in the early autumn. General Allenby would, according to the camp-fire
strategists, “hop in” during the brief season between the extreme heat
and the beginning of the heavy rains in November. Further, the C. in C.
would, in all probability, assail the enemy line at the full of the
moon, so that we should have light for the great cavalry night marches
that were anticipated. But it is doubtful whether any soldier in
Palestine, who was not in the official secret, forecasted a scheme so
bold as that General Allenby had resolved upon. Certainly, none dared to
hope for a triumph so dazzlingly swift and complete.
THE WONDERFUL FORTNIGHT
The great campaign opened at dawn on the morning of 19th September,
1918. A fortnight after General Allenby flung his artillery bombardment
at the enemy line, the great Turkish and German force in Western and
Eastern Palestine had been destroyed, and our prisoners numbered 75,000.
Of the 4th, 7th, and 8th Turkish Armies south of Damascus only a few
thousand foot-sore, hunted men escaped. Practically every gun, the great
bulk of the machine guns, nearly all the small-arms, and transport,
every aerodrome and its mechanical equipment and nearly every aeroplane,
an intricate and widespread telephone and telegraph system, large dumps
of munitions and every kind of supplies—all had, in fourteen swift and
dramatic days, been stripped from an enemy who for four years had
resisted our efforts to smash him. It was a military overthrow so sudden
and so absolute that it is perhaps without parallel in the history of
war. And it is still more remarkable because it was achieved at a cost
so trifling.
[Illustration:
TURKS MARCHING OUT OF OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM AT BEGINNING OF WAR, 1914
(_Captured German Photograph_)
]
[Illustration:
GAZA
]
[Illustration:
THE MOUNT OF TEMPTATION
]
[Illustration:
ALL THE WORLD OVER
]
It was a stupendous result, gained by a simple scheme. The strategy was
strikingly bold, but perhaps the most impressive thing about General
Allenby’s triumph was the superb manner in which his plan was carried
through. The campaign went with a bang from the moment the line was
broken until Damascus, more than 150 miles distant, was taken. It
galloped all the way. There was never a moment’s indecision, never a
semblance of fumbling. Here was a British Army at its best, every man
efficient, every man enthusiastic.
The scheme was obviously the conception of a confident leader of horse.
General Allenby is a cavalryman, and he had under his command the most
powerful cavalry force in the war. And he knew the quality of his
mounted men. All of the Australians and New Zealanders and Yeomanry had
been in the sixty-mile drive from Gaza, of the previous year, and most
of them had been in the saddle in Egypt and Palestine for two and a half
years. The dashing Indian cavalry had been with him for many months and
had given many examples of their speed and love of battle. Again and
again in the summer their advanced patrols had galloped down bodies of
Turks, and their terrible use of the lance in those little actions had a
highly useful effect on Turkish nerves. The cavalry was General
Allenby’s special weapon for the campaign, but in addition, he had a
substantial and fit force of veteran infantry. He had, too, a
particularly brilliant lot of airmen, and in his supply services he
possessed a vast organization of railway, motor, camel, horse, mule and
donkey transport, which was efficient and resourceful in the highest
degree, and had already performed miracles.
Altogether the British Army of Palestine was, when the final campaign
opened, as near to perfection as any force ever was. All ranks were
veterans and all were animated by that spirit which every army feels
when confident of victory and happy in its leaders.
A BOLD SCHEME
This was the scheme. We faced the Turks on a fifty-mile line running
from a point on the Mediterranean coast about twelve miles north of
Jaffa south-eastward across the Plain of Sharon, thence eastward over
the Mountains of Samaria at a height of 1500 to 2000 feet, falling to
1000 feet below sea-level where it crossed the Jordan Valley, and
terminating in the foothills of the Mountains of Gilead. The Sharon
Plain sector was some fifteen miles in length, across Samaria fifteen
miles, and the stretch in the Jordan Valley about eighteen. The Turkish
position was a strong one. On Samaria, or the Central Palestine Range,
south of Nablus, the enemy had ideal defensive country, rugged and
broken, yet well served by rail—on the north-west to Haifa, and on the
north-east across the Jordan at Beisan and by way of Damascus to Turkey;
he had also good roads to Haifa and to Damascus by way of Nazareth.
