CHAPTER CCLXVIII.

FROM JERUSALEM TO DA,MASCUS.

SURVEY OF OPERATIONS, DECEMBER, 1917-0CTOBER, 1918-FREEING JOPPA FROM PRESSURE­ FINE WORK OF SCOT~ISH TROOPS-ENEMY AT~Kl'm TO RETAKFJ JERUSALEM-CAPTURE OF J ERICHO- HEAVY FIGHTING ON SHECHEM ROAD FRONT-BRITISH OFFICERS WITH THE ARABS­ THE EMIR FAISAL'S DEAD SEA CAMPAIGN-CROSSING THE JORDAN-RAID ON AMMAN- IN PRAISE OF THE LONDONERS- THE Es SALT RAID; A T URKISH SUCCEss-EvENTS AT JERUSALEM-ALLENBY SENDS TROOPS TO FRANCE-REORGANIZATION OF THE FORCE-Tu RCO-GERMAN ATTACK ASTRIDE THE JORD AN-THE AUTUMN OFFENSIVE-:-MARCH OF THE ARABS FROM AKABA-DEFEAT OF THE T URKS "VVEST OF THE JORDAN- BRITISH AND ARABS JOIN HANDS- TuRKISH ARMY EAST OF JORD AN SURRENDERS-ENEMY ROUT COMPLETE-FALL OF DAMASCUs-THE EMIR FAISAL'S ENTRY INTO THE CITy -ARAB CLAIMS.

HE first phase of General Allenby's the Jordan Valley, and thus prevent the Turks campaign of 1917-18 in Southern east of the river being readily reinforced. On T Palestine, culminating in the sur­ . March 8-12 operations to this end were l-mder­ render of J erusalem, was described taken and there was very severe fighting in Vol. XV, Chapter CCXXVI. Little more astride the J erusalem-Shech em and the Jericho­ than a fortnight later the Turks made a deter­ Beisan roads. The Turks were driven back, mined attempt to recapture the city, although but this did not debar them from sending they, or the Germans for them, had declared troops across the Jordan by roads still farther that it possessed no military value. The north. The Turks were from this tin1e, attack, made on D ecemb er 26-27 (1917), failed March, 1918, under the supreme command completely ; the British lines were pushed of the German general, L iman von Sanders. farther north and the secllrity of J erusalem But h aving secured a sufficiently wide base assured. A few days previously . the enemy for action Allenby, on March 21-22, forced a had b een driven from the neighbourhood of crossing of the Jordan, and thereafter fairly Joppa (Jaffa) and the western front of Allenby's stron g columns, though weak in artillery, army freed from menace. The occupation of pushed on to Amman, a station on the H edjaz J ericho on February 21, 1918, secured t he railway, 30 miles east by north of Jericho in eastern flank of the army. Transport and a straight line. H eavy rain caused delays and supply difficulties rendered, however, a con­ gave time for the enemy to bring up reinforce­ tinuation of operations on a large scale im­ ments, and though a certain a,mOl-mt of derno­ possible for t h e time. General Allenby there­ lition was effected on the railway near Amman fore l-mdertook a raid on the H edjaz rail­ the raid was not as successful as had been hoped. way.. with the object of aidin.g the Arab It; had n evertheless drawn Tl.U~kj s h troops from Army under t he Sherif and Emir Faisal, the south to Amman and had given the Emir w'hich in the region south and east of the Faisal the opportunity of inflicting m uch D ead Sea was faced by a numerically superior damage to the -en emy comml-mications with body of Turks. Medina. A second trans -Jordan raid was To carry out trans-Jordan raids it was planned by the British and an advance b egun n ecessary first to deny to the enemy the use on April 30, p artly in reliance on t he h elp of an of the roads and tracks leading from J udea to Arab tribe which in the end was not able t o Vol. XVIII.-Part 228 9.17 218 THE TI MES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

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o 5 20 bHy {H.I038j

THE COUNTRY BETWEEN JERUSALEM AND DAMASCUS. THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 219 do anything. The troops had to be withdrawn Jordan were also in flight, menaced alike by without achieving their object; a mounted. the British 'and by the army of the Emir brigade which was guarding a crossing of the ' Faisal. The collapse of the Turks was absolute; Jordan above Jericho was driven back (May 1) of a fighting force of some 110,000 Turks and by a force of the enemy which had crossed the . 15,000 Germans over 80,000 were captured river the previous night, and had to abandon and most of the remainder killed. Damascus nine guns. " was entered by British and Arab troops on At this period, to meet the needs of the September 30-0ctober 1, and the rest of Syria situation in France, where the great German fell without further serious opposition, the offensive opened on March 21, General Allenby campaign practically ending with the occupa­ was called upon to send a very considerable tion of Aleppo on October 26. part of .his force to Europe, their places being taken by Indian troops-largely unt,ried bat­ Gener-al Allenby's army-the Egyptian talions. This rendered the adoption of a Expeditionary Force was its official title· -had

DRAGGING FOR GERMAN MINES ON THE PALESTINE COAST.

policy of active defence necessary, and it was been divided into two main striking forces, not until September that General Allenby of which one l..mder Major-General Sir E. S. resumed the offensive. The chief event of Bulfin had advanced along the coast to .Joppa, the summer ,was the complete defeat of a the other, under Major-General SIT Philip Turco-German attack on the British lines on Chetwode, had advanced to Jerusalem. The either side of the Jordan (July 14). m01..mted troops, Yeomanry, Australian Light It was on September 18 that General Horse, New Zealand Mounted Rifles and Allenby's new campaign opened. The infantry Indian Cavalry were under Major-General having carried by assault the enemy positions Sir H. Chauvel. Major-General Sir L. J. Bols on the coast plain, cavalry and armoured cars was chief of staff and so remained to the close swept r01md behind the Turks, who were of the campaign. To Sir Louis Bols's invaluable quickly thrown into confusion and began a aid General Allenby bore generous testimony. disorderly retreat. Outflanked on the east In the description of the post-Jerusalem from the air by squadrons of the R.A.F. and operations Chetwode's force became the XXth the Australian F.C., who bombed the Turks Corps. It included the 53rd , (Welsh) Division, seeking to escape by the roads leading to the the 60th (London) Division (both distinguished Jordan, the rout of the enemy was complete in the fighting which began with the attack on by the night of September 20. A day or two Beersheba), the 74th and 10th Divisions. later all the Turkish garrisons east of the Bulfin's force became the XXlst Corps. It 228-2 220 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

included the famous 52nd (Lowland) Division hills overlooking J oppa and Ramleh. The­ which had walked the whole way from Egypt other part, the remains of six battered divisions, to the Promised Land, and also from Gaza to was stationed close to the British posts around Joppa, the 54th D'ivision, and the 75th Jerusalem. On the west the lines of this part Division. To neither corps did the capture of of the Turkish force extended to Sufia, from which place there was a gap of several miles between it and the Turks by the coast. The country between the wings of the enemy army was rugged and roadless, deep valleys separating bare and rocky spurs. No opera­ tions were possihle here "Lmtil roads fit for whee,led· transport had been made. The only lateral communications possible for the dis­ membered sections of Djemal Pasha's force lay 30 miles to the north. Yet in one respect the Turks were well situated. Both disjointed segn.1eilts retained free communication with their base and their transport worked with sufficient smoothness to enable them to b e quickly reinforced from Damascu s. From that

A BRITISH CAMP IN THE JUDEAN HILLS.

Jerusalem aJford any respite from fighting; nor to General Chauvel's force, of which a considerable section was then brigaded, dis­ mounted, with the infantry . It was, indeed, not until some days after J erusalem had fallen that the news reached some of the solitary outposts in the Judean Hills, where the weather was both wet and bitterly cold and cases of frostbite not uncommon. But the monotony of their life was soon to b e broken. General Allenby's rapid advance had brought him on the coast to the mouth of the N ahr el Auja, three miles north of J oppa, and on the east to a line in the hills four miles east PILLAR ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE and north of Jerusalem, astride the roads THE CROSSING OF T~ NAHR EL AUJA leading respectively to Jericho and Shechem BY THE 55th BRIGADE, DECEMBER 20-21, 1917. (Nablus). From the Nahr el Auja to the Jerusalem positions the British line ~overed, city a railwa.y ran through Gilead, crossed the rather insecurely, the main Joppa-Ramleh­ Jordan at the southern end of the Sea of Jerusalem road. The force opposing General Galilee, and was continued to Nazareth, where Allenby had been split into two isolated parts. headquarters were situated. Going thence One part, that which had suffered most severely south-west and passing near Samaria, the in the previous operations, had halted in the railway ran parallel to the coast. Thus the THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 221

Turkish force n ear J oppa had a railway service and XXIst Corps to c£l,rry out certain opera­ to its front lines. To reinforce the Turks tions designed to put eight miles between the about Jerusalem troops were detraine.d at enemy and J oppa and 10 miles b etween the Jeba, near Samaria, whence they marched to enemy and J erusalem. The task entrusted to the front by the Shechem high road. By this the XXth Corps was accomplished with . route General von Falkenhayn, then the complete success. Sir Edward Bulfin's chief German general in virtual command of the difficulty we,s the crossing of the Nahr el Auja Turkish army in Syria, at once sent rein­ and the capture of the high ground at Sheikh forcements, Turkish and German (and some Muannis and Khurbet Hanr::th overlooking that

[A men:can Colony photo. GENERAL ALLENBY AND STAFF AT JERUSALEM. Austrian gunners), towards Jerusalem. H e river. It was decided to cross the Auja by believed that by a bold str-oke the H oly City night in rafts and small boats, and by fords. might be recovered, and its recapture was The work was entrusted to the 52nd (Lowland) desired by the Germans even more eagerly Division. Preparations had to be made with than by the Turks. great secrecy, as the Turks were very much on Meanwhile the position of the British force • the alert. It was impossible to reconnoitre was not altogether en viable. It had yet to the enemy positions by day; one night two make secure the fruits of its great advance officers swam the river near its mouth and from the Beersheba-Gaza front. " In order to creeping within the enen:lY lines ascertained the provide more effectively for the security of exact position, depth ancl width of an important J erusalem and Jaffa," wrote General Allenby, ford. The difficulties of the Scots were "it was essential that the line should be increased by heavy rains, which had turned advanced." H e accordingly ordered the XXth the approach to the river into a dangerous 222 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

mud swamp (into which sorne l.mfortunates p adnled acro,~s with muffled oars. A line was tower! were hmied to their armpits before being behind, and t his being made fas t on eit,her side of the river the rafts crossed and recrosaed by ha ulage on the rescued). vVith the h elp, however, of a Lanca­ rope in order t hat no disturbance on the surface on "hire pioneer battalion tolerable tracks to the even such a wild night should cause an alarm. When the bridges of rafts h a d he en swung and anchored, "elected crossing places were made, and all bla~k p- ts and c3.rpets WArp laid a(!ross t.hem to q ~ llet t h e being ready the night of December 20-21 was faU of m arching feet. D own by the ford t h ere was a fixed for the enterprise. On the four or five moment.ary stoppago. As the river rises and falls t he ford shifts, and the high level of th e water h ad obli terated preceding nights artillery and machine-gun cert.ain guide-post s . The officer commandifl g the lead i ng fire was directed against the enemy at the same battalion at onc') went into water up to his neck to search for the forn and, finding it, led his m en over in hour and for the same length of time, so that on column of four1l, each secticn of fours linking arms t o the night of the operation they might think prevent the swirling waters from earrying them out, to sea. that only the usual bombardment was in Orders were th

