From Gaza to Jerusalem

by Stuart Hadaway

14

  INTO THE JUDEAN MOUNTAINS

  WITH THE FALL of Junction Station on 14 November 1917, Allenby had several options open to him. While he had left General Bulfin to conduct the operation, his attention had been on the wider and longer-term prospects for the campaign. He was again receiving mixed signals from London, being told by Robertson that the War Cabinet wanted him to press forward and ‘exploit to the utmost’ his recent successes, while at the same time being warned that no reinforcements would be forthcoming, and indeed that some of Allenby’s divisions might even need to be withdrawn to Europe in early 1918. The differing voices of the ‘Easterners’ and the ‘Westerners’ could easily be discerned in these hedged missives.363 In truth he was now at both a literal and a metaphorical crossroads.

  The EEF was now pushing across the Jaffa–Jerusalem road, which was the only even vaguely modern road running east to west through the mountains to Jerusalem. Allenby could continue north, further pursuing the now shattered 8th (OT) Army. Reports from the front as well as long-range reconnaissance from the Royal Flying Corps (who were busy keeping ground commanders informed of enemy positions and movement, as well as directing artillery and bombing and strafing columns to add to the chaos on the roads) showed that the 8th (OT) Army was in disarray. Hüsseyin Hüsnü Emir, on the army’s staff, admitted as much, and that:

  It was feared that the whole army had been broken up. The effective strength of the troops with the army was greatly reduced and companies contained only ten to fifteen men … The superior forces of the enemy were making a slow and methodical advance and nothing could be done to stop him.364

  By keeping to the advance up the coastal plain, Allenby could almost immediately capture Jaffa, giving him a secure forward supply base, and then keep chasing the Ottomans until his own troops were too exhausted to follow. However, beyond the capture of Jaffa – now less then 16km (10 miles) from the forward units of the A&NZ Mounted Division – there was little of strategic importance to be gained. Instead, he could turn right at the crossroads, and begin his advance on Jerusalem. This would achieve the aim of forcing the 7th (OT) Army also to retreat, pulling north to avoid being cut off, and thus putting an end to the threat to his open inland flank. However, the timing was difficult. His current forces – 52nd (Lowland) Division, 75th Division and the three cavalry divisions of the Desert Mounted Corps – were greatly reduced in numbers from casualties and illness, and were approaching exhaustion. He had already begun to call up the 54th (East Anglian) Division from Gaza, and prepare the divisions of XX Corps for another advance, but such moves would take days if not weeks. The rainy season was about to begin in earnest, and the torrential downpours promised would no doubt make operating in the mountains extremely difficult. Was it better to make what advances he could while it was still dry, or to wait for not only the rain but for fresh troops to face those challenges? Waiting would also of course give the Ottomans more time to prepare, and at the moment the 7th (OT) Army’s forces on this flank were still in retreat and disarray after being pushed back from around Balin by the loss of Junction Station.

  Allenby decided to move on Jerusalem immediately. By keeping up the pressure and maintaining his focus on his original objective, he judged he had more to gain than potentially lose. However, it was first necessary to clear a little elbow room to the north, and the A&NZ Mounted Division continued to advance; by dusk on 15 November the 1st ALH Brigade had taken Ramleh and Ludd, where Ottoman supply dumps and an airfield were captured, and by dusk on 16 November the NZMR Brigade had taken Jaffa without resistance: the rest of the Desert Mounted Corps, meanwhile, moved fast to keep pressure on the Ottomans of the retreating 7th (OT) Army on the right. The Australian Mounted Division closed on the main Jaffa–Jerusalem road, and pressed towards the narrow, 4-mile-long defile near Latron (Latrun), a pinch-point where the Ottomans could easily dominate the road with relatively small forces. They had already destroyed or damaged parts of the road to slow the British advance, and the cavalry struggled to move directly across country, up and down mountainsides. The Yeomanry Division came up on their left, working along the Vale of Ajalon on even rougher tracks and through the steep jumbles of mountains, valleys and ravines on either side.

