THE PURSUIT
On the morning of the 8th of November the pursuit began. The enemy
had made the best use of the night to put such a distance between his
troops and ours that his rearguards were able to entrench lightly,
and thus offered a sturdy resistance to our advance all day. He well
knew that, if he could keep our cavalry away from water for another 48
hours, they would have to be withdrawn. Once free from the harassing
menace of the mounted troops, the Turks, who could always outmarch our
infantry, would have experienced little difficulty in retiring rapidly
to the north, aided by their two railways, and would have had time to
select and entrench a strong position in the Judæan foothills, on which
to bar our farther advance.
The cavalry, supported by the 60th Division, were ordered to continue
their advance to the north-west, and to push on with the utmost vigour,
so as to intercept the retirement of the Gaza garrison. The Anzac
Division was directed on Bureir, some twelve miles north-east of Gaza,
with the Australian Mounted and 60th Divisions on the left, in échelon
to the rear. The country was open, rolling down-land, devoid of trees
or scrub, and dotted with prominent hills or 'tels.' The ground surface
was hard, and the whole terrain was admirably suited for cavalry work.
The Anzac Division moved off at dawn, with the 1st and 2nd Brigades in
line covering a front of some six miles, with centre about Abu Dilakh,
and in touch with the Australian Mounted Division on the left. The 7th
Mounted Brigade, which had joined the division from Corps Reserve early
in the morning, marched in support.
From the commencement of the advance, the Turks resisted strongly.
Having been retiring during the two previous nights, and pressed by
our cavalry on the intervening day, they had not had any opportunity
of organising a definite line of resistance, but bodies of them,
varying from a company to several regiments, occupied every tel or
other commanding ground along the line of our advance, and held on
tenaciously.
About nine o'clock, in order to expedite the advance, General
Chaytor pushed up the 7th Brigade between the other two, which
were encountering strong resistance. At eleven o'clock the enemy
counter-attacked strongly against the 2nd Brigade, which was on the
right of our line, near Tel el Nejile, and held up its advance. The 7th
Brigade, in the centre, continued to push on, and had nearly reached
Bir el Jemameh, about one o'clock, when it was heavily attacked by a
large force of the enemy covering the water supply there. The brigade
was forced back, and its left flank was endangered, when the 1st
Brigade came up on the west, and drove back the Turks. Following up
their advantage, the leading troops of this brigade fought their way
into Bir el Jemameh shortly after three o'clock, capturing the steam
pumping plant intact and complete, even to the engineer in charge.
This individual had been left behind to blow up the plant, but instead
remained to work it for us with great docility.
A regiment of the 1st Brigade pushed out to the north, and secured
the high ground overlooking Bir el Jemameh, and, under cover of this
regiment, the 7th Brigade and the rest of the 1st were able to water
all their horses. The enemy fell back after dark, and the 2nd Brigade
occupied Tel el Nejile. Some water was found here in the Wadi el Hesi,
but it was not possible to water the horses of the outpost troops.
The division established a night outpost line, protecting Nejile and
Jemameh.
Meanwhile the Australian Mounted Division, on the left of the Anzacs,
and with the 60th Division in its rear and a little farther west,
pushed slowly after the retreating enemy, engaged in continuous,
isolated troop actions throughout the day, in the course of which a
number of enemy guns, particularly heavy howitzers, were captured. The
3rd A.L.H. Brigade especially distinguished itself in this form of
warfare. Troops of the brigade repeatedly stalked enemy guns during
the day, and then charged them suddenly from the rear, killing the gun
crews and capturing the guns. It became a commonplace to find an enemy
5·9-inch howitzer in a hollow in the ground, with the detachment dead
around it, and the words 'captured by the 3rd A.L.H. Brigade' scrawled
in chalk on the chase of the gun.
Early in the afternoon, a regiment of the 4th A.L.H. Brigade was
ordered to try and gain touch with the right of the 21st Corps, which
was out of communication with our troops in the centre. All the
afternoon, the regiment rode hard over the plain to the north-west,
avoiding the enemy troops where possible, brushing them aside when
encountered, and succeeded in linking up with the Imperial Service
Cavalry Brigade about Beit Hanun before nightfall. It rejoined the
division at Huj next day.
