Since the commencement of operations on the night of September 18, 1918, over 71,000 prisoners and 350 guns had been captured, besides some 8,000 prisoners claimed by the Arab Army of King Hussein. Included in these figures are the Turkish commanders of the Sixteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-fourth, Fifty-third, and composite divisions, the commander of the Maan garrison, and German and Austrian troops numbering over 200 officers and 3,000 of other ranks. In the afternoon of October 6, 1918, Zahleh, at the foot of Mount Lebanon, and Raysk, respectively thirty-three and thirty miles northwest of Damascus, were occupied by British cavalry. Raysk is the point at which the enemy broad-gauge railway from the north joins the 1.05-meter gauge system of Palestine. The latter system was now, therefore, entirely in British hands. A considerable quantity of rolling stock, ammunition, and engineer stores were captured. The railway station and aerodrome had been burned by the retreating enemy prior to evacuation. In the coastal area the enemy evacuated Beirut and retired northward. Saida (Sidon) was occupied by British troops on October 7, 1918, without opposition. French and British warships entered the port of Beirut on October 6, 1918, finding the town evacuated by the enemy. On October 7, 1918, British armored cars, preceding cavalry and infantry columns, arrived, and on October 8, 1918, advanced detachments of British and Indian infantry occupied the place, being received enthusiastically by the inhabitants. The number of prisoners taken by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, exclusive of those taken by the Arab Armies, had risen to over 75,000, and it was estimated that of the entire strength of the Turkish Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth Armies not more than 17,000 in all had escaped, this figure including about 4,000 effective rifles. Many of the prisoners captured were in a lamentable state of exhaustion. The prisoners taken by the Arab forces numbered 8,000, so that the total captures by the Allies in Palestine and Syria since September 18, 1918, amounted to over 83,000. Of these over 3,200 were Germans or Austrians. In occupying Beirut the British captured sixty Turkish officers and 600 men. Baalbek was entered by armored car batteries on October 9, 1918, after a force of some 500 Turks had surrendered to the inhabitants. Advanced British cavalry and armored cars occupied Tripoli thirty-five miles north of Beirut, on October 13, 1918, and Homs, on the Damascus-Aleppo Railroad, about eighty miles distant from either of these two cities, on October 15, 1918.