to remove the Holy City from danger of long-range bombard- ment. The first steps towards this were taken on Dec. 10 when the S3 r d Div. captured ridges to the E. of the city, and was resumed, after Gen. Allenby's formal entry into Jerusalem on foot, on Dec. n, in conformity with a general plan for improving the front. The 5 2nd Div. forced a passage of the Nahr el 'Auja, Dec. 20 and 21, and by pushing the front to a point 8 m. N. of Jaffa made it possible to make use of such harbour facilities as did then exist there. Troops were redistributed along the front, and a number of minor advances were made while everything was being prepared for the expected Turkish attempt to recover Jerusalem, the loss of which had much affected Ottoman pres- tige. This attempt was made at 23 =30 on Dec. 26 by the VII. Army, which had been reinforced by the arrival of the ist Div. and of troops from across Jordan.
A vigorous attack was made on the sector round Tel el Ful, held by the 6oth Div. which, in common with the rest of the XX. Corps, was standing by for a general offensive with which Gen. Allenby had intended to forestall the Turkish counter-attack at dawn a few hours later. Consequently the moment for the VII. Army's attack was unhappily chosen, and while every effort was being made to drive the 6oth Div. back on Jerusalem and dis- lodge the 53rd Div. from its advanced positions the British counter-offensive on the part of the loth and 74th Divs. started according to plan at 06 :3O. At 1 2 :$ 5 the Turks, who were begin- ning to feel the pressure of this advance, made redoubled efforts to break through the 6oth Div. which lay astride of the Nablus road only some 4 m. N. of Jerusalem. In spite of their courage and energy the Turks were unable to make any impression on the 6oth, and were unable to prevent the loth and 74th from advancing 4,000 yd. on a 6-m. front by nightfall.
Next day, Dec. 28, the whole XX. Corps advanced, the Turkish transport was harassed by aeroplanes, and the VII. Army, having failed to recapture Jerusalem, found itself on the last day of the year 7 m. farther from its objective than when it had started. So ended the first battle of Mount Ephraim, dur- ing which the XX. Corps had gone forward on a i2-m. front to a depth of 6 m. on the right and of 3 m. on the left, occupying the Ram Alla-Bire ridge. The N. front was now secure, but the Turkish XX. Corps still held Jericho and the fords and bridge of the Jordan, and remained in positions more than two- thirds of the way up the steep and almost waterless slope leading up from the E. to the Mount of Olives.
During Jan. the standard-gauge railway was pushed forward across the plain of Philistia, and the problem of transport, which all through the Dec. fighting had had to rely on camels and donkeys or mule-drawn wheels over half foundered roads, was greatly simplified by the opening of Ludd as railhead with ade- quate sidings on Feb. 4 just after the narrow gauge to Jerusalem from Ludd had been restored to use on Jan. 27. It thus became possible to provide supplies for the large hunger-stricken civil population of Jerusalem and to form an advanced base there for further military operations. These were undertaken on Feb. 19, when the 6oth Div., which had changed places with the 53rd, cooperated with the 23151 Bde. (Brig.-Gen. Heathcote), lent by the 74th Div., the ist A.L.H. Bde. (Brig.-Gen. Cox), and the N.Z. Mounted Rifles (Brig.-Gen. Meldrum) of the Anzac Mounted Div., in the capture of Jericho, from which the Turks were driven by 08:20 on Feb. 21 after operations over extremely broken and bad country. The acquisition of Jericho prevented the Turks from making use of the Ghoraniye bridge as a means of communication with their forces beyond Jordan, and enabled the British to get command of the Dead Sea, across which the Turks had been bringing up supplies from the wheat- growing area round Kerak.
