Before: German motor lorries at Nazareth.
(From an enemy photograph.)
After: The same lorries near Afule, after our armoured cars had finished with them.
The division reached Lejjun at eleven o'clock, and got water for man and horse in the beautiful little Wadi el Sitt, the 'Lady's Brook,' a tributary of the river Kishon, hard by the ruins of an old Roman fort and aqueduct.
Shortly after mid-day the 3rd A.L.H. Brigade, with 'A' Battery H.A.C., resumed the march to Jenin, to intercept the enemy troops that were expected to retire down the Dothan Pass from Nablus and its neighbourhood. The brigade reached the town in the early afternoon, and the leading regiment, the 10th, at once charged straight into it, galloping over an entrenched position, and through the streets of the town. The enemy was completely demoralised by this unexpected attack from the rear, and made little resistance. Such opposition as was encountered was speedily crushed, and nearly 2000 prisoners fell into our hands. None of the troops in the place had the faintest idea that our cavalry had even broken through their line, much less that we were actually in the plain. The German officers, of whom there was a number in the place, absolutely refused to believe that our troops had ridden the whole way, and declared that we must have been landed at Haifa, covered by our 'Wonderful Navy,' as they called it.
As soon as the prisoners had been got away, and lodged in a little valley out of sight of the town, the hills to the south were picketed, to prevent information getting to the enemy at Nablus, and the remainder of the brigade was disposed by squadrons in hollows and folds in the ground on each side of the Jenin-Afule road. The battery came into action north-east of the town, covering the Nablus road.
As was expected, after dark the enemy began to retire from his positions at Nablus and Samaria, and all night long his battalions marched down the road, through Jenin, and out on to the plain. These were not fugitives, but formed bodies of troops, retiring to the Nazarene hills, where they had a partially prepared defence line extending from the sea to Lake Tiberias. It was rather an eerie experience to watch these troops, trudging wearily along the road in the bright moonlight, all unconscious of the keen eyes of their enemies on every side of them. As each detachment got well out into the plain, at a given signal, the waiting squadrons sprang from their hiding places, and charged down upon it. One can imagine the terror of the Turks, nodding with half-closed eyes as they trudged along, when their senses were suddenly assailed by the thunder of hoofs all round them, and by the sight of wild horsemen, exaggerated in size by the moonlight, charging down upon them from every side. Small wonder that there was little resistance. Many flung themselves on the ground, shutting eyes and ears to the horrid nightmare, and calling on Allah to deliver them. Others threw down their rifles and held up their hands.