[Official photograph. MOSQUE OF OMAR, JERUSALEM. were taken completely by surprise. The fired. It speaks well for the Scots' discipline that not a division crossed the Auja in three columns. ' single round of rifle ammunition was ll sed by them till daylight, when, as some k~ en m a rksmen tell you, they That on the left forded the river near its had" some grand nmning-man pract.ice." The Turks ,) mouth, at that point four feet deep, and wer e absolutely surprised. Tren ches WAre rush ed, and the hest men won with cold st eel. Two officers found captured a position over two miles to the north. sleeping in a boat resisted pond had to be killed, and two The centre and right columns crossed on rafts miles behind the river in a post near the sea the Low­ and rushed Sheikh Muannis and Khurbet landers captured the whnle garrison, none of whonl h ad the smallest idea of our approach. Hadrah at the point of tho bayonet, without a In one place some Turks heing atta cl en with the shot h eing fired. Three hundred and sixteen hayonet shout,0d an alarm, ann one of thp- crossings wr.s shelled, bnt its position was immediately chan ged, and Turks, including two battalion commanders, the passage over the river continued uninterrupted. and 10 machine guns were captured. Mr. At d aylight all the ohjectives h ad been won and the troops were well dug in. VV. T. Massey, the Press correspondent with 'The next day was spent in bridge-building the Expeditionary Force, thus describes the and by dusk the whole of the Divisional crossing: Artillery of the 52nd Division was across the The throe columns got to the water's edge and, working to a wonderful time-table, the first raftload of men wab river, and on the 22nd the objectives assigned THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR ?23

ONE OF THE BRITISH AEROPLANES IN PALESTINE. to the XXIst Corps had been gained. On and the hills on the Shechem road. Services the right (east) the 54th Division h ad some were held in all the churches at Jerusalem and pretty fighting in the orchards which surround B ethlehem, the singing of the customary Mulebbis (with its J ewish colony) and captured Christmas hymns by choirs of soldiers being Rantieh, thus depriving the enemy of the use a great feature. For the first time, too, the of anoth er section of the railway. On the strains of " Land of My Fathers" echoed coast the 52nd Division, advancing two miles b eyond its given objectives, occupied the little p ort of Arsuf, famous a~ the scen e of a great victory by the Crusaders under Richard CCBur de Lion over t he army of Saladin (September 7, 1] 91). In these coastal operations ships of the Royal Navy under Rear-Admiral T. J ackson, C.B., rendered effective help, while airmen aided the 54th Division by machine-gunning en emy columns at short range and by dropping two and a half tons of bombs on rolling stock, t ransport and troops. This success of the XXIst Corps rendered J oppa and its harbour secure, and, as General Allenby wrote, " gained elbow room for the troops coverin.g Ludd and Ramleh and the main J oppa-Jer usalem road." Moreover, positions had been secured from (A merican Colony plwto. which an advance, along the coast might be GENERAL ALLENBY LEA YES JERUSALEM ON HORSEBACK. m ade when opportunity arose. After his formal entry on foot. Meanwhile the preparations for the operations intended to give " elbow room" to the British through the streets of J erusalem in Welsh. around J erusalem were hindered by the The n ext night the Turks attacked, before p ersistently wet weather, and at the same time the advance planned by Gen eral Allenby had signs that the enemy intended to attack began developed. to be noticed. Christmas Day (1917), however, It was at 11.30 p.m. on D ecemb er 26, 1917, passed quietly, save for the u sual gunfire from that the Turco-Germans launched the attack. the neighbourhood of the Mount of Olives The force employed was the Third Turkish 224 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE W AB. .)

TERRACED HILLS AND A TURKISH TRENCH NORTH 'OF JERUSALEM.

Corps, composed ent,irely of fresh troops, who, gallant resistance, holding out "lmtil relief came not 'having been in the retreat from Beersheba on the morning of the 28th." These Middlesex and Gaza, ha:d escaped its demoralizing effects. men occupied Deir ibn Obeid, finding shelter in One division had come direct from the Cau­ the ruins of the old monastery (dei?'). casus. The first blow was delivered against As soon as the attack on the 60th Division the 60th (London) Division, whose advanced had developed, Sir Philip Chetwode ordered a posts on either side of the Jerusalem-Shechem counter-attack on the enemy right (west) wing, road were driven in. By 1. 30 a.m. the next and this was begun at ~.30 a.m. on December 27 morning the division was engaged along its by the 74th and 10th Divisions. These whole front. The London Territorials were divisions included Irish troops and dismo"lmted equal to their high reputation. For eight and yeomanry. For the moment their counter­ a I:alf hours, with scarcely a pause between attack did not affect the position arolmd the waves of attack, the Turks fhmg themselves Jerusalem, where, however, there was a lull in against the division's lines; at' one point only the fighting about 8 a.m. This lull continued did they succeed in reaching the main line of till just before one o'clock, when the enemy defence, and then were at once driven out by launched another at.tack "of "lmexpected the local reserves. The h eaviest fighting , "vas strength" against the whole front. In places for possession of Tell-el-Ful, a conspicuous hiH the Turks reached the main line of defence, overlooking J erusalem. Against it attacks but were unable to maintain their hold. At were made by picked ,bodies of Germans and one point the Londoners, after raking the Turks, and ,were pressed with great but "lm­ advancing waves of the enemy with their availing gallantry, the enemy casualties being lllachine-glms, sprang over their breastworks , severe. Meanwhile the 20th Turkish Corps, and met the Turks with the bayonet. The reinforced from Jericho, had attacked the line was ev'erywhere restored, and the enemy 53rd Division (which, besides 'Welsh, contained fell back. It proved to be his final effort, for Cheshire, H ereford, and Home CO"lmties troops). by now he could no longer ignore the advance These attacks east of J erusalem failed. One of the 74th and 10th Divisions. He was incident on this front is specially recorded obliged to divert his reserves to meet the: by Ge~leral Allenby. "A company of Middle­ threat to his right flank, and the danger to sex troops was surrounded by 700 Turks Jerusalem passed. The 74th and lOth Divisions supported by mountain artillery. Although ' had encountered a stubborn resistance, while without artillery support it offered a most the character of the terrain rendered all move- THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 225 ment slow. The rough and broken ground was after some wonderful hill-climbing in face of boulder·strewn, providing excellent positions concealed machine-gun fire, captured Kefr for machine-guns; ideal country for the de­ Shiyan, on the north side of the Ain Arik laying action the enemy fought. Moreover, in valley. On the east the 53rd Division extended places the hills rose so precipitously-the 74th its line no:r,:thward, thus protecting the advance Division,having started from Beth Horon Upper, of the Londoners (with whom were some was crossing the Zeitun ridge-that the only way Australian dismounted troops) in the centre. in which the troops could get up the terraced These met with considerable resistanoe at Er slopes was by men standing on each other's Ram-the Ramah of the Old T estament, a shoulders. Behind the front lines the reserves, small town closely associated with the prophet dragging up the guns, had a hard job; some of Samuel, and to which the Babylonians, after the guns dangled in the air while being haliled. their capture of Jerusalem, brollght the prophet Notwithstanding all difficulties, by nightfall the Jeremiah. Er Ram was captured, the Turks Yeomanry and Irish had gone forward over two retiring to Bireh (Beeroth), the Et Tahuneh miles, the 74th Division reaching the eastern end ridge just north of it, and Shab Saleh, a of the Zeitun ridge by Beitunia, which at a height precipitous hill 1,000 yards south of Bireh. of 2,670 feet overlooks the Shechem road. At all these places the enemy on the 29th Following up his advantage. Sir Edmund fought with determination, but was driven Allenby on December 28 ordered a general out by the 60th Division--at Shab Saleh by a advance, and by the evening of the 30th the fine ~harge in face of heavy machine-gun fire. enemy had been driven back to a depth Throughout these two days (December 28-29) varying from three miles on the west to six the airmen gave the infantry much h elp. They miles on the east, with the result, as a vVar " not only gained valuable and timely informa­ Office report put it, "We now have four strong tion, but repeatedly attacked the enemy's troops positions between the enemy and Jerusalem and transport with bombs and machine-gun instead of on." On the 28th the 74th Division fire from low altitudes."* On the 30th the captured Beitunia, which, as covering the * A few armoured cars werE" also used. One car which, Shechem road, the enemy defended with much on the 27th, was ahead of the line overturned, but the crew got away with their gun, and n ext day the caT was obstinacy; further west the 10th Division, recovered.

AN ARMOURED CAR A TBETHLEHEM. 226 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

A WIRE.NETTING ROAD ACROSS THE DESERT.

opposition had collapsed, the British line being adaptation of the Turkish narrow-gauge lines pushed forward in the centre to Beitan, the from Gaza northward took time. The work Arabic form of Bethel (the House of God), this was taken in hand early in November, 1917, being the place where J acob had the vision of but it was not until February, 1918, that through the ladder j?ining earth to heaven, upon communication between Kantara and Jerusalem which angels ascended and descended. But was established. Equally important was the ahnost every village captured had some construction of roads in the hills of J udea Biblical or Crusading connexion, and it was . capable of taking wheeled traffic, and the noted that the line now held by the British accumulation of stores and ammunition in corresponded roughly with the northern limit forwarLl areas. All this had to be done in an of the Kingdom of Judah . exceptio~ally wet season and mainly with . In this fight the total enemy casualties were imported (Egyptian) labour. The excellent put at between 4,000 and 5,000. Nearly all service rendered by the Egyptian Labour Corps their wounded and many of their dead they has been noted in a previous chapter, and its carried away, but over 1,000 Turkish corpses work in 1918 drew a well-deserved eulogy from were left on the field; while 750 .prisoners, General Allenby. Even with the Sl-ifliculties including 39 officers, as well as 24 machine-guns indicated overcome, General Allenby was not were captured. The British casualties were free to continue the main campaign, that is, under 1,000 all told. Among the prisoners the conquest of Northern Palestine and an taken 'by the Irish troops were a number of advance into Syria proper, until he had made Germans. They seemed amazed to find them· his right fl'ank secure. For the time that selves opposed by white soldiers, and declared flank was" in the ~ir." The Northern Army that they had been told they would only have of the King of the Hedjaz, under the Emir and to fight " Indians and the scum of Egypt. " . Sherif Faisal, was east of the Dead Sea, but There was no further fighting of importance Turkish forces lay between the Arabs and the for the next six or seven weeks, and in the early British right wing. A Turkish " fleet" (motor days of January, 1918, General Allenby paid launches and armed dhows) still sailed the a visit to Cairo , where he discussed the difficulties Dead Sea, and from its shores raiding parties of supply and transport which beset him. were sent out. The enemy likewise held the His base was still the Suez Canal, for .J oppa lower Jordan and Jericho, and was able by and the other ports in Palestine which the means of the Hedjaz railway to reinforce his British held, though useful, could not give troops there ahnost at will-not quite, because great help, owing to their limited accommoda­ of the Arab raids on the line. Troops sent by tion and exposed positions. At least 90 per the enemy to the lower Jordan detrained at cent. of everything required had to come Amman (Rabbath-Ammon), once a stronghold by the railway from Kantara across the Sinai of the Ammonites and the Philadelphia of the Peninsula. The continuation of this line Ptolemies, a town 30 miles in a direct line east into Palestine and the reconstruction and ' by north of Jericho. From this place, over THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. the plateau of Moab by Es Salt and by the officers and men was probably unexampled in pass at Shunet Nimrin, the Turks had built a the history of an army; the agent of the Bible metalled road, and at Ghoraniyeh the river was Society in J erusalem, a worthy American who crossed by a bridge built since the beginning . had at great personal risk remained in the city of the war. Obviously, General Allenby's throughout the war, sold out his whole stock immediate task was to secure the right flank within a week. As was natural, it was the of his army by driving the enemy across the historical books of the Bible that the troops Jordan. This General Allenby determined mainly studied; officers holding one or other to do. As has been indicated, while the Jordan Valley campaign was being planned only minor enterprises were undertaken elsewhere. The air service was, however, very active, constantly bombing the enemy communications, and in January twelve enemy machines were brought down. Early in' January Borton Pasha, the Governor of Jerusalem, was com­ pelled to resign owing to ill-health; he was succeeded by Mr. Ronald Storrs, C.M.G., Oriental Secretary to the British Agency, Cairo. Mr. ,Storrs proved an able governor, winning the esteem of Moslem, J ew, and Christian alike. Convinced by the result of the battle of D ecember 26- 30 that the Turks were no longer to be feared, provided by the energy of the Royal Engineers with a good water supply, . MR. RONA~O STORRS, C.M.G. connected by railway with Egypt, the citizens British Governor of Jerusalem. of Jerusalem began to recover from the apathy and despair into which they had fallen. ,Steps of fhe "fenced cities" of J udah tried to were taken by the' British to relieve distress, reconstruct the campaigns of Saul an..d David a police force was organized and the law against the Philistines-and found the task clifficult. administered with indifferent justice to all. / Facilities for trade were given and enterprising Among the outposts (wrote a correspondent) our time of waiting was varied by pat.rols and raids, an occupa­ firms gained much profit from the troops in tion in which the enemy also took a h and, sometirues occupation; not least from the thousands of with success. The British posts are mostly on hill-tops , where a " fort" is built of great stones, or the , men soldiers who visited the Holy Places of the lodged in caves, or in ruined buildings of Crusading or city. The demand for the Scriptures among still earlier times. Generally the country is bare save

