sign of going away for a couple of
days, but if he thought his demonstration by artillery was going to
hasten back to Gaza some of the troops assembling against the left of
his main line he was grievously in error. The XXIst Corps was strong
enough to deal with any attack the Turks could launch, and they would
have been pleased if an attempt to reach our lines had been made.

Next day the Turks were much quieter. They had to sit under a terrific
fire both on the 5th and 6th November, when in order to assist
XXth Corps' operations the Corps' heavy artillery, the divisional
artillery, and the warships' guns carried out an intense bombardment.
The land guns searched the Turks' front line and reserve systems,
while the Navy fired on Fryer's Hill to the north of Ali Muntar,
Sheikh Redwan, a sandhill with a native chief's tomb on the crest,
north of Gaza, and on trenches not easily reached by the Corps' guns.

During the night of November 6-7 General Palin's 75th Division, as
a preliminary to a major operation timed for the following morning,
attacked and gained the enemy's trenches on Outpost Hill and the
whole of Middlesex Hill to the north of it, the opposition being less
serious than was anticipated. At daylight the 75th Division pushed on
over the other hills towards Ali Muntar and gained that dominating
position before eight o'clock. The fighting had not been severe,
and it was soon realised that the enemy had left Gaza, abandoning a
stronghold which had been prepared for defence with all the ingenuity
German masters of war could suggest and into which had been worked an
enormous amount of material. It was obvious from the complete success
of XXth Corps' operations against the Turkish left, which had been
worked out absolutely 'according to plan,' that General Allenby had so
thoroughly mystified von Kressenstein that the latter had put all
his reserves into the wrong spot, and that the 53rd Division's stout
resistance against superior numbers had pinned them down to the wrong
end of the line. There was nothing, therefore, for the Turk to do but
to try to hold another position, and he was straining every nerve to
reach it. The East Anglian Division went up west of Gaza and held from
Sheikh Redwan to the sea by seven o'clock, two squadrons of the Corps'
cavalry rode along the seashore and had patrols on the wadi Hesi a
little earlier than that, and the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade,
composed of troops raised and main