THROUGH GAZA INTO THE OPEN
On the Gaza section of the front the XXIst Corps had been busily
occupied with preparations for a powerful thrust through the remainder
of the defences on the enemy's right when the XXth Corps should have
succeeded in turning the main positions on the left. The 52nd Division
on the coast was ready to go ahead immediately there was any sign that
the enemy, seeing that the worst was about to happen, intended to
order a general retirement, and then it would be a race and a fight to
prevent his establishing himself on the high ground north of the wadi
Hesi. Should he fail to do that there was scarcely a possibility of
the Turks holding us up till we got to the Jaffa-Jerusalem road,
though between Gaza and that metalled highway there were many points
of strength from which they could fight delaying actions. It is very
doubtful whether the Turkish General Staff gave the cavalry credit for
being able to move across the Plain in the middle of November when the
wadis are absolutely dry and the water-level in the wells is lower
than at any other period of the year. Nor did they imagine that the
transport difficulties for infantry divisions fed as ours were could
be surmounted. They may have thought that if they could secure the
wadi Hesi line before we got into position to threaten it in flank
they would immobilise our Army till the rains began, and there was a
possibility of sitting facing each other in wet uncomfortable trench
quarters till the flowers showed themselves in the spring, by which
time, the Bagdad venture of the German Higher Command proving hopeless
before it was started, a great volume of reinforcements might be
diverted to Southern Palestine with Turkish divisions from the
Salonika front and a stiffening of German battalions spared from
Europe in consequence of the Russian collapse.
Whatever they may have been, the Turkish calculations were completely
upset. The cavalry's water troubles remained and no human foresight
could have smoothed them over, but the transport problem was solved in
this way. During the attack on Beersheba XXIst Corps came to the aid
of XXth Corps by handing over to it the greater part of its camel
convoys and lorries, so much transport, indeed, that a vast amount of
work in the Gaza sector fell to be done by a greatly depleted supply
staff. When Beersheba had been won and the enemy's left flank had been
smashed and thrown back, the XXth Corps repaid the XXIst Corps, not
only by returning what it had borrowed, but by marching back into the
region of railhead at Karm, where it could live with a minimum of
transport and send all its surplus to work in the coastal sector. The
switching over of this transport was a fine piece of organisation. On
the allotted day many thousands of camels were seen drawn out in huge
lines all over the country intersected by the wadi Ghuzze, slowly
converging on the spots at which they could be barracked and rested
before loading for the advance. The lorries took other paths. There
was no repose for their drivers. They worked till the last moment on
the east, and then, caked with the accumulated dust of a week's weary
labour in sand and powdered earth, turned westward to arrive just in
time to load up and be off again in pursuit of infantry, some making
the mistake of travelling between the West and East Towns of Gaza,
while others took the longer and sounder but still treacherous route
east of Ali Muntar and through the old positions of the Turks. These
lorry drivers were wonderful fellows who laughed at their trials, but
in the days and nights when they bumped over the uneven tracks and
negotiated earth rents that threatened to swallow their vehicles, they
put their faith in the promise of the railway constructors to open the
station at Gaza at an early date. Even Gaza, though it saved them so
many toilsome miles, did not help them greatly because of a terrible
piece of road north-east of the station, but Beit Hanun was
comfortable and for the relief brought by the railway's arrival at
Deir Sineid they were profoundly grateful.
But this is anticipating the story of Gaza's capture. The XXIst Corps
had not received its additional transport when it gained the ancient
city of the Philistines, though it knew some of it was on the way and
most of it about to start on its westward trek. On the day of November
4 and during the succeeding night the Navy co-operated with the Corps'
artillery in destroying enemy trenches and gun positions, and the
Ali Muntar Ridge was a glad sight for tired gunners' eyes. The enemy
showed a disposition to retaliate, and on the afternoon of the 4th he
put up a fierce bombardment of our front-line positions from Outpost
Hill to the sea, including in his fire area the whole of the trenches
we had taken from him from Umbrella Hill to Sheikh Hasan. Many
observers of this bombardment by all the Turks' guns of heavy, medium,
and small calibre declared it was the prelude not of an attack but
of a retirement, and that the Turks were loosing off a lot of the
ammunition they knew they could not carry away. They were probably
right, though the enemy made no sign of going away for a couple of
days, but if he thought his demonstration by artillery was going to
hasten back to Gaza some of the troops assembling against the left of
his main line he was grievously in error. The XXIst Corps was strong
enough to deal with any attack the Turks could launch, and they would
have been pleased if an attempt to reach our lines had been made.
