Diagram illustrating the Situation on the evening or the 20th of November
The 5th Cavalry Division had sent the 14th Brigade to Jenin, at daylight, to assist the two brigades of the Australian Mounted Division there in dealing with the large number of prisoners, and to help protect the captured enemy stores from the natives. By the afternoon, however, the prisoners had been got away under escort to Lejjun, and the brigade was able to return to Afule. The 14th and 15th Brigades then established a line of pickets along the railway to near Beisan, in touch with the 4th Division.
Meanwhile the 13th Brigade, with 'B' Battery H.A.C., had been sent off early in the morning to reoccupy Nazareth.
The 9th Hodson's Horse marched straight up the Afule-Nazareth road with the guns, and entered the town from the south. The other two regiments, leaving the road some distance south of the town, made their way through the hills to the Tiberias road, and attacked from the east and north. All three regiments attacked dismounted. There was a good deal of fighting of a difficult nature in the narrow, tortuous streets of the town, but most of the enemy troops remaining after our raid of the previous day had already evacuated the town, and those still left were soon overpowered. By ten o'clock the 13th Brigade had possession of the town. The roads leading west, north, and east were then picketed, and strong patrols were pushed out as far as Seffurie and Kefr Kenna.
Shortly after midnight a Turkish battalion, marching from Haifa, attacked the outposts of the brigade on the Acre road. The 18th Lancers promptly charged the Turks in the moonlight, and chased them for two miles down the road, killing sixty with the lance and taking over 300 prisoners.
The Australian Mounted Division remained in the neighbourhood of Jenin and Lejjun during the day.
The large numbers of prisoners taken by the cavalry during the past twenty-four hours were a serious encumbrance, and the feeding of them became a very difficult problem. The Corps ration convoy that arrived at Jenin on the 21st had to hand over all its rations to them. As our own men carried three-days men's and two-days horses' rations on the man and horse, they did not actually have to go hungry, but the food question had become acute, and, until the prisoners could be got away, no further move forward could be contemplated. Fortunately, on the following day, it was found possible to send most of them back to Kakon, near Tul Keram, where they were taken over by a brigade of the 60th Division.
The Commander-in-Chief motored to Lejjun on the morning of the 22nd, and met General Chauvel.
'Well, how are you getting on?' was his greeting.
'Pretty well, Sir, pretty well,' replied the General; 'we've got 13,000 prisoners so far.'