The Australians took 350 prisoners in Amman, and the New Zealanders another good bag as the Turks attempted to escape to the north. But the chief, and by far the most amusing, exploit of the Anzacs’ campaign, fell to the 2nd Light Horse Brigade under General Ryrie, at Ziza, about twenty miles to the south. News came through that a large Turkish force, which had been far to the south on the Hedjaz railway at Maan, was in an entrenched position at Ziza, and a regiment of Queenslanders rode down to spy out the land and, if possible, to smash them. The C.O. reported that he was in touch with 5000 Turks, who wished to capitulate, but they would not lay down their arms until they were sure that a great force of hostile Arabs, by whom they were surrounded, would be kept away from them. So the Colonel of the Queenslanders suggested that the whole Brigade should hurry down to assure the Turks of their safety. General Ryrie at once decided to go, and the twenty miles were covered in less than three hours.
ARABS AND TURKS
The Brigade arrived shortly before dark, and an extraordinary situation was discovered. The Turks were in a strongly defended position around the village. They were made up, in the main, of Anatolians, regulars and the cream of the Ottoman army. Moreover, they were well armed and capable of a good fight. Our Brigade was not complete and was outnumbered by about ten to one. The Turkish commander rode out to meet the Australian Brigadier. “I will surrender,” he said, “if you will protect us against the Arabs.” “Certainly,” said the Brigadier. “The Arabs are our allies; if you surrender, you have nothing to fear.” But the Turkish leader would not be convinced, and he demanded that the Australian force should be greatly increased before his men gave up their arms. Otherwise, he would be pleased to fight. General Ryrie was anxious to complete the surrender and save casualties, and the Australians and Turks spent the night together in arms around the same camp fires!
Next morning, the Turks laid down their arms and marched as prisoners to Amman. The incident was an interesting sidelight on the feeling of the Turk towards the Arabs, whom he has so long governed. But it is a highly significant fact that, in the long campaign, the Arabs took 17,000 Turkish prisoners, and the Turks not a single Arab. To the Arab, the Turk has been an enemy in arms. To the Turk, the Arab has been a rebel, and deserving of a rebel’s fate.
Ziza practically finished the Anzacs’ brilliant little campaign. In all, some 11,000 prisoners were taken. The total battle casualties for the Division did not exceed a few score.
The writer of this sketch has been obliged to keep severely to the work of the Force as a whole, and has recorded little or nothing of the great achievements of the many technical services, lacking which the victorious progress of the Light Horsemen would have been impossible. The performances of the Australian No. 1 Flying Corps Squadron, the first Commonwealth Flying Squadron engaged in the war, deserve a volume to themselves. Recruited chiefly from the Light Horse Regiments, both pilots and observers excelled in resource and daring, and in their golden chivalry to their foes, and in their many fine rescues of fallen comrades far behind the enemy lines, shone the spirit of Saladin and King Richard. They were the modern Knights of Palestine.
ANZAC RIDGE, GAZABy Lieut. G. W. Lambert
ANZAC RIDGE, GAZABy Lieut. G. W. Lambert
ANZAC RIDGE, GAZABy Lieut. G. W. Lambert
Then there were the Engineers (no attempt is made to place these services in order of merit—a hopeless task), who found us water at will, as with a magician’s wand, beneath the blistering sands of Sinai; who bridged the Jordan under heavy fire for the crossing to Moab, and who, so often, blew enemy railroads, bridges and viaducts heavenward. Working over every kind of country from the desert to the mountains, they won through because of their indomitable spirit, and their boundless gift for improvization.
