How Jerusalem was won : being the record of Allenby's campaign in Palestine

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HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

BY THE SAME author

THE DESERT
CAMPAIGNS

BY

W. T. MASSEY

Oj^cial Corrtspondent "with the
Egyptian Expeditionary Force

Crou'H IIt'o 68. lut

An Account of the work of the Imperial
Forces in the Deserts of Egypt and
Sinai. Illustrated with Drawings by
Jamks M'Hey, taken on the spot for
His Majesty's Government.

' This record, by the correspondent who was
selected by the Chief London Newspapers to
accompany the Egyptian Expeditionary Force,
will serve to bring home to the British Public
the great work done by our arms in keeping open
the gateway between P'a^t and West." — Times
Literary Supplement.

'Mr Massey . . . tells his story well and
simply.' — The Observer.

'The admirable drawings by Mr James M'Bey,
the official artist with the E. E. F., add greatly
to the pleasure of reading this excellent little
history.' — Morning; Post.

OFFICIAL ENTRY INTO IMK IIOLV (TIV. (iKXFRAL ALLFNP.V

RECEIVED BY THF Mn.rPARY dOYERXOR OF lERUSALEM.

Dec. II, 1917

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 EGYPTIAN

EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

597-599 FIFTH AVENUE

1920

j ROBERTS WALKER
|SCARSDALE,NEWYORK

Ct/iA- £^

Printed* in Cfreat Britain

. .* •• • • •

• • •

• • •

t>l3?33

{^

PREFACE

. This narrative of the work accomplished for civilisa-
-^tion by Greneral Allenby's Army is carried only as far
as the occupation of Jericho. The capture of that
ancient town, with the possession of a Hne of rugged
hills a dozen miles north of Jerusalem, secured the
Holy City from any Turkish attempt to retake it.
The book, in fact, tells the story of the twenty-third
fall of Jerusalem, one of the most beneficent happen-
ings of all wars, and marking an epoch in the wonderful
history of the Holy Place which will rank second only
to that era which saw the birth of Christianity. All
that occurred in the fighting on the Gaza-Beersheba
hne was part and parcel of the taking of Jerusalem,
the freeing of which from four centuries of Turkish
domination was the object of the first part of the
campaign. The Holy City was the goal sought by
every officer and man in the Army ; and though from
the moment that goal had been attained all energies
were concentrated upon driving the Turk out of the
war, there was not a member of the Force, from the
highest on the Staff to the humblest private in the
ranks, who did not feel that Jerusalem was the
greatest prize of the campaign.

In a second volume I shall tell of that tremendous
feat of arms which overwhelmed the Turkish Armies,
drove them through 400 miles of country in six
weeks, and gave cavaby an opportunity of proving

vi HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

that, despite all the arts and devices of modern war-
fare, with fighters and observers in the air and an
entirely new mechanism of war, they continued as
indispensable a part of an army as when the legions
of old took the field. This is too long a story to be
told in this volume, though the details of that mag-
nificent triumph are so firmly impressed on the mind
that one is loth to leave the narration of them to a
future date. For the moment Jerusalem must be
suthcient, and if in the telling of the British work up
to that point I can succeed in giving an idea of the
immense value of General Allenby's Army to the
Empire, of the soldier's courage and fortitude, of his
indomitable will and self-sacrifice and patriotism, it
will indeed prove the most grateful 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

VL 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 .....

1

7

18

26

32

42

53

67

81

96

112

126

137

158

19o

211

232

245

254

259

265

293

LIST OF MAPS

FACING PAOK

Plan of Southern Palestine ..... 7

Plan of Gaza-Beersheba Line .... 94

Plan of the Beth-Horon Country . . . 156

Plan of the Battle of Jerusalem . . . 194

Tiii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Official Entry into the Holy City. General Allenby
received by the military governor of jerusalem,
December 11, 1917 Frontisfiece

FACING PAGE

EIantara Terminus of the Desert Military Eailway . 20 '

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 Koad 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 commanded the Sun to remain still to
enable the Israelites to overthrow the Philis-
tines

In the Judean Hills

A Roman Centurion's Tomb, Kuryet el Enab

21

32
33

46
47

56
67

78
79

114
115

126

127

140
141

X HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

KACISO PAOIt

One of King Solomon's Pools 162

A Typical New Zealandeii 163

Wadi Surar, crossed by London Territorials on the
Morning of their Assault on the Jerusalem De-
fences ........ 176

The Deib Yesin Position west of Jerusalem . . 177

Eastern Face of Nebi Samwil Mosque, showing De-
struction BY Turkish Shell-fire . . . 192

Official Entry into the Holy City. General Allenby

arriving outside the Jaffa Gate . . . 193

Officlal Entry. General Allenby receiving the

Mayor of Jerusalem (a descendant of Mahomet) 208

Jerusalem from Mount of Olives .... 209

Jerusalem from Garden of Gethsemane . . . 216
Panel in the Chapel of the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria.

Hospice on the Mount of Oliv^bs . . . 217

Bethlehem 226

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem .... 227

Ain Kartm, Part of the Jerusalem Defences . . 234

River Auja, crossed at Night by Lowland Territorials 236

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 .

242
243

248
249

252
253

258
259

CHAPTER I

PALESTINE'S INFLUENCE ON THE WAR

In a war which involved the peoples of the four
quarters of the globe it was to be expected that on
the world's oldest battleground would be renewed
the scenes of conflict of bygone ages. There was
perhaps a desire of some elements of both sides,
certainly it was the unanimous wish of the AUies,
to avoid the clash of arms in Palestine, and to leave
untouched by armies a land held in reverence by
three of the great rehgions of the world. But this
ancient cockpit of warring races could not escape.
The will of those who broke the peace prevailed.
Germany's dream of Eastern Empires and world
domination, the lust of conquest of the Kaiser party,
required that the tide of war should once more surge
across the land, and if the conquering hosts left
fewer traces of war wreckage than were to be expected
in their victorious march, it was due not to any
anxiety of our foes to avoid conflict about, and
damage to, places with hallowed associations, but
to the masterly strategy of the British Commander-
in-Chief who manoeuvred the Turkish Armies out of
positions defending the sacred sites.

The people of to-day who have lived through the
war, who have had their view bewildered by ever-
recurring anxieties, by hopes shattered and fears
realised, by a succession of victories and defeats on
a colossal scale, and by a sudden collapse of the
enemy, may fail to see the Palestine campaign in

4 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

service elsewhere, but to recruit a large force of Indians
for the Empire's work in other climes. Bagdad was
a tremendous blow to German ambitions. The loss
of it spelt ruin to those hopes of Eastern conquest
which had prompted the German intrigues in Turkey,
and it was certain that the Kaiser, so long as he
beheved in ultimate victory, would refuse to accept
the loss of Bagdad as final. Russia's withdrawal
as a belligerent released a large body of Turkish
troops in the Caucasus, and set free many Germans,
particularly ' technical troops ' of which the Turks
stood in need, for other fronts. It was then that the
German High Command conceived a scheme for
retaking Bagdad, and the redoubtable von Ealken-
hayn was sent to Constantinople charged with the
preparations for the undertaking. Certain it is that
it would have been put into execution but for the
situation created by the presence of a large British
Army in the Sinai Peninsula. A large force was
collected about Aleppo for a march down the Eu-
phrates valley, and the winter of 1917-18 would
have witnessed a stern struggle for supremacy in
Mesopotamia if the War Cabinet had not decided to
force the Turks to accept battle where they least
wanted it.

The views of the British War Cabinet on the war
in the East, at any rate, 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 Eg3^tian Expeditionary Force under a
General who had proved his high military capacity
in France, and in whom all ranks had complete con-
fidence, and they permitted the Mesopotamian and
Salonika Armies to contain the enemies on their fronts
while the Army in Palestine set out to crush the Turks

PALESTINE'S INFLUENCE ON THE WAR 5

at what proved to be their most vital point. As to
whether the force available on our Mesopotamia
front was capable of defeating the German scheme
I cannot offer an opinion, but it is beyond all question
that the conduct of operations in Palestine on a plan
at once bold, resolute, and worthy of a high place in
mihtary history saved the Empire much anxiety
over our position in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys,
and probably prevented unrest on the frontiers of
India and in India itself, where mischief makers were
actively working in the German cause. Nor can
there be any doubt that the brilliant campaign in
Palestine prevented British and French influence
declining among the Mahomedan populations of
those countries' respective spheres of control in Africa.
Indeed I regard it as incontrovertible that the
Palestine strategy of General Allenby, even apart
from his stupendous rush through Syria in the
autumn of the last year of war, did as much to 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 and French troops in France
might have had to be detached to other fronts, and
the Germans' effort in the Spring might have pushed
their line farther towards the Channel and Paris. If
Bagdad was not actually saved in Palestine, an ex-
pedition against it was certainly stopped by our
Army operating on the old battlegrounds in Palestine.
We lost many lives, and it cost us a vast amount of
money, but the sacrifices of brave men contributed
to the saving of the world from German domination ;
and high as the British name stood in the East as
the upholder of the freedom of peoples, the fame of
Britain for justice, fair dealing, and honesty is wider
and more firmly estabHshed to-day because the people
have seen it emerge triumphantly from a supreme test.

6 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

In the strategy of the w orld war we made, no doubt,
many mistakes, but in Palestine the strategy was of
the best, and in the working out of a far-seeing scheme,
victories so iniiucnced events that on this front began
the fhial phase of the war — once Turkey was beaten,
Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary submitted and Ger-
many acknowledged the inevitable. Falkenhayn
saw that the Bagdad undertaking was impossible so
long as we were dangerous on the Palestine front,
and General Allenby's attack on the Gaza hne wiped
the Bagdad enterprise out of the list of German
ambitions. The plan of battle on the Gaza-Beer-
sheba line resembled in 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 that Bulgaria's submission
was an intelligent anticipation of the laying down of
their arms by the Turks. Gaza- Beersheba was a
rolling up from our right to left ; so was the ending
of the Hun aUiance.

Consiabi* k Co. Ltd,

CHAPTER IT

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS

It was in accordance with the fitness of things that
the British Army should fight and conquer on the
very spots consecrated by the memories of the most
famous battles of old. From Gaza onwards we made
our progress by the most ancient road on earth, for
this way moved commerce between the Euphrates
and the NRe many centuries before the East knew
West. We fought on fields which had been the battle-
grounds of Egyptian and Assyrian armies, where
Hittites, Ethiopians, Persians, Parthians, and Mongols
poured out their blood in times when kingdoms were
strong by the sword alone. The Ptolemies invaded
Syria by this way, and here the Greeks put their
colonising hands on the country. Alexander the
Great made this his route to Egypt. Pompey
marched over the Maritime Plain and inaugurated
that Roman rule which lasted for centuries ; till
Islam made its wide irresistible sweep in the seventh
century. Then the Crusaders fought and won and
lost, and Napoleon's ambitions in the East were
wrecked just beyond the plains.

Up the Maritime Plain we battled at Gaza, every
yard of which had been contested by the armies of
mighty kings in the past thirty-five centuries, at
Akir, Gezer, Lydda, and around Joppa. All down
the ages armies have moved in victory or flight over
this plain, and General AUenby in his advance was
but repeating history. And when the Turks had

8 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

been driven beyond the Plain of Philistia, and the
Ck)mmander-in-Chief had to decide how to take
Jerusalem, we saw the British force move along
precisely the same route that has been taken by
armies since the time when Joshua overcame the
Amorites and the day was lengthened by the sun
and moon standing still till the battle was won.
Greography had its influence on the strategy of to-day
as completely as it did when armies were not cum-
bered with guns and mechanical transport. Of the few
passes from the Maritime Plain over the Shephelah
into the Judean range only that emerging from
the green Vale of Ajalon was possible, if we were to
take Jerusalem, as the great captains of old took it,
from the north. The Syrians sometimes chose this
road in preference to advancing through Samaria,
the Romans suffered retreat on it, Richard Coeur de
Lion made it the path for his approach towards the
Holy City, and, precisely as in Joshua's day and as
when in the first century the Romans fell victims to
a tremendous Jewish onslaught, the fighting was
hardest about the Beth-horons, but with a different
result — the invaders were victorious. The corps
which actually took Jerusalem advanced up the new
road from Latron through Kuryet el Enab, identified
by some as Kirjath-jearim where the Philistines
returned the Ark, but that road would have been
denied to us if we had not made good the ancient
path from the Vale of Ajalon to Gibeon. Jerusalem
was won by the fighting at the Beth-horons as
surely as it was on the line of hills above the wadi
Surar which the Londoners carried. There was
fighting at Gibeon, at Michmas, at Beeroth, at Ai,
and numerous other places made familiar to us by
the Old Testament, and assuredly no army went
forth to battle on more hallowed soil.

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS 9

Of all the armies which earned a place in history
in Palestine, General Allenby's was the greatest — the
greatest in size, in equipment, in quality, in fighting
power, and not even the invading armies in the ro-
mantic days of the Crusades could equal it in chivalry.
It fought the strong fight with clean hands through-
out, and finished without a blemish on its conduct.
It was the best of all the conquering armies seen in
the Holy Land as well as the greatest. Will not the
influence of this Army endure ? I think so. There
is an awakening in Palestine, not merely of Christians
and Jews, but of Moslems, too, in a less degree.
During the last thirty years there have grown more
signs of the deep faiths of peoples and of their venera-
tion of this land of sacred history. If their insti-
tutions and missions could develop and shed light
over Palestine even while the slothful and corrupt
Turk ruled the land, how much faster and more in
keeping with the sanctity of the country will the im-
provement be under British protection ? The graves
of our soldiers dotted over desert wastes and corn-
fields, on barren hills and in fertile valleys, ay, and
on the Mount of OHves where the Saviour trod, will
mark an era more truly grand and inspiring, and
offer a far greater lesson to future generations than
the Crusades or any other invasion down the track
of time. The Army of General Allenby responded
to the happy thought of the Commander-in-Chief
and contributed one day's pay for the erection of a
memorial near Jerusalem in honour of its heroic dead.
Apart from the holy sites, no other memorial will be
revered so much, and future pilgrims, to whatever
faith they belong, will look upon it as a monument to
men who went to battle to bring lasting peace to a
land from which the Word of Peace and Goodwill
went forth to mankind.

10 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

In selecting General Sir Edmund Allenby as the
Palestine Army's chief the War Cabinet made a happy
choice. General Sir Archibald Murray was recalled
to take up an important command at home after
the two unsuccessful attempts to drive the Turks
from the Gaza defences. The troops at General
Murray's disposal were not strong enough to take
the offensive again, and it was clear there must
be a long period of preparation for an attack on a
large scale. General Allenby brought to the East a
lengthy experience of fighting on the Western Front,
where his deliberate methods of attack, notably at
Arras, had given the Alhes 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
arm could be employed with the most fruitful of
results. General Allenby' s achievements as a cavalry
leader in the early days of the war marked him as
the one officer of high rank suited for the Palestine
command, and his proved capacity as a General both
in open and in trench warfare gave the Army that
high degree of confidence in its Commander-in-Chief
which it is so necessary that a big fighting force should
possess. A tremendously hard worker himself.
General Allenby expected all under him to concen-
trate the whole of their energies on their work. He
had the faculty for getting the best out of his officers,
and on his Staff were some of the most enthusiastic
soldiers in the service. There was no room for an
inefficient leader in any branch of the force, and the
knowledge that the Commander-in-Chief valued the
lives and the health of his men so highly that he would
not risk a failure, kept all the staffs tuned up to concert
pitch. We saw many changes, and the best men came
to the top. His own vigour infected the whole com-

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS 11

mand, and within a short while of arriving at the
front the efficiency of the Army was considerably
increased.

The Palestine G.H.Q. was probably nearer the
battle front than any G.H.Q. in other theatres of
operations, and when the Army had broken through
and chased the enemy beyond the Jaffa- Jerusalem
line, G.H.Q. was opened at Bir Salem, near Ramleh,
and for several months was actually within reach of
the long-range guns which the Turks possessed. The
rank and file were not slow to appreciate this. They
knew their Commander-in-Chief was on the spot,
keeping his eye and hand on everything, organising
with his organisers, planning with his operation
staff, familiar with every detail of the complicated
transport system, watching his supply services with
the keenness of a quartermaster- general, and taking
that lively interest in the medical branch whrch be-
trayed an anxious desire for the welfare and health
of the men. The rank and file knew something more
than this. They saw the Commander-in-Chief at
the front every day. General Allenby did not rely
solely on reports from his corps. He went to each
section of the line himself, and before practically
every major operation he saw the ground and ex-
amined the scheme for attack. There was not a
part of the line he did not know, and no one will
contradict me when I say that the military roads in
Palestine were known by no one better than the
driver of the Commander-in-Chief's car. A man of
few words. General Allenby always said what he
meant with soldierly directness, which made the thanks
he gave a rich reward. A good piece of work brought
a written or oral message of thanks, and the men
were satisfied they had done well to deserve con-
gratulations. They were proud to have the con-

12 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

fidence of such a Chief and to deserve it, and they
in their turn had such unbounded faith in the miUtary
judgment of the General and in the care he took to
prevent unnecessary risk of life, that there was nothing
which he sanctioned that they would not attempt.
Such mutual confidence breeds strength, and it was
the Commander-in-Chief's example, his tact, energy,
and military genius which made his Army a potent
power for Britain and a strong pillar of the Allies'
cause.

Let it not be imagined that General Allenby in his
victorious campaign shone only as a great soldier.
He was also a great administrator. In England little
was known about this part of the General's work,
and owing to the difficulties of the task and to the
consideration which had, and still has, to be show^n to
the susceptibilities of a number of friendly nations
and peoples, it may be long before the full story of
the administration of the occupied territory in
Palestine is unfolded for general appreciation. It
is a good story, worthy of Britain's record as a pro-
tector of peoples, and though from the nature of his
conquest over the Turks in the Bible country the name
of General Allenby will adorn the pages of history
principally as a victor, it will also stand before the
governments of states as setting a model for a wise,
prudent, considerate, even benevolent, administration
of occupied enemy territory. In days when Powers
driven mad by military ambition tear up treaties as
scraps of paper. General Allenby observed the spirit as
well as the letter of the Hague Convention, and found
it possible to apply to occupied territory the prin-
ciples of administration as laid down in the Manual
of Military Law.

The natives marvelled at the change. In place of
insecurity, extortion, bribery and corruption, levies

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS 13

on labour and property and all the evils of Turkish
government, General Allenby gave the country behind
the front Hne peace, justice, fair treatment of every
race and creed, and a jQrm and equitable adminis-
tration of the law. Every man's house became his
castle. Taxes were readily paid, the tax gatherers
were honest servants, and, none of the revenue going
to keep fat pashas in luxury in Constantinople, there
came a prospect of expenditure and revenue balancing
after much money had been usefully spent on local
government. Until the signing of peace interna-
tional law provided that Turkish laws should apply.
These, properly administered, as they never were by
the Turks, gave a basis of good government, and,
with the old abuses connected with the collection of
revenue removed, and certain increased taxation and
customs dues imposed by the Turks during the war
discontinued, the people resumed the arts of peace
and enjoyed a degree of prosperity none of them had
ever anticipated. What the future government of
Palestine may be is uncertain at the time of writing.
There is talk of international control — we seem ever
ready to lose at the conference table what a vaUant
sword has gained for us — ^but the careful and per-
fectly correct administration of General Allenby will
save us from the criticism of many jealous foreigners.
Certainly it will bear examination by any impartial
investigator, but the best of all tributes that could
be paid to it is that it satisfied religious communities
which did not live in perfect harmony with one
another and the inhabitants of a country which
shelters the people of many different races.

The Yilderim undertaking, as the Bagdad scheme
was described, did not meet with the full acceptance
of the Turks. The ' mighty Jemal,' as the Germans
sneeringly called the Commander of the Syrian Army,

14 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

opposed it as weakening his prospects, and even Enver,
the ambitious creature and tool of Germany, post-
poned his approval. It would seem the taking over of
the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force
by General Allenby set the Turks thinking, and made
the German Military Mission in Constanthiople
reconsider their plans, not with a view to a complete
abandonment of the proposal to advance on Bagdad,
as would have been wise, but in order to see how few
of the Yilderim troops they could allot to Jemal's
army to make safe the Sinai front. There was an
all-important meeting of Turkish Generals in the
latter half of August, and Jemal stood to his guns.
Von Falkenhayn could not get him to abate one item
of his demands, and there can be no doubt that
Falkenhayn, obsessed though he was with the im-
portance of getting Bagdad, could see that Jemal
was right. He admitted that the Yilderim opera-
tion was only practicable if it had freedom for retire-
ment through the removal of the danger on the
Palestine front. With that end in view he advocated
that the British should be attacked, and suggested
that two divisions and the ' Asia Corps ' should be
sent from Aleppo to move round our right. Jemal
was in favour of defensive action ; Enver pro-
crastinated and proposed sending one division to
strengthen the IVth Army on the Gaza front and to
proceed with the Bagdad preparations. The wait-
and-see policy prevailed, but long before we exerted
our full strength Bagdad was out of the danger zone.
General Allenby' s force was so disposed that any
suggestion of the Yilderim operation being put into
execution was ruled out of consideration.

Several documents captured at Yilderim head-
quarters at Nazareth in September 1918, when
General Allenby made his big drive through Syria,

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS 15

show very clearly how our Palestine operations
changed the whole of the German plans, and reading
between the lines one can realise how the impatience
of the Germans was increasing Turkish stubbornness
and creating friction and ill-feeling. The German
military character brooks no opposition ; the Turks
like to postpone till to-morrow what should be done
to-day. The latter were cocksure after their two
successes at Gaza they could hold us up ; the Ger-
mans believed that with an offensive against us they
would hold us in check till the wet season arrived.^

Down to the south the Turks had to bring their
divisions. Their line of communications was very
bad. There was a railway from Aleppo through
Rayak to Damascus, and onwards through Deraa
(on the Hedjaz line) to Afule, Messudieh, Tul Keram,
Ramleh, Junction Station to Beit Hanun, on the
Gaza sector, and through Et Tineh to Beersheba.
Rolling stock was short and fuel was scarce, and the
enemy had short rations. When we advanced
through Syria in the autumn of 1918 our transport
was nobly served by motor-lorry columns which
performed marvels in getting up supplies over the
worst of roads. But as we went ahead we, having
command of the sea, landed stores all the way up
the coast, and unless the Navy had lent its helping
hand we should never have got to Aleppo before the
Turk cried ' Enough.' Every ounce of the Turks'
supphes had to be hauled over land. They managed
to put ten infantry divisions and one cavalry division
against us in the first three weeks, but they were not
comparable in strength to our seven infantry divisions
and three cavalry divisions. In rifle strength we
outnumbered them by two to one, but if the enemy
bad been well led and properly rationed he, being

* See Appendices i„ ii., and m.

16 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

on the defensive and having strong prepared posi-
tions, should have had the power to resist us more
strongly. The Turkish divisions we attacked were :
3rd, 7th, 16th, 19th, 20th, 24th, 26th, 27th, 53rd,
and 54th, and the 3rd Cavalry Division. The latter
avoided battle, but all the infantry divisions had
heavy casualties. That the moral of the Turkish
Army was not high may be gathered from a very
illuminatmg letter written by General Kress von
Kressenstein, the G.O.C. of the Sinai front, to Yilderim
headquarters on September 29, 1917.^

The troops who won Palestine and made it happier
than it had been for four centuries were exclusively
soldiers of the British Empire. There was a French
detachment and an Italian detachment with General
Allenby's Army. The Italians for a short period held
a small portion of the line in the Gaza sector, but did
not advance with our force ; the French detachment
were solely employed as garrison troops. The French
battleship Requin and two French destroyers co-
operated with the ships of the Royal Navy in the
bombardment of the coast. Our Army was truly
representative of the Empire, and the units com-
posing it gave an abiding example that in unity rested
our strength. From over the Seven Seas the
Empire's sons came to illustrate the mianimity of
all the King's subjects in the prosecution of the
war. English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh divisions
of good men and true fought side by side with
soldiers of varying Indian races and castes. Aus-
tralia's valiant sons constituted many brigades of
horse and, with New Zealand mounted regiments,
became the most hardened campaigners in the
Egyptian and Palestine theatre of operations. Their
powerful support in the day of anxiety and trial, as

1 See Appendix iv.

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS 17

well as in the time of triumph, will be remembered
with gratitude. South Africa contributed good
gunners; our dark-skinned brethren in the West
Indies furnished infantry who, when the fierce
summer heat made the air in the Jordan Valley like
a draught from a furnace, had a bayonet charge
which aroused an Anzac brigade to enthusiasm (and
Colonial free men can estimate bravery at its true
value). From far-away Hong Kong and Singapore
came mountain gunners equal to any in the world,
Kroomen sent from their homes in West Africa surf
boatmen to land stores, Raratongas from the Southern
Pacific vied with them in boat craft and beat them
in physique, while Egypt contributed a labour corps
and transport corps running a long way into six
figures. The communion of the representatives of
the Mother and Daughter nations on the stern field
of war brought together people with the same ideals,
and if there are any minor jealousies between them
the brotherhood of arms will make the soldiers
returning to their homes in all quarters of the globe
the best of missionaries to spread the Imperial idea.
Instead of wrecking the British Empire the German-
made war should rebuild it on the soundest of f oimda-
tions, affection, mutual trust, and common interest.

CHAPTER III

DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK

General Allenby's first problem was of vital
consequence. He had to pierce the Gaza line.
Before his arrival there had been, as already stated,
two attempts which failed. A third failure, or even
a check, might have spelt disaster for us in the East.
Tlie Turks held commanding positions, which they
strengthened and fortified under the direction of
German engineers until their country, between the
sea and Beersheba, became a chain of land works of
high military value, well adapted for defence, and
covering almost every hne of approach. The Turk
at the Dardanelles had shoAvn no loss of that quality
of doggedness in defence which characterised him
in Plevna, and though we know his commanders
still cherished the hope of successfully attacking us
before we could attempt to crush his hne, it was on
his system of defence that the enemy mainly relied
to break the power of the British force. On arriving
in Egypt General Allenby was given an appreciation
of the situation written by Lieut.-General Sir Philip
Chetwode, who had commanded the Desert Column
in various stages across the sands of Sinai, was
responsible for forcing the Turks to evacuate El
Arish, arranged the dash on Magdaba by General
Sir Harry ChauveFs mounted troops, and fought
the briUiant little battle of Rafa. This appreciation
of the position was the work of a master military
mind, taking a broad comprehensive view of the

18

DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK 19

whole military situation in the East, Palestine's
position in the world war, the strategical and tactical
problems to be faced, and, without making any
exorbitant demands for troops which would lessen
the Allies' powers in other theatres, set out the
minimum necessities for the Palestine force. General
AUenby gave the fullest consideration to this docu-
ment, and after he had made as complete an examina-
tion of the front as any Commander-in-Chief ever
undertook — the General was in one or other sector
with his troops almost every day for four months —
General Chetwode's plan was adopted, and full credit
was given to his prescience in General AUenby' s
despatch covering the operations up to the fall of
Jerusalem.

It was General Chetwode's view at the time of
writing his appreciation, that both the British and
Turkish Armies were strategically on the defensive.
The forces were nearly equal in numbers, though we
were slightly superior in artillery, but we had no
advantage sufficient to enable us to attack a well-
entrenched enemy who only offered us a flank on
which we could not operate owing to lack of water
and the extreme difficulty of supply. General Chet-
wode thought it was possible the enemy might make
an offensive against us — we have since learned he
had such designs — but he gave weighty reasons
against the Turk embarking upon a campaign con-
ducted with a view to throwing us beyond the
Eg3rptian frontier into the desert again. If the
enemy contemplated even minor operations in the
Sinai Desert he had not the means of undertaking
them. We should be retiring on positions we had
prepared, for, during his advance across the desert,
General Chetwode had always taken the precaution
of having his force dug in against the unlikely event

20 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of a Turkish attack. Every step we went back would
make oui* supply easier, and there was no water
difficulty, the pipe Hue, then 130 miles long, which
carried the purified waters of the Nile to the amount
of hundreds of thousands of gallons daily, being
always available for our troops. It would be necessary
for the Tiu"ks to repair the Beersheba-Auja railway.
They had lifted some of the rails for use north of Gaza,
and a raid we had carried out showed that we could
stop this railway being put into a state of preparedness
for mihtary traffic. An attack which aimed at again
threateiung the Suez Canal was therefore ruled as
outside the range of possibilities.

On the other hand, now that the Russian collapse
had relieved the Turk of his anxieties in the Caucasus
and permitted him to concentrate his attention on
the Mesopotamian and Palestine fronts, what hope
had he of resisting our attack when we should be in
a position to launch it ? The enemy had a single
narrow-gauge railway hne connecting with the
Jaffa- Jerusalem railway at Junction Station about
six miles south-east of Ramleh. This line ran to
Beersheba, and there was a spur line running past
Deir Sineid to Beit Hanun from which the Gaza
position was supphed. There was a shortage of
rolling stock and, there being no coal for the engines,
whole olive orchards had been hacked down to provide
fuel. The Hebron road, which could keep Beersheba
supplied if the railway was cut, was in good order,
but in other parts there were no roads at all, except
several miles of badly metalled track from Junction
Station to Juhs. We could not keep many troops
with such ill-conditioned communications, but Turk-
ish soldiers require far less supplies than European
troops, and the enemy had done such remarkable
things in surmounting supply difficulties that he

DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK 21

was given credit for being able to support between
sixty and seventy battalions in the line and reserve,
with an artillery somewhat weaker than our own.

If we made another frontal attack at Gaza we
should find ourselves up against a desperately strong
defensive system, but even supposing we got through
it we should come to another halt in a few miles,
as the enemy had selected, and in most cases had
prepared, a number of positions right up to the Jaffa-
Jerusalem road, where he would be in a land of com-
parative plenty, with his supply and transport
troubles very considerably reduced. No one could
doubt that the Turks intended to defend Jerusalem
to the last, not only because of the moral effect its
capture would have on the peoples of the world, but
because its possession by us would threaten their
enterprise in the Hedjaz, and the enormous amount
of work we afterwards found they had done on the
Judean hills proved that they were determined to
do all in their power to prevent our driving them from
the Holy City. The enemy, too, imagined that our
progress could not exceed the rate at which our
standard gauge railway could be built. Water-borne
supplies were limited as to quantity, and during the
winter the landing of supplies on an open beach was
hazardous. In the coastal belt there were no roads,
and the wide fringe of sand which has accumulated
for centuries and still encroaches on the Maritime
Plain can only be crossed by camels. Wells are few
and yield but small volumes of water. With the
transport allotted to the force in the middle of 1917 it
was not possible to maintain more than one infantry
division at a distance of twenty to twenty- five miles
beyond railhead, and this could only be done by
allotting to them all the camels and wheels of other
divisions and rendering these immobile. This was in-

22 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

sufficient to keep the enemy on the move after a tactical
success, and he would have ample time to reorganise.

General Chetwode held that careful preliminary
arrangements, suitable and clastic organisation of
transport, the collection of material at railhead, the
training of platelaying gangs provided by the troops,
the utilisation of the earthwork of the enemy's line
for our own railway, luck as regards the weather and
the fullest use of sea transport, should enable us to
give the enemy less breathing time than appeared
possible on paper. It w^as beyond hope, however,
whatever preparations were made, that we should be
able to piursue at a speed approaching that which
the river made possible in Mesopotamia. General
Chetwode considered it would be fatal to attempt an
offensive with forces which might permit us to attack
and occupy the enemy's Gaza line but which would
be insufficient to inffict upon him a really severe blow,
and to follow up that blow with sufficient troops.
No less than seven infantry divisions at full strength
and three cavalry divisions would be adequate for
the purpose, and they would be none too many.
Further, if the Turks began to press severely in
Mesopotamia, or even to revive their campaign in
the Hedjaz, a premature offensive might be necessi-
tated on our part in Palestine.

The suggestion made by General Chetwode for
General Allenby's consideration was that the enemy
should be led to believe we intended to attack him
in front of Gaza, and that we should pin him dowTi to
his defences in the centre, while the real attack should
begin on Beersheba and continue at Hareira and
Sheria, and so force the enemy by manoeuvre to
abandon Gaza. That plan General Allenby adopted
after seeing all the ground, and the events of the last
day of October and the first week of November

DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK 23

supported General Chetwode's predictions to the
letter. Indeed it would be hard to find a parallel
in history for such another complete and absolute
justification of a plan drawn up several months
previously, and it is doubtful if, supposing the Turks
had succeeded in doing what their German advisers
advocated, namely forestalling our blow by a vigorous
attack on our positions, there would have been any
material alteration in the working out of the scheme.
The staff work of General Headquarters and of the
staffs of the three corps proved whoUy sound. Each
department gave of its best, and from the moment
when Beersheba was taken in a day and we secured
its water supply, there was never a doubt that the
enemy could be kept on the move until we got into
the rough rocky hills about Jerusalem. And by
that time, as events proved, his moral had had such
a tremendous shaking that he never again made the
most of his many opportunities.

The soundness of the plan can quite easily be made
apparent to the unmihtary eye. Yet the Turk was
absolutely deceived as to General Allenby's inten-
tions. If it be conceded that to deceive the enemy
is one of the greatest accomplishments in the soldier's
art, it must be admitted that the battle of Gaza
showed General Allenby's consummate generalship,
just as it was proved again, and perhaps to an even
greater extent, in the wonderful days of September
1918, in Northern Palestine and Syria. A glance at
the map of the Gaza- Beersheba line and the country
immediately behind it will show that if a successful
attack were delivered against Gaza the enemy could
withdraw his whole line to a second and supporting
position where we should have to begin afresh upon an
almost similar operation. The Turk would stiU have
his water and would be slightly nearer his supplies.

24 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Since the two unsuccessful attacks in March and
April, Gaza had been put into a powerful state of
defence. The houses of the to^\^l are mostly on a
ridge, and enclosing the place is a mass of gardens
fully a mile deep, each surrounded by high cactus
hedges affording complete cover and quite impossible
for infantry to penetrate. To reduce Gaza would
require a prolonged artillery bombardment with far
more batteries than General Allenby could ever expect
to have at his command, and it is certain that not
only would the line in front of the town have had to
be taken, but also the whole of the western end of
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 to face the enemy
in a new line of positions about the wadi Hesi. Gaza
was the Turks' strongest point. To attack here
would have meant a long-drawn-out artillery duel,
infantry would have had to advance over open ground
under complete observation, and, while making a
frontal attack, would have been exposed to enfilade
fire from the ' Tank ' system of works to the south-
east. It would have proved a costly operation, its
success could only have been partial in that it did not
follow that we should break the enemy's line, and it
would not have enabled us to contain the remainder
of the Turkish force.

Nor would an attack on the centre have promised
more favourably. Here the enemy had all the best
of the ground. At Atawineh, Sausage Ridge, Hareira,
and Teiaha there were defences supporting each
other on high ground overlooking an almost flat plain
through which the wadi Ghuzze runs. All the ob-
servation was in enemy possession, and to attack
over this ground would have been inviting disaster.
There was Uttle fear that the Turks would attack us

DIFFICULTIES OF THE ATTACK 25

across this wide range of No Man's Land, for we
held secure control of the curiously shaped heaps of
broken earth about Shellal, and the conical hill at Fara
gave an uninterrupted view for several miles north-
ward and eastward. The position was very different
about Beersheba. If we secured that place with its
water supply, and in this dry country the battle
really amounted to a fight for water, we should be
attacking from high ground and against positions
which had not been prepared on so formidable a scale
as elsewhere, with the prospect of compelling the
enemy to abandon the remainder of the line for fear of
being enveloped by mounted troops moving behind
his weakened left. That, in brief outline, was the
gist of General Chetwode's report, and with its full
acceptance began the preparations for the advance.
These preparations took several months to complete,
and they were as thorough as the energy of a capable
staff could make them.

CHAPTER IV

TRAINING THE ARMY

Those of us who were fortunate enough to witness
the nature of the preparations for the first of General
Allenby's great and triumphant moves in Palestine
can speak of the debt Britain and her Allies owe not
merely to the Commander-in-Chief and his Head-
quarters Staff, but to the three Corps Commanders,
the Divisional Commanders, the Brigadiers, and the
officers responsible for transport, artillery, engineer,
and the other services. The Army had to be put
on an altogether different footing from that which
had twice failed to drive the Turks from Gaza. It
serves nothing to ignore the fact that the moral of
the troops was not high in the weeks following the
second failure. They had to be tuned up and trained
for a big task. They knew the Turk was turning
his natural advantages of ground about Gaza into a
veritable fortress, and that if their next effort was to
meet with more success than their last, they had to
learn all that experience on the Western Front had
taught as to systems of trench warfare.

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

A couple of months before General Allenby took
over command. General Chetwode had taken in hand
the question of training, and in employing the know-
ledge gained during the strenuous days he had spent
in France and Flanders, he not only won the con-

TRAINING THE ARMY 27

fidence of the troops but improved their tone, and
by degrees brought them up to something approach-
ing the level of the best fighting divisions of our Army
in France.

This was hard work during hot weather when our
trench systems on a wide front had to be prepared
against an active enemy, and men could ill be spared
for the all-important task of training behind the front
line. It was not long, however, before troops who
had got into that state of lassitude which is engendered
by a behef that they were settling down to trench
warfare for the duration of the war — that, in fact,
there was a stalemate on this front — ^became inspired
by the energy of General Chetwode. They saw him
in the front hne almost every day, facing the risks
they ran themselves, complimenting them on any
good piece of work, suggesting improvements in their
defences, always anxious to provide anything possible
for their comfort, and generally looking after the
rank and file with a detailed attention which no good
battahon commander could exceed.

The men knew that the long visits General Chet-
wode paid them formed but a small part of his daily
task. It has been said that a G.O.C. of a force has
to think one hour a day about operations and five
hours about beef. In East Force, as this part of
the Egyptian Expeditionary Force was then called.
General Chetwode, having to look months ahead,
had also six worrying hours a day to think about
water. For any one who did not love his profession,
or who had not an ardent soldierly spirit within him,
such a daily task would have been impossible. I
had the privilege of living in General Chetwode' s
camp for some time, and I have seen him working
at four o'clock in the morning and at nine o'clock
at night, and the notes on a writing tablet by the

28 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

side of his rough camp-bed showed that in the hours
when sleep forsook him he was planning the next day's
work.

His staff was entirely composed of hard workers,
and perhaps no command in this war ever had so
small a staff, but there was no officer in East Force
who laboured so long or with such concentration
and energy and determination as its Chief. This
enthusiasm was infectious and spread through all
ranks. The sick rate declined, septic sores, from
which many men suffered through rough life in the
desert on Army rations, got better, and the men
showed more interest in their work and were keener
on their sport. The full effects had not been wholly
realised when the War Cabinet selected General
Allenby for the control of the big operations, but
the improvement in the condition of the troops was
already most marked, and when General Allenby
arrived and at once directed that General Head-
quarters should be moved from Cairo, which was
pleasant but very far away from the front, to Kelab,
near Khan Yunus, there was not a man who did not
see in the new order of things a sign that he was to
be given a chance of testing the Briton's supremacy
over the Turk.

The improvement in the moral of the troops, the
foundations of which were thus begun and cemented
by General Chetwode, was rapidly carried on under the
new Chief. Divisions like the 52nd, 53rd, and 54th,
which had worked right across the desert from the
Suez Canal, toihng in a torrid temperature, when
parched throats, sun-blistered limbs, and septic sores
were a heavy trial, weakened by casualties in action
and sickness, were brought up to something like
strength. Reinforcing drafts joined a lot of cheery
veterans. They were taught in the stern field of

TRAINING THE ARMY 29

experience what was expected of them, and they
worked themselves up to the degree of efficiency of
the older men.

The 74th Division, made up of yeomanry regiments
which had been doing excellent service in the Libyan
Desert, watching for and harassing the elements of
the Senussi Army, had to be trained as infantry.
These yeomen did not take long to make themselves
first-rate infantry, and when, after the German
attack on the Somme in March 1918, they went
away from us to strengthen the Western Front, a
distinguished General told me he believed that man
for man the 74th would prove the finest division in
France. They certainly proved themselves in Pales-
tine, 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 from India with two battalions of Gurkhas
and two of Rifles. The l/4th Duke of Cornwall's
Light Infantry joined it from Aden, but for some
months the battalion was not itself. It had spent
a long time at that dreary sunburnt outpost of the
Empire, and the men did not regain their physical
fitness till close upon the time it was required for the
Gaza operations.

The 60th Division came over from Salonika and
we were delighted to have them, for they not only
gave us General Bulfin as the XXIst Corps Commander,
but set an example of efficiency and a combination
of dash and doggedness which earned for them a
record worthy of the best in the history of the great
war. These London Territorials were second-line
men, men recruited from volunteers in the early days
of the war, when the Coimty of London Territorial
battahons went across to France to take a part on a

30 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

front hard pressed by German legions. The 60th
Division men had rushed forward to do their duty
before the Derby scheme or conscription sought
out the cream of Britain's manhood, and no one had
any misgivings about that fine cheery crowd.

Tlie 10th Division hkewise came from Salonika.
Unfortunately it had been doing duty in a fever-
stricken area and malaria had weakened its ranks.
A httle while before the autumn operations began,
as many as 3000 of its men were down at one time
with malaria, but care and tonic of the battle pulled
the ranks together, and the Irish Division, a purely
Irish division, campaigned up to the glorious tradi-
tions of their race. They worked like gluttons with
rifle and spade, and their pioneer work on roads in
the Judean hills will always be remembered with
gratitude.

The cavalry of the Desert Mounted Corps were
old campaigners in the East. The Anzac Mounted
Division, composed of six regiments of Australian
Light Horse and three regiments of New Zealand
Mounted Rifles, had been operating in the Sinai
Desert when they were not winning fame on Galhpoli,
since the early days of the war. They had proved
sterling soldiers in the desert war, hard, full of courage,
capable of making light of the longest trek in water-
less stretches of country, and mobile to a degree the
Turks never dreamed of. There were six other
regiments of Australian Light Horse and three first-
line regiments of yeomanry in the Australian Mounted
Division, and nine yeomanry regiments in the
Yeomanry Mounted Division. Tlie 7th Mounted
Brigade was attached to Desert Corps, as was also
the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, formed of yeomen
and Austrahans who had volunteered from their regi-
ments for work as camelry. They, too, were veterans.

TRAINING THE ARMY 31

All these divisions had to be trained hard. Not
only had the four infantry divisions of XXth Corps
to be brought to a pitch of physical fitness to enable
them to endure a considerable period of open fighting,
but they had to be trained in water abstinence, as,
in the event of success, they would unquestionably
have long marches in a country yielding a quite in-
adequate supply of drinking water, and this problem
in itself was such that fully 6000 camels were required
to carry drinking water to infantry alone. Water-
abstinence training lasted three weeks, and the
maximum of half a gallon a man for all purposes
was not exceeded, simply because the men had been
made accustomed 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.^

^ See Appendix v.

CHAPTER V

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE

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

At Shellal the stony bed of the wadi Ghuzze rests
between high mud banks which have been cut into
fantastic shapes by the rushing waters descending
from the southern extremities of the Judean range
of hills during the winter rains. In the summer
months, when the remainder of the wadi bed is dry,
there are bubbling springs of good water at Shellal,
and these have probably been continuously flowing
for many centuries, for close above the spot where the
water issues Anzac cavalry discovered a beautiful
remnant of the mosaic flooring of an ancient Christian
church, which, raised on a hundred-feet mound, was
doubtless the centre of a colony of Christians, hun-
dreds of years before Crusaders were attracted to the
Holy Land. Our engineers harnessed that precious
flow. A dam was put across the wadi bed and at
least a miUion gallons of crystal water were held up

32

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE 33

by it, whilst the overflow went into shallow pools
fringed with grass (a dehghtfully refreshing sight in
that arid country) from which horses were watered.
Pumping sets were installed at the reservoir and
pipes were laid towards Karm, and from these the
Camel Transport Corps were to fill fanatis — eight to
twelve gallon tanks — for carriage of water to troops
on the move.

The railway staff, the department which arranged
the making up and running of trains, as well as the
construction staff, had heavy responsibihties. It was
recognised early in 1917 that if we were to crush the
Tm-k out of the war, provision would have to be
made for a larger army than a single line from the
Suez Canal could feed. It was decided to double
the track. The difficulties of the Director of Railway
Transport were enormous. There was great shortage
of railway material all over the world. Some very
valuable cargoes were lost through enemy action at
sea, and we had to call for more from different centres,
and England deprived herself of rolling stock she
badly needed, to enable her flag of freedom to be
carried (though it was not to be hoisted) through the
Holy Land. And incidentally I may remark that, with
the sohtary exception of a dirty Uttle piece of Red
Ensign I saw flying in the native quarter in Jerusalem,
the only British flag the people saw in Palestine and
Syria was a miniature Union Jack carried on the Com-
mander-in-Chief's motor car and by his standard-
bearer when riding. Thus did the British Army play
the game, for some of the AUied susceptibiHties might
have been wounded if the people had been told
(though indeed they knew it) that they were under
the protection of the British flag. They had the
most convincing evidence, however, that they were
under the staunch protection of the British Army.

34 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Tlie doubling of the railway track went on apace.
To save pressure at the Alexandria docks and on
the Egyptian State railway, which, giving some of its
rolling stock and, I think, the whole of its reserve of
material for the use of the military line east of the
Canal, was worked to its utmost capacity, and also
to economise money by saving railway freights,
wharves w^ere built on the Canal at Kantara, and as
many as six ocean-going steamers could be unloaded
there at one time. By and by a railway bridge was
thrown over the Canal, and when the war was over
through trains could be run from Cairo to Jerusalem
and Haifa. Kantara grew into a w^onderful town
with several miles of Canal frontage, huge railway
sidmgs and workshops, enormous stores of rations
for man and horse, medical supplies, ordnance and
ammunition dumps, etc. Probably the enemy knew
all about this vast base. Any one on any ship passing
through the Canal could see the place, and it is sur-
prising, and it certainly points to a lack of enterprise
on the part of the Germans, that no attempt was
made to bomb Kantara by the super- Zeppelin which
in November 1917 left its Balkan base and got as
far south as the region of Khartoum on its way to
East Africa, before being recalled by wireless. This
same Zeppelin was seen about forty miles from Port
Said and a visit by it was anticipated. Aeroplanes
with experienced pilots and armed with the latest
anti- Zeppelin devices were stationed at Port Said and
Aboukir ready to ascend on any moonlight night
when the hum of aerial motor machinery could be
heard. The super- Zeppehn never came and Kantara's
progress was unchecked.

The doubled railway track was laid as far as
El Arish by the time operations commenced, and this
was a great aid to the railway staff. Every engine

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE 35

and truck was used to its fullest capacity, and an
enormous amount of time was saved by the abolition
of passing stations for some ninety miles of the line's
length. Railhead was at Deir el Belah, about eight
miles short of Gaza, and here troops and an army of
Egyptian labourers were working night and day,
week in week out, off-loading trucks with a speed that
enabled the maximum amount of service to be got
out of rolling stock. There were large depots down
the line too. At Rafa there was a big store of am-
munition, and at Shellal large quantities not only of
supplies but of railway material were piled up in readi-
ness for pushing out railhead immediately the advance
began. A Decauville, or light, line ran out towards
Gamli from Shellal to make the supply system easier,
and I remember seeing some Indian pioneers lay about
three miles of light railway with astonishing rapidity
the day after we took Beersheba. Every mile the hne
advanced meant time saved in getting up supplies,
and the radius of action of lorries, horse, and camel
transport was considerably increased.

To supply the Gaza front we called in aid a small
system of light railways. From the railhead at Deir
el Belah to the mouth of the wadi Ghuzze, and from
that point along the line of the wadi to various places
behind the line held by us, we had a total length of
21 kilometres of light railway. Before this railway
got into full operation horses had begun to lose con-
dition, and during the summer ammunition-column
officers became very anxious about their horses. The
light railway was almost everywhere within range
of the enemy's guns, and in some places it was un-
avoidably exposed, particularly where it ran on the
banks of the wadi due south of Gaza. I recollect
while the track was being laid speaking to an Aus-
tralian in charge of a gang of natives preparing an

/

36 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

earthwork, and asked why it was that a trench was
dug 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 from the Turks'
observation post on that eminence every movement
of the labourers could be seen, and the men were
often forced by gunfire to the refuge of the trenches.

When the railway was in running order trains had
to run the gauntlet of shell-fire on this section on
bright moonlight nights, and no camouflage could
hide them. But they worked through in a marvel-
lously orderly and efficient fashion, and on one day
when our guns were hungry this little line carried
850 tons of ammunition to the batteries. The horses
became fit and strong and were ready for the war to
be carried into open country. In christening their
tiny puffing locomotives the Tommy drivers showed
their strong appreciation of their comrades on the sea,
and the ' Iron Duke ' and ' Lion ' were always tuned
up to haul a maximum load. But the pride of the
engine yard was the ' Jerusalem Cuckoo ' — some pro-
phetic eye must have seen its future employment
on the light line between Jerusalem and Ramallah
— though in popularity it was run close by the
'Bulfin-ch,' a play upon the name of the Com-
mander of the XXIst Corps, for which it did sterUng
service.

