At two o'clock on the afternoon of the 29th, the Australian Mounted Division started on the last lap of the race to Damascus. The 5th Cavalry Division followed a few miles in rear of the Australians. The distance to be covered was about forty miles, and it was hoped that, if the two divisions marched all night, they would be able to surround the city soon after dawn on the 30th.
It was arranged that the Australian Mounted Division should send two brigades along the foot of the hills west of Damascus, to close the two roads leading north-west to Beir?t, and north-east to Homs. The 5th Division was to send one brigade round the east side of the city, to gain touch with the Australians on the Homs road, and place the remainder of the division astride the Deraa-Damascus road, at or near Kiswe, to receive the remnants of the Turkish IVth Army, which was to be driven into their welcoming arms by the 4th Division.
It must be explained that the only available maps were very inaccurate and greatly lacking in detail. Thus, there was no indication that the steep and rocky hills, which press right on to Damascus on the west, were almost impassable for cavalry; or that the Beir?t road runs along the bottom of a deep, precipitous gorge, into which it was impossible for cavalry to descend; or that, to reach the Homs road, it would be necessary to pass through the[Pg 267] western suburbs of the city, always a difficult and dangerous operation in a hostile country, and doubly so for mounted troops.
For political reasons, strict orders had been given that no British troops were to enter Damascus, and these orders considerably hampered our subsequent operations, and made our task more difficult.
In the end, however, it was the action of the enemy that was the chief cause of our delay. A couple of armoured cars went ahead of the Australian Division to reconnoitre, and returned, shortly after the division had started, with the information that the enemy was holding a position astride the road, near the village of Sasa, a little north of the Nahr Mughaniye. The cars had drawn a considerable fire from guns and machine guns. Patrols of the 3rd A.L.H. Brigade crossed the river just before dark, and had located the enemy's position fairly accurately by the time the rest of the brigade arrived. The position had been well sited by the enemy, on a rocky ridge running about east and west. An impassable morass of unknown extent protected his right flank, north of the road, and the country to the south was a wilderness of broken lava boulders, most difficult even for infantry and in the daylight.
The 8th and 9th A.L.H. Regiments dismounted, and advanced in pitch darkness against the presumed position of the enemy's left flank. The going was so bad that it was nearly two in the morning before they got to grips with the Turks. There was a half-hour's very confused bayonet fighting among the rocks in the darkness, during which it was almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe. The Turks then broke, most of them making for the road. A pre-arranged signal of Verey lights, sent up by the attackers, apprised the division of this, and, immedi[Pg 268]ately it was seen, a squadron of the 10th A.L.H. Regiment, which had been held in readiness, galloped straight down the road in the dark, to get ahead of the retreating Turks and cut them off. It very nearly came to grief over one of the enemy guns which had been abandoned on the road, but fortunately the leading horses saw it, and swerved aside just in time. The squadron was followed, at a more sober pace, by the 4th and 12th Regiments of the 4th Brigade, which now took the lead.
About 100 prisoners, three guns, and a number of machine guns were captured on the position, and, after daylight, about 250 more stragglers were gathered in, including a party of 150 Germans, who had retired before the 10th Regiment charged down the road. Our casualties had been rather heavy for so small an affair, and, by some strange chance, the Turks captured and carried off with them in their retreat eight of our men. These we came upon and rescued near the village of Sasa, shortly after daybreak.
The net result of this action was that, instead of being on the outskirts of Damascus at dawn on the 30th, our troops were still nearly twenty miles away.
Pressing on as fast as possible, the division reached Kaukab about ten o'clock, and here encountered the enemy again. At some time or other the Turks had constructed a long line of entrenchments stretching from near Katana (north of the El Kuneitra road) across the road at Kaukab, along the high ridge of the Jebel el Aswad, over the Deraa road north of Kiswe, and thence over the Jebel el Mania to near Deir Ali. It was the western portion of this line, astride the El Kuneitra road, that they were now holding. The position looked strong, and, had the Turks put up a determined fight here, they might have saved many of their friends in Damascus, to[Pg 269] say nothing of their masters the Germans, from capture.
'A' Battery H.A.C. and the Notts Battery R.H.A., which were marching near the head of the advance guard, came into action at once, and opened a rapid and effective fire on the enemy position. After a few minutes' bombardment, the 4th A.L.H. Regiment was launched at the village of Kaukab, and the 12th at a spur of the Jebel el Aswad, against the enemy's left flank. The going here was good, and the cavalry were able to gallop right on to the position, which they proceeded to do, covered by the fire of the guns. The combination of gun fire and charging cavalry was too much for the shattered nerves of the Turks, who broke and fled, pursued by the Australians. The whole force was killed or captured.
The 5th Brigade now took the lead, and rode hard up the road towards Damascus, followed by the 3rd Brigade, which had rejoined from Sasa just after the action. The leading troops came under fire from the houses and gardens of the suburb of El Mezze. The Notts Battery came into action, and shelled the enemy satisfactorily, while the 5th Brigade plunged into the maze of hills north of the road, and made for the Beir?t road. Seeing their right threatened, the Turks retired into the town, and the 3rd Brigade was free to move on. Patrols from this brigade then found that it was impossible to reach the Homs road, except by going right through the town, as the river Barada, running between rock cliffs, barred their path farther west. As the orders against entering the town were peremptory, there was nothing to be done but send back word of the state of affairs, and wait for permission to advance. This permission was not received till late at night, when it was impossible for the brigade to make its way[Pg 270] through the narrow, tortuous streets of the town, which was still full of enemy troops.