Next day the Turks were much quieter. They had to sit under a terrific
fire both on the 5th and 6th November, when in order to assist
XXth Corps' operations the Corps' heavy artillery, the divisional
artillery, and the warships' guns carried out an intense bombardment.
The land guns searched the Turks' front line and reserve systems,
while the Navy fired on Fryer's Hill to the north of Ali Muntar,
Sheikh Redwan, a sandhill with a native chief's tomb on the crest,
north of Gaza, and on trenches not easily reached by the Corps' guns.
During the night of November 6-7 General Palin's 75th Division, as
a preliminary to a major operation timed for the following morning,
attacked and gained the enemy's trenches on Outpost Hill and the
whole of Middlesex Hill to the north of it, the opposition being less
serious than was anticipated. At daylight the 75th Division pushed on
over the other hills towards Ali Muntar and gained that dominating
position before eight o'clock. The fighting had not been severe,
and it was soon realised that the enemy had left Gaza, abandoning a
stronghold which had been prepared for defence with all the ingenuity
German masters of war could suggest and into which had been worked an
enormous amount of material. It was obvious from the complete success
of XXth Corps' operations against the Turkish left, which had been
worked out absolutely 'according to plan,' that General Allenby had so
thoroughly mystified von Kressenstein that the latter had put all
his reserves into the wrong spot, and that the 53rd Division's stout
resistance against superior numbers had pinned them down to the wrong
end of the line. There was nothing, therefore, for the Turk to do but
to try to hold another position, and he was straining every nerve to
reach it. The East Anglian Division went up west of Gaza and held from
Sheikh Redwan to the sea by seven o'clock, two squadrons of the Corps'
cavalry rode along the seashore and had patrols on the wadi Hesi a
little earlier than that, and the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade,
composed of troops raised and maintained by patriotic Indian princes,
passed through Gaza at nine o'clock and went out towards Beit Hanun.
To the Lowland Division was given the important task of getting to the
right or northern bank of the wadi Hesi. These imperturbable Scots
left their trenches in the morning delighted at the prospect of once
more engaging in open warfare. They marched along the beach under
cover of the low sand cliffs, and by dusk had crossed the mouth of
the wadi and held some of the high ground to the north in face of
determined opposition. The 157th Brigade, after a march through very
heavy going, got to the wadi at five in the afternoon and saw the
enemy posted on the opposite bank. The place was reconnoitred and the
brigade made a fine bayonet charge in the dark, securing the position
between ten and eleven o'clock. On this and succeeding days the
division had to fight very hard indeed, and they often met the enemy
with the bayonet. One of their officers told me the Scot was twice
as good as the Turk in ordinary fighting, but with the bayonet his
advantage was as five to one. The record of the Division throughout
the campaign showed this was no too generous an estimate of their
powers. After securing Ali Muntar the 75th Division advanced over
Fryer's Hill to Australia Hill, so that they held the whole ridge
running north and south to the eastward of Gaza. The enemy still held
to his positions to the right of his centre, and from the Atawineh
Redoubt, Tank Redoubt, and Beer trenches there was considerable
shelling of Gaza and the Ali Muntar ridge throughout the day. A large
number of shells fell in the plantations on the western side of the
ridge; our mastery of the air prevented enemy aviators observing for
their artillery, or they would have seen no traffic was passing along
that way. We were using the old Cairo 'road,' and as far as I could
see not an enemy shell reached it, though when our troops were in the
town of Gaza there were many crumps and woolly bears to disturb the
new occupation. But all went swimmingly. It was true we had only
captured the well-cracked shell of a town, but the taking of it was
full of promise of greater things, and those of us who looked on the
mutilated remnants of one of the world's oldest cities felt we were
indeed witnesses of the beginning of the downfall of the Turkish
Empire. Next morning the 75th Division captured Beer trenches and Tank
and Atawineh Redoubts and linked up with the Irish Division of XXth
Corps on its right. They were shelled heavily, but it was the shelling
of rearguards and not attackers, and soon after twelve o'clock we
had the best of evidence that the Turks were saying good-bye to a
neighbourhood they had long inhabited. I was standing on Raspberry
Hill, the battle headquarters of XXIst Corps, when I heard a terrific
report. Staff officers who were used to the visitations of aerial
marauders came out of their shelters and searched the pearly vault of
the heavens for Fritz. No machine could be found. Some one looking
across the country towards Atawineh saw a huge mushroom-shaped cloud,
and then we knew that one enormous dump at least contained no more
projectiles to hold up an advance. This ammunition store must have
been eight miles away as the crow flies, but the noise of the
explosion was so violent that it was a considerable time before some
officers could be brought to believe an enemy plane had not laid an
egg near us. The blowing up of that dump was a signal that the Turk
was off.