The Navy formed part of the picture as well. Some
small steamers of 1000 to 1500 tons burden came up
from Port Said to a little cove north of Belah to
lighten the railway's task. They anchored about
150 yards off shore and a crowd of boats passed
backwards and forwards with stores. These were
carried up the beach to trucks on a line connected
with the supply depots, and if you wished to see a
busy scene where slackers had no place the Belah

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE 37

beach gave it you. The Army tried all sorts of boat-
men and labourers. There were Kroo boys who found
the Mediterranean waters a comparative calm after
the turbulent surf on their own West African shore.
The Maltese were not a success. The Egyptians
were, both here and almost everywhere else where
their services were called for. The best of all the
fellows on this beach, however, were the Raratongas
from the Cook Islands, the islands from which the
Maoris originally came. They were first employed
at El Arish, where they made it a point of honour to
get a job done well and quickly, and, on a given day,
it was found that thirty of them had done as much
labourers' work as 170 British soldiers. They were
men of fine physical strength and endurance, and
some one who knew they had the instincts of sports-
men, devised a simple plan to get the best out of them.
He presented a small flag to be won each day by the
crew accomplishing the best work with the boats.
The result was amazing. Every minute the boats
were afloat the Raratongas strained their muscles to
win the day's competition, and when the day's task
was ended the victorious crew marched with their flag
to their camp, singing a weird song and as proud as
champions. Some Raratongas worked at ammuni-
tion dumps, and it was the boast of most of them that
they could carry four 60-pounder shells at a time. A
few of these stalwart men from Southern Seas re-
ceived a promotion which made them the most envied
men of their race — they became loading numbers in
heavy howitzer batteries, fighting side by side with
the Motherland gunners.

However well the Navy and all associated with it
worked, only a very small proportion of the Army's
suppUes was water borne. The great bulk had to be
carried by rail. Enormously long trains, most of

38 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

them hauled by London and South- Western loco-
motives, bore munitions, food for men and animals,
water, equipment, medical comforts, guns, wagons,
caterpillar tractors, motor cars, and other parapher-
naha required for the largest army which had ever
operated about the town of Gaza in the thousands
of years of its history. The main line had thrown out
from it great tentacles embracing in their iron clasp
vital centres for the supply of our front, and over
these spur lines the trains ran with the regularity of
British main-line expresses. Besides 96,000 actual
fighting men, there was a vast army of men behind
the line, and there were over 100,000 animals to be
fed. There were 46,000 horses, 40,000 camels, 15,000
mules, and 3500 donkeys on Army work east of the
Canal, and not a man or beast went short of rations.
We used to think Kitchener's advance on Khartoum
the perfection of military organisation. Beside the
Palestine expedition that Soudan campaign fades
into insignificance. In fighting men and labour
corps, in animals and the machinery of war, this Army
was vastly larger and more important, and the method
by which it was brought to Palestine and was supplied,
and the low sick rate, constitute a tribute to the master
minds of the organisers. The Army had fresh meat,
bread, and vegetables in a country which under the
lash of war yielded nothing, but which under our rule
in peace will furnish three times the produce of the
best of past years of plenty.

A not inconsiderable portion of the front line was
supphed with Nile water taken from a canal nearly
two hundred miles away. But the Army once at the
front depended less upon the waters of that Father
of R-ivers than it had to do in the long trek across the
desert. Then all drinking water came from the Nile.
It flowed down the sweet-water canal (if one may be

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE 39

pardoned for calling ' sweet ' a volume of water so
charged with vegetable matter and bacteria that it
was harmful for white men even to wash in it), was
filtered and siphoned under the Suez Canal at Kan-
tara, where it was chlorinated, and passed through a
big pipe line and pumped through in stages into
Palestine. The engineers set about improving all
local resources over a wide stretch of country which
used to be regarded as waterless in summer. Many-
water levels were tapped, and there was a fair yield.
The engineers' greatest task in moving with the Army
during the advance was always the provision of a
water supply, and in developing it they conferred on
the natives a boon which should make them be re-
membered with gratitude for many generations.

In the months preceding our attack Royal En-
gineers were also concerned in improving the means
of communication between railway depots and the
front line. Before our arrival in this part of Southern
Palestine, wheeled traffic was almost unknown among
the natives. There was not one metalled roadway,
and only comparatively light loads could be trans-
ported in wheeled vehicles. The soil between Khan
Yunus and Deir el Belah, especially on the west of
our railway line, was very sandy, and after the winter
rains had knitted it together it began to crumble
imder the sun's heat, and it soon cut up badly when
two or three limbers had passed over it. The sandy
earth was also a great nuisance in the region between
Khan Yunus and Shellal, but between Deir el Belah
and our Gaza front, excepting on the belt near the sea
which was composed of hillocks of sand precisely
similar to the Sinai Desert, the earth was firmer
and yielded less to the grinding action of wheels.
For ordinary heavy military traffic the engineers
made good going by taking off about one foot of the

40 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

top soil and banking it on either side of the road.
These tracks lasted very well, but they required
constant attention. Ambuhmces and light motor
cars had special arrangements made for them. Hun-
dreds of miles of wire netting were laid on sand in all
directions, and these wire roads, which, stretching
across bright golden sand, appeared like black bands
to observers in aircraft, at first aroused much curi-
osity among enemy airmen, and it was not until they
had made out an ambulance convoy on the move that
they reahsed the purpose of the tracks.

The rabbit wire roads were a remarkable success.
Motor wheels held firmly to the surface, and when
the roads w^ere in good condition cars could travel
at high speed. Three or four widths of wire netting
were laced together, laid on the sand and pegged
down. After a time loose pockets of sand could not
resist the weight of wheels and there became many
holes beneath the wire, and the jolting was a sore trial
ahke to springs and to a passenger's temper. But here
again constant attention kept the roads in order, and
if one could not describe travelling over them as easy
and comfortable they were at least sure, and one
could be certain of getting to a destination at an
average speed of twelve miles an hour. In sand
the Ford cars have performed wonderful feats, but
remarkable as was the record of that cheap American
car with us — it helped us very considerably to win
the war — you could never tell within hours how long
a journey would take off the wire roads. Once leave
the netting and you might with good luck and a
skilful driver get across the sand without much
trouble, but it often meant much bottom-gear w^ork
and a hot engine, and not infrequently the digging
out of wheels. The drivers used to try to keep to
the tracks made by other cars. These were never

RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE 41

straight, and the swing from side to side reminded
you of your first ride on a camel's back. The wire
roads were a great help to us, and the officer who
first thought out the idea received our daily blessings.
I do not know who he was, but I was told the wire
road scheme was the outcome of a device suggested
by a medical officer at Romani in 1916, when infantry
could not march much more than six miles a day
through the sand. This officer made a sort of wire
moccasin which he attached to the boot and doubled
the marching powers of the soldier. A sample of
those moccasins should fuid 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 the Turks' front hne in Southern
Palestine should be launched some time in September.
General Allenby knew his force would not be then
at full strength, but what was happening at other
points in the Turkish theatres of operations might
make it necessary to strike an early blow at Gaza to
spoil enemy plans elsewhere. However, it was soon
seen that a September advance was not absolutely
necessary. General Allenby decided that instead of
making an early attack it would be far more profitable
to wait until his Army had been improved by a longer
period of training, and until he had got his artillery,
particularly some of his heavy batteries, into a high
state of efficiency. He would risk having to take
Jerusalem after bad weather had set in rather than
be unable, owing to the condition of his troops, to
exploit an initial success to the fullest extent. How
wholly justified was this decision the subsequent
fighting proved, and it is doubtful if there was ever
a more complete illustration of the wisdom of those
directing war policy at home submitting to the cool,
balanced calculations of the man on the spot. The
extra six weeks spent in training and preparation
were of incalculable service to the Alhes. I have
heard it said that a September victory in Palestine
would have had its reflex on the Itahan front, and
that the Caporetto disaster would not have assumed

42

PREPARING FOR ' ZERO DAY ' 43

the gigantic proportions which necessitated the with-
drawal to Italy of British and French divisions from
the Western Front and prevented Cambrai being a
big victory. That is very doubtful. On the contrary,
a September battle in Palestine before we were fully
ready to follow the Turks after breaking and rolling
up their line, even if we had succeeded in doing this
completely, might have deprived us of the moral
effect of the capture of Jerusalem and of the wonderful
influence which that victory had on the whole civilised
world by reason of the sacrifices the Commander-in-
Chief made to prevent any fighting at all in the pre-
cincts of the Holy City. Of this I shaU speak later,
giving the fullest details at my command, for there
is no page in the story of British arms which better
upholds the honour and chivalry of the soldier than the
preservation of the Holy Place from the clash of battle.
That last six weeks of preparation were unforget-
table. The London newspapers I had the honour to
represent as War Correspondent knew operations
were about to begin, but I did not cable or mail them
one word which would give an indication that big
things were afoot. They never asked for news, but
were content to wait till they could tell the public
that victory was ours. In accordance with their
practice throughout the w^ar the London Press set
an example to the world by refraining from pub-
lishing anything which would give information of
the slightest value to the enemy. It was a privilege
to see that victory in the making. Some divisions
which had allotted to them the hardest part of the
attack on Beersheba were drawn out of the line, and
forming up in big camps between Belah and SheUal
set about a course of training such as athletes undergo.
They had long marches in the sand carrying packs
and equipment. They were put on a short allowance

44 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of water, except for washing purposes. They dug,
they had bombing practice, and with all this extra
exercise while the days were still very hot they
needed no encouragement to continue their games.
Football was their favourite sport, and the British
Tommy is such a remarkable fellow that it was usual
to see him trudge home to camp looking ' fed up '
with exercise, and then, after throwing off his pack
and tunic, run out to kick a ball. The Italian and
French detachments used to look at him in astonish-
ment, and doubtless they thought his enthusiasm for
sport was a sore trial. He got thoroughly fit for
marches over sand, over stony ground, over shifting
shingle. During the period of concentration he had
to cross a district desperately bad for marching, and it
is more than probable the enemy never beheved him
capable of such endurance. He was often tired,
no doubt, but he always got to his destination, was
rarely footsore, and laughed at the worst parts of
his journey. The sand was choking, the flies were an
irritating pest, equipment became painfully heavy ;
but a big, brave heart carried Tommy through
his training to a state of perfect condition for the
heavy test.

To enable about two-thirds of the force to carry
on a moving battle while the remainder kept half
the enemy pinned down to his trench system on his
right-centre and right, it was necessary to reinforce
strongly the transport service for our mobile columns.
The XXIst Corps gave up most of its lorries, tractors,
and camels to XXth Corps. These had to be moved
across from the Gaza sector to our right as secretly
as possible, and they were not brought up to load
at the supply depots at Shellal and about Karm
until the moment they were required to carry
supplies for the corps moving to attack.

PREPARING FOR ' ZERO DAY ' 45

It is not easy to convey to any one who has not
seen an army on the move what a vast amount
of transport is required to provision two corps.
In France, where roads are numerous and in com-
paratively good condition, the supply problem could
be worked out to a nicety, but in a roadless country
where there was not a sound half-mile of track, and
where water had to be developed and every gallon
was precious, the question of supply needed most
anxious consideration, and a big margin had to be
allowed for contingencies. It will give some idea of
the requirements when I state that for the supply of
water alone the XXth Corps had allotted to it 6000
camels and 73 lorries. To feed these water camels
alone needed a big convoy.

We got an impression of the might and majesty of
an army in the field as we saw it preparing to take
the offensive. The camp of General Headquarters
where I was located was situated north of Rafa.
The railway ran on two sides of the camping ground,
one line going to Belah and the other stretching out
to Shellal, where everything was in readiness to extend
the iron road to the north-east of Karm, on the plain
which, because the Turks enjoyed complete observa-
tion over it, had hitherto been No Man's Land. We
saw and heard the traffic on this section of the line.
It was enormous. Heavily laden trains ran night and
day with a mass of stores and suppHes, with motor
lorries, cars, and tractors ; and the ever-increasing
volume of traffic told those of us who knew nothing
of the date of ' Zero day ' that it was not far ofi.
The heaviest trains seemed to run at night, and the
returning empty trains were hurried forward at a
speed suggesting the urgency of clearing the hne for
a fully loaded train awaiting at Rafa the signal to
proceed with its valuable load to railhead. Perfect

46 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

control not only on the railway system but in the
forward supply yards prevented congestion, and
when a train arrived at its destination and was split
up into several parts, w ell-drilled gangs of troops and
Egyptian labourers were allotted to each truck, and
whether a lorry or a tractor had to be unshipped and
moved down a ramp, or a truck had to be reheved of
its ten tons of tibbin, boxes of biscuit and bully, or
of engineers' stores, the goods were cleared away
from the vicinity of the Une with a celerity which a
goods-yard foreman at home would have applauded
as the smartest work he had ever seen. There was
no room for slackers in the Army, and the value of
each truck was so high that it could not be left
standmg idle for an hour. The organisation was
equally good at Kantara, where the loading and
making up of trains had to be arranged precisely as
the needs at the front demanded. Those remarkable
haulers, the caterpillar tractors, cut many a passage
through the sand, tugging heavy guns and ammuni-
tion, stores for the air and signal services, machinery
for engineers and mobile workshops, and sometimes
towing a weighty load of petrol to satisfy their
voracious appetites for that fuel. The tractors did
well. Sand was no trouble to them, and when mud
marooned lorries during the advance in November
the rattling, rumbling old tractor made fair weather
of it. The mechanical transport trains will not forget
the service of the tractors on the morning after Beer-
sheba was taken. From railhead to the spot where
Father Abraham and his people fed their flocks the
country was bare and the earth's crust had yielded
all its strength under the influence of the summer sun.
Loaded lorries under their own power could not move
more than a few yards before they were several inches
deep in the sandy soil, but a Motor Transport "officer

THE GREAT MOSQUE AT GAZA

PREPARING FOR ' ZERO DAY ' 47

devised a plan for beating down a track which all
lorries could use. He got a tractor to haul six un-
laden lorries, and with all the vehicles using their
own power the tractor managed to pull them through
to Beersheba, leaving behind some wheel tracks with
a hard foundation. A hundred lorries followed, the
drivers steering them in the ruts, and they made such
good progress that by the afternoon they had de-
posited between 200 and 300 tons of supplies in Beer-
sheba. The path the tractor cut did not last very
long, but it was sound enough for the immediate and
pressing requirements of the Army.

Within a month of his arrival in Egjrpt, General
Allenby had visited the whole of his front line and
had decided the form his offensive should take. As
soon as his force had been made up to seven infantry
divisions and the Desert Mounted Corps, and they
had been brought up to strength and trained, he would
attack, making his main offensive against the enemy's
left flank while conducting operations vigorously and
on an extensive scale against the Turkish right-centre
and right. The principal operation against the left
was to be conducted by General Chetwode's XXth
Corps, consisting of four infantry divisions and the
Imperial Camel Brigade, and by General Chauvel's
Desert Mounted Corps. General Bulfin's XXIst
Corps was to operate against Gaza and the Turkish
right-centre south-east of that ancient town. If the
situation became such as to make it necessary to take
the offensive before the force had been brought up
to strength, the XXIst Corps would have had to
undertake its task with only two divisions, but in
those circumstances its operations were to be limited
to demonstrations and raids. By throwing forward
his right, the XXIst Corps Commander was to pin
the enemy down in the Atawineh district, and on the

48 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

left he would move against the south-western defences
of Gaza so as to lead the Tui'ks to suppose an attack
was to come in this sector. That movement being
made, the XXth Corps and Desert Mounted Corps
were to advance against Beersheba, and, having taken
it, to secure the valuable water supply which was
known to have existed there since Abraham dug the
well of the oath which gave its name to the town.
Because of water difficulties it was considered vital
that Beersheba should be captured in one day, a
formidable undertaking owing to the situation of
the town, the high entrenched hills around it 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 to work
on the assumption that Beersheba would be in their
hands by nightfall of the first day of the attack.
General Barrow's Yeomanry Mounted Division was
to remain at Shellal in the gap between XXth Corps
and XXIst Corps in case the enemy should attempt
to attack the XXth Corps' left flank. Having dealt
with the enemy in Beersheba, General Chetwode with
mounted troops protecting his right was to move
north and north-west against the enemy's left flank,
to drive him from his strong positions at Sheria and
Hareira, enveloping his left flank and striking it
obliquely.

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

It was always doubtful whether XXth Corps would

PKEPARING FOR ' ZERO DAY ' 49

be able to close up the gap between it and the XXIst
Corps owmg to the length of its marches and the
distance it was from railhead, and the scheme
tlierefore provided that the XXIst Corps should
confirm successes gained on our right by forcing its
way through the tremendously strong Gaza position
to the line of the wadi Hesi and joining up with
Desert Mounted Corps. A considerable number of
XXth Corps troops would then return to the neigh-
bourhood of railliead and release the greater part of
its transport for the infantry of XXIst Corps moving
up the Maritime Plain.

This, in summary form, was the scheme General
Allenby planned before the middle of August, and
though the details were not, and could not be, worked
out until a couple of months had passed, it is note-
worthy as showing that, notwithstanding the moves
an enterprising enemy had at his command in a
country where positions were entirely favourable
to him, where he had water near at hand, where the
transport of supplies was never so serious a problem
for him as for us when we got on the move, and where
he could make us fight almost every step of the way,
the Commander-in-Chief foresaw and provided for
every eventuaHty, and his scheme worked out abso-
lutely and entirely ' according to plan,' to use the
favourite phrase of the German High Command.

When the Corps Commanders began working out
the details two of the greatest problems were trans-
port and water. Only patience and skiHul develop-
ment of known sources of supply would surmount
the water difficulty, and we had to wait till the period
of concentration before commencing its solution.
But to lighten the transport load which must have
weighed heavily on Corps Staffs, the Commander-in-
Chief agreed to allow the extension of the railway

50 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

east of Shellal to be begun sooner than he had pro-
vided for. It was imperative that railway con-
struction should not give the enemy an indication
of our intentions. If he had realised the nature and
scope of our preparations he would have done some-
thing to counteract them and to deny us that element
of surprise which exerted so great an influence on the
course of the battle. General Allenby, however, was
wilhng to take some risks to simphfy supply diffi-
culties, and he ordered that the extension to a railway
station north-east of Karm should be completed by
the evening of the third day before the attack, that
a Decauville line from GamU, not to be begun before
the sixth day prior to the attack, was to be completed
to Karm by the day preceding the opening of the
fighting at Beersheba, and that a new Decauville
line should be started at Karm when fighting had
begun, and should be carried nearly three miles in
the Beersheba direction early on the following
morning. These new lines, though of short length,
were an inestimable boon to the conductors of supply
trains. The new railheads both of the standard gauge
and light lines were well placed, and they not only
saved time and shortened the journeys of camel
convoys and lorry transport columns, but prevented
congestion at depots in one central spot.

A big effort was made to escape detection by enemy
aircraft. For the first time since the Eg3rptian Ex-
peditionary Force took the field we had obtained
mastery in the air. On the 8th and 15th October
two enemy planes were shot down behind our lines,
and the keenness of our airmen for combat made the
German aviators extremely careful. They had been
bold and resolute, taking their observations several
thousand feet higher than our pilots, it is true, but
neither anti-aircraft fire nor the presence of our

PREPARING FOR ' ZERO DAY ' 51

machines in the air had up to this time deterred them.
However, just at the moment when air work was of
extreme importance to the Turks, the German flying
men, recognising that our pilots had new battle planes
and were full of resource and daring, showed an un-
usual lack of enterprise, and we profited from their
inactivity. The concentration of the force in the
positions from which it was to attack Beersheba was
to have taken seven days, but owing to the difficulties
attending the development of water at Asluj and
Khalasa the time was extended to ten days. During
this period the uppermost thought of commanders
was to conceal their movements. All marching was
done at night and no move of any kind was permitted
till nearly six o'clock in the evening, when enemy
aircraft were usually at rest and the light was suffi-
ciently dull to prevent the Fritzes seeing much if
they had made an exceptionally late excursion. All
the tents and temporary shelters which had been
occupied for weeks were left standing. Cookhouses,
horse hnes, canteens, and so on were untouched, and
one had an eerie feeling in passing at night through
these untenanted camping groimds, deserted and
lifeless, and a prey to the jackal and pariah dog. A
vast area of many square miles which had held tens
of thousands of troops and animals almost became
a wilderness again, and the few natives hereabouts
who had made large profits from the sale of eggs, fruit,
and vegetables looked disconsolate and bewildered
at the change, hoping and believing that the empty
tents merely denoted a temporary absence. But the
great majority of the Arniy never came that way
again.

When the infantry started on the march, divisions
and brigades had allotted to them particular areas
for their march routes, and all over that country.

52 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

where scarcely a tree or native hut existed to make a
landmark, there were dotted small arrow-pointed
boards with the direction ' A road,' ' B road,' ' Z road,'
as the case might be. Marching in 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 the southern end of the Judean hills, and
they hid themselves in the wadis and broken ground ;
and on one unit vacating a bivouac area it was occupied
by another, thus making the areas in which the troops
rested as few as possible.

The concentration was worked to a time-table.
Not only were brigades allotted certain marches each
night, but they were given specified times to cover
certain distances, and these were arranged according
to the condition of the gromid. In parts it was very
broken and covered with loose stones, and the pace
of uifantry by night was very slightly more than one
mile per hour. The routes for guns were not chosen
mitil the whole comitry had been recomioitred, and
it was a highly creditable performance for artillery
to get their field guns and heavy howitzer batteries
through to the time-table. But the clockwork pre-
cision of the movements reflected even more highly
on the staff working out the details than on the in-
fantry and artillery, and it may be said with perfect
truth that the staff made no miscalculation or mistake.
The XXth Corps staff maps and plans, and the
details accompanying them, were masterpieces of
clearness and completeness. The men who fought
out the plans to a triumphant finish were glad to
recognise this perfection of staff work.^

^ 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 sent forward to form
supply dumps and to store water at Esani for troops
covering Desert Mounted Corps engineers engaged
on the development of water at Khalasa and Asluj.
Some of the AustraUan and New Zealand troops en-
gaged on this work had previously been at these places.
In the early summer it was thought desirable to
destroy the Turkish railway which ran from Beer-
sheba to Asluj and on to Kossaima, in order to pre-
vent an enemy raid on our communications between
El Arish and Rafa, and the mounted troops with the
Imperial Camel Corps had had a most successful day
in destroying many miles of hne and several bridges.
The Turks were badly in need of rails for the line they
were then constructing down to Deir Sineid, and they
had hfted some of the rails between Asluj and Kos-
saima, but during our raid we broke every rail over
some fifteen miles of track. Khalasa and Asluj being
water centres became the points of concentration
for two mounted divisions, and the splendid Colonials
in the engineer sections worked at the wells as if the
success of the whole enterprise depended upon their
efforts, as, indeed, to a very large extent it did.
Theirs was not an eight hours day. They worked
under many difficulties, often thigh deep in water and
mud, cleaning out and deepening wells and installing

53

54 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

power pumps, putting up large canvas tanks for
storage, and making water troughs. The results
exceeded anticipations, and the Commander-in-Chief,
on a day when the calls on his time were many and
urgent, made a long journey to thank the officers and
men for the work they had done and to express his
high appreciation of their skill and energy.

The principal work carried out by the XXth Corps
during the period of concentration consisted in laying
the standard gauge line to I mar a and opening the
station at that place on October 28 ; prolonging the
railway Une to a point three-quarters of a mile north-
north-east of Karm, where the station was opened
on November 3 ; completing by October 30 the light
railway from the east bank of the wadi Ghuzze at
GamU via Karm to Khasif ; and developing water at
Esani, Malaga, and Abu Ghalyun for the use first by
cavalry detachments and then by the 60th Division.
Cisterns in the Khasif and Imsiri area were stocked
with 60,000 gallons of water to be used by the 53rd
and 74th Divisions, and this supply was to be sup-
plemented by camel convoys. Apparently the enemy
knew very Uttle about the concentration until about
October 26, and even then he could have had only
sUght knowledge of the extent of our movements,
and probably knew nothing at all of where the first
blow was to fall. In the early hours of October 27
he did make an attempt to interfere with our con-
centration, and there was a spirited little action on
our outpost line which had been pushed out beyond
the plain to a line of low hills near the wadi Hanafish.
The Turks in overwhelming force met a most stubborn
defence by the Middlesex Yeomanry, and if the enemy
took these London yeomen as an average sample of
General Allenby's troops, this engagement must have
given them a foretaste of what was in store for them.

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY 55

The Middlesex Yeomanry (the 1st County of
London Yeomanry, to give the regiment the name by
which it is officially known, though the men almost
invariably use the much older Territorial title) and
the 21st Machine 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. At four o'clock in the morning the latter
post was fired on by a Turkish cavalry patrol, and an
hour later it was evident that the enemy intended to
try to drive us off the ridge, his occupation of which
would have given him the power to harass railway
construction parties by sheU-fire, even if it did not
entirely stop the work. Some 3000 Turkish infantry,
1200 cavalry, and twelve guns had advanced from the
Kauwukah system of defences to attack our outpost
line on the ridge. They heavily engaged hill 630,
working round both flanks, and brought heavy
machine-gun and artillery fke to bear on the squadron
holding it. The Royal Flying Corps estimated that
a force of 2000 men attacked the garrison, which was
completely cut off.

A squadron of the City of London Yeomanry sent
to reinforce was held up by a machine-gun barrage
and had to withdraw. The garrison held out magni-
ficently all day in a support trench close behind the
crest against odds of twenty to one, and repeatedly
beat off rushes, although the bodies of dead Turks
showed that they got as close as forty yards from the
defenders. Two officers were wounded, and four
other ranks killed and twelve wounded.

The attack on hill 720 was made by 1200 cavalry
supported by a heavy volume of shell and machine-
gun fire. During the early morning two desperate
charges were beaten off, but in a third charge the

56 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

enemy gained possession of the hill after the detach-
ment had held out for six hours. All our officers
were killed or wounded and all the men were casual-
ties except three. At six o'clock in the evening the
Turks were holding this position in strength against
the 3rd Australian Light Horse, but two infantry
brigades of the 53rd Division were moving towards
the ridge, and during the evening the enemy retired
and we held the ridge from this time on quite securely.
The strong defence of the Middlesex Yeomanry un-
doubtedly prevented the Turks estabhshing them-
selves on the ridge, and saved the infantry from having
to make a night attack which might have been costly.
Thereafter the enemy made no attempt to interfere
with the concentration. The yeomanry losses in
this encounter were 1 officer and 23 other ranks
killed, 5 officers and 48 other ranks wounded, 2
officers and 8 other ranks missing.

On the night of October 30-31 a brilliant moon
lit up the whole country. The day had been very
hot, and at sunset an entire absence of wind promised
that the night march of nearly 40,000 troops of all
arms would be attended by all the discomforts of
dust and heat. The thermometer fell, but there was
not a breath of wind to shift the pall of dust which
hung above the long columns of horse, foot, and guns.
Where the tracks were sandy some brigades often
appeared to be advancing through one of London's
own particular fogs. Men's faces became caked with
yellow dust, their nostrils were hot and burning, and
parched throats could not be relieved because of the
necessity of conserving the water allowance. A hot
day was in prospect on the morrow, and the fear of
having to fight on an empty water-bottle prevented
many a gallant fellow broaching his supply before
daybreak. Most of the men had had a long acquaint-

TURKISH HEADQUARTERS AT GAZA

(Note the Crusader Lion in Wall)

^!:

I

<

1

1

m

1

■^A

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY 57

ance with heat in the Middle East, and the high
temperature would have caused them scarcely any
trouble if there had been wind to carry away the dust
clouds. The cavalry marched over harder and more
stony ground than the infantry. They advanced from
Klialasa and Asluj a long way south of Beersheba to
the 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 Mounted Division and
Australian Mounted Division, whose men and horses
were in admirable condition.

The infantry were ordered to be on their line of
deployment by four o'clock on the morning of October
31, and in every case they were before time. There
had been many reconnaissances by officers vvho were
to act as guides to columns, and they were quite
familiar with the ground ; and the guns and ammuni-
tion columns were taken by routes which had been
carefully selected and marked. In places the banks
of wadis had been cut into and ramps made to enable
the rough stony watercourses to be practicable for
wheels, and, broken as the country was, and though
all previous preparations had to be made without
arousing the suspicions of Turks and wandering
Bedouins, there was no incident to check the progress
of infantry or guns. Occasional rifle fire and some
shelling occurred during the early hours, but at a
Httle after three a.m. the XXth Corps advanced head-
quarters had the news that all columns had reached
their allotted positions.

The XXth Corps plan was to attack the enemy's
works between the Khalasa road and the wadi Saba
with the 60th and 74th Divisions, while the defences
north of the wadi Saba were to be masked by the
Imperial Camel Corps Brigade and two battalions of
the 53rd Division, the remainder of the latter divi-

58 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

sion protecting the left flank of the Corps from any
attack by enemy troops wlio might move south from
the Sheria area. The lirst objective was a hill marked
on the map as ' 1070,' about 6000 yards south-west
of Beersheba. It was a prominent feature, 500 yards
or perhaps a little more from a portion of the enemy's
main line, and the Turks held it strongly and were
supported by a section of German machine-gimners.
We had to win this height in order to get good ob-
servation of the enemy's main line of works, and to
allow of the advance of field artillery within wire-
cutting range of an elaborate system of works pro-
tecting Beersheba from an advance from the west. At
six the guns began to bombard 1070, and the volume
of fire concentrated on that spot must have given the
Turks a big surprise. On a front of 4500 yards we
had in action seventy-six 18-pounders, twenty 4-5-
inch howitzers, and four 3 •7-inch howitzers, while
eight 60-pounders, eight 6-inch howitzers, and four
4*5-inch howitzers were employed in counter battery
work. The absence of wind placed us at a heavy
disadvantage. The high explosive shells bursting
about the crest of 1070 raised enormous clouds of
dust which obscured everything, and after a short
while even the flames of exploding shells were en-
tirely hidden from view. The gunners had to stop
firing for three-quarters of an hour to allow the dust
to settle. They then reopened, and by half-past
eight, the wire-cutting being reported completed, an
intense bombardment was ordered, under cover of
which, and with the assistance of machine-gun fire
from aeroplanes, the 181st Infantry Brigade of the
60th Division went forward to the assault. They
captured the hill in ten minutes, only sustaining about
one hundred casualties, and taking nearly as many
prisoners. A German machine-gunner who fell into

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY 59

our hands bemoaned the fact that he had not a weapon
left — every one of the machine guns had been knocked
out by the artillery, and a number were buried by
our fire.

The first phase of the operations having thus ended
successfully quite early in the day, the second stage
was entered upon. Field guns were rushed forward
at the gallop over ground broken by shallow wadis
and up and down a very uneven stony surface. The
gun teams were generally exposed during the advance
and were treated to heavy shrapnel ^e, but they
swung into action at prearranged points and set
about wire-cutting with excellent effect. The first
part of the second phase consisted in reducing the
enemy's main line from the Khalasa road to the wadi
Saba, though the artillery bombarded the whole line.
The 60th Division on the right had two brigades
attacking and one in divisional reserve, and the 74th
Division attacking on the left of the 60th likewise
had a brigade in reserve. The 74th, while waiting to
advance, came under considerable shell-fire from
batteries on the north of the wadi, and it was some
time before their fire could be silenced. As a rule
the enemy works were cut into roclvy, rising ground
and the trenches were well enclosed in wire fixed to
iron stanchions. They were strongly made and there
were possibihties of prolonged opposition, but by the
time the big assault was launched the Turks knew
they were being attacked on both sides of Beersheba
and they must have become anxious about a line of
retreat. General Shea reported that the wire in front
of him was cut before noon, but General Girdwood
was not certain that the wire was sufficiently broken
on the 74th Division's front, though he intimated to
the Corps Commander that he was ready to attack
at the same time as the 60th. It still continued a

60 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

windless day, and the dust clouds prevented any
observation of the wire entanglements. General
Girdwood turned this disadvantage to account, and
ordering his artillery to raise their fire slightly so that
it should fall just in front of and about the trenches,
put up what was in effect a dust barrage, and under
cover of it selected detachments of his infantry ad-
vanced almost into the bursting shell to cut passages
through the wire with wire-cutters. The dismounted
yeomanry of the 231st and 230th Infantry Brigades
rushed through, and by half -past one the 74 th Divi-
sion had secured their objectives. The 179th and
181st Brigades of the 60th Division had won their
trenches almost an hour earlier, and about 5000 yards
of works were in our hands south of the wadi Saba.
The enemy had 3000 yards of trenches north of the
wadi, and though these were threatened from the
south and west, it w^as not until five o'clock that the
230th Brigade occupied them, the Turks clearing
out during the bombardment. During the day, on
the left of the 74th Division, the Imperial Camel
Corps Brigade and two battalions of the 53rd Division
held the ground to the north of the wadi Saba to a
point where tho remainder of the 53rd Division
watched for the approach of any enemy force from
the north, while the 10th Division about Shellal
protected the line of communications east of the wadi
Ghuzze, and the Yeomanry Mounted Division 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 total considering the nature of the
works carried during the day. It was obvious that
the enemy was taken completely by surprise by the
direction of the attack, and the rapidity with which
we carried his strongest points was overwhelming.

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY 61

The Turk did not attempt anything in the nature of
a counter-attack by the Beersheba garrison, nor did
he make any move from Hareira against the 53rd
Division. Had he done so the 10th Division and the
Yeomanry Momited Division would have seized the
opportunity of falling on him from Shellal, and the
Turk chose the safer course of allowing the Beersheba
garrison to stand unaided in its own defences. The
XXtli Corps' captures included 25 officers, 394 other
ranks, 6 guns, and numerous machine guns.

The Desert Mounted Corps met with stubborn
opposition in their operations south-east and east of
Beersheba, but they were carried through no less suc-
cessfully than those of the XXth Corps. The mounted
men had had a busy time. General Ryrie's 2nd
Australian Light Horse Brigade and the Imperial
Camel Corps Brigade had moved southwards on
October 2, and on them and on the 1st and 2nd Field
Squadrons Austrahan Engineers the bulk of the work
fell of developing water and making and marking
tracks which, in the sandy soil, became badly cut up.
On the evening of October 30 the Anzac Mounted
Division was at Asluj, the Australian Mounted Divi-
sion at Khalasa, the 7th Mounted Brigade at Esani,
Imperial Camel Brigade at Hiseia, and the Yeomanry
Mounted Division in reserve- at Shellal. The Anzac
Division commanded by General Chaytor left Asluj
during the night, and in a march of twenty-four miles
round the south of Beersheba met with only shght
opposition on the way to Bir el Hamam and Bir
Sahm abu Irgeig, between five and seven miles east of
the town. The 2nd Australian Light Horse Brigade
during the morning advanced north to take the high
hill Tel el Sakaty, a httle east of the Beersheba-
Hebron road, which was captured at one o'clock, and
the brigade then swept across the metalled road which

62 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

was in quite fair condition, and whicli subsequently ^
was of great service to us during the advance of one
infantry division on Belhlcheni and Jerusalem. The
1st Australian Light Horse Brigade commanded by
General Cox, and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles
Brigade under General Mcldrum, moved against Tel
el Saba, a 1000-feet hill which rises very precipitously
on the northern bank of the wadi Saba, 4000 yards
due east of Beersheba. Tel el Saba is believed to
be the original site of Beersheba. It had been made
into a strong redoubt and was well held by a sub-
stantial garrison adequately dug in and supported
by nests of machine-gunners. The right bank of the
wadi Klialil was also strongly held, and between the
Hebron road and Tel el Saba some German machine-
gunners in three houses offered determined opposition.
The New Zealanders and a number of General Cox's
men crept up the wadi Saba, taking full advantage
of the cover offered by the high banks, and formed up
under the hill of Saba. They then dashed up the
steep sides while the horse artillery lashed the crest
with their fire, and driving the Turks from their
trenches had captured the hill by three o'clock. At
about the same time the 1st Light Horse Brigade
suitably dealt with the machine-gunners in the houses.
Much ground east of Beersheba had thus been made
good, and the Hebron road was denied to the garrison
of the town as a line of retreat. The Anzac Mounted
Division was then reinforced by General Wilson's 3rd
Australian Light Horse Brigade, and by six p.m. the
Division held a long crescent of hills from Point 970, a
mile north of Beersheba, through Tel el Sakaty, round
south-eastwards to Bir el Ha mam.

General Hodgson's Australian Mounted Division
had a night march of thirty-four miles from Kiialasa to
Iswawin, south-east of Beersheba, and after the 3rd

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY 63

Light Horse Brigade had been detached to assist the
Anzac Division, orders were given to General Grant's
4th Austrahan Light Horse Brigade to attack and
take the town of Beersheba from the east. The orders
were received at four o'clock, and until we had got
an absolute hold on Tel el Saba an attack on the town
from this direction would have been suicidal, as an
attacking force would have been between two fires.
The shelling of the cavalry during the day had been
rather hot, and enemy airmen had occasionally bombed
them. It was getting late, and as it was of the greatest
importance that the town's available water should be
secured that night, General Grant was directed to
attack with the utmost vigour. His brigade worthily
carried out its orders. The ground was very uneven
and was covered with a mass of large stones and
shingle. The trenches were well manned and strongly
held, but General Grant ordered them to be taken at
the gaUop. The Australians carried them with an
irresistible charge ; dismounted, cleared the first line
of all the enemy in it, ran on and captured the second
and third system of trenches, and then, their horses
having been brought up, galloped into the town to
prevent any destruction of the wells. The first-line
eastern trenches of Beersheba were eight feet deep
and four feet wide, and as there were many of the
enemy in them they were a serious obstacle to be
taken in one rush. This charge was a sterUng feat,
and unless the town had been occupied that night
most, if not all, of the cavalry would have had to
withdraw many miles to water, and subsequent opera-
tions might have been imperilled. Until we had got
Beersheba there appeared small prospect of 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

64 HOW JERUSALEI\I WAS WON

sweet water which enabled the whole of the Corps'
horses to be watered during the night. These pools
soon dried up and the w ater problem again became
serious. The Commander-in-Chief rewarded 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 IMounted Brigade was held up for some time
hi the afternoon by a flankmg fire from Ras Ghannam,
south of Beersheba, but this was silenced in time to
enable the brigade to assist in the occupation of Beer-
sheba at nightfall. The 4th Light Horse Brigade's cap-
tures in the charge were 58 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 not even then reahse to the full
the significance of our capture of the town. He
certainly failed to appreciate that we were to use it
as a jumping-off place to attack his main line from
Gaza to Sheria by rolling it up from left to right. In
this plan there is no doubt that General Allenby
entirely deceived his enemy, for in the next few days
there was the best of evidence to show that General
Kress von Kressenstein beheved we were going to
advance from Beersheba to Jerusalem up the Hebron
road, and he made his dispositions to oppose us here.
It was not merely the moral effect of the loss of Beer-
sheba that disturbed the Turks ; they had been
driven out of a not unimportant stronghold.

All through the many centuries since Abraham and
his people led a pastoral hfe near the wells, Beersheba
had been a meanly appointed place. There were no
signs as far as I could see of any elaborate ruins to
indicate anything larger than a native settlement.
Elsewhere we saw crumbling walls of ancient castles
and fortresses to tell of conquerors and glories long

THE BEERSHEBA VICTORY 65

since faded away, ®f relics of an age when great
captains led martial men into new worlds to conquer,
of the time when the Crusading spirit was abroad and
the flower of Western chivalry came East to hold the
land for Christians. Here the native quarter sug-
gested that trade in Beersheba was purely local and
not ambitious, that it provided nothing for the world's
commerce save a few skins and hides, and that the
inhabitants were content to live the rude, simple lives
of their forefathers. But the enterprising German
arrived, and you could tell by his work how he in-
tended to compel a change in the unchanging character
of the peo^jle. He built a handsome Mosque — but
before he was driven out he wired and mined it for
destruction. He built a seat of government, a hos-
pital, and a barracks, all of them pretentious buildings
for such a town, well designed, constructed of stone
with red-tiled roofs, and the gardens were nicely laid
out. There were a railway station and storehouses
on a scale which would not yield a return on capital
expenditure for many years, and the water tower and
engine sheds were built to last longer than merely
military necessities demanded. They were fashioned
by European craftsmen, and the sohdity of the
structures offered strange contrast to the rough-
and-ready native houses. The primary object of the
Hun scheme was, doubtless, to make Beersheba a
suitable base for an attack on the Suez Canal, and
the manner of improving the Hebron road, of setting
road engineers to construct zigzags up hills so that
lorries could move over the road, was part of the plan
of men whose vision was centred on cutting the Suez
Canal artery of the British Empire's body. The best
laid schemes . . .

When I entered Beersheba our troops held a line
of outposts sufficiently far north of the town to pre-

66 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

vent the Turks shelling it, and the place was secure
except from aircraft bombs, of which a number fell
into the town without damaging anything of much
consequence. Some of the troops fell victims to
booby traps. Apparently harmless whisky bottles
exploded when attempts were made to draw the corks,
and several small mines went up. Besides the mines
in the Mosque there was a good deal of wiring about
the railway station, and some rolling stock 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 supply branch.

CHAPTER VIII

GAZA DEFENCES

Meanwhile there were important happenings at
the other end of the line. Gaza was about to submit
to the biggest of all her ordeals. She had been a bone
of contention for thousands of years. The Pharaohs
coveted her and more than 3500 years ago made
bloody strife within the environs of the town. Alex-
ander the Great besieged her, and Persians and Arab-
ians opposed that mighty general. The Ptolemies
and the Antiochi for centuries fought for Gaza, whose
inhabitants had a greater taste for the mart than for
the sword, and when the Maccabees were carrying a
victorious war through Philistia, the people of Gaza
bought off Jonathan, but the Jews occupied the city
itself about a century before the Christian era. Later
on the place was captured after a year's siege and
destroyed, and for long it remained a mass of moulder-
ing ruins. Pompey revived it, making it a free city,
and Gabinius extended it close to the harbour, whilst
under Csesar and Herod its prosperity and fame
increased. In succeeding centuries Gaza's commerce
flourished under the Greeks, who founded schools
famous for rhetoric and philosophy, till the Maho-
medan wave swept over the land in the first half
of the seventh century, when the town became a
shadow of its former self, though it continued to
exist as a centre for trade. The Crusaders m^^e
their influence felt, and many are the traces of their
period in this ancient city, but Askalon always had

67

68 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

more Crusader support. Napoleon's attack on Gaza
found Abdallab's army in a very different state of
preparedness from von Ivress's Turkish army. Nearly
all Abdallah's artillery was left behind in a gun park
at Jaffa owing to lack of transport, and though he
had a numerically superior force he did not like
Napoleon's dispositions, and retreated when Kleber
moved up the plain to pass between Gaza and the
sea, and the cavalry advanced east of the Mound of
Hebron, or Ali INIuntar, as we know the hill up which
Samson is reputed to have carried the gates and bar
of Gaza. For nearly a century and a quarter since
Napoleon passed forwards and backwards through
the town, Gaza pursued the arts of peace in the
lethargic spirit which suits the native temperament,
but in eight months of 1917 it was the cockpit of
strife in the Middle East, and there was often crammed
into one day as much fighting energy as was shown
in all the battles of the past thirty-five centuries,
Napoleon's campaign included.

Fortunately after the battles of March and April
nearly all the civilian population left the town for
quieter quarters. Some of them on returning must
have had difficulty in identifying their homes. In
the centre of the town, where bazaars radiated from
the quarter of which the Great Mosque was the hub,
the houses were a mass of stones and rubble, and the
narrow streets and tortuous byways were filled with
fallen walls and roofs. The Great Mosque had
entirely lost its beauty. We had shelled it because
its minaret, one of those delicately fashioned spires
w^hich, seen from a distance, lead a traveller to
imagine a native to^vn in the East to be arranged on
an artistic and orderly plan, was used as a Turkish
observation post, and the Mosque itself as an am-
munition store. I am told our guns were never laid

GAZA DEFENCES 69

on to this objective until there was an accident within
it which exploded the ammunition. Be that as it
may, there was ample justification for shelling the
Mosque. I went in to examine the structure a few
hours after the Turks had been compelled to evacuate
the town, and whilst they were then shelling it with
unpleasant severity. Amid the wrecked marble
columns, the broken pulpit, the torn and twisted
lamps and crumbling walls were hundreds of thou-
sands of rounds of small-arms ammunition, most of it
destroyed by explosion. A great shell had cut the
minaret in half and had left exposed telephone wires
leading direct to army headquarters and to the
Turkish gunners' fire control station. Most of the
Mosque furniture and all the carpets had been re-
moved, but a few torn copies of the Koran, some of
them in manuscript with marginal notes, lay mixed
up with German newspapers and some typical Turkish
war propaganda literature. That Mosque, which
Saladin seized from the Crusaders and turned from
a Christian into a Mahomedan place of worship, was
unquestionably used for military purposes, and the
Turks cared as little for its religious character or its
venerable age as they did for the mosque on Nebi
Samwil, where the remains of the Prophet Samuel
are supposed to rest. Their stories of the trouble
taken to avoid military contact with holy places and
sites were all bunkum and eyewash. They would
have fought from the walls of the Holy City and
placed machine-gun nests in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre and the Mosque of Omar if they had
thought it would spare them the loss of Jerusalem.

Gaza had, as I have said, been turned into a fortress
with a mass of field works, in places of considerable
natural strength. If our force had been on the de-
fensive at Gaza the Germans would not have attacked

70 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

without an army of at least three times our strength.
It is doubtful if the Turks put as much material in
use on Gallipoli as they did here. Their trenches
were deeply cut and were protected by an immense
amount of wire. In the sand-dune area they used a
vast quantity of sandbags, and they met the shortage
of jute stuffs by making small sacks of bedstead
hangings and curtains which, in the dry heat of the
summer, wore very well. Looking across No Man's
Land one could easily pick out a line of trenches by
a red, a vivid blue, or a saffron sandbag. The Turkish
dug-outs were most elaborate places of security.
The excavators had gone down into the hard earth
well beneath the deep strata of sand, and they roofed
these holes with six, eight, and sometimes ten layers
of palm logs. We had seen these beautiful trees
disappearing and had guessed the reason. But
an even greater protection than the devices of
miHtary engineers had been provided for the Turks
by Dame Nature. Along the southern outskirts
of the town all the fields were enclosed by giant
cactus hedges, sometimes with stems as thick as
a man's body and not infrequently rearing their
strong limbs and prickly leaves twenty feet above the
ground. The hedges w ere deep as well as high. They
were at once a screen for defending troops and a
barrier as impenetrable as the w\aUs of a fortress. If
one Ime of cactus hedges had been cut through, in-
fantry would have found another and yet another
to a depth of nearly two miles, and as the whole of
these thorny enclosures were commanded by a few
machine guns the possibility of gettmg through was
almost hopeless. There were similar hedges on the
eastern and western sides of Gaza, but they were not
quite so deep as on the south. On the western side,
and extending south as far as the desert which the

GAZA DEFENCES 71

Army had crossed with such steady, methodical, and
one may also say painful progression, was a wide belt
of yellow sand, sometimes settled down hard under
the weight of heavy winds, and in other places yielding
to the pressure of feet. The Turks had laboured
hard in this mile and a half width of sand, right down
to the sea, to protect their right flank. There was a
point about 4000 yards due west from the edge of the
West Town of Gaza which we called Sea Post. It was
the western extremity of the enemy's exceedingly
intricate system of defences. The beach was below
the level of the Post. From Sea Post for about 1500
yards the Turkish front Hne ran to Rafa Redoubt.
There were wired-in entrenchments with strong points
here and there, and a series of communication trenches
and redoubts behind them for 3000 yards to Sheikh
Hasan, which was the port of Gaza, if you can so
describe an open roadstead with no landing facilities.
From Rafa Redoubt the contour of the sand dunes
permitted the enemy to construct an exceedingly
strong line running due south for 2000 yards, the
strongest points being named by us Zowaid trench.
El Burj trench, Triangle trench, Peach Orchard, and
El Arish Redoubt, the nomenclature being reminis-
cent of the trials of the troops in the desert march.
Behind this line there was many a sunken passage-
way and shelter from gunfire, while backing the whole
system, and, for reasons I have given, an element of
defence as strong as the prepared positions, were
cactus hedges enclosing the West Town's gardens.

