At dusk on the night of September 18th the orange-groves began to erupt, and for eight hours horse and foot in orderly columns marched silently forward, the infantry to their battle positions and the cavalry to the beach between Arsuf and Jaffa, there to wait till the breach had been made. At half-past four the next morning the shattering roar of artillery proclaimed that the offensive had begun, and at dawn the infantry attacked the Turkish positions, swept over those nearest the coast at the first onslaught, and then swung eastwards. One after another from Et Tireh to Jiljulieh, strongholds upon which months of labour had been expended fell before the irresistible élan of our men, though the Turks fought magnificently to hold their line. By noon the whole of the coastal sector was in our hands, and the plain of Sharon lay open to the cavalry, who had started on their historic ride north soon after our first attack.
In the meantime the infantry, driving before them the demoralised remnants of the Turkish 8th Army, captured Tul Keram, Turkish G.H.Q., together with a host of prisoners, and then continued east to help the Welsh and Irish divisions in their assault on Nablus. The Turks here had no information of the débâcle on their right, for the R.A.F. had started out at dawn and had destroyed every means of communication, except the roads, between the two armies. They therefore fought with the utmost determination, and aided by their well-chosen and well-fortified positions, held off our attacks all that day and the next, though the Irishmen by extraordinary exertions crumpled up one flank. Then the last message ever sent from the north informed them that the British cavalry had overrun the whole country in their rear, so far as they knew the only line of retreat left open to them was eastward across the Jordan, and this loophole, too, was soon to be closed. Panic reigned; the roads leading east were black with long columns of guns and transport and men mingled in hopeless confusion, fleeing with no thought of anything but their own safety; a routed, utterly demoralised rabble.
Nablus was occupied without difficulty on the 21st, but the infantry, who had been scrambling about the hills of Samaria for three days, could not run fast enough to catch the Turks, who were making their way through the Wadi Farah towards the Jisr ed Damieh ford. Half-way through the wadi the road has on one side a deep, gloomy gorge, while on the other stretch gaunt hills terrible in their desolation and stony barrenness. The whole aspect of the place is sinister and forbidding in the extreme, and one can imagine the panic-stricken Turks hurrying through yet a little faster, eager to sight the yellow waters of the Jordan. But they never reached the goal, for the Royal Air Force found the column half-way through the gorge. Relays of machines joined in the attack, first dropping bombs and then flying low and spraying the column with bullets. In five minutes the road eastwards was blocked, and driven by the slow but remorseless advance of our infantry far in the rear, with impassable hills on the one hand, and a precipice on the other, the column was caught in a trap.
A part of it tried to escape, before being driven into the gorge, by a road leading to the north, but were bombed back again into the shambles. Mad with terror, some of the Turks tried to scramble up the steep hills, others made an attempt to descend into the deep gorge; anywhere to escape from the awful hail of bombs and bullets. For four hours the slaughter continued, and when "Cease fire" was ordered, the road for nine miles was literally a vast charnel-house. Guns, limbers, commissariat-waggons, field-kitchens, every conceivable form of vehicle, including a private barouche, lay heaped together in monstrous confusion; and when night fell ragged, half-starved Bedouins descended upon the stricken valley, stealing from pile to pile of débris in search of loot, nor could the rifles of the guards deter them from the ghoulish task. It took an entire division three weeks to clear the roads and bury the dead.
Isolated columns from the Turkish 7th Army did succeed in reaching the Jordan, but were all killed or captured by the mounted troops left in the valley. Daily the toll of prisoners increased, as hundreds of Turks who had been in hiding in the hills round Samaria and Nablus were driven by hunger to give themselves up to the searching parties. Ras el Ain, which had been a part of our front line, presented an extraordinary spectacle, for most of the prisoners passed through here on their way south to Wilhelma and beyond. For thirty-six hours there was hardly a break in the procession shambling towards the great hill on which stand the ruins of Herod's Castle, where Salome danced for the head of John the Baptist, and where now the prisoners were caged. There was a marked difference between the condition of the Turkish prisoners and that of the Germans: the former were ragged, half-starved, and yellow with privation and fatigue, but all the Germans I saw were sleek, well-clad, and bearing every sign of good living. It was impossible to cage them together, for they fought like cats with each other on every possible occasion, and caused endless trouble to the guards, who had to go amongst them with the bayonet in order to separate them.
A Water Convoy.