THE DESERT RAILWAY. 228-3 228 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

for pat,ches of olive trees, but in places the ground is the east and the vVadi el Auja * on the carpeted wit.h crocusos, jonquils and other flow"lrs whose north." names I don't know, and sweet-smelling' h erbs. From r"lany of the hill stations there is nothing to be seen save It was not, as far as opposition from the tumbled hills, with deep, d ark, intervening ravines, enemy was expected, a large enterprise, but except westward, where 6ne gets a lovely view of the Mediterranean, and from here we can make out Joppa the obstacles offered by Nature were most and its orange groves [at J~p pa the price of oranges was formidable. FroIl1. the hills round J erusalern , about 50 a shilling]. The howls of j ackal':; make the many of them 2,000 or more feet high, to the nigh t.s hideous . The villages are very poor, as are the pE'opIa, though well disposed. Many of the able-bodied Jordan, which lies 1,200 ft. b elow the sea level men h a.d been carried off by the Turks before we -a distance of 17 miles-the descent is steep, came. At Christmas it poured with rain and the wadis were in flood. It has sCILrcely left off raining but not continuous, being interrupted by series since, and it is bitterly cold. 0111' battery k eeps of ridges. The banks of the chief wadis are the enemy busy, and from his side of the wadi he is mostly precipitous, tributary streams flow not idle. ' Indeed, his sh ooting is too accurate to be pleasant. They say his best gunners are Austrians. from every direction, and from a little west of

[Official photograph. CHANGING GUARD OUTSIDE THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.

-- was h ere, and told us that he had been bomhing Jericho the grOlmd falls sharply in steep cliff::; boats on the Dead Sea~ It seems strange, flying hun­ dreds of feet below the level of the Roa, but Pa!cstine is to the sweltering mud flats of the Jordan Valley. a queE' r cOlmtry. " On no previous occasion," said General Allenby, "had such difficulties of ground been General Allenby's plans included 'the' gaining encOlmtered," and he tells of a battery of field 6f s11fficient elbow room west of the Jordan to artillery taking 36 hours to cover a distance, all ~w him later on t o operate east of the Jordan. as the crow flies, of eight miles. To attain this object the enemy line would For this expedit ion tpe trS:>Ops employed have to be driven back n9t only in the Jordan were the 60th and 53rd Divisions and the Valley itself, but on the road to Shechem. . Australian and New Zealand Mou~ted Division. Preparations for an advance northward b eing still incomplete in m id-February, General * Thr Wadi el Auja sh ould not be confounded with Allenby decided "to carry out' the advance the Nahr el ,t\.ll ja, which enters the Mediterranean a to the Jordan as a separate enterprise, the little north of Joppa, and had already been crossed by the XXIst Corps. The W adi el Auja enters the Jordan limit ~ of t he advance being the J ordan on eight miles north-e,a::;t of .Jerich o. THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 229

.Ofjicial phot08r.rzPil. A CORNER OF THE MARKET-PLACE, JERICHO. Prisoners being brought in .

The advance began on February 19. The . Zealand Brigade then advanced ' direct on Londoners had previously taken over the lines Nebi Musa, but was checked at the Wadi east of Jerusalem, and the 53rd Division was Mukelik-the position of the only crossing now further north. The Londoners therefore having been accurately registered by the were in the centre and the 53rd Division on'the enemy's guns. Later in the day the Australian left flank. The general plan was for the Brigade discovered a ford over the Wadi Londoners to advance direct to the cliffs Kumran, north of N ebi Musa, and crossing it overlooking Jericho, while the Australians and entered the Jordan Valley and moved south New Zealanders were to strike south to N ebi so as to cut off the Turks' retreat,. The enemy, Musa, four miles from the Dead Sea, thence however, realized his danger in time, and with­ turning north into the Jordan Valley. The drew his . garrisons both from Nebi M~sa and Turks. whose force opposite the 60th and frorn Jericho, retiring to the Jordan bridgehead 53rd Divisions numbered .some 7,000 rifles, at Ghoraniyeh. At 6 a.m. on February 21 the held El Muntar, Rummon, Ras el Tawil, and New Zealanders and a battalion of the .other commanding heights, but all these hills Londoners occupied N ebi Mnsa-which, in were captured on the 19th, 'Rununon by the contradiction to the Bible record, is believed 53rd Division. A night attack was repulsed by Moslems to be the burial-place of Moses, after sharp ~ghting, and the advance was a:'nd is held by them in much veneration. * continued on the 20th. Another hill, J ebel At 8.30 the same morning the Australian Ektief (overlooking the road of the "Good Mounted Brigade cantered into Jericho (Eriha), Samaritan"), was climbed and stormed, and the modern and miserable village occupying by evening the Londoners were only folU' neither the exact site of the city which Joshua miles from the cliffs above Jericho. While razed to the ground nor that rebuilt in the this direct approach to the Jordan was being time of Ahab, and outside whose walls Christ made, the Australians and New Zealanders, restored sight to blind Bartimrens. with the H.A.C. and Territorial field batteries In retiring frorn N ebi Musa the Turks also brigaded with them, advancing from Bethle­ abandoned Ru'jm el Bahr, the port on the hem, had been much hampered not only by the north-west shores of the D ead Sea., setting fire difficulties of the terrain, but by the enemy. to their stores and repair shops, scuttling sonie The Turks h eld two high hills south of N ebi of their boats and fleeing in the others. In Musa, and as on February 20 the mounted the J ordan Valley the enemy drew back t~ the troops, compelled to move in single file over northern bank of the 'Wadi e1 Auja. The t4e rough tracks, came within range they were * In the May following the annual Moslem pilgrimage subjected to a heavy machine-gun fire. The from J erusalem to Nebi l\'[usa was made with much ceremony and with the cordial help of the British two hills were nevertheless taken. The New aut.horitie~ . 230 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

prisoners taken during the three days numbered 1918) that General von Falkenhayn, who had only 146, and the enemy casualties ,,"'ere prob­ failed to sav~ or to retake either Baghdad or ably not great, but it was a fine achievement, J erusalem, was recalled and General Liman von specially noteworthy being the manner in which Sanders, who had been with the Turks at Gal­ both the Londoners and the mounted troops lipoli, put in his place, and from this period got their g1U~S into " impossible" positions. Djemal Pasha, the Vali of Syria, seems to have About a fortnight later General Allenby put taken no further part in the ~irec tion of military into execution . the second part of his plan, affairs. The enemy by n ow was fairly well dug in tha.t is, he attacked with the object of driving along the' whole west-Jordan front, and he the enemy sufficiently far north to render it seemed confi1ent of his ability t o hold his own. difficult for his troops west of the J or'dan to . General Allenby's scheme was for Chet-vvode's interfere with operations east of the river. and Bulfin's corps to advance, from east of T wo . things were n ecessary : ( 1) to secure the the Shechem road to west of the coast railway, high ground nort!: of the Wadi el Al1ja covering on a 26-mile front to a depth of seve? miles . the approaches to the J Qrdan by the Roman In addition there was a separate and minor road nmning north from Jericho to B eisan; advance in the Jordan Valley 'Lmdertaken on (2) to advance sufficiently astride the J erusalem­ the night of March 8- 9 by a brigade of the Shechem road "to deny to the enemy all 60th Division. In this minor operation the tracks and roads leading to the lower J ordan Londoners "experienced some difficulty" in Yalley." T o onlookers, General Allenby's crossing the Wadi el Auja in the dark, and action appeared to 'be a resumption of the main subsequ ently met with considerable opposition, advance, an attempt to force a way ,through but by 3 p.m. on the 9th had occupied the the hills to Shechem, and on this assumption commanding hill of Abu Tellul, and later in there was crit icism of General Allenby becau se the day by getting across the J ericho-Beisan he did not strike north along the coast plain. road attained their objective. In the main I t is doubtful if the enemy Higher Command theatre the fighting was of a more arduous was deceived. It was at this time (March, character. The 53rd Division was on the

THE PILGRIMAGE TO NEBT MUSA-. Pilgrims from Hebron approaching the Mosque El Aksa in Jerusalem, April 26, 191 8. THE TIMES H~STORY OF THE WAR. 231 right, the 74th in the centre, astride the the crest and held it against all later attacks. Jerusalem-Shech em road, and· the 10th Thus from the east they commanded the Division on the left. These divisions all Shechem road, which h ere by a v (;)ry rocky belonged to th8 XXth Corps. Next ·to the descent entered the Wadi el Haramiyeh-the lOth Division was the 75th Division (XXlst Robbers' Valley. But north of Tell Asur and Corps ), and still further west, in the co~s t little inferior to it in h eight was Lisaneh, region, was the 54th Division. The greater ~ rov'iTn e d . by a ruined twelfth-century castle part of the gr01md which now became the scen e of operations was, as usual, rugged and difficult. The chief features were terraced or p recipitous hills, cut transversely by deep wadis, with various higher hills, all garrisoned by the enemy, dominating the few fairly decent roads and tracks. Better country for defence cOl-ud not be desired. Sir Philip Chetwode's corps moved to the assembly position s on the night of March 8, a nd attacked the next morning. It fOl-illd the en emy ready and obstipate, especially in the region of the Shechem road. Advance along the road itself was impossible as it was fully commanded by h eights on either side. Of t hese heights T ell Asur (3,318 feet) was the most conspicuous. * By the evening of the 9th t h e 53rd Division had established itself on T ell Asur. The Turks made many attempts to r ecover the hill, but in vain. The divisions further west made corresponding advances. All day on the 10th and far into the night the battle continued, the enemy defending each successive ridge, while on the extreme west by Nebi Saleh the 10th Division had to meet several heavy counter-attacks. Yet by the evening of the 11th, notwithstanding the natural difficulties and the stubborn opposition of the en emy, the XXth Corps had attained the objec~ives set it. The capture of T ell Asur was the work of the Middlesex men of the 53rd Division. The top and southern sides of the mountain were GENERAL LIMAN VON SANDERS. scored with trenches, and the Turks had many G erm a ~ Leader with the Turkish machille-gl-ills. In face of heavy fire the Army. Middlesex troops scaled the h eight and ejected (hence Burj el Lisaneh-the T ower of the the en emy from the trenches on the south, Tongue). Here in former times a small leaving the crest-line b etween them and the garrison used to be maintained to defend the Turks . Both sides started bombing with hand p~ss from brigands. Lisan eh was captured grenades, but after a time the British paused. by the 53rd Division after a sharp tussle. This misled the Turks, who swept over the crest Westward of the Shechem road, on the ridges towards their enemy. But met by a very hot north of the Wadis el Nimr and El Jib. the fire they hesitated and finally fell back. The· fighting was equally eevere : Middlesex men sprang after them, secured The descent of the slopes leading down to 1he Wa.dis el Nimr and El Jib and the ascent on t h e far s ide pre­ '" Tell Asur, the Baal H azor of the H ebrews, was the sented great. difficulties (said General Allenby). The ·cen e of one of the dramatic stories in t he Old T estament downward slopes were exceptionally steep, almost pre­ -th e slaying of Amnon by order of his h alf-brother ci.pit,ous in places. It was impossible for companies and Absalom, ,vho thus sought to avenge hiR sist er Tamar's platoons to move on a wid e front. The slopes were honollr. swept by machine-gun and rifle fire, and t he bottom of 282 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

RUINS AT AMMAN.