Meanwhile the 5th Brigade was encountering great difficulties in the bare, rocky hills west and north of El Mezze, but the advanced troops reached the gorge of the Barada, above El Rabue, about five in the evening. Here they found themselves on the top of a cliff about 200 feet high, overhanging the road and railway to Beir?t, and looked down upon an extraordinary sight. The whole of the bottom of the gorge, from side to side, was packed with a struggling mass of fugitives, on horse and afoot, in motors, cabs and carts, surging along like a tidal wave. There was a train on the line, packed with Germans, but it was completely blocked by the mass of people who struggled and fought along the railway, and the engine driver had long since been submerged in the tide of frenzied Turks. Even the river was full of men and horses.
There was no possible way of getting down on to the road from the top of the cliffs, but the fugitives had to be stopped somehow. A few machine guns were brought into action, and ordered to open fire on the head of the column below. General Onslow, who commanded the brigade, told the writer afterwards that he had never given an order with greater reluctance and horror. With a view to minimising the inevitable slaughter, he instructed his machine gunners to concentrate their fire as much as possible on the vehicles at the head of the column, in order to disable them and so block the road. When the firing commenced, the Turks in front tried to turn back towards the city, but the pressure behind them was so great that they were constantly pushed along into the zone of the bullets. At last, however, the growing pile of corpses and broken vehicles at the[Pg 271] head of the column completely blocked the gorge, and the Turks realised that their escape was barred. They turned and streamed miserably back towards the city. Part of the crowd was intercepted by troops of the 3rd Brigade, who took about 5000 prisoners. The rest reached the city, and were collected next day. How many perished in the defile will never be known, but it took a large force of German prisoners ten days to dispose of the bodies. It was fitting that they, who by their insane ambition had brought the Turks to this sorry end, should have had the task of burying the victims of their lust for power.
artilley
Royal Horse Artillery fording the Jordan at Jisr Benat Yakub.
road
The Beir?t road in the gorge of the River Barada. 1st October, 1918.
Before dark, the 5th Brigade got a small party down on to the road, and picketed it during the night.
While the Australian Mounted Division had been pushing round west of Damascus, the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions had been slowly closing in on the city. The former had pursued the retreating IVth Army relentlessly all through the 29th of September, and, on the morning of the 30th, the 11th Brigade, which was acting as advance guard, reached El Ghabaghib Station, on the old French railway from Damascus to Mezerib, about thirty miles south of Damascus.
The main body of the enemy, which had been marching hard all night, was now some distance ahead of the division, but its retreat was constantly harassed by Lawrence's Arabs, who made repeated raids on the right flank of the Turks, and had by now reduced them to a state of extreme disorganisation. It must be remembered that the 4th Cavalry Division had about thirty miles farther to go before reaching Damascus than the other two divisions. Moreover, although there had been no opposition[Pg 272] from the enemy after the action at El Remte, the division had been much delayed by the bad road from Deraa to Damascus, across the southern Hauran. The whole of this area is overlaid with the débris of extinct volcanoes, mostly in the form of huge boulders of black basalt, which everywhere cover the ground. Much time was spent in clearing away these boulders, to make a passage for the guns and transport of the division. The whole country from Deraa to Damascus was strewn with the bodies of Turks that had died from exhaustion. Dead horses, broken-down vehicles, and abandoned guns were scattered everywhere. It was estimated that 2000 enemy dead were passed on the march, and many more than that number of dead animals. The hot sun, beating down on the black rocks, burnt like the blast from a furnace, and the heavy air, poisoned by the unburied corpses of men and beasts, hung like a pall over the land. There is little water to be found in the Hauran in summer, and less food, and not a single tree and scarce a human habitation soften the desolation of this horrible region.
The 5th Cavalry Division reached Sasa at about eight on the morning of the 30th, and there received a message from an aeroplane that a large body of the enemy, which was, in fact, the leading portion of the IVth Army, was approaching Kiswe, along the Deraa-Damascus road. The 13th Brigade, followed by the 14th, was at once despatched to try and intercept this force. Before they moved off, General MacAndrew[26] issued the following characteristic order to his brigades: 'Push on! Kill or capture all you can, and seize Damascus.'
This day marked the end of the Turkish IVth[Pg 273] Army, but, as it split up into a number of detached groups, which were attacked throughout the day by brigades, regiments, and even single squadrons of the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions, it is impossible to give any very concise account of its destruction. It is clear, however, that, on the morning of the 30th, the army was marching in two main bodies. The leading portion, that which had been seen and reported by our aircraft, consisted of the remains of the Turkish 3rd Cavalry Division, with such of the infantry as had been able to keep up with the mounted troops. The following portion, evidently much more disorganised, was marching some eight to ten miles in rear.
The 13th Brigade, moving along the south bank of the Wadi el Zabirani, encountered some opposition on the ridge of the Jebel el Aswad, north of Deir Khabiye, from enemy troops occupying a portion of the entrenched position that has been mentioned above. By mid-day, however, the brigade had succeeded in dispersing the enemy, taking some 700 prisoners. Meanwhile the 14th Brigade had got astride the Deraa-Damascus road, north of Kiswe. It was just in time to intercept the leading portion of the Turkish force, the advanced elements of which had cleared Kiswe, and were hurrying up the road over the Jebel el Aswad towards Damascus.
In the somewhat confused fighting which followed the encounter, the greater part of what was left of the Turkish 3rd Cavalry Division, including the divisional commander and hi............