Divs.) holding another 20 m. astride of the Nablus road, and running down into the Jordan valley, where it was flanked by the IV. Army (II. Corps, 24th Div. and 3rd Cav. Div. in the Jordan valley, VIII. Corps, 48th Div. and Composite Div. on the hills of Moab). This array of armies and corps would have been exceedingly imposing had the Turkish units of which they were made up been at full strength, but, as it was, the British army commander estimated their numbers as follows: VIII. Army, 10,000 rifles and 157 guns; VII. Army, 7,000 rifles and in guns; IV. Army, 6,000 rifles, 2,000 sabres and 74 guns. The Ma'an garrison and the troops on the Hejaz railway were esti- mated at 6,000 rifles and 30 guns, while the general reserve was 3,000 rifles and 30 guns. All told the troops with which the Turks hoped to hold Syria and what was left of Palestine amounted to some 4,000 sabres, 32,000 rifles and 400 guns, representing a ration-strength S. of Rayak-Beirut of 104,000. Against this Gen. Allenby had at his disposal 12,000 sabres, 57,000 rifles and 540 guns, and arranged his forces so as to strike with an overwhelming force of men and guns at the most favourable point in the Turkish line for making use of his cavalry.
For this purpose the Desert Mounted Corps was brought right across the front and concentrated in the olive and orange groves in the Sarona area. The 6oth Div. came from the XX. Corps area and went into the front line at Arsuf, near which the 7th (Indian), 75th and 3rd (Lahore) Divs. were closely con- centrated along a front of about 4 miles. The 54th Div. and the French detachment in the foothills immediately E. of Mejdel Yaba formed the hinge upon which the offensive across the plain\ of Sharon was to pivot. The 3ist and 2Qth Bdes. of the loth Div. were strung out along a considerable front of some 13 m. from Arura to Rafat, with the 3oth Bde. in reserve above the Wadi Ballut. The 53rd Div. held some difficult country in front of Et Taiyibe well to the E. of the Nablus road; and in the Jordan valley a specially formed force, under Maj.-Gen. Sir E. W. C. Chaytor (Australian and New Zealand Mounted Div., zoth Indian Bde., 38th and 39th Royal Fusiliers [Jewish troops], two battalions of the British West Indies Regt. and some guns), was to give the Turks the impression that another offensive in the direction of Es Salt was contemplated.
The necessary concentration of troops in the Sharon sector was effected by a bold policy which left great stretches of the British front either entirely unoccupied or merely watched; and, had the Turkish Intelligence Service been less hampered by Gen. Allenby's counter-espionage measures, advantage might have been taken of the existence of these gaps. As it was, the care with which the concentration was achieved, by silent night marches to the W. while deceptive dust was clearly visible by day going eastward, completely deceived the Turks, who were, moreover, further misled by the strangely faulty reports sent in by the German aeroplane scouts. The ascendancy in the air was so entirely in Gen. Allenby's hands, and had been so for several weeks, that it was only occasionally that the Germans came over, and then at very considerable height, which made observation difficult. That this made for inaccurate obser- vation was amply proved by the German air reconnaissance reports which were subsequently captured with other docu- ments of the Yilderim Group headquarters at Nazareth, since the report for the day before the British advance still shows an entirely erroneous distribution of Gen. Allenby's troops, in- correctly locates his G.H.Q., the headquarters of the XXI. Corps, and even tentatively " identifies " a non-existent division. Thus the surprise for which the British commander had been working was complete.