In these operations, apart from the advantage reaped· in the coast 'sector, the heights over­ looking Sinjil and the comparatively low country to the north-east had fallen into British hands. The prisoners taken were few- 283 in all, but the XXth Corps had" gained a line with great natural facilities for defence," and Genel1.1 Allenby now considered himself free to car:::-y out certain trans-Jordan raids. That the enemy suspected his design had been shown in the abandonment of the bridgehead DOLMEN AT AMMAN. at the J Ol'dan by Jericho. On March 6 the Turks had withdrawn their troops acro'ss th~ warns hy enfilad~ fire. The ascent on the far side was steeply terraced. Men had alternately to hoist and the Jordan and on ,the following night they pull each other up, under fire, and finally to expel the· blew up the bridge at Ghoraniyeh. • enemy from the summits in hand-to-haIld fighting. Sir Edmund Allenby's object in penetrating In the foothills and coast sector Sir E. S. into Eastern Palestine was to cut the H edjaz Bulfin's corps was equally successful in its railway at Amman and thus aid the Arab advance, the given objectives being attained army under the Emir Faisal. The in'lportance by March 12. The troops engaged were mainly which attached to the success of the Arab East Anglian, South Anglian and Indian. arms was not generally appreciated in Great. They secured the ridge overlooking the Wadi Britain, but was thoroughly 1..mderstood in Ballut on the north, Ras el Ain (an old Crusader Germany and in the N ear East. It was stronghold on the coast railway), and the desirable that the Arabs themselves should villages of Mejdal Yaba and El Mirr. At take a large share in freeing all the Arab lands Benet Burri, north of the Wadi Ballut, the held by the Turks. In previous chapters* the razor-edged crest was found to be honeycombed story of the Arab . uprising and its political "l ith ~aves with entrances on both sides. significance have been told in some detail, and Difficulty was exper'ienced here, but eventually the Emir Faisal's advance to the Dead Sea a platoon of Ghurkas worked to the rear of the briefly chronicled. The Emir's forces were ridge and bringing a Lewis glm to hear secured then based on Akaba (which had been captured the surrender of the garrison of the caves. * in July, 1917) at the h ead of the eastern gdJ

* The Indian troops were greatly di ~ lik ed by the enemy's rear lines, blown up an obnoxious observation Turks. A few night.s previously . after rushing a hill, a post and returned unscathed. party of Indians had crept unperceived t.hrough the * Vol. XVII., Chaps. CCXLVIIT. and CCLVI. THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 233 of the R ed Sea, and his army had come under Emir Faisal, a man of remarkable iut.ellectual Sir Edmund Allenby's general c ~mtrol. The gifts, a great warrior and a great diplomatist, Emir had had the advantage of the help of a had accomplished a miracle; he had won all few British and French officers, and some were the B eduin from Mecca to Damascus to his still with him. Captain George Lloyd, M.P. (vVarwickshire Yeomanry)*, after the revolt of the Grand Sherif of Mecca, had helped to organize the HedjjLz army, and he was with the Emir ~aisal in the operations against th ~ Turks from Akaba. Another British officer, who was with the Arabs from near the begin­ ning to the end of the campaign, was Colonel T. E. Lawrence, a young Arabic scholar from Oxford who turned soldier and proved a great leader of men. Col. Lawrence, who adoptea the Arab costume, acted as Staff officer to the Emir Faisal, and received high honours from King Hussein. He proved such a thorn in the side of the Turks as a raider that they put a price on his head. It was he who blew up the lElliott {r Fry. train in which Djemal Pasha was travelling to CAPT. GEORGE A. LLOYD, . M.P. J erusalem in November, 1917. Part of the Who helped to organize the Hedjaz Army. Imperial Camel Corps under Lieut.-Col. R. V. Buxton, D.S.O., in civil life a well-known City side, notably Sherif Nasir, a good strategist and man and a director of Martin's Bank, joined a notable figure, in the northern Hedjaz, and Faisal during 1918. Ai; one time, too, some Sheikh Auda abu Tayi "the leading spirit of Australian airmen were with the Arabs. The the Howeitat and the finest fighting man of the desert." Faisal's force numbered 40,000, * In October , 1918; Capt. Lloyd was appointed Gover­ nor of Bombay. but his regular army, drawn from the Arab

THE EMIR FAISAL AND THE FLAG OF THE HEDJAZ. The Emir is the tall mounted figure on horseback seen in profile. 2,34 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 235

peasantry of Syria and Mesopotamia, was only trying friend, love him as a national monument; so a few thousands strong. This regular army without more ado they surrendered t.hem~elves and their Turkish garrison. had been formed specially to help as General Allenby's right wing and to conform to orthodox The defeat of the TUTks in their attempt to retake Tafile has already been told (Vol. tactics. It had its first enga~ment about the time.of the battle of Beersheba, WRen XVII., Chapter CCXLVIII.), but it came near success. "The flashes of the Turkish rifles fivp. hundred m en with two mountain and four machine-guns, holding a selected poc:ition on the heights at the orest of the great gorge in wh~ch Tafile round P etra, the "roile-red city half as old as time," lies were very visible, and there ensued a great held them against four Turkish in£aptry battalions, a panic the town. All the women screamed cavalry regiment, half a mounted infantry regiment, in six mountain gnns, four fi eld guns, and two machine-gtm • companies . This quotation is from an account written by a correspondent of The Times who was with the ATabs and shared in their campaigns. Writing of the formation of this regular army he says:

The abandon of the early days, when each man had his camel and his li ttle bag of flour and his rifle, was over. Tbe force had to be organized and become responsible . No l onger could F eis1l1 [Faisal] throw h imself into the thickest of the doubtful fight and by his magne tic leader­ .. hip. andstill more wondPfful snap-shooting, turn the day in our favour. N o.longer could the Sherifs in glowing robes hurLle out in front of their men in h eady camel charges and bring back spolia opima in their own handc:; . Even our wonderful Arab bodyguards -Qentral Arabia camel-men-dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, only one d egree less gorgeous than their camel-trappings, had to be sacrificed. The Sherifian army now stood on the threshold of Syria, and its work wac:; h enceforward THE EMIR FAISAL. with the townsmen and the villagrrs--excellent p eople, Photographed in London iD December, 1918. but not the salt of the earth, as are the Al'abs of the d esert. with terror, and thTew their household goods That" the abandon of the early days" had and children out of their houses into the not quite vanished is clear from the corre­ streets, thTough which came plunging mounted spondent's account of Faisal's first efforts to ",\.rabs, shooting busily at nothing in particular. " coop erate in the J ordan Valley and Dead Sea After their brilliant successes the Arabs were operations: in good spirits, "and we foresaw oUTselves meeting the British shortly at J ericho " : Feisul tried (he wrote), by means of the local tribes and peasantry, to sh are in the British descent to the Dead However, things went wrong. It wa.c:; partly the re­ Sea and Jordan Valley. Sherif Nasir again led the action after a great effort, partly the stimulus we had forlorn hope, and again Auda abu Tayi joined us. There given to the Turks, partly the awful weather-for just C'1me also some of tho Berni Sakhr clan from Moab. after t he end of January the winter broke for good, and The force moved about the desert east of Maan, uneasily we h ad day~ of drenching rain, which made the level for a time, and then. uddenly, in the first day.' of January, ground one vast mud-slide, on which neither man nor made al). attack on the third .railway station north of camel could pa.ss. When this cleared we had snow, and Maan, called Jal1f [Jal1£ ed Derwish]. The Turks held snow and snow. The hills round Tafile are 5,000 ft. the station buildings strongly, and a covering knoll high,' af!.d open on the east to all the winds that Arabia · above it; but Nasir h ad with him a.li ttle mountain ·gun, can send, and conditions soon became impossiblo. Snow which knocked out the first Turkish g un, and so en­ lay on the ground for three weeks ... '. It increased couraged the Beduin that t hey got on their camels and om~ ' s miserv to see below o~e, in Wadi Arabah, the level again repeated the camel charge that had won u s the land of the" Dead Sea d epression flooded with sunli ght, . fight for Akaba. Bullets have little immediate effect and to know that down t.here was long grass sown with on a camel that is ~oing at 25 miles an hour, and before flowers, and the fre. h milk and comfort of spring in t,h e the Turks could do anything the Arabs were over the desert. The Arabs wear only a cotton shirt and a woollen trenches and among the station buildings. The sur ­ cloak, winter and summer, and were altogether unfitted vivors of the garrif: on, som e 200 in number, surrendered for weather like this; v.ery many of them (lied of the cold. at discretion. From J auf N a.3ir marched to TafiIe and summoned Faisal's doings had indeed "stimulated the it to surrender. The Turkish garrison of 100 laughed TUTks." They concentrated a considerable at us ; but Auda galloped up under their bullets to the east end of th3 town, where the market opens on to a force, including a battalion of German infantry, little green place, and in his voice, which at its loudest at the railway stations nearest Tafile and carries above all the t.umult of a melee, called on "the advancing in March reoccupied Tafile, the ATabs dogs of villagers to hand over their Turks. All the Arab world knows Auda, and while they regard him as a most being compelled in face of superior nunlbers 236 THE TIldES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

district, and possibly to induce the enemy to weaken his garrison at Ma'an, the stronghold on the border of Arabia which was the E mir­ Faisal's main objActive With 1\ht'an in Ar[lb hands the Turks at Medina would be completelY isolated The crossing of the Jordan, the first st ep in the raid on Am.man, was made on March 21 (1918). It was the day the Germans opened their great ' offensive on the vVestern front, an event which soon had a marked effect on the Palestine campaign, but did not interfere with this first enterprise-since the times of the Crusades-of British troops in the Land of Moab. The force engag~d was composed of the 60th (London) Division; the Australian and New. Zealand Mounted Division (still' popularly though not officially known .as the c:. Anzac Mounted Division); an Imperial Camel ~ Q."S. Brigade; a Mounted Artillery Brigade; a reHesh heavy battery and the Light Armoured . Car­ ShahimSta. ~ Brigade with the Camel Transport Corps to· "3:- Ramla ~ bring up supplies. * N ear Amman the Hedjaz MediJwera \(H.'OS9 railway crosses a viaduct and passes through. a tunnel. These were the objectives of the THE DEAD SEA REGION. force. Viaduct and tunnel destroyed, the to withdraw some 15 miles to the south, to . troops were to fall back to the Jordan Valley. positions north of Shohek. "The situation east of the Jordan," said General Allenby, * The drivers of the Camel Transport Corps were E gyptians. General Allenby wrote : "During the­ " thus • presented a favourable opportunity operations in the hills of Judea and of Moab the troops for a raid on the enemy's communications with often depended for their supplies on the C.T.C. The­ the Hedjaz." The raid was expected to draw drivers displayed steadiness under fire and devotion to> duty in the face of cold a,nd rain, which they had n ever the Turks from Tafile and the whole Kerak experienced previously ."

