The 12th was a day of preparation. On the 13th, an attack was delivered against the enemy's position by the 75th Division on the right and the 52nd on the left, the extreme right of the attack being protected by the Australian Mounted Troops, who had pressed forward towards Balin Berkussie and Tel es Safi. The country over which the attack took place is open and rolling. It is dotted with small villages surrounded by mud walls, with plantations of trees and thick cactus hedges outside the walls. These hedges afforded admirable opportunities for the concealment of machine guns. In spite of heavy machine gun fire, the 75th attacked and captured the village of El Mesmiye. A turning movement was directed against the enemy's right flank. There was a dashing charge of mounted troops, who galloped across the Plain under heavy fire and turned the enemy's position from the north. The Kahan El Mughar position, protecting the enemy's right flank, fell to the 52nd Division. After this, the enemy resistance weakened, and by the evening his forces were in retreat. Early the following morning we occupied Junction Station.
The enemy's flight from Junction Station was precipitate. Two trains escaped shortly before our occupation, one of which was believed to have contained Von Kressenstein himself. Nevertheless our captures of rolling stock and material were considerable. The enemy's army had now been broken into two separate parts, which retired eastwards towards Jerusalem and northwards through Ramleh towards Tul Keram.
Throughout the 14th our mounted troops pressed on toward Ramleh and Ludd. On the right, Naaneh, on the railway to Ramleh, was attacked and captured in the morning. On the left, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles had a smart engagement at Ayun Kara, 6 miles south of Jaffa, where the Turks made a determined counter-attack, and were only repulsed at the point of the bayonet.
On the morning of the 15th our mounted troops dislodged a hostile rearguard, which had taken up a position on the high ground, flanking the railway north of Junction Station, and covering the main road from Jaffa to Jerusalem. This is the site of Gezer, one of the most ancient of the Canaanitish cities in Palestine, and one of the first objects of interest sought by the eye of the tourist on his journey up from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Thus, commanding both the railway and the main Jerusalem road, this position might have considerably delayed our advance had it been held with determination. As it was, our mounted troops were able to occupy Ramleh and Ludd that evening and to push forward patrols to within a short distance of Jaffa.
Jaffa, the ancient port of Jerusalem, was occupied without further opposition on the evening of the 16th.
"The situation was now as follows. The enemy's army, cut in two by our capture of Junction Station, had retired partly east into the mountains towards Jerusalem, and partly north along the Plain. The nearest line on which these two portions could reunite was the line Tul Keram-Nablus." Although Jerusalem itself could still be supplied along the road connecting it with Nablus, or along the road across the Jordan to Ammam Station on the Hejaz Railway, yet "reports from the R.F.C. indicated that it was the probable intention of the enemy to evacuate Jerusalem and withdraw to organize on the line Tul Keram-Nablus.
"On our side, the mounted troops had been marching and fighting continuously since October 31st, and had advanced a distance of 75 miles measured in a straight line from Asluj to Jaffa. The infantry, after their last fighting at Gaza, had advanced, in nine days, distances of from 40 to 70 miles, with two severe engagements and continual advanced-guard fighting. The railway was being pushed forward as rapidly as possible, and every opportunity was taken of landing stores at points along the coast; but the landing of stores was dependent on a continuance of favourable weather, and might at any moment be stopped for several days together.
"A pause was therefore necessary to await the progress of railway construction. But before our position in the Plain could be considered secure, it was essential to push forward into the hills, and to obtain a hold of the one good road which traverses the Judæan range from north to south, from Nablus to Jerusalem."