Rumours now began to get about that the Turkish force, still on the Hedjaz Railway to the south of Amman, would attempt to break through and try to escape northwards to Damascus by way of Nimrin.
General Chaytor ordered me to take steps to meet such an emergency, so I wired to Major Neill to put the place in a state of defence, and on September 28th I proceeded there myself and resumed command of the battalion.
While Chaytor's Force was holding the enemy on the Jordan and, later, chasing him through the Moab hills, the C.-in-C. was using the bulk of his forces in destroying the enemy holding the country to the West of the Jordan, and a very brief account of the operations may prove interesting to the reader.
In the neighbourhood of Jaffa a Franco-British force was assembled consisting of five Divisions of Infantry, a French detachment about 4,000 strong, the 5th Australian Light Horse Brigade, two brigades of mountain artillery, and eighteen batteries of heavy and siege artillery.
Carefully concealed in the orange and olive groves round about Jaffa and Ludd lay the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions, the Australian Mounted Division (less one Brigade), and four squadrons of French Colonial Cavalry (Spahis and Chasseurs d'Afrique).
All these were ready to dash north the moment the infantry and artillery had broken a gap in the enemy's line to the North of Jaffa.
With this highly mobile force a brilliant victory was achieved, but of course the historian will not give to the E.E.F. campaign the extravagant praise which has been lavished upon it by an ill-informed public, ignorant as yet of the fact that in the field of operations the strength of the British to that of the Turk was as that of a tiger to a tom-cat.
The bulk of the Turkish forces were on or south of a line drawn from Jisr ed Damie, on the Jordan, through Nablus and Tul Keram to the Mediterranean. His fighting strength on this front was, roughly, 17,000 Infantry, 1,000 Cavalry, and 266 guns. His line of communication was long and bad. He was about 1,200 miles from his base at Constantinople, and, owing to incomplete tunnels at Amanus and Taurus and a change of gauge at Ryak, there were no less than three bad breaks in the single line of railway which had to carry his reinforcements, munitions, equipment, and food both to the Palestinian and Mesopotamian fronts.
His troops were badly fed and badly led; medical arrangements were very poor; there was considerable friction between the Turks and Germans, and the Turkish Army was composed of a mixture of races, many of them hating their masters with a fierce hatred.