A TRESSEL BRIDGE BUILT BY ANZAC ENGINEERS. THE TI1YIES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

•

[Ofjwlat photograph. JEBEL KURUNTUL, NEAR JERICHO. The first obstacle was the Jordan itself, which hundred yards, rises in tiers, and in the scrub in the spring is unfordable. Moreover, the '3..nd along the tiers considerable bodies of the exceptionally heavy ra.infall had caused one enemy were posted. But so skilfully had the of those sudden floods to which the rivet is crossing been made that it was not until dawn liable, and just at the time fixed for the crossing that the Turks were aware of the prese'nce of it was a swollen torrent with boggy banks. The . the British. From' that time the troops had original intention was to cross at Ghoraniyeh, to be ferried over aud a bridge built under a near the. destroyed bridge, but the effort very harassing fire. Owing to this fire, 'and the failed. Three of the strongest swimmers thick scrub, only a small bridgehead could be among the Londoners tried in vain to breast formed-about 300 yards in length by 200 the stream, and pontoons and rafts were torn in depth. Two mountain batteries west of away by the swift flowing current. Four the Jordan helped to keep down the enemy's miles lower down, a little above the confluenc~ fire. The troops waited in a fearftli moist of the river with the Dead Sea, and at the end heat (they were 1,200 feet below sea-level) of the Pilgrim Road to the Jordan, is Makhadet for darkness to fall, when it had been resolved Hajlah (the Ford of the Partridges), and it to widen the bridgehead. was here-where the current was somewhat Soon after midnight (wrote Mr. Massey) a deter­ slower-that the crossing was effected. The mined well-sustained rush was made by our troops waterlogged vailey was tree-covered on either throu~h the t horn bushes and trees to a depth side, a dense undergrowth extending to the of a thousand yards, the flanks being extended till t h ey formed a bridgehead 1,500 yards wide. Mean­ water's edge. In the darkness of the night while the engineers had been constructing a st.eel of March 21 troops moved quietly down the pontoon bridge, under considerable shell and rifle . fire, and we werc able to get over an entire mounted Valley of Achor to the "ford" and sheltered regiment by·· dawn. in the undergrowth. An officer and six men, Cavalry [a New Zealand regiment] moving silently up towing a rope, succeeded in swimming across the left bank and over t he cliff s, sliddenly emerged on the plain, over which they galloped towards Ghoraniyeh, and then hauled over some light rafts. The riding down and capturing 70 Turks and some machine­ first passage was made by 1.20 a.m. on March 22, guns, and making the enemy opposite H ajlah foot it as h ard as h e could. As t h e stream became less" ,swift and by 7.45 the leading battalion was on the bridges were built, and the Ghoraniyeh passage of the east bank. H ere the ground, after a few river was assured in two places. 238 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

Another excellent piece of work was down south. Ii inhabitants, with houses n Slllg in terraces and was decided to threaten the Turks' flank at H ajlah, and abundantly supplied with water. H ere were two officers and 45 m en volunteered to make a march from the J ordan's mouth straight up the left bank of the f01.md, and rescued, several hundreds of river. This litt le p atty, jocularly called "Societe Armenians. Here also were discovered a Anonyme Ma"t'itime," was rowed across the De ad Sea in the dark and landed east of the Jordan. They h a d an number of German motor lorries, and ,among the Arab guide with them, but h e was lost in the darkness. prisoners were m embers of the 703rd German However, the young officer pushed on and made his way towards the ford and at,tacked a small enemy post, Infantry R egiment. The progress of the taking prisoners, but, finding between him and the ford Londoners from Es Salt to Amman, in a direct a much superior force' of the enemy, he hid t he p arty till line little more than 12 miles, but 20 by the he could effect communication wit!). the body at H ajl ah. road,. was painful an~ slow. The rain, which By 10 p.m. on the 23rd the whole of the had ceased the day the Jordan was crossed, infantry of the 60th "Division and most of the began again on the 27th arid continued for m01.mted troops wer~ across the Jordan. Yet four days. The "metall~ d road" was one much valuable time had been lost, time which mass of deep sticky mud; it was so soft that enabled the enemy to bring up reinforcements it was f01.md imP,9ssible to get field g1.ms along to Amman. It was General Allenby's hope it, and abandoned enemy motor lorries anq that the enemy would do this, but not before cars had to be destroyed as they could not he had raided' the railway. However, all went be hauleCl out of the mud of Moab. But well at first. The Londoners, on March 24, by March 28 a brigade of the division reached drove the Turks from their positions at ShULet the plain s1.ITro1.mding Amman-an oasis, strewn Nimrin, positions which covered the entrance with the ruins of many once prosperous cities, to the pass leading to Es Salt. One battalion extending two miles west and. four miles captured three guns, shooting down the teams north-west of the town. As soon as they by the fire of Lewis guns. Following hard on reached the plain- the Londoners went into the heels of the enemy through the pass, then action. carpeted with beautiful flowers, along the Meantime the Australian and N ew Zealand wild and picturesque vVadi Shaib, a pass Mounted Division and. the Imperial Camel which might easily have been an impassable Brigade had been crossing the mountains south barrier, the 60th Division occupied (March 25) of the line of the Londoners. It was anything Es Salt, a pleasant mountain town of 15,000 but cavalry c01.mtry, as the following extract

lEgvptian officwl photograph LONDON SCOTTISH MARCHING TrtKOUGH ES SALT. THE TIMES HISTORY OP THE WAR. 239

PONTOON BRIDGE OVER THE JORDAN AT GHORANIYEH. from General Allenby's dispatch of September were on the left, the brigade of the 60th Division 18 will show : was along the Es Salt-Amman road, with the

Early in the d ay [March 24] all wheeled t.ransport h ad Camel Brigade on its right. The "N ew Zea­ to be sent back. Even so, the tracks had been rendered landers attacked Hill 3,039, just so~th of so slippery by rain, which fell continuously on the 25th, Amman. Fighting continued till the after­ that progress was slow. In many places horses h ad to * move in single file, and had to be pulled or pushed up the noon of the 30th. The combat, which went slippery slopes. N aaur was reach ed late in the evening in favour of the Turks, is thus desoribed by of March 25. The r ain continued to fall on March 26. At 5 a.m. the N ew Zealand and Australian Brigad es met General Allenby: at Ain es Sir. The Australians moved on to Suweileh, Little progress was made [on March 28]. The enemy north of the E s Salt·Amman road, capturing 170 Turks made several . counter-attacks, especially against the there. Both men and horses were, however, too ex . Australians, who were forced back a short distance. On hausted by th eir exertion s to admit of more than March 29 Turkish reinforcements arrived, and the demolition parties being sent on to t he railway. On counter-attacks were renewed, but without su ccess. March 27 the advance was resumed. The ground favoured During the afternoon two more battalions of the 60th t.he enemy, t he rocks and scrub on t he hills affordin g Division and a battery of Roval Horse Artillery arrived excellent cover to his rifieme!l' Thb wadis could only be after a long and arduous march. crossed at a few places, and then only in single file. The attack on Amman was renewed at 2 a.m. on March 30. The New Zealanders captured a portion of By the evening of the 27th demolition Hill 3,039, but were unable to drive the enemy from t h e parties of New Zealanders were working south northern and eastern ends. Parties of New Zealanders entered the village, but were .fired on from the houses. of Amman, but not at the important tunnel Elsewhere the attack met with only slight success. and viaduct. On the same day the Camel, It was apparent that without greater artillery support Brigade, which was in the centre, advanced further attacks c01.ud only succeed at the co"t of heavy losses. Moreover, Turkish troops from Ji!3 r ed Damieh [a direct on ~an. They met with strong bridge over the J ordan 16 miles north of t he Ghoraniyeh opposition, and were checked 1,500 yards west crosl: ing] and from t he north [i.e., troops brought by rail from the Damascus direction] h ad begun to m ake their of the town, while the Australians, on the left, presence felt at E s Salt. Orders were therefore issued were h eavily counter-attacked. The Turkish for a withdrawal to take place du:t;'ing the night. This was carried out without interruption, after all the garrison, already reinforced, numbered 4,000 wounded had b een evacuated. rifl.es, and held $trong positions. All the troops engaged h ad done well, but On March 28, with the arrival of the Lon­ the Londoners had had the hardest task and doners a general attack was made on the * In P alestine hills were known by their height in feet enemy position. The Australians, as before, -not in metre ~ , as in France. 240 THE T1l1,lIES HISTORY OF THE ·WAR.

won t.he greatest credit. An Australian who mination both attacks failed with h eavy loss took part in the raid wrote * : to the enemy. " re saw them [the Londoners ] come through the mud West of the Jordan the enemy b egan about to Amman, their packs sodden from the rain, their big 4 a.m. shelling Musallabeh, 'by -tile B eisan boot" cal'l'ying pOlmds of the sticky soil of Moab. Our Light Horse fellows were used llP when we got to Amman road, and the line north of the vVadi el AUja. .and t hen advance across the pi"lilessly bare boggy The British lines were held by the Imperial slopes t.o the concealed Turkish positions was dan· Camel Corps, who for two hours were s~bjected gerously laboured and slow. But they had ridden to the battleground, and they went into action relatively li ght to very heavy gl.mfire. The Turks then to the infantry. The Londoners had come up by forced advanced, but though they came on several marches, extending over days and nights, across country unspeakably rough and h eavy. They seemed not to have times they were l.mable to reach the British -a kick remaining. But it was no time for a rest. Straight positions, each successive wave being torn -off their terrible struggle in the mud t,h ey were led on by cannon, machine-gun an?- rifle fire. Finally towards the enemy po s ition,~ across a registered zone which the Turks had turned into a hell with artillery, they gave up the attack,- and were not pursued. machine-gun and rifle fire. We watched them go, wave Many_dead were ~eft in front of the Camel Corps -after wave, now enshrouded in thE' smoke of the barrage, now emerging again, the thin lines still thinner, but the positions. East of the Jordan, where the 'Slow pace no Rlower and the direction unchanged. [It bridgehead was defended by a brigade of was said of the Londoners that they had a hobby of getting lost, and that the only road they knew was that Australian Light Horse, the fighting was still which led to the enemy.] Gallant little LondonerR. the more bitter. The Australians were dismounted great wadis swallowed them up as the roll ()f the ma~hine and had dug themselves in on the mud cliffs guns . -.. became more excited and sinister. and mounds parallel to the river, with machine­ On the retreat of the Brjtish the Turks gun nests and artillery support, the whole followed up, and on April 1 the re1.rguard was position being protected by wire The enemy, ­ :attacked by a small force, easily beaten off among them numbers of German infantrymen, This was the only interference by the enem; again and again advanced, but, held up by a with the retirement, although the Turkish concentrated fire, failed to get within 300 yards -communique of April 3 asserted that" reinforce­ of the wire entanglements. Outranged by the ments which the enemy brought up in haste heavy artillery of the British from th~ west were caught under the very effective fire of bank the foe was now caught between two fires, ·our artillery, and after attaclts by our cavalry and could neither advance nor retire. Another were compelled to flee in disorder." By the brigade of Light Horse, crossing the ri~er farther ,evening of April 2 the whole force, except . south, tried a flank attack on the assailants troops left to hold a bridgehead on the east who countered by throwing out bank, had recrossed the Jordan, bringing with machine-g~ detachments, and held off the "Aussies." them over 700 prisone~s, including many But under cover of night the Turks retired to Germans, as well as four guns and several Shunet Nimrin. Three hundred and sixty­ -machine guns taken from the Turks. With seven Turkish and German dead lay unburied them also were some thousands of Armenians in front of the Australian lines, and many and Copts from Es Salt .and oth€lr places. newly dug graves were found. The enemy A third of the townsfolk of Es Salt are Christian, taken prisoners numbered 121, a figure greater and the maj.ority preferred not to stay when than the total British casualties in the action. the British retired. The expedition to Amman had given the Essad Bey, the Turkish commander, did Emir Faisal his opportunity, which he had not, however, regard the affair as ended. His not failed to utilize, though the capture of first care was to reoccupy the key positions Ma'an proved 'beyond his power. Tafile was .at Shunet Nimrin, where he placed a- garrison reoccupied, and on April 7 Kerak, with its ·of 5,000 or more men. He-or his German memories of Moabites and Israelites, Crusaders, advisers..,--next l.mdertook a rather ambitious and Mamelukes, was seized (see Vol. XVI!., operation designed to recover possession of the pp. 15-18). Thus the whole of the fertile region 'Ghoraniyeh crossing, ' and possibly Jericho. east of the Dead Sea fell definitely into Faisal's On Aprilll simultaneous attacks were made on hands-the local commander being his brother, the Ghoraniyeh bridgehead, and, west of the the Emir Zeid. The main Arab force moved on Jordan, on the positions covering the Jericho-' towards Ma'an. The railway was cut both Beisan road. Pressed with considerable deter- north and south of that place, 270 Turks and * In the ,Kia Om Coo-ee (June, 1918), the sprightly official magazine of thE" AustralIan and New 'Zealand three machine guns being captured. On 10rces in Egypt, Palestine, etc. Ap~il 13 Senna, an enemy post two and a half THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. ~41 miles s?uth-west of Ma'an, was captured. Firilt Mounted Diyi. ion was being reorganized [the ca.ll Four days later the Arabs raided Ma'an to send troops to France had come] and the Londoners were not at full strength. And after the raid had started l'ailway station and secured another 100 thE' Turks got their cavalry acro:::s the Jordan in the dark prisoners. A gallant attack was made on a -a clever performance-and took the Australians by surprise. It is the only time in the whole campaign in Turkish position provided with concrete g"lID which we lost guns. All the same we gave the Turks a -emplacements and 400 yards north of the great fright and they are very jumpy ahout their railway station, but it was too strong to be carried, to Damascus . -especially as the ammunition for the Arab artil­ General Allenby originally intended to lery gave out. The Arabs then retired ,to Senna. carry out the operation in the middle of May, Meantime another of Faisal's columns had gone and a principal object was "to cut off and farther south and destroyed over 60 miles of the destroy the enemy's force at Shunet Nimrin," (ail way in so thorough a fashion that at least a ,;vhich smce the fight of 4pril 11 had diligent iy