To push the Turk on the mountains by a frontal attack would have meant
at best the gradual withdrawal of his forces. In Jordan Valley the
enemy’s safety lay in the fact that his guns on the foothills of either
side covered the limited ground which was practicable for horse and
transport. And, even if we had galloped up Jordan Valley, it would have
been extremely difficult from there to swing in behind the Turkish
position on the Central Range. General Allenby took the Plain of Sharon
for his great enterprise. Forty miles behind the Turkish position the
Jordan Valley and the Plain of Sharon are joined to the Esdraelon
Plain—the old Plain of Armageddon. In other words, the Jordan and Sharon
and Esdraelon formed a half-circle round the main central Turkish
position on the mountains. All the enemy lines of communication led
across Esdraelon. If we could seize the Plain swiftly, cut the railways
and hold the roads, the Turkish army west of the Jordan was in our
hands. It was a scheme calculated to test the mettle of any army. If we
were to succeed, every branch of the service had to show at its best.
First our airmen had to destroy or drive off the German aeroplanes and
so keep the enemy ignorant of our plans; then the artillery barrage had
to make the way possible for our infantry; in its turn, the infantry
had, in one rush, to drive a gap for our cavalry, and the cavalry,
galloping through the gap, had to cover fifty miles and reach Esdraelon
Plain on the night of the first day. Lastly, the cavalry must hold the
communications they had cut, and to do so, they had to be fed. The
transport necessary for feeding tens of thousands of men and horse had
to travel almost as fast as the cavalry. The scheme had to go through to
time-table or it might not go through at all. If the artillery had
failed to do its work in a swift half-hour’s bombardment, or if the
infantry had faltered, the enemy would have had time to redistribute his
forces, and General Allenby might have been robbed of his victory.
[Illustration:
MAGDHABA, SHOWING THE WADY BED ABOUT ONE MILE FROM TURKISH BUILDINGS
_By Lieut. G. W. Lambert_
]
[Illustration]
CAMOUFLAGE
General Allenby took no chances. He followed the sound principle of
fighting under the best possible conditions. By the aid of clever and
greatly successful bluff, the Commander-in-Chief delivered his smashing
blow at an unexpected point of the Turkish line. The enemy was led to
believe that the British offensive would fall on the eastern sector.
While a huge force of cavalry, artillery and infantry was being smuggled
by night marches to the Plain of Sharon on the west, active and amusing
camouflage preparations were being made in the Jordan Valley. For
instance, many dummy camps were brought into existence, and large
numbers of realistic canvas horses were tethered in them. Mules drawing
sledges were driven about in the dust to suggest heavy traffic. Fast’s
Hotel at Jerusalem, then being conducted for officers by the Canteen
Board, was ostentatiously emptied of its inmates, two sentry-boxes were
placed at the entrance, and a whisper was started in the bazaars that
the hotel would be General Allenby’s advanced headquarters during the
coming offensive. Simultaneously, the Arabs east of the Jordan made
realistic sham preparations for an attack on Amman, out on the Hedjaz.
They put down a big base, engaged in bold reconnaissance, and cut the
line between Amman and Damascus. The deception of the enemy was
complete. We know now that he expected and prepared for the blow on the
east, and was stiffening his defences there until a few hours before our
bombardment opened on the west, near the Mediterranean.
The airmen materially assisted in this hoodwinking. During the eight
weeks preceding the offensive, the German air service was practically
driven out of the sky. Fifteen machines were destroyed or forced down
and enemy aerodromes were bombed. So complete was our ascendancy that
not an enemy plane was seen over the threatened sector for eight days
before the offensive began.
Blind as to our movement of troops, and mistaken by fifty miles as to
where his line was to be assailed, the enemy’s plight was further
accentuated by the destruction of his communications on the very evening
of the bombardment. Pulling out at night from their sham camp near
Amman, the Arabs rushed away up north, and cut the railway and telegraph
communications between Deraa and the great Turkish base at Damascus.
This left the enemy on his whole front without supplies for the fight.
Other telegraph lines further west were severed at the same time, and a
bomb from an Australian plane on the night before our advance destroyed
his great forward telephone exchange at Nablus, which dislocated all his
lateral communications. When our guns opened at dawn on 19th September,
the Turks were already in a desperate plight.