From El Arish Redoubt the hne ran east again to
Mazar trench with a prodigal expenditure of wire in
front of it, and then south for several hundred yards,
when it was thrown out to the south-west to embrace
a position of high importance known as Umbrella
Hill, a dune of blazing yellow sand facing, about 500

72 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

yards away, Sauison's Ridge, which we held strongly
and on which the enemy often concentrated his fire.
This ended the Tui'ks' right-half section of the Gaza
defences. Close by passed what from time im-
memorial has been called the Cairo Road, a track
worn down by caravans of camels moving towards
Kantara on their way with goods for Egyptian
bazaars. But there was no break in the trench system
which ran across the plain, a beautiful green tinted
with the blooms of myriads of wild flowers when we
first advanced over it in March, now browned and
dried up by absolutely cloudless summer days. In
the gardens on the western slopes of the hills running
south from Ali Muntar the Turk had achieved much
spadework, but he had done far more work on the
hills themselves, and these were a frame of fortifica-
tions for Ah Mmitar, on which we once sat for a few
hours, and the possession of which meant the re-
duction of 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 feature sur-
mounted by a few trees and the whitened walls and
grey dome of a sheikh's tomb. In the earher battles
of 1917 much was done to rufile Muntar' s crest. We
saw trees uprooted, others lose their limbs, and naval
gunfire threatened the foundations of the old chief's
burying place. But Ali Muntar stoutly resisted the
heavy shells' attack. As if Samson's feat had en-
dowed it with some of the strong man's powers,
Muntar for a long time received its daily thumps
stoically ; but by degrees the resistance of the old
hill declined, and w^hen agents reported that the
sheikh's tomb w^as used as an observation post, 8-inch
howitzers got on to it and made it untenable. There
was a bit of it left at the end, but not more than would
offer protection from a rifle bullet, and the one tree

GAZA DEFENCES 73

left standing was a limbless trunk. The crest of the
hill lost its roundness, and the soil which had worked
out through the shell craters had changed the colour
of the summit. Old Ali Muntar had had the worst
of the bombardment, and if some future sheikh should
choose the site for a summer residence he will come
across a wealth of metal in digging his foundations.

To capture Gaza the Formidable it was proposed
first to take the western defences from Umbrella
Hill to Sea Post, to press on to Sheikh Hasan and thus
turn the right flank of the whole position. That
would compel the enemy to reinforce his right flank
when he was being heavily attacked elsewhere, and
if he had been transferring his reserves to meet the
threat against the left of his main line after Beersheba
had been won for the Empire he would be in sore
trouble. Gaza had abeady tasted a full sample of
the war food we intended it should consume. Before
the attack on Beersheba had developed, ships of war
and the heavy guns of XXIst Corps had rattled its
defences. The warships' fire was chiefly directed
on targets our land guns could not reach. Observers
in aircraft controlled the fire and notified the de-
struction of ammunition dumps at Deir Sineid and
other places. The work of the heavy batteries was
watched with much interest. Some were entirely
new batteries which had never been in action against
any enemy, and they only arrived on the Gaza front
five weeks before the battle. These were not allowed
to register until shortly before the battle began, and
they borrowed guns from other batteries in order to
train the gun crews. So desirous was General Bulfin
to conceal the concentration of heavies that the wire-
less code calls were only those used by batteries which
were in position before his Corps was formed, and the
volume of fire came as an absolute surprise to the

74 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

enemy. It came as a surprise also to some of us in
cami3 at G.H.Q. one night at the end of October.
Suddenly there was a terrific burst of fii-e on about
four miles of front. Vivid fan-shaped flashes stabbed
the sky, the bright moonlight of the East did not dim
the guns' lightning, and their thunderous voices were
a challenge the enemy was powerless to refuse. He
took it up slowly as if half ashamed of his weakness.
Then his fire increased in volume and in strength,
but it ebbed again and we knew the reason. We
held some big ' stuff ' for comiter battery work, and
our fire was ejffective.

The preliminary bombardment began on October 27
and it grew^ in intensity day by day. The Navy
co-operated on October 29 and subsequent days.
The whole line from JVIiddlesex Hill (close to Outpost
Hill) to the sea was subjected to heavy fire, all the
routes to the front line were shelled during the night
by 60-pounder and field-gun batteries. Gas shells
dosed the centres of communication and bivouac
areas, and every quarter of the defences was made
uncomfortable. The sound-ranging sections told us
the enemy had between sixteen and twenty-four guns
south of Gaza, and from forty to forty-eight north of
the town, and over 100 guns were disclosed, including
more than thirty firing from the Tank Redoubt well
away to the eastward. On October 29 some of the
guns south of Gaza had been forced back by the
severity of our counter battery work, and of the ten
guns remaining between us and the town on that date
all except four had been removed by November 2.
For several nights the bombardment continued
without a move by infantry. Then just at the
moment von Kress was discussing the loss of Beer-
sheba and his plans to meet our further advance in
that direction, some infantry of the 75th Division

GAZA DEFENCES 75

raided Outpost Hill, the southern extremity of the
entrenched hill system south of Ali Muntar, and killed
far more Turks than they took prisoners. There was
an intense bombardment of the enemy's works at the
same time. The next night — November 1-2 — ^was
the opening of XXIst Corps' great attack on Gaza,
and though the enemy did not leave the town or the
remainder of the trenches we had not assaulted till
nearly a week afterwards, the vigour of the attack
and the bravery with which it was thrust home, and
the subsequent total failure of counter-attacks, must
have made the enemy commanders realise on the
afternoon of November 2 that Gaza was doomed and
that their boasts that Gaza was impregnable were
thin air. Their reserves were on the way to their left
where they were urgently wanted, there was nothing
strong enough to replace such heavy wastage caused
to them by the attack of the night of November 1 and
the morning of the 2nd, and our big gains of ground
were an enormous advantage to us for the second
phase in the Gaza sector, for we had bitten deeply into
the Turks' right flank.

Like the concentration of the XXth Corps and the
Desert Mounted Corps for the jump off on to Beer-
sheba, the preparations against the Turks' extreme
right had to be very secretly made. The XXIst
Corps Commander had to look a long way ahead.
He had to consider the possibiUty of the enemy
abandoning Gaza when Beersheba was captured,
and falling back to the line of the wadi Hesi. His
troops had been confined to trench warfare for months,
digging and sitting in trenches, putting out wire,
going out on listening patrols, sniping and doing all
the drudgery in the hnes of earthworks. They were
hard and strong, their health having considerably
improved since the early summer, but at the end of

76 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

September the infantry were by no means march fit.
Keahsing that, if General Allenby's operations were
successful, and no one doubted that, we should have
a period of open warfare when troops would be called
upon to make long marches and midergo the priva-
tions entailed by transport difficulties. General Bulfin
brought as many men as he could spare from the
trenches back to Deir el Belah and the coast, where
they had route marches over the sand for the restora-
tion of their marchuig powers. Gradually he ac-
cumulated supphes in sheltered positions just behind
the front. In three dumps were collected seven days'
mobile rations, ammunition, water, and engineers'
material. Tracks were constructed, cables buried,
concealed gun positions and brigade and battalion
headquarters made, and from the 25th October troops
were ready to move ofi with two days' rations on the
man. Should the enemy retire. General Hill's 52nd
(Lowland) Division was to march up the shore beneath
the sand cliffs, get across the wadi Hesi at the mouth,
detach a force to proceed towards Askalon, and then
move eastward down to the ridge opposite Deir
Smeid, and, by securing the bridge and crossings of
the wadi Hesi, prevent the enemy establishing him-
self on the north bank of the wadi. The operations
on the night of November 1-2 were conducted by
Major-General Hare, commanding the 54th Division,
to which General Leggatt's 156th Infantry Brigade
was temporarily attached. The latter brigade was
given the important task of capturmg Umbrella
Hill and El Arish Redoubt. Umbrella Hill was to
be taken first, and as it was anticipated the enemy
would keep up a strong artillery fire for a considerable
time after the position had been taken, and that his
fire would interfere with the assembly and advance
of troops detailed for the second phase, the first

GAZA DEFENCES 77

phase was timed to start four hours earher than
the second. For several days the guns had opened
intense fire at midnight and again at 3 a.m. so that
the enemy should not attach particular importance
to our artillery activity on the night of action, and a
creeping barrage nightly swept across No Man's Land
to clear off the chain of listening posts established
300 yards in front of the enemy's trenches. Some
heavy banks of cloud moved across the sky when the
Scottish Rifle Brigade assembled for the assault, but
the moon shed sufficient light at intervals to enable
the Scots to file through the gaps made in our wire
and to form up on the tapes laid outside. At 11 p.m.
the 7th Scottish Rifles stormed Umbrella Hill with
the greatest gallantry. The first wave of some sixty-
five officers and men was blown up by four large
contact mines and entirely destroyed. The second
wave passed over the bodies of their comrades without
a moment's check and, moving through the wire
smashed by our artillery, entered Umbrella Hill
trenches and set about the Turks with their ba.yonets.
They had to clear a maze of trenches and dug-outs,
but they bombed out of existence the machine-
gunners opposing them and had settled the possession
of Umbrella Hill in half an hour.

The 4th Royal Scots led the attack on El Arish
Redoubt. It was a bigger and noisier ' show ' than
the Royal Scots had had some months before, when
in a ' silent ' raid they killed with hatchets only, for
the Scots had seen the condition of some of their dead
left in Turkish hands and were taking retribution.
Not many Turks in El Arish Redoubt lived to relate
that night's story. The Scots were rapidly in the
redoubt and were rapidly through it, cleared up a
nasty corner known as the ' Little Devil,' and were
just about to shelter from the shells which were to

78 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

answer their attack when they caught a brisk fire from
a Bedouin hut. A phitoon leader disposed his men
cleverly and rushed the hut, killing everybody in it
and capturing two machine guns. The vigorous
resistance of the Turks on Umbrella Hill and El Arish
Redoubt resulted hi our having to bury over 350
enemy dead in these positions.

The second phase was to attack the enemy's front-
line system from El Aiish Redoubt to the sea at Sea
Post. At 3 A.M., after the enemy guns had plentifully
sprinkled Umbrella Hill and had given it up as
irretrievably lost, we opened a ten-minutes' intense
bombardment of the front line, exactly as had been
done on preceding mornings, but this time the 161st
and 162nd Infantry Brigades followed up our shells
and carried 3000 yards of trenches at once. Three-
quarters of an hour afterwards the 163rd Infantry
Brigade tried to get the support trenches several
hundred yards in rear, but the difficulties were too
many and the effort failed. Having secured Sea
Post and Beach Post the 162nd Brigade completed
the programme by advancing up the coast and cap-
turing the ' port ' of Gaza, Sheikh Hasan, with a
considerable body of prisoners.

The enemy's guns remained active until seven
o'clock, when they reserved their fire tiU the afternoon.
Then a heavy counter-attack was seen to be develop-
ing by an aerial observer, whose timely warning
enabled the big guns and warships to smash it up.
Another counter-attack against Sheikh Hasan was
repulsed later in the day, and a third starting from
Crested Rock which aimed at getting back El Burj
trench was a complete failure. After the second
phase our troops buried 739 enemy dead. Without
doubt there were many others killed and wounded
in the unsuccessful comiter-attacks, particularly the

BEERSHEBA RAILWAY S'lA HUN \\] TH MINKIJ ROLLING SIOCK

GAZA DEFENCES 79

first against Sheikli Hasan, when many heavy shells
were seen to fall in the enemy's ranks. We took
prisoners 26 officers, including two battalion com-
manders, and 418 other ranks. Our casualties were
30 officers and 331 other ranks killed, 94 officers and
1869 other ranks wounded, and 10 officers and 362
other ranks missing. Considering the enormous
strength of the positions attacked, the numbers
engaged, and the fact that we secured enemy front
5000 yards long and 3000 yards deep, the losses were
not more severe than might have been expected.

The Turks clung to their trenches with a tenacity
equal to that which characterised their defences on
Gallipoli, and officer prisoners told us they had been
ordered to hold Gaza at all costs. That was good
news, though even if they had got back to the wadi
Hesi line it is doubtful if, when Sheria was taken,
they could have done more than temporarily hold us
up there. During the next few days the work against
the enemy's right consisted of heavy bombardments
on the Hne of hills running from the north-east to the
south of Gaza, and on the prominent position of
Sheikh Redwan, east of the port. The enemy made
some spirited replies, notably on the 4th, but his force
in Gaza was getting shaken, and prisoners reluctantly
admitted that the heavy naval shells taking them in
flank and rear were affecting the moral of 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, was worthy of the King's Navy.
They were assisted by the French battleship Eequin,
We lost a monitor and destroyer torpedoed by a
submarine, but the marks of the Navy's hard hitting
were on and about Gaza, and we heard, if we could
not see, the best the ships were doing. On one day

80 HOW JERUSALEIM WAS WON

there was a number of explotsions about Deir Shield
indicating the destruction of some of the enemy's
reserve of ammunition, and while the Turks were
still in Gaza they received a shock resembling nothing
more than an earthquake. One of the ships — the
Raglan, I believe — takmg a signal from a seaplane, got
a direct hit on an ammunition train at Beit Hanun,
the railway terminus north of Gaza. The whole
train went up and its load was scattered in fragments
over an area of several hundred square yards, an
extraordinary scene of wreckage of torn and twisted
railway material and destroyed ammunition present-
ing itself to us when we got on the spot on Novem-
ber 7. There was another very fine example of
the Navy's indirect fire a short distance northward
of this railway station. A stone road bridge had
been 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 wheels passing down them as
they stood. During our advance the engineers had
to 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 hits on it and holed it in the
centre, and there must have been thirty or forty
shell craters within a radius of fifty yards. The
confounding of the Turks was ably assisted by the
Navy.

JHAPTER IX

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT

Now we return to the operations of XXth Corps and
Desert Mounted Corps on our right. After the
capture of Beersheba this force was preparing to
attack the left of the Turkish main hne about Hareira
and Sheria, the capture of which would enable the
fine force of cavalry to get to Nejile and gain an
excellent water supply, to advance to the neighbour-
hood of Huj and so reach the plain and threaten the
enemy's line in rear, and to fall on his line of retreat.
It was proposed to make the attack on the Kauwukah
and Rushdi systems at Hareira on November 4, but
the water available at Beersheba had not been equal
to the demands made upon it and was petering out,
and mounted troops protecting the right flank of
XXth Corps had to be reUeved every twenty-four
hours. The men also suffered a good deal from thirst.
The weather was unusually hot for this period of the
year, and the dust churned up by traffic was as
irritating as when the khamseen wind blew. The
two days' delay meant much in favour of the enemy,
who was enabled to move his troops as he desired,
but it also permitted our infantry to get some rest
after their long marches, and supplies were brought
nearer the front. ' Rest ' was only a comparative
term. Brigades were on the move each day in country
which was one continual rise and fall, with stony beds
of wadis to check progress, without a tree to lend a
few moments' grateful relief from a burning sun, and

82 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

nothing but the rare sight of a squahd native hut to
reheve the monotony of a sun-dried desolate land.

The troops were remarkably cheerful. They were
on their toes, as the cavalry told them. They had
drawn first blood profusely from the Turk after many
weary months of waiting and getting fit, and they
knew that those gaunt mountain ridges away on
their right front held behind them Bethlehem and
Jerusalem, goals they desired to reach more than any
other prizes of war. They had seen the Turk, and
had soundly thrashed him out of trenches which the
British could have held against a much stronger
force. Their confidence was based on the proof that
they were better men, and they were convinced that
once they got the enemy into the open their superi-
ority would be still more marked. The events of the
next six weeks showed their estimate of the Turkish
soldier was justified.

The 53rd Division with the Imperial Camel Corps on
its right moved to Towal Abu Jerwal on November 1
to protect the flank guard of the XXth Corps during
the pending attack on the Kauwukah system. The
infantry had some fighting on that day, but it was
mild compared with the strenuous days before them.
The 10th Division attacked Irgeig railway station
north-west of Beersheba and secured it, and waited
there with the 74th Division on its right while the
Welsh Division went forward to fight for lOiuweilfeh
on November 3. The Welshmen could not obtain the
whole of the position on that day, and it was not until
the 6th that it became theirs. Khuweilfeh is about
ten miles due east of Sheria, the same distance north
of Beersheba, and some five miles west of 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 there was no element in the position to

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 83

suggest the prospect of an easy capture. When
General Mott advanced to these forbidding heights
the strength of the enemy in these parts was not
reahsed. Prisoners taken during the day proved
that there were portions of three or four Turkish
divisions in the neighbourhood, and the strong efforts
made to prevent the Welsh troops gaining the position
and the furious attempts to drive them out of it
suggested that most of the Turkish reserves had been
brought over to their left flank to guard against a wide
movement intended to envelop it. It afterwards
turned out that von Kressenstein believed General
AUenby intended to march on Jerusalem up the
Hebron road, and he threw over to his left all his
reserves to stop us. That was a supreme mistake, for
when we had broken through at Hstreira 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 against vastly superior forces and in the
face of heavy casualties played a very important part
in the overwhelming defeat of the Turks. For four
days and nights the Welsh Division fought without
respite and with the knowledge that they could not
be substantially reinforced, since the plan for the
attack on Hareira and Sheria entailed the employ-
ment of all the available infantry of XXth Corps.
Attack after attack was launched against them with
extreme violence and great gallantry, their positions
were raked by gunfire, whilst water and supplies were
not over plentiful. But the staunch Division held on
grimly to what it had gained, and its tenacity was
well rewarded by what was won on other portions
of the field.

During the night of November 5-6 and the day of
the 6th, the 74th, 60th, and 10th Divisions concen-

84 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

trated for the attack on the Kauwukah system. The
enemy's positions ran from his Jerusalem-Beersheba
railway about five miles south-east of Hareira, across
the Gaza-Beersheba road to the wadi Sheria, on the
northern bank of which was an exceedingly strong
redoubt covering Hareira. The eastern portion of
this line was known as the Kauwukah system, and
between it and Hareira was the Rushdi system, all
being connected up by long communication and
support trenches, while a light railway ran from the
Rushdi line to dumps south of Sheria. At the
moment of assembly for attack our line from right
to left was made up as follows : the 158th Infantry
Brigade was on the right, south of Tel Khuweilfeh.
Then came the 160th Brigade and 159th Brigade.
The Yeomanry Mounted Division held a long line
of comitry and was the connecting link between the
53rd and 74th Divisions. The latter division disposed
from right to left the 231st Brigade, the 229th Brigade,
and 230th Brigade, who were to march from the south-
east to the north-west to attack the right of the Kau-
wukah system of entrenchments on the railway.
The 181st Brigade, 180th Brigade, and 179th Brigade
of the 60th Division were to march in the same
direction to attack the next portion of the system on
the left of the 74th Division's objectives, then swing-
ing to the north to march on Sheria. The 31st
Brigade, 30th Brigade, and 29th Brigade were to
operate on the 60th Division's left, with the Aus-
tralian Mounted Division watching the left flank of
XXth Corps. The Turkish Vllth Army and 3rd
Cavalry Division were opposing the XXth Corps,
another Division was opposite the 53rd Division
and the Imperial Camel Corps with the 12th Depot
Regiment at Dharahiyeh on the Hebron road, the
16th Division opposite our 74th, the 24th and 26th

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 85

Divisions opposite our 69th, and the 54th against
the 10th Division. Tlie 3rd, 53rd, and 7th Turkish
Divisions were in the Gaza area.

At daybreak the troops advanced to the attack.
The first part of the Hne in front of the 231st Brigade
was a serious obstacle. Two or three small outlying
rifle pits had to be taken before the Division could
proceed with its effort to drive the enemy out of
Sheria and protect the flank of the 60th Division,
which had to cross the railway where a double line
of trenches was to be tackled, the rear line above the
other with the flank well thrown back and protected
by small advanced pits to hold a few men and
machine guns. The Turks held on very obstinately
to their ground east of the railway, and kept the
74th Division at bay till one o'clock in the afternoon,
but the artillery of that Division had for some time
been assisting in the wire-cutting in front of the
trenches to be assaulted by the 60th Division, and
the latter went ahead soon after noon, and with the
assistance of one brigade of the 10th Division, had
won about 4000 yards of the complicated trench
system and most of the Rushdi system by half-past
two. The Londoners then swung to the north and
occupied the station at Sheria, while the dismounted
yeomanry worked round farther east, taking a series
of isolated trenches on the way, the Irish troops re-
lieving 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 in preparation when an
enemy dump exploded and a huge fire lighted up the
whole district, so that all troops would have been
exposed to the fire of the garrison on the hill. General
Shea therefore stopped the attack, but the hill was
stormed at 4.30 next morning and carried at the point

86 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of the bayonet. A bridgehead was then formed at
Sheria, and the Londoners fought all day and stopped
one counter-attack when it was within 200 yards of
our line. On that same morning the Irish troops
had extended then' gains westwards from the Rushdi
system till they got to Hareira Tepe Redoubt, a high
mound 500 yards across the top, which had been
criss-crossed w4th trenches with wire hanging about
some broken ground at the bottom. Here there was
a hot tussle, but the Irishmen valiantly pushed
through and not only gave XXth Corps the whole of
its objectives and completed the turn of the enemy's
left flank, but joined up wdth the XXIst Corps. The
workmg of XXth Corps' scheme had again been
admirable, and once more the staff work had enabled
the movements to be timed perfectly.

The Desert Mounted Corps was thus able to draw
up to Sheria in readiness to take up the pursuit and
to get the water supply at Nejile. This ended the
XXth Corps' task for a few days, though the 60th
Division became temporarily attached to Desert
Moimted Corps. XXth Corps had nobly done its part.
The consummate ability, energy, and foresight of the
corps commander had been supported throughout
by the skill of divisional and brigade commanders.
For the men no praise could be too high. The atten-
tion given to their training was well repaid. They
bore the strain of long marches on hard food and a
small allowance of water in a way that proved their
physique to be only matched by their courage, and
that was of a high order. Their discipline was
admirable, their determination alike in attack and
defence strong and well sustained. To say they were
equal to the finest troops in the world might lay one
open to a charge of exaggeration when it was im-
possible to get a fair ground of comparison, seeing

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 87

the conditions of fighting on different fronts was so
varied, but the trials through which the troops of
XXth Corps passed up to the end of the first week of
November, and their magnificent accompHshments
by the end of the year, make me doubt whether any
other corps possessed finer soldierly qualities. The
men were indeed splendid. The casualties sustained
by the XXth Corps from October 31 to Novem-
ber 16 were : killed, officers 63, other ranks 869 ;
wounded, officers 198, other ranks 4246 ; missing,
no officers, 108 other ranks — a total of 261 officers
and 5223 other ranks.

During the period after Beersheba when the XXth
Corps troops were concentrating to break up the
Turks' defensive position on the left, the Desert
Mounted Corps was busily engaged holding a line
eight or ten miles north and north-east of Beersheba,
and watching for any movement of troops down the
Hebron road. The 2nd Australian Light Horse
Brigade and 7th Mounted Brigade tried to occupy
a line from KhuweiHeh to Dharahiyeh, but it was
not possible to reach it — a fact by no means surpris-
ing, as in the light of subsequent knowledge it was
clear that the Turks had put much of their strength
there. A patrol of Light Horsemen managed to work
round to the north of Dharahiyeh, a curious group
of mud houses on a hill-top inhabited by natives who
have yet to appreciate the evils of grossly overcrowded
quarters as well as some of the elementary principles
of sanitation, and they saw a number of motor lorries
come up the admirably constructed hill road designed
by German engineers. The lorries were hurrying from
the Jerusalem area with reinforcements. Prisoners
— several hundreds of them in all — ^were brought in
daily, but no attempt was made to force the enemy
back until November 6, when the 53rd Division,

88 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

which for the time being was attached to the Desert
Mounted Corps, drove the Turks off the whole of
Khuweilfeh, behaving as I have ah-eady said with
fine gallantr}/ and inflicting severe losses. There
were also counter-attacks launched against the 5th
Mounted Brigade, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles
Brigade, and the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, but
these were likewise beaten off with considerable
casualties to the enemy. When the XXth Corps
had captured the Khauwukah system, a detachment
for the defence of the right flank of the Army was
formed under the command of Major-General G. de S.
Barrow, the G.O.C. Yeomanry Mounted Division,
consisting of the Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, 53rd
Division, Yeomanry Mounted Division, New Zealand
Mounted Rifles Brigade, and two squadrons and eight
machine guns of the 2nd Australian Light Horse
Brigade. The Australian Mounted Division marched
from Karm, whither it had been sent on account of
water difficulties, to rejoin Desert Mounted Corps to
whom the 60th Division was temporarily attached.
The Desert Corps had orders on November 7 to push
through as rapidly as possible to the line wadi Jem-
mameh-Huj, and from that day the Corps commenced
its long march to Jaffa, a march which, though
strongly opposed by considerable bodies of troops,
was more often interfered with by lack of water than
by difficulty in defeating the enemy.

The scarcity of water was a sore trouble. There
was an occasional pool here and there, but generally
the only water procurable was in deep wells giving
a poor yield. The cavalry will not forget that long
trek. No brigade could march straight ahead.
Those operating in the foothills on our right had to
fight all the way, and they were often called upon to
resist counter-attacks by strong rearguards issuing

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 89

from the hills to threaten the flank and so delay the
advance in order to permit the Turks to carry off
some of their material. It was necessary almost
every day to withdraw certain formations from the
front and send them back a considerable distance to
water, replacing them by other troops coming from
a well centre. In this way brigades were not in-
frequently attached to divisions other than their
own, and the administrative services were heavily
handicapped. Several times whole brigades were
without water for forty-eight hours, and though
supplies reached them on all but one or two occasions
they were often late, and an exceedingly severe strain
was put on the transport. During that diagonal
march across the Maritime Plain I heard infantry
ofi&cers remark that the Australians always seemed
to have their supplies up with them. I do not think
the supphes were always there, but they generally
were not far behind, and if resource and energy could
work miracles the Australian supply officers deserve
the credit for them. The divisional trains worked
hard in those strenuous days, and the ' Q ' staff of
the Desert Mounted Corps had many a sleepless night
devising plans to get that last ounce out of their trans-
port men and to get that Httle extra amount of sup-
plies to the front which meant the difference between
want and a sufficiency for man and horse.

On the 7th November the 60th Division after its
spirited attack on Tel el Sheria crossed the wadi and
advanced north about two miles, fighting obstinate
rearguards all the way. The 1st Australian Light
Horse took 300 prisoners and a considerable quantity
of ammunition and stores at Ameidat, and with the
remainder of the Anzac Division reached Tel Abu
Dilakh by the evening, and the Australian Mounted
Division filled the gap between the Anzacs and the

90 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Londoners, but having been unable to water could
not advance further. The 8th November was a busy
and brilliantly successful day. The Corps' effort was
to make a wide sweeping movement in order first to
obtain the valuable and urgently required water at
Nejile, and then to push across the hills and rolling
downs to the country behind Gaza to harass the
enemy retreating from that town. The Turks had
a big rearguard south-west of Nejile and made a
strong effort to delay the capture of that place, the
importance of which to us they realised to the full,
and they were prepared to sacrifice the whole of the
rearguard if they could hold us off the water for
another twenty-four hours. The pressure of the
Anzac Division and the 7th Mounted Brigade as-
sisting it was too much for the enemy, who though
holding on to the hills very stoutly till the last moment
had to give way and leave the water in our undisputed
possession. The Sherwood Rangers and South Notts
Hussars were vigorously counter-attacked at Mud-
weiweh, but they severely handled the enemy, who
retired a much weakened body.

By the evening the Anzacs held the country from
Nejile to the north bank of the wadi Jemmameh,
having captured 300 prisoners and two guns. The
Australian Mounted Division made an excellent ad-
vance round the north side of Huj, which had been
the Turkish Vlllth Army Headquarters, and the 4th
Australian Light Horse Brigade was in touch with
the corps cavalry of XXIst Corps at Beit Hanun,
while the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade had
taken prisoners and two of the troublesome Austrian
5-9 howitzers.

It was the work of the 60th Division in the centre,
however, which was the outstanding feature of the
day, though the Londoners readily admitted that

CEUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 91

without the glorious charge of the Worcester and
Warwickshire Yeomanry in the afternoon they would
not have been in the neighbourhood of Huj when
darkness fell. The 60th were in the centre, sand-
wiched between the Anzacs and Australian Mounted
Division, and their allotted task was to clear the
country between Sheria and Huj, a distance of ten
miles. The country was a series of billowy downs
with valleys seldom more than 1000 yards wide, and
every yard of the way was opposed by infantry and
artillery. Considering the opposition the progress
was good. The Londoners drove in the Turks' strong
flank three times, first from the hill of Zuheilika, then
from the cultivated area behind it, and thirdly from
the wadi-torn district of Muntaret el Baghl, from
which the infantry proceeded to the high ground to
the north. It was then between two and three o'clock
in the afternoon, and maps showed that between the
Division and Huj there was nearly four miles of most
difficult country, a mass of wadi beds and hills giving
an enterprising enemy the best possible means for
holding up an advance. General Shea went ahead
in a light armoured car to reconnoitre, and saw a
strong body of Turks with guns marching across his
front. It was impossible for his infantry to catch
them and, seeing ten troops of Warwick and Wor-
cester Yeomanry on his right about a mile away,
he went over to them and ordered Lieut. -Colonel
H. Cheape to charge the enemy. It was a case for
instant action. The enemy were a mile and a half
from our cavalry. The gunners had come into action
and were shelling the London Territorials, but they
soon had to switch off and fire at a more terrifying
target. Led by their gallant Colonel, a Master of
Foxhounds who was afterwards drowned in the Medi-
terranean, the yeomen swept over a ridge in successive

92 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

lines and raced down the northern slope on to the
flat, at first making direct for the guns, then swerving
to the left under the direction of Colonel Cheape,
whose eye for country led him to take advantage of a
mound on the opposite side of the valley. Over this
rise the Midland yeomen spurred their chargers and,
giving full-throated cheers, dashed through the Turks'
left flank guard and went straight for the guns.
Their ranks were somewhat thinned, for they had
been exposed to a heavy machine-gun fire as w^ell as
to the fire of eight field guns and three 5*9 howitzers
worked at the highest pressure. The gunners were
nearly all Germans and Austrians and they fought
well. They splashed the valley with shrapnel, and
during the few moments' lull when the yeomam-y were
lost to view behind the mound they set their shell
fuses at zero to make them burst at the mouth of the
guns and act as case shot. They tore some gaps in
the yeomen's ranks, but nothing could stop that
charge. Tlie Midlanders rode straight at the guns
and sabred every artilleryman at his piece. The
Londoners say they heard all the guns stop dead at
the same moment and they knew they had been
silenced in true Balaclava style. Having wiped out
the batteries the yeomen again answered the call of
their leader and swept up a ridge to deal efiectively
with three machine guns, and having used the white
arm against their crews the guns were turned on to
the retreating Turks and decimated their ranks. This
charge was witnessed by General Shea, and I know
it is his opinion that it was executed with the greatest
gallantry and elan, and was worthy of the best tradi-
tions of British cavalry. The yeomanry lost about
twenty-five per cent, of their number in casualties,
but their action was worth the price, for they com-
pletely broke up the enemy resistance and enabled

CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 93

the London Division to push straight through to Huj.
The Warwick and Worcester Yeomanry received the
personal congratulations of the Commander-in-Chief,
and General Shea was also thanked by General
Allenby.

During this day General Shea accompUshed what
probably no other Divisional Commander did in this
war. When out scouting in a light armoured car he
was within 500 yards of a big ammunition dump
which was blown up. He saw the three men who had
destroyed it running away, and he chased them into
a wadi and machine-guimed them. They held up
their hands and were astonished to find they had
surrendered to a General. These men were captured
in the nick of time. But for the appearance 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 was their first day of rest for some
time, but the men showed few signs of fatigue. No
one could move among them without being proud
of the Londoners. They were strong, self-reliant,
weU-disciplined, brave fellows. I well remember
what Colonel Temperley, the G.S.O. of the Division,
told me when sitting out on a hill in the twilight
that night. Colonel Temperley had been brigade
major of the first New Zealand Infantry Brigade
which came to Egypt and took a full share in the
work on Gallipoli on its way to France. He had
over two years of active service on the Western Front
before coming out to Palestine for duty with the
60th Division, and his views on men in action were
based on the sound experience of the professional
soldier. Of the London County Territorials he said :
' I cannot speak of these warriors without a lump
rising in my throat. These Cockneys are the best

94 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

men in the world. Their spirits are simply wonder-
ful, and I do not think any division ever went into
a big show with higher moral. After three years of
war it is refreshing to hear the men's earnestly ex-
pressed desire to go into action again. These grand
fellows went forward with the full bloom on them,
there never was any hesitation, their discipline was
absolutely perfect, their physique and courage were
alike magnificent, and their valour beyond words.
The Cockney makes the perfect soldier.' I wrote
at the time that ' whether the men came from
Bermondsey, Camberwell or Keimington, or be-
longed to what were known as class corps, such as
the Civil Service or Kensingtons, before the war, all
battahons were equally good. They were trained
for months for the big battle till their bodies were
brought to such a state of fitness that Spartan fare
durmg the ten days of ceaseless action caused neither
grumble nor fatigue. The men may well be re-
warded with the title "London's Pride," and London
is honoured by having such stalwarts to represent
the heart of the British Empire. In eight days the
Londoners marched sixty-six miles and fought a
number of hot actions. The march may not seem
long, but Palestine is not Salisbury Plain. A leg-
weary man was asked by an officer if his feet were
bhstered, and replied : *'They 're rotten sore, but my
heart 's gay." That is typical of the spirit of these
unconquerable Cockneys. I have just left them.
They still have the bloom of freshness and I do not
think it will ever fade. Scorching winds which parched
the throat and made everything one wore hot to the
touch were enough to oppress the staunchest soldier,
but these sterhng Territorials, costers and labourers,
artisans and tradesmen, professional men and men
of independent means, true brothers in arms and

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CRUSHING THE TURKISH LEFT 95

good Britons, left their bivouacs and trudged across
heavy country, fearless, strong, proud, and with the
cheerfulness of good men who fight for right.' What
I said in those early days of the great advance was
more than borne out later, and in the capture of
Jerusalem, in taking Jericho, and in forcing the passage
of the Jordan this glorious Division of Londoners
was always the same, a pride to its commander, a
bulwark of the XXth Corps, 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 busily occupied with preparations for a
powerful thrust through the remainder of the de-
fences on the enemy's right when the XXth Corps
should have succeeded in turning the main positions
on the left. The 52nd Division on the coast was
ready to go ahead immediately there was any sign
that the enemy, seeing that the worst was about to
happen, intended to order a general retirement,
and then it would be a race and a fight to prevent
his estabhshing himself on the high ground north
of the wadi Hesi. Should he fail to do that there
was scarcely a possibihty of the Turks holding us
up till we got to the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, though
between Gaza and that metalled highway there
were many points of strength from which they could
fight delaying actions. It is very doubtful whether
the Turkish General Staff gave the cavalry credit
for being able to move across the Plam in the middle
of November when the wadis are absolutely dry
and the water-level in the wells is lower than at
any other period of the year. Nor did they imagine
that the transport difficulties for infantry divisions
fed as ours were could be surmounted. They may
have thought that if they could secure the wadi
Hesi line before we got into position to threaten it
in flank they would immobihse our Army till the
rams began, and there was a possibihty of sitting

96

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 97

facing each other in wet uncomfortable trench
quarters till the flowers showed themselves in the
spring, by which time, the Bagdad venture of the
German Higher Command proving hopeless before it
was started, a great volume of reinforcements might
be diverted to Southern Palestine with Turkish
divisions from the Salonika front and a stiffening
of German battalions spared from Europe in con-
sequence of the Russian collapse.

Whatever they may have been, the Turkish cal-
culations were completely upset. The cavalry's
water troubles remained and no human foresight
could have smoothed them over, but the transport
problem was solved in this way. During the attack
on Beersheba XXIst Corps came to the aid of XXth
Corps by handing over to it the greater part of its
camel convoys and lorries, so much transport, in-
deed, that a vast amount of work in the Gaza sector
fell to be done by a greatly depleted supply staff.
When Beersheba had been won and the enemy's left
flank had been smashed and thrown back, the XXth
Corps repaid the XXIst Corps, not only by returning
what it had borrowed, but by marching back into
the region of railhead at Karm, where it could live
with a minimum of transport and send all its surplus
to work in the coastal sector. The switching over
of this transport was a fine piece of organisation.
On the allotted day many thousands of camels were
seen drawn out in huge Unes all over the country
intersected by the wadi Ghuzze, slowly converging
on the spots at which they could be barracked and
rested before loading for the advance. The lorries
took other paths. There was no repose for their
drivers. They worked till the last moment on the
east, and then, caked with the accumulated dust of
a week's weary labour in sand and powdered earth,

98 HOW JERUSALEIM WAS WON

turned westward to arrive just in time to load up and
be off again in pursuit of infantry, some making the
mistake of travelling between the West and East
Towns of Gaza, while others took the longer and
sounder but still treacherous route east of Ah Muntar
and through the old positions of the Turks. These
lorry drivers were wonderful fellows who laughed at
their trials, but in the days and nights when they
bumped over the uneven tracks and negotiated earth
rents that threatened to swallow their vehicles, they
put their faith in the promise of the railway con-
structors to open the station at Gaza at an early date.
Even Gaza, though it saved them so many toilsome
miles, did not help them greatly because of a terrible
piece of road north-east of the station, but Beit
Hanun was comfortable and for the relief brought
by the railway's arrival at Deir Sineid they were
profoundly grateful.

But this is anticipating the story of Gaza's capture.
The XXIst Corps had not received its additional
transport when it gained the ancient city of the Phihs-
tines, though it knew some of it was on the way
and most of it about to start on its westward trek.
On the day of November 4 and during the succeed-
ing night the Navy co-operated with the Corps'
artillery in destroying enemy trenches and gun
positions, and the Ali Muntar Ridge was a glad sight
for tired gunners' eyes. The enemy showed a dis-
position to retahate, and on the afternoon of the
4th he put up a fierce bombardment of our front-
line positions from Outpost Hill to the sea, including
in his fire area the whole of the trenches we had taken
from him from Umbrella Hill to Sheikh Hasan.
Many observers of this bombardment by all the
Turks' guns of heavy, medium, and small cahbre
declared it was the prelude not of an attack but of

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 99

a retirement, and that the Turks were loosing off a
lot of the ammunition they knew they could not
carry away. They were probably right, though the
enemy made no sign of going away for a couple of
days, but if he thought his demonstration by artillery
was going to hasten back to Gaza some of the troops
assembling against the left of his main line he was
grievously in error. The XXIst Corps was strong
enough to deal with any attack the Turks could
launch, and they would have been pleased if an
attempt to reach our hnes had been made.

Next day the Turks were much quieter. They
had to sit under a terrific fire both on the 5th and 6th
November, when in order to assist XXth Corps'
operations the Corps' heavy artillery, the divisional
artillery, and the warships' guns carried out an in-
tense bombardment. The land guns searched the
Turks' front line and reserve systems, while the
Navy fired on Fryer's Hill to the north of Ah 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, as a preliminary to a major operation
timed for the following morning, attacked and gained
the enemy's trenches on Outpost Hill and the whole
of Middlesex Hill to the north of it, the opposition
being less serious than was anticipated. At day-
hght the 75th Division pushed on over the other
hills towards Ali Muntar and gained that dominating
position before eight o'clock. The fighting had not
been severe, and it was soon realised that the enemy
had left Gaza, abandoning a stronghold which had
been prepared for defence with all the ingenuity
German masters of war could suggest and into which
had been worked an enormous amount of material.

100 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

It was obvious from the complete success of XXth
Corps' operations against the Turkish left, which had
been worked out absolutely ' according to plan,'
that General Allenby had so thoroughly mystified
von Kressenstein that the latter had put all his
reserves into the wrong spot, and that the 53rd
Division's stout resistance against superior numbers
had pinned them down to the wrong end of the line.
There was notliing, therefore, for the Turk to do
but to try to hold another position, and he was
straining every nerve to reach it. The East Anglian
Division went up west of Gaza and held from Sheikh
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 a little 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 the right
or northern bank of the wadi Hesi. These imper-
turbable Scots left their trenches in the morning
dehghted at the prospect of once more engaging
in open warfare. They marched along the beach
under cover of the low sand cliffs, and by dusk had
crossed the mouth of the wadi and held some of the
high ground to the north in face of determined opposi-
tion. The 157th Brigade, after a march through
very heavy going, got to the wadi at five in the
afternoon and saw the enemy posted on the opposite
bank. The place was reconnoitred and the brigade
made a fine bayonet charge in the dark, securing
the position between ten and eleven o'clock. On
this and succeeding days the division had to fight
very hard indeed, and they often met the enemy with
the bayonet. One of their officers told me the Scot

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 101

was twice as good as the Turk in ordinary fighting,
but with the bayonet his advantage was as five to
one. The record of the Division throughout the
campaign showed this was no too generous an esti-
mate of their powers. After securing AU Muntar
the 75th Division advanced over Fryer's Hill to
Austraha Hill, so that they held the whole ridge
running north and south to the eastward of Gaza.
The enemy still held to his positions to the right of
his centre, and from the Atawineh Redoubt, Tank
Redoubt, and Beer trenches there was considerable
shelling of Gaza and the Ali Muntar ridge throughout
the day. A large number of shells fell in the planta-
tions on the western side of the ridge ; our mastery
of the air prevented enemy aviators observing for
their artillery, or they would have seen no traffic
was passing along that way. We were using the old
Cairo ' road,' and as far as I could see not an enemy
shell reached it, though when our troops were in
the town of Gaza there were many crumps and
woolly bears to disturb the new occupation. But
all went swimmingly. It was true we had only
captured the well-cracked shell of a town, but the
taking of it was full of promise of greater things,
and those of us who looked on the mutilated remnants
of one of the world's oldest cities felt we were indeed
witnesses of the beginning of the downfall of the
Turkish Empire. Next morning the 75th Division cap-
tured Beer trenches and Tank and Atawineh Redoubts
and linked up with the Irish Division of XXth Corps
on its right. They were shelled heavily, but it was the
shelling of rearguards and not attackers, and soon after
twelve o'clock we had the best of evidence that the
Turks were saying good-bye to a neighbourhood
they had long inhabited. I was standing on Rasp-
berry Hill, the battle headquarters of XXIst Corps,

102 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

when I heard a terrific report. Staff officers who were
used to the visitations of aerial marauders came out
of their shelters and searched the pearly vault of the
heavens for Fritz. No machine could be found.
Some one looking across the country towards Atawineh
saw a huge mushroom-shaped cloud, and then we
knew that one enormous dump at least contained
no more projectiles to hold up an advance. This
ammunition store must have been eight miles away
as the crow fhes, but the noise of the explosion was
so violent that it was a considerable time before
some ofi&cers could be brought to believe an enemy
plane had not laid an egg near us. The blowing
up of that dump was a signal that the Turk
was off.

The Lowlanders had another very strenuous day
in the sand-dune belt. First of all they repulsed a
strong counter-attack from the direction of Askalon.
Then the 155th Infantry Brigade went forward and,
swinging to the right, drove the Turks off the rising
gromid north-west of Deir Sineid, the possession of
which would determine the question whether the
Turk could hold on in this quarter sufficiently long
to enable him to get any of his material away by his
railway and road. The enemy put in a counter-
attack of great violence and forced the Scots back.
The 157th Brigade in the early evening attacked the
ridge and gained the whole of their objectives by
eight o'clock. There ensued some sanguinary strug-
gles on this sandy ground during the night. The
Turks were determined to have possession of it and
the Scots were wiUing to fight it out to a finish. The
first counter-attack in the dark hours drove the Low-
landers off, but they were shortly afterwards back
on the hills again. The Turks returned and pushed
the Highland Light Infantry and Argyll and Suther-

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 103

land Highlanders off a second time. A third attack
was dehvered with splendid vigour and the enemy-
left many dead, but they renewed their efforts to
get the commanding ground and succeeded once
more. The dogged Scots, however, were not to be
denied. They re-formed and swept up the heavy
shifting sand, met the Turk on the top with a clash
and knocked him down the reverse slope. Soon
afterwards there was another ding-dong struggle.
The Turks, putting in all their available strength,
for a fourth time got the upper hand, and the Low-
landers had to yield the ground, doing it slowly and
reluctantly and with the determination to try again.
They were Robert Bruces, aU of them. It 's the best
that stays the longest. After a brief rest these heroic
Scots once more swarmed up the ridge. Their cheers
had the note of victory in them, they drove their
bayonets home with the haymakers' Hft, and what
was left of the Turks fled helter-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 was heavy, but the Turks' tale of dead
was far heavier than ours, and we had won and held
the hills and consoUdated them. The Turks then
turned their faces to the north and the Scots hurried
them on. The Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade
had also met with considerable resistance, but they
worked up to and on the ridge overlooking Beit
Hanun from the east and captured a 5*9. By evening
these Indian horsemen were Hnked up with the 4th
Australian Light Horse Brigade on their right and
the 52nd Division on their left, and pursued the enemy
as far as Tumrah and Deir Sineid.

General Headquarters directed that two infantry
divisions should advance to the line Julis-Hamameh

104 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

in support of mounted troops, and the 75th Division
was accordingly ordered from its position east of Gaza
up to Beit Hanun. On the 9th November the 52nd
Division was again advancing. The 156th Brigade
had moved forward from the Gaza trenches. One
officer, five grooms, and two signallers mounted on
second horses formed a little party to reconnoitre
Askalon, and riding boldly into the ancient landing
place of the Crusader armies captured the ruined
town unaided. There are visible remains of its old
strength, but the power of Askalon has departed.
It still stands looking over the blue Mediterranean
as a sort of watch tower, a silent, deserted outpost
of the land the Crusaders set their hearts on gaining
and preserving for Christianity, but behind it is many
centuries' accumulation of sand encroaching upon
the fertile plain, and no effort has been made to stop
the inroad. The gallant half-dozen having reported
to the 156th Brigade that Askalon was open to them
— the Brigade occupied the place at noon — rode across
the sand-dunes to the important native town of
Mejdel, where there was a substantial bazaar doing
a good trade in the essentials for native existence,
beans and cereals in plenty, fruit, and tobacco of
execrable quahty. At Mejdel the six accepted the
surrender of a body of Turks guarding a substantial
ammunition dump and rejoined their units, satisfied
with the day's adventure. The Turks had retired
a considerable distance during the day. The prin-
cipal body was moving up what is called the main
road from Deir Sineid, through Beit Jerjal to Juhs,
to get to Suafir esh Sherkiyeh, Kustineh, and Junction
Station, from which they could reach Latron by a
metalled road, or Ramleh by a hard mud track by
the side of their railway. They were clearly going
to oppose us all the way or they would lose the whole

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 105

of their material, and their forces east and west of
the road were well handled in previously selected
and partially prepared positions.

They left behind them the unpleasant trail of a
defeated army. Turks had fallen by the way and
the natives would not bury them. Our aircraft had
bombed the road, and the dead men, cattle and horses,
and smashed transport were ghastly sights and made
the air ofifensive. There they lay, one long line of
dead men and animals, and if a London fog had
descended to blind the eyes of our Army the sense
of smell would still have carried a scout on the direct
line of the Turkish retreat.

I will break off the narrative of fighting at this
point to describe a scene which expressed more
eloquently than anything else I witnessed in Palestine
how deeply engraved in the native mind was the
conviction that Britain stood for fair dealing and
freedom. The inhabitants, like the Arabs of the
desert, do not allow their faces to betray their feelings.
They preserve a stolid exterior, and it is difficult to
tell from their demeanour whether they are friendly
or indifferent to you. But their actions speak aloud.
Early on the morning after the Lowlanders had
entered Me j del I was in the neighbourhood. Our
guns banging away to the north were a reminder that
there was to be no promenade over the Plain, and
that we had yet to make good the formidable obstacle
of the wadi Sukereir, when I passed a curious pro-
cession. People whom the Turks had turned out of
Gaza and the surrounding country were trekking
back to the spots where they and their forefathers
had lived for countless generations. All their worldly
goods and chattels were packed on overloaded camels
and donkeys. The women bore astonishingly heavy
loads on their heads, the men rode or walked carrying

106 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

nothing, while patriarchs of famihes were either held
in donkey saddles or were borne on the shoulders of
younger men. Agriculturists began to turn out to
plough and till the fields which had lain fallow while
the Turkish scourge of war was on the land, and the
people showed that, now they had the security of
British protection, they intended at once to resume
then- industry. The troops had the liveUest welcome
in passing tlu'ough villages, though the people are not
as a rule demonstrative ; and one could point to no
better evidence of the exemplary behaviour of our
soldiers than the groups of women sitting and gossip-
ing round the wells during the process of drawing
water, just as they did in Bibhcal days, heedless of
the passing troops whom they regarded as their
protectors. The man behind a rude plough may have
stopped his ill-matched team of pony and donkey to
look at a column of troops moving as he had never
seen troops march before, a head of a family might
collect the animals carrying his household goods and
hurry them off the hne of route taken by mihtary
transport, but neither one nor the other had any fear
of interference with his work, and the hf e of the whole
country, one of the most unchanging regions of the
world, had suddenly again become normal, although
only yesterday two armies had disputed possession
of the very soil on which they stood. The moment
we were victorious old occupations were resumed by
the people in the way that was a tradition from their
forefathers. Our victory meant peace and safety,
according to the native idea, and an end to extortion,
oppression, and pillage under the name of requisi-
tions. It also meant prosperity. The native hkes
to drive a bargain. He will not sell under a fair
price, and he asks much more in the hope of showing
a buyer who has beaten him down how cheaply he is

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 107

getting goods. The Army chiefly sought eggs, which
are hght to carry and easy to cook, and give variety
to the daily round of bully, biscuit, and jam. The
soldier is a generous fellow, and if a child asked a
piastre (2Jd.) for an egg he got it. The price soon
became four to five for a shilling in cash, though the
Turks wanted five times that number for an equiva-
lent sum in depreciated paper currency. The law
of supply and demand obtained in this old world just
as at home, and it became sufficient for a soldier to
ask for an article to show he wanted it and would pay
almost anything that was demanded. It was curious
to see how the news spread not merely among traders
but also among villagers. The men who first occu-
pied a place found oranges, vegetables, fresh bread,
and eggs cheap. In Ramleh, for example, a market
was opened for our troops immediately they got to
the town, and the goods were sound and sold at fair
rates. The next day prices were up, and the standards
fixed behmd the front soon ruled at the fine itself.
There was no real control attempted, and while the
extortionate prices charged by Jews in their excellent
agricultural colonies and by the natives made a poor
people prosperous, it gave them an exaggerated idea
of the size of the British purse, and they may be
disappointed at the limitation of our spending powers
in the future. Also it was hard on the bravest and
most chivalrous of fighting men. But it opened the
eyes of the native, whose happiness and contentment
were obvious directly we reached his doors.