GERMAN AND TURKISH PRISONERS. mon.th's hard work by large gangs of labourers strengthened its defences. But Sheikhs of would be needed to repair it. From all this it is the Beni Sakhr came in and said they could -evident that if the Amman raid had not met help provided the advance took place before with the success desired, it had niaterially helped May 4, by which date their supplies wou l~ be . the Arabs. And General Allenby shortly finished, and they would be obliged to qisperse. ;afterwards undertook anotp.er raid, a raid in They were then gathered round Made ba, east which he hoped to recapture Es Salt and to of the northern end of the D ead Sea, whence hold it "lIDtil the Arabs could relieve his troops. they could threaten the communications This second raid into Moab failed to achieve between Shunet Nimrin and Amman by the .its object, 'but not through any lack of gallantry track through Ain es Sir, sou~h of the ' main on the part of the force engaged. road by Es Salt. Sir E. Allenby therefore advanced operations by a fortnight, and they The Turks were morC' enterprising and more stubborn t han might have been anticipated (writes a correspon­ b egan on April 30. The plan was for the 60th ·dent). Then ' too, the affair was carried out at an Division (which was a brigade short) to advance awkward time and partly in reliance on h elp from direct to Shunet Nimrin, while mounted troops an Arab tribe which was not given, though they were hardly to blame. Just when the raid started the went north, and then turned east, making 242 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

[Official phowgrapn. AUSTRALIAN MOUNTED TROOPS IN E~ SALT.

direct for E s Salt. With Es Salt occupied, The_ mounted troops (the D esert Mounted and the ~rack by Ain es Sin exposed to the ,Corps under General Chauvel) in their ride attack of the Beni Sakhr, the garrison at Shunet north p arall e ~ to the Jordan soon p assed the Nimrin would b e isolat ed. '" It would be com­ point where their friends h eld the opposite pelled to retreat in very difficult circumstanceR side of the river, and it was, therefore, necessar.y and there would be a fair chance of its being to guard the places where the enemy ~~ght captured. ': Such was the plan. cross to attack them in flank. Precaution..s In the dark hours before dawn 'on April 30 h ad also to be t aken to guard the northern fron~ the Londoners climbed out of the Jordan whence also the. enemy might descend 'upon depression, and early in the morning captured them. An Australian Light Horse Brigade the outer works at Shunet Nimrin. The mounted was detailed for this duty. Two crossings troops, who had started about the same time had to be guarded, the one Jisr ed D amieh, as the Londoners, carried out the first part of already mentioned', the other Umm E s Shert their programme according to plan, and by (" Mother of the East"), b etween Damieh and 6 p.m. were in Es Salt, capturing 31 Germans Ghoraniyen . . The brigade took up a / position and 317 Turks. A..s they began their ride the astride the Damieh-Es Salt track, with patrols Anzacs had passed the infantry columns. a little farther north along the Wadi ez Zerka (the river Jabbok), which enters the Jordan It was just after midnigh t (said t he Australian writer already quoted ). They were h alted in their fours, their at Damieh. A detachment was also placed packs up, waiting for the order to march east a cross t h e on high ground two miles north of Umm Es plain to the att ack on Shunet Nimrin. A., our horses Shert. walked swiftly past. in t he d arkness, regiment after regiment, an d brigad e following brigade, we smot h ered During the night of April 30 the Third and h alf ch oked t hem with the fine w hite clay dust of Turkish Cavalry Division and part of the the Valley . There was no exch ange of greetings. vVe' rode b y in silen ce. But we were t hin king h ard, an d we 24th Division crossed the ' Jordan at Jisr ed t h ough t t.h at, al t.hough our gallop up the plain under t he D amieh unperceived, and at 7.30 a.m. (May 1) Turki. h guns a t d awn would be no joy ride, w£ were luck y not to be t h ose lit tle Cockney in fantrymen. And attacked the Australian Brigade. The en emy a few h ours lat er , as sh or t ly b efore t h e d awn we clear ed p en etrated b etween the left of the brigade and our bivouac, we h eard, miles away on our righ t, a splutter the detachment n ear Umm E s Shert, and the of rifle fire, and t b en a wild ou t burst of bombing and sh afts of t he sound of m ach ine -gn ns. The L ondoners whole brigade had to fan back. "The Horse had again got h ") m e wit h bomb and bayonet. Marchin g Artillery b atteries supporting this brigade, all nigh t, anc1 with n o ar tillery p reparation , they h ad , with all t heir bad sen se of direction, once more found " J a cko," in m ost difficult and broken country, were and t his time t h ey h a d surprised him in his hlanket s. obliged to abandon nine g1.llS, which could not They killed 60 or 70 before th e Turk was fully awake, b e ext ricat ed , though the deta'Chments and and b y sun rise t.h ey h ad sen t back above 250 prisonc. rs. And carrying t.h eir great p a.cks and only t.heir legs to ride horses were safely withdrawn." This b old upon! '1'hen d ayligh t exposed t hem, and for d ays t h ey enemy m ove, attributed in the Turkish corn­ butted at su ccessive enemy positions, flingin g away their brave Cockney lives so t h at things migh t b e m ade muniques to the leadership of E ssad B ey, left as eas y as p ossihlp. for us up at E s Salt. t he mounted troops at E s Salt wit h the track THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 243

to U mm Es Shert as their only means of rushed El Kefr. The Turks had 1;>een rein­ communication with their base, but reinforce­ forced by a division from Mesopotamia, and ments sent to the detached Australian Brigade stiffened by a battalion of German infantry. recovered the lost ground during the day, and They resisted stoutly, and on the evening of the General Allenby arranged for a combined attack lOth there was a strong counter-attack by 'a on the Nimrin position-by the Londoners Turco-German force near the Wadi Lehham. in front and the mounted troops at Es Salt from the north-east. This attack was to be made the next day (May 2). What happened may be told in the words of Sir E. Allenby's dispatch: On May 2 the mounted troops in E s Salt were attacked by two Turkish battalions which had arrived from Amman accompanied by heavy guns, as well as by cavalry from the north and t,roops from Jisr ed Damieh. These attacks were driven off, but the force intended to a ttack Shunet Nimrin from the north-east had to b e weakened and was checked at El Heweij, five miles south of E , Salt. The 60th Division was also unable to m ake any substantial progress, in spite of determined efbrts. As the assistance of the B ',mi Sakhr tribe had not materialized, the Ain E l Sir track was still open to the garrison of Shunet Nimrin. Further Turkish reinforce­ m ents w ere known to be on their way. It was evident that the Shunet Nimrin position could not be captured without losses which I wafl not in a position to afford. In these circumstances I ordered the mounted troops to withdrav;. from E ) Salt. For the second time in five weeks the British recrossed the Jordan. Before leaving Es Salt the mounted troops ' destroyed the material they had captured, motor cars and lorries and 29 machine guns. The Turks followed up GENERAL SIR H. CHAUVEL. closely, but were held off without difficulty, Commanded the Desert Mount~d Corps.

and by nightfall on. May 4 all the troops, save Making their way through a grove of ol~ve those left to guard the bridgeheads, were west trees the enemy penetrated the British line. of the Jordan. The" bag" of prisoners was A barrage was put down; reinforcements 'considerable-50 ofiicers and 892 other ranks, collected and the foe driven out. Other a good proportion being Germans. For the attacks were repelled after sharp hand-to-hand rest of the campaign there were no more fighting. The enemy left over 300 dead on the raids over the Jordan, though the army of the field, and some Germans were among the Emir Faisal, which already had with it units prisoners taken. of t,he Camel Corps of the Egyptian Army, Events of considerable and varied interest was strengthened by detachments from the marked this period of comparative inactivity. Imperial Camel Corps under Colonel Buxton. In the latter half of March the Duke of Con­ Faisal continued his raids on the Hedjaz rail­ naught, Grand Master of the Knights Templars way, and during the summer of 1918, with the and Grand Prior of the English Order of St.. help of the Imperial Camel Corps, succeeded in John of Jerusalem, came to the Holy City, and permanently sev~ ring connexion between Ma'an on the 19th held an investiture on Mount and Medina. (At Medina the Turkish garrison Zion, presenting General Allenby with ·the lived almost entirely on dates.) insignia of the G.C.M.G., and a Knight of There had been little alteration in the posi­ Grace of the Order of St. John, and other tions of the opposing forces west of the Jordan decorations to Sir Louis Bols, Sir Philip in the period of the raids to Amman and Es Chetwode, Sir Edward Bulfin, Sir Henry Salt. The most notable operation was on Chauvel, and Sir WaIter CampbelJ. (Deputy April 9-11, when the British line was advanced Quartermaster-General) as well as meclals to in the coast sector on a 12-mile front to a rnany officers and men. The London Irish maximum depth of three miles. The main (who had played a gallant part in the opera­ attack was by West Country and Indian troops tions which led to the surrender of Jerusalem) -the former captured Rafat, and Ghurkas and the Dublin Fusiliers furnished gUflrds 244 THE TIJMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. of honour. From th~ir housetops the people on Aprw. l~, when on Mount Scopus-where of Jerusalem looked on at the ceremony.* in July the foundations of a Hebrew University Two days previously there had been another weFe laid-Dr. Weizmann expressed the grati­ ceremony, Dr. Maclnnes, the Anglican tude of the whole of Jewry to the British Bishop in J erusaleln, being enthroned Government. ' Major Ormsby-Gore replied on· at St. George's Chmch, outside the Damascus behalf of the Government 'aild Major James de­ Gate. Representatives of other Protestant Rothschild spoke of " the new era of fulfilment comm1.mities, of the Greek, Armenian, Coptic, and of hope for Jewry." An account of the· Syrian, and Abyssinian Churches were present, work undertaken by the Zionist Commission­ as well as the Grand Rabbi and the Mufti. does not fall within the scope of this chapter, RigiJ rules prevented the attendance of any but among the Jews were many whose gratitude Roman Catholic prelate, but under British led them to fight for the freedom of Palestine. protection all religions and sects worked Jewish uni ts, r ecrui ted in England, in the' in new found tolerance:t United States, in Egypt, and from the Hebrew Shortly after these events the Zionist Com­ comm1.mity at J oppa, were form,ed, and in the mission, headed by Dr. vVeizmann, arrived later phases of the campaign these "New (April 10), and had an official and cordial Maccabeens" rendered good service. A fully welcome. There was a Jewish public holiday equipped Zionist Medical Unit was also sent from America. 'Armenians, too, formed a­ * The Duke visited many parts of the front and was battalion, which did useful work. "I am.­ with the troops east of the Jordan two days after the first crossing was made. proud of the fact," wrote General Allenby to' t For example, at the ceremony of kindling the Holy Bogos Nubar Pasha, "that your compatriots Fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the Greek and Armenian adherents had u sually to be restrained from have taken an active part in the fighting." doing violence to one another by a large body of Moslem The" comparative inactivity" which ensued t roops, but on May 4, 1918, the ceremony took place after the March-April operations was not the­ without any disturbance and without the ' presence of any armed guards. free choice of General Allenby, although the

