Iii Palestine

A pause now took place while the British army improved its communications and thus enabled the loth Corps to be brought up from Gaza, where it had been left for convenience of supply. It took over the line opposite Jerusalem, releasing the troops which had made the first attempt to strengthen the line in the plain. Falkenhayn during this period ordered small local counter attacks all along the line in the hope of disorganizing Allenby's plans. But these attacks had no effect and merely wasted the best remaining elements of the Turkish force.

The second attack on Jerusalem was delivered at dawn on Dec. 8, in mist and rain. The brunt of the fighting fell on the 6oth (London) Division, assisted on the left by the 74th Division and on the right by the 53rd Division, which had previously moved up from Beersheba along the Hebron road to within striking distance. By the evening the Turks had decided to withdraw, and the city surrendered next morning. Allenby made an official entry on Dec. i i. His brilliant campaign effectively removed all danger to Baghdad from the Yilderim army, the whole of which had of necessity been used in Palestine. The last reserves of Turkish man-power were practically exhausted; and Turkey was now in a far worse plight than when Germany had, at the commence ment of 1917, undertaken the re-establishment of her military prestige by driving the British out of Baghdad. Falkenhayn had completely failed to grasp either the conditions of the theatre or the idiosyncrasies of Turkish troops. He was replaced early in 1918 by Liman von Sanders.

Rising of the Arabs.

The encouragement given by the Brit ish success to the Arab revolt caused an additional drain on Turk ish resources. The Arab revolt had broken out a year previously, when Hussein, the Sherif of Mecca, induced the Hejaz to rise against the Turk. Jeddah and Mecca were soon captured, but the Medina garrison held out. The revolt would probably have ended in the re-establishment of the Turks, or in desultory war fare with little result, had there not appeared a young English man with an understanding of the Arabs and a gift for guerrilla tactics. As Col. Lawrence he became famous. He persuaded Feisal, a son of Hussein, who led the Arab forces in the field, that the true policy lay not in assaults on the Turkish garrison in Medina, which if successful would merely rid the Turks of an embarrassment, but in gradually spreading the revolt northward up to the very gates of Damascus, with propaganda as the prin cipal weapon, and in ceaseless raiding on the long exposed Turk ish communications to Medina, which would form a constant drain on the enemy's resources.

In pursuance of this policy, Feisal, with Lawrence as his ad viser, moved his base of operations from opposite Medina, first to Wejh and next to Akaba, which Lawrence had captured by a dashing raid. Gen. Allenby was quick to realize the service which the Arab rising was rendering to his operations, and was always sympathetic to Lawrence's requests for equipment or other aid. Allenby's next aim was obviously to secure sufficient room for manoeuvre in front of Jerusalem in the hills and Jaffa in the plain. On Dec. 20 and 21 the 52nd Division forced a passage of the river El `Auja, and drove the Turks 8m. north of Jaffa, thus improving the position in the plain. In the hills, all preparations had been made for an operation to drive the Turks farther from Jerusalem, when information was received that the Turks them selves were about to attack. Reinforcements, including the 1st Division, had reached them, and Falkenhayn was determined on an attempt to recapture the Holy City. The attack was pressed with great gallantry on Dec. 26, but made no impression ; on the following days the counter-attack of the British 2oth Corps carried them some 5 or 6m. forward and safeguarded Jerusalem from the north. Later, the eastern flank was secured by the cap ture of Jericho, which took place on Feb. 21. Early in March, the line was pushed still farther north, both in the hills and in the plain, by a series of small operations. Thus by the spring a strong line had been secured, which might have been held by a reduced force in the exhausted state of the Turks.

Plans for 1918.

Meanwhile, the future of the Palestine cam paign in the general plan of the Allies for 1918 had become the subject of considerable discussion. In view of the expected great German offensive in the West, there was a considerable body of opinion amongst those who directed the Allied strategy in favour of closing down as far as possible all commitments in minor thea tres and of concentrating on the vital Western Front all rein forcements that could be spared from them. It was also pointed out that the maintenance of large forces on the Palestine front entailed heavy losses in shipping—which was likely to prove the Achilles' heel of the Allies—since the submarine menace was especially serious in the Mediterranean.