From Gaza to Jerusalem

by Stuart Hadaway

  By 7 December, apart from the 53rd Division, all was ready, but that night a torrential downpour began. Despite this the attack began that evening. The 60th and 74th Divisions were to advance across a 4½-mile front running from a mile or more south of Nabi Samwil, down across the Jerusalem–Jaffa road, to just south of Ain Karim. Some miles south-east of Ain Karim the 53rd Division would attack north through Bethlehem, with the 10th Australian Light Horse Regiment doing their best to screen the large gap between the two attacks. The first unit to move out was the 179th Brigade of the 60th Division, who marched shortly after dusk on 7 December, crossing the Wadi Sarar. They were on the southernmost end of the line advancing from the west of Jerusalem, reflecting General Chetwode’s reversal of the plan previously attempted by General Bulfin. Instead of swinging around to the north of Jerusalem, this time the army would swing up from the south-west, and Ain Karim was the first objective in this sweep. The 179th Brigade was in position and attacked that village at 2 a.m., taking it by 3.30 a.m. and then pushing out to the east and south-east to take the ridges beyond and secure the army’s right flank. At 7.30 a.m. the brigade halted and consolidated their positions, unable to go further as their own right flank was dangerously in the air (despite the efforts of the 10th ALH) until the 53rd Division could catch up.394

  The most serious resistance to this advance had been encountered by the 2/14th (London Scottish) Battalion, London Regiment, who swept around to the south of Ain Karim to take a part of the ridge behind known as Tumulus Hill. Soon after dawn, the battalion was pinned down by two machine guns behind a sangar. The Ottoman gunners were well placed to dominate the slope, while an enfilading fire also opened up from somewhere behind the battalion. Taking casualties, arrangements were being made to extract one company to attempt an attack on the flank, when Corporal Charles Train stood up and dashed forward, working his way around the sangar, firing rifle grenades and then shooting the German officer commanding the position before charging in to kill or capture the gunners. For his ‘most conspicuous gallantry, dash and initiative’ Corporal Train received the Victoria Cross.395

  To the north of 179th Brigade, the 180th Brigade assaulted a series of redoubts and positions around Deir Yesin. The brigade had begun their march later, having less far to go, and crossing the Wadi Hannina after midnight, their attack began just before dawn. Within a few hours, the Ottoman strongpoints known as Heart and Liver Redoubts were taken and Deit Yesin occupied. There the advance was held up by fire from Ottoman positions in quarries on the far side of the village. The advance paused while artillery and machine-gun support was brought up and the brigade realigned. Shortly before 4 p.m., with heavy supporting fire, the brigade took the quarries at bayonet-point and secured their objectives.396

  The 74th Division made shorter but just as successful advances on the left of the army. While the 231st Brigade stood firm on Nabi Samwil, the 230th Brigade, to their south, faced the difficult task of crossing the Wadi Buwai, which ran through a steep-sided ravine around 300m (1,000ft) deep. It took more than three hours to bring the brigade across, and their attack on the ridge above was twenty-five minutes late going in, although it was entirely successful. From there the advance became more difficult as enfilading fire from the Ottomans still on the lower slopes of Nabi Samwil bit into the brigade’s flank. In late morning the village of Beit Iksa was reached and entered, although it took several hours to clear the village completely. On the right of 230th Brigade, the 229th Brigade had advanced on a narrow front along the northern verge of the Jaffa–Jerusalem road, and had experienced little resistance.397

  In the south, the advance of the 53rd Division was hampered by communications problems with the rest of XX Corps, by the rain, and by the fact that their main objective was Bethlehem. General Mott was unwilling to risk damaging any of the holy sites in Bethlehem, despite coming under Ottoman rifle and artillery fire from the village. Instead of tackling this threat directly, throughout the afternoon elements of the division had swept around to the north of the village, forcing the garrison to withdraw. By evening the division had still not made direct contact with 60th Division.398 Chetwode had meanwhile ordered the 60th and 74th Divisions to cease their advances in the mid-afternoon, partly to allow the 53rd Division to catch up, but also to allow the artillery and transport to come up as well, and to rest his men. After long night marches in the cold and rain, and a morning’s fighting, his forces were in need of rest, as well as in need of closer artillery support and resupply of food and ammunition.399

