Trechos de With Our Army In Palestine (1919), de Antony Bluett.
It is no tale of glamour and romance; it is a tale of sheer, hard graft, generally under terrible conditions - for a white man.
- - -
By dint of that curious mixture of patience and profanity characteristic of the British soldier when doing a difficult job, horses and guns were at length safely stowed away.
- - -
The urgent need in those days of the army in the East was aircraft; fast, modern machines, that is. There was a lamentable lack of anything that could go near the Fokker or Taube.
- - -
It was a Tank.
[They] were as a matter of fact a comparative failure in Palestine.
- - -
What the infantry would have done without the camels, one shudders to contemplate, for they were practically the only means of water-transport.
- - -
The cactus-hedges bordering the lanes afforded admirable protection from observation by enemy aircraft, some of which were hovering in the neighbourhood.
Dispatch-riders on motor-cycles threaded their way to the front in and out amongst the horses with amazing skill, the cavalry swung forward en route for the open country, staff officers galloped along the lanes, and in a few short moments the whole atmosphere had changed from pastoral peace to the tense excitement of military activity.
- - -
So great was the bustle that most of us fully expected that the first battle in the Holy Land was about to begin. [...]
All through the afternoon generals, colonels, and minor constellations charged past and disappeared.
- - -
With the exception of a parting round which burst near the field-ambulance on our left we had no further trouble in this direction. Subsequently we went forward without let or hindrance, except from enemy aircraft, whose bombs disturbed quite a quantity of earth.
Meanwhile on our left the infantry were heavily engaged. Their lot was not an enviable one. The natural defences of Gaza are immensely strong, and these were in addition strengthened by every conceivable human device.
- - -
It was, I think, about noon and intensely hot when the infantry began the attack. From our position on the flank it was, of course, impossible to see in detail what was going on, or much beyond the actual deployment of the troops. But the machine-gun fire, which during the morning had reached us in purring waves of sound, now increased to such awful intensity that the rattle became a roar incessant and deafening. From the moment the first waves started to advance across the open country they came under a devastating fire. They were bespattered with shrapnel from the guns, enfiladed on three sides by machine-guns whose fire swept them away in scores, rifle-pits spat death at them, and from the crowded trenches came a terrible volume of rifle-fire. It seemed impossible that any one could live to reach the slopes of Ali Muntar; yet these men from Wales and East Anglia went forward with a steadiness almost past belief, and ultimately, with ranks sadly thinned, did reach the foot of the hill. From this point they fought their way inch by inch and drove the desperately resisting Turks back through their cactus hedges and over each successive terrace until, late in the afternoon, the summit was won.
The cost was terrible: some battalions had lost three-quarters of their effectives, many had lost half, and all had suffered very heavily. True, a very large percentage of the casualties were lightly wounded in arms and legs; nevertheless, they were out of action and the battle was by no means won.
- - -
[...] they made a final burst and got away almost unscathed - they had less than half a dozen casualties - leaving some four hundred Turkish killed and wounded on the field and the remainder probably wondering, like the nigger when the meteorite hit him, "who frowed dat brick"!
- - -
The difficulties of maintaining a large army in this almost waterless region were enormous. The Turkish railhead was on their doorstep, as it were; ours was then twenty miles away at Rafa.
- - -
You cannot expect the enemy to play the game according to the Geneva Convention if you yourself fail to observe the rules.
- - -
Any old Bedouin, therefore, was a potential spy.
- - -
This of course was only on a very small portion of the front, and only affected the movements of our particular brigade, who were heavily engaged on their own account. On our left the advance was making little progress. The Turks had fortified every ridge to the last degree and refused to be dislodged from even the smallest positions, fighting on till every man was killed.
- - -
It was discovered that the Turks were using the big mosque in Gaza as an O.P. from which to direct their artillery fire. The navy promptly dropped a 9.2 in. shell on it - a fine shot considering the range.
- - -
The Camel Corps were being beaten back by the Turks, now advancing steadily and in great force, and a third battery dashed up on our right to help repel them. For five hours the three batteries were firing as fast as the guns could be loaded. The crash of the Turkish shells bursting over our positions, the roar of the explosions as our guns were fired, and the rattle of machine-guns on our left combined to make an appalling din.
