THE FALL OF DAMASCUS
At two o'clock on the afternoon of the 29th, the Australian Mounted Division started on the last lap of the race to Damascus. The 5th Cavalry Division followed a few miles in rear of the Australians. The distance to be covered was about forty miles, and it was hoped that, if the two divisions marched all night, they would be able to surround the city soon after dawn on the 30th.
It was arranged that the Australian Mounted Division should send two brigades along the foot of the hills west of Damascus, to close the two roads leading north-west to Beirût, and north-east to Homs. The 5th Division was to send one brigade round the east side of the city, to gain touch with the Australians on the Homs road, and place the remainder of the division astride the Deraa-Damascus road, at or near Kiswe, to receive the remnants of the Turkish IVth Army, which was to be driven into their welcoming arms by the 4th Division.
It must be explained that the only available maps were very inaccurate and greatly lacking in detail. Thus, there was no indication that the steep and rocky hills, which press right on to Damascus on the west, were almost impassable for cavalry; or that the Beirût road runs along the bottom of a deep, precipitous gorge, into which it was impossible for cavalry to descend; or that, to reach the Homs road, it would be necessary to pass through the western suburbs of the city, always a difficult and dangerous operation in a hostile country, and doubly so for mounted troops.
For political reasons, strict orders had been given that no British troops were to enter Damascus, and these orders considerably hampered our subsequent operations, and made our task more difficult.
In the end, however, it was the action of the enemy that was the chief cause of our delay. A couple of armoured cars went ahead of the Australian Division to reconnoitre, and returned, shortly after the division had started, with the information that the enemy was holding a position astride the road, near the village of Sasa, a little north of the Nahr Mughaniye. The cars had drawn a considerable fire from guns and machine guns. Patrols of the 3rd A.L.H. Brigade crossed the river just before dark, and had located the enemy's position fairly accurately by the time the rest of the brigade arrived. The position had been well sited by the enemy, on a rocky ridge running about east and west. An impassable morass of unknown extent protected his right flank, north of the road, and the country to the south was a wilderness of broken lava boulders, most difficult even for infantry and in the daylight.
The 8th and 9th A.L.H. Regiments dismounted, and advanced in pitch darkness against the presumed position of the enemy's left flank. The going was so bad that it was nearly two in the morning before they got to grips with the Turks. There was a half-hour's very confused bayonet fighting among the rocks in the darkness, during which it was almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The Turks then broke, most of them making for the road. A pre-arranged signal of Verey lights, sent up by the attackers, apprised the division of this, and, immediately it was seen, a squadron of the 10th A.L.H. Regiment, which had been held in readiness, galloped straight down the road in the dark, to get ahead of the retreating Turks and cut them off. It very nearly came to grief over one of the enemy guns which had been abandoned on the road, but fortunately the leading horses saw it, and swerved aside just in time. The squadron was followed, at a more sober pace, by the 4th and 12th Regiments of the 4th Brigade, which now took the lead.
About 100 prisoners, three guns, and a number of machine guns were captured on the position, and, after daylight, about 250 more stragglers were gathered in, including a party of 150 Germans, who had retired before the 10th Regiment charged down the road. Our casualties had been rather heavy for so small an affair, and, by some strange chance, the Turks captured and carried off with them in their retreat eight of our men. These we came upon and rescued near the village of Sasa, shortly after daybreak.
The net result of this action was that, instead of being on the outskirts of Damascus at dawn on the 30th, our troops were still nearly twenty miles away.
Pressing on as fast as possible, the division reached Kaukab about ten o'clock, and here encountered the enemy again. At some time or other the Turks had constructed a long line of entrenchments stretching from near Katana (north of the El Kuneitra road) across the road at Kaukab, along the high ridge of the Jebel el Aswad, over the Deraa road north of Kiswe, and thence over the Jebel el Mania to near Deir Ali. It was the western portion of this line, astride the El Kuneitra road, that they were now holding. The position looked strong, and, had the Turks put up a determined fight here, they might have saved many of their friends in Damascus, to say nothing of their masters the Germans, from capture.