In the whole war there has not been a campaign which depended so much for its success upon the native wit of the individual. Conditions changed with dramatic suddenness from battle to battle. What served to-day, was useless to-morrow. As an example of this, take the superb work of our Medical Services. The Medical Officer was, all the way, a man of many inventions. In the desert the wounded were habitually carried on sledges made of sheets of galvanized iron, and, later, upon an improvement of this device; as the campaign progressed, they were borne on camels; and once, at least, in the mountains east of Jordan, they were carried lying flat on rough beds made of greatcoats on the backs of horses; and as the road improved, they were carried in two-wheeled sand-carts, in ordinary G.S. wagons and every kind of motor. The Light Horse galloped, and those who would serve them must gallop too. The almost miraculous rapidity and efficiency with which the Medical Units would establish their various stations and communications, at the very heels of a fight, distant perhaps a hundred swiftly-covered miles from railhead, made them worthy peers of the sparkling horsemen. And, thanks to the establishment of the mobile operating theatre—a veritable galloping machine, like the rest of the force—under a gifted surgeon, it was possible for the most intricate skull and abdominal operations to be carried out at the edge of the zone of fire. All honour to our doctors and their devoted staffs! And especially dear in the memory of Light Horsemen will always be the mounted stretcher-bearers. No wounded man was beyond their gallant reach.
Of the Light Horseman’s debt to the Nursing Sisters this narrative will not dare an estimate. As long as memory lasts, every officer and man will think with deep gratitude of the sustained, self-sacrificing devotion of these noble Australian women. Fighting in this alien and uncivilized land, thousands of young Australians for years never spoke to a British woman,except when in hospital. What the ever-ready sympathy and helpful friendship of the Sisters meant to them only these lonely soldiers could tell.
The supreme masters of improvization were the officers and men who handled the supplies. Not only the Australians, but the whole of the Imperial Cavalry—the greatest mounted force in the war under a single command—led by General Chauvel, depended for their rations upon the distinguished ability of the Queensland Colonel who was responsible for the direction of the supply and transport for mounted corps in the Desert. A cavalry force requires about four times the quantity of supplies which suffices for infantry, and, on occasions, it travels four times as fast. During the ride to Damascus, the horsemen, more than once, covered sixty miles in twenty-four hours; and on the whole advance, no man or horse went short of a mobile ration. British railways, captured Turkish railways and rolling-stock, motor-lorries, four-wheeled G.S. wagons, two-wheeled limbers (their off-side horses carrying pack-saddles, so that, if the vehicle failed, the load could be transferred), camels in tens of thousands, countless mules and donkeys—the interminable, sleepless procession on the roads during General Chauvel’s final triumph was a fitting culmination to the great transport record from the Canal onward.
Of our Australian machine gunners and signallers, and of the model Veterinary Service, which cared for our sick and wounded walers as promptly and faithfully as the Medical people cared for the men, and of the British batteries of Horse Artillery, which unfailingly advanced to extreme limits with their guns and shot so unerringly (never was man so welcome as a galloping gunner in a sticky dismounted fight)—of all these, it is enough to say that without them Palestine could not be ours to-day.
The fighting ceased for the Australians early in October, with the capture of Damascus and Amman, though No. 1 Australian Light Car Patrol (Captain James), accompanying the 5th Cavalry Division, took a prominent part in the capture of Aleppo, and in the pursuit of the Turko-German forces north of that city. The final campaign yielded prodigious results at a trifling cost in battle casualties. Of the 75,000 prisoners made by General Allenby’s Army, more than 40,000 were taken by the Australian and Anzac Mounted Divisions. The losses in killed and wounded, in the two Divisions, were nominal. Unfortunately, however, theForce then suffered the worst spell of sickness it had known since leaving Australia. The terrible ordeal of Jordan Valley during the summer took its suspended toll. Malaria ran like wildfire through the regiments, and there was also much acute influenza with pneumonia following, sandfly fever, and other more or less serious diseases peculiar to the Holy Land. Many brave men, who had survived four years of hard fighting and extremely rough living, lost their lives by sickness in the moment of victory.
The Australian Mounted Division was pushing on from Damascus towards the country north of Aleppo, and the armistice was signed as they reached Homs, which marked the northern limit attained by the Light Horsemen.
To-day, the force asks only one question: “Who goes Home—and when?”
H. S. Gullett.
Palestine, December, 1918.
Palestine, December, 1918.
Palestine, December, 1918.
Palestine, December, 1918.
Palestine, December, 1918.