The Turks attempted to delay the British advance by flooding the area between the Nahrin and Dialah Rivers close to their junction, six miles east of Deli Abbas, but by the morning of December 4, 1917, British troops had driven back the Turks and were in possession of the Sakaltutan Pass, eleven miles north of Deli Abbas, and between the Dialah and the Nahrin, a northern tributary of the Dialah, flowing through the Jebel Hamrin, and crossed on the main road between Deli Abbas and Kifri at an elevation of 600 feet above sea level. Through the Sakaltutan Pass the road from Deli Abbas leads to the north to Kifri and Mosul. A force of Russians, under the command of Colonel Bicharakoff, operated on the British right flank and rendered valuable assistance. Immediately after the capture of the pass, the Turks were pursued as far as the village of Kara Tepe, thirteen miles north of the pass and about twenty-five miles north of Deli Abbas, through which the Turks were driven on December 5, 1917, after a sharp engagement. The pursuit was carried out over difficult country containing bogs and intersected by numerous watercourses. On the morning of December 7, 1917, British aeroplanes bombed Tuz Kurmatli, on the Mosul road, thirty-five miles north of Kara Tepe, with good results. It was reported that the Turks set fire to the Kifri coal mines on December 5, 1917, and the British observed that fires were burning there on the following day. No further news came from the Mesopotamian theater of war during the balance of December, 1917, or during January and February, 1918. On December 1, 1917, it was officially announced by the British authorities, that reconnoissances had definitely established the fact that German East Africa had been completely cleared of all German troops and that the German commander, General von Lettow-Vorbeck, with the force under his command, estimated at 2,000 rifles, had crossed the Rovuma River into Portuguese East Africa. During December, 1917, after driving the Germans across the border into Portuguese territory, the British forces were busy in preparing for the new task of hunting out General Lettow-Vorbeck in Portuguese East Africa. British patrols by December 25, 1917, were forty miles south of the Rovuma River, which marks the frontier. Von Lettow's force had been broken up into small foraging parties; and it was expected that they would be rounded up before the big rains set in. However, during the last few days of December, 1917, the German forces in Mozambique, consisting of 2,000 men with two fieldpieces and ten machine guns, attacked the Portuguese positions on Mt. M'Kula, occupied by Captain Curado, with 250 men and five machine guns, and after three days' fighting succeeded in carrying the positions by assault. This did not change the fact that the last vestige of the German Colonial Empire had fallen into the hands of the Allies. PART VI--THE BALKANS CHAPTER XXXII THE BALKANS--GREECE AND MACEDONIA