THE NIGHT BEFORE
On the night before the bombardment there was an atmosphere of perfect
confidence in our camp close behind the line. Every man was moved by the
prospect of a successful adventure, which would give vast immediate
results and have an incalculable influence on the world war. The
tropical intensity of Jordan Valley, where the Australian Brigades, with
one exception, and some of the British and Indian cavalry had spent the
whole summer, had left its mark. We had suffered much from malaria and
other fevers, which, it was feared, might recur when we moved into the
cooler north. The horses were, if not in poor condition, certainly on
the light side; but these things were forgotten as the critical day
approached. The Australian Mounted Division, commanded by Major-General
Hodgson, and now made up entirely of Light Horse, except for one
dashing, picturesque regiment of French Colonial regulars, had recently
been armed with swords. The period of training in the new arm was very
brief—for many Regiments only a few hours; but the men taking very
keenly to it, soon reached a high standard of efficiency. Every trooper
was excited at the thought of a true cavalry charge. The Anzac Mounted
Division was still in the line in Jordan Valley.
During many nights before the push every road on the coastal sector was
crowded with slow-moving, well-ordered traffic. By day all was normal,
except for significant glimpses of camps in the wide olive groves around
Ludd, and in the orchards and orange groves about Jaffa. But as darkness
fell the whole countryside would become thronged with masses of horse
and foot and guns, and every kind of transport, groping their way
through blinding clouds of dust. The roads were impassable outside the
organized columns; the night was loud with the shouts of drivers
speaking divers languages. A few hours before the great push began this
night traffic culminated in a general move northward, the cavalry moving
up close behind the infantry, and the supplies following the cavalry.
Every road was massed with motor-lorries and horse transport; every
track with endless strings of camels. Each unit in the great army was
pressing up as closely as possible to the starting gate.
[Illustration:
TURKISH PRISONERS AT BEERSHEBA
STREET MARKET, JERUSALEM
Inset—JERICHO
Showing the pretty little Garden Oasis
LIGHT HORSE CROSSING JORDAN
]
[Illustration:
IN THE JORDAN VALLEY
]
[Illustration:
SPRING WATER, CLEAR AND COLD
]
The bombardment opened at dawn, a heavy barrage. For half an hour the
startled Turks were battered in their trenches. Then, abruptly, the
bombardment ceased. “Now the infantry,” said a Brigadier of horse “and
then!...”
THE ADVANCE
Our battalions leaped forward as the gunnery died away, and carried the
Turkish trenches after a brief struggle. They simply overwhelmed the
enemy riflemen, and even the German machine gunners and Austrian
artillerymen, after a wild burst of bad shooting, were forced to flight
or submission. Within half an hour the infantry had made a gap for the
great force of Indian and Yeomanry cavalry waiting near the coast, and
soon afterwards they opened another a few miles inland. The expectant
horsemen jumped off like thoroughbreds from the barrier.
THE GREAT RIDE BEGINS
They rode away in the sunrise, the advanced squadrons trotting out after
the ground scouts, the flank patrols galloping wide; Brigade after
Brigade rode out over the rolling sandhills. The men were eager, the
horses fought for their heads. The swords of the Yeomanry flashed and
Indian lances glinted from each successive skyline. It was like a war
scene of the picture galleries. Quickening the pace, the Regiments raced
on past our guns, most of which were already limbered-up for the
pursuit. The infantry, busy with their prisoners, cheered them as they
passed, and soon they were speeding down on Turks who had fled from the
onslaught of the infantry. But their sport with sword and lance was
brief. In this Sharon sector, the enemy had no forward reserves, no
second-line trenches. The Turkish front here had depended for its safety
on a one trench system. From the crossing of the trenches until they
reached the Esdraelon Plain, late in the night, the cavalry encountered
no resistance. Once or twice they sighted small bodies of the enemy and
made for them at the gallop. But the Turks would not give battle. Before
the campaign was three hours old there began the long series of almost
bloodless surrenders which were to be the most amazing feature of the
sleepless fortnight.
