Having the great body of Turks on Samaria safe, and most of them already accounted for, General Allenby decided to clear Haifa; the operation demonstrated the relative morale of the Turks and Germans. A flying reconnaissance of armoured cars and smaller cars of the Light Car Patrol was pushed into the outskirts of the town. About three miles from the town our force saw the heads of a party of Turks in a strong redoubt two hundred yards from the road. The armoured cars halted and swept the Turkish parapet with their machine guns. The white flag was at once hoisted, and about eighty Turks came out without firing a shot. Two miles further on, the British came upon an Austrian battery of light field guns, supported by German machine gunners. Our little probing expedition was at once brought to a standstill, and was not sorry to pull out. Next day the Indians and Yeomanry, supported by horse artillery, rode into the town, and again the only opposition came from the Austrians and Germans. “We tried to cover the Turks’ retreat,” said a captured German officer, “but we expected them to do something, if only keep their heads. At last we decided they were not worth fighting for.”
THE ROAD TO JERICHO
By Lieut. G. W. Lambert
ISMAILIA
EAST OF JORDAN
Before Haifa fell our troops were moving swiftly east of Jordan. A Division of Indian and Yeomanry cavalry crossed the Jordan about Beisan and rode eastward. Simultaneously, the Anzac Mounted Division forded and swam the river further to the south, and moved on Es Salt and Amman. The Australians and New Zealanders were familiar with the country. This was their third expedition to the Plateau of Moab and the heights of Gilead. They knew every goat-walk on the steep mountain side. This time they had come to stay; the Fourth Turkish Army on the East was to share the fate of the 7th and 8th Armies on Samaria. The tactics employed on both sides of the river were broadly similar. General Allenby depended for success upon the speed and stamina of his horses. Before the operations commenced, the Turk held a defensive position which was roughly an extension of his line west of the Jordan. He was strong in the foothills of Gilead; on the mountain he had his base at Es Salt, and at Amman he had a substantial force guarding a vital series of tunnels and viaducts on his Hedjaz railway. Beyond the railway the Eastern Palestine Range flattens out on the wide desert, which extends right across to the Euphrates. On the fringe of the desert was the Army of the Sherif of Mecca, a picturesque, galloping, thrusting, well-armed force. The Arabs harassed the Turk by day and night, repeatedly dashing in and cutting his railway and telegraph communications with Damascus. When attacked, they would fade away into the wide desert and leave the slow-footed Turk in the air. While the Anzacs marched upon Es Salt and Amman, the Arabs made a detour in the desert, appeared on the flank of the enemy north of Deraa, and cut the railway where the Hedjaz line junctions with the line which supplied the Turks west of the Jordan.
THE RACE FOR DAMASCUS
Meanwhile the Indian and Yeomanry Division had crossed Eastern Palestine and reached Deraa, where it joined hands with the Arab army. Then the Arabs, the Indians and the Yeomanry sped on towards Damascus. There was still a chance of escape for some 20,000 Turks, who had moved northwards of Deraa before the arrival of our forces. These struggled gamely towards Damascus, hoping either to make a stand at that great base or to escape by rail to the north. But General Chauvel still had in hand the Australian Mounted Division and a strong force of Indians and Yeomanry, which had returned to the Jordan after the capture of Haifa. With the Australians leading, he marched from Esdraelon Plain north-east across Jordan for Damascus. Then ensued one of the grand races of the war. Our tired horses were called upon for the heaviest work of the lightning campaign. Marching by Beisan, the 4th Light Horse Brigade, after a stiff fight—the most expensive cavalry fight in the campaign—took Semakh, and then, co-operating with the 3rd Brigade, which had come down from Nazareth, occupied Tiberias. After a day’s partial rest, during which our men swam and fished in the blue waters of Galilee, the Australian Division marched swiftly for the Jordan crossing, a few miles south of Lake Huleh. But the enemy was now seized of our intention, and the German machine gunners put up a fine resistance. Their stand at Semakh aimed at preventing us reaching Damascus before the 20,000 Turks, who were retreating from the direction of Deraa, and to give time for the removal of as many military stores as possible from the city. South of Lake Huleh, also, the Germans fought well and delayed us for a few hours. We then ran through as far as Kunneitra, but, a few miles further on, were again held up by machine guns and a field battery.