional information had to be supplied. The Royal Flying Corps--ithad not yet become the Royal Air Force--furnished it, and allimportant details of hundreds of square miles of country which surveyparties could not reach were registered with wonderful accuracy byaerial photographers. 

The work began for the battle of Rafa, and the enemy positions on theMagruntein hill were all set out before General Chetwode when theDesert Column attacked and scored an important victory. Then when12, 000 Turks were fortifying the Weli Sheikh Nuran country coveringthe wadi Ghuzze and the Shellal springs, not a redoubt or trench butwas recorded with absolute fidelity on photographic prints, and longbefore the Turks abandoned the place and gave us a fine supply ofwater we had excellent maps of the position. In time the wholeGaza-Beersheba line was completely photographed and maps werecontinually revised, and if any portion of the Turkish system ofdefences was changed or added to the commander in the districtconcerned was notified at once. To such perfection did the R. F. C. Photographic branch attain, that maps showing full details of new oraltered trenches were in the hands of generals within four hoursof the taking of the photographs. Later on the work of the branchincreased enormously, and the results fully repaid the infinite careand labour bestowed upon it. 

The R. F. C. Made long flights in this theatre of war, and some of themwere exceptionally difficult and dangerous. A French battleship whenbombarding a Turkish port of military importance had two of ourmachines to spot the effect of her gunfire. To be with the ship whenthe action opened the airmen had to fly in darkness for an hour and ahalf from a distant aerodrome, and they both reached the rendezvouswithin five minutes of the appointed time. The Turks on their lines ofcommunication with the Hedjaz have an unpleasant recollection of beingbombed at Maan. That was a noteworthy expedition. Three machines setout from an aerodrome over 150 miles away in a straight line, thepilots having to steer a course above country with no prominentlandmarks. They went over a waterless desert so rough that it wouldhave been impossible to come down without seriously damaging a plane, and if a pilot had been forced to land his chance of getting back toour country would have been almost nil. Water bottles and rationswere carried in the machines, but they were not needed, for the threepilots came home together after hitting the station buildings at Maanand destroying considerable material and supplies. 

The aeroplane has been put to many uses in war and, it may be, thereare instances on other fronts of it being used, in emergencies, as anambulance. When a little mobile force rounded up the Turkish post atHassana, on the eastern side of the Sinai Peninsula, one of our menreceived so severe a wound that an immediate operation was necessary. An airman at once volunteered to carry the wounded man to the nearesthospital, forty-four miles away across the desert, and by his action alife was saved. 

APPENDICES

I

The following telegram was sent by Enver Pasha to Field-Marshal vonHindenburg, at Supreme Army Command Headquarters, from Constantinopleon August 23, 1917:

 The news of the despatch of strong enemy forces to Egypt, together with the nomination of General Allenby as Commander-in-Chief on our Syrian Front, indicates that the British contemplate an offensive on the Syrian Front, and very probably before the middle of November. 

 The preservation of the Sinai Front is a primary condition to the success of the Yilderim undertaking. 

 After a further conversation with the Commander of the IVth Army (Jemal Pasha) I consider it necessary to strengthen this front by one of the infantry divisions intended for Yilderim, and to despatch this division immediately from Aleppo. 

 With this reinforcement the defence of the Sinai Front by the IVth Army is assured. 

 General von Falkenhayn takes up the position that he does not consider the defence assured, and that the further reduction of Yilderim forces is to be deprecated under any circumstances. 

 He consequently recommends that we on our side should attack the British, and as far as possible surprise them, before they are strengthened. He wishes to carry out this attack with four infantry divisions, and the 'Asia' Corps. Two of the four infantry divisions have still to be despatched to the front. 

 I cannot yet decide to support the proposal, nor need I do so, as the transport of an infantry division from Aleppo to Bayak requires twenty days. During this period the situation as regards the enemy will become clear, and one will become better able to estimate the chance of success of an attack. 

 I must, however, in any case be able to dispose of more forces than at present, either for the completion of Yilderim, or for the replacement of the very heavy losses which will certainly occur in the Syrian attack. 

 I must consequently reiterate, to my deep regret, my request for the return of the VIth Army Corps (which was operating at that time in the Dobrudja) and for the despatch of this Corps, together with the 20th Infantry Division, commencing with the 15th Infantry Division. 

 In my opinion the Army Corps could be replaced by Bulgarians, whose task is unquestionably being lightened through the despatch of troops (British) to Egypt. 

 Should this not be the case, I would be ready to exchange two divisions from the Vth Army for the two infantry divisions of the VIth Army Corps, as the former are only suited for a war of position, and would have to be made mobile by the allotment of transport and equipment. 

 If these two infantry divisions were given up, the Vth Army would have only five infantry divisions of no great fighting value, a condition of things which is perhaps not very desirable. 

 For the moment my decision is: Defence of Syria by strengthening that front by one infantry division, and prosecution of the Yilderim scheme. 

 Should good prospects offer of beating the British decisively in Syria before they have been reinforced I will take up General von Falkenhayn's proposal again, as far as it appears possible to carry it out, having in view the question of transport and rationing, which still has to be settled in some respects. --Turkish Main Headquarters, ENVER. 

