THE ATTACK ON BEERSHEBA
By the middle of October everything was ready. The railway had been brought
forward as far as possible and the army at the gates of Gaza had been
largely increased in numbers. That Irish Division which had had such a
terrible time during the Serbian retreat in 1915 and the 60th (London)
Division, which had fought both in France and Macedonia, had come from
Salonica to help. There were now English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh troops
on various parts of the front; large numbers of Indian cavalry had also
been added to the mounted divisions, and our artillery was at least equal,
if not superior, to that of the Turks. Every scrap of transport available
had been concentrated for the tremendous task of supplying the army when it
began to move forward. Some idea of the magnitude of this task may be
gathered from the fact that thirty thousand camels, practically the entire
strength of the Camel Transport Corps, were needed for the troops on the
right flank alone since they were farthest from railhead. For these it was
estimated that at least a week's supply of water would have to be carried,
to say nothing of forage and rations, until Beersheba with its water-supply
was captured. This was to be the first part of the enterprise, and the
whole plan hinged on its success.
Two divisions, one of infantry and the other of dismounted yeomanry--which
latter had done so well as infantry that they were rewarded by being
further employed as such--were to make for the gap between Beersheba and
Sheria and make things unpleasant for the Turks occupying the defences of
the former place. The part assigned to the mounted troops was that they
should disappear into the desert land south-east of Beersheba and wait
there till the time appointed, whereupon they were to perform the
outflanking movement which, as has been stated, was utterly unforeseen by
the Turks. For the moment we will, if you please, follow the fortunes of
the cavalry.
If you have persevered so far with this narrative you will have noticed
throughout that the troops had little assistance from Nature in beating the
Turks. Here, doubtless relenting, she had with kindly forethought provided
two small oases--one about twenty miles from El Chauth, the other ten miles
farther away--in the desert where the cavalry was to hide. At both places
there was a moderate supply of water, sufficient for a few days at any
rate, which was all that was required.
During the night of October 27th, what time the Turks were being severely
trounced in an attempt on the branch railway, two columns of cavalry
started for these providential hiding-places, following substantially the
same route as that taken when the railway between Beersheba and El Auja was
blown up. The dust was still there, in greater quantities than ever after
six months of drought, and the fond illusion that we had taken most of it
on our persons during the railway raid was rudely shattered. Fortunately
the Turks were profoundly ignorant of the move, and the two columns reached
their respective destinations without discovery. They remained unseen until
the night of the 30th, when the long trek northwards began. If you can
imagine a mighty column of dust well over ten miles in length, in the midst
of which were many thousands of half-suffocated men and horses, you have no
need of further words to picture that night's march, which lasted for ten
hours.
At dawn all the troops were in their assigned positions. The infantry had
marched all night and were to open the performance as soon as it was light
enough for the gunners to get on to their targets. At the outset these
consisted of the barbed-wire entanglements with which the defences south of
Beersheba were surrounded. Unfortunately the light was not too good for
accurate shooting, and although most of the wire was destroyed a few
patches were left which caused considerable trouble to infantry when they
went forward to the assault. Moreover the Turkish--or rather
Austrian--artillery fire was very heavy and accurate; they had the range
of every spot in the vicinity of their defences, which our own guns found
very difficult to locate. Despite the volume of fire the storming-parties
pressed on, tearing down the wire with their hands or forcing themselves
through it, until at last they got to close quarters with the bayonet.
After that nothing could stop them, and by the early afternoon all the
defences south of Beersheba had been taken. Also, the artillery by
admirable shooting had succeeded in putting the railway out of action: a
great feat.
By this time the Turks had received a rude shock from another direction:
east-north-east. Our cavalry, having unseen closed the northern exits from
the town, suddenly swooped down and seized positions menacing the town from
the east. Here some topographical details will be necessary. The only way
to approach Beersheba from the desert is by crossing the steep-sided Wadi
es Saba--from which the town and a small village near by take their names.
On the Beersheba side of the wadi and forming almost a semi-circle round
the town is a broad, flat plain commanding which was Tel es Saba, the
highest of all the surrounding hills. This had to be captured before any
direct attack on the town could be made.