About 3 P.M., as the right flank of the 60th Division was approaching
Huj, it came suddenly under a devastating fire at close range from
several concealed batteries of enemy artillery, which, with two
battalions of infantry, were covering the withdrawal of the VIIIth Army
headquarters. The country was rather like Salisbury Plain, rolling
down-land without any cover, and our troops suffered severely from the
murderous fire. Major-General Shea, commanding the division, finding
Colonel Gray-Cheape of the Warwick Yeomanry close by him, requested him
to charge the enemy guns at once. Colonel Cheape collected a few troops
of his own regiment that he had with him, and some of the Worcester
Yeomanry, and led them away to the right front. Taking advantage of
a slight rise in the ground to the east of the enemy position, he
succeeded in leading his troops to within 800 yards of the Turkish guns
unseen. He then gave the order to charge, and the ten troops galloped
over the rise, and raced down upon the flank of the enemy guns. The
Turks had in position a battery of field and one of mountain guns, with
four machine guns on a low hill between the two batteries, and three
heavy howitzers behind.
As our cavalry appeared, thundering over the rise, the Turks sprang to
their guns and swung them round, firing point-blank into the charging
horsemen. The infantry, leaping on the limbers, blazed away with their
rifles till they were cut down. There was no thought of surrender;
every man stuck to his gun or rifle to the last. The leading troops of
the cavalry dashed into the first enemy battery. The following troops,
swinging to the right, took the three heavy howitzers almost in their
stride, leaving the guns silent, the gun crews dead or dying, and
galloped round the hill, to fall upon the mountain battery from the
rear, and cut the Turkish gunners to pieces in a few minutes. The third
wave, passing the first battery, where a fierce sabre _v._ bayonet
fight was going on between our cavalry and the enemy, raced up the
slope at the machine guns. Many saddles were emptied in that few yards,
but the charge was irresistible. In a few minutes the enemy guns were
silenced, their crews killed, and the whole position was in our hands.
Most of the Turkish infantry escaped, as our small force of cavalry was
too scattered and cut up by the charge to be able to pursue them, but
few of the enemy gunners lived to fight again. About seventy of them
were killed outright, and a very large number were wounded.
This was the first time that our troops had 'got home' properly with
the modern, cavalry thrusting sword, and an examination of the enemy
dead afterwards proved what a fine weapon it is. Our losses were heavy.
Of the 170 odd who took part in the charge, seventy-five were killed
and wounded, and all within a space of ten minutes. In this charge,
as in all others during the campaign, it was noticeable how many more
horses were killed than men. Apart from the fact that a horse presents
a much bigger target than a man, it is probably that infantry, and
especially machine gunners, when suddenly charged by cavalry, have a
tendency to fire 'into the brown,' where the target looks thickest,
which is about the middle of the horses' bodies, thus dropping many
horses but failing to kill their riders. A man whose horse is brought
down is, however, by no means done with, as the Turks learnt to their
cost. In this, as in subsequent charges, many a man whose horse had
been shot under him, extricated himself from his fallen mount, and,
seizing rifle and bayonet, rushed on into the fight.
It is sad to have to relate that the gallant officer who led this great
charge, met his death subsequently, not on the field of battle as he
would have wished, but in the Mediterranean, when the transport that
was taking him and his regiment to France for the final act of the war,
was torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine.[11]
The action was of interest as an indication of what may be
accomplished, under suitable conditions, by even a very small force
of cavalry when resolutely led. The charge was made on the spur of
the moment, with little preliminary reconnaissance of the ground,
without fire support, and with the equivalent of little more than one
squadron of cavalry. It resulted in the capture of eleven guns and four
machine guns, and the complete destruction of a strong point of enemy
resistance, at a cost of seventy-five casualties.