Our movements on November 9 were limited by
the extent to which General Chauvel was able to use
his cavalry of the Desert Mounted Corps. Water
was the sole, but absolute handicap. The Yeomanry
Mounted Division rejoined the Corps on that day
and got south of Huj, but could not proceed further

108 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

through hick of water and supply difficulties. The
Australian Mounted Division also had to halt for
water, and it was left to Anzac Mounted Division,
plus the 7th Mounted Brigade, to march eighteen
miles north-westwards to occupy the line Et Tineh-
Beit Duras-Jcmameh-Esdud (the Ashdod of the
Bible). The 52nd Division occupied the area Esdud-
Mej del-Herb ieli by the evening of the 10th, and on
the way, Australian cavalry being held up on a ridge
north of Beit Duras, the 157th Brigade made another
of its fine bayonet charges at night and captured the
ground, enabling the cavalry to get at some precious
water. The brigade made the attack just after
completing a fourteen miles' march in heavy going,
achieving the remarkable record of having had three
bayonet battles on three nights out of four. On
this occasion the Turks again suffered heavy casual-
ties in men and lost many machine guns. The 75th
Division prolonged the infantry line through Ghar-
biyeh to Berberah. The 54th Division was in the
Gaza defences with all its transport allotted to the
divisions taking part in the forward move, but as
the 54th had five days' rations in dumps close at hand
it was able to maintain itself, and the railway was
being pushed on from the wadi Ghuzze with the
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 the advance.

General Allenby, looking well ahead and realising
the possibilities opened out by his complete success
in every phase of the operations on the Turks' main
defensive line, on the 10th November ordered the
52nd and 75th Divisions to concentrate on their
advanced guards so as to support the cavalry on
their front and to prevent the Turk consolidating
on the line of the wadi Sukereir. The enemy was

THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN 109

developing a more organised resistance on a crescent-
shaped line from Et Tineh through Yasur to Beshshit,
and it was necessary to adopt deliberate methods
of attack to move him. The advance on the 11th
was the preliminary to three days of stirring fighting.
The Turks put up a very strong defence by their
rearguards, and when one says that at this time
they were fighting with courage and magnificent
determination one is not only paying a just tribute
to the enemy but doing justice to the gallantry and
skill of the troops who defeated him. The Scots
can claim a large share of the success of the next
two days, but British yeomanry took a great part
in it, and their charge at Mughar, and perhaps their
charge at Abu Shushe as well, will find a place in
military text-books, for it has confounded those
critics who declared that the development of the
machine gun in modern warfare has brought the uses
of cavalry down to very narrow limits.

The 156th Brigade was directed to take Burkah
on the 12th so as to give the infantry liberty of
manoeuvre on the following day. Burkah was a
nasty place to tackle. The enemy had two Unes of
beautifully sited trenches prepared before he fell
back from Gaza. The Scots had to attack up a slope
to the first line, and having taken this to pass down
another slope for 1000 yards before reaching the glacis
in front of the second line. The Scottish Rifles
assaidted this position by day without much artillery
support, but they took it in magnificent style. It
looked as if the Turks had accepted the verdict, but
at night they returned to a brown hill on the right
and drove the 4th Royal Scots from it. This bat-
talion came back soon afterwards and retook the
hill with the assistance of some Gurkhas of General
Colston's 233rd Infantry Brigade, and the Turk re-

110 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

tired to another spot, hoping that his luck would
change. Wliile this fighting was going on about
Burkah the 155tli Brigade went ahead up a road
which the cavalry said was strongly held. They got
eight miles north of Esdud, and were in advance of
the cavah-y, intending to try to secure the two heights
and villages of Katrah and Mughar on the following
day. Katrah was a village on a long mound
south of Mughar, native mud huts constituting its
southern part, whilst separated from it on the
northern side by some gardens was a pretty little
Jewish settlement whose red-tiled houses and orderly
well-cared-for orchards spoke of the industry of these
settlers in Zion. All over the hill right up to the
houses the cactus flourished, and the hedges were a
replica of the terrible obstacles at Gaza. From
Katrah the gromid sloped down to the flat on all
four sides, so that the village seemed to stand on an
island in the plain. A mile due west of it was
Beshshit, while one mile to the north across more
than one wadi stood El Mughar at the southern end
of an irregular line of hills which separated Yebnah
and Akir, which will be more readily recognised, the
former as the Jamnia of the Jews and the latter as
Ekron, one of the famous Philistine cities. While
the 75th Division was forcing back the hne Turmus-
Kustineh-Yasur and Mesmiyeh athwart the road to
Junction Station the 155th Brigade attacked Katrah.
The whole of the artillery of two divisions opened a
bombardment of the line at eight o'clock, but the
Turks showed more willingness to concede ground
on the east than at Katrah, where the machine-gun
fire was exceptionally heavy. General Pollak M'Call
decided to assault the village with the bulk of his
brigade, and seizing a rifle and bayonet from a wounded
man, led the charge himself, took the village, and

THROUGH GAZA INTO TJIE OPEN 111

gradually cleared the enemy out of the cactus-
enclosed gardens. The enemy losses at Katrah were
very heavy. In crossing a rectangular field many
Turks were caught in a cross fire from our machine
guns, and over 400 dead were counted in this
one field.

CHAPTER XI

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES

In front of the mud huts of Mughar, so closely packed
together on the southern slope of the hill that the
dwellmgs at the bottom seemed to keep the upper
houses from falling into the plain, there was a long
oval garden with a clump of cypresses in the centre,
the whole surrounded by cactus hedges of great
age and strength. In the cypresses was a nest of
machine guns whose crews had a perfect view of
an advance from Katrah. The infantry had to ad-
vance over flat open ground to the edge of the garden.
The Turkish machine-gunners and riflemen in the
garden and village were supported by artillery firing
from behind the ridge at the back of the village,
and although the brigade made repeated efforts to
get on, its advance was held up in the early afternoon,
and it seemed impossible to take the place by in-
fantry 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., com-
posed of the 1/lst Bucks Hussars, 1/lst Berkshire Yeo-
manry, and 1/lst Dorset Yeomanry, the Berkshire
battery Royal Horse Artillery, and the 17th Machine
Gun Squadron — old campaigners with the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force — had worked round to the left
of the Lowlanders and had reached a point about
two miles south-west of Yebnah, that place having
been occupied by the 8th Mounted Brigade, com-
posed of the 1/lst City of London Yeomanry, 1/lst

112

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 113

County of London Yeomanry, and the l/3rd County
of London Yeomanry. At haK-past twelve the Bucks
Hussars less one squadron and the Berks battery,
which were in the rear of the brigade, advanced via
Beshshit to the wadi Janus, a deep watercourse with
precipitous banks running across the plain east of
Yebnah and joining the wadi Rubin. One squadron
of the Bucks Hussars had entered Yebnah from the
east, co-operating with the 8th Brigade. General
Godwin was told over the telephone that the infantry
attack was held up and that his brigade would
advance to take Mughar. This order was confirmed
by telegram a quarter of an hour later as the brigadier
was about to reconnoitre a hne of approach. The
Berks battery began shelling Mughar and the ridge
behind the village from a position half a mile north
of Beshshit screened by some trees. Brigade head-
quarters joined the Bucks Hussars headquarters in
the wadi Janus half a mile south-east of Yebnah,
where Lieut. -Colonel the Hon. E. Cripps command-
ing the Bucks Hussars had, with splendid judgment,
already commenced a valuable reconnaissance, the
Dorset and Berks Yeomanry being halted in a
depression out of sight a few hundred yards behind.
The Turks had the best possible observation, and,
knowing they were holding up the infantry, con-
centrated their attention upon the cavalry. Therein
they showed good judgment, for it was from the
mounted troops the heavy blow was to fall. Lieut.
Perkins, Bucks Hussars, was sent forward to re-
connoitre the wadi Shellal el Ghor, which runs
parallel to and east of the wadi Janus. He became
the target of every kind of fire, guns, machine guns,
and rifles opening on him from the ridge whenever
he exposed himself. Captain Patron, of the 17th
Machine Gun Squadron, was similarly treated while

H

114 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

examining a position from which to cover the advance
of the brigade with concentrated machine-gun fire.
It was not an easy thhig to get cavaky into position
for a mounted attack. Except in the wadis the plain
between Yebnah and Mughar offered no cover and
was within easy range of the enemy's guns. The
wadi Janus was a deep sht in the ground with sides
of clay falling almost sheer to the stony bottom.
It was hard to get horses into the wadi and equally
troublesome to get them to bank again, and the wadi
in most places was so narrow that horses could only
move in single file. The Dorsets were brought up
in small parties to join the Bucks in the wadi, and they
had to run the gauntlet of shell and rifle fire. The
Berks were to enter the wadi immediately the Bucks
had left it. Behind Mughar village and its gardens
the ground falls sharply, then rises again and forms
a rocky hill some 300 yards long. There is another
decline, and north of it a conical shaped hill, also
stony and barren, though before the crest is reached
there is some undulating ground which would have
afforded a little cover if the cunning Turks had not
posted machine guns on it. The Dorset Yeomanry
were ordered to attack this latter hill and the Bucks
Hussars the ridge between it and Mughar village, the
Berks Yeomanry to be kept in support. There seems
to be no reason for doubting that Mughar would not
have been captured that day but for the extremely
brilliant charge of these home counties yeomen.
The 155th Brigade was still held fast in that part of
the wadi Janus which gave cover south-west and south
of Mughar, and after the charge had been completely
successful and the yeomanry were working forward
to clear up the village a message was received —
timed 2.45 p.m., but received at 4 p.m. — which shows
the difficulties facing that very gallant infantry

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 115

brigade : ' 52nd Division unable to make progress.
Co-operate and turn Mughar from the north.'

It was a hot bright afternoon. The dispositions
having been made, the Bucks Hussars and Dorset
Yeomanry got out of the wadi and commenced their
mounted attack, the Berks battery in the meantime
having registered on certain points. The Bucks
Hussars, in column of squadrons extended to four
yards mterval, advanced at a trot from the wadi,
which was 3000 yards distant from the ridge which
was their objective. Two machine guns were at-
tached to the Bucks and two to the Dorse ts, and the
other guns under Captain Patron were mounted in
a position which that officer had chosen in the wadi
El Ghor from which they could bring to bear a heavy
fire almost up to the moment the Bucks should be
on the ridge. This machine-gun ^e was of the
highest value, and it unquestionably kept many
Turkish riflemen inactive. ' B ' squadron under Cap-
tain Bulteel, M.C., was leading, and when 1000 yards
from the objective the order was given to gallop,
and horses swept over 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 machine
guns firing at the highest pressure, intense rifle fire
from all parts of the enemy position, the fierce storm
of shells rained on the hill by the Berks battery,
which during the charge fired with splendid accuracy
no fewer than 200 rounds of shrapnel at a range of
3200 to 3500 yards, and the rapid fire of Turkish
field guns, completely drowned the cheers of the
charging yeomen. ' C ' squadron, commanded by Lord
Rosebery's son. Captain the Hon. Neil Primrose,
M.C., who was killed on the following day, made an
equally dashing charge and came up on the right
of ' B ' squadron. Once the cavalry had reached the

116 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

crest of the hill many of the Turks surrendered and
threw down their arms, but some retired and then,
having discovered the weakness of the cavalry,
returned to some rocks on the flanks and continued
the fight at close range. Captain Primrose's squad-
ron was vigorously attacked on his left flank, but
Captahi Bulteel was able to get over the ridge and
across the rough, steep eastern side of it, and from
this point he utilised captured Turkish machine guns
to put down a heavy barrage on to the northern
end of the village. ' A ' squadron luider Captain
Lawson then came up from Yebnah at the gallop,
and with his support the whole of the Bucks' ob-
jectives were secured and consolidated.

The Dorset Yeomanry on the left of the Bucks
had 1000 yards farther to go, and the country they
traversed was just as cracked and broken. Their
horses at the finish were quite exhausted. At the
base of the hills Captain Dammers dismounted 'A'
squadron, which charged on the left, and the squadron
fought their way to the top of the ridge on foot.
The held horses were caught in a cone of machine-
gun fire, and in 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 were considerably less than those
of the dismoiuited squadron. The Berks Yeomanry
moved to the wadi El Ghor under heavy machine-
gun and rifle fixe from the village and gardens on the
west side, and two squadrons were dismounted and
sent into the village to clear it, the remaining squadron
riding into the plain on the eastern side of the ridge,
where they collected a number of stragglers. Dotted
over this plain were many dead Turks who fell under

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 117

the fire of the Machine-Gun Squadron while attempting
to get to Ramleh. The Turkish dead were numerous
and their condition showed how thoroughly the
sword had done its work. I saw many heads cleft
in twain, and Mughar was not a sweet place to look
upon and wanted a good deal of clearing up. The
yeomanry took 18 officers and 1078 other ranks
prisoners, whilst fourteen machine guns and two
field guns were captured. But for the tired state
of the horses many more prisoners would have been
taken, large numbers being seen making their way
along the red sand tracks to Ramleh, and an in-
spection of the route on the morrow told of the pace
of the retirement brought about by the shock of
contact with cavalry. Machine guns, belts and
boxes of ammunition, equipment of all kinds were
strewn about the paths, and not a few wounded
Turks had given up the effort to escape and had lain
down to die.

The casualties in the 6th Mounted Brigade were
1 officer killed and 6 wounded, 15 other ranks killed
and 107 wounded and 1 missing, a remarkably small
total. Among the mortally wounded was Major de
Rothschild, who fell within sight of some of the
Jewish colonies which his family had founded. Two
hundred and sixty-five horses and two mules were
killed and wounded in the action.

Mughar was a great cavalry triumph, and the
regiments which took part in it confirmed the good
opinions formed of them in this theatre of war.
The Dorsets had already made a spirited charge
against the Senussi in the Western Desert in 1916,^
and having suffered from the white arm once those
misguided Arabs never gave the cavalry another
chance of getting near them. The Bucks and Berks,

^ The Desert Campaigns : Constable.

118 HOW JERUSALEM WAS ^WON

too, had taken part in that swift and satisfactory
campaign. All three regiments on the following
day were to make another charge, this time on one
of the most famous sites in the battle history of
Palestine. The 6th Mounted Brigade moved no
farther on the day of Mughar because the 22nd
Mounted Brigade, when commencing an attack on
Akir, the old Philistine city of Ekron, were counter-
attacked on their left. During the night, however,
the Turks in Akir probably heard the full story of
Mughar, and did not wait long for a similar action
against them. The 22nd Mounted Brigade drove
them out early next morning, and they went rapidly
away across the railway at Naaneh, leaving in our
hands the railway guard of seventy men, and seeking
the bold crest of Abu Shushe. They moved, as I
shall presently tell, out of the frying-pan into the
fire.

The 155th Infantry which helped to finish up the
Mughar business took a gun and fourteen machine
guns. Then with the remainder of the 52nd Division
-it had a few hours of hard-earned rest. The Divi-
sion had had a severe time, but the men bore their
trials with the fortitude of their race and with a
spirit which could not be beaten. For several days,
when water was holding up the cavalry, the Low-
landers kept ahead of the mounted troops, and one
battalion fought and marched sixty-nine miles in seven
days. Their training was as complete as any infantry,
even the regimental stretcher-bearers being taught
the use of Lewis guns, and on more than one occasion
the bearers went for the enemy with Mills bombs
till a position was captured and they were required
to tend the wounded. A Stokes -gun crew found
their weapon very useful in open warfare, and at
one place where machine guns had got on to a large

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 119

party of Turks and enclosed them in a box barrage,
the Stokes gun searched every corner of the area
and finished the whole party. The losses inflicted
by the Scots were exceptionally severe. Farther
eastwards on the 13th, the 75th Division had also
been giving of its best. The objective of this Division
was the important Junction Station on the Turks'
Jafia- Jerusalem railway, and a big step forward
was made in the early afternoon by the overcoming
of a stubborn resistance at Mesmiyeh, troops rushing
the village from the south and capturing 292 prisoners
and 7 machine guns. The 234th Brigade began an
advance on Junction Station during the night, but
were strongly counter-attacked and had to halt till
the moj*ning, when at dawn they secured the best
positions on the rolling downs west of the station,
and by 7.30 the station itself was occupied. Two
engines and 45 vehicles were found intact ; two large
guns on trucks and over 100 prisoners were also
taken. The enemy shelled the station during the
morning, trying in vain to damage his lost rolling
stock. This booty was of immense value to us, and
to a large extent it solved the transport 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 later the Egyptian State Railways brought
down some engines and trucks from the Luxor-
Assou£.n section, but this welcome aid was not avail-
able till after the rains had begun and had made lorry
traffic liemporarily impossible between our standard
gauge railhead and our fighting front. Junction
Station was no sooner occupied than a light-railway
staff under Colonel O'Brien was brought up from
Beit Hanun. The whole of the line to Deir Sineid
was not in running order, but broken culverts were
given minor repairs, attention was bestowed on trucks,

120 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

and the engines were closely examined while the Turks
were shelling the station. The water tanks had been
destroyed, as a result of which two men spent hours
in filling up the enghies by means of a water jug and
basin found in the station buildings, and the Turks
had the mortification of seeing these engines steam
out of the station during the morning to a cutting
which was effective cover from their field-gun fire.
The light-railway staff were highly delighted at their
success, and the trains which they soon had running
over their little system were indeed a boon and a
blessing to the fighting men and horses.

On this morning of November 14 the infantry
were operating with Desert Mounted Corps' troops
on both their wings. The Austrahan Mounted Divi-
sion was on the right, fighting vigorous actiors with
the enemy rearguards secreted in the irregular,
rocky foothills of the Shephelah which stand as
ramparts to the Judean Mountains. It was a difficult
task to drive the Turks out of these fastnesses, and
while they held on to them it was almost impossible
to outflank some of the places like Et Tineh, a railway
station and camp of some importance on the hne to
Beersheba. They had already had some stiff fighting
at Tel el Safi, the limestone hill which was the White
Guard of the Crusaders. The Division suffered
severely from want of water, particularly the 5th
Mounted Brigade, and it was necessary to transfer
to it the 7th Mounted Brigade and the 2nd Aus-
trahan Light Horse Brigade. On the left of the
infantry the Yeomanry Mounted Division was moving
forward from Akir and Mansura, and after trie 22nd
Moimted Brigade had taken Naaneh they detailed
a demolition party to blow up one mile of railway,
so that, even if the 75th Division had not taken
Junction Station, Jerusalem would have been en-

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 121

tirely cut off from railway communication with the
Turkish base at Tul Keram, and Haifa and Damascus.

Between Naaneh and Mansura the 6th Mounted
Brigade was preparing for another dashing charge.
The enemy who had been opposing us for two days
consisted of remnants of two divisions of both the
Turkish Vllth and Vlllth Armies brought to-
gether and hurriedly reorganised. The victory 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 duty of holding Mughar had been so
weakened by heavy casualties, and the loss of moral
consequent upon the shock of the cavalry charge,
that it had fallen back to Ramleh and Ludd and
was incapable of further serious resistance. There
was still a strong and virile force on the seaside,
though that was adequately dealt with, but the centre
was very weak, and the enemy's only chance of
preventing the mounted troops from working through
and round his right centre was to fall back on Abu
Shushe and Tel Jezar to cover Latron, with its good
water supply and the main metalled road where it
enters the hills on the way to Jerusalem. The loss
of Tel Jezar meant that we could get to Latron and
the Vale of Ajalon, and the action of the 6th Mounted
Brigade on the morning of the 14th gave it to us.

The Berks Yeomanry had had outposts on the
railway south-east of Naaneh since before dawn.
They had seen the position the previous day, and
at dawn sent forward a squadron dismounted to
engage the machine guns posted in the walled-in
house at the north of the village. From the railway
to the Abu Shushe ridge is about three miles of up
and down country with two or three rises of sufficient
height to afford some cover to advancing cavalry.
General Godwin arranged that six machine guns

122 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

should go forward to give covering fire, and, supported
by the Berks battery R.H.A. from a good position
half a mile west of the railway, the Bucks Hussars
were to deliver a mounted attack against the hill,
with the assistance on their left of two squadrons
of Berks Yeomanry. The Dorset Yeomanry were
moved up to the red hill of Melat into support.

At seven o'clock the attack started, the 22nd
Mounted Brigade operating on foot on the left.
The Bucks Hussars, taking advantage of all the dead
ground, galloped about a mile and a half until they
came to a dip behind a gently rising mound, when,
it being clear that the enemy held the whole ridge
in strength, Colonel Cripps signalled to Brigade
Headquarters at Melat for support. The Dorset
Yeomanry moved out to the right of the Bucks, and
the latter then charged the hill a little south of the
village and captured it. It was a fine effort. The
sides of the hill were steep with shelves of rock, and
the crest was a mass of stones and boulders, while
from some caves, one or two of them quite big places,
the Turks had machine guns in action. When the
Bucks were charging there was a good deal of machine-
gun fire &om the right, but the Dorsets dealt with this
very speedily, assisted by the Berks battery which
had also moved forward to a near position from
which they could command the ridge in flank. A
hostile counter-attack developed against the Dorsets,
but this was crushed by the Berks batterv and some
of the 52nd Division's guns. Two squadrons of the
Berks Yeomanry in the meantime had charged on
the left of the Bucks and secured the hill immediately
to the south-east of Abu Shushe village, and at nine
o'clock the whole of this strong position w^as in our
hands, the brigade having sustained the extremely
sUght casualties of three officers and thirty-four other

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 123

ranks killed and wounded. So small a cost of life
was a wonderful tribute to good and dashing leading,
and furnished another example of cavalry's power
when moving rapidly in extended formation. To
the infinite regret of the brigade, indeed of the whole
of General Allenby's Army, one of the officers killed
that day was the Hon. Neil Primrose, an intrepid
leader who, leaving the comfort and safety of a Minis-
terial appointment, answered the call of duty to be
with his squadron of the Bucks Hussars. He was a
fine soldier and a favourite among his men, and he
died as a good cavalryman would wish, shot through
the head when leading his squadron in a glorious
charge. His body rests in the garden of the French
convent at Ramleh not far from the spot where
humbler soldiers take their long repose, and these
graves within visual range of the tomb of St. George,
our patron saint, will stand as memorials of those
Britons who forsook ease to obey the stern call of
duty to their race and country.

The overwhelming nature of this victory is illus-
trated by a comparison of the losses on the two sides.
Whereas ours were 37 all told, we counted between
400 and 500 dead Turks on the field, and the enemy
left with us 360 prisoners and some material. The
extraordinary disparity between the losses can only
be accounted for first by the care taken to lead the
cavalry along every depression in the ground, and
secondly by rapidity of movement. The cavalry
were confronted by considerable 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 17th Machine Gun Squadron.

I have referred to the importance of Jezar as
dominating the approaches to Latron on the north-
east and Ramleh on the north-west. Jezar, as we

124 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

call it on our maps, has been a stronghold since men
of aU races and creeds, coloured and white, Pagan,
Mahomedan, Jew, and Christian, fought in Palestine.
It is a spot which many a great leader of legions has
coveted, and to its military history our home county
yeomen have added another brilliant page. Let me
quote the description of Jezar from George Adam
Smith's Historical Geography of the Holy Land, a
book of fascinating interest to all students of the
Sacred History which many of the soldiers in
General AUenby's Army read with great profit to
themselves :

' One point in the Northern Shephelah round which these
tides of war have swept deserves special notice — Gezer, or
Gazar. It is one of the few remarkable bastions which the
Shephelah flings out to the west — on a ridge running towards
Ramleh, the most prominent object in view of the traveller
from JafiFa towards Jerusalem. It is high and isolated, but
fertile and well watered — a very strong post and striking
landmark. Its name occurs in the Egyptian correspondence
of the fourteenth century, where it is described as being
taken from the Egyptian vassals by the tribes whose in-
vasion so agitates that correspondence. A city of the
Canaanites, under a king of its own — Horam — Gezer is not
given as one of Joshua's conquests, though the king is ; but
the Israelites drave not out the Canaanites who dwelt at
Gezer, and in the hands of these it remained till its conquest by
Egypt when Pharaoh gave it , with his daughter, to Solomon and
Solomon rebuilt it. Judas Maccabeus was strategist enough
to gird himself early to the capture of Gezer, and Simon
fortified it to cover the way to the harbour of Joppa and
caused John his son, the captain of the host, to dwell there.
It was virtually, therefore, the key of Judea at a time when
Judea's foes came down the coast from the north ; and, with
Joppa, it formed part of the Syrian demands upon the Jews.
But this is by no means the last of it. M. Clermont Ganneau,
who a number of years ago discovered the site, has lately

TWO YEOMANRY CHARGES 125

identified Gezer with the Mont Gisart of the Crusades. Mont
Gisart was a castle and feif in the county of Joppa, with an
abbey of St. Katharine of Mont Gisart, "whose prior was one
of the five suffragans of the Bishop of Lydda." It was the
scene, on the 24th November 1174, seventeen years before
the Third Crusade, of a victory won by a small army from
Jerusalem under the boy-king, the leper Baldwin iv., against
a very much larger army under Saladin himself, and, in
1192, Saladin encamped upon it during his negotiations
for a truce with Richard.

' Shade of King Horam, what hosts of men have fallen
round that citadel of yours. On what camps and columns
has it looked down through the centuries, since first you saw
the strange Hebrews burst with the sunrise across the hills,
and chase your countrymen down Ajalon — that day when the
victors felt the very sun conspiring with them to achieve the
unexampled length of battle. Within sight of every Egyp-
tian and every Assyrian invasion of the land, Gezer has also
seen Alexander pass by, and the legions of Rome in unusual
flight, and the armies of the Cross struggle, waver and give
way, and Napoleon come and go. If all 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
of the travellers who now rush across the plain realise that
the first conspicuous hill they pass in Palestine is also one
of the most thickly haunted — even in that narrow land into
which history has so crowded itself. But upon the ridge
of Gezer no sign of all this now remains, except in the Tel
Jezer, and in a sweet hollow to the north, beside a fountain,
where lie the scattered Christian stone of Deir Warda, the
Convent of the Rose.

' Up none of the other valleys of the Shephelah has history
surged as up 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 Aiizac Mounted Division had only the 1st
Austrahan Light Horse and the New Zealand
Mounted Rifles Brigade operating with it on the
I4th. The Australians, by the evening, were in
the thick olive groves on the south of Ramleh, and
on the ridges about Surafend. On their left the
Turks were violently opposing the New Zealanders
who were working along the sand-dunes with the
port and town of Jaffa as their ultimate objective.
There was one very fierce struggle in the course of
the day. A force attacked a New Zealand regiment
m great strength and for the moment secured the
advantage, but the regiment got to grips with the
enemy with hand-grenades and bayonets, and so
completely repulsed them that they fled in hopeless
disorder leavmg many dead and wounded behind
them. It was unfortunate that there was no mobile
reserve available for pursuit, as the Turks were in
such a pUght that a large number would have been
rounded up. General Cox's brigade seized Ramleh
on the morning of the 15th, taking ninety prisoners,
and then advanced and captured Ludd, being careful
that no harm should come to the building which
holds the grave of St. George. In Ludd 360 prisoners
were taken, and the brigade carried out a good deal
of demohtion work on the railway rumiing north.
The New Zealanders made Jaffa by noon on the 16th,
the Turks evacuating the town during the morning

126

LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM 127

without making any attempt to destroy it, though
there was one gross piece of vandahsm in a Christian
cemetery where monuments and tombstones had
been thrown down and broken. In the meantime,
in order to protect the rear of the infantry, five bat-
tahons of the 52nd Division with three batteries
were stationed at Yebnah, Mughar, and Akir until
they could be relieved by units of the 54th Division
advancing from Gaza. To enable the 54th to move,
the transport lent to the 52nd and 75th Divisions had
to be returned, which did not make the supply of
those divisions any easier. The main line of railway
was still a long way in the rear, and the landing of
stores by the Navy at the mouth of the wadi Sukereir
had not yet begun. A little later, and before Jaffa
had been made secure enough for the use of ships,
many thousands of tons of supplies and ammunition
were put ashore at the wadi's mouth, and at a time
when heavy rains damaged the newly constructed
railway tracks the Sukereir base of supply was an
inestimable boon. Yet there were times when the
infantry had a bare day's supply with them, though
they had their iron rations to fall back upon. It
speaks weU for the supply branch that in the long
forward move of XXIst Corps the infantry were
never once put on short rations.

While the 54th were coming up to take over from
the 52nd, plans were prepared for the further advance
on Jerusalem. The Commander-in-Chief was deeply
anxious that there should be no fighting of any
description near the Holy Places, and he gave the
Turks a chance of being chivalrous and of accepting
the inevitable. We had got so far that the ancient
routes taken by armies which had captured Jerusalem
were just before us. The Turkish forces were dis-
organised by heavy and repeated defeats, the men

128 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

demoralised and not in good condition, and there was
no hope for them that they could receive sufficient
reinforcements to enable them to stave off the ulti-
mate capture of Bethlehem and Jerusalem, though
as events proved they could still put up a stout
defence. W^e loiow from papeis taken from the
enemy that the Turks beheved General Allenby
intended to go right up the plain to get to the defile
leading to Messudieh and Nablus and thus threaten
the Hedjaz railway, in which case the position of
the enemy in the Holy City would be hopeless,
and the Turks formed an assault group of three
infantry divisions in the neighbourhood of Tul Keram
to prevent this, and continued to hold on to Jerusalem.
General Allenby proposed to strike through the hills
to the north-east to try to get across the Jerusalem-
Nablus road about Bireli (the ancient Beeroth), and
in this operation success would have enabled him to
cut off the enemy forces in and about the Holy City,
when their only hne of retreat would have been
through Jericho and the east of the Jordan. The
Turks decided to oppose this plan and to make us
fight for Jerusalem. That was disappointing, but
in the end it could not have suited us better, for it
showed to our own people and to the world how after
the Turks had declined an opportunity of showing
a desire to preserve the Holy Places from attack —
an opportunity prompted by our strength, not by
any fear that victory could not be won — General
Allenby was still able to achieve his great objective
without a diop of blood being spilled near any of the
Holy Sites, and without so much as a stray rifle
bullet searing any of their walls. That indeed was
the triumph of military practice, and when Jerusalem
fell for the twenty-third time, and thus for the first
time passed into the hands of British soldiers, the

LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM 129

whole force felt that the sacrifices which had been
made on the gaunt forbidding hills to the north-west
were worth the price, and that the graves of English-
man, Scot and Colonial, of Gurkha, Punjabi, and
Sikh, were monuments to the honour of British arms.
The scheme was that the 75th Division would
advance along the main Jerusalem road, which cuts
into the hills about three miles east of Latron, and
occupy Kuryet el Enab, and that the Lowland
Division should go through Ludd, strike eastwards
and advance to Beit Likia to turn from the north
the hills through which the road passes, the Yeo-
manry Mounted Division on the left flank of the
52nd Division to press on to Bireh, on the Nablus
road about a dozen miles north of Jerusalem. A
brief survey of the country to be attacked would
convince even a civihan of the extreme difficulties
of the undertaking. North and east of Latron
(which was not yet ours) frown the hills which con-
stitute this important section of the Judean range,
the backbone of Palestine. The hills are steep and
high, separated one from another by narrow valleys,
clothed here and there with fir and olive trees, but
elsewhere a mass of rocks and boulders, bare and in-
hospitable. Practically every hill commands another.
There is only one road — the main one — and this about
three miles east of Latron passes up a narrow defile
with rugged mountains on either side. There is an
old Roman road to the north, but, unused for cen-
turies, it is now a road only in name, the very trace
of it being lost in many places. In this strong
country men fought of old, and the defenders not
infrequently held their own against odds. It is
pre-eminently suitable for defence, and if the warriors
of the past found that flint-tipped shafts of wood
would keep the invader at bay, how much more

130 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

easily could a modern army equipped with rifles of
precision and machine guns adapt Nature to its
advantage ? It will always be a marvel to me how
in a country where one machine gun in defence
could hold up a battalion, we made such rapid pro-
gress, and how having got so deep into the range it
was possible for us to feed our front. We had no
luck with the weather. In advancing over the plain
the troops had suffered from the abnormal heat,
and many of the w^ells had been destroyed or damaged
by the retreating enemy. In the hills the troops
had to endure heavy rains and piercingly cold winds,
with mud a foot deep on the roads and the earth so
slippery on the hills that only donkey transport was
serviceable. Yet despite all adverse circumstances
the infantry and yeomanry pressed on, and if they
did not secure all objectives, their dash, resource,
and magnificent determmation at least paved the
way for ultimate triumph.

To the trials of hard fighting and marching on field
rations the wet added a severe test of physical en-
durance. The troops were m enemy country where
they scrupulously avoided every native village, and
no wall or roof stood to shelter them from wind or
water. The heat of the first two weeks of November
changed with a most undesirable suddenness, and
though the days continued agreeably warm on the
plain into December, the nights became chilly and
then desperately cold. The single blanket carried
in the pack — most of the mfantry on the march had
no blanket at all — did not give sufficient warmth
to men whose blood had been thinned by long months
of work imder a pitiless Eastern sun, and lucky was
the soldier who secured even broken sleep in the
early morning hours of that fighting march across
the northern part of the Maritime Plain. The

LOOKING TOWAEDS JERUSALEM 131

Generals, with one eye on the enemy and the other
on the weather, must have been dismayed in the
third week of November at the gathering storm
clouds which in bursting flooded the plain with rains
unusually heavy for this period of the year. The
surface is a very light cotton soil several feet deep.
When baked by summer sun it has a cracked hard
crust giving a firm foothold for man and horse, and
yielding only shghtly to the wheels of light cars ;
even laden lorries made easy tracks over the country.
The lorries generally kept off the ill-made unrolled
Turkish road which had been constructed for winter
use and, except for slight deviations to avoid wadis
and gullies cut by Nature to carry off surplus water,
the supply columns could move in almost as direct
a course as the flying men. When the heavens
opened all this was altered. The first storm turned
the top into a slippery, greasy mass. In an hour
or two the rain soaked down into the light earth,
and any lorry driver pulling out of the line to avoid
a skidding vehicle ahead, had the almost certainty
of finding his car and load come to a fuU stop with
the wheels held fast axle deep in the soft soil. An
hour's hard digging, the fixing of planks beneath
the wheels, and a towing cable from another lorry
sometimes got the machine on to the pressed-down
track again and enabled it to move ahead for a few
miles, but many were the supply vehicles that had
to wait for a couple of sunny days to dry a path for
them.

My own experience of the first of the winter rains
was so like that of others in the force who moved
on wheels that I may give some idea of the conditions
by recounting it. We had taken Ludd and Ramleh,
and guided by the ruined tower of the Church of
the Forty Martyrs I had foUowed in the cavalry's

132 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

wake. I dallied on the way back to see if Akir
presented to the latter-day Crusader any signs of
its former strength when it stood as the Philistine
stronghold of Ekron. Near where the old city had
been the ghastly sight of Turks cut down by yeo-
manry during a hot pursuit offended the senses of
sight and smell, and when you saw natives moving
towards their village at a rate somewhat in excess of
their customary shuffling gait you were almost led to
think that their superstitious fears were driving them
home before sundown lest darkness should raise the
ghosts of the Turkish dead. A few of the Jewish
settlers, whose industry has improved the landscape,
were leaving the fields and orchards they tended so
well, though there was still more than an hour of
daylight and their tasks were not yet done. They
were weatherwise. They could have been deaf to the
rumblings in the south and still have noticed the
coming of the storm. I was some forty miles from
the spot at which my despatch could be censored
and passed over land wire and cable to London,
when a vivid lightning flash warned me that the
elements were in forbidding mood and that I had
misread the obvious signal of the natives' homeward
movement.

The map showed a path from Akir through Man-
sura towards Junction Station, from which the so-
caUed Turkish road ran south. In the gathering
gloom my driver picked up wheel tracks through an
ohve orchard and, crossing a nullah, found the marks
of a Ford car's wheels on the other side. The rain
fell heavily and soon obliterated all signs of a car's
progress, and with darkness coming on there was a
prospect of a shivering night with a wet skin in the
open. An Australian doctor going up to his regiment
at grips with the Turk told me that he had no doubt

LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM 133

we were on the right road, for he had been given a
Hne through Mansura, which must be the farmhouse
ahead of us. These AustraUans have a keen nose
for country and you have a sense of security in
following them. The doctor's horse was shpping
in the mud, 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 ducking in a
narrow wadi now full of storm water. After much
low-gear work we pulled up a slight rise and saw ahead
of us one or two little fires. Under the lee of a dilapi-
dated wall some Scottish infantry were brewing tea
and making the most of a slight shelter. It was Man-
sura, and if we bore to the right and kept the track
beaten down by lorries across a field we might, by
the favour of fortune, reach Junction Station during
the night. The Scots had arranged a bivouac in that
field before it became sodden. They knew how bad
it had got, and a native instinct to be hospitable
prompted an invitation to share the fire for the night.
However, I^ondon was waiting for news and I decided
to press on. The road could not be worse than the
sea of mud in which I was floundering, and it might
be better. We turned right-handed and after a
struggle came up against three lorry drivers hope-
lessly marooned. They had turned in. Up a greasy
bank we came to a stop and slid back. We tried
again and failed. I relieved the car of my weight
and made an effort to push it from behind, but my
feet held fast in the mud and the car cannoned into
me when it skidded downhill. ' Better give it up till
the morning,' said an M.T. driver whose sleep was
disturbed 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 '11 have no sleep to-night '
— or words to that effect. Three of the lorry men

134 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

and the engine got us on the move, and before
they took mud back with them to the dry interiors
of the lorries they hoped, they said, that we would
reach G.H.Q., but declared that it was hopeless
to try.

Before getting much farther a light, waved ahead
of us, told of some one held up. I walked on and
found General Butler, the chief of the Army Veteri-
nary Service with the Force, unable to move an
inch. The efforts of two drivers failed to locate the
trouble, and everything removable was taken off
the General's car and put into ours, and with the
heavier load we started off again for Junction Station.
This was not difficult to pick up, for there were many
flares burning to enable working parties to repair
engines, rolling stock, and permanent way. We got
on to the road ultimately, carrying more mud on our
feet than I imagined human legs could lift. Leaving
a driver and all spare gear at the station, we thrashed
our way along a road metalled with a soft, friable
hmestone which had been cut into by the iron-shod
wheels of German lorries until the ruts were fully a
foot deep, and the soft earth foundation was oozing
through to the surface. It was desperately hard to
steer a course on this treacherous highway, and a
number of lorries we passed had gone temporarily
out of action in ditches. The Germans with the
Turks had blown up most of the culverts, and the
road bridges which had been destroyed had only been
lightly repaired with planks and trestles, no safety
rails being in position. To negotiate these dangerous
paths in the dark the driver had to put on all possible
speed and make a dash for it, and he usually got to
the other side before a skid became serious. Most of
the lorry drivers put out no light because they thought
no car would be able to move on such a night, and we

LOOKING TOWARDS JERUSALEM 135

had several narrow escapes of finishing our career
on a half-sunken supply motor vehicle.

Reinforcements for infantry battalions moved up
the road as we came down 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 the line. So the stolid British infantryman splashed
and slipped his way towards the enemy, and he would
probably have been sleeping that night if there had
not been a risk of his drowning in the mud. The
Camel Transport Corps fought the elements with a
courage which deserved better luck. The camel dis-
likes many things and is afraid of some. But if he
is capable of thinking at all he regards mud as his
greatest enemy. He cannot stand up in it, and if he
slips he has not an understanding capable of realising
that if all his feet do not go the same way he must
spread-eagle and split up. This is what often happens,
but if by good luck a camel should go down sideways
he seems quite content to stay there, and he is so
refractory that he prefers to die rather than help
himself to his feet again. On this wild night I had
a good opportunity of seeing white officers encourage
the Egyptian boys in the Camel Transport Corps.
At Julis the roadway passes through the village.
There was an ambulance column in difficulties in the
village, and while some cars were being extricated a
camel supply column came up in the opposite direc-
tion. The camels liked neither the headlights nor
the running engines, and thesu had to be made dark
and silent before they would pass. The water was
running over the roadway several inches deep,
carrying with it a mass of garbage and filth which
only Arab villagers would tolerate. Officers and
Gyppies coaxed and wheedled the stubborn beasts
through Julis, but outside the place the animals

136 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

raised a chorus of protest and went down. They
held me up for an hour or more, and though officers
and boys did their utmost to get them going again
it was a fruitless effort, and the poor beasts were off-
loaded where they lay. That night of 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 the curious chant of the Gyppies'
chorus you heard nothing. Tommy could not 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 ten miles was over wet sand and on rabbit
wire stretched across the sand where the car could
do fifteen miles an hour, we had averaged something
under three miles an hour through the mud. Wet
through, cold, with a face rendered painful to the
touch by driven rain, I reached my tent with a feeling
of thankfulness for myself and deep sympathy for
the tens of thousands of brave boys enduring intense
discomfort and fatigue, coupled with the fear of
short rations for the next day or two. The men in
the hills which they were just entering had a worse
time than those in the waterlogged plain, but no
storms could damp their enthusiasm. They were
beating your enemies and mine, and they were
facing a goal which Britain had never yet won.
Jerusalem the Golden was before them, and the
honour and glory of wimiing it from 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 November the 75th Division were fighting
hard about Latron, where the Turks held the monas-
tery and its beautiful gardens and the hill about
Amwas until late in the morning. Having driven
them out, the 75th pushed on to gain the pass into
the hills and to begin two days of fighting which
earned the unstinted praise of General Bulfin who
witnessed it. For nearly three miles from Latron the
road passes through a flat vaUey flanked by hills till
it reaches a guardhouse and khan at the foot of the
pass which then rises rapidly to Saris, the difference
in elevation in less than four miles being 1400 feet.
Close to the guardhouse begin the hills which tower
above the road. The Turks had constructed de-
fences on these hills and held them with riflemen and
machine guns, so that these positions dominated all
approaches. Our guns had few positions from which
to assist the infantry, but they did sterlmg service
wherever possible. In General Palin the Division
had a commander with wide experience of hill fight-
ing on the Indian frontier, and he brought that
experience to bear in a way which must have dumb-
founded the enemy. Frontal attacks were impossible
and suicidal, and each position had to be turned by
a wide movement started a long way in rear. All
units in the Division did well, the Gurkhas particu-
larly well, and by a continual encircling of their flanks

137

138 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

the Turks were compelled to leave their fastnesses
and fall back to new hill crests. Thus outwitted
and outmatched the enemy retreated to Saris, a
high hill with a commanding view of the pass for
half a mile. The hill is covered with olive trees and
has a village on its eastern slope, and as the road
winds at its foot and then takes a left-handed turn
to Kur^^et el Enab its value for defence was con-
siderable.

Tlie Turks had taken advantage of the cover to
place a large body of defenders with machine guns
on the hill, but with every condition unfavourable
to us the 75th Division had routed out the enemy
before three o'clock and w^ere ready to move forward
as soon as the guns could get up the pass. Rain
was falling heavily, the road surface was clinging
and treacherous, and, worse still, the road had been
blown up in several places. The guns could not
advance to be of service that day, and the infantry
had, therefore, to remain where they were for the
night. There was a good deal of sniping, but Nature
was more unkind than the enemy, who received more
than he gave. The troops were wearing hght summer
clothing, drill shorts and tunics, and the sudden
change from the heat and dryness of the plain to
bitter cold and wet was a desperate trial, especially
to the Indian units, who had httle sleep that night.
They needed rest to prepare them for the rigour of
the succeeding day. A drenching rain turned the
whole face of the mountains, where earth covered rock,
into a sea of mud. On the positions about Saris
being searched a number of prisoners were taken,
among them a battalion commander. Men captured
in the morning told us there were six Turkish bat-
tahons holding Enab, which is something under two
miles from Saris.

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 139

The road proceeds up a rise from Saris, then falling
slightly it passes below the crest of a ridge and again
climbs to the foot of a hill on which a red-roofed
convent church and buildings stand as a landmark
that can be seen from Jaffa. On the opposite side
of the road is a substantial house, the summer re-
treat of the German Consul in Jerusalem, whose
staff traded in Jordan Holy Water ; and this house,
now empty, sheltered a divisional general from the
bad weather while the operations for the capture of
the Holy City were in preparation. I have a grateful
recollection of this building, for in it the military
attaches and I stayed before the Official Entry into
Jerusalem, and its roof saved us from one inclement
night on the bleak hiUs. On the 20th November
the Turks did their best to keep the place under
German ownership. The hill on which it stands
was well occupied by men under cover of thick stone
waUs, the convent gardens on the opposite side of
the highway was packed with Turkish infantry,
and across the deep valley to the west were guns
and riflemen on another hill, all of them holding the
road under the best possible observation. The
enemy's howitzers put down a heavy barrage on all
approaches, and on the reverse of the hill covering
the village lying in the hollow there were machine
guns and many men. Reconnaissances showed the
difficulties attending an attack, and it was not until
the afternoon that a plan was ready to be put into
execution. No weak points in the defences could
be discovered, and just as it seemed possible that a
dayUght attack would be held up, a thick mist roUed
up the valley and settled down over Enab. The 2/3rd
Gurkhas seized a welcomed opportunity, and as the
light was failing the shrill, sharp notes of these gallant
hillmen and the deep - throated roar of the l/5th

140 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Somersets told that a weighty bayonet charge had
got home, and that the keys of the enemy position
had been won. The men of the bold 75th went
beyond Enab in the dark, and also out along the old
Roman road towards Biddu to deny the Turks a
point from which they could see the road as it fell
away from the Enab ridge towards the wadi Ikbala.
That night many men sought the doubtful shelter of
olive groves, and built stone sangars to break the
force of a biting wind. A few, as many as could be
accommodated, were welcomed by the monks in a
monastery in a fold in the hills, whilst some rested and
were thankful in a cr3rpt beneath the monks' church,
the oldest part of the building, beheved to be the
work of sixth-century masons. The monks had a
tale of woe to tell. They had been proud to have
as their guest the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem,
who was a French protege, and this high ecclesiastic
remained at the monastery till November 17, when
Turkish gendarmerie carried him away. The Spanish
Consul in Jerusalem lodged a vigorous protest, and,
so the monks were told, he was supported by the
German Commandant. But to no purpose, for when
General Allenby entered Jerusalem he learned that
the Latin Patriarch had been removed to Damascus.
For quite a long time the monks did many kindly
things for our troops. They gave up the greater
part of the monastery and church for use as a hospital,
and many a sick man was brought back to health
by rest within those ancient walls. Some, alas,
there were whose wounds were mortal, and a number
lie in the monks' secluded garden. They have set
up wooden crosses over them, and we may be certain
that in that quiet sequestered spot their remains
will rest in peace and will have the protection of
the monks as surely as it has been given to the grave

A ROMAN CENTURIONS TOMB, KURYET EL ENAB

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 141

of the Roman centurion which faces those of our
brave boys who fell on the same soil fighting the same
good fight.