All day long the Australians, on foot, made desperate attempts to carry the
hill by storm, but the Turks, well served by their magnificent position,
held on stubbornly. Another party of the Australians scrambled across the
wadi and made an attempt to cross the plain in face of the appalling fire
that was poured into them. They did succeed in capturing Saba village,
though the place was a death-trap after it was taken. Just before sunset
Tel es Saba succumbed to the incessant hammering it had received all day,
and one great obstacle was removed from the path.
But fundamentally we were "no forrader." Although the outlying positions
had been taken Beersheba itself was still intact, and its immediate capture
was urgently necessary; the whole adventure turned upon it. With the coming
of night, the artillery had ceased fire, and of course no further support
could be expected from them. The town had to be taken by direct assault
with the bayonet; there was nothing else for it. First the wadi had to be
crossed, no easy matter, then the plain, which was heavily trenched. The
Yeomanry, who had not been needed during the day, were ordered to tackle
the job--of course, dismounted. They did actually start from their reserve
positions, but they were forestalled. From under the shadow of Tel es Saba
a vast cloud of dust was seen sweeping over the moonlit plain. Inside it
was the 4th Light Horse Brigade, who, tired of waiting and with their usual
cheerful disregard of the conventions, had decided to take the town
themselves. Also, having had sufficient fighting on foot during the
all-day struggle for Tel es Saba, they determined that the horses should
share in the excitement.
So, using as lances their rifles with bayonets fixed, the whole
brigade--and any one else with a horse and rifle and bayonet--charged
yelling upon the town. Over trenches, rifle-pits and obstacles of all sorts
they leapt and burst into Beersheba like a tornado. The Turks were
literally paralysed by the audacity of the effort and made a mere travesty
of resistance, in comparison with their stubbornness during the day. It was
all over in a very short time and Beersheba was ours. The Yeomanry,
astonished to find so little resistance, came in at the death in time to
help round up the large numbers of prisoners captured by the Australians.
Speaking without the book I should say that this mounted bayonet charge is
without parallel in military history. It was at any rate worthy of the best
traditions of Australian resourcefulness. Their motto seemed always to be:
"If you haven't the right tools for a job, do it with anything that's handy
and trust to the luck of the British army to pull you through." A very
sound maxim, on the whole, if their headstrong adherence to it did
sometimes land them in a tight corner.
It was difficult to realise in the midst of a jostling crowd of soldiers,
with guns and all the impedimenta of war in the background, that once on a
time old Father Abraham had lived at Beersheba with his family and
developed the water-supply for his flocks. Impossible, too, to visualise
the past splendours of Beersheba, as became the city on the southern border
of Palestine, on the main caravan-route through the Land of Goshen, across
the Sinai desert into Egypt, and through which on account of its wells,
travellers for countless ages had passed on their leisurely journey south.
Nowadays, it is but a collection of exaggerated mud-huts of the usual
native type, with the addition of a few modern works and the railway.
Though I saw it frequently enough later on the sight of a railway-station
in or near a native village always seemed strangely incongruous. Do not for
a moment imagine that by railway-station I mean anything so elaborate as
the merest village station at home; except at Kantara even the best and
largest of ours did not rise to such heights. The platform, if there was
one, was of sleepers piled almost haphazard one upon another with sand
shovelled into the interstices and spread over the top. Occasionally
cinders were used to form an extra hard surface; but this was a luxury.
Unless a stationary train marked its presence the station was very
difficult to find at all, for one bit of the railway looks very much like
another at a distance. I remember a party of us trying for a long time to
find one of these elusive places. We found the railway all right but the
only sign of human habitation was a tiny wooden hut, almost invisible
against the background of sand, towards which we made our way. A
lance-corporal in the R.E. was the sole inmate. "Where's the station,
chum?" he was asked. He looked at us suspiciously for a moment.
"Don't come it over me," he said then; "yer standin' on it." And he was
right; you could even see the platform if you peered about carefully.
At Beersheba the Turkish station was rather a pretentious affair, all
things considered. There were quite a number of adequate buildings, most of
them connected with the water-works just outside. The Turks, thanks in the
first place to the fine shooting of our artillery, had had no chance of
getting their rolling-stock away; and secondly, the spirited dash of the
Australians had overwhelmed them before they could destroy any of it. In
fact there was a train in the station, fully laden with stores and ready to
start for Sheria had it been possible, when the Light Horse burst into the
town.