The Lowlanders had another very strenuous day in the sand-dune belt.
First of all they repulsed a strong counter-attack from the direction
of Askalon. Then the 155th Infantry Brigade went forward and, swinging
to the right, drove the Turks off the rising ground north-west of Deir
Sineid, the possession of which would determine the question whether
the Turk could hold on in this quarter sufficiently long to enable him
to get any of his material away by his railway and road. The enemy put
in a counter-attack of great violence and forced the Scots back.
The 157th Brigade in the early evening attacked the ridge and gained
the whole of their objectives by eight o'clock. There ensued some
sanguinary struggles on this sandy ground during the night. The Turks
were determined to have possession of it and the Scots were willing to
fight it out to a finish. The first counter-attack in the dark hours
drove the Lowlanders off, but they were shortly afterwards back on the
hills again. The Turks returned and pushed the Highland Light Infantry
and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders off a second time. A third
attack was delivered with splendid vigour and the enemy left many
dead, but they renewed their efforts to get the commanding ground and
succeeded once more. The dogged Scots, however, were not to be denied.
They re-formed and swept up the heavy shifting sand, met the Turk on
the top with a clash and knocked him down the reverse slope. Soon
afterwards there was another ding-dong struggle. The Turks, putting in
all their available strength, for a fourth time got the upper hand,
and the Lowlanders had to yield the ground, doing it slowly and
reluctantly and with the determination to try again. They were Robert
Bruces, all of them. It's the best that stays the longest. After a
brief rest these heroic Scots once more swarmed up the ridge. Their
cheers had the note of victory in them, they drove their bayonets
home with the haymakers' lift, and what was left of the Turks fled
helter-skelter down the hill towards Deir Sineid, broken, dismayed,
beaten, and totally unable to make another effort. The H.L.I.
Brigade's victory was bought at a price. The cost of that hill was
heavy, but the Turks' tale of dead was far heavier than ours, and
we had won and held the hills and consolidated them. The Turks then
turned their faces to the north and the Scots hurried them on. The
Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade had also met with considerable
resistance, but they worked up to and on the ridge overlooking Beit
Hanun from the east and captured a 5.9. By evening these Indian
horsemen were linked up with the 4th Australian Light Horse Brigade on
their right and the 52nd Division on their left, and pursued the enemy
as far as Tumrah and Deir Sineid.
General Headquarters directed that two infantry divisions should
advance to the line Julis-Hamameh in support of mounted troops, and
the 75th Division was accordingly ordered from its position east of
Gaza up to Beit Hanun. On the 9th November the 52nd Division was again
advancing. The 156th Brigade had moved forward from the Gaza trenches.
One officer, five grooms, and two signallers mounted on second horses
formed a little party to reconnoitre Askalon, and riding boldly into
the ancient landing place of the Crusader armies captured the ruined
town unaided. There are visible remains of its old strength, but the
power of Askalon has departed. It still stands looking over the blue
Mediterranean as a sort of watch tower, a silent, deserted outpost of
the land the Crusaders set their hearts on gaining and preserving for
Christianity, but behind it is many centuries' accumulation of sand
encroaching upon the fertile plain, and no effort has been made to
stop the inroad. The gallant half-dozen having reported to the 156th
Brigade that Askalon was open to them--the Brigade occupied the place
at noon--rode across the sand-dunes to the important native town of
Mejdel, where there was a substantial bazaar doing a good trade in the
essentials for native existence, beans and cereals in plenty, fruit,
and tobacco of execrable quality. At Mejdel the six accepted the
surrender of a body of Turks guarding a substantial ammunition dump
and rejoined their units, satisfied with the day's adventure. The
Turks had retired a considerable distance during the day. The
principal body was moving up what is called the main road from Deir
Sineid, through Beit Jerjal to Julis, to get to Suafir esh Sherkiyeh,
Kustineh, and Junction Station, from which they could reach Latron by
a metalled road, or Ramleh by a hard mud track by the side of their
railway. They were clearly going to oppose us all the way or they
would lose the whole of their material, and their forces east and west
of the road were well handled in previously selected and partially
prepared positions.
They left behind them the unpleasant trail of a defeated army. Turks
had fallen by the way and the natives would not bury them. Our
aircraft had bombed the road, and the dead men, cattle and horses,
and smashed transport were ghastly sights and made the air offensive.