- - -
It was horrible, useless slaughter. When it was found that no headway could be made in the centre, the Lowlanders were ordered to cease their heroic attempts, which they did most unwillingly.
- - -
In reporting our second attempt on Gaza the newspapers, no doubt officially inspired, gave us half a dozen lines all to ourselves. One of them described it, I think, as a "minor engagement"; from another we learnt to our surprise that we had been "in touch" with the Turks. As our casualties for the day were officially estimated to be between seven thousand and eight thousand.
- - -
It soon became evident that we should make no more attempts on Gaza during the summer.
- - -
I believe a few men died after being stung by scorpions, certainly many were temporarily incapacitated with poisoned arms and legs.
- - -
Such rubbishy propaganda was from time to time circulated amongst those simple Anatolian peasants, whose sole desire was to return to the meagre farms from which they had been dragged by the heavy hand of war.
- - -
A frontal attack was out of the question. [...]
These defences were absolutely up-to-date in every respect. They were connected by telegraph and telephone.
- - -
At the end of June General Allenby arrived in Palestine to take over the duties of commander-in-chief. Shortly after his arrival there was a notable increase in the quantity and quality of our rations, and beer in barrels - yes, barrels - came up the line for the troops.
- - -
There were now English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh troops on various parts of the front; large numbers of Indian cavalry had also been added to the mounted divisions, and our artillery was at least equal, if not superior, to that of the Turks.
- - -
Now observe further the workings of the German mind. In one dug-out there was - of all books - a copy of Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, tattered and dog's-eared by constant use, and a torn piece of the Sporting Times!
- - -
Practically everything had to be done in the first two days after the capture of Beersheba in order to secure our precarious hold on that place; and with the lack of quick transport - for the country was too rough for motors, and camels are very slow - the shortage of rope and appliances, with, in fine, everything against them, the engineers in successfully accomplishing the feat added one more to their already imposing list of miracles.
Let there be no mistake about it; it was a miracle and one performed only by the most complete abnegation of self. Men who doubtless would have groused at home had they been asked to work for a couple of hours overtime at bank or office or works, here slaved for twenty-four hours at a stretch without bite or sup, and then after a short rest went on for another twenty-four.
- - -
At the other end of the ridge two more divisions were fighting towards a maze of wire, which was rapidly being uprooted by the accurate and devastating fire of our artillery. This was the heaviest bombardment of the battle; some of the Turkish trenches were simply swept out of existence, and the defenders irretrievably buried in the débris [...].
I cannot write of the attack as an eye-witness but, months afterwards, I saw the Turkish system of defences, and little imagination was needed to picture the terrible struggle it must have been to take them by storm.
- - -
The fall of Gaza gave us the key to the whole of the Maritime plain of Palestine.
- - -
Some idea of the amount of material used in a modern battle may be gathered from the fact that one of our cable-sections salved forty thousand pounds' worth of copper wire alone, all of which had been employed on the battlefield.
- - -
The scarcity of wood was a great difficulty. Every man in the team was strictly enjoined to "scrounge" any scrap of wood he could find en route.
- - -
Then the rain came. Roads, at best no more than a travesty of the name and already battered by Turkish transport, became quagmires of mud through which artillery-horses, weakened by thirst and meagre rations, could scarcely draw the guns. The transport, toiling along in the rear, had the utmost difficulty in bringing up supplies, and as for the men, they were unwashed, unshaven, and covered with mud from head to foot.
- - -
The Yeomanry again made a wonderful charge against a high hill, a few miles from Latron on the Jerusalem Road, strongly defended by the Turks. It is an unusual feat for cavalry even to attack a hill of considerable dimensions, but the Yeomanry not only did this but galloped to the top of it and killed or captured all the defenders. Yet at the beginning of the War there were people who said that the day of cavalry was over! The campaign in Egypt and Palestine was one long and continued refutation of this view.
On November 15th British troops occupied Lydda, or Ludd, as it was afterwards called, which town, according to legend, contains the tomb of our patron-saint St. George. With the capture of Jaffa the next day, the advance for the moment ended.
