As in the Palestine campaign, so in Mesopotamia, the Cavalry found its chance. There, as in all modern war, it was no doubt the Infantry and guns which mainly decided the fate of battles; but the Cavalry had much to do for the armies both before and after battle, in reconnaissance, in sweeping the country for supplies, in pursuit, and in the turning movements which at times brought about the enemy’s ruin. Even in the actual shock of battle they were not wholly excluded from a share of fighting and honour. Some tributes to the value of their services in Mesopotamia have already been recorded in earlier chapters. There is one service which perhaps has not been sufficiently brought out. The whole plan of General Maude’s attack upon the Turkish army which faced him on the north bank of the Tigris, when he began his advance in December 1916, was to push up the south bank, and keep threatening their rear from that side until they had so extended the line held by their troops that they were no longer strong enough to hold it all securely--to prevent his forcing a passage at some point and getting in behind their main body. As he put it in a letter to General Symons: “The Turks were very sticky and would not go for a long time, but we gradually stretched them and stretched them till owing to their casualties they were much weakened, and then we struck boldly at their tail across the Tigris. I had been hammering at this for two months, and the fact that they would not give up Sannaiyat, and consequently placed themselves in the dangerous position of having a line of communication in prolongation of their battle front, was their undoing.” And the Cavalry had much to do with this stretching process. In his despatch giving an account of the whole advance to Baghdad, General Maude writes:-- “The work of the Cavalry had been difficult. The flat terrain intersected with nalas obstructed movement without providing cover, and the state of the country after heavy rains made progress even for short distances laborious. The absence of water, too, away from the river, limited its radius of action. Nevertheless its reconnaissance work and the blows delivered against the enemy’s communications helped in no small way to bring about that dissipation of his forces which was so essential to our success, and the pressure applied after the passage of the Tigris to the retreating enemy was instrumental in completing his final rout.” The Thirteenth, working from their camp on the Hai river, did their full share of the Cavalry work so described. During the subsequent march on Baghdad, to quote again General Maude’s letter to General Symons: “Your old Regiment did splendidly,” and in the course of it, at Lajj, they had their first chance, while pressing the pursuit, of delivering a real Cavalry charge, mounted and sword in hand.