II

Von Falkenhayn despatched the following telegram from Constantinopleon August 25, 1917, to German General Headquarters:

 The possibility of a British attack in Syria has had to be taken into consideration from the beginning. Its repercussion on the Irak undertaking was obvious. On that account I had already settled in my conversations in Constantinople during May that, if the centre of gravity of operations were transferred to the Sinai Front, command should be given me there too. The news now to hand--reinforcement of the British troops in Egypt, taking over of command by Allenby, the demands of the British Press daily becoming louder--makes the preparation of a British attack in Syria probable. 

 Jemal Pasha wishes to meet it with a defensive. To that end he demands the divisions and war material which were being collected about Aleppo for Yilderim. The natural result of granting this request will be that true safety will never be attained on the Sinai Front by a pure defensive, and that the Irak undertaking will certainly fritter away owing to want of driving power or to delays. 

 I had consequently proposed to the Turkish Higher Command to send two divisions and the 'Asia' Corps as quickly as possible to Southern Syria, so as to carry out a surprise attack on the British by means of an encircling movement before the arrival of their reinforcements. Railways allow of the assembly of these forces (inclusive of heavy artillery, material and technical stores) in the neighbourhood of Beersheba by the end of October. The disposable parts of the IVth Army (two to three divisions) would be added to it. 

 In a discussion between Enver, Jemal, and myself, Enver decided first of all to strengthen the IVth Army by the inclusion of one division from the Army Group. This division would suffice to ward off attack. The Irak undertaking could be carried through at the same time. Judging from all former experiences I am firmly convinced as soon as it comes to a question of the expected attack on the Sinai Front, or even if the IVth Army only feels itself seriously threatened, further troops, munitions, and material will be withdrawn from the Army Group, and Turkey's forces will be shattered. 

 Then nothing decisive can be undertaken in either theatre of war. The sacrifice of men, money, and material which Germany is offering at the present moment will be in vain. 

 The treatment of the question is rendered all the more difficult because I cannot rid myself of the impression that the decision of the Turkish Higher Command is based far less on military exigencies than on personal motives. It is dictated with one eye on the mighty Jemal, who deprecates a definite decision, but yet on the other hand opposes the slightest diminution of the area of his command. 

 Consequently as the position now stands, I consider the Irak undertaking practicable only if it is given the necessary freedom for retirement through the removal of the danger on the Syrian Front. The removal of this danger I regard as only possible through attack. V. FALKENHAYN. 

III

Here is another German estimate of the position created by ourWar Cabinet's decision to take the offensive in Palestine, and inconsidering the view of the German Staff and the prospect of successany Turkish attack would have, it must be borne in mind that underthe most favourable circumstances the enemy could not have been inposition for taking an offensive before the end of October. VonFalkenhayn wished to attack the British 'before the arrival of theirreinforcements. ' Not only had our reinforcements arrived before theend of October, but they were all in position and the battle hadcommenced. Beersheba was taken on October 31. This appreciation waswritten by Major von Papen of Yilderim headquarters on August 28, 1917:

 Enver's objections, the improbability of attaining a decisive result on the Sinai Front with two divisions plus the 'Asia Corps' and the difficulty of the Aleppo-Rayak transport question, hold good. 

 The execution of the offensive with stronger forces is desirable, but is not practicable, as, in consequence of the beginning of the rainy weather in the middle of November, the British offensive may be expected at the latest during the latter half of October; ours therefore should take place during the first part of that month. 

 The transport question precludes the assembly of stronger forces by that date. 

 Should the idea of an offensive be abandoned altogether on that account?

 On the assumption that General Allenby--after the two unsuccessful British attacks--will attack only with a marked superiority of men and munitions, a passive defence on a thirty-five kilometre front with an exposed flank does not appear to offer any great chance of success. 

 The conditions on the Western Front (defensive zone, attack divisions) are only partially applicable here, since the mobility of the artillery and the correct tactical handling of the attack division are not assured. The intended passive defensive will not be improved by the theatrical attack with one division suggested by General von Kress. 

 On the contrary this attack would be without result, as it would be carried out too obliquely to the front, and would only mean a sacrifice of men and material. 

 The attack proposed by His Excellency for the envelopment of the enemy's flank--if carried out during the first half of October with four divisions plus the 'Asia Corps'--will perhaps have no definite result, but will at all events result in this: that the Gaza Front flanked by the sea will tie down considerable forces and defer the continuation of British operations in the wet season, during which, in the opinion of General von Kress, they cannot be carried on with any prospect of success. 

 The situation on the Sinai Front will then be clear. Naturally it is possible that the position here may demand the inclusion of further effectives and the Yilderim operation consequently become impracticable. This, however, will only prove that the determining factor of the decisive operation for Turkey during the winter of 1917-1918 lies in Palestine and not in Mesopotamia. An offensive on the Sinai Front is therefore--even with reduced forces and a limited objective--the correct solution. 

 PAPEN. 

IV

_Letter from General Kress von Kressenstein to Yilderim headquarters, dated September_ 29, 1917, _on moral of Turkish troops_. 

A question which urgently needs regulating is that of deserters. According to my experience their number will increase still more withthe setting in of the bad weather and the deterioration of rations. 