There they lay, one long line of dead men and animals, and if a London
fog had descended to blind the eyes of our Army the sense of smell
would still have carried a scout on the direct line of the Turkish
retreat.
I will break off the narrative of fighting at this point to describe a
scene which expressed more eloquently than anything else I witnessed
in Palestine how deeply engraved in the native mind was the conviction
that Britain stood for fair dealing and freedom. The inhabitants, like
the Arabs of the desert, do not allow their faces to betray their
feelings. They preserve a stolid exterior, and it is difficult to tell
from their demeanour whether they are friendly or indifferent to
you. But their actions speak aloud. Early on the morning after the
Lowlanders had entered Mejdel I was in the neighbourhood. Our guns
banging away to the north were a reminder that there was to be no
promenade over the Plain, and that we had yet to make good the
formidable obstacle of the wadi Sukereir, when I passed a curious
procession. People whom the Turks had turned out of Gaza and the
surrounding country were trekking back to the spots where they and
their forefathers had lived for countless generations. All their
worldly goods and chattels were packed on overloaded camels and
donkeys. The women bore astonishingly heavy loads on their heads, the
men rode or walked carrying nothing, while patriarchs of families
were either held in donkey saddles or were borne on the shoulders of
younger men. Agriculturists began to turn out to plough and till the
fields which had lain fallow while the Turkish scourge of war was on
the land, and the people showed that, now they had the security of
British protection, they intended at once to resume their industry.
The troops had the liveliest welcome in passing through villages,
though the people are not as a rule demonstrative; and one could point
to no better evidence of the exemplary behaviour of our soldiers than
the groups of women sitting and gossiping round the wells during the
process of drawing water, just as they did in Biblical days, heedless
of the passing troops whom they regarded as their protectors. The man
behind a rude plough may have stopped his ill-matched team of pony
and donkey to look at a column of troops moving as he had never seen
troops march before, a head of a family might collect the animals
carrying his household goods and hurry them off the line of route
taken by military transport, but neither one nor the other had any
fear of interference with his work, and the life of the whole country,
one of the most unchanging regions of the world, had suddenly again
become normal, although only yesterday two armies had disputed
possession of the very soil on which they stood. The moment we were
victorious old occupations were resumed by the people in the way that
was a tradition from their forefathers. Our victory meant peace
and safety, according to the native idea, and an end to extortion,
oppression, and pillage under the name of requisitions. It also meant
prosperity. The native likes to drive a bargain. He will not sell
under a fair price, and he asks much more in the hope of showing a
buyer who has beaten him down how cheaply he is getting goods. The
Army chiefly sought eggs, which are light to carry and easy to cook,
and give variety to the daily round of bully, biscuit, and jam. The
soldier is a generous fellow, and if a child asked a piastre (2-1/2d.)
for an egg he got it. The price soon became four to five for a
shilling in cash, though the Turks wanted five times that number for
an equivalent sum in depreciated paper currency. The law of supply
and demand obtained in this old world just as at home, and it became
sufficient for a soldier to ask for an article to show he wanted it
and would pay almost anything that was demanded. It was curious to see
how the news spread not merely among traders but also among villagers.
The men who first occupied a place found oranges, vegetables, fresh
bread, and eggs cheap. In Ramleh, for example, a market was opened for
our troops immediately they got to the town, and the goods were sound
and sold at fair rates. The next day prices were up, and the standards
fixed behind the front soon ruled at the line itself. There was no
real control attempted, and while the extortionate prices charged by
Jews in their excellent agricultural colonies and by the natives made
a poor people prosperous, it gave them an exaggerated idea of the size
of the British purse, and they may be disappointed at the limitation
of our spending powers in the future. Also it was hard on the bravest
and most chivalrous of fighting men. But it opened the eyes of the
native, whose happiness and contentment were obvious directly we
reached his doors.
