With our army in Palestine

by Antony Bluett

Thus the first part of the enterprise was safely accomplished with comparatively little loss; the second and more difficult attempt began before daylight the next morning. The main objective was Sheikh Hassan, a ridge sloping gently down to the Mediterranean north-west of Gaza. This was nearly two miles from the nearest British trenches, and the ground to be covered by the attacking infantry was of the rough and difficult nature characteristic of this part of the coast. The artillery, including the heavy guns of the battleships off the coast, kept up an intense barrage while the troops were in the open, and, in addition to knocking the trenches on Sheikh Hassan out of shape, completely destroyed some works nearer Gaza. With these as a foothold the infantry stormed the main position with the bayonet, though the Turkish machine-gun fire was deadly and their resistance stubborn in the extreme. But this was the opportunity of "getting a little of their own back" for which our men, especially the 52nd and 54th Divisions, had been waiting for six months, and it was more than the Turks could do to keep them out.

Besides, Sheikh Hassan was no more than the hors d'œuvre to the feast, so to speak, and it was swallowed with gusto. In this action, for the first time, I believe, the French and Italians assisted the British on land as well as from the sea. It was also the last occasion on which the Baby Tanks were used, for in the subsequent fighting amongst the Judæan hills the country was too rough even for the larger specimens successfully to have negotiated.

Of the important defences in the immediate neighbourhood of Gaza, only grim old Ali Muntar now remained unconquered, and still reared a defiant head above his humbler satellites. As was fitting, and indeed very necessary, its capture was left till the last. Meanwhile, the preliminaries being completed more or less successfully, the main blow at the centre had to be struck. During the night of November 5th the great move toward Sheria was begun, and by the morning all the troops were in the positions assigned to them. The principal Turkish position was on Kauwukah Ridge, as usual very difficult to approach and positively crawling with machine-guns and wire. As was a customary feature with the Turkish defences, if one position was captured it could immediately be enfiladed from another portion; and very little was left to chance to make the place secure.

The 74th Division attacked the eastern and more vulnerable end first, and with such amazing élan did they fight—and it was all the more remarkable in that these troops were dismounted Yeomanry—that by the early afternoon they had swept the Turks out of their trenches in this part of Kauwukah, and were firmly established in what remained of the position. At the other end of the ridge two more divisions were fighting towards a maze of wire, which was rapidly being uprooted by the accurate and devastating fire of our artillery. This was the heaviest bombardment of the battle; some of the Turkish trenches were simply swept out of existence, and the defenders irretrievably buried in the débris. One of the attacking divisions was Irish, who as a pleasing change from road-making in that malarial hole, Salonica, gave of their best with the bayonet, in which bright pastime they were capably aided and abetted by the 60th Division. It is the fashion to speak of successful military operations as being carried out "like clockwork." If extreme dash and gallantry in the face of every obstacle that brain of man could devise constitute the "clockwork," then the attack that led to the capture of Kauwukah Ridge merits the above description.

I cannot write of the attack as an eye-witness but, months afterwards, I saw the Turkish system of defences, and little imagination was needed to picture the terrible struggle it must have been to take them by storm.

Late in the afternoon the two divisions had captured all their objectives as far as, and including, Sheria railway-station. On the right flank, too, where success was no less important, the troops had done their share; and here in the hills north of Beersheba the fighting was terribly severe. It is one thing to attack with numbers at least equal, if not superior, to those of the enemy; it is quite another when the advantage of numbers lies heavily with the enemy, and the attack has still to be made. This was the predicament in which the Welshmen found themselves; they had not only to prevent themselves from being cut off, but had to drive a vastly superior force out of commanding positions they had taken, and not all the hammering of the Turks could oust them permanently. It was attack and counter-attack from one hill to another all day long, but the advantage at the end of the day lay with the Welshmen, who simply refused to be beaten and fought the Turks to a standstill. Like the Scotsmen they had to wipe off a few old scores, in addition to which there was the accumulated interest of six months of waiting.

By these operations Gaza was isolated except from the north but, as the Turks had no more reserves immediately available, little danger was to be feared from that direction. During the night the Turkish commander, seeing that the game was up, skilfully evacuated all the defences of Gaza, with the exception of those at Atawina Ridge, from which, as will be seen by a glance at the map, the defenders could best protect his rear from the onslaught of the victorious troops advancing from the east. There was no necessity, therefore, for an assault on Ali Muntar; its deserted slopes were occupied without opposition the next day. It thus remained unconquered to the end, and no one begrudged the barren victory, for many thousands of British lives were saved in consequence.

By the time Gaza was occupied by our troops, the remaining Turkish defences except Atawina had fallen into our hands. This, too, was evacuated when the garrison had done their work of delaying our advance and protecting the main retreating body. It was due to their dogged defence that a larger number of prisoners were not taken by the British, and the two almost bloodless retirements were admittedly very ably carried out.

Thus, in six days the patient labours of six months had on the one hand been brought to nought, and on the other had been crowned by complete success. The fall of Gaza gave us the key to the whole of the Maritime plain of Palestine. It was one of the five great cities of the Philistines, and the only one that had retained even a degree of its former greatness; with the others the cry is "Ichabod!"

Of the town itself it is unnecessary to say more than that while there are several fine modern buildings, amongst them a German school, and a mosque which had suffered from our shells on account of the Turkish persistence in using it as an observation post, the greater part of the town is like every other Eastern town in its utter disregard of the elementary laws of sanitation. The white roofs in a ring of cactus and amid the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranate make a delightful picture seen from the top of a neighbouring hill, but there is the usual complete disillusionment when you have passed the outskirts of the town. Not all the dirt and squalor, however, could minimise the intense feeling of satisfaction amongst the troops at having at last conquered the bogy that had for so long prevented the advance into the Holy Land.