Civil administration and the gendarmerie fail entirely; they oftenhave a secret understanding with the population and are open tobribery. 

The cordon drawn by me is too weak to prevent desertion. I am alsotoo short of troops to have the necessary raids undertaken in thehinterland. It is necessary that the hunt for deserters in the areabetween the front and the line Jerusalem-Ramleh-Jaffa be formallyorganised under energetic management, that one or two squadronsexclusively for this service be detailed, and that a definite rewardbe paid for bringing in each deserter. But above all it is necessarythat punishment should follow in consequence, and that theunfortunately very frequent amnesties of His Majesty the Sultan bediscontinued, at least for some time. 

The question of rationing has not been settled. We are livingcontinually from hand to mouth. Despite the binding promises ofthe Headquarters IVth Army, the Vali of Damascus, the Lines ofCommunication, Major Bathmann and others, that from now on 150 tons ofrations should arrive regularly each day, from the 24th to the 27th ofthis month, for example a total of 229 tons or only 75 tons per diemhave arrived. 

I cannot fix the blame for these irregularities. The Headquarters IVthArmy has received the highly gratifying order that, at least up to theimminent decisive battle, the bread ration is raised to 100 grammes. This urgently necessary improvement of the men's rations remainsillusory, if a correspondingly larger quantity of flour (about onewagon per day) is not supplied to us. So far the improvement existsonly on paper. The condition of the animals particularly givescause for anxiety. Not only are we about 6000 animals short ofestablishment, but as a result of exhaustion a considerable number ofanimals are ruined daily. The majority of divisions are incapableof operating on account of this shortage of animals. The ammunitionsupply too is gradually coming into question on account of thedeficiency in animals. The menacing danger can only be met by aregular supply of sufficient fodder. The stock of straw in the area ofoperations is exhausted. With gold some barley can still be bought inthe country. 

Every year during the rainy season the railway is interrupted againand again for periods of from eight to fourteen days. There are alsodays and weeks in which the motor-lorry traffic has to be suspended. Finally we must calculate on the possibility of an interruption of ourrear communications by the enemy. I therefore consider it absolutelynecessary that at least a fourteen days' reserve of rations bedeposited in the depôts at the front as early as possible. 

The increase of troops on the Sinai Front necessitates a veryconsiderable increase on the supply of meat from the Line ofCommunication area, Damascus district. 

V

The troops of General Allenby's Army before the attack on Beershebawere distributed as follows:

 XXTH CORPS. 

 10th Division. 

 _29th Brigade. 30th Brigade. 31st Brigade_. 

6th R. Irish Rifles. 1st R. Irish Regt. 5th R. Inniskillings. 5th Con. Rangers. 6th R. Munst. Fus. 6th R. Inniskillings. 6th Leinsters. 6th R. Dublin Fus. 2nd R. Irish Fus. 1st Leinsters 7th R. Dublin Fus. 5th R. Irish Rifles. 

 53rd Division. 

 _158th Brigade. 159th Brigade. 160th Brigade. _

1/5th R. Welsh Fus. 1/4th Cheshires. 1/4th R. Sussex. 1/6th " 1/7th " 2/4th R. West Surrey. 1/7th " 1/4th Welsh 2/4th R. West Kent. 1/1st Hereford. 1/5th " 2/10th Middlesex. 

 60th Division. 

 _179th Brigade. 180th Brigade. 181st Brigade_. 

2/13th London. 2/17th London. 2/21st London. 2/14th " 2/18th " 2/22nd "2/15th " 2/19th " 2/23rd "2/16th " 2/20th " 2/24th "

 74th Division. 

 _229th Brigade. 230th Brigade. 231st Brigade_. 

16th Devons (1st 10th E. Kent (R. E. 10th Shrop. (Shrop. Devon & R. N. Kent & W. Kent & Cheshire Yeo. ). Devon Yeo. ). Yeo. ). 12th Somerset L. I. 16th R. Sussex 24th R. Welsh Fus. (Yeo. ). (Yeo. ). (Denbigh Yeo. ). 14th R. Highrs. (Fife 15th Suffolk (Yeo. ) 25th R. Welsh Fus. & Forfar Yeo. ). (Montgomery Yeo. & Welsh Horse). 12th R. Scots Fus. 12th Norfolk (Yeo. ) 24th Welsh Regt. (Ayr & Lanark (Pembroke & Glanmorgan Yeo. ). Yeo. ). 

 XXIst CORPS. 

 52nd (Lowland) Division. 

 _155th Brigade. 156th Brigade. 157th Brigade. _

l/4th R. Scots Fus. 1/4th Royal Scots. 1/5th H. L. I. L/5th R. Scots Fus. 1/7th Royal Scots. 1/6th H. L. I. L/4th K. O. S. B. 1/7th Scot. Rifles. 1/7th H. L. I. L/5th K. O. S. B. 1/8th Scot. Rifles. 1/5th A. & S. Highrs. 

 54th (East Anglian) Division. 

 _161th Brigade. 162th Brigade. 163th Brigade. _

l/4th Essex. 1/5th Bedfords. 1/4th Norfolk. L/5th Essex. 1/4th Northants. 1/5th Norfolk. L/6th Essex. 1/10th London. 1/5th Suffolk. L/7th Essex. 1/11th London. 1/8th Hampshire. 

