With the British Army in The Holy Land

by H. O. Lock

After crossing No Man's Land, we marched along past pleasanter sights, great stacks of ammunition, gas cylinders, and other interesting captures. We enjoyed glimpses of how the enemy here had made himself comfortable; still more did we enjoy glimpses of how we here had made the enemy uncomfortable. Huge craters there were, made by naval guns shelling from the sea. These guns had bombarded the enemy communications behind his front line, and had obtained direct hits on the track and rolling stock, causing a train or two, valuable booty, to fall into our possession. Bomb holes were to be seen, made by our aircraft in their efforts to destroy the bridges on the enemy's line of retreat.

We bivouacked on the night of the 10th at Deir Sineid. For the next two days we marched forward, close upon the heels of the pursuing cavalry, but not close enough yet to come into action or to deploy from column of route. All along our route lay evidences of the enemy's rout. At one time, we were passing a convoy of prisoners being shepherded along by a few cavalry; at another, a party of refugees hurrying back with their worldly possessions to those homes to which they knew they could now return in safety. Here and there lay the body of some unfortunate Turk; while all along the line lay the wreckage of vehicles and the carcases of transport animals.

Throughout these days the troops suffered considerably from thirst. A hot exhausting wind was blowing, and the men were heavily laden for long-distance route marching in a semi-tropical country. Water was the ever-recurring trouble. A little for the men to carry on with was generally procurable, but the difficulty of watering the animals at times became acute. The usual tidings were, that there was plenty of water at the next village. When the next village was reached the tidings proved to be true, but so long was the queue of animals already waiting to be watered, that fresh arrivals stood but little chance. At many places the water was insufficient; and "even when water was found in sufficient quantities, it was usually in wells and not on the surface; consequently, if the machinery for working the wells was damaged, or a sufficient supply of troughs was not available, the process of watering a large quantity of animals was slow and difficult."

Meanwhile, how were our cavalry progressing? A glance at the map will show that, after the fall of Gaza, the next point of tactical importance in Palestine was Junction Station. With this in our hands, Jerusalem would be cut off from railway communication with the outer world, and quantities of rolling stock, supplies, war material and possibly prisoners, should fall into our hands. While still pursuing the retreating enemy, therefore, the cavalry had been directed to make Junction Station their next objective.

The portion of the enemy's force that had withdrawn into the hills towards Hebron now made a descent from the hills to the Plain. Their object was to threaten the flank of our pursuing cavalry, create a diversion, and thus relieve the pressure from their main body. From Hebron, a couple of difficult tracks wind down the mountains to the village of Beit Jibrin, where they join a road coming from Bethlehem and Jerusalem. This latter road reaches the Plain and Beersheba railway at Arak el Menshiyeh. This was the spot, then, towards which the counter-attack, or demonstration from the hills, was organized.

"It was obvious that the Hebron force, which was believed to be short of transport and ammunition, to have lost heavily, and to be in a generally disorganized state, could make no effective diversion, and that this threat could practically be disregarded. The Imperial Camel Corps, however, was ordered to move to the neighbourhood of Tel el Nejile, where it would be on the flank of any counterstroke from the hills; while orders were issued for the main pursuit to be pressed so that Junction Station might be reached with all speed. The Hebron group made an ineffective demonstration in the direction of Arak el Menshiyeh on the 10th, and then retired north-east so as to prolong the enemy's line towards Beit Jibrin."

Close to the sea, the advance-guard of the 52nd Division pushed on as far as Burkah on the 11th, and, on the 12th, the yeomanry pushed north and seized Tel el Murreh, on the right or northern bank of the Nahr Sukereir and close to its mouth.

"The operations of these days showed a stiffening of the enemy's resistance on the general line of the Wadi Sukereir, with centre about El Kustineh. Reports from the R.F.C. indicated the total hostile forces opposed to us on this line at about 15,000; and this increased resistance, coupled with the capture of prisoners from almost every unit of the Turkish force, tended to show that we were no longer opposed to rearguards, but that all the remainder of the Turkish Army, which could be induced to fight, was making a last effort to arrest our pursuit south of the important Junction Station.

"On the morning of the 13th November, the situation was, that the enemy had strung out his force on a front of 20 miles from El Kubeibeh on the north to about Beit Jibrin to the south. The right half of his line ran roughly parallel to, and only about five miles in front of, the railway to the north of Junction Station, which was the main line of supply from the north."

We have seen that our pursuit along the sea coast had a considerable start of that further to the right, and the rapidity of this pursuit had dictated to the enemy this rather unsatisfactory position which he was forced to take up. His right flank was already almost turned. In so far as he could do so, he held a strong position on the line of heights running north and south near the right flank of his position, on which heights stand the villages of Katrah and El Mughar.