PALESTINE DRIVE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 80, 1 October 1918, Page 8

PALESTINE DRIVE

RAPID FURTHER PROGRESS

SUSTAINED OATALRY DRIVE.

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received October 1, 2.30 p.m.)

LONDON, 30th September.

Mr. W. T. Massey, writing from headquarters in.Palestine on Sunday, states: On Saturday the cavalry of Genoral Allenby's army swam and forded the Jordan, north of Lake Tiberias. Last night and to-day we captured high ground east of the river. The situation is developing most favourably. By a stupendous effort, equal to any> sustained cavalry operations in history, the mounted troops hold a.far-flung- line. ■ The horsercfen are converging in two great columns on the main Damascus roads. From tho south the Yeomanry and Indian cavalry ;are moving eastward from Beisan,.: having taken Irbid, whero a portion of tho Turks' Fourth Army not, destroyed at Amman, intended to stand. At this important railway junction we secured touch with tho friendly Arabs on the ea^, and ignor- . ing bodies of the enemy between Defa and Amman, marched' north on Sheikh Miskin, which is within ono cavalry bound of Damascus. In going forward, the cavalry,several times left enemy parties in their rear. Time pressed, and in order to reap the full results of their bold strategy, the mounted troops left the advancing infantry to clear the enemy out of the isolated valleys. The Germans and Turks were holding, positions on the railway after Dera :was taken, but the infantry, subsequently dealt with them and prevented the destruction of some useful railway works.. The Turks fear designs on Damascus, and have sent down to the Jordan from Damascus a force ■ composed of Germans and Turks and some Circassians. Our left has also to be watched. When our cavalry wors opposite the bridge south of Lake Huleh, the motor lorries from Damascus had deposited a thousand men on the steep eastern bank to cover the bridge with mach-.ine-guns. (They blew up the centre arch of the 400-year-old . bridge, making a crossing there impossible. A brigade of Australian Light Horse swam the river with their horses south of the bridge, and another Australian Brigade made the passage of the river to the north. The banks were hard for the mounted men to negotiate, as the ground approaching the river is marshy, but so swiftly were'the difficulties surmounted that before the enemy could scramble back to his,lorries 2£o Turks and Germans -were cut off and-captured. Our cavalry'astride the Damascus road has since advanced to El Kuneitera, within forty miles of the ancient city. . '•. ' ' -'