- - -
It is a melancholic and ironic fact that this land, hallowed by the gentle footsteps of the Prince of Peace, has seen more bloodshed than any country on the earth. There is scarcely a village from Dan even unto Beersheba which has not been the scene of desperate carnage at some time or other in its history; and around Jerusalem the hills and valleys have run with blood at any time these four thousand years.
- - -
The Mediterranean, as elsewhere, was alive with "U" boats in the summer and autumn of 1917. They levied a heavy toll on "troopers" and supply-ships coming out East, and the Navy in its work of guarding the coast of Palestine during the landing of supplies did not escape unscathed.
- - -
General Allenby's unassuming entry, on foot, into the Holy City and his assurance that every man might worship without let or hindrance according to the tenets of the religion in which he believed, whether Christian or Mussulman, profoundly impressed the inhabitants.
"Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days" (Book of Daniel, chap. XII, verse 12).
Jerusalem fell in the year 1335 of the Hegira, which is 1917 in the Christian Era.
- - -
The Turks had made the last of a series of costly but abortive counter-attacks to regain Jerusalem and were finally and for ever driven back.
- - -
A remarkable feature of the spring and summer was the gradual rise to power of the Royal Air Force, culminating in complete supremacy over the Turks immediately before and during the autumn campaign. [...] In August the R.A.F., in conjunction with the forces of the King of the Hedjaz, who were working their way northwards across the desert east of Amman, made an attack on the Hedjaz railway at Der'aa, at which place the line was completely demolished and all communication severed with the north.
- - -
Arriving at dawn they, too, found the town [of Nazareth] asleep, and clattered through the streets in search of Liman von Sanders. He was warned in the very nick of time, however.
- - -
The goat earned opprobrium and early demise by eating one of my notebooks, which contained a nominal roll of some two hundred camel-drivers; and as each native has at least four names - Abdul Achmed Mohammed Khalil is a fair example - the fact that we made several meals off the goat was not adequate compensation for the labour of re-writing the roll. The ass performed the duty to which he has been accustomed from time immemorial in the Holy Land: he carried the aged. [...] The second camel, being too young to carry a load, was killed, and gave me my first taste of camel-steak, which in flavour is not unlike veal.
- - -
Of the pariah dogs I dare not trust myself to say much. They would follow the convoy all day long, with the furtive air characteristic of those to whom life means nothing but a constant dodging of half-bricks violently hurled.
- - -
There was little evidence now of the destructive hand of war, except that no one was working in the orchards and vineries, and the inhabitants of the small native villages through which we passed mostly remained behind closed doors, with not even an inquisitive eye at the window.
Cæsarea seemed quite busy by contrast, when we arrived in the cool of evening.
- - -
I wonder how many people are aware of the extent to which the Germans carried their policy of "peaceful penetration" in Palestine and Syria? Whenever in our wanderings we came across a neat, modern town or village, be sure that the inhabitants were mainly German.
- - -
It was the Ladder of Tyre, the geographical barrier between Palestine and the Land of Canaan; and we had to climb over it somehow.
- - -
Later in the afternoon I noticed a beautiful little house standing in its own garden, and rode over to examine it more closely. One thing only I saw; the rest was blotted out. Nailed to his door was the body of the owner, and beneath lay the charred - yes, charred - remains of what had once been his legs. He had been crucified and burnt alive.
- - -
Sixty thousand people died of starvation in Beyrout during the War, out of a total population of one hundred and eighty thousand.
- - -
With the capture of Beyrout and Damascus hostilities had not ended, although the greater part of the Turkish Army had ceased to exist.
- - -
After the capture of Aleppo, Turkey, having no army left, threw up the sponge.
- - -
The weeks following the surrender of Turkey were occupied by the army in feeding the people, in reinstating them on the land, and in setting up a stable form of government in the country. [...] The head of the Greek Church in Homs offered his Cathedral to the Army for the thanksgiving service held after the signing of the general Armistice, and members of nearly every religious denomination were present at a most impressive ceremony.
- - -
It is reasonably certain that Palestine will need material help for some time, for Turkish maladministration, and the iniquitously heavy taxes imposed upon the people, have almost killed initiative.