 75th Division. 

 _232th Brigade. 233th Brigade. 234th Brigade. _

1/5th Devon. 1/5th Somersets. 1/4th D. C. L. I. 2/5th Hampshire. 1/4th Wilts. 2/4th Dorsets. 2/4th Somersets. 2/4th Hampshire. 123rd Rifles. 2/3rd Gurkhas. 3/3rd Gurkhas. 58th Rifles. 

 DESERT MOUNTED CORPS. 

 Anzac Mounted Division. 

 _1st A. L. H. Bde. 2nd A. L. H. Bde. N. Z. Mtd. Rifles Bde. _

1st A. L. H. Regt. 5th A. L. H. Regt. Auckland M. Rifles. 2nd A. L. H. Regt. 6th A. L. H. Regt. Canterbury M. Rifles. 3rd A. L. H. Regt. 7th A. L. H. Regt. Wellington M. Rifles. 

 Australian Mounted Division. 

 _3rd L. H. Brigade. 4th L. H. Brigade. 5th Mtd. Brigade. _. 8th A. L. H. Regt. 4th A. L. H. Regt. 1/1st Warwick Yeo. 9th " 11th " 1/1st Gloucester Yeo. 10th " 12th " 1/1st Worcester Yeo. 

 Yoemanry Mounted Division

 _6th Mtd. Brigade. 8th Mtd. Brigade. 22nd Mtd. Brigade_. 1/1st Bucks Hussars. 1/1st City of London 1/1st LincolnshireYeo. Yeo. 1/1st Berkshire Yeo. 1/1st Co. Of London 1/1st StaffordshireYeo. Yeo. 1/1st Dorset Yeo. L/3rd Co. Of London 1/1st E. RidingYeo. Yeo. 

 7th Mounted Brigade (attached Desert Corps). 

 1/1st Sherwood Rangers. 1/1st South Notts Hussars. 

 Imperial Camel Brigade. 

VI

There can be no better illustration of how one battle worked out'according to plan' than the quotation of the following Force Order:

 FORCE ORDER

 GENERAL HEADQUARTERS, _22nd October_ 1917. 

 It is the intention of the Commander-in-Chief to take the offensive against the enemy at Gaza and at Beersheba, and when Beersheba is in our hands to make an enveloping attack on the enemy's left flank in the direction of Sheria and Hareira. 

 On Zero day XXth Corps with the 10th Division and Imperial Camel Brigade attached and the Desert Mounted Corps less one Mounted Division and the Imperial Camel Brigade will attack the enemy at Beersheba with the object of gaining possession of that place by nightfall. 

 As soon as Beersheba is in our hands and the necessary arrangements have been made for the restoration of the Beersheba water supply, XXth Corps and Desert Mounted Corps complete will move rapidly forward to attack the left of the enemy's main position with the object of driving him out of Sheria and Hareira and enveloping the left flank of his army. XXth Corps will move against the enemy's defences south of Sheria, first of all against the Kauwukah line and then against Sheria and the Hareira defences. Desert Mounted Corps calling up the Mounted Division left in general reserve during the Beersheba operation will move north of the XXth Corps to gain possession of Nejile and of any water supplies between that place and the right of XXth Corps and will be prepared to operate vigorously against and round the enemy's left flank if he should throw it back to oppose the advance of the XXth Corps. 

 On a date to be subsequently determined and which will probably be after the occupation of Beersheba and 24 to 48 hours before the attack of XXth Corps on the Kauwukah line, the XXIst Corps will attack the south-west defences of Gaza with the object of capturing the enemy's front-line system from Umbrella Hill to Sheikh Hasan, both inclusive. 

 The Royal Navy will co-operate with the XXIst Corps in the attack on Gaza and in any subsequent operations that may be undertaken by XXIst Corps. 

 On Z--4 day the G. O. C. XXIst Corps will open a systematic bombardment of the Gaza defences, increasing in volume from Z--1 day to Zx2 day and to be continued until Zx4 day at the least. 

 The Royal Navy will co-operate as follows: On Z--1 and Zero days two 6-inch monitors will be available for bombardment from the sea, special objective Sheikh Hasan. On Zero day a third 6-inch monitor will be available so that two of these ships may be constantly in action while one replenishes ammunition. On Zxl day 6-inch monitors will discontinue their bombardment which they will reopen on Zx2 day. From Zxl day the French battleship _Requin_ and H. M. S. _Raglan_ will bombard Deir Sineid station and junction for Huj, the roads and railway bridges and camps on the wadi Hesi and the neighbourhood. The _Requin_ and _Raglan_ will be assisted by a seaplane carrier. 

 From Zero day one 92 monitor will be available from dawn, special objective Sheikh Redwan. 

 From Z--1 day inclusive demands for naval co-operation will be conveyed direct from G. O. C. XXIst Corps to the Senior Naval Officer, Marine View, who will arrange for the transmission of the demands so made. 