The perfection of our organization was revealed very early. The cavalry
was scarcely clear of the trench system before scores of field guns were
rumbling in their wake. And, pressing on after the artillery by many
tracks, good and bad, went mile after mile of camels and wheeled
transport. Where the cavalry went the supplies must follow; and the
cavalry rode from forty to fifty miles between sunrise and midnight.
With nothing to check them, their pace was controlled only by the
endurance of their horses. The men rode light; they carried only one
blanket, and that as a saddle-cloth. Tent sheets and waterproofs were
forbidden. It was a wild ride against time. But horses were loaded with
three days’ rations, and few carried less than 250lbs.—many of them more
than 280lbs.
ESDRAELON PLAIN
At dawn next morning the Yeomanry were across the Esdraelon Plain and in
Nazareth, where they caught most of the garrison of 3000 and the whole
population still in their beds. They secured the town at the expense of
eighteen casualties. By noon the Esdraelon Plain was in our hands, and
the Turkish Army in Western Palestine left without a line of
communication or retreat, except at Beisan on the north-east corner of
the trap; and the capture of Beisan was already assured. How completely
the enemy was deceived, and how light were his forces on the sector
broken for the cavalry, is shown by the fact that on the first day,
although our horse travelled fully forty miles on a wide front, only 900
prisoners were taken by them. Next day, as the net closed round the
forward enemy forces on the Central Range, and they attempted to retreat
across the Esdraelon Plain, our cavalry took upwards of 12,000.
DOOMED TURKISH ARMY
At the beginning of the second day, we contained the Turkish western
army on the south, west and north. The Anzac Mounted Division, which is
two-thirds Australian and the balance New Zealanders, and a light
infantry force, all under Major-General Sir E. W. C. Chaytor, were moved
up the Jordan Valley on the east of the Turks and so the net was
completed. But the task of the Anzacs was difficult. Before they could
move, the enemy guns dominating the narrow ground on either side of the
river had to be silenced or shifted. This meant that the Turks had to
begin their retreat on the Samarian Range before the Division could race
them for the crossings. Not until the second day did this come about,
and then the Anzacs, riding fast, closed the fords and the Turkish
Western Army was doomed. Forty hours after the fight commenced, as the
second day was closing, the enemy began to stream down the tracks
leading on to the Esdraelon Plain from his forward mountain position. He
had already abandoned guns and transport, a tragedy which he owed mainly
to the appalling havoc wrought with bombs and machine guns by our
airmen.
At dusk on the second day a large force was reported to be heading
towards Jenin, on the northern edge of the Esdraelon Plain. General
Chauvel, who was directing the battle from Megiddo (now Lejjun), the
actual site of ancient Armageddon, at once ordered the 3rd Light Horse
Brigade to move to the attack. An hour later, the Brigade had captured a
mass of prisoners, who subsequently counted out at more than 7000; and
we had the first evidence of the demoralization of the enemy. As the
Brigade approached Jenin, with the 10th Light Horse Regiment (Western
Australians) leading and the 9th (chiefly South Australians) working
round to the rear of the village, the Turks ran out and surrendered in
thousands. We had one officer and one man wounded. The only shots fired
at us came from nine German riflemen, who fought to a finish, although
two of our machine guns were laid on them at a range of sixty yards. The
plan had put our troops into certain positions and the Turks, as at sham
fight, recognizing the checkmate, were surrendering without bloodshed.
Any resistance which followed on the long ride to Damascus came almost
entirely from the Germans.
CUT OFF
An endeavour has been made in the preceding pages to show how the
galloping cavalry cordon was thrown round the main enemy position on the
Samarian Range. Before the close of the second day, our horsemen,
stoutly armed with machine guns and automatic rifles, in addition to
rifle and sword and lance, and further strengthened by many batteries of
horse artillery, held all the roads and railways behind the Turks and
Germans. The enemy was practically cut off from supplies and retreat.