- - -
Whether the Jews as a nation will ever settle in Palestine is a question the future alone will solve.
- - -
By dint of that curious mixture of patience and profanity characteristic of the British soldier when doing a difficult job, horses and guns were at length safely stowed away.
- - -
The urgent need in those days of the army in the East was aircraft; fast, modern machines, that is. There was a lamentable lack of anything that could go near the Fokker or Taube.
- - -
It was a Tank.
[They] were as a matter of fact a comparative failure in Palestine.
- - -
What the infantry would have done without the camels, one shudders to contemplate, for they were practically the only means of water-transport.
- - -
The cactus-hedges bordering the lanes afforded admirable protection from observation by enemy aircraft, some of which were hovering in the neighbourhood.
Dispatch-riders on motor-cycles threaded their way to the front in and out amongst the horses with amazing skill, the cavalry swung forward en route for the open country, staff officers galloped along the lanes, and in a few short moments the whole atmosphere had changed from pastoral peace to the tense excitement of military activity.
- - -
So great was the bustle that most of us fully expected that the first battle in the Holy Land was about to begin. [...]
All through the afternoon generals, colonels, and minor constellations charged past and disappeared.
- - -
With the exception of a parting round which burst near the field-ambulance on our left we had no further trouble in this direction. Subsequently we went forward without let or hindrance, except from enemy aircraft, whose bombs disturbed quite a quantity of earth.
Meanwhile on our left the infantry were heavily engaged. Their lot was not an enviable one. The natural defences of Gaza are immensely strong, and these were in addition strengthened by every conceivable human device.
- - -
It was, I think, about noon and intensely hot when the infantry began the attack. From our position on the flank it was, of course, impossible to see in detail what was going on, or much beyond the actual deployment of the troops. But the machine-gun fire, which during the morning had reached us in purring waves of sound, now increased to such awful intensity that the rattle became a roar incessant and deafening. From the moment the first waves started to advance across the open country they came under a devastating fire. They were bespattered with shrapnel from the guns, enfiladed on three sides by machine-guns whose fire swept them away in scores, rifle-pits spat death at them, and from the crowded trenches came a terrible volume of rifle-fire. It seemed impossible that any one could live to reach the slopes of Ali Muntar; yet these men from Wales and East Anglia went forward with a steadiness almost past belief, and ultimately, with ranks sadly thinned, did reach the foot of the hill. From this point they fought their way inch by inch and drove the desperately resisting Turks back through their cactus hedges and over each successive terrace until, late in the afternoon, the summit was won.
The cost was terrible: some battalions had lost three-quarters of their effectives, many had lost half, and all had suffered very heavily. True, a very large percentage of the casualties were lightly wounded in arms and legs; nevertheless, they were out of action and the battle was by no means won.
- - -
[...] they made a final burst and got away almost unscathed - they had less than half a dozen casualties - leaving some four hundred Turkish killed and wounded on the field and the remainder probably wondering, like the nigger when the meteorite hit him, "who frowed dat brick"!
- - -
The difficulties of maintaining a large army in this almost waterless region were enormous. The Turkish railhead was on their doorstep, as it were; ours was then twenty miles away at Rafa.
- - -
You cannot expect the enemy to play the game according to the Geneva Convention if you yourself fail to observe the rules.
- - -
Any old Bedouin, therefore, was a potential spy.
- - -
This of course was only on a very small portion of the front, and only affected the movements of our particular brigade, who were heavily engaged on their own account. On our left the advance was making little progress. The Turks had fortified every ridge to the last degree and refused to be dislodged from even the smallest positions, fighting on till every man was killed.
- - -
It was discovered that the Turks were using the big mosque in Gaza as an O.P. from which to direct their artillery fire. The navy promptly dropped a 9.2 in. shell on it - a fine shot considering the range.
- - -
The Camel Corps were being beaten back by the Turks, now advancing steadily and in great force, and a third battery dashed up on our right to help repel them. For five hours the three batteries were firing as fast as the guns could be loaded. The crash of the Turkish shells bursting over our positions, the roar of the explosions as our guns were fired, and the rattle of machine-guns on our left combined to make an appalling din.
