CHAPTER XIX. The Valley of Chaos

THE VALLEY OF CHAOS

During the summer of 1918 great changes took place in the personnel of the army in Palestine. The early success of the great German offensive in France had caused the "S.O.S." to be sent out for other and more men to stem the tide of advance, and all the other British fronts were denuded of white troops, in whose place, so far as Palestine was concerned, came Indians, many of whom had only a few months' service to their credit. The infantry of the 52nd Lowland Division, who apparently had not done sufficient fighting for one War, left to give a hand to their comrades in France, as did the 74th, still acting as infantry, and all the remaining divisions sent at least one brigade; large numbers of cavalry and artillery also went overseas. Practically all the summer, therefore, was devoted to re-organising the forces and training the levies from India. The principle adopted in the infantry was to brigade one British battalion to every three Indian battalions right through the divisions; and this acted very well indeed, for the white troops provided just that leaven of steadiness lacking in the young Indians. In the cavalry much the same principle was adopted, but the artillery first tried the experiment of employing Egyptians as drivers in the ammunition-waggon teams, retaining the British drivers for the guns.

For a time all went well with the training of these Egyptians, until, as a test of their efficiency, night operations were ordered, which included a dash into a wadi and out the other side. This effort produced what can only be described as a "shemozzle": horses, waggons, and men piled themselves up in a hopeless tangle at the bottom of the wadi, and the night operations came to an abrupt end. In the searching inquiry which followed it was discovered by the medical authorities that less than twenty-five per cent. of these Egyptians could see clearly at night, a further twenty-five per cent. were stone-blind after sunset, and of the remainder, the most that could be said was that they could just see in the dark and that was all! When the weeding-out process was completed the British personnel returned as lead-drivers; Indians were added to make up the numbers, and this curious mixture acted satisfactorily.

A remarkable feature of the spring and summer was the gradual rise to power of the Royal Air Force, culminating in complete supremacy over the Turks immediately before and during the autumn campaign. Presumably a ship had at last arrived with adequate machines, for all through the summer long-distance bombing raids were undertaken with conspicuous success; and for the first time our planes "had the wings" of the Turks. One great raid was carried out after a report had been received that three German divisions were on their way south from Constantinople to reinforce the Turk. The trains containing two of the divisions were almost completely destroyed before they reached Damascus; the third division arrived more or less intact, and went into action in the Jordan Valley, where they were so badly mauled by the Australians that the fragments that remained bolted incontinently, and for the future stayed behind the line. In August the R.A.F., in conjunction with the forces of the King of the Hedjaz, who were working their way northwards across the desert east of Amman, made an attack on the Hedjaz railway at Der'aa, at which place the line was completely demolished and all communication severed with the north.

In single combats, too, our airmen now more than held their own, for the Turkish planes either fled at first sight or, if they stayed to argue the point, were generally brought down. From the Camel Camp on the hill overlooking General Allenby's Headquarters at Bir Salem we saw several battles in the air, for G.H.Q. was a favourite mark of the Turks, and these almost invariably went in favour of the British.

By the end of August the intensive training of the new troops and the work of re-organisation were complete; and it is interesting to note, as an indication of the way in which the army had been for the most part, made "on the premises," as it were, that it comprised British, French, Italian, Jewish, West Indian, Arab, Indian, Algerian, Armenian, and Egyptian troops, to say nothing of the tribes of mixed race but Mahommedan faith who assisted the King of the Hedjaz in the final struggle.

At this stage a word as to the disposition of the Turkish forces is necessary: their main position was at Nablus, (the ancient Shechem), which was well protected naturally by Mt. Gerizim in the south and Mt. Ebal in the north, and had been fortified with German thoroughness and ingenuity during the summer months. From here the line extended in a south-westerly direction towards the sea, including en route another immensely strong position at Jiljulieh, immediately to the north of which was the village of Kalkilieh, also well fortified; another Turkish force operated west and east of the Jordan.

A frontal attack on Nablus was out of the question; an army of goats might have successfully scaled the mountains of Samaria, but it was no place for troops; nor was the Jordan Valley any more inviting. The best chance of success lay in the coastal sector, where the conformation of the ground was not so much in favour of the Turks, and it was decided that our main attack should be made here. The plan was for the infantry to make a wide breach in the Turkish line by storming the defences between Jiljulieh and the sea, whereupon the cavalry were to sweep forward on to the Esdraelon Plain and close all possible lines of retreat to the Turks, while at the same time an outflanking movement was to be carried out by the troops in the eastern sector.

