ALLENBY'S DRIVE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 155, 28 December 1918, Page 7

ALLENBY'S DRIVE

SMASHING OF THE TURKS

GREAT CAVALRY MANOEUVRE

CLEVER AND SUCCESSFUL , BLUFF.

A fortnight after General Allenby flung his artillery bombardment at the enemy line, the great Turkish and German force in Western and Eastern Palestine had been destroyed," writes Mr H. S. Gullett, Australian Official Correspondent in Palestine, on 4th October, three powerful armies had,been smashed, and our prisoners amounted to close upon 80,000. Of the 7th and Bth Turkish Armies south of Damascus, only a few thousand footsore, hunted men escaped. Practically every gun, the great bulk of the machine-guns, nearly all the small arms and transport, . every aerodrome and its mechanical equipment, and nearly every aeroplane, an. intricate and widespread telephone and telegraph system, large dumps ,of munitions and every kind of supplies—all of these had, in fourteen swift and dramatic days, been stripped from an enemy who for four years had resisted our efforts to smash him.

The scheme was obviously the conception of a confident leader of horse. General Allenby is a cavalryman, and I he had under his command the most powerful cavalry force engaged in the war And he knew the quality of his mounted force. All of the Australians, •and New Zealanders, and Yeomanry were engaged in the great sixty mile drive northwards from Gaza last year, and most of them had been in the saddle in this country for two and a half years. The splendid Indian cavalry had been with us for many months, and had given many examples of their dash and I love of battle. Again and again during the summer their advanced patrols had galloped down bodies of Turks, and their terrible use of the lance in those little actions had a highly useful effect on the Turkish nerves. This was {he scheme. We faced the Turks on a 50-mile line running roughly from the Mediterranean v coast a-t a point about 12 miles north of Jaffa, south-eastwards across the- Plain of Sharon, thence eastwards over the mountains of Samaria, at a height of 1500 to 2000 feefc, and falling to 1000 feet below sea level as it crossed the Jordan Valley, and terminated in the foothills of the mountains of Gilead. The Sharon Plain sector was about 15 miles in length, across Samaria 25 miles, and the stretch in the Jordan Valley about 18. All the enemy lines of communication led across the Plain of Esdraelon. If we could seize the plain swiftly, cut the railways, and hold the roads, the whole Turkish army west of the Jordan was in our hands. ! .■> First the airmen had to " destroy or drive off the German pilots, and so keep the enemy ignorant of our plans ; then the artillery barrage had to make the way possible for the infantry; in its turn the infantry had in one rush to drive a gap for the cavalry, and the cavalry galloping through the gap had to cover SO miles and reach Esdraelon Plain on the night of that first day. Lastly, the cavalry must hold the communication they had gained, and so they had to be fed. The. transport necessary for feeding tens of thousands of men and horses had to travel almost as fast as the cavalry General AHenby took np chances. He followed the sound principle of fighting under the best conditions possible. By a clever and greatly successful blnff the Comiiiander-in-Chief finally delivered his smashing blow at an unexpected point of the Turkish line. The enemy was ied to believe that the r British offensive would fall on the eastern sector. While a huge force of cavalry, artillery, and infantry was being smuggled by night marches to the Plain of Sharon on the west, active and amusing camouflage preparations were being made in the Jordan Valley. The airmen played a great part in this hood-winking. During the eight weeks preceding tn» offensive the German air service was practically driven out of the tii 1. Fifteen machines were destroyed, tuid many more were forced down, enemy aerodromes were bombed, and so absolute was our ascendency that not an enemy 'plane was seen over the threatened sector for eight days before the offensive, began. Still move interesting is the fact that in those day 6so critical for the enemy, the Germans established an aerodrome on the Hedjaz railway from where they proceeded to bomb and harass the Arabs. The bluff was everywhere effective.