How Jerusalem Was Won: Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in PalestineMassey, W. T. (William Thomas)
History
How Jerusalem Was Won: Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine
Massey, W. T. (William Thomas)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Palestine
The troops were remarkably cheerful. They were on their toes, as the
cavalry told them. They had drawn first blood profusely from the Turk
after many weary months of waiting and getting fit, and they knew that
those gaunt mountain ridges away on their right front held behind them
Bethlehem and Jerusalem, goals they desired to reach more than any
other prizes of war. They had seen the Turk, and had soundly thrashed
him out of trenches which the British could have held against a much
stronger force. Their confidence was based on the proof that they were
better men, and they were convinced that once they got the enemy into
the open their superiority would be still more marked. The events of
the next six weeks showed their estimate of the Turkish soldier was
justified.
The 53rd Division with the Imperial Camel Corps on its right moved to
Towal Abu Jerwal on November 1 to protect the flank guard of the XXth
Corps during the pending attack on the Kauwukah system. The infantry
had some fighting on that day, but it was mild compared with the
strenuous days before them. The 10th Division attacked Irgeig railway
station north-west of Beersheba and secured it, and waited there with
the 74th Division on its right while the Welsh Division went forward
to fight for Khuweilfeh on November 3. The Welshmen could not obtain
the whole of the position on that day, and it was not until the 6th
that it became theirs. Khuweilfeh is about ten miles due east of
Sheria, the same distance north of Beersheba, and some five miles west
of the Hebron road. It is in the hill country, difficult to approach,
with nothing in the nature of a road or track leading to it, and there
was no element in the position to suggest the prospect of an easy
capture. When General Mott advanced to these forbidding heights the
strength of the enemy in these parts was not realised. Prisoners
taken during the day proved that there were portions of three or four
Turkish divisions in the neighbourhood, and the strong efforts made to
prevent the Welsh troops gaining the position and the furious attempts
to drive them out of it suggested that most of the Turkish reserves
had been brought over to their left flank to guard against a wide
movement intended to envelop it. It afterwards turned out that von
Kressenstein believed General Allenby intended to march on Jerusalem
up the Hebron road, and he threw over to his left all his reserves to
stop us. That was a supreme mistake, for when we had broken through at
Hareira and Sheria the two wings of his Army were never in contact,
and their only means of communication was by aeroplane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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