The main difficulties were to concentrate unseen a large force of infantry in the plain of Sharon, and to bring the remainder of the cavalry from the Jordan Valley without observation by the enemy. The vast olive-groves round about Ludd and Jaffa comfortably concealed the infantry, whose movements were carried out at night and with the utmost caution, but the transport of the cavalry was a tougher problem, for the Turks were very much on the alert in the Jordan Valley, and did in fact expect the attack to be made in this direction.

Considerable guile was therefore necessary, into which entered a little innocent fun. It was a general and strictly enforced rule that no lights should be shown after dusk, on account of bombing raids, yet during the last weeks of August long lines of bivouac fires twinkled nightly in the Jordan Valley; and the authorities seemed to be singularly blind to this flagrant disobedience of orders. During the day at stated hours groups of men riding aged and infirm horses were strung out at 50-yard intervals, engaged in the gentle pastime of dragging sacks and branches along the roads; they made so much dust that it might easily have been caused by, say, a cavalry division going to water. Also, thousands of tiny tents sprang up round the bivouac areas, in front of which were equally diminutive soldiers in squads and companies, whose function it was to stand rigidly to attention all day long, and who treated the frequent bombing raids with utter contempt. A careful observer would have noticed a certain woodenness about them, but enemy airmen were profoundly impressed by this large concentration of troops.

Meanwhile every night brigade after brigade of British cavalry left the Jordan Valley on their fifty-mile ride across country to the friendly shelter of the orange-groves of Jaffa and Sarona, and the men left behind complained bitterly of the increase of work in having to light so many extra bivouac fires! The whole concentration was carried out without the Turks being any the wiser, and by the middle of September thirty-five thousand infantry were ready to pour forth from their hiding-places, with four divisions of mounted troops to follow hard upon their heels; it was scarcely possible to move in the coast sector without falling over a battery of artillery, and tucked away round Richon and Duran were thousands of transport camels of every shade and breed.

At dusk on the night of September 18th the orange-groves began to erupt, and for eight hours horse and foot in orderly columns marched silently forward, the infantry to their battle positions and the cavalry to the beach between Arsuf and Jaffa, there to wait till the breach had been made. At half-past four the next morning the shattering roar of artillery proclaimed that the offensive had begun, and at dawn the infantry attacked the Turkish positions, swept over those nearest the coast at the first onslaught, and then swung eastwards. One after another from Et Tireh to Jiljulieh, strongholds upon which months of labour had been expended fell before the irresistible elan of our men, though the Turks fought magnificently to hold their line. By noon the whole of the coastal sector was in our hands, and the plain of Sharon lay open to the cavalry, who had started on their historic ride north soon after our first attack.

In the meantime the infantry, driving before them the demoralised remnants of the Turkish 8th Army, captured Tul Keram, Turkish G.H.Q., together with a host of prisoners, and then continued east to help the Welsh and Irish divisions in their assault on Nablus. The Turks here had no information of the debacle on their right, for the R.A.F. had started out at dawn and had destroyed every means of communication, except the roads, between the two armies. They therefore fought with the utmost determination, and aided by their well-chosen and well-fortified positions, held off our attacks all that day and the next, though the Irishmen by extraordinary exertions crumpled up one flank. Then the last message ever sent from the north informed them that the British cavalry had overrun the whole country in their rear, so far as they knew the only line of retreat left open to them was eastward across the Jordan, and this loophole, too, was soon to be closed. Panic reigned; the roads leading east were black with long columns of guns and transport and men mingled in hopeless confusion, fleeing with no thought of anything but their own safety; a routed, utterly demoralised rabble.

Nablus was occupied without difficulty on the 21st, but the infantry, who had been scrambling about the hills of Samaria for three days, could not run fast enough to catch the Turks, who were making their way through the Wadi Farah towards the Jisr ed Damieh ford. Half-way through the wadi the road has on one side a deep, gloomy gorge, while on the other stretch gaunt hills terrible in their desolation and stony barrenness. The whole aspect of the place is sinister and forbidding in the extreme, and one can imagine the panic-stricken Turks hurrying through yet a little faster, eager to sight the yellow waters of the Jordan. But they never reached the goal, for the Royal Air Force found the column half-way through the gorge. Relays of machines joined in the attack, first dropping bombs and then flying low and spraying the column with bullets. In five minutes the road eastwards was blocked, and driven by the slow but remorseless advance of our infantry far in the rear, with impassable hills on the one hand, and a precipice on the other, the column was caught in a trap.

