The Desert Mounted Corps / An Account of the Cavalry Operations in Palestine and Syria 1917-1918

by R. M. P. Preston

During the previous night General Chaytor had sent two small raiding parties, mounted on the freshest horses available, to try and blow up the Hedjaz Railway north and south of Amman, in order to entrap a considerable quantity of rolling stock which was reported to be in the station. The 2nd A.L.H. Brigade party made for the railway north of Amman, but encountered a body of Turkish cavalry, and was forced to turn back. The New Zealanders, who were directed south of the town, were more fortunate, and succeeded in reaching the railway at a point some seven miles south of Amman station. Having destroyed a considerable stretch of the line, they withdrew safely, and made their way back to El Sir.

This march, carried out at night, in unknown and very difficult country, without guides or reliable maps, and into the heart of the enemy's country, was a striking example of the special qualities of the Australian and New Zealand Cavalry. Trained from the cradle in the art of finding their way in uncharted country, they have the bushman's almost uncanny sense of direction. Tireless as the wiry horses they breed and ride, possessed of a wonderful keenness of vision, alert, wary and supremely self-confident, they are the finest scouts in the world.

The advance on Amman was resumed on the 27th. Early in the morning a light car patrol arrived at Sweileh from El Salt, but could get no farther east, owing to the mud. General Chaytor, therefore, ordered the cars to remain at Sweileh, as a flank guard to his division during the attack on Amman. A brigade of infantry, with two mountain batteries, set out from El Salt at five in the morning, to march to the support of the Anzac Division. This brigade could not be expected at Amman till late at night, but it was hoped that the Anzac Division would be able to take the place before then. Unfortunately the delay to our troops caused by the rain had afforded time to the enemy both to improve his defence and to reinforce his garrison.

General Chaytor directed the New Zealand Brigade to cross the Wadi Amman, south-west of the town, and move against the high ground overlooking the town and station from the south. One battalion of the Camel Corps Brigade, acting on the right of the New Zealanders, was to destroy as much of the line as possible.

The 2nd A.L.H. Brigade was ordered to push forward to the railway north of Amman as quickly as possible, and cut the line, in order both to isolate the rolling stock in the station, and to delay the arrival of possible reinforcements from the north. The brigade was then to attack the enemy positions from the north-west. The Camel Corps Brigade, less one battalion, was to attack from the west.

There was no divisional reserve. It was considered that the superior mobility of our cavalry and camelry would enable them to disengage from the fight, should such a course become necessary, and fall back on our infantry advancing from El Salt. Moreover, the difficulties of the country were so great that it was doubtful if a divisional reserve could have reached any distant part of the line that was hard pressed, in time to be of any service.

The three brigades set out from Ain el Sir at nine o'clock. All three were much impeded by difficulties of terrain. Deep mud alternated with stretches of wet and slippery rock, on which neither camels nor horses could get secure foothold. The camels suffered particularly severely. Designed by nature for work in the soft and yielding sand of the desert, they are more unfitted than any other animal to march over stony country, or through mud. Many of them fell and broke their legs, and had to be shot. Many more had already met the same fate during the awful climb up to the plateau from the Jordan Valley. In several places large morasses were encountered, and much precious time was wasted finding a way round these. The wadis, too, were deep and precipitous, particularly the Wadi Amman, which was impassable save in one or two places, and then only in single file.

The New Zealanders reached this wadi about half-past ten in the morning, and were delayed so long in crossing it that it was three in the afternoon before they reached the railway.

The Camel Corps Battalion then moved south along the line, with a demolition party, blowing up the railway. While engaged on this work, they met an enemy train, steaming slowly over the very portion of the line that had been blown up by the New Zealanders the night before! The train was engaged with machine-gun fire, and withdrew. Our men then examined the line, and learnt a valuable lesson in the art of temporary destruction of a railway.

It was the custom at that time for our raiding parties, which could only carry a small quantity of explosives, and no tools suitable for carrying out a systematic destruction, to blow a piece out of each rail, by means of slabs of gun-cotton placed on each side of it. The gaps thus made were about a foot long. A length of several miles of line, in which each rail had a piece cut clean out of the middle, had the appearance of having been very thoroughly destroyed, and it was believed that the whole line would have to be relaid with new rails before it could be used. But the ingenious German engineers discovered that, if a hard-wood sleeper were pushed into each gap, with its end flush with the inner edge of the rail, trains could be run over the line at once, provided they were driven slowly.