  At dawn on 9 December the army prepared to advance again, but the patrols sent out before dawn all along the front began to bring back the news that the enemy positions appeared to be deserted. More patrols followed, along with large numbers of scouting parties to reconnoitre the road ahead for battalions or batteries. One of these was led in person by Lieutenant Colonel H. Bayley DSO, commanding 303rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, who had been surveying the ground ahead of the 180th Brigade near the village of Lifta. Around 9 a.m. he paused near the Jaffa–Jerusalem road to ‘enjoy the warm sunshine, the beautiful view, and the knowledge that we were again successfully advancing’ when:

  I noticed movement and through my glasses I spotted a white flag with numbers of persons surrounding it and that a few were now coming towards me.

  I was there alone with Armitage.* I told Armitage to go back and get a couple of fellows with rifles, if he could, while I would stop and interview the advancing persons. I beckoned the leading man and he came up to me. He spoke in French and said there were no Turks near; they had all gone; and that the Mayor of Jerusalem was at the white flag. I walked on and there he was, with three chairs in a row on the road. He was an Arab gentleman in European clothes and a Tarboosh. He said very quietly and in faultless English ‘I am the Mayor of Jerusalem and I desire to surrender the city to the British General.’400

  The defences to the south and west of Jerusalem had been abandoned by the Ottomans overnight, as had the city. Although rearguard units were taking up positions to the north and east, determined to cover the retreat, the withdrawing main force now had all of the appearances of a defeated army. Dr Steuber, Chief Medical Officer of forces on the Palestine front, was among the retreating mass:

  The Jerusalem–Nablus road is good, but is today congested with troops and columns of the beaten and disintegrating 8th Turkish Army … Here two brown Anatolians drag with them a mortally wounded comrade; the bloody, torn limbs hang loosely from the ripped rags. There lies a man behind a boulder, his head covered with a kaffiyeh, and rings with death. In between, Turkish officers on jaded, skeleton-like nags, stolid and outwardly untouched by the limitless misery all around. Suddenly, the motor-car stops: three camels lie down across the road, Turkish harem-women are on the camels’ backs, their heads veiled, their naked legs dangling down. Only the driver’s shrill siren makes them clear the road with a wild leap. A column of rickety carts is overtaken; a Red Crescent and a penetrating iodoform smell mark them as remnants of a field infirmary. Suddenly, loud shouts: a Turkish field battery blocks the road, and the horses, buffaloes and mules cannot go on. A herd pushes into it all, and soon the car crushes a long-eared goat … The uninterrupted, piercing sound of the motor-car sirens, the shouts of men and animals, all this preys hypnotizingly on one’s thinking and feeling, and deadens one so dreadfully, that in lucid intervals one asks oneself whether one still is a civilized being at all.401

  At least the Ottoman forces were not being closely pressed. Caught by surprise, through the rest of the morning the British scrambled to advance and occupy the city but were in no position to mount any kind of pursuit. If the situation was a surprise, it was also a relief, as the British high command had been having the same concerns as General Mott over the possibility of fighting around and possibly damaging holy sites.

  At 5.30 a.m. the 53rd Division was moving, passing Bethlehem and reaching the southern side of Jerusalem in mid-morning. By 11 a.m., one brigade was advancing a sho
rt way down the road to Jericho. The division came under fire from an Ottoman rearguard on the Mount of Olives and prepared to assault this ridge on the eastern side of Jerusalem at 4 p.m., but the attack was then postponed until the next day. Meanwhile, the 60th Division had swept around the northern side of the city, and had driven an Ottoman rearguard off Mount Scopus to the north-east at 2 p.m. At around the same time the left flank of the division had reach Shafat, around 3.2km (2 miles) north of the city, and there pushed a larger rearguard force out. The 74th Division also swung forward and towards the north, taking Beit Hannina.402 Over the following three days little activity followed. The 60th and 74th Divisions rearranged their lines and patrolled the area in front of them but otherwise remained where they were. The 10th and 53rd Division made small, limited advances, the latter occupying the now abandoned Mount of Olives and Bethany to the north-east.403 On 14 December Chetwode laid out his plans for the next big push, but decided that ten days were needed to improve the roads yet further and let the logistical system catch up. In the meantime, only small, strictly limited actions were carried out to secure the existing lines.

