s dues
imposed by the Turks during the war discontinued, the people resumed
the arts of peace and enjoyed a degree of prosperity none of them had
ever anticipated. What the future government of Palestine may be is
uncertain at the time of writing. There is talk of international
control--we seem ever ready to lose at the conference table what a
valiant sword has gained for us--but the careful and perfectly correct
administration of General Allenby will save us from the criticism of
many jealous foreigners. Certainly it will bear examination by any
impartial investigator, but the best of all tributes that could be
paid to it is that it satisfied religious communities which did not
live in perfect harmony with one another and the inhabitants of a
country which shelters the people of many different races.

The Yilderim undertaking, as the Bagdad scheme was described, did not
meet with the full acceptance of the Turks. The 'mighty Jemal', as the
Germans sneeringly called the Commander of the Syrian Army, opposed it
as weakening his prospects, and even Enver, the ambitious creature and
tool of Germany, postponed his approval. It would seem the taking over
of the command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force by General Allenby
set the Turks thinking, and made the German Military Mission in
Constantinople reconsider their plans, not with a view to a complete
abandonment of the proposal to advance on Bagdad, as would have been
wise, but in order to see how few of the Yilderim troops they could
allot to Jemal's army to make safe the Sinai front. There was an
all-important meeting of Turkish Generals in the latter half of
August, and Jemal stood to his guns. Von Falkenhayn could not get
him to abate one item of his demands, and there can be no doubt that
Falkenhayn, obsessed though he was with the importance of getting
Bagdad, could see that Jemal was right. He admitted that the Yilderim
operation was only practicable if it had freedom for retirement
through the removal of the danger on the Palestine front. With that
end in view he advocated that the British should be attacked, and
suggested that two divisions and the 'Asia Corps' should be sent from
Aleppo to move round our right. Jemal was in favour of defensive
action; Enver procrastinated and proposed sending one division to
strengthen the IVth Army on the Gaza front and to proceed with the
Bagdad preparations. The wait-and-see policy prevailed, but long
before we exerted our f