Wliile the 75th Division were making their mag-
nificent effort at Enab the Lowlanders had breasted
other and equally difficult hills to the north. General
Hill had posted a strong force at Beit Likia, and then
moved south-east along the route prepared by Cestius
Gallus nearly 1900 years ago to the height of Beit
Anan, and thence east again to Beit Dukku. On the
21st the road and ground near it were in exceedingly
bad condition, and the difficulty of moving anything
on wheels along it could hardly have been greater.
Already the 52nd Division had realised it was hope-
less to get all their divisional artillery into action,
and only three sections of artillery were brought up,
the horses of the guns sent back to Ramleh being
used to double the teams in the three advanced
sections. It was heavy work, too, for infantry who
not only had to carry the weight of mud-caked
boots, but were handicapped by continual shpping
upon the rocky ground. The 75th advancing along
the road from Enab to Kustul got an idea of the
Turkish lack of attention to the highway, the main
road being deep in mud and full of dangerous ruts.
They won Kustul about midday, and officers who
cUmbed to the top got their first glimpse of the out-
skirts of Jerusalem from the ruined walls of a Roman
castle that gives its name to the little village perched
on the height. They did not, however, see much
beyond the Syrian colony behind the main Turkish
defences, and the first view of Jerusalem by the troops
of the British Army was obtained by General Mac-
lean's brigade when they advanced from Biddu to
Nebi Samwil, that crowning height on which many
centuries before Richard the Lion Heart buried his

142 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

face in his casque and 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.'

Wliat a fight it was for Nebi Samwil ! The Turk
had made it his advanced work for his main line
runnmg from El Jib through Bir Nabala, Beit Iksa
to Lifta, as strong a chain of entrenched mountains
as any commander could desire. General Maclean's
brigade advanced from Biddu along the side of a
ridge and up the exposed steep slope of Nebi Samwil,
not all of which, in the only direction he could select
for an advance, was terraced, as it was on the Turks'
side. He was all the time confronted by heavy
artillery and rifle fire, and, though supported by guns
firing at long range from the neighbourhood of Enab,
he could not make Nebi Samwil in daylight. Round
the top of the hill the Turk had dug deeply into the
stony earth. He knew the value of that hill. From
its crest good observation was obtained in all direc-
tions, and if, when we had to attack the main Jeru-
salem defences on December 8, the summit of Nebi
Samwil had still been in Turkish hands, not a move-
ment of troops as they issued from the bed of the
wadi Surar and climbed the rough face of the western
buttresses of Jerusalem would have escaped notice.
The brigade won the hill and held it just before mid-
night, but the battle for the crest ebbed and flowed
for days with terrific violence, w^e never giving up
possession of it, though it was stormed again and
again by an enemy who, it is fair to admit, displayed
fine courage and not a little skill. That hill-top at
this period had to submit to a thunderous bombard-
ment, and the Mosque of Nebi Samwil became a
battered shell. Here are supposed to he the remains
of the Prophet Samuel. The tradition may or may
not be well founded, but at any rate Mahomedans

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 143

and Christians alike have held the place in venera-
tion for centuries. The Turk paid no regard to the
sanctity of the Mosque, and, as it was of military
importance to him that we should not hold it, he
sheUed it daily with all his available guns, utterly
destroying it. There may be cases where the Turks
will deny that they damaged a Holy Place. They
could not hide their guilt on Nebi Samwil. I was at
pains to examine the Mosque and the immediate
surroundings, and the photographs I took are proof
that the wreckage of this church came from artillery
fired from the east and north, the direction of the
Turkish gmi-pits. It is possible we are apt to be a
little too sentimental about the destruction in war of
a place of worship. If a general has reason to think
that a tower or minaret is being used as an observa-
tion post, or that a church or mosque is sheltering
a body of troops, there are those who hold that he
is justified in deliberately planning its destruction,
but here was a sacred building with associations
held in reverence by aU classes and creeds in a land
where these things are counted high, and to have
set about wrecking it was a crime. The German
influence over the Turk asserted itseK, as it did in
the heavy fighting after we had taken Jerusalem.
We had batteries on the Mount of Olives and the
Turk searched for them, but they never fired one
round at the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Hospice
near by. That had been used as Falkenha3ni's
headquarters. General Chetwode occupied it as his
Corps Headquarters soon after he entered Jerusalem.
There was a wireless installation and the Turks could
see the coming and going of the Corps' motor cars.
I have watched operations from a summer-house in
the gardens, and no enemy plane could pass over
the building without discovering the purpose to

144 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

which it was put. And there were spies. But not
one shell fell within the precincts of the hospice
because it was a German building, containing the
statues of the Kaiser and Kaiserin, and (oh, the taste
of the Hun !) with effigies of the Kaiser and his consort
painted in the roof of the chapel not far from a picture
of the Saviour. Britam is rebuilding what the Turks
destro3^ed, and there will soon arise on Nebi Samwil
a new mosque to show Mahomedans that tolerance
and freedom abide under our flag.

\Mien the 75th Division were making the attack
on Nebi Samwil the 52nd Division put all the men
they could spare on to the task of making roads.
To be out of the firing line did not mean rest. In fact,
as far as physical exertion went, it was easier to be
fighting than in reserve. From sunrise till dark and
often later the roadmakers were at work with pick,
shovel, and crowbar, and the tools were not too many
for the job. The gunners joined in the work and
managed to take their batteries over the roads long
before they were considered suitable for other wheels.
The battery commanders sometimes selected firing
positions which appeared quite inaccessible to any one
save a mountain climber, but the guns got there and
earned much credit for their teams.

On the 22nd Nebi Samwil was thrice attacked.
British and Indian troops were holding the hill,
but the Turks were on the northern slopes. They
were, in fact, on strong positions on three sides, and
from El Burj, a prominent hill 1200 yards to the
south-east, and from the wooded valley of the wadi
Hannina, they could advance with plenty of cover.
There was much dead ground, stone walls enclosed
small patches of cultivation, and when troops halted
under the terraces on the slopes no gun or rifle fire
could reach them. The enemy could thus get quite

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 145

close to our positions before we could deal with them,
and their attacks were also favoured by an intense
volume of artillery Bie from 5'9's placed about the
Jerusalem-Nablus road and, as some people in Jeru-
salem afterwards told me, from the Mount of Olives.
The attackers possessed the advantage that our guns
could not concentrate on them while the attack was
preparing, and could only put in a torrent of fire when
the enemy infantry were getting near their goal.
These three attacks were delivered with the utmost
ferocity, and were pressed home each time with de-
termination. But the 75th Division held on with
a stubbornness which was beyond praise, and the
harder the Turk tried to reach the summit the tighter
became the defence. Each attack was repulsed with
very heavy losses, and after his third failure the
enemy did not put in his infantry again that day.

The 75th Division endeavoured to reach El Jib,
a village on the hill a mile and a half to the north of
Nebi Samwil. The possession of El Jib by us would
have attracted some of the enemy opposing the
advance of the Yeomanry Mounted Division on the
left, but not only was the position strongly defended
in the village and on the high ground on the north
and north-west, but our infantry could not break
down the opposition behind the sangars and boulders
on the northern side of Nebi Samwil. The attack
had to be given up, but we made some progress in
this mountainous sector, as the 52nd Division had
pushed out from Dukku to Beit Izza, between 3000
and 4000 yards from El Jib, and by driving the enemy
from this strong village they made it more comfort-
able for the troops in Biddu and protected the Nebi
Samwil flank, the securing of which in those days
of bitter fighting was an important factor. It was
evident from what was happening on this front.

146 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

not only where two divisions of infantry had to strain
every nerve to hold on to what they had got but
where the Yeomanry JNlounted Division were batthng
against enormous odds in the worse coimtry to the
north-west, that the Turks were not going to allow
us to get to the Nablus road without making a direct
attack on the Jerusalem defences. They out-
numbered ua, had a large preponderance in guns,
were near their base, and enjoyed the advantage
of prepared positions and a comparatively easy
access to supplies and ammunition. Everything was
in their favour down to the very state of the weather.
But our army struggled on against all the big obstacles.
On the 23rd the 75th Division renewed their attack
on El Jib, but although the men showed the dash
which throughout characterised the Division, it had
to be stopped. The garrison of El Jib had been
reinforced, and the enemy held the woods, wadi
banks, and sangars in greater strength than before,
while the artillery fire was extremely heavy. Not
only w^as the 75th Division tired with ceaseless
fighting, but the losses they had sustained since
they left the Plain of Ajalon had been substantial,
and the 52nd Division took over from them that
night to prepare for another effort on the following
day. The Scots were no more successful. They
made simultaneous attacks on the northern and
southern ends of Nebi Samwil, and a brigade worked
up from Beit Izza to a ridge north-west of El Jib.
Two magnificent attempts were made to get into
the enemy's positions, but they failed. The officer
casualties were heavy ; some companies had no
officers, and the troops were worn out by great
exertions and privations in the bleak hills. The two
divisions had been fighting hard for over three weeks,
they had marched long distances on hard food.

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 147

which at the finish was not too plentiful, and the
sudden violent change in the weather conditions
made it desirable that the men should get to an issue
of warmer clothing. General Bulfin reahsed it would
be risking heavy losses to ask his troops to make
another immediate effort against a numerically
stronger enemy in positions of his own choice, and
he therefore applied to General Allenby that the
XXth Corps — the 60th Division was already at
Latron attached to the XXIst Corps — might take
over the line. The Commander-in-Chief that even-
ing ordered the attack on the enemy's positions to
be discontinued until the arrival of fresh troops.
During the next day or two the enemy's artillery
was as active as hitherto, but the punishment he
had received in his attacks made him pause, and there
were only small haK-hearted attempts to reach our
line. They were aU beaten off by infantry fire,
and the reliefs of the various brigades of the XXIst
Corps were complete by November 28. It had not
been given to the XXIst Corps to obtain the dis-
tinction of driving the Turks for ever from Jerusalem,
but the work of the Corps in the third and fourth
weeks of November had laid the foundation on which
victory finally rested. The grand efforts of the
52nd and 75th Divisions in rushing over the foothills
of the Shephelah on to the Judean heights, in getting
a footing on some of the most prominent hills within
three days of leaving the plain, and in holding on
with grim tenacity to what they had gained, enabled
the Commander-in-Chief to start on a new plan by
which to take the Holy City in one stride, so to speak.
The 52nd and 75th Divisions and, as wiU be seen,
the Yeomanry Mounted Division as well, share the
glory of the capture of Jerusalem with the 53rd,
60th, and 74th Divisions who were in at the finish.

148 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

The fighting of the Yeomanry Mounted Division
on the left of the 52nd was part and parcel of the
XXIst Corps' effort to get to the Nablus road. It
was epic fighting, and I have not described it when
narrating the infantry's daily work because it is
best told in a connected story. If the foot sloggers
had a bad time, the conditions were infinitely worse
for mounted troops. The ground was as steep, but
the hillsides were rougher, the wadis narrower, the
patches of open flat fewer than in the districts where
infantry operated. So bad indeed was the country
that horses were an encumbrance, and most of them
were returned to the plain. After a time horse
artillery could proceed no farther, and the only guns
the yeomanry had with them were those of a section
of the Hong Kong and Singapore mountain battery,
manned by Sildis, superb fellows whose service in
the Eg3rptian deserts and in Palestine was worthy
of a martial race. But their little guns w^ere out-
ranged by the Turkish artillery, and though they
were often right up with the mounted men they could
not get near the enem}^ batteries. The supply of
the division in the nooks and crannies where there
was not so much as a goat-path was a desperate
problem, and could not have been solved without
the aid of many hundreds of pack-donkeys which
dumped their loads of supplies and ammunition on
the hiUsides, leaving it to be carried forward by hand.
The division were fighting almost continually for a
fortnight. They got farther forward than the in-
fantry and met the full force of an opposition which,
if not stronger than that about Nebi Samwil, w^as
extremely violent, and they came back to a line
which could be supplied with less difficulty when it
was apparent that the Turks were not going to accept
the opportunity General Allenby gave them to

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 149

withdraw their army from Jerusalem. The Division's
most bitter struggle was about the Beth-horons,
on the very scene w^here Joshua, on a lengthened
day, threw the Canaanites off the Shephelah.

The Yeomanry Mounted Division received orders
on the afternoon of November 17 to move across
Ajalon into the foothills and to press forward straight
on Bireh as rapidly as possible. Their trials they
began immediately. One regiment of the 8th Brigade
occupied Annabeh, and a regiment of the 22nd
Brigade got within a couple of miles of Nalin, where a
weU-concealed body of the enemy held it up. Soon
the report came in that the country was impassable
for wheels. By the afternoon of the next day the
8th Brigade were at Beit ur el Foka — Beth-horon
the Upper — a height where fig trees and pomegranates
flourish. Eastwards the country faUs away and
there are several ragged narrow valleys between
some tree-topped ridges till the eye meets a sheikh's
tomb on the Zeitun ridge, standing midway between
Foka and Beitunia, which rears a proud and pictur-
esque head to bar the way to Bireh. The wadis
cross the valleys wherever torrent water can tear up
rock, but the yeomanry found their beds smoother
going, filled though they were with boulders, than the
hill slopes, which generally rose in steep gradients
from the sides of watercourses. During every step
of the way across this saw-toothed country one
appreciated to the full the defenders' advantage. If
dead ground hid you from one hill- top enemy marks-
men could get you from another, and it was impos-
sible for the division to proceed unless it got the
enemy out of all the hills on its line of advance.
The infantry on the right were very helpful, but the
brigade on the left flank had many difficulties, which
were not lessened when, on the second day of the

150 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

movement, all Royal Horse Artillery gmis and all
wheels had to be sent back owing to the bad comitry.
Up to this point the fight against Natm^e was more
arduous than against the enemy. Thenceforward
the enemy became more vigilant and active, and the
hills and stony hollows more trying. All available
men were set to work to makey a road for the Hong
Kong and Singapore gunners, a battery which would
always get as far into the momitains as any in the
King's Army. The road parties laboured night and
day, but it was only by the greatest exertions that
the battery could be got through. The heavy rain
of the 19th added to the troubles. The 8th Brigade,
having occupied Beit ur et Tahta (Beth-horon the
Lower) early on the morning of the 19th, proceeded
along the wadi Sunt imtil a force on the heights
held them up, and they had to remain in the wadi
while the 6th Mounted Brigade turned the enemy's
flank at Foka. The 22nd Mounted Brigade on the
north met with the same trouble — every hill had to
be won and picqueted — and they could not make
Ain Arik that day. As soon as it was light on the
following morning the 6th Mounted Brigade brushed
away opposition in Foka and entered the village,
pushing on thence towards Beitunia. The advance
was slow and hazardous ; every hill had to be searched,
a task difficult of accomplishment by reason of the
innumerable caves and boulders capable of sheltering
snipers. The Turk had become an adept at sniping,
and left parties in the hills to carry on by themselves.
When the 6tli Brigade got within two miles of the
south-west of Beitunia they were opposed by 5000
Turks weU screened by woods on the slopes and the
wadi. Both sides strove all day without gaining
ground. Divisional headquarters were only a short
distance behind the 6th, and the 8th Brigade was

JNTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 151

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 and found a strong force of the
enemy holding Beitunia and the hill of Muntar, a
few hundred yards to the north of it, thus barring
the way to Ramallah and Bireh. Rain fell copiously
and the wind was chilly. After a miserable night in
bivouac, the 6th Brigade was astir before dayhght
on the 21st. They were fighting at dawn, and in
the half light compelled the enemy to retire to within
half a mile of Beitunia. A few prisoners were rounded
up, and these told the brigadier that 3000 Turks were
holding Beitunia with four batteries of field guns and
four heavy camel guns. That estimate was found
to be approximately accurate. A regiment of the
8th Brigade sent to reinforce the 6th Brigade on their
left got within 800 yards of the hill, when the gims
about Bireh and Bamallah opened on them and
they were compelled to withdraw, and a Turkish
coimter -attack forced our forward line back slightly
in the afternoon. The enemy had a plentiful supply
of ammunition and made a prodigal use of it. While
continuing to shell fiercely he put more infantry into
his fighting line, and as we had only 1200 rifles and
four mountain guns, which the enemy's artillery
outranged, it was clear we could not dislodge him from
the Beitunia crest. The 22nd Mounted Brigade had
made an attempt to get to Ramallah from Ain Arik,
but the opposition from Muntar and the high ground
to the east was much too severe. Our casualties had
not been inconsiderable, and in face of the enemy's
superiority in numbers and guns and the strength of
his position it would have been dangerous and useless
to make a further attack. General Barrow therefore
decided to withdraw to Foka during the night. All
horses had been sent back in the course of the after-

152 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

noon, and when the hght failed the retirement began.
The wounded were first evacuated, and they, poor
fellows, had a bad time of it getting back to Foka
in the dark over four miles of rock-strewn country.
It was not till two o'clock on the following morning
that all the convoys of wounded passed through
Foka, but by that time the track to Tahta had been
made into passable order, and some of these helpless
men were out of the hills soon after day hght, journey-
ing m comparative ease in hght motor ambulances
over the Plain of Ajalon.

The arrangements for the withdrawal worked
admirably. The 8th Mounted Brigade, covering the
retirement so successfully that the enemy knew
nothing about it, held on in front of Beitunia till
three o'clock, reaching Foka before dawn, while the
22nd Brigade remained covering the 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 from El Hafy by
one regiment, and troops were out on many parts
north and east of Tahta and Foka.

On the next two days there was nothing beyond
enemy sheUing and patrol encounters. On the 24th
demonstrations were made against Beitunia to support
the left of the 52nd Division's attack on El Jib, but
the enemy was too strong to permit of the yeomanry
proceeding more than two miles east of Foka. The
roadmakers had done an enormous amount of navvy
work on the track between Foka and Tahta. They
had laboured without cessation, breakmg up rock,
levering out boulders with crowbars, and doing a sort
of rough-and-ready levelling, and by the night of the
24th the track was reported passable for guns. The
Leicester battery R.H.A. came along it next morning

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 153

without difficulty. I did not see the road till some
time later and its surface had then been considerably
improved, but even then one felt the drivers of those
gun teams had achieved the almost impossible. The
Leicester battery arrived at Foka just in time to
unHmber and get into action behind a fig orchard
in order to disperse a couple of companies of enemy
infantry which were working round the left flank
of the Staffordshire Yeomanry at Khurbet Meita,
below the Zeitun height. The enemy brought up
reinforcements and made an attack in the late after-
noon, but this was also broken up. The Berkshu-e
battery reached Tahta the following day and, with
the Leicester gunners, answered the Turks' long-
range shelling throughout the day and night. On
the 27th the enemy made a determined attempt to
compel us to withdraw from the Zeitun ridge, which
is an isolated hill commanding the vaUeys on both
sides. The 6th Mounted Brigade furnished the
garrison of 3 officers and 60 men, who occupied a stone
building on the summit. Against them the enemy
put 600 infantry with machine guns, and they also
brought a heavy artillery fire to bear on the building
from Beitunia, 4000 yards away. The garrison put
up a most gallant defence. They were compelled
to leave the building because the enemy practically
destroyed it by gunfire and the infantry almost
surrounded the hill, but they obtained cover on the
boulder-strewn sides of the hill and held their assail-
ants at bay. At dusk, although the garrison was
reduced to 2 officers and 26 men, they refused to give
ground. They were instructed to hold on as long
as possible, and a reinforcement of 50 men was sent
up after dark — all that could be spared, as the division
was holding a series of hills ten miles long and every
rifle was in the line. This front was being threatened

154 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

at several points, and the activity of patrols at Deir
Ibzia and north of it suggested that the enemy was
trying to get into the gap of five miles between the
yeomanry and the right of the 54th Division which
was now at Shilta. It was an anxious night, and
No. 2 Light Armoured Car battery was kept west
of Tahta to enfilade the enemy with machine guns
should he appear in the neighbourhood of Suffa. The
7th Mounted Brigade was ordered up to reinforce.
The fresh troops arrived at dawn on the 28th, and
had no sooner got into position at Hellabi, haK 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
Beit Likia to rest after its hard work in the neighbour-
hood of Nebi Samwil and El Jib, and it was ordered
up to assist. At midday the brigade attacked Suffa
but could not take it. The Scots, however, prevented
the Turks breaking round the left flank of the yeo-
manry. The post which had held Zeitun so bravely
was brought into Foka under cover of the Leicester
and Berkshire batteries' fire, and very heavy fighting
continued all day long on the Foka-Tahta-Suffa line,
but though the enemy employed 3000 infantry in
his attack, and had four batteries of 77's and four
heavy camel guns, he was unsuccessful. At dusk
the attack on Tahta, which had been under shell-fire
all day, was beaten off and the enemy w as compelled
to withdraw one mile. Suffa was still his, but his
advanced troops on the cairn south of that place
had suffered heavily during the day at the hands of
the 7th Mounted Brigade, who several times drove
them off. Some howitzers of the 52nd Division
were hauled over the hills in the afternoon and
shelled the cairn so heavily that the post sought
shelter in Suffa. To the south-east of the hne of

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 155

attack the Turks were doing their utmost to secure
Foka. They came again and again, and their attacks
were always met and broken with the bayonet by
yeomen who were becoming fatigued by continuous
fighting, and advancing and retiring in this terrible
country. They could have held the place that night,
but there was no possibility of sending them rein-
forcements, and as the enemy had been seen working
round to the south of the village with machine guns
it might have been impossible to get them out in
the morning. General Barrow accordingly withdrew
the Foka garrison to a new position on a wooded
ridge half-way between that place and Tahta, and
the enemy made no attempt to get beyond Foka.
Late at night he got so close to Tahta from the north
that he threw bombs at our sangars, but he was
driven off.

During the evening the Yeomanry Mounted Divi-
sion received welcome reinforcements. The 4th Aus-
trahan Light Horse Brigade were placed in support
of the 6th Mounted Brigade and a battalion of the 156th
Infantry Brigade assisted the 7th Mounted Brigade.

On the 29th the Turks made their biggest effort
to break through the important Hne we held, and
all day they persisted with the greatest determination
in an attack on our left. At midnight they had
again occupied the cairn south of Suffa, and remained
there till 8 a.m., when the 268th Brigade Royal Field
Artillery crowned the hill with a tremendous burst
of fire and drove them off. The machine-gunners
of the 7th Mounted Brigade caught the force as it
was retiring and inflicted many casualties. The
Turks came back again and again, and the cairn
repeatedly changed hands, until at last it was un-
occupied by either side. Towards dusk the Turks'
attacks petered out, though the guns and snipers

156 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

continued busy, and the Yeomanry Mounted Division
was relieved by the 231st Infantry Brigade of the
74th Division and the 157th Infantry Brigade of the
52nd Division, the Austrahan Mounted Division
ultimately takhig over the left of the Hne which
XXth Corps troops occupied.

The Yeomanry Mounted Division had made a
grand light against a vastly superior force of the
enemy in a country absolutely unfavourable to the
movement of mounted troops. They never had more
than 1200 rifles holding a far-flung barren and bleak
line, and the fine quahties of vigorous and swift
attack, unfaltering disciphne and heroic stubbornness
in defence under all conditions, get their proof in
the 499 casualties incurred by the Division in the
hill fighting, exclusive of those sustained by the 7th
Mounted Brigade which reinforced them. The Divi-
sion was made up entirely of first-line yeomanry
regiments whose members had become efiicient
soldiers in their spare time, when politicians were
prattling about peace and deluding parties into the
behef that there was Uttle necessity to prepare for
war. Their patriotism and example gave a tone to
the drafts sent out to replace casualties and the
wastage of war, and were a credit to the stock from
which they sprang.

While the Yeomanry Mounted Division had been
fighting a great battle alongside the infantry of the
XXIst Corps in the hills, the remainder of the troops
of the Desert Mounted Corps were employed on the
plain and in the coastal sector, hammering the
enemy hard and establishing a line from the mouth
of the river Auja through some rising ground across
the plain. They were busily engaged clearing the
enemy out of some of the well-ordered villages east
of the sandy belt, several of them German colonies

INTO THE JUDEAN HILLS 157

showing signs of prosperity and more regard for
cleanliness and sanitation than other of the small
centres of population hereabouts. The village of
Sarona, north of Jaffa, an almost exclusively German
settlement, was better arranged than any others,
but Wilhelma was a good second.

The most important move was on November 24,
when, with a view to making the enemy believe an
attack was intended against his right flank, the
New Zealand Mounted Kifles Brigade was sent across
the river Auja to seize the villages of Sheikh Muannis
near the sea, and Hadrah farther inland, two com-
panies of infantry holding each of the two crossings.
The enemy became alarmed and attacked the cavalry
in force early next morning, 1000 infantry marching
on Muannis. The Hadrah force was driven back
across the Auja and the two companies of infantry
covering the crossing suffered heavily, having no
support from artiUery, which had been sent into
bivouac. Some of the men had to swim the river.
A bridge of boats had been built at Jerisheh mill
during the night, and by this means men crossed until
Muamiis was occupied by the enemy later in the morn-
ing. The cavalry crossed the ford at the mouth of
the Auja at the gallop. The l/4th Essex held on to
Hadrah until five out of six officers and about fifty
per cent, of the men became casualties. There was
a good deal of minor fighting on this section of the
front, and in a number of patrol encounters the
resource of the Australian Light Horse added to
their bag of prisoners and to the Army's store of
information. Nothing further of importance oc-
curred in this neighbourhood until we seized the
crossings of the Auja and the high ground north of
the river a week before the end of the year.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY

The impossibility of getting across the road north
of Jerusalem by makhig a wide sweep over the Judean
hills caused a new plan to be put into execution.
This necessitated a direct attack on the well-prepared
system of defences on the hills protecting Jerusalem
from the west, but it did not entail any weakening of
General Allenby's determination that there should
be no fighting by British troops in and about the
precincts of the Holy City. That resolve was un-
shaken and unshakable. When a new scheme was
prepared by the XXth Corps, the question was put
whether the Turks could be attacked at Lifta, which
was part of their system. Now Lifta is a native
village on one of the hill-faces to the west of Jerusalem,
about a mile from the Holy City's walls, and, as it is
not even connected by a road with any of the various
colonies forming the suburbs of Jerusalem, could
not by any stretch of imagination be described by a
Hun propaganda merchant as part of Jerusalem.
I happen to know that on the 26th November the
Commander-in-Chief sent this communication to
General Chetwode : ' I place no restriction upon
you in respect of any operation which you may
consider necessary against Lifta or the enemy's lines
to the south of it, except that on no account is any
risk to be run of bringing the City of Jerusalem or its
immediate environs within the area of operations.'
The spirit as well as the letter of that order was

158

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 159

carried out, and in the very full orders and notes
on the operations issued before the victorious attack
was made, there is the most elaborate detail regarding
the different objectives of divisions and brigades,
and scrupulous care was taken that no advance
should be made against any resisting enemy within
the boundaries not only of the Holy City but of the
suburbs. We shall see how thoroughly these in-
structions were followed.

When it became obvious that Jerusalem could not
be secured without the adoption of a deliberate
method of attack, there were many matters requiring
the anxious consideration of the XXth Corps staff.
They took over from XXIst Corps at a time when
the enemy was stiU very active against the hne
which they had gained under very hard conditions.
The XXth Corps, beginning with the advantage of
positions which the XXIst Corps had won, had to
prepare to meet the enemy with equal gun power
and more than equality in rifle strength. We had the
men and the guns in the country, but to get them into
the line and to keep them suppHed was a problem
of considerable magnitude. Time was an important
factor. The rains had begun. The spells of fine
weather were getting shorter, and after each period
of rain the sodden state of the country affected all
movement. To bring up supphes we could only rely
on road traffic from Gaza and Deir Sineid, and the
Hght soil had become hopelessly cut up during the
rains. The main hne of railway was not to be
opened to Mejdel till December 8, and the captured
Turkish line between Deir Sineid and Junction
Station had a maximum capacity of one hundred
tons of ordnance stores a day, and these had to be
moved forward again by road. An advance must
slow down while communications were improved.

160 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

The XXth Corps inherited from the XXIst Corps the
track between Beit Likia and Biddu which had been
prepared with an infinity of trouble and exertion,
but this and the main Latron-Jerusalem road were
the only highways available.

General Chetwode's Corps reheved General Bulfin's
Corps during the day of November 28, and viewed
in the most favourable light it appeared that there
must be at least one wreck's work on the roads before
it would be possible for heavy and field batteries, in
sufficient strength to support an attack, to be got
into the mountains. A new road was begun between
Latron and Beit Likia, and another from Enab to
Kubeibeh, and these, even in a rough state of com-
pletion, eased the situation very considerably. An
enormous amount of labour was devoted to the main
road. The surface was in bad order and was getting
worse every hour with the passage of lorry traffic.
It became full of holes, and the available metal in
the neighbourhood was a friable limestone which,
under heavy pressure during rains, was ground into
the consistency of a thick cream. Pioneer battalions
were reinforced by large parties of Egyptian labour
corps, and these worked ceaselessly, clearing off top
layers of mud, carrying stones down from the hills
and breaking them, putting on a new surface and
repairing the decayed walls which held up the road
in many places. The roadmakers proved splendid
fellows. They put a vast amount of energy into their
work, but when the roads were improved rain gravely
interfered with traffic, and camels were found to be
most unsatisfactory. They shpped and fell and no
reUance could be placed on a camel convoy getting
to its destination in the hills. Two thousand donkeys
were pressed into service, and with them the troops
in the distant positions were kept supplied. It would

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 161

not be possible to exaggerate the value of this donkey
transport. In anticipation of the advance the
Quartermaster-General's department, with the fore-
sight which characterised that department and all
its branches throughout the campaign, searched
Egypt for the proper stamp of asses for pack trans-
port in the hiUs. The Egyptian donkey is a big
fellow with a light-grey coat, capable of carrying, a
substantial load, hardy, generally docile, and less
stubborn than most of the species. He is much taller
and heavier than the Palestine donkey, and our
Army never submitted him to the atrociously heavy^
loads which crush and break the spirit of the local
Arabs' animals. It is, perhaps, too much to hope
that the natives will learn something from the British
soldier's treatment of animals. It was one of the
sights of the campaign to see the donkey trains at
work. They carried supplies which, having been
brought by the mihtary railway from the Suez Canal
to railhead, were conveyed by motor lorries as far as
the state of the road permitted self-propelled vehicles
to run, were next transhipped into limbers, and,
when horse transport could proceed no farther, were
stowed on to the backs of camels. The condition of
the road presently held up the camels, and then
donkey trains took over the loads. Under a white
officer you would see a chain of some two hundred
donkeys, each roped in file of four, led by an Egyptian
who knew all that was worth knowing about the
ways of the ass, winding their way up and down hills,
getting a foothold on rocks where no other animal
but a goat could stand, and surmounting all obstacles
with a patient endurance which every soldier admired.
They did not like the cold, and the rain made them
look deplorably wretched, but they got rations and
drinking-water right up to the crags where our in-

L

162 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

fantry were practising mountaineering. Shell -fire
did not disturb them much, and they would nibble
at any rank stuff growing on the hiUsides to supple-
ment the rations which did not always reach their
Imes at regular intervals. The Gyppy boys were
excellent leaders, and to them and the donkeys the
front-hne fighting men in the hill country owe much.
They were saved a good deal of exhausting labour in
manhandling stores from the point where camels had
to stop, and they could therefore concentrate their
attention on the Turk.

By December 2 the fine exertions of the troops on
the Une of communications had enabled the XXth
Corps Commander to make his plans for the capture
of Jerusalem, and at a conference at Enab on the
following day General Chetwode outlined his scheme,
which, put ii\a nutshell, was to attack with the 60th
and 74th Divisions in an easterly direction on the
front Ain Karim-Beit Surik and, skirting the western
suburbs of Jerusalem, to place these two divisions
astride the Jerusalem-Nablus road, while the 53rd
Division advanced from Hebron to threaten the
enemy from the south and protect the right of the
60th Division. I will not apologise for deaUng as
fully as possible with the fighting about Jerusalem,
because Jerusalem was one of the great victories of
the war, and the care taken to observe the sanctity
of the place will for all time stand out as one of the
brightest examples of the honour of British arms.
But before entering upon those details I will put in
chronological sequence the course of the fighting on
this front from the moment when the XXth Corps
took over the command, and show how, despite enemy
vigilance and many attacks, the preparations for
the outstanding event of the campaign were carried
through. It is remarkable that in the short period

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 163

of ten days the plans could be worked out in detail
and carried through to a triumphant issue, notwith-
standing the bad weather and the almost overwhelm-
ing difficulties of supply. Only the whole-hearted
co-operation of aU ranks made it possible. On the
day after the XXth Corps became responsible for
this front General Chetwode had a conference with
Generals Barrow, HiU, and Girdwood, and after a
full discussion of the situation in the hills decided to
abandon the plan of getting on to the Jerusalem-
Nablus road from the north in favour of attempting
to take Jerusalem from the west and south-west.
The commanders of the Yeomanry Mounted Division
and the 52nd Division were asked to suggest, from
their experience of the fighting of the past ten days,
what improvement in the line was necessary to make
it certain that the new plan would not be interfered
with by an enemy counter-attack. They were in
favour of taking the western portion of the Beitunia-
Zeitun ridge. Preparations were made immediately
to reheve the Yeomanry Mounted Division by the
Australian Mounted Division, and when the 10th
Division arrived — it was marching up from Gaza —
the 52nd Division was to be returned to the XXIst
Corps. The hard fighting and the determined attacks
of the Turks had made it unavoidable that some
portions of the divisions should be mixed, and the
reliefs were not completed till the 2nd of December.
The Yeomanry Mounted Division troops gave
over the Tahta defences to the 157th Infantry Brigade
on the night of November 29-30, and the enemy
made an attack on the new defenders at dawn, but
were swiftly beaten off. A local effort against Nebi
Samwil was easily repulsed, but the 60th Division
reported that the enemy had in the past few days
continued his shelhng of the Mosque, and had added

164 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

to his destruction of that sacred place by demoHshing
the minaret by gunfire. The 231st Infantry Brigade
with one battahon in the front hne took over from
the 8th Mounted Brigade from Beit Dukku to Jufna,
and while the rehefs were in progress there was
continual fighting in the Et Tireh-Foka area. The
former place was won and lost several times, and
finally the infantry consolidated on the high ground
west of those villages. Early on the 30th a detach-
ment of the 231st Brigade took Foka, capturing eight
officers and 298 men, but as it was not possible to
hold the village the infantry retired to our original
line. On December 1 the 10th Division relieved the
52nd in the sector wadi Zait-Tahta-Kh. Faaush, but
on that day the 155th Brigade had had another
hard brush with the Turks. A regiment of the 3rd
Australian Light Horse on a hill north of El Burj in
front of them was heavily attacked at half-past one
in the morning by a specially prepared sturmtruppen
battalion of the Turkish 19th Division, and a footing
was gained in our position, but with the aid of a
detachment of the Gloucester Yeomanry and the
l/4th Royal Scots Fusiliers the enemy was driven out
at daybreak and six officers and 106 un wounded and
60 wounded Turks, wearing steel hats and equipped
like German storming troops, were taken prisoners.
The attack was pressed with the greatest determina-
tion, and the enemy, using hand grenades, got within
thirty yards of our line. During the latter part of
their advance the Turks were exposed to a heavy
cross fire from machine guns and rifles of the 9th
Light Horse Regiment, and this fire and the guns
of the 268th Brigade Royal Field Artillery and
the Hong Kong and Singapore battery prevented
the retirement of the enemy. The capture of the
prisoners was effected by an encirchng movement

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 165

round both flanks. Our casualties were 9 killed and
47 wounded. That storming battahon left over 100
dead about our trenches. At the same time a violent
attack was made on the Tahta defences held by the
157th Brigade ; the enemy, rushing forward in con-
siderable strength and with great impetus, captured
a ridge overlooking Tahta — a success which, if they
had succeeded in holding the position till daylight,
would have rendered that village untenable, and
would have forced our line back some distance at an
important point. It proved to be a last desperate
effort of the enemy at this vital centre. No sooner
were the Scots driven off the ridge than they re-formed
and prepared to retake it. Reinforced, they attacked
with magnificent courage in face of heavy machine-
gun Bie, but it was not until after a rather prolonged
period of bayonet work that the Lowland troops got
the upper hand, the Turks trying again and again to
force them out. At haK-past four they gave up
the attempt, and from that hour Tahta and the rocks
about it were objects of terror to them.

Nor did the Turks permit Nebi Samwil to remain in
our possession undisputed. The Londoners holding
it were thrice attacked with extreme violence, but
the defenders never flinched, and the heavy losses
of the enemy may be measured by the fact that when
we took Jerusalem and an unwonted silence hung over
Nebi Samwil, our burying parties interred more than
500 Turkish dead about the summit of that lofty
hill. Their graves are mostly on the eastern, northern,
and southern slopes. Ours He on the west, where
Scot, Londoner, West Countryman, and Indian, all
equally heroic sons of the Empire, sleep, as they
fought, side by side.

The last heavy piece of fighting on the XXth
Corps' front before the attack on Jerusalem was on

166 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

December 3, when a regiment of yeomanry, which
Uke a number of other yeomanry regiments had been
dismounted to form the 74th Division, covered itself
with glory. The 16th (Royal Devon Yeomanry)
battahon of the Devon Regiment belonging to the
229th Brigade was ordered to make an attack on
Beit ur el Foka in the dark hours of the morning.
All the officers had made reconnaissances and had
learned the extreme difficulties of the ground. At
1 A.M. these yeomen worked their way up the wadi
Zeit to the head of that narrow watercourse at the
base of the south-western edge of the hill on which
the village stands. The attack was launched from
this position, the company on the right having the
steepest face to climb. Here the villagers, to get
the most out of the soil and to prevent the winter
rains washing it off the rocks into the wadi, had built
a series of terraces, and the retaining walls, often
crumbling to the touch, offered some cover from the
Turkish defenders' fire. With the advantage of this
shelter the troops on the right reached the southern
end of the village soon after 2 o'clock, but the com-
pany on the left met with much opposition on the
easier slope, and had to call in aid the support of a
machine-gun section posted in the woods on a ridge
north-west of the village. By 3 o'clock the whole
battahon was in the village, using rifle and bayonet
in the road scarcely more than a couple of yards wide,
and bombing the enemy out of native mud and stone
houses and caves. Two officers and fifteen un-
wounded men were taken prisoners with three
machine guns, but before any consolidation could
be done the Turks began a series of counter-attacks
which lasted all 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 few

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 167

hundred yards away, and by a high hill north of
Ain Jeruit, 1200 yards to the north, by another hill
1000 yards to the east, and by the famous Zeitun
ridge about 1500 yards beyond it, and attacks from
these directions could be covered very effectively by
overhead machine-gun foe. To enlarge the peri-
meter of defence would be to increase the difficulties
and require a much larger force than was available,
and there was no intention of going beyond Foka
before the main operation against Jerusalem was
started. To hold Foka securely a force must be in
possession of the heights on the north and east, and
to keep these Beitunia itself must be gained. Before
daylight arrived some work on defences was begun,
but it was interfered with by snipers and not much
could be done. Immediately the sun rose from behind
the Judean hills there was a violent outburst of fire
from machine guns and rifles on three sides, in-
creasing in volume as the light improved. The
enemy counter-attacked with a determination fully
equal to that which he had displayed during the past
fortnight's battle in the hiUs. He had the advantage
of cover and was supported by artillery and a hurri-
cane of machine-gun fire, but although he climbed
the hill and got into the small gardens outside the
very houses, he was repulsed with bomb and bayonet.
At one moment there was little rifle fire, and the two
sides fought it out with bombs. The Turks retired
with heavy losses, but they soon came back again
and fought with the same determination, though
equally unsuccessfully. The Devons called for artil-
lery, and three batteries supported them splendidly,
though the gunners were under a great disadvantage
in that the ground did not permit the effect of gunfire
to be observed and it was difficult to follow the
attackers. The supplies of bombs and small-arms

168 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

ammunition were getting low, and to replenish them
men had to expose themselves to a torrent of fire,
so fierce indeed that in bringing up two boxes of
rifle ammmiition which four men could carry twelve
casualties were incuiTed. A head shown in the
village instantly drew a hail of bullets from three
sides. Reinforcements were on the way up, and the
Fife and Forfar Yeomanry battalion of the Royal
Highlanders were prepared to make a flank attack
from their outpost line three-quarters of a mile south-
east of Foka to reheve the Devons, but this would
have endangered the safety of the outpost line
without reducing the fire from the heights, and as
the Fife and Forfar men would have had to cross
two deep wadis under enfilade ^e on their way to
Foka their adventure would have been a perilous
one. By this time three out of four of the Devons'
company commanders were wounded and the casual-
ties were increasing. The officer commanding the
battahon therefore decided, after seven hours of
terrific fighting, that the village of Foka 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 he proposed the place
should be evacuated. His men had put up a great
fight. The battahon went into action 762 strong ;
it came out 488. Three officers were killed and nine
wounded, and 49 other ranks killed and 132 wounded.
Thirteen were wounded and missing and 78 missing.
In Foka to-day you will see most of the battered
houses repaired, but progress through the streets is
partially baiTed by the graves of Devon yeomen who
were buried where they feU. It was not possible to
hew a grave in rock, therefore earth and stone were
piled up round the bodies, so that in at least two

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 169

spots you find several graves serving as buttresses
to rude dwellings. On one of these graves, beside
the identification tablet of two strong sons of Devon,
you will find, on a piece of paper inserted in a slit
cut into wood torn from an ammunition box, the
words ' Grave of unknown Turk.' Friend and foe
share a common resting-place. The natives of this
village are more than usually friendly, and those
graves seem safe in their keeping.

Between the 4th and 7th December there was a
reshuffling of the troops holding the fine to enable
a concentration of the divisions entrusted with the
attack on the defences covering Jerusalem. The
10th Division reheved the 229th and 230th Brigades
of the 74th Division and extended its line to cover
Beit Dukku, a point near and west of Et Tireh, to
Tahta, and when the enemy retired from the im-
mediate front of the 10th Division's left, Hellabi
and Suffa were occupied. The Australian Mounted
Division also slightly advanced its line. On the
night of December 5 the 231st Brigade relieved the
60th Division in the Beit Izza and Nebi Samwil
positions, and on December 6 the line held by the
74th was extended to a point about a mile and a half
north of Kulonieh. The 53rd Division had passed
through Hebron, and its advance was timed to reach
the Bethlehem-Beit Jala district on December 7.
The information gained by the XXth Corps led the
staff to estimate the strength of the enemy opposite
them to be 13,300 rifles and 2700 sabres, disposed
as follows : east of Jerusalem the 7th cavalry
regiment, 500 sabres ; the 27th Division covering
Jerusalem and extending to the Junction Station-
Jerusalem railway at Bitter Station, 1200 rifles ;
thence to the Latron-Jerusalem road with strong
points at Ain Karim and Deir Yesin, the 53rd Turkish

170 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Division, 2000 rifles ; from the road to Nebi Samwil
(Beit Iksa being very strongly held) the 26th Turkish
Division, 1800 rifles ; Nebi Samwil to Beit ur el Foka,
19th Turkish Division with the 2/61st regiment and
the 158th regiment attached, 4000 rifles ; Beit ur el
Foka to about Suffa, the 24th Division, 1600 rifles;
thence to the extreme left of the XXth Corps the
3rd Cavaky Division, 1500 sabres. The 54th Turkish
Division was in reserve at Bireh with 2700 rifles.
The enemy held a hne covering Bethlehem across
the Hebron road to Balua, then to the hill Kibryan
south-west of Beit Jala, whence the hne proceeded
due north to Ain Karim and Deir Yesin, both of
which were strongly entrenched, on to the hill over-
looking the Jerusalem road above Lifta. From this
point the Hne crossed the road to the high ground
west of Beit Iksa — entrenchments were cut deep into
the face of this hill to cover the road from Kulonieh —
thence northward agaui to the east of Nebi Samwil,
west of El Jib, Dreihemeh (one mile north-east of
Beit Dukku) to Foka, Kh. Aberjan, and beyond
Sufla.

During the attack the Australian Mounted Division
was to protect the left flank of the 10th Division,
which with one brigade of the 74th Division was to
hold the whole of the line in the hills from Tahta
through Foka, Dukku, Beit Izza to Nebi Samwil,
leaving the attack to be conducted by two brigade
groups of the 74th Division, the whole of the 60th
Division, and two brigade groups of the 53rd Division,
with the 10th regiment of Australian Light Horse
watching the right flank of the 60th Division until
the left of thv^ 53rd could join up with it. One brigade
of the 53rd Division was to advance from the Beth-
lehem-Beit Jala area with its left on the line drawn
from Sherafat through Malhah to protect the 60th

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 171

Division's flank, the other brigade marching direct
on Jerusalem, and to move by roads south of the
town to a position covering Jerusalem from the east
and north-east, but — and these were instructions
specially impressed on this brigade — 'the City of
Jerusalem will not be entered, and all movements
by troops and vehicles will be restricted to roads
passing outside the City.' The objective of the
60th and 74th Divisions was a general line from
Ras et Tawil, a hill east of the Nablus road about
four miles north of Jerusalem, to Nebi Samwil, one
brigade of the 74th Division holding Nebi Samwil
and Beit Izza defences and to form the pivot of the
attack. The dividing line between the 60th and 74th
Divisions was the Enab- Jerusalem road as far as
Lifta and from that place to the wadi Beit Hannina.
The form of the attack was uncertain until it was
known how the enemy would meet the advance of
the 53rd Division, which, on the 3rd December,
was in a position north of Hebron within two ten-
mile marches of the point at which it would co-operate
on the right of the 60th. If the enemy increased
his strength south of Jerusalem to oppose the advance
of the 53rd Division, General Chetwode proposed
that the 60th and 74th Divisions should force straight
through to the Jerusalem-Nablus road, the 60th
throwing out a flank to the south-east, so as to cut
off the Turks opposing the 53rd from either the Nablus
or the Jericho road. It was not considered probable
that the enemy would risk the capture of a large
body of troops south of Jerusalem. On the other
hand, should the Turks withdraw from in front of the
Welsh Division, the alternative plan provided that
the latter attack should take the form of making a
direct advance on Jerusalem and a wheel by the
60th and 74th Divisions, pivoting on the Beit Izza

172 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

and Ncbi Samwil defences, so as to drive the enemy
northwards. The operations were to be divided into
four phases. The first phase fell to the 60th and 74th
Divisions, and consisted in the capture of the wliole
of the south-western and western defences of Jeru-
salem.

These ran from a point near the railway south-west
of Malhah round to the west of Ain Karim, then on to
the hill of Khurbet Subr, down a cleft in the hills and
up on to the high Deir Yesm ridge, thence round the
top of two other hills dominating the old and new
roads to Jerusalem from Jaffa as they pass by the
village of Kulonieh. North of the new road the
enemy's line ran round the southern face of a bold
hill overlooking the village of Beit Iksa and along the
tortuous course of the wadi El Abbeideh. In the
second phase the 60th Division was to move over
the Jaffa-Jerusalem road with its right almost up
to the scattered houses on the north-western fringe of
Jerusalem's suburbs, and its left was to pass the
village of Lifta on the slope of the hill rising from the
wadi Beit Hannina. The objective of the 60th
Division in the third phase was the capture of a line
of a track leaving the Jerusalem -Nablus road well
forward of the northern suburb and running down
to the wadi Hannina, the 74th Division advancing
down the spur running south-east from Nebi Samwil
to a point about 1000 yards south-west of Beit Han-
nina, the latter a prominent height with a slope
amply clothed with olive trees. The fourth phase
was an advance astride the road to Ras et Tawil.
As will be seen hereafter all these objectives 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 the defences they had to capture

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 173

before the Turks could be forced out of Jerusalem.
We wiU first look at it from Enab, the ancient Kir-
jath-jearim, which the Somersets, Wilts, and Gurkhas
had taken at the point of the bayonet. From the top
of Enab the Jaffa- Jerusalem road winds down a deep
valley, plentifully planted with olive and fig trees
and watered by the wadi Ikbala. A splendid supply
of water had been developed by Royal Engineers
near the ruins of a Crusader fortress which, if native
tradition may be rehed on, housed Richard of the
Lion Heart. From the wadi rises a hiU 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 boldest feature to Nebi
Samwil, and from it, when the atmosphere is clear,
the red-tiled roofs of houses in the suburbs of Jeru-
salem are plainly visible. A dozen villages clinging
like hmpets to steep hillsides are before you, and
away on your right front the tall spires of Christian
churches at Ain Karim tell you you are approaching
the Holy Sites. Looking east the road falls, with
many short zigzags in its length, to Kulonieh, crosses
the wadi Surar by a substantial bridge (which the
Turks blew up), and then creeps up the hills in heavy
gradients tiU it is lost to view about Lifta. The wadi
Surar winds round the foot of the hiU which Kustul
crowns, and on the other side of the watercourse
there rises the series of hiUs on which the Turks in-
tended to hold our hands ofi Jerusalem. The descent
from Kustul is very rapid and the rise on the other
side is almost as precipitous. On both sides of the
wadi olive trees are thickly planted, and on the ter-
raced slopes vines yield a plentiful harvest. Big
spurs run down to the wadi, the sides are rough even
in dry weather, but when the winter rains are fall-
ing it is difficult to keep a foothold. South-west of

174 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Kustul is Soba, a village on another high hill, and
below it and west of Ain Karim, on lower ground, is
Setaf, both having orchards and vineyards in which
the inhabitants practise the arts of husbandry by
the same methods as their remote forefathers. An
aerial reconnaissance nearly a year before we took
Jerusalem showed the Turks busily making trenches
on the hills east of the wadi Surar. An inspection
of the defences proved the work to have been long
and arduous, though hke many things the Turk began
he did not finish them. What he did do was done
elaborately. He employed masons to chisel the
stone used for revetting, and in places the stones fit
well and truly one upon the other, while an enormous
amount of rock must have been blasted to excavate
the trenches. The system adopted was to have
three fire trenches near the top of the hills, one above
the other, so that were the first two lines taken the
third would still offer a difficult obstacle, and, if the
defenders were armed with bombs, it would be hard
for attackers to retain the trenches in front of them.
There was much dead ground below the entrench-
ments, but the defences were so arranged that cross
fire from one system swept the dead ground on the
next spur, and, if the hills were properly held, an ad-
vance up them would have been a stupendous task.
The Turk had put all his eggs into one basket. Per-
haps he considered his positions impregnable — they
would have been practically impregnable in British
hands — and he made no attempt to cut support
trenches behind the crest. There was one system
only, and his failure to provide defences in depth
cost him dear.