  While the army secured the area around Jerusalem, General Allenby made his official entry into the Holy City at noon on 11 December, and read the declaration placing it under Martial Law. The jubilation of 9 December had faded somewhat, although there can be no doubt that the city was glad to see the British arrive. Much is made in memoirs and the more populist of the post-war accounts about the delight of the people of Palestine at being freed from the ‘tyranny’ of the Ottoman Empire, without much, if any, qualification of what this actually meant. For the people of Jerusalem, and the rest of southern Palestine, the British occupation was a matter for celebration because it meant an end of the conscription of the younger men into the armed forces and the older ones into the hated ‘labour’ battalions. It also meant a new breath of economic life of the country. After years of having their produce requisitioned by the army, the arrival of the British meant not only an end to this state-sanctioned theft, but the sudden opening of considerable markets. Trade outside the country was reopened as the British blockade was lifted, although this took time to become fully re-established. More immediately, troops individually bought what food (oranges are frequently mentioned) and drink they could to make up for the deficiencies in their own supplies, while higher-level units also bulk-bought for the same reason. Soldiers bought whatever they could from both Arab and Jewish farms and villages, although frequent complaints were made that the prices were unreasonably high from both sources, albeit for different reasons that conformed to the common racial stereotyping of the time. Given the economic deprivations of recent years, though, none of the Palestinian farmers can really be blamed for making the most of this golden windfall while the opportunity lasted.

  While XX Corps rested, and worked on their lines of communications, the offensive switched back to XXI Corps on the coastal plain. Here, the weather had had an equally heavy effect on the conditions faced by the army. The rain, amplified by run-off water from the mountains, left the ground boggy and made movement difficult. For the cavalry, with their horses to care for and try to keep warm as well as themselves, the burden was doubled. Sergeant Garry Clunie of the Wellington Mounted Rifles records the typical conditions faced through most of December:

  8 December: Still raining cats and dogs. Mud everywhere about 6 inches deep except horse lines which are about 18 inches. Stand to this morning was great, we had to dig some of our gear out of the mud. Water and exercised horses this morning and afternoon. Heavy rifle fire last night. We will probably relieve our mates in trenches … My bivvy is getting very wet inside with coming in with muddy boots. Shifted horse lines today.404

  A few small attacks were made during the first half of the month to improve the line on the corps’ right flank, in the foothills. However, it was the left flank that caused the most worry, as the Ottoman positions on the Nahr el Auja were still in place, meaning that their forces were still in artillery range of Jaffa. Plans were now made to push the front line further north, securing Jaffa. The corps commander, General Bulfin, decided to allocate this task to Major General Hill’s 52nd (Lowland) Division, who were holding the left hand end of the line opposite the area to be attacked. Extensive preparations were made behind the lines, including bringing up the necessary engineering stores to make the right tools for an assault river crossing. Timber and canvas were stockpiled and supplemented by local foraging. Rafts (sometimes known as coracles) were made by stretching canvas over a wooden frame, large enough to carry fifteen men (plus two Royal Engineers to paddle the vessel) and also to be used as pontoons for making bridges.