In March Gen. Allenby raided across Jordan to Es Salt and "Amman and damaged the Hejaz railway. To do this it was necessary to capture the Ghoraniye bridgehead on the left bank of the river. General Shea of the 6oth Div. was given command of a special force, called Shea's group, consisting of his own division, the Anzac Mounted Div., the Imperial Camel Corps Bde. (Brig.-Gen. Smith), some light armoured cars and guns
with bridging-trains. The Jordan was crossed by swimming ifi spite of the flood-water by 01:20 on March 22 at Hajla as a pre- liminary to bridge-building, and after hard fighting the Turks lost Ghoraniye. Es Salt was occupied on March 25 at 18:00 by the 3rd A.L.H. Regt., and Brig.-Gen. Meldrum with the N.Z. i Bde. reached the Hejaz railway S. of 'Amman at 15:00 on March 27 and cut it. 'Amman itself, however, was successfully held by the Turkish E. of Jordan Group, and the 7O3rd German Batt. and the Turkish 3rd Cav. Div. which crossed by the Jisr ed ! Damie from Palestine threatened the lines of communication at Es Salt, which was held by the i79th Bde. (Brig.-Gen. Hum- phreys) of the 6oth Division.
The weather was bad for camel transport, and the camel park at Shunet Nimrin was, moreover, bombed by German aeroplanes; ' thus the raid, owing to the stout Turkish resistance and the: Jordan floods, had been less rapid and less successful than it might have been; but a number of Christian refugees were able to get into safety under cover of the raiding troops, and solid results were obtained in the permanent possession of the Gho- j raniye bridgehead and the attraction of some 4,000 or more Turkish troops from the Hejaz to contain it.
The withdrawal of these men and their immobilization just above the Lower Jordan did much to facilitate the operations of the Arab army under the Sherif Faisal, but the Turks had good: reason for supposing that this raid was but a single feature in a far wider and more formidable movement on the part of the British, which had been countermanded at the last moment owing to the sudden necessity for sending troops from the Palestine front to help resist the German offensive in France.
As it was, Gen. Allenby by the -end of April had to part with his 52nd and 74th Divs., ten British battalions drawn from other divisions, nine yeomanry regiments, five and a half siege J batteries and five machine-gun companies, receiving in exchange! the 3rd (Lahore) and 7th (Meerut) Divs. of the Indian army: from Mesopotamia and Indian cavalry from France all expe- rienced troops. His reinforcements received, in exchange for his British battalions, were, however, raw troops fresh from India. In May he had to send away 14 more British battalions, and received only a partial equivalent of Indian troops. Thus the! character of the force opposed to the Turks was profoundly modified, and its activities were largely suspended during reor- ganization: yet the Yilderim command, although strengthened by! the formation of the Asia Corps with German units in March and the arrival of reinforcements with which the VIII. Corpsi and the IV. Army were constituted, was unable to make an! offensive during these weeks of opportunity. On the contrary Gen. Allenby took pains to sow the seeds of future victory by again raiding into the Oultre Jourdain country, and took Es Salt on April 29; a good deal of fighting ensued, and the raiders were finally turned back by the 24th and 48th Divs. of Turkish infantry and the action of the 3rd Cav. Div. which had been! brought across from Palestine by the Jisr ed Damie. Yilderim, however, were deceived by this raid into thinking that the next serious British move would be by way of Gilead towards Damas- cus; and Liman von Sanders Pasha, who had taken over the command of the group, allowed the "Amman and Es Salt raids to influence his plans more than the " readjustments of front " in the Sharon and Berukin sectors in April and June, which might otherwise have appeared to him to be directed for the purpose of depriving him of observation posts from which he could overlook some great future concentration.
At the end of the summer, just before Gen. Allenby struck his final blow, the Yilderim Group of Armies was arranged along a front of some 65 m. running from the Mediterranean a little to the N. of Arsuf to a point some 4 m. E. of the influx of the Jordan into the Dead Sea. From his headquarters at Nazareth Marshal Liman von Sanders Pasha commanded the four armies composing the group. On the right the VIII. Army (XXII. Corps, 7th, 2oth and 46th Divs., and Asia Corps, i6th and igth Divs. and 7oist, 702nd and 703rd German Bdes.) held some 20 odd miles as far as Furkha. Then came the VII. Army (III. Corps, ist and nth Divs., and XX. Corps, 26th and 53rd