Looking eastwards from Kustul, the Turkish
positions south of the Jaffa-Jerusalem road, each of
them on a hill, were called by us the ' Liver Redoubt '

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 175

(near Lifta), the ' Heart Redoubt,' ' Deir Yesin,'
and ' Khurbet Subr,' with the village of Ain Karim
in a fold of the hills and a line of trenches south-west
of it running down to the railway. Against the
74th Division's front the nature of the country was
equally difficult. From Beit Surik down to the Kulo-
nieh road the hills fell sharply with the ground strewn
with boulders. Our men had to advance across
ravines and beds of watercourses covered with large
stones, and up the wooded slopes of hills where stone
walls constituted ready-made sangars easily capable
of defence. The hardest position they had to tackle
was the hill covering Beit Iksa, due north of the road
as it issued from Kulonieh, where long semicircular
trenches had been cut to command at least half a
mile of the main road. In front of the 53rd Division
was an ideal rearguard country where enterprising
cavalry could have delaj^ed an advance by infantry
for a lengthened period. To the south of Bethlehem,
around Beit Jala and near Urtas, covering the Pools
of Solomon, an invaluable water supply, there were
prepared defences, but though the Division was much
delayed by heavy rain and dense mist, the fog was
used to their advantage, for the whole of the Division's
horses were watered at Solomon's Pools one after-
noon without opposition from the Urtas garrison.

December 8 was the date fixed for the attack.
On December 7 rain fell unceasingly. The roads,
which had been drying, became a mass of sHppery
mud to the west of Jerusalem, and on the Hebron
side the Welsh troops had to trudge ankle deep
through a soft limy surface. It was soon a most
difficult task to move transport on the roads. Lorries
skidded, and double teams of horses could only make
slow progress with Umbers. Off the road it became
almost impossible to move. The ground was a quag-

176 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

mire. On the sodden hills the troops bivouacked
without a stick to shelter them. The wind was
strong and drove walls of water before it, and there
was not a man in the attacking force with a dry skin.
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 prepare them for the morrow's
fatigue the whole Army was shivering and awake.
So bad were the conditions that the question was con-
sidered as to whether it would not be advisable to
postpone the attack, but General Chetwode, than
whom no general had a greater sympathy for his men,
decided that as the 53rd Division were within striking
distance by the enemy the attack must go forward
on the date fixed. That night was calculated to
make the stoutest hearts faint. Men whose blood
had been thinned by summer heat in the desert
were now called upon to endure long hours of piercing
cold, with their clothes wet through and water oozing
out of their boots as they stood, with equipment
made doubly heavy by rain, caked with mud from
steel helmet to heel, and the toughened skin of old
campaigners rendered sore by rain driven against it
with the force of a gale. Groups of men huddled
together in the effort to keep warm : a vain hope.
And all welcomed the order to fall in preparatory to
moving off in the darkness and mist to a battle which,
perhaps more than any other in this war, stirred the
emotions of countless millions in the Old and New
Worlds. Yet their spirits remained the same.
Nearly frozen, very tired, ' fed up ' with the weather,
as all of them were, they were alwa3^s cheerful, and
the man who missed his footing and floundered in
the mud regarded the incident as light-heartedly as
his fellows. An Army which could face the trials of
such a night with cheerfulness was unbeatable. On©

o <

t D

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 177

section of the force did regard the prospects with
rueful countenances. This was the Divisional artillery.
Tractors, those wonderfully ugly but efficient engines
which triumphed over most obstacles, had got the
heavies into position. The 96th Heavy Group, con-
sisting of three 6-inch howitzer batteries, one com-
plete 60-pounder battery, and a section of another
60-pounder battery, and the Hong Kong and Singa-
pore Mountain Battery, were attached to and up
with the 74th Division. The 10 and B 9 Mountain
Batteries were with the 60th Division waiting to try
their luck down the hills, and the 91st Heavy Battery
{60-pounders) was being hauled forward with the
53rd. The heavies could get in long-range fire from
Kustul, but what thought the 18-pounder batteries ?
With the country in such a deplorable state it looked
hopeless for them to expect to be in the show, and
the prospect of remaining out of the big thing had
more effect upon the gunners than the weather. As
a matter of fact but few field batteries managed to
get into action. Those which succeeded in opening
fire during the afternoon of December 8 did most
gallant work for hours, with enemy riflemen shooting
at them from close range, and their work formed a
worthy part in the victory. The other field gunners
could console themselves with the fact that the
difficulties which were too great for them — and really
field-gun fire on the steep slopes could not be very
effective — prevented even the mountain batteries,
which can go almost anywhere, from fully co-operat-
ing with the infantry.

The preliminary moves for the attack were made
during the night. The 179th Infantry Brigade group
consisting of 2/13th London, 2/14th London, 2/15th
London, and 2/1 6th London with the 2/23rd London
attached, the 10th Mountain Battery and B 9 Moun-

M

178 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

tain Battery, a section of the 521st Field Coy. R.E.,
C company of Loyal North Lancashire Pioneers, and
the 2/4th Field Ambulance specially equipped on
an all-mule scale, moved to the wadi Surar in two
columns. The right column was preceded by an ad-
vance guard of the Kensington battalion, the Loyal
North Lancashire Pioneers, and the section of R.E.,
which left the brigade bivouacs behind Soba at five
o'clock on the afternoon of the 7th to enable the
pioneers and engineers to improve a track marked
on the map. For the greater part of the way the track
had evidently been unused for many years, and all
traces of it had disappeared, but in three hours' time
a way had been made down the hill to the wadi,
and the brigade got over the watercourse just north
of Setaf a little after midnight. As a preliminary
to the attack on the first objective it was necessary
to secure the high groimd south of Ain Karim and
the trenches covering that bright and picturesque
little towTi. At two o'clock, when rain and mist
made it so dark it was not possible to see a wall a
couple of yards ahead, the Kensingtons advanced
to gain the heights south of Ain Karim in order to
enable the 179th Brigade to be deployed. A scramb-
ling climb brought the Kensingtons to the top of
the hill, and, after a weird fight of an hour and a half
in such blackness of night that it was hard to distin-
guish between friend and foe, they captured it and
beat off several persistent coimter-attacks. The
179th Brigade thus had the ground secured for pre-
paring to attack their section of the main defences.
The 180th Infantry Brigade, whose brigadier, Brig.-
General Watson, had the honour of being the first
general in Jerusalem, the first across the Jordan,
and the first to get through the Turkish fine in Sep-
tember 1918 when General Allenby sprang forward

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 179

through the Turks and made the mighty march to
Aleppo, was composed of the 2/1 7th London, 2/1 8th
London, 2/19th London, and 2/20th London, 519th
Coy. R.E., two platoons of pioneers, and the
2/5th Field Ambulance. It reached its position of
assembly without serious opposition, though a de-
tachment which went through the village of Kulonieh
met some enemy posts. These, to use the brigadier's
phrase, were ' silently dealt with.'

It was a fine feat to get the two brigades of Lon-
doners into their positions of deployment well up
to time. The infantry had to get from Kustul 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 the other side. Nobody could
see where he was going, but direction was kept
perfectly and silence was well maintained, the
loosened stones falling into mud. The assault was
launched at a quarter-past five, and in ten minutes
under two hours the two brigades (the 181st Brigade
being in reserve just south of Kustul) had penetrated
the whole of the front line of the defences. The
Queen's Westminsters on the left of the Kensingtons
had cleared the Turks out of Ain Karim and then
climbed up a steep spur to attack the formidable
Khurbet Subr defences. They took the garrison
completely by surprise, and those who did not flee
were either killed or taken prisoners. The Queen's
Westminsters were exposed to a heavy flanking fire
at a range of about a thousand yards from a tumulus
south-east of Ain Karim, above the road from the
village to the western suburbs of Jerusalem. Turkish
riflemen were firmly dug in on this spot, and their
two machine guns poured in an annoying fire on the
179th Brigade troops which threatened to hold up
the attack. Indeed preparations were being made

180 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

to send a company to take the tumulus hill in flank,
but two gallant London Scots settled the activity
of the enemy and captured the position by them-
selves. Corporal C. W. Train and Corporal F. S.
Thornhill stalked the garrison. Corporal Train fired
a rifle grenade at one machine gun, which he hit and
put out of action, and then shot the whole of the gun
team. Thornhill was attacking the other gun, and
he, with the assistance of Train, accounted for that
crew as well. The two guns were captured and Tum-
ulus Hill gave no more trouble. Both these Scots
were rewarded, and Train has the unique honour of
wearing the only V.C. awarded during the capture
of Jerusalem.

At about the same time there was another very
gallant piece of work being done by two men of the
Queen's Westminsters above the KJiurbet Subr ridge.
When the battahon got to the first objective an
enemy battery 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 showing an uncomfortable activity. A company
was pushed forward to engage the battery. The
movement was exposed to a good deal of sniping
fire, and it was not a simple matter for riflemen to
work ahead on to a knoll on the east of the Subr
position to deal with the guns. To two men may
be given the credit for capturing the battery. Lance-
Corporal W. H. Whines of the Westminsters got
along quickly and brought his Lewis gun to bear
on the battery and, with an admirably directed fire,
caused many casualties. Two gun teams were wiped
out, either killed or wounded, by the corporal. At
the same time Rifieman C. D. Smith, who had followed
his comrade, rushed in on another team and bombed

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 181

it. Smith's rifle had been smashed and was useless,
but with his bombs he laid low all except one man.
His supply was then exhausted, but before the Turk
could use his weapons Smith got to grips and a rare
¥a*estling bout followed. The Turk would not sur-
render, and Smith gave him a stranglehold and broke
his neck. The enemy managed to get one of the
four guns away. The battery horses were near at
hand, but while this one gun was escaping at the
gallop the Westminsters' fire brought down one horse
and two drivers, and I saw their bodies on the road
as evidence of how the Westminsters had developed
the art of shooting at a rapidly moving target. The
two incidents I have described in detail merely as
examples of the fighting prowess, not only of one
but of all three divisions alike in the capture of Jeru-
salem. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that they
were examples of the spirit of General AUenby's
whole force, for English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh,
Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, cavalry, in-
fantry, and artillery, had all, during the six weeks
of the campaign, shown the same high qualities in
irresistible attack and stubborn defence.

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

Now as to the advance of the 180th Infantry
Brigade. Their principal objective was the Deir
Yesin position, the hill next on the northern side

182 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of Subr, from which it was separated by a deep
though narrow valley. The trenches cut on both
sides of this gorge supported Subr as well as Deir
Yesin, and the Subr defences were also arranged
to be helpful to the Deir Yesin garrison by
taking attackers in flank. The 180th Brigade's
advance was a direct frontal attack on the hill,
the jumping-oft' place being a narrow width of
flat ground thickly planted with olive trees on
the banks of the wadi Surar. The 2/1 9th Lon-
dons, the right battahon of the 180th Brigade, had
not got far when it became the target of concen-
trated machine-gun fire and was unable to move,
with the result that a considerable gap existed
between it and the 179th Brigade. The stoppage
was only temporary, for, with the advance of the
centre and right, the 19th battahon pushed forward
in series of rushes and, with the other battalions,
carried the crest of Deir Yesin at the point of the
bayonet, so that the whole system of entrenchments
was in their hands by seven o'clock. The brigade
at once set about reorganising for the attack on the
second objective, which, as will be remembered,
was a wheel to the left and, passing well on the
outside of the western suburbs of Jerusalem, an
advance to the rocky ground to the north-west of
the city down to the wadi Beit Hannina. The
commander of the 2/1 8th Londons in his prepara-
tions had pushed out a platoon in advance of his
left, and these men at half-past nine saw 200 of the
enemy with pack mules retiring down a wadi north-
east of Kulonieh. The platoon held its fire imtil
the Turks were within close range, and then engaged
them with rifles and machine guns, completely sur-
prising them and taking prisoners the whole of the
survivors, 5 officers and 50 men. The Turks now

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 183

began to develop a serious opposition to the 180th
Brigade from a quarry behind Deir Yesin and from
a group of houses forming part of what is known as
the Syrian colony, nearly a mile from the Deir Yesin
system. There were some Germans and a number
of machine guns in these houses, and by noon they
held up the advance.

The brigade was seriously handicapped by the
difficulty in moving guns. The road during the
morning had got into a desperate state. It was
next to impossible to haul field guns anywhere off
the road, and as the Turks had paid no attention to
the highway for some time — or where they had done
something it was merely to dump down large stones
to fill a particularly bad hole — it had become deeply
rutted and covered with a mass of adhesive mud.
The guns had to pass down from Kustul by a series
of zigzags with hairpin bends in full view of enemy
observers, and it was only by the greatest exertion
and devotion to duty that the gunners got their teams
into the neighbourhood of the wadi. The bridge
over the Surar at Kulonieh having been wholly
destroyed, they had to negotiate the wadi, which
was now in torrent and carrying away the waters
which had washed the face of the hills over a wide
area. The artillery made a track through a garden
on the right of the village just before the road reached
the broken bridge, and two batteries, the 301st and
302nd, got their guns and Hmbers across. They
went up the old track leading from Kulonieh to Jeru-
salem, when first one section and then another came
into action at a spot between Deir Yesin and Heart
Redoubt, where both batteries were subjected to a
close-range rifle fire.

For several hours the artillery fought their guns
with superb courage, and remained in action until

184 HOW JERUSALE]\r WAS WON

the fire from the houses was silenced by a brilliant
infantry attack. At half -past one General Watson
decided he would attack the enemy on a ridge in
front of the houses of the Syrian colony with the
18th and 19th battalions. With them were units of
other battalions of the Brigade. Soon after three
o'clock they advanced under heavy fire from guns,
machine guns, and rifles, and at a quarter to four a
glorious bayonet charge, during which the London
boys went through Germans and Turks in one over-
whelming stride, sealed the fate of the Turk in Jeru-
salem. That bayonet charge was within sight of
the Corps Commander, who was with General Shea
at his look-out on Kustul, and when he saw the
flash of steel driven home with unerring certainty
by his magnificent men, General Chetwode may
well have felt thankful that he had been given such
troops with which to deliver Jerusalem from the
Turks. The 74th Division, having taken the whole
of its first objectives early in the morning and having
throughout the day supported the left of the London
Division, was ready to commence operations against
the second objective. The dismounted yeomanry,
whose condition through the wet and mud was
precisely similar to that of the 60th Division troops,
for they, too, had found the hills barren of shelter
and equally cold, did extremely well in forcing the
enemy from his stronghold on the hill covering
Beit Iksa and the Kulonieh-Jerusalem road, from
which, had he not been ejected, he could have harassed
the Londoners' left. The Beit Iksa defences were
carried by a most determined rush. A gallant
attempt was also made to get the El Burj ridge which
rmis south-east from Nebi Samwil, but owing to strong
enfilade fire from the right they could not get on.
There was no doubt in any minds that Jerusalem

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 185

would be ours, but the difficulties the 53rd Division
were contending with had slowed down their advance.
Thus the right flank of the 60th Division was exposed
and a considerable body of Turks was known to
be south of Jerusalem. Late in the afternoon the
advance was ordered to be stopped, and the positions
gained to be held. With a view to continuing the
advance next day the 181st Brigade (2/21st London,
2/22nd London, 2/23rd London, and 2/24th London)
was ordered to get into a position of readiness to pass
through the 179th Brigade and resume the attack on
the right of the 180th Brigade. On the evening of
December 8 the position of the attacking force
was this. The 53rd Division (I will deal presently
with the advance of this Division) was across the
Bethlehem-Hebron road from El Keiseraniyeh, two
miles south of Bethlehem, to Has el Balua in an
east and west direction, then north-west to the hill
of Haud Kibriyan with its flank thrown south to
cover Kh. el Kuseir. The 10th Australian Light
Horse were at Malhah. The 179th and 180th Bri-
gades of the 60th Division occupied positions ex-
tending from Malhah through a line more than a
mile east of the captured defences west of Jerusalem
to Lifta, with the 181st Brigade in divisional reserve
near Kustul. The 229th and 230th Brigades of the
74th Division held a due north and south line from
the Jaffa-Jerusalem road about midway between
Kulonieh and Lifta through Beit Iksa to Nebi Samwil.
The 53rd Division had not reached their line without
enormous trouble. But for the two days' rain and
fog it is quite possible that the whole of the four
objectives planned by the XXth Corps would have
been gained, and whether any substantial body of
Turks could have left the vicinity of Jerusalem by
either the Nablus or Jericho roads is doubtful. The

186 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

weather proved to be the Turks' ally. The 53rd
Division battled against it. Until fog came down
to prevent reconnaissance in an extremely bad bit
of country they were well up to their march table,
and in the few clear moments of the afternoon of
the 7th, Getieral IMott, from the top of Ras esh Sheri-
feh, a hill 3237 feet high, the most prominent feature
south of Jerusalem, caught a glimpse of Bethlehem
and the Holy City. It was only a temporary break
in the weather, and the fog came down again so
thick that neither the positions of the Bethlehem
defences nor those of Beit Jala could be reconnoitred.
The Division, after withstanding the repeated shocks
of enemy attacks at Khuweilfeh immediately follow-
ing the taking of Beersheba, had had a comparatively
light time watching the Hebron road. They con-
structed a track over the mountains to get the Divi-
sion to Dharahiyeh when it should be ordered to
take part in the attack on the Jerusalem defences,
and while they were waiting at Dilbeih they did
much to improve the main road. The famous zig-
zag on the steep ridge between Dharahiyeh and Dilbeih
was in good condition, and you saw German thorough-
ness in the gradients, in the well-banked bends, and
in the masonry walls which held up the road where
it had been cut in the side of a hill. It was the most
difficult part of the road, and the Grermans had taken
as much care of it as they would of a road in the
Fatherland — because it was the way by which they
hoped to get to the Suez Canal. Other portions of
the road required renewing, and the labour which
the Welshmen devoted to the work helped the feeding
of the Division not only during the march to Jeru-
salem but for several weeks after it had passed through
it to the hiUs on the east and north-east. The rations
and stores for this Division were carried by the main

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 187

railway through Shellal to Karm, were thence trans-
ported by hmber to a point on the Turks' hne to
Beersheba, which had been repaired but was without
engines, were next hauled in trucks by mules on
the railway track, and finally placed in lorries at
Beersheba for carriage up the Hebron road. At this
time the capacity of the Latron- Jerusalem road
was taxed to the utmost, and every bit of the Welsh-
men's spadework was repaid a hundredfold. The
159th Brigade got into Hebron on the night of the
5th of December, but instead of going north of it —
if they had done so an enemy cavalry patrol would
have seen them — they set to work to repair the road
through the old Biblical town, for the enemy had
blown holes in the highway. Next day the infantry
had a ten-miles' march and made the wadi Arab, a
brigade being left in Hebron to watch that area, the
natives of which were reported as not being wholly
favourable to us. There were many rifles in the
place, and a number of unarmed Turks were beheved
to be in the rough country between the town and
the Dead Sea ready to return to take up arms.
Armoured cars also remained in Hebron. The in-
fantry and field artillery occupied the roads during
the day, and the heavy guns came along at night
and joined the infantry as the latter were about to
set off again.

On the night of the 6th the Division got to a strong
line unopposed and saw enemy cavalry on the southern
end of Sherifeh, on which the Turks had constructed
a powerful system of defences, the traverses and
breastworks of which were excellently made. In
front of the hill the road took a bend to the west,
and the whole of the highway from this point was
exposed to the ground in enemy hands south of
Bethlehem, and it was necessary to make good the

188 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

hills to the east before we could control this road.
Next moriimg the 7th Cheshires, supported by the
4th Welsh, deployed and advanced direct on Sherifeh
and gained the summit soon after dawn in time to
see small parties of enemy cavalry moving off ; then
the fog and rain enveloped everything. The 4th
Welsh held the hill during the night in pouring rain
with no rations — pack mules could not get up the
height — and the men having no greatcoats were
perished with the cold. Colonel Pemberton, their
CO., came down to report the men all right, and
asked for no relief till the morning when they could
be brought back to their transport. The General
went beyond Solomon's Pools and was withm rifle
fire from the Turkish trenches in his efforts to re-
connoitre, but it was impossible to see ahead, and
instead of being able to begin his attack in the Beit
Jala-Bethlehem area on the morning of the 8th, that
morning arrived before any reconnaissance could be
made. He decided to attack on the high ground of
Beit Jala (two miles north-west of Bethlehem) from
the south, to send his divisional cavalry, the West-
minster Dragoons, on the infantry's left to threaten
Beit Jala from the west and to refuse Bethlehem.

Before developing this attack it was essential to
drive the enemy off the observation post looking
down upon the main road along which the guns and
troops had to pass. The fog enabled the guns to
pass up the road, although the Turks had seven
mountain guns in the gardens of a big house south of
Bethlehem and had registered the road to a yard.
They also had a heavy gim outside the town. The
weather cleared at intervals about noon, but about
two o'clock a dense fog came down again and once
more the advance was held up. Late in the afternoon
the Welsh Division troops reached the high ground

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 189

west and south-west of Beit Jala, but the defences
of Bethlehem on the south had still to be taken.
Advance guards were sent into Bethlehem and Beit
Jala during the night, and by early morning of the
9th it was foimd that the enemy had left, and the
leading brigade pressed on, reaching Mar Elias, midway
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, by eleven o'clock,
and the southern outskirts of Jerusalem an hour later.
Meanwhile the 60th and 74th Divisions had actively
patrolled their fronts during the night, and the Turks
having tasted the quahty of British bayonets made
no attempt to recover any of the lost positions. We
had outposts well up the road above Lifta, and at
haK-past eight they saw a white flag approaching.
The nearest officer was a commander of the 302nd
Brigade Royal Field Artillery, to whom the Mayor,
the head of the Husseiny family, descendants of the
Prophet and hereditary mayors of Jerusalem, signi-
fied his desire to surrender the City. The Mayor
was accompanied by the Chief of Police and two of
the gendarmerie, and while communications were
passing between General Shea, General Chetwode and
General. Headquarters, General Watson rode as far as
the Jaffa Gate of the Holy City to learn what was
happening in the town. I believe Major Montagu
Cooke, one of the officers of the 302nd Artillery
Brigade, was the first officer actually in the town, and
I understand that whilst he and his orderly were in
the Post Office a substantial body of Turks turned
the corner outside the building and passed down the
Jericho road quite unconscious of the near presence
of a British officer. General Shea was deputed by
the Commander-in-Chief to enter Jerusalem in order
to accept the surrender of the City. It was a simple
little ceremony, lastuig but a minute or two, free
from any display of strength, and a fitting prelude

/

190 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

to Greneral Allenby's official entry. At half-past
twelve General Shea, with his aide-de-camp and a
guard of honour furnished by the 2/1 7th Londons,
met the Mayor, who formally surrendered the City.
To the Chief of Pohce General Shea gave instructions
for the maintenance of order, and guards were placed
over the pubhc buildings. Then the commander
of the 60th Division left to continue the direction
of his troops who were making the Holy City secure
from Turkish attacks. I believe the official report
ran : ' Thus at 12.30 the Holy City was surrendered
for the twenty-third time, and for the first time to
British arms, and on this occasion without bloodshed
among the inhabitants or damage to the buildings
^ the City itself.'

Simple as was the surrender of Jerusalem, there
were scenes in the streets during the short half-hour
of General Shea's visit which reflected the feeling
of half the civilised world on receiving the news.
It was a world event. This deliverance of Jeru-
salem from Turkish misgovernment was bound to
stir the emotions of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem
communities in the two hemispheres. In a war in
which the moral effect of victories was only shghtly
less important than a big strategical triumph, Jeru-
salem was one of the strongest possible positions
for the AUies to win, and it is not making too great
a claim to say that the capture of the Holy City by
British arms gave more satisfaction to countless
miUions of people than did the winning back for France
of any big town on the Western Front. The latter
might be more important from a military standpoint,
but among the people, especially neutrals, it would
be regarded merely as a passing incident in the ebb and
flow of the tide of war. Bagdad had an important
influence on the Eastern mind ; Jerusalem affected

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 191

Christian, Jew, and Moslem alike the world over.
The War Cabinet regarded the taking of Jerusalem
by British Imperial troops in so important a light
that orders were given to hold up correspondents'
messages and any telegrams the military attaches
might write until the annomicement of the victory
had been made to the world by a Minister in the
House of Commons. This instruction was officially
commimicated to me before we took Jerusalem,
and I beheve it was the case that the world received
the first news when the mouthpiece of the Govern-
ment gave it to the chosen representatives of the
British people in the Mother of ParUaments.

The end of Ottoman dominion over the cradle of
Christianity, a place held in reverence by the vast
majority of the peoples of the Old and New World,
made a deep and abiding impression, and as long as
people hold dearly to their faiths, sentiment will make
General Allenby's victory one of the greatest triumphs
of the war. The reUef of the people of Jerusalem,
as well as their confidence that we were there to
stay, manifested itself when General Shea drove into
the City. The news had gone abroad that the
General was to arrive about noon, and all Jerusalem
came into the streets to welcome him. They clapped
their hands and raised shrill cries of dehght 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 and while the guns were still banging outside
the entrances to Jerusalem, stray pieces of bunting
which had done duty on many another day were
hung out to signify the popular pleasure at the end
of an old, hard, extortionate regime and the beginning
of an era of happiness and freedom.

After leaving Jerusalem the enemy took up a

192 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

strong position on the hills north and north-east
of the City from which he had to be driven before
Jerusalem was secure from counter-attack. During
the morning General Chetwode gave orders for a
general advance to the Une laid down in his original
plan of attack, which may be described as the pre-
liminary hne for the defence of Jerusalem. The
180th and 181st Brigades were already on the move,
and some of the 53rd Division had marched by the
main road outside the Holy City's walls to positions
from which they were to attempt to drive the enemy
off the Momit of Ohves. The 180th Brigade, fresh
and strong but stiU wet and muddy, went forward
rapidly over the boulders on the hiUs east of the
wadi Beit Hannina and occupied the rugged height
of Shafat at haK-past one. Shafat is about two
miles north of Jerusalem. In another half-hour
they had driven the Turks from the conical top of
Tel el Ful, that sugar-loaf hill which dominates the
Nablus road, and which before the end of the year
was to be the scene of an epic struggle between Lon-
doner and Turk. The 181st Brigade, on debouching
from the suburbs of Jerusalem north-east of Lifta,
was faced with heavy machine-gun and rifle fire on
the ridge running from the western edge of the Mount
of Ohves across the Nablus road through Kh. es Salah.
On the left the 180th Brigade lent support, and at
four o'clock the 2/21st and 2/24th Londons rushed
the ridge with the bayonet and drove off the Turks,
who left seventy dead behind them. The London
Division that night estabhshed itself on the line from
a point a thousand yards north of Jerusalem and east
of the Nablus road through Ras Meshari to Tel el Ful,
thence w^estwards to the wadi behind the ohve
orchards south of Beit Hannina. The 74th Division
reached its objective without violent opposition, and

OKFICIAL ENTRY INTO THK HOLY CITY. GENERAL ALLENBY
ARRIVLXC; OUTSIDE THE JAFFA GATE

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY 193

its line ran from north of Nebi Samwil to the height
of Beit Hannina and out towards Tel el Ful. The
53rd Division was strongly opposed when it got
round the south-east of Jerusalem on to the Jericho
road in the direction of Aziriyeh (Bethany), and it
was necessary to clear the Turks from the Mount of
OHves. Troops of the Welsh Division moved round
the Holy City and drove the enemy off the Mount,
following them down the eastern spurs, and thus
denied them any direct observation over Jerusalem.
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, 4000 yards south-east of
Jerusalem, the hill 1500 yards south of Aziriyeh,
Aziriyeh itself, to the Mount of Olives, whence our
positions continued to Ras et Tawil, north of Tel el
Ful across the Nablus road to Nebi Samwil. This
was our first line of positions for the defence of Jeru-
salem, and we continued to hold these strong points
for some time. They were gradually extended on
the east and north-east by the Welsh Division in
order to prevent an attack from the direction of
Jericho, where we knew the Turks had received
reinforcements. Indeed, during our attack on the
Jerusalem position the Turks had withdrawn a
portion of their force on the Hedjaz railway. A
regiment had passed through Jericho from the Hedjaz
line at Amman and was marching up the road to
assist in Jerusalem's defence, but was ' Too late.'
The regiment was turned back when we had captured
Jerusalem. Our casualties from November 28 to
December 10 — these figures include the heavy fighting
about Tahta, Foka, and Nebi Samwil prior to the
XXth Corps' attack on the Jerusalem defences —
were : officers, 21 killed, 64 wounded, 3 missing ;
other ranks, 247 killed, 1163 wounded, 169 missing,

N

194 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

a total of 1667. The casualties of the 60th Division
during the attack on and advance north of Jerusalem
on December 8-9 are interesting, because they were
so extremely light considering the strength of the
defences captured and the difficulties of the ground,
namely : 8 officers killed and 24 wounded, 98 other
ranks killed, 420 wounded and 3 missing, a total of
553. The total for the whole of the XXth Corps on
these days was 12 officers killed, 35 wounded, and
137 other ranks killed, 636 wounded and 7 missing
— in all 47 officers and 780 other ranks. The pris-
oners taken from November 28 to December 10 were :
76 officers, 1717 other ranks — total, 1793. On
December 8 and 9, 68 officers and 918 other ranks —
986 in all — were captured. The booty included two
4*2 Krupp howitzers, three 77-mm. field guns and
carriages, nine heavy and three fight machine guns,
137 boxes of small-arms ammunition, and 103,000
loose rounds.

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■■■ Attack on Jerusalem
i>— Advance from Jerusalem

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CHAPTER XV
GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY

Jerusalem became supremely happy.

It had passed through the trials, if not the perils,
of war. It had been the headquarters and base of
a Turkish Army. Great bodies of troops were never
quartered there, but staffs and depots were estab-
lished in the City, and being in complete control, the
military paid little regard to the needs of the popu-
lation. Unfortunately a not inconsiderable section
of Jerusalem's inhabitants is content to live, not by
its own handiwork, but on the gifts of charitable re-
ligious people of all creeds. When war virtually shut
off Jerusalem from the outer world the lot of the poor
became precarious. The food of the country, just
about sufficient for self-support, was to a large extent
commandeered for the troops, and while prices rose
the poor could not buy, and either their appeals did
not reach the benevolent or funds were intercepted.
Deaths from starvation were numbered by the thou-
sand, Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike suffering,
and there were few civilians in the Holy City who
were not hungry for months at a time.

When I reached Jerusalem the people were at the
height of their excitement over the coming of the
British and they put the best face on their condition,
but the freely expressed feeling of relief that the days
of hunger torture were nearly past did not remove
the signs of want and misery, of infinite suffering by

195

196 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

father, mother, and child, brought about by a long
period of starvation. That a people, pale, thin,
bent, whose movements had become hstless under
the lash of hunger, could have been stirred mto
enthusiasm by the appearance of a khaki coat, that
they could throw off the lethargy which comes of
acute want, was only to be accounted for by the
existence of a profound belief that we had been sent
to dehver them. Some hours before the Official
Entry I was walking in David Street when a Jewish
woman, seeing that I was English, stopped me and
said : ' We have prayed for this day. To-day I shall
sing " God Save our Gracious King, Long Live our
Noble King." We have been starving, but what
does that matter ? Now we are liberated and free.'
She clasped her hands across her breasts and ex-
claimed several times, ' Oh how thankful we are.'
An elderly man in a black robe, whose pinched pale
face told of a long period 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 hved in Jerusalem for
upwards of ten years and knew the people well,
assured me there was not one person in the Holy City
who in his heart was not devoutly thankful for our
victory. He told me that on the day we captured Nebi
Samwil three wounded Arab officers were brought
to the hospital. One of them spoke English — it was
astonishing how many people could speak our mother
tongue — and while he was having his wounds dressed
he exclaimed : ' I can shout Hip - hip - hurrah for
England now.' The officer was advised to be careful,
as there were many Turkish wounded in the hospital,
but he replied he did not care, and in unrestrained
joy cried out, ' Hurrah for England.'

The deplorable lot of the people had been made

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 197

harder by profiteering officers. Tliose 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 notes to Germany where, by a financial
arrangement concluded between Constantinople and
Berhn, they were accepted at face value. The
German officer and soldier got richer the more they
forced Turkish paper down. Turkish officers bought
considerable supplies of wheat and flour from mihtary
depots, the cost being debited against their pay
which was paid in paper. They then sold the goods
for gold. That accounted for the high prices of
foodstuffs, the price in gold being taken for the
market valuation.

In the middle of November when there was a pros-
pect of the Turks evacuating Jerusalem, the officers
sold out their stocks of provisions and prices became
less prohibitive, but they rose again quickly when it
was decided to defend the City, and the cost of food
mounted to almost famine prices. The Turks by
selling for gold that which was bought for paper,
rechanging gold for paper at their own prices, made
huge profits and caused a heavy depreciation of the
note at the expense of the population. Grain was
brought from the district east of the Dead Sea, but
none of it found its way to civilian mouths except
through the extortionate channel provided by officers.
Yet when we got into Jerusalem there were people
with small stocks of flour who were willing to make
flat loaves of unleavened bread for sale to our troops.
The soldiers had been living for weeks on hard biscuit
and bully beef, and many were wiUing to pay a shilling
for a small cake of bread. They did not know that
the stock of flour in the town was desperately low
and that by buying this bread they were almost

198 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

taking it out of the mouths of the poor. Some
traders were so keen on getting good money, not
paper, that they tried to do business on this footing,
looking to the British Ai^my to come to the aid of the
people. The Army soon put a stop to this trade
and the troops were prohibited from buying bread
in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As it was, the Quarter-
master-General's branch had to send a large quantity
of foodstuffs into the towns, and this was done at a
time when it was a most anxious task to provision
the troops. Those were very trying days for the
supply and transport departments, and one wonders
whether the civilian population ever reahsed the
extent of the humanitarian efforts of our Army
staff.

During the period when no attempt was made to
alleviate the lot of the people the Turks gave them
a number of lessons in frightfulness. There were
public executions to show the severity of military
law. Gallows were erected outside the Jaffa Gate
and the victims were left hanging for hours as a
warning to the population. I have seen a photo-
graph of six natives who suffered the penalty, with
their executioners standing at the swinging feet of
their victims. Before the first battle of Gaza the
Turks brought the rich Mufti of Gaza and his son
to Jerusalem, and the Mufti was hanged in the pres-
ence of a throng compulsorily assembled to witness
the execution. The son was shot. Their only crime
was that they were beheved to have expressed ap-
proval of Britain's pohcy in dealing with Moslem
races. Thus were the people terrorised. They knew
the Turkish ideas of justice, and dared not talk of
events happening in the town even in the seclusion
of their homes. The evils of war, as war is practised
by the Turk, left a mark on Jerusalem's population

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 199

which will be indelible for this generation, despite
the wondrous change our Army has wrought in the
people.

When General Allenby had broken through the
Gaza hne the Turks in Jerusalem despaired of saving
the City. That all the army papers were brought
from Hebron on November 10, shows that even at
that date von Kress still imagined we would come up
the Hebron road, though he had learnt to his cost that
a mighty column was moving through the coastal
sector and that our cavalry were cutting across the
country to join it. The notorious Enver reached
Jerusalem from the north on November 12 and went
down to Hebron. On his return it was reported
that the Turks would leave Jerusalem, the immediate
sale of officers' stocks of foodstuffs giving colour to
the rumour. Undoubtedly some preparations were
made to evacuate the place, but the temptation to
hold on was too great. One can see the influence of
the German mind in the Turkish councils of war.
At a moment when they were flashing the wireless
news throughout the world that their Caporetto
victory meant the driving of Italy out of the war they
did not want the icy blast of Jerusalem's fall to tell
of disaster to their hopes in the East. Accordingly
on the 16th November a new decision was taken and
Jerusalem was to be defended to the last. German
officers came hurrying south, lorries were rushed down
with stores until there were six hundred German lorry
drivers and mechanics in Jerusalem. Reinforce-
ments arrived and the houses of the German Colony
were turned into nests of machine guns. The pains
the Germans were at to see their plans carried out
were reflected in the fighting when we tried to get
across the Jerusalem-Nablus road and to avoid
fighting in the neighbourhood of the Holy City.

200 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

But all this effort availed them nought. Our dis-
positions compelled the enemy to distribute his
forces, and when the attack was launched the Turk
lacked sufficient men to man his defences adequately.
And German pretensions in the Holy Land, founded
upon years of scheming and the formation of settle-
ments for German colonists approved and supported
by the Kaiser himself, were shattered beyond hope
of recovery, as similar pretensions had been shattered
at Bagdad by General Maude. The Turks had made
their headquarters at the Hospice of Notre Dame in
Jerusalem, and, taking their cue from the Hun,
carried away all the furniture belonging to that
French rehgious institution. They had also deported
some of the heads of religious bodies. Falkenhayn
wished that all Americans should be removed from
Jerusalem, issuing an order to that effect a fortnight
before we entered. Some members of the American
colony had been running the Red Crescent hospital,
and Turkish doctors who appreciated their good work
insisted that the Americans should remain. Their
protest prevailed in most cases, but just as we arrived
several Americans were carried off.

I have asked many men who were engaged in the
fight for Jerusalem what their feelings were on
getting their first glimpse of the central spot of
Christendom. Some people imagine that the hard
brutahties of war erase the softer elements of men's
natures ; that killing and the rough fife of cam-
paigning, where one is familiarised with the tragedies
of life every hour of every day, where ease and
comfort are forgotten things, remove from the
mind those earlier lessons of peace on earth and
goodwill toward men. That is a fallacy. Every
man or officer I spoke to declared that he was
seized with emotion when, looking from the shell-

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 201

torn summit of Nebi Samwil, he saw the spires on
the Mount of Ohves ; or when reconnoitring from
Kustul he got a peep of the red roofs of the newer
houses which surround the old City. Possibly only
a small percentage of the Army believed they were
taking part in a great mission, not a great proportion
would claim to be reaUy devout men, but they all
behaved like Christian gentlemen. One Londoner
told me he had thought the scenes of war had made
him callous and that the ruthless destruction of
those things fashioned by men's hands in prosecuting
the arts of peace had prompted the feeling that
there was httle in civilisation after aU, if civilisation
could result in so bitter a thing as this awful fighting.
Man seemed as barbaric as in the days before the
Saviour came to redeem the world, and whether we
won or lost the war all hopes of a happier state of
things were futile. So this Cockney imagined that
his condition showed no improvement on that of
the savage warrior of two thousand years ago, except
in that civiHsation had developed finer weapons to
kill with and be killed by. The finer instincts had
been blunted by the naked and unashamed horrors
of war. But the lessons taught him before war
scourged the world came back to him on getting
his first view of the Holy City. He felt that sense
of emotion which makes one wish to be alone and
think alone. He was on the ground where Sacred
History was made, perhaps stood on the rock the
Saviour's foot had trod. In the deep stirring of his
emotions the rougher edges of his nature became
rounded by feelings of sympathy and a behef that
good would come out of the evil of this strife. That
view of Jerusalem, and the knowledge of what the
Holy Sites stand for, made him a better man and a
better fighting man, and he had no doubt the first

202 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

distant glimpse of the Holy City had similarly affected
the bulk of the Army. That bad language is used
by almost all troops in the field is notorious, but in
Jerusalem one seldom heard an oath or an indecent
word. When Jerusalem was won and small parties
of our soldiers were allowed to see the Holy City,
their pohteness to the inhabitants, patriarch or priest,
trader or beggar, man or woman, rebuked the thought
that the age of chivalry was past, while the reverent
attitude involuntarily adopted by every man when
seeing the Sacred Places suggested that no Crusader
Army or band of pilgrims ever came to the Holy
Land imder a more pious influence. Many times
have I watched the troops of General Allenby in the
streets of Jerusalem. They bore themselves as
soldiers and gentlemen, and if they had been selected
to go there simply to impress the people they could
not have more worthily upheld the good fame of
their nation. These soldier missionaries of the Em-
pire left behind them a record which will be remem-
bered for generations.

If it had been possible to consult the British people
as to the details to be observed at the ceremony of
the Official Entry into Jerusalem, the vast majority
would surely have approved General AUenby's pro-
gramme. Americans tell us the British as a nation
do not know how to advertise. Our part in the war
generally proves the accuracy of that statement,
but the Official Entry into Jerusalem will stand out
as one great exception. By omitting to make a
great parade of his victory — one may count elaborate
ceremonial as advertisement — General Allenby gave
Britain her best advertisement. The simple, digni-
fied, and, one may also justly say, humble order of
ceremony was the creation of a truly British mind.
To impress the inhabitant of the East things must

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 203

be done on a lavish ostentatious scale, for gold and
glitter and tinsel go a long way to form a native's
estimate of power. But there are times when the
native is shrewd enough to realise that pomp and
circumstance do not always indicate strength, and
that dignity is more powerful than display. Contrast
the German Emperor's visit to Jerusalem with
General AUenby's Official Entry. The Kaiser brought
a retinue clothed in white and red, and blue and gold,
with richly caparisoned horses, and, like a true show-
man, he himself affected some articles of Arab
dress. He rode into the Holy City — where One
before had walked — and a wide breach was even
made in those ancient walls for a German progress.
All this to advertise the might and power of
Germany.

In parenthesis I may state we are going to restore
those walls to the condition they were in before
German hands defiled them. The General who by
capturing Jerusalem helped us so powerfully to bring
Germany to her knees and humble her before the
world, entered on foot by an ancient way, the Jaffa
Gate, called by the native ' Bab-el-Khahl,' or the
Friend. In this hallowed spot there was no great
pageantry of arms, no pomp and panoply, no display
of the mighty strength of a victorious army, no
thunderous salutes to acclaim a world-resounding
victory destined to take its place in the chronicles
of aU time. There was no enemy flag to haul down
and no flags were hoisted. There were no soldier
shouts of triumph over a defeated foe, no bells in
ancient belfrys rang, no Te Deums were sung, and
no preacher mounted the rostrum to eulogise the
victors or to point the moral to the multitude. A
small, almost meagre procession, consisting of the
Commander-in-Chief and his Staff, with a guard of

204 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

honour, less than 150 all told, passed tlirough the
gate unheralded by a single trumpet note ; a purely
military act with a minimum of military display told
the people that the old order had changed, yielding
place to new. The native mind, keen, discerning,
receptive, understood the meaning and depth of
this simplicity, and from the moment of high noon
on December 11, 1917, when General AUenby went
into the Mount Zion quarter of the Holy City, the
British name rested on a foundation as certain and
sure as the rock on which the Holy City stands.
Right down in the hearts of a people who cHng to
Jerusalem with the deepest reverence and piety
there was unfeigned dehght. They reahsed that
four centuries of Ottoman dominion over the Holy
City of Christians and Jews, and ' the sanctuary ' of
Mahomedans, had ended, and that Jerusalem the
Golden, the central Site of Sacred History, was
liberated for all creeds from the blighting influence
of the Turk. And while war had wrought this bene-
ficent change the population saw in this epoch-
marking victory a merciful guiding Hand, for it had
been achieved without so much as a stone of the
City being scratched or a particle of its ancient dust
disturbed. The Sacred Monuments and everything
connected with the Great 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 on the
north and east of the City, where our lines were
nowhere more than 7000 yards off. The guns were
firing, the sounds of bursts of musketry were carried
down on the wind, whilst droning aeroplane engines
in the deep -blue vault overhead told of our flying

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 205

men denying a passage to enemy machines. The
stern voices of war were there in aU their harsh
discordancy, but the people knew they were safe in
the keeping of British soldiers and came out to make
holiday. General Allenby motored into the suburbs
of Jerusalem by the road from Latron which the
pioneers had got into some sort of order. The busi-
ness of war was going on, and the General's car took
its place on the highway on even terms with the lorry,
which at that time when supplying the front was
the most urgent task and had priority on the roads.
The people had put on gala raiment. From the
outer fringe of Jerusalem the Jaffa road was blocked
not merely with the inhabitants of the City but with
people who had followed in the Army's wake from
Bethlehem. It was a picturesque throng. There
were sombre-clad Jews of all nationaUties, Armenians,
Greeks, Russians, and all the peoples who make
Jerusalem the most cosmopoUtan of cities. To the
many styles of European dress the brighter robes
of the East gave vivid colour, and it was obvious
from the remarkably free and spontaneous expression
of joy of these people, who at the end of three years
of war had such strong faith in our fight for freedom,
that they recognised freedom was permanently won
to all races and creeds by the victory at Jerusalem.
The most significant of all the signs was the attitude
of Moslems. The Turks had preached the Holy War,
but they knew the hollowness of the cry, and the
natives, abandoning their natural reserve, joined m
loud expression of welcome. From flat-topped roofs,
balconies, and streets there were cries of ' Bravo ! '
and ' Hurrah ! ' uttered by men and women who
probably never spoke the words before, and quite
close to the Jaffa Gate I saw three old Mahomedans
clap their hands while tears of joy coursed down their

206 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

cheeks. Their hearts were too full to utter a word.
There could be no doubt of the sincerity of this
enthusiasm. The crowd was more demonstrative
than is usual with popular assembhes in the East,
but the note struck was not one of jubilation so much
as of thankfulness at the relief from an insufferable
bondage of bad government. Outside the Jaffa
Gate was an Imperial guard of honour drawn from
men who had fought stoutly for the victory. In the
British Guard of fifty of all ranks were English,
Scottish, Irish, and Welsh troops, steel-helmeted and
carrying the kit they had an hour or two earlier
brought with them from the front line. Opposite
them were fifty dismounted men of the AustraHan
Light Horse and New Zealand Mounted Rifles, the
AustraUans, under the command of Captain Throssel,
V.C., being drawn from the 10th Light Horse regiment,
which had been employed in the capture of Jerusalem
on the right of the London Division. These Colonial
troops had earned their place, for they had done the
work of the vanguard in the Sinai Desert, and their
victories over the Turks on many a hard-won field
in the torrid heat of summer had paved the way for
this greater triumph. A French and an Italian
guard of honour was posted inside the Jaffa Gate.
As I have previously said, the Italians had held a
portion of the line in front of Gaza with a composite
brigade, but the French troops had not yet been in
action in Palestine, though their Navy had assisted
with a battleship in the Gaza bombardment. We
welcomed the participation of the representatives of
our Alhes in the Official Entry, as it showed to those
of their nationaUty in Jerusalem that we were
fighting the battle of freedom for them all. Outside
the Jaffa Gate the Commander-in-Chief was received
by Major-General Borton, who had been appointed

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 207

Military Governor of the City, and a procession
being formed, General Allenby passed between the
iron gates to within the City walls. Preceded by
two aides-de-camp the Commander-in-Chief advanced
with the commander of the French Palestine detach-
ment on his right and the commander of the Italian
Palestine detachment on his left. Four Staff officers
followed. Then came Brigadier- General Clayton,
Pohtical Officer; M. Picot, head of the French
IVIission ; and the French, Italian, and United States
Military Attaches. The Chief of the General Staff
(Major - General Sir L. J. Bols) and the Brigadier -
General General Staff (Brigadier-General G. Dawnay)
marched slightly ahead of Lieutenant- General Sir
Philip W. Chetwode, the XXth Corps Commander,
and Brigadier- General Bartholomew, who was General
Chetwode' 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 to David's Tower.
Here the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff formed
up on the steps with the notables of the City behind
them, to Usten to the reading of the Proclamation in
several languages. That Proclamation, telUng the
people they could pursue their lawful business with-
out interruption and promising that every sacred
building, monument, holy spot, shrine, traditional
site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place
of prayer of whatsoever form of three of the great
religions of mankind would be maintained and pro-
tected according to existing customs and beliefs to
those to whose faiths they are sacred, made a deep
impression on the populace. So you could judge
from the expressions on faces and the frequent
murmurs of approval, and it was interesting to note

208 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

how, when the procession was being re-formed, many
Christians, Jews, and Moslems broke away from the
crowd to run and spread the good news in their
respective quarters. How faithfully and with what
scrupulous care our promises have been kept the
rehgious communities of Jerusalem can tell.