PRESENTATION TO THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF BY THE ZIONIST COMMISSION ON MAY 25, 1918. General Allenby is seen standing prominently near the left of the photograph. On his right, behind, the boy in white suit, stands Dr. Weizmann; on the General's left (the spectator's right) stand Major J. de Rothschild and the chief Rabbis. THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 24&

DINNER TIME BEHIND THE LINES. summer is not in Palestine the ideal cam­ Yeomanry); third, Indian battalions direct paignir po season, especially in the deep gorge from India. These last had not seen service­ of the Jordan, where the heat is excessive, and during the war. They thus lacked the expe­ dust, flies, mah1ria, and snakes are common ,rience of the battalions they _replaced, and­ plagues. * It was the ,situation created by the as not enough Indian battalions were available­ German offensive on the Western Front which six battalions were formed by withdrawing disarranged the Commander-in-Chief's p lans. a company from 24 of the Indian battalions: The need for reinforcements for Europe was already in the Force. The period of reorganiza­ urgent, and General Allenby sent away the tion was, it will be seen, spread over _four greater part of his British mfantry and a months, and many of the newly arrived troops­ considerable part of his yeomanry. The 52nd required-arid received-strenuous training. Division sailed for France in the first week of The Australian and New Zealand mounted­ April; the 74th Division left the following troops were the only white' part of the army week. In addition, before the end of the which was l.maffected; the First M01.mted month nine Yeomanry regiments, five and a Division, formerly a Yeomanry Division, was: half siege batteries, ten British battalions, now a mixed British and Indian :Division. and five machine - gun companies had been It included Indian Lancers and the Gloucester-­ withdrawn from the line to be sent to E1.ITope. shire Hussars, the Hertford, Lancashire, and ' In May 14 more battalions of British infantry other Yeon1.anry regiments. All the units­ sailed for France, while during July and the named gained distinction in the advance oil' first week of August a further 10 British Damascus. General Allenby's force still battalions were withdrawn.. Thus while only remained cosmopolitan; there were with him two divisions, the 52nd and 74th, had been the French and Italian detachments, the-­ sent to France as complete units, all the other British West Indies Regiment (which gained­ British Divisions had been greatly depleted. honourable mention), Egyptian infantry, South To replace his lost troops General Allenby African Field Artillery Batteries (under Colonel received, first, the 3rd (Lahore) Division from S. Taylor, D.S.O.), the Hong Kong-Singapore Mesopotamia; second, Indian Cavalry Regi­ Artillery, the newly raised Jewish and Armenian ments from France (as substitutes for the contingents, and battalions of the Cape Corps­ men belonging to the coloured population of * A highly successful campaign against malaria was waged by the medical services, but the dust was uncon­ the Cape, who had already done excellent qu e ~abl e and the heat well nigh unendurable. " The 8ervice in East Africa. But it was now very shade temperature for months," wrote one of the sufferers, •. was never below 100 and frequently rose largely an Indian force. to 120," ,\Vith the dispatch of troops to France and 246 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

the necessity of reorganizing his force . the the day before the last German offensive on adoption of ~ ~olicy of "active defence" the Western (0r any other) front, he made his became necessary. The troops, infantry and little demonstration, an attack on the British cavalry, carried out many daring raids by forces on either side of the Jordan. West of day ~s well as by night, but between May and the river the British line formed a marked Septembe~ there were few actions of any salient-the Jordan on the right, Musallabeh size.* On June 8, in the coast sector, a bat­ hill, the apex, in the centre and the slopes of talion of the Black Watch arid a battalion of Abu Tellul on the left. It was the western side of this salient the enemy, at 3.30 a.m., attacked. The attacking force was, as to over two-thirds, German. The enemy (wrote Sir E. Allenby) p enetrated between the advanced posts and seized Abu Tellul, thus cutting off the posts farther north at El Mu sallab e h ~ At 4.30 a.m. the 1st Australian Light Horse Brigade counter-attacked: By 5 a .m. Abu T ellul h ad been regained. The enemy, driven against our advanced posts, which, with one exception, had held their ground, ~mffer e d heavily. Two hundred and seventy-six Germans, including 12 officers , and 62 Turks were captured, in addition to 6 madline guns and 42 automatic rifles. One hundred wounded and many dead were left on the ground. Great credit is due to the Australians for the quickness of their counter­ ettack and for the determination displayed by the garrisons of the advanced posts in holding out, although surrounded. While this fighting was in progress a Turkish force of considerable strength was observed to be concentrating to the east of the Jordan. opposite El Henu Ford, which is. mi£lway between the El Ghoraniyeh bridgehead and TURKISH DEFENCES. the D ead Sea. A cavalry brigade moved out to counter­ attack. Taking advantage of the ground, the cavalry the Guides captured an important observation arrived within charging distance before they were post together with four officers and 101 men. observed. In the charge that ensued some 90 Turks were speared, and 91, including six officers, in addition The next incidunt of note, in which Irish and to four machine-glms , were captured. It was only by Indian troops cooperated, was in the centre reaching ground impassable for cavalry that the remainder of the Turks effected their escape. The along the Shechem road . . The story may be Jodhpur Lancers layed a distinguished part in this given in General Allenby's own words: charge. A raid on a larger scale, carried out on August 12 by Ignominious failure had attended this attack, the Leinster Regiment, 54th Sikhs, and 1st Battalion and its result caused much friction between 101st Grenadiers, was crowned with complete success. German and Turk, each blaming the other for The objective was the enemy's defences on the El Burj­ Ghurabeh ridge, north-west of Sinjil. This ridge is leaving him in the lurch. some 5,000 yards in length and lies 2,000 yards in front In the minor operations of the summer of of our line. It was hcld by 800 rifles and 36 machine guns . The defences consis];ed of str;ngly built sangars; 1918 the Indian troops were conspicuous. protected by thick wire entanglements. The approaches In the sweltering heat of the Jordan Valley, to it are rocky and broken, involving a climb of 900 feet. The position was attacked from both flanks. The enemy which affected them less than it did the Yeo­ was surprised. His losses were heavy, and the raiders manry, Anzacs, and Territorial Artillery also brought back 239 prisoners, including a battalion stationed there, the Indian cavalry on several commander and 16 officers and 13 machine-guns. Great dash was shown by all the troops t~king part in it. occasions surprised and rode down enemy patrols and scouts, using the lance with good But the most notable engagement of the effect. In the hill districts, as already indi­ summer was on July 14. Li.man von Sanders cated, the Indians made themselves a terror was well aware that the Egyptian Expeditionary to the Turk. One of the most daring raids Force had lost the greater part of its British was on July 13 when a party of the Guides troops; he knew that reorganization must be entered the enemy trenches in the middle of a troublesome process; he had 15,000 German the day, bringing back 15 prisoners and a troops with him, and he may have sought, machine-gtm. In the same month a Pathan on a small scale, to emulate the achievement company of the 53rd Sikhs in a night ~'aid of the Germans in France. At any rate, on killed or wounded some 100 Turks and brought * B etween the surrender of J erusalem and May 31, in 33 prisoners and two machine-guns. But UH8, the prisoners taken by the British numbered 331 officers and 6,088 other ranks. the cOffiIl)on task, .if not the trivial round, of THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 247

the men in the trenches did not furnish all they in the Northern Hedjaz, south of Ma'an,* asked. They did not relish sitting still for and since April no British troops had left the weeks to be fired at. The enemy had the narrow confines of the Jordan Valley. Amman, exact range of the positions, and his daily Shunet Nimrin, and other places had, it is bombardments were "lmpleasantly accurate. true, been repeatedly bombed by airmen­ This good gunnery was attributed mainly to Imperial and Australian-but air raids could the Austrians in the Turkish ranks. Although be endured, and communication between apart from artillery fire and spasmodic air Damascus and Ma'an was maintained. (Of attacks the enemy, with the one exception the air raids referred to one of the most success­ noted, was not aggressive, there was little to ful was on Kutrani, east of the south end of the indicate that his moral was markedly weakened. Dead Sea, on June 16, when direct hits were The debacle which followed the initial success of made on a train full of troops, and on enemy General Allenby's autumn campaign was not shelters, and the station building set on fire.) antIcipated by General Liman von Sanders, General Allenby's plans _were complete in notwithstanding his subsequent assertions. August, although some time had yet to elapse But the arrogance of the Germans towards before the offensive opened. Sir Edmund the Turks, their complete indifference as to Allenby attributed much of the merit of the their well-being, while securing for themselves preparations to his chief of Staff, Sir Louis ample rations, the best quarters, and the best Bols, but the inspiration and directing energy transport, bred a spirit of bostility between came from the Commander-in-Chief himself. Ottoman and Teuton, and wa3 one of the And a distinct share in the achievement was reasons why in the end the Turks surrendered by thousands rather than fight to the last. * During August the Emir Faisal's troops, and the The enemy was expecting a new offensive Imperial Camel Corps attached to them, were very active. On thE' 8th Medawera, on the Hedjaz railway 65 miles by General Allenby in the autumn, and he south of Ma'an, was seized, 35 Turks being killed and 120 had nearly six months in which to prepare hi;:,; captured, together with two guns and three machine gum. It is noteworthy that the repollt of this raid, defences. When the attack would be made issued on Augu st 14, was the first public announcement was a secret he could not guess, but as to by the War Office in London that British troops were acting with the Arab - forces. In July and August where, the character of the and the terrain the Arabs farther south, under the Emirs Abdulla and record of military history indicated that it Ali, had also been very enterprising. The Hedjaz would be along the Plain of Sharon. In this Government Agency announced that in the two Illonths ending September 5 more than 300 Turks had been sector, therefore, the defences had been made killed or captured, while the booty included 700 sheep particularly strong. The Turks appeared to destined for Medina, 80 camels and £T.5,000 in gold. have no anxiety as to their position east of the omewhat earlier (in May) the Emir Ali had rounded up and captured two large convoys east of Medina, Jordan- Arab raids of late had been mainly consisting of 500 and 300 camels respectively.

AN ARMOURED CAR AMONG THE HILLS OP SAMARIA. ,248 .TlJ.E TIMES HISTORY OF THE W AB.

[Palestin e otJicial photograph BRITISH YEOMANRY IN SYRIA.