  The cavalry divisions had been used simply because they were nearby and available. On the open plains to the south and west, the mobility of the cavalry had been useful both on a local scale, speedily crossing the open ground at Huj and El Maghar, for example, as well as part of the larger campaign, such as switching divisions and brigades between the flanks as the main axis of advance changed from the area north of Beersheba to the coastal region. However, in the mountains the cavalry’s main advantages were negated, or even became hindrances. Horses struggled to cope with the steep, rough slopes, removing the cavalry’s mobility, while at the same time they continued to require significant logistical support to bring up enough fodder and water. In action, each unit (already weaker than the infantry equivalents, and weaker still after weeks of campaigning) then lost a quarter of their remaining number to hold and lead the horses.365

  The infantry of the 52nd and 75th Divisions, meanwhile, were given an opportunity for a short rest while the 54th Division caught up. A long fortnight’s march and several stiff fights had worn them down, especially when the heavy weight of their rifles and packs, lack of water and poor rations were taken into account. Captain James R Mackie, 2/4th Somerset Light Infantry, took the opportunity to write home:

  16 November 1917: I have not written to you for a fortnight but I am sure you will forgive me when you hear the reason. During the last fortnight we have hardly had an hour’s rest, we have had nothing to eat but bully beef & biscuit & very little of that & we have suffered terribly from thirst. In addition we have been into action, and I believe did very well indeed, and as a result we arrived here to-day (not far from Jerusalem) in a state of complete exhaustion.

  17th: I took my boots off to-day for the first time for five days and managed to secure a quart of water to wash in. Three of us have already bathed all over in it and they are still washing socks in it.366

  All of the troops enjoyed not only the rest, but also the opportunity that the pause gave to the corps supply lines to catch up a little. Relative luxuries such as tobacco were warmly welcomed by the troops, while some began to receive around this time their first issues of fresh bread and vegetables in three weeks; a pleasant change from the ubiquitous tins of bully beef, and hard slabs of biscuit.367

  After a day of rest, the advance resumed on 18 November. The newly arrived 54th Division now joined the A&NZ Mounted Division in screening the northern flank above Jaffa. The 75th Division was to advance astride the Jaffa–Jerusalem road, with the 52nd Division to the north on their left flank. The Yeomanry Division was on the advancing force’s left flank, while the Australian Mounted Division was down on their right flank. However, after managing to force the Ottomans out of Latron by manoeuvring around them on 18 November, two of that division’s brigades were withdrawn on the following day, leaving only the newly returned 5th Mounted Brigade to support the 75th Division. These three divisions and attached brigade were to advance up their respective routes to a point west of Jerusalem, and then turn in unison to the north-east. They were to swing north of the Holy City, cutting, or at least threatening, the road to Nablus, and forcing the Ottoman forces around Jerusalem to either withdraw or surrender. No fighting was to take place within 9.5km (6 miles) of Jerusalem, to ensure no damage was done to religious or historical sites.368

  Having formed up, the two infantry divisions entered the Judean Mountains on 19 November, at the same moment as winter finally arrived. While thunderstorms and showers had been increasingly common over the previous few weeks, these had in a strange way been almost a relief to the troops after months of being baked in the desert. Sergeant S. Hatton of the Middlesex Yeomanry recalled how once:

  During the night a heavy thunderstorm arose and just lying down in the open as we were, it was rea
lly a treat to be drenched. We had not seen rain since leaving Salonika, and I remember yet the joy of the renewed sweet coolness in the air, and the rich smell of the wet earth, after the protracted heat and dust, and that terrible khamsin wind. I awoke, cold, soaked, and found the earth slippery with mud, but it was good to have a change of discomfort.369

  Now, the hard, steady winter rains started in earnest. The vast majority of the troops were still equipped in light, cotton drill uniforms, without greatcoats and with just one blanket if they were lucky. Most of the infantry still wore shorts. They found they had no protection from the rain, and became soaked even as they marched into the higher altitudes of the mountains, where temperatures plummeted.