The procession next moved into the old Turkish
barrack square less than a hundred yards away, where
General Allenby received the notables of the City
and the heads of religious communities. The Mayor
of Jerusalem, who unfortunately died of pneumonia
a fortnight later, and the Mufti, who, like the Mayor,
was a member of a Mahomedan family which traces
its descent back through many centuries, were pre-
sented, as were also the sheikhs in charge of the
Mosque of Omar, ' the Tomb of the Rock,' and the
Mosque of El Aksa, and Moslems belonging to the
Khaldieh and Alamieh families. The Patriarchs of
the Latin, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian Churches
and the Coptic bishop had been removed from the
Holy City by the Turks, but their representatives
were introduced to the Commander-in-Chief, and so
too were the heads of Jewish commimities, the Syriac
Church, the Greek Catholic Church, the Abyssinian
bishop, and the representative of the AngUcan Church.
A notable presentation was the Spanish Consul, who
had been in charge of the interests of almost all
countries at war, and whom General Allenby con-
gratulated upon being so busy a man. The presenta-
tions over, the Commander-in-Chief returned to the
Jaffa Gate and left for advanced General Head-
quarters, having been in the Holy City not more than
a quarter of an hour.

For succinctness it would be difficult to improve
upon the Commander-in-Chief's own description of
his Official Entry into Jerusalem. Cabhng to London

GENERAL ALLENBY'S OFFICIAL ENTRY 209

witHin two hours of that event, General Allenby thus
narrated the events of the day :

(1) At noon to-day I officially entered this City with a
few of my Staff, the commanders of the French and Itahan
detachments, the heads of the Picot Mission, and the Mili-
tary Attaches of France, Italy, and the United States of
America.

The procession was all on foot.

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

(2) I was well received by the population.

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

(4) My MiHtary Governor is in touch with the Acting
Gustos of Latins, and the Greek representative has been
detailed to supervise Christian Holy Places.

(5) The Mosque of Omar and the area rotind it has been
placed under Moslem control and a mihtary cordon composed
of Indian Mahomedan officers and soldiers has been estab-
hshed round the Mosque. Orders have been issued that
without permission of the Mihtary Governor and the Moslem
in charge of the Mosque no non-Moslem is to pass this
cordon.

(6) The Proclamation has been posted on the walls, and
from the steps of the Citadel was read in my presence to the
population in Arabic, Hebrew, English, French, Itahan,
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 Holy Sepulchre have been requested to take up their
accustomed duties in remembrance of the magnanimous act
of the Caliph Omar who protected that Church.

As a matter of historical interest I give in the
Appendix the orders issued on the occasion of the

o

210 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Official Entry into Jerusalem, the order of Greneral
Allenby's procession into the Holy City for the read-
ing of the Proclamation, together with the text of
that historic document, and the special orders of the
day issued by the Commander-in-Chief to his troops
after the capture of Jerusalem.^

* See Appendix vii.

CHAPTER XVI

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE

General Allenby within two days of capturing
Jerusalem had secured a line of high ground which
formed an excellent defensive system, but his XXth
Corps Staff was busy with plans to extend the defences
to give the Holy City safety from attack. Nothing
could have had so damaging an influence on our
prestige in the East, which was growing stronger
every day as the direct result of the immense success
of the operations in Palestine, as the recapture of
Jerusalem by the Turks. We thought the wire-
pulling of the German High Command would have
its effect in the war councils of Turkey, and seeing
that the regaining of the prize would have such far-
reaching effect on pubhc opinion no one was surprised
that the Germans prevailed upon their ally to make
the attempt. It was a hopeless failure. The attack
came at a moment when we were ready to launch a
scheme to secure a second and a third hne of defences
for Jerusalem, and gallantly as the Turks fought —
they delivered thirteen powerful attacks against our
line on the morning of December 27 — the venture
had a disastrous ending, and instead of reaching
Jerusalem the enemy had to yield to British arms
seven miles of most valuable country and gave us,
in place of one line, four strong 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

211

212 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

on the Nablus road, General Chetwode started his
operations on the left of his line with the 10th and
74th Divisions, using his plan as it had been prepared
for some days to seize successive hnes of hills, and
compelled the enemy, in order to meet this attack,
to divert the fresh division held in waiting at Bireh
to throw forward into Jerusalem the moment the
storming troops should pierce our hne. With the
precision of clockwork the Irish and dismounted
yeomanry divisions seciu-ed their objectives, and
on the second day of the fighting we regained the
initiative and compelled the Turks to conform to our
dispositions. On the fourth day we were on the
Ramallah-Bireh line and secured for Jerusalem an
impregnable defence. Prisoners told us that they
had been promised, as a reward for their hoped-for
success, a day in Jerusalem to do as they hked. We
can imagine what the situation in the Holy City
would have been had our line been less true. The
Londoners who had won the City saved it. Probably
only a few of the inhabitants had any knowledge
of the danger the City was in on December 27. Their
confidence in the British troops had grown and
could scarcely be stronger, but some of them were
alarmed, and throughout the early morning and day
they knelt on housetops earnestly praying that our
soldiers would have strength to withstand the Turkish
onslaughts. From that day onward the sound of the
guns was less violent, and as our artillery advanced
northwards the people's misgivings vanished and they
reproached themselves for their fears.

It will be remembered how the troops of the XXth
Corps were disposed. The 53rd Division held the
Hne south-east and east of Jerusalem from Bir Asad
through Abu Dis, Bethany, to north of the Mount
of Ohves, whence the 60th Division took it up from

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 213

Meshari, east of Shaiat to Tel el Ful and to Beit
Hannina across the Jerusalem-Nablus road. The
74th Division carried on to Nebi Samwil, Beit Izza
to Beit Dukku, with the 10th Division on their left
through Foka, Tahta to Suffa, the gap between the
XXth Corps to the right of the XXIst Corps being
held by the 3rd Austrahan Light Horse Brigade of
the Austrahan Mounted Division. Against us were
the 27th Turkish Division and the 7th and 27th
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 of the Jerusalem-Nablus
road, one division being in reserve at Bireh, the
latter a new division fresh from the Caucasus. The
6th and 8th Turkish cavalry regiments were facing
our extreme left, the estimated strength of the enemy
in the Une being 14,700 rifles and 2300 sabres. Just
as it was getting dark on December 11 a party of
the enemy attacked the 179th Brigade at Tel el Ful
but were repulsed. There was not much activity
the following day, but the 53rd Division began a
series of minor operations by which they secured
some features of tactical importance. On the 13th
the 181st Brigade made a dashing attack on Ras
el 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 the advance of our front north of
Jerusalem. There had been a few days of fine
weather, and a great deal had been done to improve
the condition of the roads and communications.
An army of Egyptian labourers had set to work on
the Enab-Jerusalem road and from the villages had
come strong reinforcements of natives, women as
well as men (and the women did quite as much work

214 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

as the men), attracted by the unusual wage payable
in cash. In Jerusalem, too, the natives were sent
to labour on the roads and to clean up some of the
filth that the Turks had allowed to accumulate for
years, if not for generations, inside the Holy City.
The Army not merely provided work for idle hands
but enabled starving bodies to be vitaHsed. Food
was brought into Jerusalem, and w^ith the cash wages
old and young labourers could get more than a
sufficiency. The native in the hills proved to be a
good road repairer, and the boys and women showed
an eagerness to earn their daily rates of pay ; the
men generally looked on and gave directions. It
was some time before steam roUers crushed in the
surface, but even rammed-in stones were better than
mud, and the lorry drivers' tasks became lighter.

Greneral Chetwode's plan was to secure a line from
Obeid, 9000 yards east of Bethlehem, the hill of
Zamby covering the Jericho road three miles from
Jerusalem, Anata, Hismeh, Jeba, Burkah, Beitun,
El Balua, Kh. el Burj, Deir Ibzia to Shilta. The
scheme was to strike with the 53rd and 60th Divisions
astride the Jerusalem-Nablus road, and at the same
time to push the 10th Division and a part of the 74th
Division eastwards from the neighbourhood of Tahta
and Foka. The weather again became bad on Decem-
ber 14 and the troops suffered great discomfort from
heavy rains and violent, cold winds, so that only
light operations were undertaken. On the 17th the
West Kent and Sussex battalions of the 160th Brigade
stalked the high ground east of Abu Dis at dawn,
and at the cost of only 26 casualties took the ridge
with 5 officers and 121 other ranks prisoners, and
buried 46 enemy dead. One battalion went up the
hill on one side, while the Sussex crept up the
opposite side, the Turks being caught between two

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 215

fires. The 53rd Division also improved their position
on the 21st December. As one leaves Bethany and
proceeds down the Jericho road one passes along a
steep zigzag with several hairpin bends until one
reaches a guardhouse near a well about a mile east
of Bethany. The road still falls smartly, following
a straighter hne close to a wadi bed, but hills rise
very steeply from the highway, and for its whole
length until it reaches the Jordan valley the road
is always covered by high bare mountains. Soon
after leaving the zigzag there is a series of three hiUs
to the north of the road. It was important to obtain
possession of two of these hills, the first called Zamby
and the second named by the Welsh troops ' White-
hill,' from the bright limestone outcrop at the crest.
The 159th Brigade attacked and gained Zamby and
then turned nearer the Jericho road to capture White-
hill. The Turks resisted very stoutly, and there was
heavy fighting about the trenches just below the top
of the hill. By noon the brigade had driven the
enemy off, but three determined counter-attacks
were dehvered that day and the next and the brigade
lost 180 kiUed and wounded. The Turks suffered
heavily in the counter-attacks and left over 50 dead
behind them ; also a few prisoners. At a later date
there was further strong fighting around this hill, and
at one period it became impossible for either side to
hold it.

By the 21st there was a readjustment of the line
on the assumption that the XXth Corps would
attack the Turks on Christmas Day, the 53rd Division
taking over the line as far north as the wadi Anata, the
60th Division extending its left to include Nebi
Samwil, and the 74th going as far west as Tahta.
As a prehminary to the big movement the 180th
Brigade was directed to move on Kh. Adaseh, a hill

216 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

between Tel el Ful and Tawil, in the early hours of
December 23, and the 181st Brigade was to seize a
height about half a mile north of Beit Hannina.
The latter attack succeeded, but despite the most
gallant and repeated efforts the 180th Brigade was
unable to gain the summit of Adaseh, though they
got weU up the hill. The weather became bad once
more, and meteorological reports indicated no im-
provement in the conditions for at least twenty-four
hours, and as the moving forward of artillery and
supplies was impossible in the rain. General Chetwode
with the concurrence of G.H.Q. decided that the
attack should not be made on Christmas Day. The
60th Division thereupon did not further prosecute
their attack on Adaseh. On the 24th December,
while General Chetwode was conferring with his
divisional commanders, information was brought in
that the Turks were making preparations to re-
capture Jerusalem by an attack on the 60th Division,
and the Corps Commander decided that the moment
the enemy was found to be fully committed to this
attack the 10th Division and one brigade of the
74th Division would fall on the enemy's right and ad-
vance over the Zeitun, Kereina, and Ibzia ridges.
How well this plan worked out was shown before
the beginning of the New Year, by which time we
had secured a great depth of ground at a cost in-
finitely smaller than could have been expected if
the Turks had remained on the defensive, while
the Turkish losses, at a moment when they required
to preserve every fighting man, were much greater
than we could have hoped to inflict if they had not
come into the open. There was never a fear that the
enemy would break through. We had commanding
positions everywhere, and the more one studied our
line on the chain of far-flung hills the more clearly

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MAKING JERUSALE]\I SECURE 217

one realised the prevision and military skill of
General Chetwode and the staff of the XXth Corps
in preparing the plans for its capture before the
advance on Jerusalem was started. The ' fourth
objective ' of December 8-9 well and truly laid the
foundations for Jerusalem's security, and reUeved
the inhabitants from the accumulated burdens of
more than three years of war. We had nibbled at
pieces of ground to flatten out the line here and there,
but in the main the line the Turks assaulted was that
fourth objective. The Turks put all their hopes on
their last card. It was trumped ; and when we had
won the trick there was not a soldier in General
Allenby's Army nor a civilian in the Holy City who
had not a profound beUef in the coming downfall
of the Turkish Empire.

Troops in the hne and in bivouac spent the most
cheerless Christmas Day within their memories.
Not only in the storm- swept hills but on the Plain
the day was bitterly cold, and the gale carried with
it heavy rain clouds which passed over the tops of
mountams and rolled up the valleys in ceaseless
succession, discharging hail and rain in copious
quantities. The wadis became roaring, tearing tor-
rents fed by hundreds of tributaries, and men who
had sought shelter on the lee side of rocks often
found water pouring over them in cascades. The
whole country became a sea of mud, and the trials
of many months of desert sand were grateful and
comforting memories. Transport columns had an
unhappy time ; the Hebron road was showing many
signs of wear, and it was a long journey for lorries
from Beersheba when the retaining walls were giving
way and a foot-deep layer of mud invited a sldd
every yard. The Latron-Jerusalem road was better
going, but the soft metal laid down seemed to melt

218 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

under the unceasing traffic in the wet, and in peace
time this highway would have been voted unfit for
traffic. Tlie worst piece of road, however, was also
the most important. Tlie Nablus road where it
leaves Jerusalem was wanted to supply a vital point
on our front. It could not be used during the day
because it was under observation, and anything
moving along it was liberally dosed with sheUs.
Nor could its deplorable condition be improved by
working parties. The ground was so soft on either
side of it that no gun, ammunition, or supply limber
could leave the track, and whatever was required
for man, or beast, or artillery had to be carried across
the road in the pitch-black hours of night. Supplies
were only got up to the troops after infinite labour,
yet no one went hungry. Boxing Day was brighter,
and there were hopes of a period of better weather.
During the morning there were indications that
an enemy offensive was not far off, and these were
confirmed about noon by information that the front
north of Jerusalem would be attacked in the night.
General Chetwode thereupon ordered General Longley
to start his offensive on the left of the XXth Corps
line at dawn next morning. Shortly before midnight
the Turks began their operations against the line
held by the 60th Division across the Nablus road
precisely where it had been expected. They attacked
in considerable strength at Ras et Tawil and about
the quarries held by our outposts north of that hill,
and the outposts were driven in. About the same
time the 24th Welsh Regiment — dismounted yeo-
manry— made the enemy realise that we were on the
alert, for they assaulted and captured a hill quite close
to Et Tireh, just forestalling an attack by a Turkish
storming battalion, and beat off several determined
counter-attacks, as a result of which the enemy left

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 219

seventy killed with the bayonet and also some
machine guns on the hill slopes.

The night was dark and misty, and by half-past
one the Turks had developed a big attack against
the whole of the 60th Division's front, the strongest
effort being delivered on the line in front of Tel el Ful,
though there was also very violent fighting on the
west of the wadi Ed Dunn, north of Beit Hannina.
The Turks fought with desperate bravery. They
had had no food for two days, and the commander
of one regiment told his men : ' There are no English
in front of you. I have been watching the enemy
lines for a long time ; they are held by Egyptians,
and I tell you there are no English there. You have
only to capture two hills and you can go straight
into Jerusalem and get food. It is our last chance
of gettmg Jerusalem, and if we fail we shall have to
go back.' This officer gave emphatic orders that
British wounded 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 attack being
stronger than the last. Tel el Ful is a conical hill
covered with huge boulders, and on the top is a mass
of rough stones and ruined masonry. The Turks
had registered well and severely shelled our position
before making an assault, and they covered the ad-
vance with machine guns. In one attack made just
after daybreak the enemy succeeded in getting into
a short length of line, but men of the 2/1 5th Londons
promptly organised a counter-attack and, advan-
cing with fine gallantry, though their ranks were
thinned by a tremendous enfilade fire from artillery
and machine guns, they regained the sangars. For
several hours after eight o'clock this portion of the
Une was quieter, but the Turk was reorganising for
a last effort. A very brilliant defence had been

220 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

made during the night of Beit Hannina by the 2/24th
Londons, which battahon was commanded by a
captain, the colonel and the majors being on the sick
list. The two companies in the line were attacked
four times by superior numbers, the last assault
being delivered by more than five hundred men, but
the defenders stood like rocks, and though they had
fifty per cent, of their number killed or wounded,
and the Turks got close to the trenches, the enemy
were crushingly defeated.

The morning lull was welcome. Our troops got
some rest though their vigilance was unrelaxed, and
few imagined that the Turks had yet given up the
attempt to reach Jerusalem. We were ready to
meet a fresh effort, but the strength with which it
was dehvered surprised everybody. The Turk, it
seemed, was prepared to stake everything on his
last throw. He knew quite early on that morning
that his Caucasus Division could not carry out the
role assigned to it. General Chetwode had countered
him by smashing in with his left with a beautiful
weighty stroke precisely at the moment when the
Turk had compromised himself elsewhere, and instead
of being able to put in his reserves to support his
main attack the enemy had to divert them to stave
off an advance which, if unhindered, would threaten
the vital communications of the attackers north of
Jerusalem.

It w^as a remarkable situation, but all the finesse
in the art of war was on one side. Every message
the Turkish Commander received from his right
must have reported progress against him. Each
signal from the Jerusalem front must have been
equally bitter, summing up want of progress and
heavy losses. With us, Time was a secondary factor ;
with the Turk, Time was the whole essence of the

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 221

business, so he pledged his all on one tremendous
final effort. It was almost one o'clock when it
started, and it was made against the whole front of
our XXth Corps. It was certainly made in un-
expected strength and with a courage beyond praise.
The Turk threw himself forward to the assault with
the violence of despair, and his impetuous onrush
enabled him to get into some small elements of our
front line; but counter-attacks immediately organ-
ised drove him out. Over the greater portion of
the front the advance was stopped dead, but in
some places the enemy tried a whirlwind rush and
used bomb against bomb. He had met his match.

The 60th Division which bore the brunt of the on-
slaught, as it was bound to do from its position astride
the main road, was absolutely unbreakable, and at
Tel el Ful there lay a dead Turk for every yard of
its front. The enemy drew off, but to save the rem-
nants of his storming troops kept our positions from
near Ras et Tawil, Tel el Ful to the wadi Beit Hannina
under heavy gunfire for the rest of the day. The
Turk was hopelessly beaten, his defeat irretrievable.
He had delivered thirteen costly attacks, and his
sole gains were the exposed outpost positions at
the Tawil and the quarries. All his reserves had
been vigorously engaged, while at two o'clock m the
afternoon General Chetwode had in reserve nineteen
battahons less one company still unused, and the
care exercised in keeping this large body of troops
fresh for following up the Turkish defeat undoubtedly
contributed to the great success of the advances
on the next three days. Simultaneously with their
attack on the 60th Division positions the Turks put
in a weighty effort to oust the 53rd Division from the
positions they held north and south of the Jericho
road. Whether in their wildest dreams they imagined

222 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

they could enter Jerusalem by this route is doubtful,
but if they had succeeded in driving in our line on
the north they would have put the 53rd Division in
a perilous position on the east with only one avenue
of escape. The Turks concentrated their efforts on
Whitehill and Zamby. A great fight raged round
the former height and we were driven off it, but the
divisional artillery so 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 Royal Welsh Fusiliers recaptured and held it.
The contest for Zamby lasted all day, and for a long
time it was a battle of bombs and machine guns, so
closely together were the fighting men, but the Turks
never got up to our sangars and were finally driven
off with heavy loss, over 100 dead being left on the
hill. The Turkish ambulances were seen hard at
work on the Jericho road throughout the day. There
was a stout defence of a detached post at Ibn Obeid.
A company of the 2/lOth Middlesex Regiment had
been sent on to Obeid, about five miles east of Beth-
lehem, to watch for the enemy moving about the
rough tracks in that bare and broken country which
falls away in jagged hills and sinuous valleys to the
Dead Sea. The little garrison, whose sole shelter
was a ruined monastic building on the hill, were
attacked at dawn by 700 Turkish cavalry supported
by mountain guns. The garrison stood fast all day
though practically surrounded, and every attack
was beaten off. The Turks tried again and again
to secure the hill, which commands a track to Beth-
lehem, but, although they fired 400 shells at the
position, they could not enter it, and a battalion
sent up to reheve the Middlesex men next morning
found that the company had driven the enemy off,
its casualties having amounted to only 2 killed and

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 223

17 wounded. Thus did the ' Die Hards ' live up to
the traditions of the regiment.

Having dealt with the failure of the Turkish
attacks against the 60th and 53rd Divisions in front
of Jerusalem, let us change our view point and focus
attention on the left sector of XXth Corps, where
the enemy was feeling the full power of the Corps
at a time when he most wished to avoid it. General
Longley had organised his attacking columns in
three groups. On the right the 229th Brigade of
the 74th Division was set the task of moving from
the wadi Imeish to secure the high ground of Bir esh
Shafa overlooking Beitunia ; the 31st Brigade, start-
ing from near Tahta, attacked north of the wadi Sunt,
to drive the enemy from a hne from Jeriut through
Hafy to the west of the oUve orchards near Ain Arik ;
while the left group, composed of the 29th and 30th
Brigades, aimed at getting Shabuny across the wadi
Sad, and Sheikh Abdallah where they would have
the AustraUan Mounted Division on their left. The
advance started from the left of the Hne. The 29th
Brigade leading, with the 30th Brigade in support,
left their positions of deployment at six o'clock, by
which time the Turk had had more than he had
bargained for north and east of Jerusalem. The
1st Leinsters and 5th Connaught Rangers found the
enemy in a stubborn mood west of Deir Ibzia, but
they broke down the opposition in the proper Irish
style and rapidly reached their objectives. The
centre group started one hour after the left and got
their line without much difficulty. The right group
was hotly opposed. Beginning their advance at
eight o'clock the 229th Brigade had reached the
western edge of the famous Zeitun ridge in an hour,
but from this time onwards they were exposed to
incessant artillery and machine-gun fire, and the

224 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

forward movement became very slow. In five hours
small parties had worked along the ridge for about
half its length, fighting every yard, and it was not
until the approach of dusk that we once more got
control of the whole ridge. It was appropriate that
dismomited yeomen should gain this important
tactical point which several weeks previously had
been won and lost by their comrades of the Yeomaiu-y
Mounted Division. Descendmg from the ridge the
brigade gave the Turk httle chance to stand, and
with a bayonet charge they reached the day's ob-
jective in the dark. At two o'clock, when the Turks'
final effort against Jerusalem had just failed, the
60th and 74th Divisions both sent in the good news
that the Turkish commander was moving his reserve
division from Bireh westwards to meet the attack
from our left. Airmen confirmed this immediately,
and it was now obvious that General Chetwode's
tactics had compelled the enemy to conform to his
movements and that we had regained the initiative.
At about ten o'clock the 24th Ro3^al Welsh Eusihers
of the 231st Brigade captured Kh. ed Dreihemeh on
the old Roman road a mile east of Tireh, and at
eleven o'clock advanced to the assault of hill 2450,
a httle farther eastward. They gained the crest,
but the enemy had a big force in the neighbourhood
and counter-attacked, forcing the Welshmen to with-
draw some distance down the western slope. They
held this ground till 4.30 when our guns heavily
bombarded the summit, mider cover of which fire
the infantry made another attack. This was also
unsuccessful owing to the intense volume of fire from
machine guns. The hill was won, however, next
mornmg.

The night of December 27-28 w^as without incident.
The Turk had staked and lost, and he spent the night

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 225

in making new dispositions to meet what he must
have reahsed was being prepared for him on the
following day.

It is doubtful whether there was a more successful
day for our Army in the Palestine campaign than
December 27. The portion of our line which was
on the defensive had stood an absolutely unmovable
wall, against which the enemy had battered himself
to pieces. Our left, or attacking sector, had gained
all their objectives against strong opposition in a
most difficult country, and had drawn against them
the very troops held in reserve for the main attack
on Jerusalem. The physical powers of some of our
attacking troops were tried highly. One position
captured by the 229th Brigade was a particularly
bad hiU. The slope up which the infantry had to
advance was a series of almost perpendicular terraces,
and the riflemen could only make the ascent by
climbing up each others' backs. When dismounted
yeomen secured another hill some men carrying up
suppUes took two hours to walk from the base of the
hill to the summit. The trials of the infantry were
shared by the artillery. What surprises every one
who has been over the route taken by the 10th and
74th Divisions is that any guns except those with
the mountain batteries were able to get into action.
The road work of engineers and the 5th Royal Irish
Regiment (Pioneers) was magnificent, and they made
a way where none seemed possible ; but though
these roadmakers put their backs into their tasks,
it was only by the untiring energies of the gimners
and drivers that artillery was got up to support the
infantry. The guns were brought into action well
ahead of the roads, and were man-hauled for consider-
able distances. Two howitzers and one field gun
were kept up with the infantry on the first day of

p

226 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

the advance where no horses could get a foothold,
and the manner in which the gunners hauled the
guns through deep ravines and up seemingly unclimb-
able hills constituted a wonderful physical achieve-
ment. The artillery were called upon to continue
their arduous work on the 28th and 29th under con-
ditions of ground which were even more appalling
than those met with on the 27th. The whole country
was devoid of any road better than a goat track, and
the ravines became deeper and the hills more pre-
cipitous. In some places, particularly on the 10th
Division front, the infantry went forward at a
remarkable pace ; but guns moved up with them,
and by keeping down the fire of machine guns dotted
about on every hill, performed services which ei^rned
the riflemen's warm praise. The 9th and 10th
Mountain Batteries were attached to the 10th Divi-
sion, but field and howitzer batteries were also well
up. On the 28th the 53rd Division bit farther into
the enemy's line in order to cover the right of the
60th Division, which was to continue its advance
up the Nablus road towards Bireh. The 158th
Brigade captured Anata, and after fighting all day
the l/7th Royal Welsh Fusihers secured Ras Urkub
es SufEa, a forbidding-looking height towering above
the storm-rent sides of the wadi Ruabeh. The 1/lst
Herefords after dark took Kh. Almit.

In front of the 60th Division the Turks were still
holding some strong positions from which they should
have been able seriously to delay the Londoners'
advance had it not been for the threat to their com-
munications by the pressure by the 10th and 74th
Divisions. The Londoners had previously tested the
strength of Adaseh, and had found it an extremely
troublesome hill. They went for it again — the 179th
Brigade this time — and after a several hours' struggle

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 227

took it at dusk. Meanwhile the 181st Brigade had
taken the lofty villages of Bir Nebala and El Jib, and
after Adaseh became ours the Division went ahead
in the dark and got to the line across the Nablus road
from Er Ram to Rafat, capturing some prisoners.
The 74th Division also made splendid progress. In
the early hours the Division, with the 24th Royal
Welsh Fusiliers and the 24th Welsh Regiment at-
tached, secured Juf eir and resumed their main advance
in the afternoon, the 230th and 231st Brigades co-
operating with the 229th Brigade which was under
the orders of the 10th Division. Before dark they
had advanced their line from the left of the 60th
Division in Rafat past the east of Beitunia to the hill
east of Abu el Ainein, and this strong line of hills
once secured, everybody was satisfied that the Turks'
possession of Ramallah and Bireh was only a question
of hours. Part of this line had been won by the
10th Division, which began its advance before noon
in the same battle formation as on the 27th. Soon
after the three groups started the heavy artillery
put down a fierce fire on the final objectives, and
before three o'clock the Turks were seen to be evacu-
ating Kefr Skyan, Ainein, and Rubin. The enemy
put up a stout fight at Beitunia and on a hill several
hundred yards north-west of the village, but the
229th Brigade had good artillery and machine-gun
assistance, and got both places before four o'clock,
capturing seventy prisoners, including the commander
of the garrison, and a number of machine guns. The
left group was hotly opposed from a hill a mile west
of Rubin and from a high position south-west of
Ainein. The nature of the ground was entirely
favourable to defence and for a time the Turk took
full advantage of it, but our artillery soon made him
lose his stomach for fighting, and doubtless the sound

228 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of many shell -bursts beyond Ramallah made him
think that his rock sangars and the deep ravines in
front of him were not protection against a foe who
fought Nature with as much determination as he
fought the Turkish soldier. Six-inch howitzers of
the 378th Siege Battery had been brought up to
Foka in the early hours, and all the afternoon and
evening they were plastering the road from Ramallah
along which the enemy were retreating. The left
group defied the nests of machine guns hidden among
the rocks and broke down the defence. The centre
group had been delayed by the opposition encoun-
tered by the left, but they took Skyan at six o'clock
and all of the objectives for one day were in our
hands by the early evening. An advance along the
whole front was ordered to begin at six o'clock on
December 29. On his right flank the enemy was
willing to concede ground, and the 159th Brigade
occupied Hismeh, Jeba, and the ridges to the north-
west to protect the flank of the 60th Division. The
53rd Division buried 271 enemy dead on their front
as the result of three days' fighting. The 181st
Brigade made a rapid advance up the Nablus road
until they were close to Bireh and Tahunah, a high
rocky hiU just to the north-west of the village. The
Turks had many machine guns and a strong force
of riflemen in these places, and it was impossible
for infantry to advance against them over exposed
ground without artillery support. The 303rd Field
Artillery Brigade was supporting the brigade, and
they were to move up a track from KuUundia while
the foot-sloggers used the high road, but the track
was found impassable for wheels and the guns had
to be brought to the road. The attack was post-
poned till the guns were in position. The gunners
came into action at half-past two, and infantry

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 229

moved to the left to get on to the Ramallah-Bireh
metalled road which runs at right angles to the trmik
road between Nablus and Jerusalem. The 2/22nd
and the 2/23rd Londons, working across the road,
reached the Tahunah ridge, and after a heavy bom-
bardment dashed into the Turkish positions, which
were defended most stubbornly to the end, and thus
won the last remaining hill which commanded our
advance up the Nablus road as far as Bireh. On the
eastern side of the main highway the 180th Brigade
had once more done sterling service. There is a bold
eminence called Shab Saleh, a mile due south of Bireh.
It rises almost sheer from a piece of comparatively
flat ground, and the enemy held it in strength. The
2/1 9th and the 2/20th Londons attacked this feature,
and displaying great gallantry in face of much
machine-gun fire seized it at half-past three. Once
again the gunners supported the infantry admirably.
The 2/1 7th and 2/1 8th Londons pushed past Saleh
in a north-easterly direction and, leaving Bireh on
their left, got into extremely bad country and took
the Turks by surprise on a wooded ridge at Sheikh
Sheiban. The two brigades rested and refreshed
for a couple of hours and then advanced once more,
and by midnight they had routed the Turks out of
another series of hills and were in firm possession
of the line from Beitin, across the Nablus road north
of the Balua Lake, to the ridge of El Burj, having
carried through everything which had been planned
for the Division.

RamaUah had been taken at nine o'clock in the
morning without opposition by the 230th and 229th
Brigades, and at night the 74th Division held a strong
fine north of the picturesque village as far as Et Tireh.
The 10th Division also occupied the Tireh ridge quite
early in the day, and one of their field batteries and

230 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

both mountain batteries got within long range of
the Nablus road, and not only assisted in shelling the
enem}^ in Bireh but harassed with a hot fire any
bodies of men or transport seen retreating northwards.
The Flying Corps, too, caused the Turks many losses
on the road. The airmen bombed the enemy from
a low altitude and also machine-gunned them, and
moreover by their timely information gave great
assistance during the operations. By the 30th
December all organised resistance to our advance
had ceased and the XXth Corps consolidated its
line, the 60th Division going forward slightly to
improve its position and the other divisions re-
arranging their own. The consolidation of the line
was not an easy matter. It had to be very thor-
oughly and rapidly done. The supply difficulty
compelled the holding of the line with as few troops
as possible, and when it had oeen won it was necessary
to put it in a proper order in a minimum of time, and
to bring back a considerable number of the troops
w^ho had been engaged in the fighting to hold the
grand defensive chain which made Jerusalem abso-
lutely safe. The standard gauge railway was still
a long way from Ramleh, and the railway construc-
tion parties had to fight against bad weather and
washouts. The Turkish line from Ramleh to Jeru-
salem was in bad order ; a number of bridges w^ere
down, so that it w^as not likety the railway could
be working for several weeks. Lorries could supply
the troops in the neighbourhood of the Nablus road,
though the highway was getting into bad condition,
bat in the right centre of the line the difficulties of
terrain were appalling. The enemy had had a pain-
ful experience of it and was not likely to wish to
fight in that country again ; consequently it was
decided to hold this part of the line with light forces.

MAKING JERUSALEM SECURE 231

In this description of the operations I have made
little mention of the work of the Australian Mounted
Division which covered the gap between XXth and
XXIst Corps. These Australian horsemen and yeo-
manry guarded an extended front in inaccessible
comitry, and every man in the Division will long
remember the troubles of supply in the hills. They
had some stiff fighting against a wily enemy, and not
for a minute could they relax their vigilance. When,
with the Turks' fatal effort to retake Jerusalem, the
10th Division changed their front and attacked in a
north-easterly direction, the Australian Mounted
Division moved with it, and they found the country
as they progressed become more rugged and bleak
and extremely difficult for mounted troops. The
Division was in the fighting line for the whole month
of December, and when they handed over the new
positions they had reached to the infantry on the
last day of the year, their horses fully needed the
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 the clamour of war has echoed for
the last time about her Holy Shrines and venerable
walls) we may turn back to the coastal sector and see
how the XXIst Corps improved a rather dangerous
situation and laid the foundations for the biggest
break-through of the world struggle. For it was the
preparations in this area which made possible General
Allenby's tremendous gallop through Northern Pales-
tine and Syria, and gave the Allies Haifa, Beyrout,
and TripoU on the seaboard, and Nazareth, Damascus,
and Aleppo in the interior. The foundations were
soundly laid when the XXIst Corps crossed the Auja
before Christmas 1917, and the superstructure of the
victory which put Turkey as well as Bulgaria and
Austria out of the war was built up with many
difficulties from the sure base provided by the XXIst
Corps line. The crossing of the Auja was a great
feat of war, and this is the first time I am able to
mention the names of those to whom the credit of
the operation is due. It was one of the strange
regulations of the Army Council in connection with
the censorship that no names of the commanders of
army corps, divisions, brigades, or battahons should
be mentioned by correspondents. Nor indeed was I
permitted to identify in my despatches any particular
division, yet the divisions concerned — the 52nd, 53rd,
54th, 60th, and so on — had often been mentioned

232

A GREAT FEAT OP WAR 233

in official despatches ; the enemy not only knew
they were in Palestine but were fully aware of their
positions in the line; their commanders and briga-
diers were known by name to the Turks. On the
other hand, in describing a certain battle I was allowed
to speak of divisions of Lowland troops, Welshmen
and Londoners, allusions which would convey (if
there were anything to give away) precisely as much
information to the dull old Turk and his sharper Hun
companion in arms as though the 52nd, 53rd, and
60th Divisions had been explicitly designated. This
practice seemed in effect to be designed more with the
object of keeping our people at home in the dark, of
forbidding them glory in the deeds of their children
and brothers, than of preventing information reach-
ing the enemy. Some gentleman enthroned in the
authority of an official armchair said ' No,' and there
was an end of it. You could not get beyond him.
His decision was final, complete — and silly — and the
correspondent was bound hand and foot by it.
Doubtless he would have Uked one to plead on the
knee for some httle relaxation of his decision. Then
he would have answered ' No ' in a louder tone.
Let me give one example from a number entered in
my notebooks of how officers at home exercised their
authority. In January 1917 the military railway
from the Suez Canal had been constructed across the
Sinai Desert and the first train was run into El Arish,
about ninety miles from the Canal. I was asked by
General Headquarters to send a cablegram to London
announcing the fact that railhead was at El Arish,
the town having been captured a fortnight previously
after a fine night march. That message was never
pubhshed, and I knew it was a waste of time to ask
the reason. I happened to be in London for a few
days in the following August and my duties took me

234 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

to the War Office. A Colonel in the Intelligence
Branch heard I was there and sent for me to tell me
I had sent home information of value to the enemy.
J reminded him there was a G.H.Q. censorship in
Egypt which dealt with my cablegrams, and asked
the nature of the valuable information which should
have been concealed. ' You sent a telegram that
the railway had reached El Arish when the Turks
did not know it was beyond Bir el Abd.' Abd is
fifty miles nearer the Suez Canal than El Arish.
What did this officer care about a request made by
G.H.Q. to transmit information to the British public ?
He knew better than G.H.Q. what the British public
should know, and he was certain the enemy thought
we were hauHng supplies through those fifty miles
of sand to our troops at El Arish, an absolutely phy-
sical impossibility, for there were not enough camels
in the East to do it. But he did not know, and he
should have known, being an InteUigence officer, that
the Turks were so far aware of where our railhead was
that they were frequently bombing it from the air.
I had been in these bombing raids and knew how
accurately the German airmen dropped their eggs,
and had this Intelligence officer taken the trouble
to inquire he would have foimd that between thirty
and forty casualties were infficted by one bomb at
El Arish itself when railhead was being constructed.
This critic imagined that the Turk knew only what the
English papers told him. If the Turks' knowledge
had been confined to what the War Office Intelligence
Branch gave him credit for he would have been in a
parlous state. While this ruling of the authorities
at home prevailed it was impossible for me to give
the names of officers or to mention divisions or units
which were doing exceptionally meritorious work.
Unfortunately the bureaucratic interdict continued

A GREAT FEAT OF WAR 235

till within a few days of the end of the campaign,
when I was told that, 'having frequently referred
to the work of the Australians, which was deserved,'
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 before the War Office would
unbend and realise the value of the best kind of
propaganda. No wonder our American friends con-
sider us the worst national advertisers in the world.

The officer who was mainly responsible for the
success of the Auja crossing was Major-General J.
Hill, D.S.O., A.D.C., commanding the 52nd Division.
His plan was agreed to by General Bulfin, although
the Corps Commander had doubts about the possi-
bihty of its success, and had his own scheme ready
to be put into instant operation if General Hill's
failed. In the state of the weather General Hill's
own brigadiers were not sanguine, and they were the
most loyal and devoted officers a divisional com-
mander ever had. But despite the most unfavourable
conditions, calling for heroic measures on the part
of officers and men alike to gain their objectives
through mud and water and over ground that was
as bad as it could be, the movements of the troops
worked to the clock. One brigade's movements
synchronised with those of another, and the river
was crossed, commanding positions were seized, and
bridges were built with an astoundingly small loss
to ourselves. The Lowland Scots worked as if at
sport, and they could not have worked longer or
stronger if the whole honour of Scotland had depended
upon their efforts. At a later date, when digging
at Arsuf, these Scots came across some marble
columns which had graced a hall when ApoUonia
was in its heyday. The glory of ApoUonia has long
vanished, but if in that age of warriors there had

236 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

been a belief that those marble columns would some
day be raised as monuments to commemorate a great
operation of war the ancients would have had a
special veneration for them. Three of the columns
marked the spots where the Scots spanned the river,
and it is a pity they cannot tell the full story to suc-
ceeding generations.

The river Auja is a perennial stream emptying
itself into the blue Mediterranean w^aters four miles
north of Jaffa. Its average width is forty yards and
its depth ten feet, with a current running at aDout
three miles an hour. Till we crossed it the river
was the boundary between the British and Turkish
armies in this sector, and all the advantage of ob-
servation was on the northern bank. From it the
town of Jaffa and its port were in danger, and the
main road between Jaffa and Ramleh was observed
and under fire. The village of Sheikh Muannis,
about two miles inland, stood on a high mound com-
manding the ground south of the river, and from
Hadrah you could keep the river in sight in its whole
winding course to the sea. All this high ground
concealed an entrenched enemy ; on the southern
side of the river the Turks were on Bald Hill, and
held a Une of trenches covering the Jewish colony
of Mulebbis and Fejja. A bridge and a mill dam
having been destroyed during winter the only means
of crossing w as by a ford three feet deep at the mouth,
an uncertain passage because the sand bar over which
one could walk shifted after heavy rain when the
stream was swollen with flood water. Reconnais-
sances at the river mouth were carried out with
great daring. As I said, all the southern approaches
to the river were commanded by the Turks on the
northern bank, who were always alert, and the move-
ment of one man in the Auja valley was generally

A GREAT FEAT OF WAR 237

the signal for artillery activity. So often did the
Turkish gunners salute the appearance of a single
British soldier that the Scots talked of the enemy
' sniping ' with guns. To reconnoitre the enemy's
positions by dayhght was hazardous work, and the
Scots had to obtain their first-hand knowledge of the
river and the approaches to it in the dark hours.

An officers' patrol swam the river one night, saw
what the enemy was doing, and returned unobserved.
A few nights afterwards two officers swam out to
sea across the river mouth and crept up the right
bank of the stream within the enemy's lines to as-
certain the locality of the ford and its exact width
and depth. They also learnt that there were no
obstacles placed across the ford, which was three
feet deep in normal times and five feet under water
after rains. It was obvious that bridges would be
required, and it was decided to force the passage of
the river in the dark hours by putting covering troops
across to the northern bank, and by capturing the
enemy's positions to form a bridgehead while pontoon
bridges were being constructed for the use of guns
and the remainder of the Division.

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

The XXIst Corps' plan was as follows : At dawn
on December 21 a heavy bombardment was to open
on all the enemy's trenches covering the crossings,
the fire of heavy guns to be concentrated on enemy
batteries and strong positions in the rear, while ships
of the Royal Navy bombarded two strong artillery
positions at Tel el Rekket and El Jelil, near the coast.

238 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

When darkness fell covering troops were to be ferried
across the river, and then light bridges would be
constructed for the passage of larger units charged
with the task of getting the Turks out of their line
from Hadrah, through El Mukras to Tel el Rekket.
After these positions had been gained the engineers
were to build pontoon bridges to carry the remainder
of the Division and guns on the night of the 22nd-
23rd December, in time to advance at daylight on the
23rd to secure a defensive line from Tel el Mukhmar
through Sheikh el Ballatar to Jelil. On the right
of the 52nd Division the 54th Division was to attack
Bald Hill on the night of 21st-22nd December, and
on the folio wmg morning assault the trench system
covering Mulebbis and Fejja ; then later in the day
to advance to Rantieh, while the 75th Division
farther east was to attack Bireh and Beida. TTiis
plan was given to divisional commanders at a con-
ference in Jaffa on December 12. Two days later
General Hill submitted another scheme which pro-
vided for a surprise attack by night with no naval
or land artillery bombardment, such a demonstration
being hkely to attract attention. General Hill sub-
mitted his proposals in detail. General Bulfin gave
the plan most careful consideration, but decided
that to base so important an operation on the success
of a surprise attack was too hazardous, and he
adhered to his scheme of a deliberate operation to
be carried through systematically. He, however,
gave General Hill permission to carry out his surprise
attack on the night of December 20, but insisted
that the bombardment should begin according to
programme at daylight on the 21st unless the surprise
scheme was successful.

A brigade of the 54th Division and the 1st Aus-
tralian Light Horse Brigade relieved the Scots in

A GREAT FEAT OF WAR 239

the trenches for three nights before the attempt.
Every man in the Lowland Division entered upon
the work of preparation with whole-hearted en-
thusiasm. There was much to be done and materials
were none too plentiful. Pontoons were wired for
and reached Jaffa on the 16th. There was Uttle
wood available, and some old houses in Jaffa were
pulled down to supply the Army's needs. The
material was collected in the orange groves around
the German colony at Sarona, a northern suburb
of Jaffa, and every man who could use a tool was
set to work to build a framework of rectangular
boats to a standard design, and on this framework
of wood tarpaulins and canvas were stretched. These
boats were Hght in structure, and were so designed
that working parties would be capable of transferring
them from their place of manufacture to the river
bank. Each boat was to carry twenty men fully
armed and equipped over the river. They became
so heavy with rain that they in fact only carried
sixteen men. The boat builders worked where
enemy airmen could not see them, and when the
craft were completed the troops were practised at
night in embarking and ferrying across a waterway
— for this purpose the craft were put on a big pond —
and in cutting a path through thick cactus hedges
in the dark. During these preparations the artillery
was also active. They took their guns u.p to forward
positions during the night, and before the date of
the attack there was a bombardment group of eight
6-inch howitzers and a counter battery group of ten
60-pounders and one 6-inch Mark vn. gun in con-
cealed positions, and the artillery dumps had been
filled with 400 rounds for each heavy gun and 700
rounds for each field piece. The weather on the
18th, 19th, and 20th December was most unfavour-

240 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

able. Rain was continuous and the valley of the Auja
became a morass. Tlie luck of the weather was
almost always against General Allenby's Army, and
the troops had become accustomed to fighting the
elements as well as the Turks, but here was a situa-
tion where rain might have made all the difference
between success and failure. General Bulfin saw
Greneral Hill and his brigadiers on the afternoon of
the 20th. The brigadiers were depressed owing to
the floods and the state of the ground, because it
was then clear that causeways would have to be
made through the mud to the river banks. General
Hill remained enthusiastic and hopeful and, the
Corps Commander supporting him, it was decided
to proceed with the operation. For several nights,
with the object of giving the enemy the impression
of a nightly strafe, there had been artillery and
machine-gun demonstrations occurring about the
same time and lasting as long as those planned for
the night of the crossing. After dusk on December
20 there was a big movement behind our lines. The
ferrying and bridging parties got on the move, each
by their particular road, and though the wind was
searchingly cold and every officer and man became
thoroughly drenched, there was not a sick heart in
the force. The 157th Brigade proceeded to the ford
at the mouth of the Auja, the 156th Brigade advanced
towards the river just below Muannis, and the 155th
Brigade moved up to the mill and dam at Jerisheh,
where it was to 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 is
the highest tribute to their determination. The
rain-soaked canvas of the boats had so greatly added
to their weight that the parties detailed to carry
them from the Sarona orange orchards found the

A GREAT FEAT OF WAR 241

task almost beyond their powers. The bridge rafts
for one of the crossings could not be got up to the
river bank because the men were continually slipping
in the mud under the heavy load, and the attacking
battalion at this spot was ferried over in coracles.
On another route a section carrying a raft lost one
of its number, who was afterwards found sunk in
mud up to his outstretched arms. The tracks were
almost impassable, and a Lancashire pioneer bat-
talion was called up to assist in improving them.
The men became caked with mud from steel helmet
to boots, and the field guns which had to be hauled
by double teams were so bespattered that there was
no need for camouflage. In those strenuous hours
of darkness the weather continued vile, and the
storm wind flung the frequent heavy showers with
cutting force against the struggling men. The
covering party which was to cross at the ford found
the bar had shifted under the pressure of flood water
and that the marks put down to direct the column
had been washed away. The commanding officer
reconnoitred, getting up to his neck in water, and
found the ford considerably out of position and
deeper than he had hoped, but he brought his men
together in fours and, ordering each section to link
arms to prevent the swirhng waters carrying them
out to sea, led them across without a casualty. In
the other places the covering parties of brigades began
to be ferried over at eight o'clock. The first raft-loads
were paddled across with muffled oars. A line was
towed behind the boats, and this being made fast on
either side of the river the rafts crossed and recrossed
by haulage on the rope, in order that no disturbance
on the surface by oars on even such a wild night
should cause an alarm. As soon as the covering
parties were over, light bridges to carry infantry in

242 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

file were constructed by lashing the rafts together
and placmg planks on them. One of these bridges
was burst by the strength of the current, but the
delay thus caused mattered little as the surprise
was complete. When the bridges of rafts had been
swmig and anchored, blankets and carpets were laid
upon them to deaden the fall of marching feet,
and during that silent tramp across the roUing bridges
many a keen-witted Scot found it difficult to restrain
a laugh as he trod on carpets richer by far than any
that had lain in his best parlour at home. He could
not see the patterns, but rightly guessed that they
were picked out in the bright colours of the East,
and the muddy marks of war-travelled men were
left on them without regret, for the carpets had
come from German houses in Sarona. How per-
fectly the operation was conducted — noiselessly,
swiftly, absolutely according to time-table — may be
gathered from the fact that two officers and sixteen
Turks were awakened in their trench dug-outs at the
ford by the river mouth two hours after we had
taken the trenches. The officers resisted and had
to be killed. Two miles behind the river the Low-
landers captured the whole garrison of a post near
the sea, none of whom had the slightest idea that
the river had been crossed. An officer commanding
a battalion at Muannis was taken in his bed, whilst
another commanding officer had the surprise of his
life on being invited to put his hands up in his own
house. He looked as if he had just awakened from
a nightmare. In one place some Turks on being
attacked with the bayonet shouted an alarm and
one of the crossings was shelled, but its position was
immediately changed and the passage of the river
continued without interruption. The whole of the
Turkish system covering the river, trenches well

iiA-/-4..i*'

A GREAT FEAT OF WAR 243

concealed in the river banks and in patches of culti-
vated land, were rushed in silence and captured.
Muannis was taken at the point of the bayonet, the
strong position at Hadrah was also carried in absolute
silence, and at dayhght the whole line the Scots had
set out to gain was won and the assailants were
digging themselves in. And the price of their
victory ? The Scots had 8 officers and 93 other
ranks casualties. They buried over 100 Turkish /
dead and took 11 officers and 296 other ranks
prisoners, besides capturing ten machine guns.