Our movements on November 9 were limited by the extent to which
General Chauvel was able to use his cavalry of the Desert Mounted
Corps. Water was the sole, but absolute handicap. The Yeomanry Mounted
Division rejoined the Corps on that day and got south of Huj,
but could not proceed further through lack of water and supply
difficulties. The Australian Mounted Division also had to halt for
water, and it was left to Anzac Mounted Division, plus the 7th Mounted
Brigade, to march eighteen miles north-westwards to occupy the line
Et Tineh-Beit Duras-Jemameh-Esdud (the Ashdod of the Bible). The 52nd
Division occupied the area Esdud-Mejdel-Herbieh by the evening of the
10th, and on the way, Australian cavalry being held up on a ridge
north of Beit Duras, the 157th Brigade made another of its fine
bayonet charges at night and captured the ground, enabling the cavalry
to get at some precious water. The brigade made the attack just after
completing a fourteen miles' march in heavy going, achieving the
remarkable record of having had three bayonet battles on three
nights out of four. On this occasion the Turks again suffered heavy
casualties in men and lost many machine guns. The 75th Division
prolonged the infantry line through Gharbiyeh to Berberah. The 54th
Division was in the Gaza defences with all its transport allotted to
the divisions taking part in the forward move, but as the 54th had
five days' rations in dumps close at hand it was able to maintain
itself, and the railway was being pushed on from the wadi Ghuzze with
the utmost speed. The iron road in war is an army's jugular vein,
and each mile added to its length was of enormous value during the
advance.
General Allenby, looking well ahead and realising the possibilities
opened out by his complete success in every phase of the operations on
the Turks' main defensive line, on the 10th November ordered the 52nd
and 75th Divisions to concentrate on their advanced guards so as
to support the cavalry on their front and to prevent the Turk
consolidating on the line of the wadi Sukereir. The enemy was
developing a more organised resistance on a crescent-shaped line from
Et Tineh through Yasur to Beshshit, and it was necessary to adopt
deliberate methods of attack to move him. The advance on the 11th was
the preliminary to three days of stirring fighting. The Turks put up
a very strong defence by their rearguards, and when one says that
at this time they were fighting with courage and magnificent
determination one is not only paying a just tribute to the enemy but
doing justice to the gallantry and skill of the troops who defeated
him. The Scots can claim a large share of the success of the next two
days, but British yeomanry took a great part in it, and their charge
at Mughar, and perhaps their charge at Abu Shushe as well, will find a
place in military text-books, for it has confounded those critics who
declared that the development of the machine gun in modern warfare has
brought the uses of cavalry down to very narrow limits.
The 156th Brigade was directed to take Burkah on the 12th so as to
give the infantry liberty of manoeuvre on the following day. Burkah
was a nasty place to tackle. The enemy had two lines of beautifully
sited trenches prepared before he fell back from Gaza. The Scots had
to attack up a slope to the first line, and having taken this to pass
down another slope for 1000 yards before reaching the glacis in front
of the second line. The Scottish Rifles assaulted this position by day
without much artillery support, but they took it in magnificent style.
It looked as if the Turks had accepted the verdict, but at night they
returned to a brown hill on the right and drove the 4th Royal Scots
from it. This battalion came back soon afterwards and retook the
hill with the assistance of some Gurkhas of General Colston's 233rd
Infantry Brigade, and the Turk retired to another spot, hoping that
his luck would change. While this fighting was going on about Burkah
the 155th Brigade went ahead up a road which the cavalry said was
strongly held. They got eight miles north of Esdud, and were in
advance of the cavalry, intending to try to secure the two heights
and villages of Katrah and Mughar on the following day. Katrah was a
village on a long mound south of Mughar, native mud huts constituting
its southern part, whilst separated from it on the northern side by
some gardens was a pretty little Jewish settlement whose red-tiled
houses and orderly well-cared-for orchards spoke of the industry of
these settlers in Zion. All over the hill right up to the houses the
cactus flourished, and the hedges were a replica of the terrible
obstacles at Gaza. From Katrah the ground sloped down to the flat on
all four sides, so that the village seemed to stand on an island in
the plain. A mile due west of it was Beshshit, while one mile to the
north across more than one wadi stood El Mughar at the southern end of
an irregular line of hills which separated Yebnah and Akir, which will
be more readily recognised, the former as the Jamnia of the Jews and
the latter as Ekron, one of the famous Philistine cities. While the
75th Division was forcing back the line Turmus-Kustineh-Yasur and
Mesmiyeh athwart the road to Junction Station the 155th Brigade
attacked Katrah. The whole of the artillery of two divisions opened a
bombardment of the line at eight o'clock, but the Turks showed more
willingness to concede ground on the east than at Katrah, where the
machine-gun fire was exceptionally heavy. General Pollak M'Call
decided to assault the village with the bulk of his brigade, and
seizing a rifle and bayonet from a wounded man, led the charge
himself, took the village, and gradually cleared the enemy out of the
cactus-enclosed gardens. The enemy losses at Katrah were very heavy.
In crossing a rectangular field many Turks were caught in a cross fire
from our machine guns, and over 400 dead were counted in this one
field.