In this description of the operations I have made little mention of the work of the Australian Mounted Division which covered the gap between XXth and XXIst Corps. These Australian horsemen and yeomanry guarded an extended front in inaccessible country, and every man in the Division will long remember the troubles of supply in the hills. They had some stiff fighting against a wily enemy, and not for a minute could they relax their vigilance. When, with the Turks' fatal effort to retake Jerusalem, the 10th Division changed their front and attacked in a north-easterly direction, the Australian Mounted Division moved with it, and they found the country as they progressed become more rugged and bleak and extremely difficult for mounted troops. The Division was in the fighting line for the whole month of December, and when they handed over the new positions they had reached to the infantry on the last day of the year, their horses fully needed the lengthened period of rest allotted to them. CHAPTER XVII A GREAT FEAT OF WAR From the story of how Jerusalem was made secure (for we may hope the clamour of war has echoed for the last time about her Holy Shrines and venerable walls) we may turn back to the coastal sector and see how the XXIst Corps improved a rather dangerous situation and laid the foundations for the biggest break-through of the world struggle. For it was the preparations in this area which made possible General Allenby's tremendous gallop through Northern Palestine and Syria, and gave the Allies Haifa, Beyrout, and Tripoli on the seaboard, and Nazareth, Damascus, and Aleppo in the interior. The foundations were soundly laid when the XXIst Corps crossed the Auja before Christmas 1917, and the superstructure of the victory which put Turkey as well as Bulgaria and Austria out of the war was built up with many difficulties from the sure base provided by the XXIst Corps line. The crossing of the Auja was a great feat of war, and this is the first time I am able to mention the names of those to whom the credit of the operation is due. It was one of the strange regulations of the Army Council in connection with the censorship that no names of the commanders of army corps, divisions, brigades, or battalions should be mentioned by correspondents. Nor indeed was I permitted to identify in my despatches any particular division, yet the divisions concerned--the 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 60th, and so on--had often been mentioned in official despatches; the enemy not only knew they were in Palestine but were fully aware of their positions in the line; their commanders and brigadiers were known by name to the Turks. On the other hand, in describing a certain battle I was allowed to speak of divisions of Lowland troops, Welshmen and Londoners, allusions which would convey (if there were anything to give away) precisely as much information to the dull old Turk and his sharper Hun companion in