With our army in Palestine

by Antony Bluett

We started at 3 a.m. the next day, March 26th, while it was yet dark, and steering east for some four or five miles came to a narrow, steep-sided riverbed. This was the soon-to-be famous Wadi Ghuzzee. By some extraordinary oversight, the Turks had neglected either to fortify the wadi or even to leave outposts there; at any rate the crossing was accomplished with difficulty but without interference. Arrived on the other side we halted to wait for the sunrise to dissipate the fog through which we had so far travelled. So far from lifting, as the dawn approached it grew denser, until it was impossible to discern any object more than a few yards away.

It was eerie waiting in the clammy atmosphere with the feeling that we were shut off from the rest of the world by the thick wall of fog. Memories of Katia and Oghratina sprang unbidden to the mind, and a repetition of those disastrous affairs seemed not unlikely. We felt with relief the sudden cold that precedes the dawn, and in a little while it grew lighter. Presently the sun appeared dimly over the Eastern horizon and we waited hopefully for the fog to lift. We waited....

At seven o'clock we unhooked the horses from the guns and ammunition-waggons and let them graze on the herbage.

No sound of battle came to our ears; indeed, so profound was the silence that enveloped us, we might have been in a tomb. Then, perhaps half an hour later, the fog suddenly lifted like the drop-scene in a theatre, and we found ourselves in the middle of a wide undulating plain stretching to the remote horizon. Then we saw that the stage was set and the actors were ready. On our left, their approach unnoticed by us in the fog, our infantry were marching in fours; from away to the south-west, as far as the eye could see, came three mighty columns of marching men, sunburnt, silent, inexorable.

They looked immensely efficient, these veterans of Gallipoli, tramping steadily along in their shirt sleeves—best of all fighting kit—and there were two divisions of them. Alongside them came another long column of ambulance-carts drawn by mules, beyond which, again, marched the auxiliary branch of the medical service, the camels, soft-footed and supercilious, with the white hoods of the cacolets swaying unevenly as they marched. Then came the light armoured-car batteries and in the centre the horse-artillery. Out on the flank the plain was black with the horses of the mounted divisions, disposed in brigades, and on the right the Imperial Camel Corps had a roving commission. So the army marched steadily forward to the assault, a wonderful spectacle. There was this to be said for the fighting in Palestine: you fought in the open most of the time; with certain limitations you could see your enemy and he could see you. The personal element, therefore, played a more important part than when there was an overwhelming concentration of artillery on one side or the other, and as a rule battles were won because the victors were both collectively and individually the better men.

Soon the infantry diverged to the left, and the columns, moving toward the sea, were presently lost to view beyond the low western hills. We continued our flanking movement eastward, with cavalry screens thrown forward and the remainder advancing in beautiful order over the undulating plain. Within a couple of hours or so we had reached our appointed place, whereupon some of the cavalry galloped forward to keep in touch with the other mounted division operating toward the north, the armoured cars disappeared swiftly on their lawful occasions, and the Imperial Camel Corps went off to attend to the needs of such Turkish reinforcements as were to be found. We had not long to wait before an enemy aeroplane arrived and, locating us at once, dropped a smoke bomb. Hardly had the little puff dispersed when the first shell arrived with a hideous, screaming whine, and exploded with a shattering roar on the hillside some hundred and fifty yards in our rear. It was followed instantly by another which burst a similar distance in front—a perfect bracket, and we were in the middle of it. It looked any reasonable odds that the third shell would arrive in the middle of us, for we offered a splendid target: thousands of horses and men in a shallow saucer-shaped depression the range of which the enemy evidently had to a yard.

Even the most confirmed optimist could scarcely help feeling that in a few seconds we were likely to be put out of action—polite euphemism!—before striking a blow. But the God of battles was with us, for the third shell, to our utter astonishment, not unmingled with relief, never came! The reason was soon apparent: a battery of horse-artillery was seen galloping madly over the stretch of level plain a mile or so in our rear, in the direction of the Turkish big guns. With beautiful precision they swung into action and in a few seconds were firing round after round in a determined effort to put their larger adversary hors de combat. Whether the Turkish gun-positions were known beforehand and this effort part of a pre-arranged plan I do not know. As we saw it, it looked like a spontaneous and magnificent act of self-sacrifice.

It was David and Goliath over again, but unfortunately the luck on this occasion was with the latter. He plastered the battery with his heavy shells; one of them, bursting near the battery-staff, put almost the entire party out of action from the concussion alone. There was not a scrap of cover either for horses or guns, and soon the gallant gunners were forced to withdraw. They had, however, succeeded in their object—if it were indeed to create a diversion in our favour—and had in addition completely destroyed the crew of one enemy gun. With the exception of a parting round which burst near the field-ambulance on our left we had no further trouble in this direction. Subsequently we went forward without let or hindrance, except from enemy aircraft, whose bombs disturbed quite a quantity of earth.

Meanwhile on our left the infantry were heavily engaged. Their lot was not an enviable one. The natural defences of Gaza are immensely strong, and these were in addition strengthened by every conceivable human device. The town stands in the midst of a chain of sandy ridges, inside which is a smaller ring, with a wide stretch of open country absolutely devoid of cover between the two. The extreme niceness of the position lay in the fact that any one ridge was well within range of most if not all of the remainder. Without much difficulty, the infantry captured two of these outer ridges—Mansura and Shalouf—and immediately prepared for the attack on the central positions. The chief of these was the place to which Samson carried the gates of Gaza: Ali Muntar—how familiar we were destined to be with that name!—a great, bleak rock, whose terraced slopes rose far above the rest and commanded a wide field of fire over the plains of Gaza. It was defended in its several tiers by machine-guns cunningly placed, concealed rifle pits, trenches protected by rows of cactus and prickly pear, the broad leaves of which are almost impervious to rifle-bullets and even shrapnel, and heavy guns hidden in cavities in the rock itself.

It was, I think, about noon and intensely hot when the infantry began the attack. From our position on the flank it was, of course, impossible to see in detail what was going on, or much beyond the actual deployment of the troops. But the machine-gun fire, which during the morning had reached us in purring waves of sound, now increased to such awful intensity that the rattle became a roar incessant and deafening. From the moment the first waves started to advance across the open country they came under a devastating fire. They were bespattered with shrapnel from the guns, enfiladed on three sides by machine-guns whose fire swept them away in scores, rifle-pits spat death at them, and from the crowded trenches came a terrible volume of rifle-fire. It seemed impossible that any one could live to reach the slopes of Ali Muntar; yet these men from Wales and East Anglia went forward with a steadiness almost past belief, and ultimately, with ranks sadly thinned, did reach the foot of the hill. From this point they fought their way inch by inch and drove the desperately resisting Turks back through their cactus hedges and over each successive terrace until, late in the afternoon, the summit was won.