 XXth Corps will move into position during the night of Z-l=Zero day so as to attack the enemy at Beersheba on Zero day south of the wadi Saba with two divisions while covering his flank and the construction of the railway east of Shellal with one division on the high ground overlooking the wadis El Sufi and Hanafish. The objective of XXth Corps will be the enemy's works west and south-west of Beersheba as far as the Khalasa-Beersheba road inclusive. 

 Desert Mounted Corps will move on the night of Z-1=Zero day from the area of concentration about Khalasa and Asluj so as to co-operate with XXth Corps by attacking Beersheba with two divisions and one mounted brigade. The objective of Desert Mounted Corps will be the enemy's defences from south-east to the north-east of Beersheba and the town of Beersheba itself. 

 The G. O. C. Desert Mounted Corps will endeavour to turn the enemy's left with a view to breaking down his resistance at Beersheba as quickly as possible. With this in view the main weight of his force will be directed against Beersheba from the east and north-east. As soon as the enemy's resistance shows signs of weakening the G. O. C. Desert Mounted Corps will be prepared to act with the utmost vigour against his retreating troops so as to prevent their escape, or at least to drive them well beyond the high ground immediately overlooking the town from the north. He will also be prepared to push troops rapidly into Beersheba in order to protect from danger any wells and plant connected with the water supply not damaged by the enemy before Beersheba is entered. 

 The Yeomanry Mounted Division will pass from the command of the G. O. C. XXth Corps at five on Zero day and will come directly under General Headquarters as part of the general reserve in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief. 

 When Beersheba has been taken the G. O. C. XXth Corps will push forward covering troops to the high ground north of the town to protect it from any counter movement on the part of the enemy. He will also put in hand the restoration of the water supply in Beersheba. The G. O. C. Desert Mounted Corps will be responsible for the protection of the town from the north-east and east. 

 As soon as possible after the taking of Beersheba the G. O. C. Desert Mounted Corps will report to G. H. Q. On the water supplies in the wells and wadis east of Beersheba and especially along the wadi Saba and the Beersheba-Tel-el-Nulah road. If insufficient water is found to exist in this area G. O. C. Desert Mounted Corps will send back such of his troops as may be necessary to watering places from which he started or which may be found in the country east of the Khalasa-Beersheba road during the operations. 

 A preliminary survey having been made, the G. O. C. XXth Corps will report by wire to G. H. Q. On the condition of the wells and water supply generally in Beersheba and on any water supplies found west and north-west of that place. He will telegraph an estimate as soon as it can be made of the time required to place the Beersheba water supply in working order. 

 When the situation as regards water at Beersheba has become clear so that the movement of XXth Corps and Desert Mounted Corps against the left flank of the enemy's main position can be arranged, the G. O. C. XXIst Corps will be ordered to attack the enemy's defences south-west of Gaza in time for this operation to be carried out prior to the attack of XXth Corps on the Kauwukah line of works. The objective of XXIst Corps will be the defences of Gaza from Umbrella Hill inclusive to the sea about Sheikh Hasan. 

 Instructions in regard to the following have been issued separate to all corps:

 Amount of corps artillery allotted. 

 Amount of ammunition put on corps charge prior to operations. 

 Amount of ammunition per gun that will be delivered daily at respective railheads and the day of commencement. 

 Amount of transport allotted for forward supply from railheads. 

 The general average for one day's firing has been calculated on the following basis:

 Field and mountain guns and mountain howitzers ... 150 rounds per gun. 4. 5-inch howitzers.... 120 rounds per gun. 60-pounders and 6-inch howitzers. 90 rounds per gun. 8-inch howitzers and 6-inch Mark VII. 60 rounds per gun. 

 This average expenditure will only be possible in the XXIst Corps up to Zx16 day and for the Desert Mounted Corps and XXth Corps to Zx13. After these dates if the average has been expended the daily average will have to drop to the basis of 100 rounds per 18-pounder per day and other natures in proportion. 

 AIRCRAFT, ARMY WING. --Strategical reconnaissance including the reconnaissance of areas beyond the tactical zone and in which the enemy's main reserves are located, also distant photography and aerial offensive, will be carried out by an Army squadron under instructions issued direct from G. H. Q. Protection from hostile aircraft will be the main duty of the Army fighting squadron. A bombing squadron will be held in readiness for any aerial offensive which the situation may render desirable. 

 CORPS SQUADRONS. --Two Corps squadrons will undertake artillery co-operation, contact patrols, and tactical reconnaissance for the Corps to which they are attached. In the case of the Desert Mounted Corps one flight from the Corps squadron attached to XXth Corps will be responsible for the above work. Photography of trench areas will normally be carried out daily by the Army Wing. 

VII

ORDERS FOR THE OFFICIAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM

1. The Commander-in-Chief will enter Jerusalem by the Bab-el-Khalil(Jaffa Gate) at 12 noon, 11th December 1917. The order of processionis shown below:

 Two Aides-de-camp. (Twenty paces. )O. C. Italian Palestine Commander-in-Chief. O. C. French PalestineContingent(Col. ContingentDagostino). (Col. Piepape). Staff Officer. Two Staff Officers. Staff Officer. (Ten paces. ) M. Picot (Head of French Mission). French Mil. Brig. -Gen. Italian Mil. Att. AmericanAtt. (Capt. Clayton. (Major Caccia). Mil. Att. St. Quentin). (Col. Davis). (Five paces. ) Chief of General Staff (Maj. -Gen. Sir L. J. Bols). Brig. -General General Staff (Brig. -Gen. G. Dawnay). (Five paces. ) G. O. C. XXth Corps, Lieut. -Gen. Sir Philip W. Chetwode, Bart. , D. S. O. Staff Officer. Brig. -Gen. Bartholomew. (Ten paces. ) British Guard. Australian and New Zealand Guard. French Guard. Italian Guard. 