The forcing of the passage of the Auja was a
magnificent achievement, planned with great ability
by General HiU and carried out with that skill and
energy which the brigadiers, staff, and all ranks of
the Division showed throughout the campaign. One
significant fact serves to illustrate the Scots' dis-
ciphne. Orders were that not a shot was to be fired
except by the guns and machine guns making their
nightly strafe. Death was to be dealt out with the
bayonet, and though the Lowlanders were engaged
in a life and death struggle with the Turks, not a
single round of rifle ammunition was used by them
till daylight came, when, as a keen marksman said,
they had some grand running-man practice. During
the day some batteries got to the north bank by
way of the ford, and two heavy pontoon bridges were
constructed and a barrel bridge, which had been put
together in a wadi flowing into the Auja, was floated
down and placed in position. There was a good deal
of sheUing by the Turks, but they fired at our new
positions and interfered but Httle with the bridge
construction.

On the night of the 21st- 22nd December the 54th
Division assaulted Bald Hill, a prominent mound
south of the Auja from which a magnificent view

244 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of the country was gained. Stiff fighting resulted,
but the enemy was driven off with a loss of 4 officers
and 48 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 41 men
taken prisoners. At dawn the Division reported
that the enemy was retiring from Mulebbis and Fejja,
and those places were soon in our hands. H.M.S.
Grafton, with Admiral T. Jackson, the monitors M 29,
M31, and M32, and the destroyers Lapwing and
Lizard, arrived off the coast and shelled Jehl and
Arsuf, and the 52nd Division, advancing on a broad
front, occupied the whole of their objectives by five
o'clock in the afternoon. The 157th Brigade got
all the high ground about Arsuf, and thus prevented
the enemy from obtaining a long-range view of Jaffa.
A few rounds of shell fired by a naval gun at a range
of nearly twenty miles fell in Jaffa some months
afterwards, but with this exception Jaffa was quite
free from the enemy's attentions. The brilliant
operation on the Auja had saved the town and its
people many anxious days. By the end of the year
there were three strong bridges across the river, and
three others substantial enough to bear the weight
of tractors and their loads were under construction.
The troops received their winter clothing ; bivouac
shelters and tents were beginning to arrive. Baths
and laundries were in operation, and the rigours of
the campaign began to be eased. But the XXIst
Corps could congratulate itseff that, notwithstanding
two months of open warfare, often fifty to sixty miles
from railhead, men's rations had never been reduced.
Horses and mules had had short allowances, but
they could pick up a httle in the country. The men
were in good health, despite the hardships in the
hills and rapid change from summer to winter, and
their spirit could not be surpassed.

CHAPTER XVIII

BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN

We have seen how impregnable the defences of
Jerusalem had become as the result of the big advance
northwards at the end of December. As far as any
mihtary forecast could be made we were now in an
impenetrable position whatever force the Turk, with
his poor communications, could employ against us
either from the direction of Nablus or from the east
of the Jordan. There seemed to be no risk whatever,
so long as we chose to hold the line XXth Corps had
won, of the Turks again approaching Jerusalem,
but the Commander-in-Chief determined to make
the situation absolutely safe by advancing eastwards
to capture Jericho and the crossings of the Jordan.
This was not solely a measure of precaution. It
certainly did provide a means for preventing the
foe from operating in the stern, forbidding, desolate,
and awe-inspiring region which has been known as
the Wilderness since Biblical days, and doubtless
before. In that rough country it would be extremely
difficult to stop small bands of enterprising troops
getting through a line and creating diversions which,
while of small military consequence, would have
been troublesome, and might have had the effect
of unsettling the natives. A foothold in the Jordan
valley would have the great advantage of enabling
us to threaten the Hedjaz railway, the Turks' sole
means of communication with Medina, where their
garrison was holding out staunchly against the troops

246

246 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

of the King of the Hedjaz, and any assistance we
could give the King's army would have a far-reaching
effect on neutral Arabs. It would also stop the grain
trade on the Dead Sea, on which the enemy set store,
and would divert traffic in foodstuffs to natives in
Lower Palestine, who at this time were to a consider-
able extent dependent on supplies furnished by our
Army. The Quartermaster- General carried many
responsibilities on his shoulders. Time was not the
important factor, and as General Allenby was anxious
to avoid an operation which might involve heavy
losses, it was at first proposed that the enemy should
be forced to leave Jericho by the gradually closing
in on the town from north and south. The Turks
had got an immensely strong position about Talat
ed Dumm, the ' Mound of Blood,' where stands a
ruined castle of the Crusaders, the Chastel Rouge.
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 the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria
hospice and, looking over one of the most inhospitable
regions of the world, could easily make out the Turks
walking on the road near the Khan, which has been
called the Good Samaritan Inn. The country has
indeed been rightly named. Gaunt, bare mountains
of limestone with scarcely a patch of green to relieve
the nakedness of the land make a wilderness indeed,
and one sees a drop of some four thousand feet in a
distance of about fifteen miles. The hills rise in
continuous succession, great ramparts of the Judean
range, and instead of valleys between them there are
huge clefts in the rock, hundreds of feet deep, which
carry away the winter torrents to the Jordan and
Dead Sea. Over beyond the edge of hills are the
green wooded banks of the Sacred River, then a patch
or two of stunted trees, and finally the dark walls

BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN 247

of the mountains of Moab shutting out the view of
the land which still holds fascinating remains of
Greek civilisation.

But there was no promise of an early peep at such
historic sights, and the problem of getting at the
nearer land was hard enough for present deliberation.
It was at first proposed that the whole of the XXth
Corps and a force of cavalry should carry out opera-
tions simultaneously on the north and east of the
Corps front which should give us possession of the
roads from Mar Saba and Muntar, and also from
Taiyibeh and the old Roman road to Jericho, thus
allowing two cavalry forces supported by infantry
columns to converge on Jericho from the north and
south. However, by the second week of February
there had been bad weather, and the difficulties of
supplying a line forty miles from the railway on
roads which, notwithstanding a vast amount of
labour, were still far from good, were practically
insuperable, and it was apparent that a northerly
and easterly advance at 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 Jordan as soon
as possible. General AUenby decided that the opera-
tions should be carried out in two phases. The first
was an easterly advance to thrust the enemy from
his position covering Jericho, to force him across
the Jordan, and to obtain control of the country
west of the river. The northerly advance to secure
the Une of the wadi Aujah was to follow. This river
Aujah which flows into the Jordan must not be
confused with the Auja on the coast already described.

The period of wet weather was prolonged, and the
accumulation of supplies of rations and ammunition

248 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

did not permit of operations commencing before
February 19. That they started so early is an elo-
quent tribute to the hard work of the Army, for the
weather by the date of the attack had improved but
little, and the task of getting up stores could only
be completed by extraordinary exertions. General
Chetwode ordered a brigade of the 60th Division
to capture Mukhmas as a preliminary to a concen-
tration at that place. On the 19th the Division
occupied a front of about fourteen miles from near
Muntar, close to which the ancient road from Beth-
lehem to Jericho passes, through Ras Umm Deisis,
across the Jerusalem-Jericho road to Arak Ibrahim,
over the great chasm of the wadi Farah which has
cliff-like sides hundreds of feet deep, to the brown
knob of Ras et Tawil. The line was not gained
without fighting. The Turks did not oppose us at
Muntar — the spot where the Jews released the Scape-
goat— but there was a short contest for Ibrahim, and
a longer fight lasting till the afternoon for an en-
trenched position a mile north of it ; Ras et Tawil
was ours by nine in the morning. Tawil overlooks
a track which has been trodden from time imme-
morial. It leads from the Jordan valley north-west
of Jericho, and passes beneath the frowning height
of Jebel Kuruntul with its bare face relieved by a
monastery built into the rock about haH-way up,
and a walled garden on top to mark the Mount of
Temptation, as the pious monks believe it to be.
The track then proceeds westwards, winding in and
out of the tremendous slits in rock, to Mukhmas, and
it was probably along this rough line that the Israel-
ites marched from their camp at Gilgal to overthrow
the Philistines. On the right of the Londoners were
two brigades of the Anzac Mounted Division, working
through the most desolate hills and wadis down to

*

BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN 249

the Dead Sea with a view to pushing up by Nebi
Musa, which tradition has ascribed as the burial
place of Moses, and thence into the Jordan valley.
Northward of the 60th Division the 53rd was extend-
ing its flank eastwards to command the Taiyibeh-
Jericho road, and the Welsh troops occupied
Rummon, a huge mount of chalk giving h. good view
of the Wilderness. This was the position on the
night of 19th February.

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

The infantry attack was as fuie as anything done
in the campaign. I had the advantage of witnessing
the centre column carry out the whole of its task
and of seeing the right column complete as gallant
an effort as any troops could make, and as one saw
them scale frowning heights and clamber up and
down the roughest of torrent beds, one realised that
more than three months' fighting had not removed
the ' bloom ' from these Cockney warriors, and that
their physique and courage were proof against long
and heavy trials of campaigning. The chief ob-
jective of the centre column was Talat ed Dumm
which, lying on the Jericho road just before the
junction of the old and the new road to the Jordan
valley, was the key to Jericho. It is hard to imagine
a better 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

250 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

a few riflemen could cover. Likewise a platoon
distributed behind rocks on the many hills could
command the approaches from all directions, while
the hill of Talat ed Dumm, by the Good Samaritan
Inn, and the height whereon the Crusader ruins
stand, dominated a broad flat across which our
troops must move. This position the 180th Brigade
attacked at dawn. Tlie guns opened before the
sun appeared above the black crest line of the moun-
tains of Moab, and well before long shadows were
cast across the Jordan valley the batteries were
tearing to pieces the stone walls and rocky eyries
sheltering machine - gunners and infantry. This
preliminary bombardment, if short, was wonderfully
effective. From where I stood I saw the heavies
pouring an unerring fire on to the Crusader Castle,
huge spurts of black smoke, and the dislocation of
big stones which had withstood the disintegrating
effect of many centuries of sun powder, telling the
Forward Observing Officer that his gunners were
well on the target and that to live in that havoc
the Turks must seek the shelter of vaults cut deep
down in the rock by masons of old. No enemy
could delay our progress from that shell-torn spot.
Lighter guns searched other positions and whiffs
of shrapnel kept Turks from their business. There
are green patches on the western side of Talat ed
Dumm in the early months of the year before the
sun has burned up the country. Over these the
infantry advanced as laid down in the book. The
whirring rap-rap of machine guns at present un-
located did not stop them, and as our machine-gun
sections, ever on the alert to keep down rival auto-
matic guns, found out and sprayed the nests, the
enemy w^as seen to be anxious about his line of retreat.
One large party, harried by shrapnel and machine-

BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN 251

gun fire, left its positions and rushed towards a
defile, but rallied and came back, though when it
reoccupied its former line the Londoners had reached
a point to enfiilade it, and it suffered heavily. We
soon got this position, and then our troops, ascending
some spurs, poured a destructive fire into the defile
and so harassed the Turks re-forming for a counter-
attack as to render feeble their 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 secure pos-
session of it. Immediately the heights were occupied
the gims went ahead to new points, and armoured
cars left the road to try to find a way to the south-
east to protect the flank of the right column. They
had a troublesome journey. Some of the crews
walked well ahead of the cars to reconnoitre the
tracks, and it speaks well for the efficiency of the
cars as well as for the pluck and cleverness of the
drivers that in crossing a mile or two of that terribly
broken mountainous country no car was overturned
and all got back to the road without mishap.

Throughout the night and during the greater part
of the day of February 20 the right column were
fighting under many difficulties. In their march
from the hill of Muntar they had to travel over ground
so cracked and strewn with boulders that in many
parts the brigade could only proceed in single file.
In some places the track chosen had a huge cleft in
the mountain on one side and a cHff face on the other.
It was a continual succession of watercourses and
mountains, of uphill and downhill travel over the
most uneven surface in the blackness of night, and
it took nearly eight hours to march three miles. The
nature of the country was a very serious obstacle

252 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

and the column was late in deploying for attack.
But bad as was the route the men had followed during
the night, it was easy as compared with the position
they had set out to carry. Tliis was Jebel Ekteif,
the southern end of the range of hills of which Talat
ed Dumm was the northern. Ekteif presented to
this column a face as precipitous as Gibraltar and
perhaps half as high. There was a ledge running
round it about three-quarters of the way from the
top, and for hours one could see the Turks lying flat on
this rude path trying to pick off the intrepid climbers
attempting a precarious ascent. Some mountain
guns suddenly ranged on the enemy on this ledge,
and, picking up the range with remarkable rapidity,
forced the Turks into more comfortable positions.
The enemy, too, had some well-served guns, and they
plastered the spurs leading to the crest from the west,
but our infantry's audacity never faltered, and after
we had got into the first lines on the hill our men
proceeded methodically to rout out the machine guns
from their nooks and crannies. This was a somewhat
lengthy process, but small parties working in support
of each other gradually crushed opposition, and the
huge rocky rampart was ours by three o'clock in the
afternoon. Meanwhile two brigades of the Anzac
Moimted Division were moving eastwards from Mun-
tar over the hills and wadis down to the Dead Sea,
whence turning northwards they marched towards
Nebi Musa to try to get on to the Jordan valley flats
to threaten the Turks in rear. The terrain was
appaUingly bad and horses had to be led, the troops
frequently proceeding in Indian file. No guns could
be got over the hills to support the Anzacs, and when
they tried to pass through a narrow defile south of
Nebi Musa it was found that the enemy covered
the approach with machine guns, and progress was

GERMAN PRISONERS CROSSING THE JORDAN

BY THE BANKS OF THE JORDAN 253

stopped dead until, during the early hours of the
following morning, some of the Londoners' artillery
managed by a superhuman effort to get a few guns
over the mountains to support the cavalry. By
this time the Turks had had enough of it, and while
it was dark they were busy trekking through Jericho
towards the Ghoraniyeh bridge over the river, covered
by a force on the Jebel Kuruntul track which pre-
vented the left column from reaching the cliffs over-
looking the Jordan valley. By dawn on the 21st
Nebi Musa was made good, the 1st Australian Light
Horse Brigade and the New Zealand Brigade were
in Jericho by eight o'clock and had cleared the Jordan
valley as far north as the river Aujah, the Londoners
holding the line of cliffs which absolutely prevented
any possibility of the enemy ever again threatening
Jerusalem or Bethlehem from the east. This suc-
cessful operation also put an end to the Turks' Dead
Sea grain traffic. They had given up hope of keeping
their landing place on the northern shores of the
Dead Sea when we took Talat ed Dumm, and one
hour after our infantry had planted themselves on
the Hill of Blood we saw the enemy burning his
boats, wharves, and storehouses at Rujm el Bahr,
where he had expended a good deal of labour to put
up buildings to store grain wanted for his army.
Subsequently we had some naval men operating
motor boats from this point, and these sailors achieved
a record on that melancholy waterway at 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 of war profited so much at the hands
of the conqueror as Jerusalem. In a httle more than
half a year a wondrous change was effected in the
condition of the people, and if it had been possible
to search the Oriental mind and to get a free and
frank expression of opinion, one would probably
have found a universal thankfulness for General
Allenby'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 Army was concerned left
Jerusalem the Golden untouched. For the 50,000
people in the City the skilfully applied- military
pressure which put an end to Turkish misgovernment
was the beginning of an era of happiness and content-
ment of which they had hitherto had no conception.
Justice was administered in accordance with British
ideals, every man enjoyed the profits of his industry,
traders no longer ran the gauntlet of extortionate
officials, the old time corruption was a thing of the
past, public health was organised as far as it could
be on Western lines, and though in matters of sanita-
tion and personal cleanliness the inhabitants still
had much to learn, the appearance of the Holy City
and its population vastly improved under the touch
of a civihsing hand. Sights that offended more than
one of the senses on the day when General Allenby
made his official entry had disappeared, and peace

254

THE TOUCH OF THE CIVILISING HAND 255

and order reigned where previously had been but
misery, poverty, disease, and squalor.

One of the biggest blots upon the Turkish govern-
ment of the City was the total failure to provide an
adequate water supply. What they could not, or
would not, do in their rule of four hundred years
His Majesty's Royal Engineers accompHshed in a
little more than two months, and now for the first
time in history every civilian in Jerusalem can obtain
as much pure mountain spring water as he wishes,
and for this water, as fresh and bright as any bubbling
out of Welsh hills, not a penny is charged. The
picturesque, though usually unclean, water carrier
is passing into the Umbo of forgotten things, and his
energies are being diverted into other channels. The
germs that swarmed in his leathern water bags will
no longer endanger the lives of the citizens, and the
deadly perils of stagnant cistern water have been to
a large extent removed.

For its water Jerusalem used to rely mainly upon
the winter rainfall to fill its cisterns. Practically
every house has its underground reservoir, and it
is estimated that if aU were full they would contain
about 360,000,000 gaUons. But many had faUen
into disrepair and most, if not the whole of them,
required thorough cleansing. One which was in-
spected by our sanitary department had not been
emptied for nineteen years. To supplement the
cistern supply the Mosque of Omar reservoir halved
with Bethlehem the water which flowed from near
Solomon's Pools down an aqueduct constructed by
Roman engineers under Herod before the Saviour
was born. This was not nearly sufficient, nor was
it so constant a supply as that provided by our
Army engineers. They went farther afield. They
found a group of spring-heads in an absolutely clean

256 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

gathering ground on the hills yielding some 14,000
gallons an hour, and this water which was running
to waste is lifted to the top of a hill from which it
flows by gravity through a long pipe-hne to Jerusalem,
where a reservoir has been built on a high point on
the outskirts of the city. Supplies of this beautiful
water run direct to the hospitals, and at standpipes
all over the city the inhabitants take as much as they
desire. The water consumption of the people became
ten times what it was in the previous year, and this
fact alone told how the boon was appreciated.

The scheme did not stop at putting up standpipes
for those who fetched the water. A portion of the
contents of the cisterns was taken for watering troop
horses in the spring — troops were not allowed to
drink it. The water level of these cisterns became
very low, and as they got emptied the authorities
arranged for refilling them on the one condition that
they were first thoroughly cleansed and put in order.
The British administration would not be parties to
the perpetuation of a system which permitted the
fouling of good crystal water. A householder had
merely to apply to the Military Governor for water,
and a sanitary officer inspected the cistern, ordered
it to be cleansed, and saw that this was done ; then
the Department of Public Health gave its certificate,
and the engineers ran a pipe to the cistern and filled
it, no matter what its capacity. Two cisterns were
replenished with between 60,000 and 70,000 gallons
of sparkling water from the hills in place of water
heavily charged with the accumulation of summer
dust on roofs, and the dust of Jerusalem roads, as
we had sampled 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 to complete.

THE TOUCH OF THE CIVILISING HAND 257

A preliminary investigation and survey of the ground
was made on February 14, and a scheme was sub-
mitted four days later. Owing to the shortage of
transport and abnormally bad weather work could
not be commenced till April 12. Many miles of pipe
line had to be laid and a powerful pumping plant
erected, but water was being dehvered to the people
of Jerusalem on the 18th of June. Other mihtary
works have done much for the common good in
Palestine, but none of them were of greater utility
than this. Mahomedans seeing bright water flow
into Jerusalem regarded it as one of the wonders of
all time. It is interesting to note that the American
Red Cross Society, which sent a large and capable
staff to the Holy Land after America came into the
war, knew of the lack of an adequate water supply
for Jerusalem, and with that foresight which Ameri-
cans show, forwarded to Egypt for transportation
to Jerusalem some thousand tons of water mains to
provide a water service. When the American Red
Cross workers reached the Holy City they found the
Army's plans almost completed, and they 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
PubUc Health Administration were not surprised at
the remarkable improvement in the sick and death
rates, not only of Jerusalem but of all the towns
and districts. The new water supply wiU unquestion-
ably help to lower the figures still further. A medical
authority recently told me that the health of the
community was wonderfully good and there was no
suspicion of cholera, outbreaks of which were frequent
under the Turkish regime. Government hospitals
were estabhshed in all large centres. In this country
where small-pox takes a heavy toll the ' conscientious

258 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

objector ' was unknown, and many thousands of
natives in a few months came forward of their own
free will to be vaccinated. Typhus and relapsing
fever, both lice-borne diseases, used to claim many
victims, but the figures fell very rapidly, due largely,
no doubt, to the full use to which disinfecting plants
were put in all areas of the occupied territory. The
virtues of bodily cleanliness were taught, and the
people were given that personal attention which
was entirely lacking under Turkish rule. It is not
easy to overcome the prejudices and cure the habits
of thousands of years, but progress is being made
surely if slowly, and already there is a gratifying
improvement in the condition of the people which
is patent to any observer.

In Jerusalem an infants' welfare bureau was insti-
tuted, where mothers were seen before and after
childbirth, infants' clinics were established, a body
of health was formed, and a kitchen was opened to
provide food for babies and the poor. The nurses
were mainly local subjects who had to undergo an
adequate training, and there was no one who did
not confidently predict a rapid fall in the infant
mortality rate which, to the shame of the Turkish
administration, was fully a dozen times that of the
highest of EngUsh towns. The spadework was aU
done by the medical staff of the Occupied Enemy
Territory Administration. The call was urgent, and
though labouring under war-time difficulties they
got things going quickly and smoothly. Some volun-
tary societies were assisting, and the enthusiasm of
the American Red Cross units enabled aU to carry
on a great and beneficent work.

t ..

k.i.

CHAPTER XX

OUR CONQUERING AIRMEN

The airmen who were the eyes of the Army in
Sinai and Palestine can look back on their record as
a great achievement. Enormous difficulties were
faced with stout hearts, and the Eoyal Flying Corps
spirit surmounted them. It was one long test of
courage, endurance, and efficiency, and so triumph-
antly did the airmen come through the ordeal that
General Allenby's Army may truthfully be said to
have secured as complete a mastery of the air as it did
of the plains and hills of Southern Palestine. Those
of us who watched the airmen ' carrying on,' from
the time when their aeroplanes were inferior to those
of the Germans in speed, climbing capacity, and other
quahties which go to make up first-class fighting
machines, till the position during the great advance
when few enemy aviators dared cross our lines, can
well testify to the wonderful work our airmen per-
formed.

With comparatively few opportunities for combat
because the enemy knew his inferiority and declined
to fight unless forced, the pilots and observers from
the moment our attack was about to start were always
aggressive, and though the number of their victims
may seem small compared with aerial victories on
the Western Front they were substantial and im-
portant. In the month of January 1917 the flying
men accounted for eleven aeroplanes, five of these

259

260 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

falling victims to one pilot. The last of these vic-
tories I myself witnessed. In a single-seater the pilot
engaged two two-seater aeroplanes of a late type,
driving down one machine within our line, the pilot
killed by eleven bullets and the observer wounded.
He then chased the other plane, whose pilot soon lost
his taste for fighting, dropped into a heavy 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 a formation of six enemy
machines, sending one crashing to earth and dis-
persing the remainder. In one brief fight another
pilot drove down three German planes. The airman
does not talk of his work, and we knew that what
we saw and heard of were but fragments in the silent
records of great things done. Much that was accom-
plished was far behind our visual range, high up over
the bleak hills of Judea, above even the rain clouds
driven across the heights by the fury of a winter
gale, or skimming over the dull surface of the Dead
Sea, flying some hundreds of feet below sea level to
interrupt the passage of foodstuffs of which the Turk
stood in need.

All through the Army's rapid march northwards
from the crushed Gaza-Beersheba line the airmen's
untiring work was of infinite value. When the Turkish
retreat began the enemy was bombed and machine-
gunned for a fuU week, the railway, aerodromes,
troops on the march, artiUery, and transport being
hit time and again, and five smashed aeroplanes and
a large quantity of aircraft stores of every description
were found at Menshiye alone. The raid on that
aerodrome was so successful that at night the Germans
burnt the whole of the equipment not destroyed by
bombs. Three machines were also destroyed by us
at Et Tineh, five at Ramleh and one at Ludd, and the

OUR CONQUERING AIRIVIEN

261

country was covered with the debris of a well-bombed
and beaten army. After Jerusalem came under the
safe protection of our arms airmen harassed the re-
tiring enemy with bombs and machine guns. The
wmd was strong, but defying treacherous eddies,
the pilots came through the valleys between steep-
sloped hills and caught the Turks on the Nablus road,
emptying their bomb racks at a height of a few
hundred feet, and giving the scattered troops machine-
gun fire on the return journey.

A glance at the list of honours bestowed on officers
and other ranks of the R.F.C. serving with the Egyp-
tian Expeditionary Force in 1917 is sufficient to give
an idea of the efficiency of the service of our airmen.
It must be remembered that the Palestine Wing was
small, if thoroughly representative of the Flying
Corps ; its numbers were few but the quahty was
thgre. Indeed I heard the Austrahan squadron of
flymg men which formed part of the Wing described
by the highest possible authority as probably the
finest squadron in the whole of the British service.
This following list of honours is, perhaps, the
most eloquent testimony to the airmen's work in
Palestine :

Victoria Cross

Distinguished Service Order
Military Cross
Croix de Guerre .
Military Medal .
Meritorious Service Medal
Order of the Nile

1
4

34
2
1

14
2

The sum total of the R.F.C. work was not to be
calculated merely from death and damage caused to
the enemy from the air. Strategical and tactical
reconnaissances formed a large part of the daily

262 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

round, and the reports brought in always added to
our Army's store of information. In Palestine,
possibly to a greater extent than in any other theatre
of war, our map-makers had to rely on aerial photo-
graphs to supply them with the details required for
mihtary maps. The best maps we had of Palestine
were those prepared by Lieutenant H. H. Kitchener,
R.E., and Lieutenant Conder in 1881 for the Palestine
Exploration Fund. They were still remarkably
accurate so far as they went, but ' roads,' to give
the tracks a .description to which they were not
entitled, had altered, and villages had disappeared,
and newer and additional information had to be
supplied. The Royal Flying Corps — it had not yet
become the Royal Air Force — furnished it, and aU
important details of hundreds of square miles of
country which survey parties could not reach were
registered with wonderful accuracy by aerial photo-
graphers.

The work began for the battle of Rafa, and the
enemy positions on the Magruntein hill were all set
out before General Chetwode when the Desert Column
attacked and scored an important victory. Then
when 12,000 Turks were fortifying the WeU Sheikh
Nuran country covering the wadi Ghuzze and the
Shellal springs, not a redoubt or trench but was re-
corded with absolute fidelity on photographic prints,
and long before the Turks abandoned the place and
gave us a fine supply of water we had excellent maps
of the position. In time the whole Gaza-Beersheba
line was completely photographed and maps were
continually revised, and if any portion of the Turkish
system of defences was changed or added to the
commander in the district concerned was notified
at once. To such perfection did the R.F.C. photo-

OUR CONQUERING AIRMEN 263

graphic branch attain, that maps showing full details
of new or altered trenches were in the hands of
generals within four hours of the taking of the photo-
graphs. Later on the work of the branch increased
enormously, and the results fully repaid the infinite
care and labour bestowed upon it.

The R.F.C. made long flights in this theatre of
war, and some of them were exceptionally difficult
and dangerous. A French battleship when bom-
barding a Turkish port of military importance had
two of our machines to spot the effect of her gunfire.
To be with the ship when the action opened the
airmen had to fly in darkness for an hour and a half
from a distant aerodrome, and they both reached
the rendezvous within five minutes of the appointed
time. The Turks on their lines of communication with
the Hedjaz have an unpleasant recollection of being
bombed at Maan. That was a noteworthy expedition.
Three machines set out from an aerodrome over 150
miles away in a straight line, the pilots having to
steer a course above country with no prominent land-
marks. They went over a waterless desert so rough
that it would have been impossible to come down with-
out seriously damaging a plane, and if a pilot had been
forced to land his chance of getting back to our country
would have been almost nil. Water bottles and
rations were carried in the machines, but they were
not needed, for the three pilots came home together
after hitting the station buildings at Maan and
destroying considerable material and suppHes.

The aeroplane has been put to many uses in war
and, it may be, there are instances on other fronts
of it being used, in emergencies, as an ambulance.
When a little mobile force rounded up the Turkish
post at Hassana, on the eastern side of the Sinai

264 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Peninsula, one of our men received so severe a wound
that an immediate operation was necessary. An
airman at once volunteered to carry the wounded
jnan to the nearest hospital, forty-four miles away
across the desert, and by his action a Hfe was
saved.

APPENDICES

The following telegram was sent by Enver Pasha
to Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, at Supreme Army-
Command Headquarters, from Constantinople on
August 23, 1917 :

The news of the despatch of strong enemy forces to Egypt,
together with the nomination of General Allenby as Com-
mander-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 in-
tended for Yilderim, and to despatch this division im-
mediately from Aleppo.

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

General von Falkenhajm 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 stiU to be despatched
to the front.

I cannot yet decide to support the proposal, nor need
I do 80, as the transport of an infantry division from Aleppo
to Rayak requires twenty days. During this period the

267

268 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

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 Vlth 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 divi-
sions of the Vlth 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 de-
cisively 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, Enveb.

APPENDICES 269

II

Von Falkenhayn despatched the following telegram
from Constantinople on 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 re-
percussion on the Irak undertaking was obvious. On that
account I had already settled in my conversations in Con-
stantinople 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. Rail-
ways allow of the assembly of these forces (inclusive of heavy
artiUery, material and technical stores) in the neighbourhood
of Beersheba by the end of October. The disposable parts
of the rVth 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 under-

270 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

taking 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.

APPENDICES 271

III

Here is another Grerman estimate of the position
created by our War Cabinet's decision to take the
offensive in Palestine, and in considering the view
of the Grerman Staff and the prospect of success any
Turkish attack would have, it must be borne in mind
that under the most favourable circumstances the
enemy could not have been in position for taking an
offensive before the end of October. Von Falkenhayn
wished to attack the British ' before the arrival of
their reinforcements.' Not only had our reinforce-
ments arrived before the end of October, but they
were all in position and the battle had commenced.
Beersheba was taken on October 31. This apprecia-
tion was written 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 AUenby — 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.

272 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

The conditions on the Western Front (defensire 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 envelop-
ment 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. Natur-
ally 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 opera-
tion for Turkey during the winter of 1917-1918 lies in Pales-
tine and not in Mesopotamia. An offensive on the Sinai
Front is therefore — even with reduced forces and a limited
objective — ^the correct solution. Papen.

APPENDICES 273

IV

Letter from General Kress von Kressenstein to YiU
derim 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 with the setting in of the bad weather
and the deterioration of rations.

Civil administration and the gendarmerie fail entirely ;
they often have a secret understanding with the population
and are open to bribery.

The cordon drawn by me is too weak to prevent desertion.
I am also too short of troops to have the necessary raids
undertaken in the hinterland. It is necessary that the
hunt for deserters in the area between the front and the line
Jerusalem -Ramleh -Jaffa be formally organised under ener-
getic management, that one or two squadrons exclusively
for this service be detailed, and that a definite reward be
paid for bringing in each deserter. But above all it is
necessary that punishment should follow in consequence,
and that the unfortunately very frequent amnesties of His
Majesty the Sultan be discontinued, at least for some time.

The question of rationing has not been settled. We are
living continually from hand to mouth. Despite the binding
promises of the Headquarters IVth Army, the VaU of Dam-
ascus, the Lines of Communication, Major Bathmann and
others, that from now on 150 tons of rations should arrive
regularly each day, from the 24th to the 27th of this month,
for example a total of 229 tons or only 75 tons per diem
have arrived.

I cannot fix the blame for these irregularities. The Head-
quarters rVth Army has received the highly gratifying
order that, at least up to the imminent decisive battle, the
bread ration is raised to 100 grammes. This urgently
necessary improvement of the men's rations remains illusory,

s

274 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

if a correspondingly larger quantity of flour (about ont
wagon per day) is not supplied to us. So far the improve-
ment exists only on paper. The condition of the animals
particularly gives cause for anxiety. Not only are we about
6000 animals short of establishment, but as a result of ex-
haustion a considerable number of animals are ruined daily.
The majority of divisions are incapable of operating on
account of this shortage of animals. The ammunition
supply too is gradually coming into question on account of
the deficiency in animals. The menacing danger can only
be met by a regular supply of sufficient fodder. The stock
of straw in the area of operations is exhausted. With gold
some barley can still be bought in the country.

Every year during the rainy season the railway is inter-
rupted again and again for periods of from eight to fourteen
days. There are also days and weeks in which the motor-
lorry traffic has to be suspended. Finally we must calculate
on the possibility of an interruption of our rear communica-
tions by the enemy. I therefore consider it absolutely
necessary that at least a fourteen days' reserve of rations
be deposited in the depots at the front as early as
possible.

The increase of troops on the Sinai Front necessitates a
very considerable increase on the supply of meat from the
Line of Communication area, Damascus district.

APPENDICES

275

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

29th Brigade.

6th R. Irish Rifles.
5th Con. Rangers.
6th Leinsters.
1st Leinsters

XXth corps.
10th Division.

SOth Brigade.

1st R. Irish Regt.
6th R. Munst. Fus.
6thR.DubHnFus.
TthR.DubUnFus.

31s^ Brigade.

5th R. InniskilUngs.
6th R. Inniskillings.
2nd R. Irish Fus.
5th R. Irish Rifles.

l5Sth Brigade.

l/5th R.Welsh Fus.

l/6th

l/7th

1 /1st Hereford.

53rd Division.

1 59th Brigade.

l/4thCheshires.
l/7th

l/4th Welsh
I/5th „

I60th Brigade.
l/4th R.Sussex.
2/4th R. West Surrey.
2/4th R. West Kent.
2/lOth Middlesex.

11 9th Brigade.

2/13th London.
2/14th
2/15th
2/16th

60th Division.

ISOth Brigade.

2/1 7th London.
2/1 8th
2/19th
2/20th

181s^ Brigade.

2/21st London.

2/22nd „
2/23rd
2/24th „

229th Brigade.

16th Devons (1st
Devon & R. N.
Devon Yeo.).

12th Somerset L.I.
(Yeo.).

74th Division.

230th Brigade.
10th E. Kent (R. E.

Kent & W. Kent

Yeo.).
16th R.Sussex (Yeo.).

2315^ Brigade.
10th Shrop. (Shrop.
& Cheshire Yeo.).

24th R. Welsh Fus.
(Denbigh Yeo.).

276

HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

74:th Division (continued).

22dth Brigade.

230/ A Brigade.

2315/ Brigade.

14thR.Highrs.(Fife

15th Suffolk (Yeo.).

25th R. Welsh Fua.

& Forfar Yeo.).

(Montgomery Yeo
& Welsh Horse).

12th R. Scots Fus.

12th Norfolk (Yeo.)

. 24th Welsh Regt.

(Ayr & Lanark

(Pembroke & Gla-

Yeo.).

XXIsT CORPS.

morgan Yeo.).

52nd (Lowland) Division.

155^^ Brigade.

156//i Brigade.

157/;* Brigade.

l/4th R. Scots Fus.

l/4th Royal Scots.

l/5th H.L.I.

l/5th

l/7th

l/6th „

l/4th K.O.S.B.

l/7th Scot. Rifles.

l/7th „

l/5th

l/8th

l/5th A. & S. Highrs.

54th (East Anglian) Division.

I6l8t Brigade.

lQ2nd Brigade.

l6Srd Brigade.

l/4th Essex.

l/5th Bedfords.

l/4th Norfolk.

l/5th „

l/4th Northants.

l/5th

l/6th „

1/lOth London.

l/5th Suffolk.

l/7th „

1/llth „

75th Division.

l/8th Hampshire.

232nd Brigade.

233rd Brigade.

234/71 Brigade.

l/5th Devon. *

l/5th Somersets.

l/4th D.C.L.I.

2/5th Hampshire.

l/4th Wilts.

2/4th Dorsets.

2 /4th Somersets.

2 /4th Hampshire.

123rd Rifles.

2/3rd Gurkhas.

3/3rd Gurkhas.

58th „

IstA.L.H.Bde.

1st A.L.H. Regt.

2nd

3rd

DESERT MOUNTED CORPS.

Anzac Mounted Division.
2nd A.L.H. Bde. N.Z, Mtd. Rifles Bde.

5th A.L.H. Regt. Auckland M. Rifles.
„ Canterbury M. Rifles.

„ Welhngton M. Rifles.

6th
7th

APPENDICES

277

Australian Mounted Division.

3rd L.H. Brigade. 4ih L.H. Brigade. 5th Mtd. Brigade.

8th A.L.H. Regt. 4th A.L.H. Regt. 1/lst Warwick Yeo.

9th
10th

nth

12th

l/lst Gloucester Yeo.
1/lst Worcester Yeo.

Yeomanry Mounted Division.

Ml Mtd. Brigade. Sth Mtd. Brigade. 22nd Mtd. Brigade

1/lst City of London

1/lst Bucks Hussars.
1/lst Berkshire Yeo.
1/lst Dorset Yeo.

Yeo.
1/lst Co. of London

Yeo.
l/3rd Co. of London

Yeo.

1/lst Lincolnshire

Yeo.
1/lst Staffordshire

Yeo.
1/lst E. Riding

Yeo.

7th Mounted Brigade (attached Desert Corps).
1/lst Sherwood Rangers. 1/lst South Notts Hussars.

Imperial Camel Brigade.

278 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

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 Headquabtees,
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

APPENDICES 279

48 hours before the attack of XXth Corps on the ELauwukah
line, the XXlst Corps will attack the south-west defences
of Gaza with the object of capturing the enemy's front-Une
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 bom-
bardment 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 9-2 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 over-
looking the wadis E[l 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— l"«Zero

280 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

day from the area of concentration about Klhalasa 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 restora-
tion 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 insufi&cient 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

APPENDICES 281

he started or which may be found in the country east of
the KJialasa-Beersheba road during the operations.

A preUminary 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 opera-
tions.

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 Z X 1 6 day and for the Desert Mounted
Corps and XXth Corps to Zxl3. After these dates if the

282 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

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 Weno. — Strategical reconnaissance in-
cluding 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 under-
take artillery co-operation, contact patrols, and tactical recon-
naissance 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.

APPENDICES 283

VII

ORDERS FOR THE OFFICIAL ENTRY INTO
JERUSALEM

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

Two Aides-de-camp.
(Twenty paces.)
O.C. Italian Palestine Commander -in- O.C. French Pales-
Contingent (Col. Chief. tine Contingent
Dagostino). (Col. Piepape).

Staff Officer. Two Staff Officers. Staff Officer.

(Ten paces.)

M. Picot (Head of French Mission).

French Mil. Brig. -Gen. Italian Mil. Att. American

Att. (Capt. Clayton. (Major Caccia). Mil. Att.

St. Quentin). (Col. Davis).

(Five paces.)

Chief of General Staff (Maj.-Gen. Su^ L. J. Bols).

Brig. -General Greneral 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.

AustraHan and New Zealand Guard.
French Guard.
Italian Guard.

2. GuAEDS. — 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.

284 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

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 'com-
mand of both guards and will give the words
of command.

Inside the Gate —

French Guard : Twenty of all ranks.
Itahan 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
WaU.

3. Salute. — On the approach of the Commander-in-
Chief, guards will come to the Salute and present arms.

4. The MiHtary Governor of the City will meet the Com-
mander-in-Chief at the Gate at 12 noon.

5. Route. — The procession will proceed via Sueikat Allah
and El Maukaf Streets to the steps of El Kala (Citadel),
where the notables of the City under the guidance of a Staff
Ofi&cer of the Governor will meet the Commander-in-Chief
and the Proclamation will be read to the citizens. The
British, Australian and New Zealand, French and Itahan
guards will, when the procession has passed them, take their
place in column of fours in the rear of the procession in that
order.

On arrival at El Kala the guards will form up facing steps
on the opposite {i.e. east) side of El Maukaf Street, the British
guard being thus on the left, Italian guard on the right of
the line, and remain at the slope. The British and Italian
guards will bring up their left and right flanks respectively
across the street south and north of El Kala.

On leaving the Citadel the procession will proceed in the
same order as before to the Barrack Square, where the Com-
mander-in-Chief will confer with the notables of the City.

APPENDICES 285

On entering the Barrack Square the guards will wheel to
the left and, keeping the left-hand man of each section of
fours next the side of the Barrack Square, march round until
the rear of the ItaHan guard has entered the Square, when
the guards 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 and in the same order.

As the Commander-in-Chief and procession move off to
leave the Barrack Square the guards will present arms, and
then move off and resume their places in the procession,
the British guard leading.

On arrival at the Jaffa Gate the guards will take up their
original positions, and on the Commander-in-Chief's de-
parture will be marched away under the orders of the G.O.C.
XXth Corps.

6. Police, etc. — The Military Governor of the City will
arrange for policing the route of the procession and for the
searching of houses on either side of the route. He will also
arrange for civil officials to read the Proclamation at
El Kala.

286 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

vni

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

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 rehgions 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, tradi-
tional site, endowment, pious bequest, or customary place
of prayer, of whatsoever form of the three rehgions, will be
maintained and protected according to the existing customs
and behefs of those to whose faiths they are sacred.

APPENDICES 287

IX

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

SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

G.H.Q., E.E.F.,

I5th 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 accompHshed.

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 (lOth, 53rd, 60th, and 74th Divisions),
followed by the dashing attacks of the 60th and 74th Divi-
sions and the rapid turning movement of the Desert Mounted
Corps, ending in the fine charge of the 4th AustraHan 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

288 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

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 Divi-
sional 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 artiUery 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 bombard-
ment 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

APPENDICES 289

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 skiKuUy 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 con-
tributed 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
ammimition services and engineer services were called upon
for great exertions. The response everywhere showed great
devotion and high miHtary spirit.

11. The thorough organisation of the lines of communica-
tion, and the energy and skill with which all the services
adapted themselves to the varying conditions of the opera-
tions, 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

T

290 HOW JERUSALEJM WAS WON

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 com-
munications.

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. Dawt^ay, B.G.G.S.,

for Major-General, Chief of the General
Stafi, E.E.F.

APPENDICES 291

X

The men of units forming the XXth Corps were
deeply gratified to receive this commendation from
their gallant CoT-ps 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

Headquabters, XXth Corps,
\Uh December 1917.

Now that the efforts of General Sir E. H. H. Allenby's
Aimy 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, Mechani-
cal Transport personnel, Camel Transport personnel, and to
the Royal Army Medical Corps and all services whose con-
tinuous labour, day and night, almost without rest, alone
enabled the fighting troops to do what they did.

292 HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

SPECIAL ORDER OF THE DAY

Headquabtkrs, XXth Corps,
'31 St DtoemJjer 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 op-
position 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, 121.
Adaeeh, 216.
Ain Arik, 151.

Karira, 1G2.

Air Force honours, 261.

Akir, 110.

Allenby, General, 10.

administration, 12.

American Red Cross Society, 257.
Arsuf, 235.
Askalon, 104.
Auja, River, 232.

Baker, Colonel Sir Randolf, 116.

Bald HUl, 243.

Barrow, Major-General G. de S.,

88.
Bartholomew, Brigadier-General,

207.
Bayley, Colonel, 189.
Beersheba, Anzac march on, 61.

battle of, 53.

German preparations, 65.

Beit Hannina, 192.

Iksa, 172.

Izza, 145.

Jala, 175.

ur el Foka, 149.

ur et Tahta, 150.

Beitunia, 149.

Bethany, 193.

Beth-horons, 149.

Bethlehem, 186.

Biblical battlefields, 8.

Biddu, 145.

Bireh, 151.

Bols, Major-General, 207.

Borton, Major-General, 206.

Bulfin, Lieutenant-General, 18.

Bulteel, Captain, 115.

Burkah, 109.

Butler, Brigadier-General, 134.

Chauvel, Lieutenant -Greneral, 18.
Chaytor, Major-General, 61.
Cheape, Lieutenant-Colonel H., 91.
Chetwode, Lieutenant -Greneral Sir

P., 18.
thanks to XXth Corps troops,

291.
Clayton, Brigadier-General, 207.
Colston, Brigadier-General, 109.
Cox, Brigadier-Greneral, 62.
Cripps, Colonel Hon. F., 113.

Dammers, Captain, 116.
Dawnay, Brigadier-Greneral, 207.
Deir Sineid, 102.

Yesin, 172.

de Rothschild, Major, 117.
Desert railways, 35.

pipeline, 38.

Dukku, 145.

Ektelf, 252.
El Jib, 145.
El Kala, 207.
Enver, 199.

Farah, wadi, 249.

Force Order, General Allenby 's

thanks tc troops, 287.
Ful, Tel el, 192.

Gaza, plan of attack on, 47.

Ali Muntar, 72.

defences, 69.

El Arish redoubt, 77.

■ Great Mosque, 68.

• naval gunnery, 79.

■ Outpost Hill, 75.

Sea Post, 78.

293

294

HOW JERUSALEM WAS WON

Gaza. Sheikh Hasan, 78.

Umbrella Hill, 77.

German Hospice, 143.
Gilgal, 248.

Girdwood, Major-General, 59.
Godwin, Brigadier-General, 112.
Good Samaritan Inn, 246.
Grant, Brigadier-General, 64.

Hadrah, 157.

Hanafish, action on wadi, 54.

Hebron, 187.

Hill 1070, 58.

Hill, Major-General J., 141.

Hodgson, Major-General, 62.

Hong Kong and Singapore battery,

148.
Huj, 91.

Ibn Obeid, 222.

Imperial Service cavalry, 100.

Jackson, Admiral T., 244.
Jaffa, 236.

Gate, 198.

Jebel Kuruntul, 248.
Jelil, 238.
Jericho, 247.
Jerisheh, 240.
Jerusalem, battle of, 175.

civil administration, 258.

Memorial to Army, 9.

— — Official Entry, 195.

order of procession, 283.

Proclamation to people, 286.

water supply, 254.

Jordan, 245.

Jezar, 123.

Junction Station, 119.

Katrah, 110.
Kuntara, 34.
Kauwukah, 84.
Khurbet Subr, 172.
Khuweilfeh, 82.
Kressenstein, von, 64.
Kulonieh, 172.
Kuryet el Enab, 138.
Kustul, 141.

Latron, 129.
Laweon, Captain, 116.

Lifta, 158.

Longley, Major-General, 218.

Ludd, 126.

M'Call, Brigadier-General PoUak,

110.
Maclean, Brigadier- General, 142.
Mejdel, 104.

Meldrum, Brigadier-General, 62.
Mott, Major-General, 186.
Mount of Olives, 192.
Mughar, 112.
Mukhmas, 248.
Mulebbis, 236.

Nablus road, 212.
Nebi Musa, 249.
Nebi Samwil, 141.
Nejile, 90.

O'Brien, Colonel, 119.

Palestine Army, composition of,

275.
Palin, Major-General, 99.
Patron, Captain, 113.
Pemberton, Colonel, 188.
Perkins, Lieutenant, 113.
Primrose, Captain Hon. Neil, 115.

Ramaxlah, 151.

Ramleh, 126.

Raratongas, 37.

Ras et Tawil, 218.

Rushdi trenches, 84.

Ryrie, Brigadier-General, 61.

Saba, Tel el, 62.

Sakaty, Tel el, 62.

Saris, 137.

Sarona, 239.

Shea, Major-General H., 59.

Sheikh Muannis, 157.

Sheria, 84.

Sherifeh, 187.

Shilta, 154.

Smith, Rifleman, 180.

Soba, 174.

Solomon's Pools, 175.

Strategy in Palestine, 6.

the German view, 271.

INDEX

295

Suffa. 154.

Supplying the front, 36.
Surar, wadi, 173.
Sukereir, wadi, 127.

Talat ED DUMM, 246.
Temperley, 93.
Thornhill, Corporal, 180.
Train, Corporal, V.C, 180.
Turkish line of communications, 15.
moral, 273.

Watson, Brigadier-General, 178.
Whines, Corporal, 180.
Whitehill, 215.

Wingfiold-Digby, Captain, 116.
Wire roads, 40.

Yebnah, 110.

Yilderim undertaking. 13.

von Falkeniiayn's doubts, 269.

Zamby, 215.
Zeitun ridge, 149.

/

Printed by T. and A. Constablk, Printers to His .Viajeaty
at tlie Edinburgh Univeraity Prc^s

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DUE DATE

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2 i mz

MAYI 8

1992

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Printed
in USA

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

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111 I

0026768330

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