CHAPTER VI OVER THE PHILISTINE PLAIN

On the evening of the 9th of November, as the Anzac Mounted Division was 'in the air,' it was necessary for the other two divisions of the Desert Mounted Corps to press on and join it as soon as possible. The Australian Mounted Division, therefore, left Huj on the evening of the 9th, although all its horses were not yet watered, and marched to the north-east, the first objective being Tel el Hesi, and the second Arak el Menshiye and El Faluje. This was the only night march made by the cavalry in enemy country during the pursuit. The 3rd Brigade, with a battery attached, acted as advance guard, being followed by the 5th and 4th. The advance guard dropped pickets along the route every quarter of a mile, which were picked up by the 5th Brigade. This brigade, in turn, dropped pickets to be picked up by the rearguard. Signallers with lamps were sent by the two leading brigades on to every prominent hill top during the march, to flash the letters of the divisional signal call intermittently in a south-westerly direction. These arrangements worked well, and the division arrived at Tel el Hesi at half-past four in the morning, and halted there till daylight.

There were several large pools of good water in the Wadi Hesi, and the rest of the horses got their fill at last, having been without water for three days and four nights.

[Pg 62]

The division pushed on at once, and came up on the right of the Anzac Division at Faluje and Arak el Menshiye Station about eight o'clock. It was joined, some few hours later, by the Yeomanry Division, which had left Huj early in the morning, after having spent all the previous night trying to water horses. This division took over Arak el Menshiye, and extended a little farther east. Thus, on the afternoon of the 10th, the whole of the Corps, with the exception of the New Zealand Mounted Brigade, was in line from a point a little east of Arak el Menshiye to the sea, and ready for the further pursuit of the enemy.

The cavalry were now some thirty-five miles in advance of railhead at Deir el Belah, and the problem of supply became pressing. No help could be obtained from the two enemy railways, as the Turks had blown up bridges and culverts, and destroyed portions of the line during their retreat. Our only means of supply was, therefore, by motor lorries and camels along the single, narrow, ill-metalled road from Gaza to Junction Station. Between Gaza and Beit Hanun the road was unmetalled and deep in sand, and lorries had great difficulty in getting over this part, even with the light load of one ton, which was the maximum allowed to be carried. The marching ration of our horses was only 9? lbs. of grain a day, without any hay or other bulk food, but even this small ration, when multiplied by 25,000 (approximately the number of horses in the Corps), worked out at over 100 tons of forage a day. In addition to this there were the rations for the men of the Corps, and the food and forage for the infantry.

In order to enable the pursuit to continue, it was clear that the greater part of the infantry would[Pg 63] have to be left behind. Accordingly, on the 9th, the whole of the 20th Corps, with the exception of the 53rd Division, which was still watching the right group of the enemy forces, withdrew to railhead at Karm. Of the 21st Corps, only the 52nd and 75th Divisions continued the advance. The 54th, which had remained at Gaza, gave up all its transport to assist the other two divisions. All the available motor lorries and camels were organised in convoys along the Gaza-Junction Station road, from Deir el Belah to El Mejdel, whence the supplies were distributed to divisions by the horse-drawn wagons of the divisional trains. These trains had heavier work than any other part of the force. Even on the rare occasions when the cavalry got some rest at night, there was none for them, as they were distributing supplies from nightfall till dawn. Men and horses got into the habit of sleeping as they marched, and, as long as one or two men kept awake to lead the way, the wagons always reached their destination safely. The Divisional Ammunition Columns were in little better case, and the Sharki, or hot wind from the east, that commenced to blow on the 10th, added to the sufferings of the unfortunate horses.

The whole Corps was suffering from lack of water, but the Australian Mounted Division, which was advancing through the almost waterless country along the edge of the Jud?an range, was in an almost desperate condition. The Anzac Division, although operating in the better watered coastal area, had moved farther and faster and had more fighting than the other two, and was also in a bad way. Moreover, owing to the rapid advance of the last two days, forage and rations had failed to reach this division. There was absolutely no grazing to[Pg 64] be found, and what little grain the Turks had left in the villages was securely hidden. The 2nd A.L.H. and 7th Mounted Brigades, some of the horses of which had not had a drink for eighty-four hours, carried on all through the night of the 9th, trying to water with buckets from two or three deep wells, but got little satisfaction. The depth of the shallowest of these wells was 150 feet, and of the deepest nearly 250 feet. It was quite clear that these two divisions could make no further substantial move forward till all their horses had been watered and fed.