2. GUARDS. --The following guards will be found by XXth Corps:

 Outside the Gate--

 British Guard: Fifty of all ranks, including English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh troops. 

 Australian and New Zealand Guard: Fifty of all ranks, including twenty New Zealand troops. 

 These guards will be drawn up facing each other, the right flank of the British guard and the left flank Australian guard resting on the City Wall. The O. C. British guard will be in command of both guards and will give the words of command. 

 Inside the Gate--

 French Guard: Twenty of all ranks. Italian Guard: Twenty of all ranks. 

 These guards will be drawn up facing each other, the left flank of the French guard and the right flank of the Italian guard resting on the City Wall. 

3. SALUTE. --On the approach of the Commander-in-Chief, guards willcome to the Salute and present arms. 

4. The Military Governor of the City will meet the Commander-in-Chiefat the Gate at 12 noon. 

5. ROUTE. --The procession will proceed _via_ Sueikat Allah and ElMaukaf Streets to the steps of El Kala (Citadel), where the notablesof the City under the guidance of a Staff Officer of the Governor willmeet the Commander-in-Chief and the Proclamation will be read to thecitizens. The British, Australian and New Zealand, French and Italianguards will, when the procession has passed them, take their place incolumn of fours in the rear of the procession in that order. 

On arrival at El Kala the guards will form up facing steps on theopposite (_i. E. _ east) side of El Maukaf Street, the British guardbeing thus on the left, Italian guard on the right of the line, andremain at the slope. The British and Italian guards will bring uptheir left and right flanks respectively across the street south andnorth of El Kala. 

On leaving the Citadel the procession will proceed in the same orderas before to the Barrack Square, where the Commander-in-Chief willconfer with the notables of the City. On entering the Barrack Squarethe guards will wheel to the left and, keeping the left-hand man ofeach section of fours next the side of the Barrack Square, march rounduntil the rear of the Italian guard has entered the Square, when theguards will halt, right turn (so as to face the centre of the Square), and remain at the slope. 

The procession will leave the City by the same route as it entered andin the same order. 

As the Commander-in-Chief and procession move off to leave the BarrackSquare the guards will present arms, and then move off and resumetheir places in the procession, the British guard leading. 

On arrival at the Jaffa Gate the guards will take up their originalpositions, and on the Commander-in-Chief's departure will be marchedaway under the orders of the G. O. C. XXth Corps. 

6. POLICE, etc. --The Military Governor of the City will arrange forpolicing the route of the procession and for the searching of houseson either side of the route. He will also arrange for civil officialsto read the Proclamation at El Kala. 

VIII

The Proclamation read from the steps of David's Tower on the occasionof the Commander-in-Chief's Official Entry into Jerusalem was in theseterms:

 To the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Blessed and the people dwelling in its vicinity:

 The defeat inflicted upon the Turks by the troops under my command has resulted in the occupation of your City by my forces. I therefore here and now proclaim it to be under martial law, under which form of administration it will remain as long as military considerations make it necessary. 

 However, lest any of you should be alarmed by reason of your experiences at the hands of the enemy who has retired, I hereby inform you that it is my desire that every person should pursue his lawful business without fear of interruption. Furthermore, since your City is regarded with affection by the adherents of three of the great religions of mankind, and its soil has been consecrated by the prayers and pilgrimages of multitudes of devout people of those three religions for many centuries, therefore do I make it known to you that every sacred building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three religions, will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred. 

IX

No story of the capture of Jerusalem would be complete without thetribute paid by General Allenby to his gallant troops of all arms. TheCommander-in-Chief's thanks, which were conveyed to the troops in aSpecial Order of the Day, were highly appreciated by all ranks. Thedocument ran as follows:

 SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

 G. H. Q. , E. E. P. , _15th December_ 1917. 

 With the capture of Jerusalem another phase of the operations of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force has been victoriously concluded. 

 The Commander-in-Chief desires to thank all ranks of all the units and services in the Force for the magnificent work which has been accomplished. 

 In forty days many strong Turkish positions have been captured and the Force has advanced some sixty miles on a front of thirty miles. 

 The skill, gallantry, and determination of all ranks have led to this result. 

 1. The approach marches of the Desert Mounted Corps and the XXth Corps (10th, 53rd, 60th, and 74th Divisions), followed by the dashing attacks of the 60th and 74th Divisions and the rapid turning movement of the Desert Mounted Corps, ending in the fine charge of the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade, resulted in the capture of Beersheba with many prisoners and guns. 

 2. The stubborn resistance of the 53rd Division, units of the Desert Mounted Corps and Imperial Camel Brigade in the difficult country north-east of Beersheba enabled the preparations of the XXth Corps to be completed without interference, and enabled the Commander-in-Chief to carry out his plan without diverting more than the intended number of troops to protect the right flank, despite the many and strong attacks of the enemy. 

