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.