Had water been available in abundance throughout the advance, there is little doubt that our cavalry would have been able to overwhelm the retreating Turkish armies, and the capture of Jerusalem might then have been accomplished by a rapid raid of mounted troops. As it was, each night was spent by a large part of the cavalry in a heart-breaking search for water, that too often proved fruitless, while the enemy, moving in his own country, utilised the hours of darkness to put such a distance between his troops and their pursuers as enabled him generally to entrench lightly before our cavalry came up with him in the morning. The marching powers of the Turks are phenomenal. Time after time, after fighting all day, they would retire when darkness fell, and march all night, and repeat this performance of fighting all day and marching all night for several days in succession. During their retreat they systematically destroyed the water-lifting apparatus of all the wells they passed, thus incidentally depriving the native inhabitants of water.

The inevitable delay caused by the necessity of resting our cavalry now gave the enemy the opportunity to collect his scattered forces and organise[Pg 65] some sort of line of resistance. Already, on the 10th of November, his troops could be seen digging in along the high ground on the right bank of the Nahr Sukereir, and aeroplane reports indicated that he was preparing a second line farther north.

The 1st A.L.H. Brigade, reconnoitring northwards on the 10th, located the Turks in position from the hill of Tel el Murre near the sea, along the high ground on the right bank of the Nahr Sukereir, through Burka to Kustine. Finding a small force of Turks holding the bridge at Jisr Esdud, the 1st A.L.H. Regiment attacked, and drove them off. General Cox at once ordered a bridgehead to be established on the north bank, and entrenched. The possession of this bridge was of great value to us during the next few days. The Nahr Sukereir, in its lower course, runs between high, precipitous banks, and forms a barrier to movement north and south very difficult to pass except by this one bridge. The enemy was well aware of this, and squandered some of his best and freshest troops in a desperate attack on our bridgehead, supported by heavy artillery, but the 1st Brigade stood fast, and beat off the attack.

The 2nd A.L.H. Brigade continued the weary business of watering from two very deep wells at Suafir el Sharkiye, but there were 800 prisoners here clamouring for water, and the local inhabitants, who had been driven from the wells by the retiring Turks, had had none for twenty-four hours. In the middle of the pandemonium created by this fight for water, some enemy guns opened fire on the village, causing a number of casualties among the Arabs and Turks. The Arabs fled to the shelter of their houses, and the prisoners were sent back out of the way. Later on in the morning, some troops of the brigade returned[Pg 66] to the village to continue watering. No sooner had they entered the place, than the enemy guns opened fire again. A thorough search of the houses now revealed two Turks concealed in one of them, directing the fire of the enemy guns by telephone. They were promptly shot, and the firing at once ceased. A more callous action than this of directing gun-fire on to a village full of their own captured comrades and harmless natives could hardly be imagined. It again suggests German influence, as the Turks did not, as a rule, do such things on their own initiative.

In the evening part of the 52nd and 74th Divisions arrived at Esdud and Suafir el Sharkiye, and the weary 2nd A.L.H. and 7th Mounted Brigades were withdrawn to water and rest near Hamame. The 1st A.L.H. Brigade held an outpost line during the night from the sea west of Jisr Esdud to a point on the Wadi Mejma just north of Beit Duras, in touch with the infantry on the right.

Meanwhile the Australian Mounted Division and the Yeomanry Division, on the east, pushing their tired horses slowly after the retreating Turks, advanced a few miles, and located the left half of the enemy's line running from Kustine, roughly through Balin and Berkusie, to the neighbourhood of Beit Jibrin.

The headquarters of the Australian Division was at El Faluje on the 10th and 11th. Shortly after its arrival there, the headman of the village, which is the seat of a Nahie,[12] came to pay his respects to the British General. After a few polite compliments, he asked anxiously if we had any men from his village[Pg 67] among our prisoners. We, of course, could not tell, as all prisoners were sent back as soon as possible after being taken. The old man remarked sadly that he had not had much hope of finding any of them, as he believed they had all gone to the Caucasus. About two years ago, he said, a Turkish battalion had suddenly arrived at the village one morning, and carried off 500 of his young men to be pressed into the Army, and from that day no word had been heard from any of them.