- - -
It was horrible, useless slaughter. When it was found that no headway could be made in the centre, the Lowlanders were ordered to cease their heroic attempts, which they did most unwillingly.
- - -
In reporting our second attempt on Gaza the newspapers, no doubt officially inspired, gave us half a dozen lines all to ourselves. One of them described it, I think, as a "minor engagement"; from another we learnt to our surprise that we had been "in touch" with the Turks. As our casualties for the day were officially estimated to be between seven thousand and eight thousand.
- - -
It soon became evident that we should make no more attempts on Gaza during the summer.
- - -
I believe a few men died after being stung by scorpions, certainly many were temporarily incapacitated with poisoned arms and legs.
- - -
Such rubbishy propaganda was from time to time circulated amongst those simple Anatolian peasants, whose sole desire was to return to the meagre farms from which they had been dragged by the heavy hand of war.
- - -
A frontal attack was out of the question. [...]
These defences were absolutely up-to-date in every respect. They were connected by telegraph and telephone.
- - -
At the end of June General Allenby arrived in Palestine to take over the duties of commander-in-chief. Shortly after his arrival there was a notable increase in the quantity and quality of our rations, and beer in barrels - yes, barrels - came up the line for the troops.
- - -
There were now English, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh troops on various parts of the front; large numbers of Indian cavalry had also been added to the mounted divisions, and our artillery was at least equal, if not superior, to that of the Turks.
- - -
Now observe further the workings of the German mind. In one dug-out there was - of all books - a copy of Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, tattered and dog's-eared by constant use, and a torn piece of the Sporting Times!
- - -
Practically everything had to be done in the first two days after the capture of Beersheba in order to secure our precarious hold on that place; and with the lack of quick transport - for the country was too rough for motors, and camels are very slow - the shortage of rope and appliances, with, in fine, everything against them, the engineers in successfully accomplishing the feat added one more to their already imposing list of miracles.
Let there be no mistake about it; it was a miracle and one performed only by the most complete abnegation of self. Men who doubtless would have groused at home had they been asked to work for a couple of hours overtime at bank or office or works, here slaved for twenty-four hours at a stretch without bite or sup, and then after a short rest went on for another twenty-four.
- - -
At the other end of the ridge two more divisions were fighting towards a maze of wire, which was rapidly being uprooted by the accurate and devastating fire of our artillery. This was the heaviest bombardment of the battle; some of the Turkish trenches were simply swept out of existence, and the defenders irretrievably buried in the débris [...].
I cannot write of the attack as an eye-witness but, months afterwards, I saw the Turkish system of defences, and little imagination was needed to picture the terrible struggle it must have been to take them by storm.
- - -
The fall of Gaza gave us the key to the whole of the Maritime plain of Palestine.
- - -
Some idea of the amount of material used in a modern battle may be gathered from the fact that one of our cable-sections salved forty thousand pounds' worth of copper wire alone, all of which had been employed on the battlefield.
- - -
The scarcity of wood was a great difficulty. Every man in the team was strictly enjoined to "scrounge" any scrap of wood he could find en route.
- - -
Then the rain came. Roads, at best no more than a travesty of the name and already battered by Turkish transport, became quagmires of mud through which artillery-horses, weakened by thirst and meagre rations, could scarcely draw the guns. The transport, toiling along in the rear, had the utmost difficulty in bringing up supplies, and as for the men, they were unwashed, unshaven, and covered with mud from head to foot.
- - -
The Yeomanry again made a wonderful charge against a high hill, a few miles from Latron on the Jerusalem Road, strongly defended by the Turks. It is an unusual feat for cavalry even to attack a hill of considerable dimensions, but the Yeomanry not only did this but galloped to the top of it and killed or captured all the defenders. Yet at the beginning of the War there were people who said that the day of cavalry was over! The campaign in Egypt and Palestine was one long and continued refutation of this view.
On November 15th British troops occupied Lydda, or Ludd, as it was afterwards called, which town, according to legend, contains the tomb of our patron-saint St. George. With the capture of Jaffa the next day, the advance for the moment ended.