,due to the Emir Faisal, whose army was the and a detachment of the Egyptian Cam(} first to move. It had by far the longest way Corps. A few European officers with ColonE'! -to go, for the Arab force that marched to Lawrence as Chief of Staff were with Faisal. Damascus started from Akaba, which was left As, passing east of Ma'an, Faisal turned directly ·on August 31, two and a . half weeks before northward the tribesmen flocked to his standard, Allenby struck. But. neither . Liman von and his force grew till it was fully 10,000 ;Sanders, nor Ali Verbi Pasha, the commander strong. The Sheikhs of the Ruwalla came in at Ma'an, guessed that the Arab force then with 3,000 horsemen; from the Hauran the moving across Edom had started to keep Druse clansmen, eager to avenge unnumbered 'rendezvous with the British) at Damascus. cruelties perpetrated by the hated Ottoman, It was not until the Arabs reached the neigh­ joined the stand~rd of a, leader who promised .bourhood of Der'aa that their presence caused them deliverance and respect for their rp.ligion, * any misgiving. Of- their wonderful march one who was moreover an ally of the British, through the heart of the desert only those who, with whom the Druses had a traditionfll · like Coionel Lawrence,. took part in it could friendship. His was therefore a force to be -tell-the troops went four days without passing reckoned with when on September 15 Faisal a single watering place, ,and that march was established himself at Umn et Taiyibe, a lava­ 'followed immediately by another march of strewn valley of the Wadi Zeidi, south-east of -two days to the next water supply. Der'aa. Faisal had kept 'to his time-table, From Akaba the road to Damascus by Ma' an, and at once began to play havoc with the Amman, and Der'aa, was for the most part Hedjaz Railway at its most sensitive point, in enemy occupation, and as Faisal's object for Der'aa is the junction of the branch line was to reach the Der'aa region without attract· to the Jordan and Western Palestine. By the ing attention he made a wide outflanking 19th the Arabs had completely severed railway -movement through the Syrian Desert. The communication with Amman, the Palestine scanty and bad water on this route would have front, and Damascus alike-a firle achievement. -prevented the passage of a large number of Thus one part of General Allenby's plan was troops, but Faisal's force was small. It was, disclosed; the Turks hammered on>the main -however, as efficient a body as any leader could front were not to be left an easy means of desire. There were about 500 Hedjaz Regulars, retreat eastward. -every man a proved warrior and highly dis­ 'ciplined, two armoured cars, four French * The Druse religion 1s a " secret faith," which in some respects approaches Christianity more nearly than n10"Lmtain guns, a demolition party of 30 Gurkhas Islam. THE TIMES HISTORY ·OF THE WAR. 249

It was wbi1e Faisal's army was engaged in still another factor to consider: the Turkish severing railway communication between Fourth Army stationed along the H edjaz Damascus and Palestine that General Allenby railway from south of Ma'an to north of Amman. opened his offensive. As anticipated, the Against it a separate force ( compose~ of principal blow was delivered in the coast Anzac mounted troops, the British West Indie~ sector. General Allenby's plan was as daring Regiment, and a Jewish contingent) was to be as it was successful. The enemy positions on sent. It was to advance from the Jordan at the coast plain were to be assaulted by the Ghoraniyeh by the well-trodden road to infantry, and when a sufficient gap had been Amman, seize that place and cut off the Turks made cavalry were to pour through it, get at Ma'an. Against Ma'an itself part of Faisal's ·behind the main enemy force and. cut o~ retreat army was ready to operate. northward. East of the Jordan were the The general attack opened on the night of Arabs, but they could not be expected to stem September 18. East of the Jerusalem-Shechem ,the Turks should they succeed in crossing road 'British and Indian troops advanced ,the river in strength. General Allenby, there­ and secured aU the roads leading south-east fore, directed his right wing, stationed between from Shechem to the Jordan. The main the Shechem road and the Jordan, to advance attack, which was preceded by a short bombard­ ;and block all roads leading south-east from ment, was launched at 4.30 a.m. on September Samaria to the river. To prevent the Turks 19, the fron.t assailed extending from Rafat, retreating by the route through the valley of on the edge of the hills of Mount Ephraim, .J ezreel to the northern Jordan fords the across the Plain of Sharon to the Mediter­ ,commander-in-chief relied on the Air Service. ranean. The infantry, British and Indian The airmen were to, and did, outflank the and French, "made rapid progress, over­ ·enemy in this direction. As soon as possible a running the entire hostile defeIL'sive system ·n"lounted force was to follow up the airmen, on this frontage by 8 a.m., and penetrating to .cross the Jordan and join the Arabs near · a. maximum depth of five miles before swinging Der'aa. Thence British and Arabs were to eastward." Meantime the cavalry (British advance north on Damascus. There was cavalry and Yeomanry regiments, Indian

[Official photograph. AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY WAITING OUTSIDE SHECHEM. 250 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

cavalry and Australian Light Horse), which British cavalry.. Those of them who had had been waiting their opportunity, galloped fought stoutly on the front west of the through the enemy lines, broken up for them main Jerusalem-Shechem road found them­ by the infantry, and by midday had covered selves willy-nilly shepherded by the advancing 19 miles, ships of the Royal Navy infantry into the arms of the waiting cavalry. giving help by shelling the coast roads. On Those east of the Jerusalem road, as well as t,his sector the progress of the British continued the defeated troops in the coast sector, had but unchecked, but the rIght wing still met with one hope left, to escape east over the Jordan. stiff resistance in the hill country-resistance They had not reckoned with the Air Force which was overcome by ~he evening of Sep­ Imperial and Australian airmen had paralysed. tember 20. The cavalry, crossing the Plain of the enemy airmen by "sitting" over their aero­ E sdraelon, or Field of Armageddon-where they drome at Jenin and bombing it so effectually met with some opposition-had swept farther t.hat not a single Turkish-i.e., German­ north, Indian Lancers and Gloucestershire machine ventured out, and now as the Turks Yeomam'y entering Nazareth, whence General poured along the routes to the Jordan they were Liman von Sanders had fled in hot haste. incessantly bombed and machine-gunned, By the next evening the cavalry had reached till the roads were turned into shambles. the Sea of Galilee (Lake of Tiberias) and had The occupation of Jisr ed Damieh on September seized the railway and road crossings over the 22 by a cavalry force, completed the dis­ Jor'dan south of the lake. comfiture of the enemy west of the Jordan. From the moment the British cavalry got On the 23rd the ports of Haifa and A cre well to their rear panic had seized the Turkish were occupied, without opposition, by Yeomanry hosts. vVith some exceptions they no longer and other mounted t roops. sought to fight but simply to escape or, an No time was lost by General Allenby in ,alternative chosen by a large proportion, to pressing his advantage. As soon as the cross­ surrender. In any case escape northwards they ings of the Jordan south of the Sea of Galilee could not; any D;lOvement in that direction had been secured, the D esert Mounted Column m8ant falling into the . hands of the ubiquitous uncleI' Gellf~ral Chauvflluushed forward into the

IO[hczal photograph. CAVALRY PASSING THROUGH HAIFA. THE' 'I'lME8 H1SI'ORY OF THE VV AR. 251

LUjjzc~at plLOtograpll. RESTING ON THE BANKS OF THE ABANA, WHERE THE RIVER ENTERS THE PLAIN OF DAMASCUS. Land of Gilead, following the line of the Yar­ only briefly outlined, fall nattu'ally for descrip­ mnk Valley. It met with opposition at two tion with the succeeding phase of the cam­ points only, and on September 28 joined hands pa,ign, the occupation of Beyrut, Horns, Aleppo, with the Emir Faisal's force in the neighbOlu'­ etc. As the surrender of Jerusalem w~s not hood of Der'aa . . Farther south the British the end of General Allenby's first campaign in column from Ghoraniyeh had already occupied Palestine, neither was the abandonment of AIlllnan and was in contact with the Ttu'kish Damascus by the Turks the end of his second force from Ma'an, which, too late, was seeking campaign. But the occupation of Damascus, to escape. And in Northern Galilee the British the oldest living city of the world-though it were hot on the h eels of the enemy, who here retains no monuments of great antiquity­ gathered some courage and, with troops hurried was one of the most important landmarks of from Damascus, put up a defence at Jisr the War; it was the outward and visible sign Benat Yakub (the Bridge of the Daughters of of the downfall of Turkey, which surrendered, J acob), the .T ordan crossing south 'of the on terms dictated by the Allies, exactly a month Waters of Merom, traversed by the majn road after the British and Arab troops entered the from Jerusalem to DamaRcus-the road taken city. by Saul of Tarsus. This crossing was forced The Turks, who had already lost 50,000 men by a brigade of Australian Light Horse on ill prisoners and 365 guns, offered no strenuous September 28, the same day which witnessed opposition to the three columns marching on the j"Lllction of Chauvel's and Faisal's columns. Damascl1s, while on September 29 the 4th From Jisr Benat Yakub, the Australians, Turkish Army coming from Ma'an stu'rendered reinforced, pushed direct towards Damascus. at discretion to the British near Amman, It became a race as to which force should get another 10,000 men being thus added to the there first, for ' Sir Henry Chauvel and the total of prisoners. Still another 10,000 were Emir Faisal, in parallel but distinct cohm~ns, gathered in at the gates of Damascus on also turned their faces towards Damascus. September 30, by which day the Australians The remarkable achievements of Faisal's troops from the Jisr Benat Ye.kub had. got rO"Lmd to between September 19 and 28, together with the north of the city. On the same day the a record of General Allenby's offensive, here Desert Column was immediately west and the 252 THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR.

Arab force at the southern border of the city. On October 3 the Emir Faisal made his Most of the Germans and Turks in Damascus, official entry into" the splendid city which had after a violent quarrel, in which "satisfactory once again passed into the power of his race." numbers on both sides lost their lives," had A car had been placed a t his disposal, but the wise evacuated the place earlier in the day, taking Sherif, with a strong sense of the historical fitness of t hings, preferred to make his entry into Damascus much the Aleppo road. During the night of Sep­ in the sa le way as did the Emirs of those Arabs who tember 30 troops of the Australian M01mted took Damascus in the seventeenth century, the Amorite Division and t.he vanguard of the Emir Faisal's Arabs who returned to it in the nineteenth century, the Aramean Arabs who set up their kingdom in Damascus force both penetrated into the city, and both during the fourteenth century B.O., Aretas, King of claimed to be t he first to enter Damascus. Arabia, when he occupied Damascus in 84 B.O., and K.halid Ibn Walid when he carried part of the town by Both were welcomed by the Damascenes, the storm from its Byzantine garrison A.D. 634 vast majority of whom are of Arab race. The The Sherif, on horseback, attended by some twelve to fifteen hundred of his kinsfolk and adherents, ent ered formal ent.ry of the Allied troops was made Damascus at full gallop and rode furiously through the at 8ix o'clock in the morning of October 1, a city to the accompaniment of a crackling f eu de joie and British force and a part of the Arab army shrill screams of victory-a method of procedure which undoubtedly impressed the inhabitants with the reality marching through the streets. Some 7,000 Turks of his arrival far mor€> vividly than would have an still in Damascus. who had preferred captivity orderly procession of innumerable battalions following upon the unimpressive passage of high-powered motor­ t.o flight, surrendered ' and a number of British cars. wounded were found · in hospital. Later in the day Faisal gathered round him Damascus was treated by General AlI ~nby the notables of the city, and in stirring words as what it was-an Arab city which he, with declared his policy and his Arab faith. Arab help, had liberated. After the formal occupation th~ Allied troops were withdrawn, I make no distinction, he said, between members of the Arab nation, of whatever creed or religion. I am as the administration being left in the hands of a brother to the man who extends to m e the hand of the people. From a correspondent of The friendship, but I am impartially severe on those that T imes we get the following picture of the city revolt and disobey ,the orders of the Government. I shall never betray the Arabs, and I trust that the Arabic immediately after its liberation :- language will attain the position it deserves. It is the sufferings of the Syrian nation and t he atrocit ies which One of t he first acts of the Arab Administration was they have suffered from the Turks which have brought to restore the electric lighting syst em in Damascus. Tlus about this day. was in working order by the evening of October 2, although t he plant had been disused for weeks under ThB sword of the Arabs, added the Emir, the Turks. The tramway service, stopped by the incapable Turkish Administration in 1917, was restuned could not be sheathed until the other regions on October 5. A further n eceBsary a nd appropriate act hold by the Turks were freed, and, in a sentence was t he removal, by direct order of the Arab Commander­ significant of the claims of his race, he included in-Cluef, of the bronze wreath which the German E mperor in 1898 h ad seen fit to impose upon the tomb Aleppo in "the Arabian country." Some few of the knightly Saladin. weeks later the Emir left Syria on a visit t o All through the afternoon of October 1 an immense number of sightseers-Druses, B eduin, and peasants France and England, his purpose being to lay from t.he H auran and the neighbouring desert--came the Arab claims before the P eace Conference. swarming into the city. In the afternoon of Septem­ ber 30 certain unauthorized persons had endeavoured to B efore he reached Europe not only had the set up a form of civil administration, and showed resent­ Holy Land been completely liberated, but the ment when n ext morning the senior descendant of Turks had been driven from the whole of Saladin, Shukry P asha El Ayyubi, was appointed head of t.he Arab Administration of Damascus. The malice Sy-ria and h ad agreed to surrender the places of t h ese people led to some disorder during the night. of they still held-notfl.bly Medina-in the October 1-2, disorders made easier by the presence of strangers who h a d primitive ideas as to the behaviour Arabic Vilayets. N one knew better than the proper when in a rich, populous city which h ad just Emir F aisal how greatly General Allenby and fallen beforo a victorious army. Consequent.ly early in his army had contributed to this triumph of the morning of t he 2nd the Arab R egulars turned out and restored order. t h e Arab cause.