All through the campaign we heard similar accounts of Turkish recruiting methods. The Turks always sent their conscripts to fight in a theatre of war as far removed from their native country as possible, in order to discourage desertion. In spite of this, their soldiers were constantly deserting, either to find a ready hiding-place in some neighbouring town or village, or to give themselves up to us. So serious had the question become in the Turkish Army that there was a standing reward of ￡5 Turkish offered to all natives for delivering a deserter to the Army authorities. An organised propaganda was also carried on by the officers, by means of lectures to their men, the chief feature of which was a description of the tortures and hideous deaths inflicted on their prisoners by British soldiers. These lectures were illustrated by pictures supplied by Berlin. Our reply to this propaganda was to scatter from our aeroplanes hundreds of handbills over the Turkish lines. These sheets showed, on one side, the signed photograph of a fat and smiling Turk, one of our prisoners, with an autograph letter from him, inviting his friends to join him, and, on the other side, a bill of fare of the prisoners' camps that must have made the hungry Turkish soldiers positively slobber!

The strange fact was that, in spite of these constant[Pg 68] desertions, the Turks, when brought to bay, nearly always fought splendidly, and that not alone in defence, but in attack also. Indeed, some of their counter-attacks were simply heroic. Out-numbered, out-gunned, out-man?uvred, doomed to defeat before even the attack was launched, they yet advanced with the most reckless courage, shouting their war cry, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' The explanation must probably be sought in their religious hatred of the infidel. The Turks opposed to us in Palestine at this time were mostly Anatolians, of fine physique, and sturdy fighters.

The Commander-in-Chief determined to continue the advance on the 12th, devoting the preceding day to preparations for the attack on the enemy positions. The delay would afford time for the 52nd and 74th Divisions to close up and move forward to their preliminary positions.

He decided to attack the right centre of the Turkish line with his infantry, and turn the right flank with his cavalry. The Anzac Division had now, however, only one brigade (the 1st) in a fit state to continue the operations. Accordingly the Yeomanry Division was ordered to march on the 11th right across from east to west, behind our line, and relieve the 2nd and 7th Brigades on the coast. The Australian Mounted Division was directed to extend to the east, to a point south-west of Zeita, so as to cover the country vacated by the Yeomanry. Its r?le was to protect the right flank of our forces during the operations, and to attract the enemy's attention to this flank. All patrol work was to be made as conspicuous as possible, and reconnaissances were to be pushed forward vigorously. This work was excellently carried out throughout the day, along a front extending from near Zeita nearly to Suafir el Sharkiye.

[Pg 69]

The Yeomanry Division marched via Tel el Hesi, in order to get water for its horses, and arrived at El Mejdel in the evening. At the same time the New Zealand Brigade and the Camel Corps were ordered up from the Beersheba area, to join the cavalry force on the left of our line. These two brigades started on their forty-mile march on the morning of the 11th, and reached El Mejdel late on the following afternoon.

In order to facilitate the crossing of the Nahr Sukereir, the 1st A.L.H. Brigade was directed to enlarge the bridgehead at Jisr Esdud. This was found to be impossible as long as the enemy held the hill of Tel el Murre, which commanded the country north of the bridge. There were no troops available to assist the 1st Brigade, but General Cox obtained permission to attempt the capture of the hill. The 2nd A.L.H. Regiment, which was selected for the task, reconnoitred the river west of the bridge during the day, but found no crossing place. Undeterred by this, the regiment concentrated in the evening under cover of the hill of Nebi Yunus, which concealed it from the Turks, and the Australians swam their horses across the river, which was here some fifty yards wide and ten feet deep. Moving forward dismounted in the darkness, they completely surprised the Turks, who had fancied themselves protected on that side by the river, and captured the hill after a sharp bayonet fight. Now, with Tel el Murre and the Esdud bridge in our hands, we had a strong hold on the north bank of the river.

There was a good landing-place on the coast here, and, a few days later, when our troops had pushed farther north, the navy reopened the sea-borne supply line, with the mouth of the Nahr Sukereir as its terminus. The reopening of the sea route greatly[Pg 70] eased the supply situation, and enabled two more infantry divisions to be brought up to the front.

During the past two days, the 10th and 11th, there had been a noticeable stiffening of the enemy resistance all along the line, and this fact, coupled with the capture of prisoners from almost every unit of the Turkish army, showed that the enemy rearguards had been driven in on his main body, and that we were now opposed by the whole of the remainder of his force. It was soon apparent that he intended to rally on a line north of the Nahr Rubin, and make a supreme effort to hold us off the vital Junction Station till he had been able to steady his forces and organise his retreat.