 3. The attack of the XXth Corps (10th, 60th, and 74th Divisions), prepared with great skill by the Corps and Divisional Commanders and carried out with such dash and courage by the troops, resulted in the turning of the Turkish left flank and in an advance to the depth of nine miles through an entrenched position defended by strong forces. 

 In this operation the Desert Mounted Corps, covering the right flank and threatening the Turkish rear, forced the Turks to begin a general retreat of their left flank. 

 4. The artillery attack of the XXIst Corps and of the ships of the Royal Navy, skilfully arranged and carried out with great accuracy, caused heavy loss to the enemy in the Gaza sector of his defences. The success of this bombardment was due to the loyal co-operation of the Rear-Admiral S. N. O. Egypt and Red Sea, and the officers of the Royal Navy, the careful preparation of plans by the Rear-Admiral and the G. O. C. XXIst Corps, and the good shooting of the Royal Navy, and of the heavy, siege, and field artillery of the XXIst Corps. 

 5. The two attacks on the strong defences of Gaza, carried out by the 52nd and 54th Divisions, were each completely successful, thanks to the skill with which they were thought out and prepared by the G. O. C. XXIst Corps, the Divisional Commanders and the Brigade Commanders, and the great gallantry displayed by the troops who carried out these attacks. 

 6. The second attack resulted in the evacuation of Gaza by the enemy and the turning of his right flank. The 52nd and 75th Divisions at once began a pursuit which carried them in three weeks from Gaza to within a few miles of Jerusalem. 

 7. This pursuit, carried out by the Desert Mounted Corps and these two Divisions of the XXIst Corps, first over the sandhills of the coast, then over the Plains of Palestine and the foothills, and finally in the rocky mountains of Judea, required from all commanders rapid decisions and powers to adapt their tactics to varying conditions of ground. The troops were called upon to carry out very long marches in great heat without water, to make attacks on stubborn rearguards without time for reconnaissance, and finally to suffer cold and privation in the mountains. 

 In these great operations Commanders carried out their plans with boldness and determination, and the troops of all arms and services responded with a devotion and gallantry beyond praise. 

 8. The final operations of the XXth Corps which resulted in the surrender of Jerusalem were a fitting climax to the efforts of all ranks. 

 The attack skilfully prepared by the G. O. C. XXth Corps and carried out with precision, endurance, and gallantry by the troops of the 53rd, 60th, and 74th Divisions, over country of extreme difficulty in wet weather, showed skill in leading and gallantry and determination of a very high order. 

 9. Throughout the operations the Royal Flying Corps have rendered valuable assistance to all arms and have obtained complete mastery of the air. The information obtained from contact and reconnaissance patrols has at all times enabled Commanders to keep in close touch with the situation. In the pursuit they have inflicted severe loss on the enemy, and their artillery co-operation has contributed in no small measure to our victory. 

 10. The organisation in rear of the fighting forces enabled these forces to be supplied throughout. All supply and ammunition services and engineer services were called upon for great exertions. The response everywhere showed great devotion and high military spirit. 

 11. The thorough organisation of the lines of communication, and the energy and skill with which all the services adapted themselves to the varying conditions of the operations, ensured the constant mobility of the fighting troops. 

 12. The Commander-in-Chief appreciates the admirable conduct of all the transport services, and particularly the endurance and loyal service of the Camel Transport Corps. 

 13. The skill and energy by which the Signal Service was maintained under all conditions reflects the greatest credit on all concerned. 

 14. The Medical Service was able to adapt itself to all the difficulties of the situation, with the result the evacuation of wounded and sick was carried out with the least possible hardship or discomfort. 

 15. The Veterinary Service worked well throughout; the wastage in animals was consequently small considering the distances traversed. 

 16. The Ordnance Service never failed to meet all demands. 

 17. The work of the Egyptian Labour Corps has been of the greatest value in contributing to the rapid advance of the troops and in overcoming the difficulties of the communications. 

 18. The Commander-in-Chief desires that his thanks and appreciation of their services be conveyed to all officers and men of the force which he has the honour to command. 

 G. DAWNAY, B. G. G. S. , for Major-General, Chief of the General Staff, E. E. F. 

X

The men of units forming the XXth Corps were deeply gratified toreceive this commendation from their gallant Corps Commander:

 SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

 BY

 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR PHILIP W. CHETWODE, BT. , K. C. M. G. , C. B. , D. S. O. , _commanding XXth Corps_

 HEADQUARTERS, XXTH CORPS, _13th December_ 1917. 

 Now that the efforts of General Sir E. H. H. Allenby's Army have been crowned by the capture of Jerusalem, I wish to express to all ranks, services, and departments of the XXth Army Corps my personal thanks and my admiration for the soldierly qualities they have displayed. 

 I have served as a regimental officer in two campaigns, and no one knows better than I do what the shortness of food, the fatigue of operating among high mountains, and the cold and wet has meant to the fighting troops. But in spite of it all, and at the moment when the weather was at its worst, they responded to my call and drove the enemy in one rush through his last defences and beyond Jerusalem. 