  The rain also made the roads treacherous – either washing down mountainsides to make the rocks slippery underfoot, or simply turning the dust and soil to mud to bog travellers down. Not just the front-line troops suffered from this; on the first day of the rains the 1/5th Essex gave aid to a bogged-down staff car, which turned out to contain both General Allenby and Sir Reginald Wingate, the High Commissioner of Egypt. The battalion’s commander was later able to record with pride that both senior officers were more than willing to put their shoulders into the job of freeing the car alongside his men.370

  The roads marked on the maps were soon discovered to be rather optimistic projections. The Romans had built several roads stretching through the mountains, and although still used they had received precious little maintenance since then. Apart from deliberate damage by the Ottomans, roads were degraded and even partially destroyed by centuries of use, bad weather, and rock falls. An officer in the 5th Highland Light Infantry opined that:

  If ever a road disgraced its name is was this Roman Road of the maps. Here was no purposeful track, broad, smooth and white, keeping its way straight through every obstacle. It bent and twisted and turned. Often it crept underneath a great rock and lost itself. Fifty yards further on one would find it, shy and retiring, slipping down the face of a slab of rock, always with the deceitful promise that over the next hill it would be better behaved.371

  Despite all of the obstacles, progress across the whole front was relatively good for the first day, and resistance was light. Small Ottoman rearguards put up determined fights from strong positions. Trenches were usually impossible to dig in the mountains, but both sides became adept at building stone-walled positions, known as ‘sangars’. Even a small detachment, with rifles or machine guns, could hide among the rocks and dominate an entire valley, inflicting a steady trickle of casualties as the advancing troops struggle to locate and then dislodge the defenders. Despite their small numbers, these scattered outposts caused disproportionate problems for the British.

  Only on 20 November did the British begin to encounter the main Ottoman defensive positions around Jerusalem. The 75th Division took the ridge at Saris in the afternoon after a stiff fight, and were then held up by the defenders of Kuryet el Enab ridge behind it. No progress could be made until late in the afternoon, when a fog suddenly encompassed the battlefield, allowing the British to advance unseen and take the well-sited machine-gun posts with bayonet charges. To the north, the Yeomanry Mounted Division was close to its ultimate objective – the Nablus road – but repeatedly failed to shift the Ottoman defenders on Zeitun Ridge. The original plan called for them to cut the Nablus road that evening, but with front-line numbers reduced to around 1,200 men, and with only very light artillery support from the Hong Kong and Singapore Mountain Battery, the division simply could not muster the strength and firepower to break through.372

  The poor roads and bad weather inhibited the support that the infantry and cavalry at the front needed. Although work had begun to repair and even improve the roads, wheeled transport was still almost impossible to move, and pack animals struggled. The ration convoys for the 52nd Division did not arrive until after dark, and those for the 75th Division not until noon the following day, and the men spent a miserable, cold and wet night with just their emergency ‘iron’ rations to sustain them. On the southern flank, conditions were even bad enough to suppress inter-service rivalry to the extent that Lord Hampton, whose squadron of the QOWH had been helping the artillery traverse the roads, accepted an invitation to ‘dine’ with the battery’s officers. He soon found himself:

  Sat down in a pool of mud to one of the best meals of the campaign. They are wonderful fellows, Gunners. On this occasion they produced a ham, some cold fowl, bread and good hot tea, and it is wonderful what hot tea alone will do for one on a cold night. I have long been of the opinion that, as a profession, tea planting ranks almost with Medicine in the benefits conferred upon a grateful and suffering humanity.373

  However, few were so lucky. Further north, Sergeant Hatton recalled:

  During this night it rained a gentle drizzle and, without cover of any kind, we were soon soaked, a condition which, added to the cold, rendered sleep impossible and life in general thoroughly wretched and miserable. Moreover, now out of touch with any transport we were on half-rations of ‘bully’ and biscuits; meagre fare to tired, cold and hungry men … We continued our march next morning, but the road now ceased to exist, and it became a mere goat track across which at intervals lay huge boulders often four and five feet in diameter. We attempted to lead our horses in single file, but progress was dreadfully slow. Our boots were cut to pieces on the rough stones, but with aching and bleeding feet we blundered on up the goat track to Beit el Fokka.374