There was considerable divergence of opinion in the cavalry as to
the best method to be employed in a mounted attack. As there were
no reliable precedents in modern warfare, with its machine guns and
quick-firing artillery, brigadiers had been given a free hand to
develop the tactics they favoured, subject to the principle that fire
support should always be provided if available, and that the line of
fire and the direction of the mounted attack should be as nearly as
possible at right angles to one another.
Prior to the operations the 5th Mounted Brigade had been practising
the following method for the attack of lightly entrenched troops. A
regiment charged in column of squadrons in line, with a distance of 150
to 200 yards between squadrons. The leading squadron charged with the
sword, and, having passed over the enemy position, galloped straight on
to attack any supports that might be coming up. The remainder of the
regiment charged without swords. The second squadron galloped over
the trench while the enemy troops were still in a state of confusion,
dismounted on the farther side, and attacked from the rear with the
bayonet. The third squadron dismounted before reaching the trench, and
went in with the bayonet from the front. Two machine guns accompanied
this last squadron, and came into action on one or both flanks, as the
situation demanded, to deal with any counter-attack that might develop.
If more than one regiment took part in the attack, the machine guns, of
course, moved on the outer flanks of the regiments.
Unfortunately this brigade never had an opportunity of putting this
method to the test, but the 4th A.L.H. Brigade used it in a modified
form at Beersheba, with excellent results.
The wisdom of accompanying a mounted attack by one or two machine guns
was generally recognised, and in most cases where a charge was made
deliberately and after due preparation, and the guns were available,
this method of support was employed.
Where a mounted attack had to cover a considerable distance of open
ground before reaching charging distance, the most usual formation was
in column of squadrons in line of troop columns. Our own gunners were
of opinion that this formation offered the most difficult target to
artillery, provided the interval between troops was not less than 25
yards, and the distance between squadrons not less than 100 yards. The
experience of the campaign seemed to point to the fact that cavalry
also suffered less from machine-gun fire in this formation than in any
other, at any rate at ranges beyond 1000 yards.
The Turks had their main ammunition depot at Huj. A squadron of the
Worcester Yeomanry came upon this depot just after the charge, and
found a party of enemy cavalry engaged in setting fire to it. The
squadron commander of the Worcesters at once decided to charge the fire
instead of the enemy, and his prompt action was the means of putting
out the fire and saving the ammunition. Later on in the campaign we
made considerable use of captured enemy guns, especially those of heavy
calibre, and this vast store of shells was of the greatest value to us.
General Kress von Kressenstein and his staff, who were still at Huj
when our cavalry made this charge, narrowly escaped capture, and had
to leave everything behind them in their hurried flight, even to
their wireless code book. The Turks had, of course, abandoned all
their telephone and telegraph wires, when they were driven off their
positions from Gaza to Beersheba. During the retreat over the plain
of Philistia their units were so scattered and disorganised that they
had to rely almost entirely on gallopers for all orders and messages.
Once in the Judæan hills, however, they re-established their wireless
service, and thereafter all orders were sent by wireless, until the
arrival of fresh telephone and telegraph equipment in January 1918.
Armed with their code book, we were able to decode all their messages,
and were thus always in possession of enemy orders as soon as they
were issued. This piece of luck stood us in good stead later on, more
particularly at the time when the Turks made their big effort to
recover Jerusalem at the end of December.
As soon as it had arrived at Huj the Australian Mounted Division set
about watering horses from the two wells there. These wells were each
about 150 feet deep, and, as the Turks had destroyed the winding
apparatus, water could only be obtained by the laborious process of
letting down and hauling up by hand a few small canvas buckets attached
to a length of field telephone wire. Most of the horses had been
without any water since the afternoon of the 6th, and the poor brutes
were raging with thirst, and drank inordinately. In some cases a single
troop took over an hour to water. All night long and all the next
day the weary work went on, but, on the evening of the 9th, when the
advance was resumed, the horses of the divisional ammunition column had
not yet been watered.
