“I hope that this will not happen again. I give notice that if it does I shall carry out the punishment. I do not desire to see a blot made on the courage of our men by those who escape from the trenches to avoid the rifle and machine-gun fire of the enemy. Henceforth I shall hold responsible all officers who do not shoot with their revolvers all privates trying to escape from the trenches on any pretext. “COLONEL RIFAAT, C.O., 11th Division.” To this order a regimental commander added the following note: “To the C.O. of 1st Battalion. “The contents will be communicated to the officers, and I promise to carry out the orders till the last drop of our blood has been shed. Sign and return. “HASSAN, C.O., 127th Regiment.” [Sidenote: TURKISH PROCLAMATIONS] Two days before the battle, a Turkish aeroplane scattered copies of a long proclamation intended to shake the discipline of the Mohammedan Indian troops. It called upon Mussulmans to ask themselves why they were sacrificing their lives for English people, who had grabbed their country, made them slaves, and now ruled them by tyranny, sucking their blood by taxes, taking their wealth to London, and regarding them as more contemptible than English dogs. It further dwelt upon the desperate position of the Allies, the triumphs of Germany in Belgium, France, Russia, and by submarines on the sea. It said that in Singapore and Ceylon the native armies had killed all the English and occupied the forts. It asserted that many more submarines were coming, and the British communications on the Peninsula would be entirely cut off. Therefore, it called upon the Indian soldiers to slay their tyrant enemies, or at least to join their fellow-Moslems in the Turkish army, where they would be treated as brothers. It concluded by offering a grim dilemma: “You are at liberty either to desert to us, and save your lives, or to have your heads cut off, to no purpose, along with the English.” The Sikh and Gurkha troops, however, preferred to risk the latter alternative.[134]