During the past few days several new units, portions of the much vaunted Yilderim group, had arrived from the north. Assisted by these fresh troops, and favoured by the delay to our cavalry caused by lack of water, the enemy had prepared, and partly entrenched, a defensive line, which was located by the Royal Air Force on the 11th, running from Kubeibe, three miles north-east of Yebnah, through Zernuka, El Mughar, Katrah and Tel el Turmus, to about Beit Jibrin. Each of these localities had been prepared for defence, and was held by a considerable force of Turks. The intervening spaces were covered by machine-gun fire from the defended posts. The forward positions already located by our cavalry north of the Nahr Sukereir had evidently been established to delay our advance long enough to enable the main line to be entrenched and consolidated.

Thus, though he had been retiring to the north, the enemy's line now ran nearly north and south. This position was forced on him, partly by the pressure of our advance, and partly by the lie of[Pg 71] the ground. The line ran parallel to, and about five miles to the west of, the railway he wished to defend. The right flank rested on a high, steep ridge connecting the villages of El Mughar and Zernuka, and extending north-westwards to Kubeibe. The southern extremity of this ridge commanded the flat country to the west and south-west for a distance of two miles or more.

The attack on this formidable line, originally planned for the 12th of November, was now put off till the next day, owing to the necessity of first driving the enemy from his advanced positions along the north bank of the Nahr Sukereir. The hot east wind had continued to blow throughout the 10th and 11th, raising clouds of suffocating dust over all the country, and adding to the discomforts caused by the lack of water.

In order to clear the enemy from his advanced positions, a brigade of the 52nd Division crossed the Esdud bridge on the morning of the 12th, and advanced against Burka, supported on the left by the 1st A.L.H. Brigade, and on the right by part of the 75th Division. The Turks were well posted, and fought stubbornly, and the village was only taken after an hour and a half of strenuous fighting. After its capture, our infantry advanced a short distance without further opposition, and established an outpost line a few miles north of the Nahr Sukereir.

The Yeomanry Division came up in the afternoon on the left of the infantry, and the 1st A.L.H. Brigade withdrew to bivouac south of Esdud. The 8th Mounted Brigade had arrived in time to take part in the capture of Burka. The New Zealand Brigade rejoined the Anzac Division in the evening, and the Camel Corps Brigade, on arrival, was attached to the Yeomanry.

[Pg 72]

On the right of our line the Australian Mounted Division continued its task of making a big noise, and carried it out so effectively as to attract rather more attention from the enemy than was altogether pleasant.

The 5th Mounted Brigade was ordered to push into Balin, and then make a vigorous reconnaissance as far north as the Wadi Dhahr, from Tel el Safi to the Beersheba Railway. The 3rd A.L.H. Brigade, concentrated in a concealed position at Summeil, sent a squadron into Berkusie, and pushed out strong, fighting patrols to the east and south-east. The 4th A.L.H. Brigade was directed to send a squadron to the high ground near the Deir Sineid Railway line, about a mile south-west of Tel el Turmus, watch the country between that point and Balin, and force the enemy to disclose his positions.

About one o'clock the enemy suddenly flung a force of about 5000 men against the 5th Brigade in Balin. This was by far the heaviest counter-attack we had experienced since the break-through at Sharia on the 7th, and there is reason to believe that it was directed by Marshal von Falkenhayn in person. The attack was made by two columns, one of which had come down the track from Junction Station to Tel el Safi, and the other by rail to El Tine Station. Just after the attack was launched two large motors came tearing down the road to Tel el Safi. From one of these several officers got out, and climbed a little way up the hill to watch the development of the attack. One of them, from his great height, was believed to be the Marshal, but unfortunately the party was out of range of our thirteen-pounders in Balin.

The enemy attack was pressed with the greatest[Pg 73] vigour, and the 5th Brigade was almost surrounded. At one time it appeared likely that the guns of 'B' Battery H.A.C., attached to the brigade, would be lost, as the country was a mass of rocks, and it was impossible to move them quickly. Assisted by the magnificent fighting of the Brigade Machine Gun Squadron, however, the battery was able to withdraw slowly by sections, firing at point-blank range most of the time.

