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.
The air force achieved a notable victory. They had not only inflicted very heavy losses, but had incalculably lessened the task of both our infantry and cavalry. They had prevented the Turk from fighting effective rear-guard actions against the pursuing infantry, and had hammered him so soundly that he was incapable of any attempt to burst through our cordon of cavalry. Without this help from the airmen, General Allenby must still have won a great victory; but it would have been much short of the sensational one achieved. Progress must have been much slower, and our casualties heavier by many thousands.
Before the fight was two days old our aeroplanes were using aerodromes captured from the enemy. At one point on the march to Damascus, when we were a hundred miles from our starting-place, a number of airmen came up and established a flying ground abreast of our cavalry advance guard. Throughout the operations an air-post service was maintained between the leading troops and General Headquarters. An Australian Brigadier and a Colonel of the Light Horse, who were in hospital far down the line when the campaign opened, surprised their troops by alighting from aeroplanes in their midst, a hundred miles from our starting-point.