  Bulfin and Hills prepared a plan for a night crossing involving all three of the division’s brigades. At the mouth of the river (where it opens out to some 36m (40yds) across) the 157th Brigade would cross at the ford. The commanding officer of the 6th HLI, Lieutenant Colonel Jason Anderson, and one of his officers, Lieutenant C.H. Hills, stripped off and swam around the ford on the night of 15 December to make sure that it was still passable, and to plot the Ottoman positions on the far side.* Once across the ford, which was confirmed to be around 1m (3ft) deep, the brigade would advance directly up the coast. About 900m (1,000yds) inland, the 156th Brigade would cross initially by raft, until two pontoon bridges could be built behind them. They would then advance north and north-east, covering the 157th Brigade’s flank and capture Slag Heap Farm and the village of Muwannis. On the right would be the 155th Brigade, which would cross in a bend in the river (which would protect their flanks) near Jerishe, about 3.2km (3,500yds) inland. Again using rafts until two pontoon bridges could be thrown across behind them, the brigade would advance east along the river to clear the Ottoman defensive positions around Hadra, and the destroyed bridge just south of it. To prepare for the operation Bulfin wanted to mount a twenty-four-hour barrage, but Hill demurred. Instead, he argued, a much smaller and shorter bombardment would help to maintain the element of surprise, particularly in the crucial period where the troops would need to gather on the exposed river banks, the perfect bunched targets for machine guns. Bulfin was persuaded, and a more limited fire plan for a barrage of artillery and machine-gun fire was arranged. The same plan was executed for the few nights running up to the operation, so that the Ottoman forces would not be suspicious when the real attack started.

  The 54th Division and the NZMR Brigade replaced the 52nd Division in the line on 18 December, and the troops (and the rafts and bridging materials) were positioned in orange groves near the river bank. At 8 p.m. on 20 December the real bombardment began, and the advance parties of the 156th Brigade began to cross the river. The main crossing was slated to start at 10.30 p.m., but was postponed half an hour after all of the Royal Engineer parties experienced difficulties in moving water-logged rafts over the deep mud of the river banks. Apart from that one delay, the rest of the plan went like clockwork. The Ottoman positions on the far side of the river were widely spaced, and many had been abandoned due to flooding. The eruption of bayonet-tipped Scotsmen from the night took most units by complete surprise, and by the morning all of the objectives had been taken. At a cost of around 100 casualties, the division had pushed the enemy back some 4km (2.5 miles) across a 4.8km (3-mile) front, killing over 100 enemy and capturing over 300 more.

  During 21 December the division held fast, expecting heavy Ottoman counter-attacks and easily deflecting the small attacks that actually occurred. However, that night the offensive was renewed and further gains made, and 54th Division joined the attack on the right flank. Rapid advances were made, although 162nd Brigade encountered some heavy resistance around Bald Hill. After taking the hill, in the dark, Lance Corporal John Christie of the 1/11th London Regiment advanced alone into the dark with pockets full of hand grenades, entered the Ottoman trenches and single-handedly ‘bombed’ back two different counter-attacks while his comrades shored up the defences behind him. For his ‘conspicuous gallantry�
� he received the Victoria Cross.405

  On 22 December the advance had gained so much ground that the 52nd Division artillery had to be brought forward (all except one howitzer that became badly bogged down). By the end of the day the Ottomans had been pushed back 11km (7 miles) from the Nahr el Auja, and 19km (12 miles) from Jaffa, which was now safely out of enemy artillery range.406

  The line now solidified in its new position, and again a rough time was experienced by the front-line troops as the logistics system caught up, a task that was greatly exasperated by the continuing bad weather, especially as part of the rail network was flooded.407 Over the last week of December some units found themselves on quarter or half rations for days on end.408 The shortages and the rain made for a grim Christmas, as Sergeant James Scott of the 2nd (London) Sanitary Company RAMC recalled:

  During our stay at the junction the wet weather set in just before Christmas and on Christmas Eve the wind was blowing very strong the rain coming down in torrents. The ground we camped on was at first so hard we could not drive the tent pegs in and now was a quagmire, pegs pulled out and tent ropes broke. Suddenly in the night our tent blew over leaving us entirely exposed to the elements. We raced to find shelter some in the cookhouse some in other tents. We had three tents blown over out of five. The cookhouse wasn’t much shelter as the rain poured in at the roof.