The 3rd Brigade was sent up at a canter from Summeil, followed by the remaining two batteries of the division, and the leading regiment came up on the right of the 5th Brigade just as the latter had cleared Balin. Almost immediately afterwards the enemy turned his attention to Berkusie, now occupied by a regiment of the 3rd Brigade. Supported by a heavy fire from several batteries, the Turks attacked this village, and forced the regiment to retire.

All the available troops of the division were now engaged, and, as the enemy still pressed on, the situation became somewhat anxious. The 4th Brigade was strung out to the west as far as the Deir Sineid line, and could render no effective aid to the other two brigades. General Hodgson, therefore, ordered the division to withdraw slowly to the line Bir Summeil-Khurbet Jeladiyeh. Hardly had the order been given when an enemy train appeared, coming south along the Beersheba line. It stopped west of Balin, and disgorged a fresh force of Turks, which deployed rapidly, and advanced against the left of the 5th Brigade. Our other two batteries were now, however, in action on the high ground north-west of Summeil, and they at once engaged this force. The Turks were moving over an open plain, in full view of our gunners, who took[Pg 74] full advantage of the excellent target offered by the enemy, and made such good practice that the attack was broken. The enemy troops fell back a little on this flank, and commenced to dig themselves in.

Fighting steadily and skilfully, the two brigades withdrew till they reached the edge of Summeil village. Here, favoured by the protection afforded by the houses and walls of the village, and by the rocky ground on either side of it, they were able to make a stand, and the enemy's attack was finally held.

The Turks did not attempt to renew their attack, which was just as well, as no troops could have been spared to assist the Australian Division. Our losses had been somewhat severe, especially in the 5th Brigade Machine Gun Squadron, whose fine fighting was the chief factor in extricating the brigade from Balin. Towards the end of the fighting there, the Turks had got to within a few hundred yards of our troops on three sides. A few of them even succeeded in getting across our line of withdrawal, and several of the battery drivers were shot from the rear while getting the guns away. The division occupied a battle outpost line for the night from near Arak el Menshiye, through Summeil and along the high ground north of the Wadi Mejma, to Khurbet Jeladiyeh, in touch with the 75th Division on the left.

The employment of the artillery in this action deserves notice. In some of the cavalry divisions it had been the custom to attach a battery of Horse Artillery permanently to each brigade. General Hodgson, however, elected to keep his artillery together, and under his immediate command, only attaching a battery to a brigade when on some[Pg 75] special mission, as in this case, when the 5th Brigade, with 'B' Battery H.A.C. attached, was sent forward into Balin, acting as a sort of advance guard to the division, which was écheloned to the rear or either side of it.

Though there may be something to be said in favour of the principle of attaching each battery to a brigade when, as was generally the case in these operations, a division is moving on a very wide front, there is little doubt that it is the sounder plan for the divisional commander to keep at least a part of his artillery in his own hands.

In this action General Hodgson, having his other two batteries in hand, and well up behind the centre of the front covered by his division, was able to throw them at once into the fight at the critical moment, and there is no doubt that their fire materially assisted in the final defeat of the enemy thrust. Had these two batteries been attached to the 3rd and 4th Brigades, one of them would probably have been far to the south towards Zeita, and the other possibly nearly as far west as the Deir Sineid Railway. Both would almost certainly have been unavailable at the moment when their services were most urgently needed. This subject is dealt with more fully in Chapter xxiv.

The attempt of the enemy to arrest our pursuit by using his reserves in a bold attack against our weak right flank deserved better success than it achieved. It was a repetition, on a smaller scale, of his tactics at Tel Khuweilfeh, after the battle of Beersheba. In both instances, had his troops been as bold in attack as they were tenacious in defence, the campaign might well have taken a different turn.

One of General Allenby's most marked characteristics was his capacity for gauging the fighting[Pg 76] qualities of his enemy. He rarely underestimated the Turks' strength or morale, but he seemed to know, as by instinct, the minimum force necessary to hold any counter-thrust that might possibly be made. In this case aeroplane and cavalry reconnaissances had established the fact that there was a considerable force of the enemy on our right, but the Commander-in-Chief left the task of dealing with it, with complete equanimity, to one cavalry division.

huj

Huj. After the charge.

cavalry

British Horse Artillery and Australian Cavalry advancing over the Philistine Plain.
FOOTNOTES:

[12] Turkish provinces are divided into a number of Sanjaks, each under a Mutasserif; these in turn are divided into Kazas, each under a Kaimakam; and each Kaza into several Nahies under Mudirs or headmen of villages.