A part of it tried to escape, before being driven into the gorge, by a road leading to the north, but were bombed back again into the shambles. Mad with terror, some of the Turks tried to scramble up the steep hills, others made an attempt to descend into the deep gorge; anywhere to escape from the awful hail of bombs and bullets. For four hours the slaughter continued, and when "Cease fire" was ordered, the road for nine miles was literally a vast charnel-house. Guns, limbers, commissariat-waggons, field-kitchens, every conceivable form of vehicle, including a private barouche, lay heaped together in monstrous confusion; and when night fell ragged, half-starved Bedouins descended upon the stricken valley, stealing from pile to pile of debris in search of loot, nor could the rifles of the guards deter them from the ghoulish task. It took an entire division three weeks to clear the roads and bury the dead.

Isolated columns from the Turkish 7th Army did succeed in reaching the Jordan, but were all killed or captured by the mounted troops left in the valley. Daily the toll of prisoners increased, as hundreds of Turks who had been in hiding in the hills round Samaria and Nablus were driven by hunger to give themselves up to the searching parties. Ras el Ain, which had been a part of our front line, presented an extraordinary spectacle, for most of the prisoners passed through here on their way south to Wilhelma and beyond. For thirty-six hours there was hardly a break in the procession shambling towards the great hill on which stand the ruins of Herod's Castle, where Salome danced for the head of John the Baptist, and where now the prisoners were caged. There was a marked difference between the condition of the Turkish prisoners and that of the Germans: the former were ragged, half-starved, and yellow with privation and fatigue, but all the Germans I saw were sleek, well-clad, and bearing every sign of good living. It was impossible to cage them together, for they fought like cats with each other on every possible occasion, and caused endless trouble to the guards, who had to go amongst them with the bayonet in order to separate them.

Meanwhile, what of the cavalry whose business it had been to cut the Turkish lines of communication with Damascus and the north? Their chief objectives were El Afule, which might briefly be described as a place where all roads meet, Nazareth, a few miles farther north, the headquarters of the German General, Liman von Sanders, the Commander-in-Chief of the Turks, and Jenin, the headquarters of the enemy Air Force. They met with practically no opposition until they reached the entrance to the Esdraelon Plain, which is approached through a narrow pass, where a weak garrison was easily overwhelmed and captured. Had the Turks had time to fortify this pass it is possible that the whole course of events might have been changed, for it commanded the way to the main arteries in the Turkish communications, upon the capture of which everything depended. But the surprise was complete; the fine work of the British airmen had prevented news of the destruction of the front line from reaching enemy headquarters, and their first intimation of our success was the sight of the cavalry streaming over the Esdraelon Plain towards Afule.

Most of the small garrisons on the way were literally taken in their beds, and when the few stragglers who escaped brought the tidings to Afule it was too late to make any great show of resistance. Thousands of Turks surrendered here, without attempting to fight, and when the Germans also had been roped in, the number of prisoners far exceeded that of the attacking cavalry. The loot was prodigious, for Afule was one of the main depots of the enemy, and every house occupied by Germans showed signs of the extreme solicitude they had for their personal comfort; that of the Turks did not matter. In the hill upon which the town stands were numerous caves filled to overflowing with choice wines, cognac, tobacco and delicacies which made the mouths of the beholders, who had had neither bite nor sup for thirty-six hours, water in anticipation. An Australian trooper told me afterwards that there was sufficient wine in Afule and Nazareth for every man in the Expeditionary Force, at a bottle per head, and added naively that he had had his bottle just at the time it was most needed!

The column advancing on Nazareth had met with equal though not quite bloodless success. Arriving at dawn they, too, found the town asleep, and clattered through the streets in search of Liman von Sanders. He was warned in the very nick of time, however, and the cavalry had an interesting back view of a swiftly disappearing car in which sat Liman von Sanders in his pyjamas, followed at a respectful distance by some of his staff not so discreetly clad. Undisturbed by the defection of their Chief, the Germans resisted stoutly for a time, both in the streets of Nazareth and in the hills north of the town, but ultimately all were gathered in and sent across the ancient battlefield of Armageddon to join the rest at Afule.

The aerodromes at Jenin were captured, or, to be more exact, rendered useless by our aircraft, who had hovered over them ever since the beginning of the battle, dropping an "egg" whenever enemy machines attempted to come out. When the cavalry arrived, practically all they had to do was to tie up the hordes of men who were only too anxious to surrender.

In five days the combined forces had smashed up two Turkish armies and had taken forty thousand prisoners.

I cannot do better than end this chapter by giving in full General Allenby's letter to the troops thanking them for this remarkable achievement: "I desire to convey to all ranks and all arms of the Force under my command, my admiration and thanks for the great deeds of the past week, and my appreciation of their gallantry and determination, which have resulted in the total destruction of the 7th and 8th Turkish Armies opposed to us. Such a complete victory has seldom been known in all the history of war."