At 04 :3o on Sept. 19 the artillery on the Sharon sector of the front opened, and after a preparation of 15 minutes, during which the whole striking force advanced across the wide "no man's land," the attack was begun at 04:45. The plan pro- vided for a pivoting movement of which the 54th (East Anglian) Div. (Maj.-Gen. Hare) and the French detachment (Col. de Piepape) formed the hinge, while the 3rd (Lahore), 75th, 7th (Indian) and 6oth moved like a door opening away from the sea, pushing back the Turks from an ever-widening gap through which
the cavalry poured. The Turks were thus overwhelmed and thrust aside. The cavalry began the advance which was to carry the front beyond Aleppo, and behind them the Royal Engineers, while the action was still in progress, began to lay the pipe-line which by 13:00 had reached Jil julie from the mill- race on the Nahr el 'Auja 7,000 yd. away, and was able to pro- vide 4,000 gal. per hour to the troops in an area where the water supply was wholly inadequate behind the 3rd' Div. By 07 :3O the 5th Cav. Div. (Maj.-Gen. MacAndrew) was crossing the Nahr Falik, by noon it had reached and crossed the Iskanderune, and the 4th Cav. Div. (Maj.-Gen. Barrow) and Australian Mounted Div. (Maj.-Gen. Hodgson) swept up behind them.
The speed of the advance was entirely bewildering to the Turks, who could get little or no news of its progress, and only realized its results by actual contact, as every artifice had been employed to cripple the Turkish Intelligence Service. A special bombing squadron had been sent out to reinforce the Royal Air Force, which at the opening of the offensive consisted of a brigade with two wings, seven squadrons, and a balloon com T pany; and during the night of Sept. 18-19 a Handley-Page with more than half-a-ton of bombs attacked the German aerodrome at 'Afule. At dawn on Sept. 19 the special squadron attacked all Turkish telephone and telegraph exchanges behind the line, while the corps squadrons bombed the smaller exchanges just behind the front, with the result that Turkish communica- tion by telephone or telegraph was completely deranged. To pre- vent Liman von Sanders Pasha from becoming aware of the prog- ress of the advance, steps were taken to keep all German aero- planes from leaving the ground. For this purpose two scouts at a time hovered over the main German aerodrome at Jenin, each carrying four bombs, which were dropped on the aerodrome at any sign of activity. Each pair was relieved while still patrolling over the aerodrome, and, before leaving, came down and fired machine-guns into the hangars. In this way the German air service was immobilized throughout the day, and the Yilderim command deprived of its only remaining means of obtaining rapid information about the British advance. Furthermore, the general attack on the Sharon front had been preceded at 22:00 on Sept. 18 by a vigorous offensive on a smaller scale by the 5'rd Div. (Maj.-Gen. Mott), which by attacking the Turkish XX. Corps diverted attention from the coastal sectors in the last hours during which the Turks could use their field telephones.
In this way, by dint of elaborate preparation, the Yilderim command was kept in the dark as to what was happening, and the Turks had to fight as best they might, relying on lines of communication after they had been cut, relying on reinforce- ments which never knew when or where they were wanted, and were never sent, and finally trying to retreat along roads already occupied by the British. As a final measure to complete the confusion of the Turks, Gen. Allenby, after his first feint by the 53rd Div. and his main attack across the plain of Sharon, put the whole of the rest of his front W. of Jordan in motion, and began to press the Turks northward through Mount Ephraim.
The main advance pressed northward, and while the sth and 4th Cav. Divs. headed for the plain of Esdraelon in order to seize 'Afule and its railway junction, the infantry [6oth (London) Div., Maj.-Gen. Shea, 7th (Indian) Div., Maj.-Gen. Fane, and 3rd (Lahore) Div., Maj.-Gen. Hoskins], turning east- ward, began to drive the XXII. Turkish Corps and the Asia Corps into the hill country. The Londoners captured Tul Keram after fighting and marching for 18 m. over heavy sand before dark, driving a mass of retreating Turks and transport into the narrow defile up which the road and railway ran to Nablus. Here the retreat was scourged from above by aero- planes, which finally blocked the pass by killing multitudes of transport animals across its narrowest part, while the 5th Aus- tralian Light Horse Bde. (Brig.-Gen. Onslow), with cavalry of the French detachment, temporarily attached to the 6oth Div., made a detour and came into the pass from the N.E. of Anebta, cutting off all hope of retreat from Tul Keram and engaging the extreme right of the Asia Corps, which tried to hold the upper part of the pass so as to facilitate retreat along