- - -
It is a melancholic and ironic fact that this land, hallowed by the gentle footsteps of the Prince of Peace, has seen more bloodshed than any country on the earth. There is scarcely a village from Dan even unto Beersheba which has not been the scene of desperate carnage at some time or other in its history; and around Jerusalem the hills and valleys have run with blood at any time these four thousand years.
- - -
The Mediterranean, as elsewhere, was alive with "U" boats in the summer and autumn of 1917. They levied a heavy toll on "troopers" and supply-ships coming out East, and the Navy in its work of guarding the coast of Palestine during the landing of supplies did not escape unscathed.
- - -
General Allenby's unassuming entry, on foot, into the Holy City and his assurance that every man might worship without let or hindrance according to the tenets of the religion in which he believed, whether Christian or Mussulman, profoundly impressed the inhabitants.
"Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days" (Book of Daniel, chap. XII, verse 12).
Jerusalem fell in the year 1335 of the Hegira, which is 1917 in the Christian Era.
- - -
The Turks had made the last of a series of costly but abortive counter-attacks to regain Jerusalem and were finally and for ever driven back.
- - -
A remarkable feature of the spring and summer was the gradual rise to power of the Royal Air Force, culminating in complete supremacy over the Turks immediately before and during the autumn campaign. [...] In August the R.A.F., in conjunction with the forces of the King of the Hedjaz, who were working their way northwards across the desert east of Amman, made an attack on the Hedjaz railway at Der'aa, at which place the line was completely demolished and all communication severed with the north.
- - -
Arriving at dawn they, too, found the town [of Nazareth] asleep, and clattered through the streets in search of Liman von Sanders. He was warned in the very nick of time, however.
- - -
The goat earned opprobrium and early demise by eating one of my notebooks, which contained a nominal roll of some two hundred camel-drivers; and as each native has at least four names - Abdul Achmed Mohammed Khalil is a fair example - the fact that we made several meals off the goat was not adequate compensation for the labour of re-writing the roll. The ass performed the duty to which he has been accustomed from time immemorial in the Holy Land: he carried the aged. [...] The second camel, being too young to carry a load, was killed, and gave me my first taste of camel-steak, which in flavour is not unlike veal.
- - -
Of the pariah dogs I dare not trust myself to say much. They would follow the convoy all day long, with the furtive air characteristic of those to whom life means nothing but a constant dodging of half-bricks violently hurled.
- - -
There was little evidence now of the destructive hand of war, except that no one was working in the orchards and vineries, and the inhabitants of the small native villages through which we passed mostly remained behind closed doors, with not even an inquisitive eye at the window.
Cæsarea seemed quite busy by contrast, when we arrived in the cool of evening.
- - -
I wonder how many people are aware of the extent to which the Germans carried their policy of "peaceful penetration" in Palestine and Syria? Whenever in our wanderings we came across a neat, modern town or village, be sure that the inhabitants were mainly German.
- - -
It was the Ladder of Tyre, the geographical barrier between Palestine and the Land of Canaan; and we had to climb over it somehow.
- - -
Later in the afternoon I noticed a beautiful little house standing in its own garden, and rode over to examine it more closely. One thing only I saw; the rest was blotted out. Nailed to his door was the body of the owner, and beneath lay the charred - yes, charred - remains of what had once been his legs. He had been crucified and burnt alive.
- - -
Sixty thousand people died of starvation in Beyrout during the War, out of a total population of one hundred and eighty thousand.
- - -
With the capture of Beyrout and Damascus hostilities had not ended, although the greater part of the Turkish Army had ceased to exist.
- - -
After the capture of Aleppo, Turkey, having no army left, threw up the sponge.
- - -
The weeks following the surrender of Turkey were occupied by the army in feeding the people, in reinstating them on the land, and in setting up a stable form of government in the country. [...] The head of the Greek Church in Homs offered his Cathedral to the Army for the thanksgiving service held after the signing of the general Armistice, and members of nearly every religious denomination were present at a most impressive ceremony.
- - -
It is reasonably certain that Palestine will need material help for some time, for Turkish maladministration, and the iniquitously heavy taxes imposed upon the people, have almost killed initiative.
- - -
Whether the Jews as a nation will ever settle in Palestine is a question the future alone will solve.
