With the Judæans in the Palestine Campaign

by J. H. Patterson

Students of strategy and military history will agree that Palestine, although some distance from the Suez Canal region, dominates that main artery of our trade and commerce.

The eastern boundary of Egypt, running from Rafa on the Mediterranean to Akaba on the Gulf of that name in the Red Sea, is, from a military point of view, worthless. History tells us that all down the ages armies have crossed the Sinai Desert and worked their will on the dwellers by the Nile. Early in the War we ourselves were unable to hold this Egyptian Frontier and were forced to retire to the line of the Suez Canal. It is true we defeated the Turks there and drove them out of Egypt, but the risk to our communications was very grave. It is a risk that should never again be taken, and for the future the Suez Canal must be defended, at all events on the Eastern side, from its strategical frontier—Palestine. With a friendly people established in the Judæan strongholds, and with sea power in our hands, the invasion of Egypt from the East or North would be a well-nigh impossible enterprise. It was always a cause of surprise to me that we did not very early in the War seize and fortify the harbours of Haifa and Jaffa. This might easily have been done, as they were practically undefended, and the people were in their hearts pro-British. Even Gaza could have been occupied and fortified in the early days. With these three towns in our hands no Turkish force could have been organised in Palestine or used against Egypt. No army could possibly march down the maritime plain with these occupied towns menacing their flank, while the other route to Egypt by the eastward of the Jordan Valley is almost impossible for a large army.

Some eighty years ago Ibrahim Pasha was forced to retire to Egypt from Damascus by this eastern route because we held the coast ports. He left the ancient capital of Syria with some eighty thousand men, and, although he fought no battle on the way, his losses from sickness, hunger, thirst, and fatigue amounted to over sixty-five thousand men.

This gives one some little idea of the chance we missed in not making adequate use of our sea power by seizing the coast towns in the Levant during the Great War.

The physical conformation of Palestine adds enormously to its strategical strength.

The country is divided into four longitudinal belts running practically throughout the length of the country from North to South. Along the sea coast run the narrow maritime plains of Philistia, Sharon, and Acre. These narrow plains stretch from the borders of Egypt to the mountains of Lebanon.

The next belt of country consists of the continuation of the Lebanon range, which runs down practically unbroken through central Palestine, losing itself in the Southern Desert.

This hilly range constitutes the heart of the Holy Land and comprises the provinces of Galilee, Samaria, and Judæa. The only complete break in this range occurs between Galilee and Samaria, where the Plain of Esdraelon and the Valley of Jezreel cut right across and leave an open doorway from East to West. Through this gap from time immemorial armies have marched and counter-marched to and from Egypt.

The next belt of country is the great depression of the Jordan Valley, the deepest known in the world. It runs from "the waters of Merom," near the foothills of Hermon, where it is on a level with the Mediterranean, to the Dead Sea, where it is nearly 1,300 ft. below sea-level.