Worse than that, he was already irretrievably smashed by the attack of
the British and Indian infantry on his front. Recoiling from this blow,
and hastening to reach the Esdraelon Plain before the cavalry completed
the net, he was caught by our airmen in narrow mountain passes,
subjected to terrible bombing and harassing machine gun fire, and forced
to abandon most of his guns and transport. At the same time, the 5th
Australian Light Horse Brigade under Brigadier-General Macarthur Onslow,
accompanied by one regiment of French cavalry, was thrown in during the
first day on his right flank, about halfway between the old front line
and the Esdraelon Plain. The Australians, moving very fast, scattered
with their swords a force several thousand strong north of Tul Keram and
took two thousand prisoners. Then, riding all night, they cut the enemy
frontline railway close behind Nablus. A few hours later, the Brigade
captured Nablus itself.
[Illustration: OUTLINE MAP OF PALESTINE]
TERRIBLE AIR WORK
But before this the airmen had commenced their work in the passes. When
our infantry broke the enemy’s line on the Plain of Sharon, many
thousands of Turks, who were on the foothills eastward of the gap our
cavalry had galloped through, had endeavoured to swing round and retreat
to the highlands of Samaria. But the movement was at once detected by
the Australian airmen. The Turks, with their transport, were seen to be
heading for a narrow defile leading up from Tul Keram to Anebta. Using
their wireless, the airmen called up aerodromes where dozens of British
and Australian pilots were awaiting the signal. The doomed column,
extending over upwards of two miles, was deep in the pass when the first
flight arrived with its bombs. Beginning on the leading troops and
vehicles, the airmen, flying low, had, in a few minutes, blocked the
narrow track. Pilot after pilot, flying in perfect order, dropped his
bombs, and then, assisted by the observers, raked the unfortunate Turks
with machine guns. Their ammunition exhausted, the airmen sped back to
their aerodrome for more, and returned again to the slaughter. Some
pilots made four trips on that day. While the airmen attacked the
column, the 5th Light Horse Brigade came up over the hills on either
side of the track, and caught the Turks with their swords as they
attempted to escape. Blocked in front, the battered, distracted
procession closed up and telescoped, and fires broke out among the
massed and broken vehicles.
Still more appalling, because of the greater magnitude of the disaster,
was the fate of a column between Balata and Fermeh on its way down the
range towards Beisan, on the Jordan. Flying over Samaria, you appreciate
the opportunities which this retreating army offered to the airmen. The
stony hills are not so rugged as in Judea, but they are still too steep
to permit masses of troops to move off the narrow roads. These roads
wind along beside the wadies and are flanked nearly all the way by
abrupt hillsides. The Balata column contained the bulk of the enemy’s
forward transport. It stretched, slow-moving and in full view from the
air, over seven or eight miles of the confined track. An Australian
reconnaissance pilot sighted it soon after dawn and, an hour later,
dozens of British and Australian bombers and machine gunners, flying
within a few hundred feet of the ground, were smashing it to splinters.
Again they began at the head, and forced the helpless drivers to pile up
from the rear. For hours the bombing was continued. Here the airmen
worked unaided by any other arm of the service, and they had wrecked or
disabled the whole of the transport before the infantry came up from the
south and took the dazed survivors. The broken material afterwards
collected in the pass included 90 guns, 840 four-wheeled and 76
two-wheeled horse and cattle vehicles, 50 motor-lorries and a large
number of miscellaneous transport, such as water carts and travelling
kitchens. The horror of the scene during the bombardment and afterwards
need not be dwelt upon. As the bombs rained down with pitiless
regularity, scores of lorries and wagons were overturned and dashed to
pieces as they went hurtling down into the rocky beds of the wadies.
Included in the column were large formations of infantry, and these and
the drivers, rushing from the track to escape the bombs, were shot down
by airmen. These air attacks were repeated many times on a similar scale
in the first two days.
FINE STAFF WORK
Rarely have the various services of an army worked in such perfect
accord. The infantry drove the enemy from his front, the Australian and
French cavalry, at the same moment, struck from the flank at his very
heart at Nablus; as he attempted to retreat in good order, the airmen
wrecked him from the skies, and, in a few hours, turned his army into a
shell-shocked rabble, with few guns or munitions, and little food. The
wretched Turks, in their tens of thousands, urged on by officers, came
at last to the outlets into the Esdraelon Plain. When first the cavalry
galloped down upon them, and they surrendered in hordes without the
least attempt at resistance, we were astonished. It was not until we
learned what had happened in the mountains that we understood the tragic
state of their morale.