 A fine performance, and I am intensely proud of having had the honour of commanding such a body of men. 

 I wish to give special praise to the Divisional Ammunition Columns, Divisional Trains A. S. C. , Supply Services, Mechanical Transport personnel, Camel Transport personnel, and to the Royal Army Medical Corps and all services whose continuous labour, day and night, almost without rest, alone enabled the fighting troops to do what they did. 

 SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

 HEADQUARTERS, XXTH CORPS, 31_st December_ 1917. 

 I have again to thank the XXth Corps and to express to them my admiration of their bravery and endurance during the three days' fighting on December 27, 28, and 29. 

 The enemy made a determined attempt with two corps to retake Jerusalem, and while their finest assault troops melted away before the staunch defence of the 53rd and 60th Divisions, the 10th and 74th were pressing forward over the most precipitous country, brushing aside all opposition in order to relieve the pressure on our right. 

 Their efforts were quickly successful, and by the evening of the 27th we had definitely regained the initiative, and I was able to order a general advance. 

 The final result of the three days' fighting was a gain to us of many miles and extremely heavy losses to the enemy. 

 A fine three days' work. 

INDEX

ABU SHUSHE. Adaseh. Ain Ari. --Karim. Air Force honours. Akir. Allenby, General. --administration. American Red Cross Society. Arsuf. Askalon. Auja, River. 

BAKER, Colonel Sir Randolf. Bald Hill. Barrow, Major-General G. De S. Bartholomew, Brigadier-General. Bayley, Colonel. Beersheba, Anzac march on. --battle of--German preparationsBeit Hannina. --Iksa. --Izza. --Jala. --ur el Foka. --ur et Tahta. Beitunia. Bethany. Beth-horons. Bethlehem. Biblical battlefields. Biddu. Bireh. Bols, Major-General. Borton, Major-General. Bulfin, Lieutenant-General. Bulteel, Captain. Burkah. Butler, Brigadier-General. 

CHAUVEL, Lieutenant-General. Chaytor, Major-General. Cheape, Lieutenant-Colonel H. Chetwode, Lieutenant-General Sir. --thanks to XXth Corps troops. Clayton, Brigadier-GeneralColston, Brigadier-General. Cox, Brigadier-GeneralCripps, Colonel Hon. F. 

DAMMERS, Captain. Dawnay, Brigadier-General. Deir Sineid. --Yesin. De Rothschild, Major. Desert railways. --pipeline. Dukku. 

EKTEIF. El Jib. El Kala. Enver. 

FARAH, wadi. Force Order, General Allenby's thanks to troops. Ful, Tel el. 

GAZA, plan of attack on. --Ali Muntar. --defences. --El Arish redoubt. --Great Mosque. --naval gunnery. --Outpost Hill. --Sea Post. Gaza, Sheikh Hasan. --Umbrella Hill. German Hospice. Gilgal. Girdwood, Major-General. Godwin, Brigadier-General. Good Samaritan Inn. Grant, Brigadier-General. 

Hadrah. Hanafish, action on wadi. Hebron. Hill 1070. Hill, Major-General J. Hodgson, Major-General. Hong Kong and Singapore battery. Huj. 

Ibn Obeid. Imperial Service cavalry. 

Jackson, Admiral T. Jaffa. --Gate. Jebel Kuruntul. Jelil. Jericho. Jerisheh. Jerusalem, battle of. --civil administration--Memorial to Army--Official Entry--order of procession--Proclamation to people--water supplyJordan. Jezar. Junction Station. 

Katrah. Kantara. Kanwukah. Khurbet Subr. Khuweilfeh. Kressenstein, von. Kulonieh. Kuryet el Enab. Kustul. 

Latron. Lawson, Captain. Lifta. Longley, Major-General. Ludd. 

M'Call, Brigadier-General Pollak. Maclean, Brigadier-General. Mejdel. Meldrum, Brigadier-General. Mott, Major-General. Mount of Olives. Mughar. Mukhmas. Mulebbis. 

Nablus Road. Nebi Musa. Nebi Samwil. Nejile. 

O'Brien, Colonel. 

Palestine Army, composition of. Palin, Major-General. Patron, Captain. Pemberton, Colonel. Perkins, Lieutenant. Primrose, Captain Hon. Neil. 

Ramallah. Ramleh. Raratongas. Ras et Tawil. Rushdi trenches. Ryrie, Brigadier-General. 

Saba, Tel el. Sakaty, Tel el. Saris. Sarona. Shea, Major-General H. Sheikh Muannis. Sheria. Sherifeh. Shilta. Smith, Rifleman. Soba. Solomon's Pools. Strategy in Palestine. --the German view. Suffa. Supplying the front. Surar, wadi. Sukereir, wadi. 

TALAT ED DUMM. Temperley. Thornhill, Corporal. Train, Corporal, V. C. Turkish line of communications. --moral. 

WATSON, Brigadier-General. Whines, Corporal. Whitehill. Wingfield-Digby, Captain. Wire roads. 

YEBNAH. Yilderim undertaking. --von Falkenhayn's doubts. 

ZAMBY. Zeitun ridge. 

Printed by T. And A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at theEdinburgh University Press