Beersheba that night presented an indescribable spectacle. It is literally
impossible to describe it, for every detail was obscured by the immense
clouds of dust that hung over the place like a pall, clinging and opaque.
The water-works and wells were fortunately intact, but until everything had
been carefully tested and examined, the horses, who had drunk nothing since
the previous day, had to remain thirsty.
In the morning the town was systematically searched.
There were mines and bombs and infernal-machines everywhere, all obviously
made in Germany. The Turk usually limited his nefarious practices to
poisoning the wells when he retreated--a sufficiently damnable thing to do,
_bien entendu_. But the Germans despised crude methods of this kind. They
were not content with poisoning the water but must needs fix their devilish
contraptions so that a man blew himself to pieces in the act of drawing his
drink. Many of the wells were mined, but the Germans had slightly
overreached themselves either through haste or clumsiness, and all the
mines were removed without mishap.
Elsewhere we were not so fortunate. Some of our native camel-drivers saw
tins of preserved meat conspicuously lying about without owners. Following
the invariable native principle of obtaining something for nothing whenever
possible, one or two seized them. It is a melancholy fact that the act was
their last in this world, for the tins were simply--potted death. After
this men gave a wide berth even to the most innocent-looking objects,
though in truth the more innocent a thing looked the more devilish was the
contrivance hidden under it. Now observe further the workings of the German
mind. In one dug-out there was--of all books--a copy of Ruskin's _Sesame
and Lilies_, tattered and dog's-eared by constant use, and a torn piece
of--the _Sporting Times_! Also, hanging on a nail in one of the beams was
a German tunic, stretched neatly on a coat-hanger. The dug-out looked very
innocent and had quite a domesticated atmosphere; and the unwary, lulled
into security by it, might have been tempted casually to reach for the
tunic as a trophy. Providentially no one pulled it down until the engineers
had inspected the dug-out, and then only from the end of a very long rope.
There was little left of the dug-out after the explosion.
What can you make of a mind that can appreciate and enjoy the incomparable
beauty of _Sesame and Lilies_, and yet can conceive so hidden and
treacherous a means of destruction? Of course the book might have come
fortuitously into the possession of the occupant of the dug-out, might even
have been left there and forgotten by some passing British soldier when the
place was captured; but the latter at least is unlikely. When
inquisitiveness had such dire results no one did much prying until
everything had been examined and pronounced safe. But that the wells were
safe was the great thing and their importance could hardly be
over-estimated.
They must be amongst the oldest in the world. For thirty-seven centuries
there has been water at Beersheba, since, in fact, Abraham sank the wells
in the neighbourhood, and these have known many vicissitudes. When he died
the Philistines came and rendered them all useless by filling them up with
sand: a precedent, you will have noticed, much favoured by the Turks,
though their methods were more modern. Years after came Isaac and excavated
the wells again; whereupon he had to fight with the men of Gerar for the
possession of them. Tiring of strife he dug the well at Beersheba which
gives the town its name, and this he retained, having made peace with the
Philistines. Finally, history repeating itself nearly four thousand years
later, British soldiers fought for, and won, these self-same wells, which
were substantially in as good condition as when they were first made.
But what had been an ample supply for the flocks of the patriarchs and
passing caravans proved inadequate for the needs of the thousands of men
and horses and camels thronging into Beersheba. A hundred thousand gallons
is a big tax on the capacity of any well, and this is a very moderate
estimate of the amount required daily by the troops. From the moment they
were pronounced fit for use the watering-places by the station were crowded
with thirsty men and animals, and the supply soon decreased alarmingly. To
add to the trouble most of the stored water, accumulated previously with
such care and labour, was delayed somewhere _en route_ to Beersheba and
ultimately had considerable difficulty in reaching the place at all.
Meanwhile the "Cameliers," whose mounts could last in fair comfort for a
week without water, went off into the parched hills north of Beersheba to
perform their usual function of protecting our flank. Then all the mounted
troops took the road towards Sheria, so as to be in readiness for the main
blow when the transport difficulty had been solved.