  On 21 November, while the yeomanry continued unsuccessfully to assault Zeitun Ridge, the infantry began their swing north-east. They were by now closer to Jerusalem then had been initially intended, and ran hard into the main Ottoman defensive line around the city. The most important action of the day began late in the afternoon, when troops from 75th Division assaulted the heights at Nabi Samwil, only a few miles west of Jerusalem. Sitting at the end of a ridge, this high, conical hill dominates the western approaches to the Holy City. Supposedly the last resting place of the Prophet Samuel, it is holy to Christians, Muslims and Jews, and during the Crusades a castle had been built on the summit; it was here that Richard the Lionheart was supposed to have decided to turn back from his attempt to ‘liberate’ Jerusalem in 1192. Now a mosque and a small village sat on the remains of the castle, while the steep sides had been terraced to a certain extent, as generations of villagers had attempted to create flat growing land on the hill’s slopes. Rising some 150m (500ft) above the surrounding area and overlooking the convergence of several valleys below, any forces on Nabi Samwil would be able to fire on any movement on the roads to Jerusalem below.

  The assault on this vital height began at around 5.15 p.m., and was undertaken by two battalions of the 233rd Brigade – the 3/3rd Gurkhas and 2/4th Hampshire Regiment – and two from the 234th Brigade – the 123rd Outram’s Rifles and 1/4th Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry (DCLI). All four battalions were under-strength, with the whole force numbering around 1,100 men.375 Even so, their rapid advance up the hillside was effective, and after fighting hand to hand in the village, the summit fell to the British and Indian troops after dark. However, the Ottomans remained well dug-in on the eastern faces of the hill, and during the following day mounted an almost continuous series of counter-attacks, with heavy artillery support. Brutal close-quarters fighting raged all day in the village and around the mosque, where the British and Indian wounded were taken for shelter. At one point that building was all but surrounded, until a Gurkha counter-attack with bayonet and kukri rolled the Ottoman forces back down the steep slopes of the hill, followed by a shower of rocks. Several times the hill nearly fell, and only the timely arrival of reinforcements near dusk halted the final Ottoman assault. The 1/7th and 1/8th Scottish Rifles, who had been marching since 5.30 a.m., began to arrive near the hill at 2.30 p.m., and struggled to the top at nearly 6 p.m. They were in time to push the Ottomans at bayonet-point back through Nabi Samwil and relieve the troops in the mosque, which had again been surrounded. By that time, t
he original four battalions had suffered 567 men killed, wounded or missing in the day’s fighting, or around 50 per cent casualties. The 3/3rd Gurkhas alone had suffered 216 casualties, and could muster just one officer and sixteen men fit for action. The Scottish relieving force had themselves suffered 200 casualties. Only after dark could the wounded begin to be evacuated down into the valley for proper care.376

  While the fighting had raged on Nabi Samwil on 22 November, a further battle had been fought only a short distance to the north, around the hill of El Jib. On the northern side of Nabi Samwil runs a broad valley, from east to west, providing easy going compared to the ridges and slopes either side. The army wanted to use this valley for a rapid advance, but in the centre sat he conical hill of El Jib. Like Nabi Samwil, the sides were terraced and a village sat on top, although this hill was much lower, only rising around 30m (100ft) about the surrounding valley to a height of about 790m (2,600ft) above sea level. Even so, the steep sides and wide open ground around the hill made it easily defensible. Any attacker would have to cover some 1.8km (2,000yds) of open ground to reach the bottom of the slope. On 22 November the attack had stalled under heavy fire, and the next day a fresh attempt was made by the 75th Division. The 1/5th Somerset Light Infantry and the 2/3rd Gurkha Rifles advanced from the south-west, while the 1/5th Devonshire Regiment attacked from the west. However, heavy fire not only from El Jib, but also from the Ottomans still clinging to the eastern slopes of Nabi Samwil, caught the advancing troops in a cross fire, causing heavy casualties. A few men of the Somersets reached the hill, and even climbed it and entered the village, but all were killed or captured. The rest of the three battalions were forced into cover, and remained so until after dark. Only then could they collect their wounded and pull back, having to leave most of their dead behind. Between them, they had lost 372 men killed, wounded or captured.377