The task of the Yeomanry Division on the 8th of November was to attack
the eastern group of the enemy forces on its right flank, so as to
drive it across the front of the 53rd Division and the Camel Corps
Brigade about Tel Khuweilfeh. The Turkish flank was located in a strong
position on the high and broken ground at Khurbet el Mujeidilat. The
8th Mounted Brigade attacked this position, but was unable to dislodge
the enemy, and, before a further attack could be organised, orders
were received to break off the action and march to Sharia to water,
preparatory to taking part in the more important task of pursuing the
enemy forces over the coastal plain. The 53rd Division and the Camel
Corps remained in observation of the enemy. The Yeomanry watered at
Sharia that evening, and marched to Huj on the following day.
It was now clear that the attempt to cut off the whole of the enemy
forces had failed. Most of the rearguards left by the troops who had
been driven out of the Sharia-Hareira positions had been disposed of by
the Anzac and Australian Mounted Divisions during the past two days,
but the sturdy resistance offered by these rearguards, coupled with the
delay caused to our cavalry by the scarcity of water, had afforded time
for the Gaza garrison and some of the enemy troops east of Gaza to make
good their escape.
The rôle of the cavalry thus changed to a direct pursuit of the enemy.
Accordingly the Anzac Division, which had got some water on the evening
of the 8th, and was ready to move, was ordered to push across the plain
towards the coast, with Bureir as the first objective and El Mejdel
as the second. The Australian Mounted Division, on completing the
watering of horses at Huj, was to move to the north on Arak el Menshiye
and El Faluje, thus coming up on the right of the Anzac Division. The
Yeomanry, when they had reached Huj, were to push on and come into line
on the right of the Australian Division. The Corps would then be in
line across the plain, from the foothills to the sea, and ready for the
further pursuit of the enemy.
The Anzac Division started soon after daylight on the 9th, with the 1st
and 2nd Brigades in line, each being responsible for the protection
of its own front and outer flank, and the 7th Brigade in support. The
1st Brigade, on the left, entered Bureir about half-past eight, after
encountering some opposition. About an hour later, the 2nd Brigade,
nearing El Huleikat, located a body of the enemy occupying some high
ground north-west of the village. The brigade attacked dismounted, and
drove off the Turks, capturing about 600 prisoners. There was no water
available at either place.
About mid-day the 1st Brigade reached El Mejdel, which was seized with
little difficulty, the small force of Turks there making but a feeble
stand. One hundred and seventy prisoners were taken. There was a good
well with a steam pump here, and the brigade was able to get water for
all the horses.
A message now arrived from the Corps to the effect that the 21st Corps
was marching on El Mejdel and Julis, and that the Anzac Division was to
push on to the neighbourhood of Beit Duras. The division accordingly
wheeled to the right, and the line of advance became north-east. The
troops pressed on as fast as their jaded horses could carry them, and,
towards evening, the 1st Brigade reached Esdud, and the 2nd entered the
villages of Suafir el Sharkiye and Arak Suweidan. On the way the latter
brigade had captured a Turkish convoy, with its escort of about 350
men. While these prisoners were being sent to the rear, some enemy guns
farther north opened fire and shelled captors and captives with a fine
impartiality. This shelling of their own men when taken prisoner was of
such frequent occurrence that it is impossible not to suspect German
inspiration.
Just before dark the 2nd Brigade rounded up another 200 Turks. The
division occupied a battle outpost line along the high ground south of
the Wadi Mejma, from near Esdud to Arak Suweidan. Just at dusk a small
body of Turks advanced with fixed bayonets to attack the outposts of
the 2nd Brigade. When they were close up to our line, an officer in
the brigade, who had evidently been studying the _Handbook of Turkish
Military Terms_, shouted in Turkish a peremptory command to surrender.
The weary Turks, thinking that the order had been given by one of their
own officers, and being only too glad to comply with it, obediently
laid down their arms, and were added to the bag!
The enemy troops encountered during the day, and especially towards
evening, were utterly disorganised, and offered little resistance to
our advance. They were quite worn out by their exertions of the past
three days. Many of them had dysentery, and all were suffering severely
from thirst.
The advanced troops of the 52nd Division, 21st Corps, reached El Mejdel
in the evening.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 11: The charge formed the subject of a brilliant picture by
Lady Butler painted from notes made by an eye-witness of the action.]