on
this section of the front, and in a number of patrol encounters the
resource of the Australian Light Horse added to their bag of prisoners
and to the Army's store of information. Nothing further of importance
occurred in this neighbourhood until we seized the crossings of the
Auja and the high ground north of the river a week before the end of
the year.

CHAPTER XIV

THE DELIVERANCE OF THE HOLY CITY

The impossibility of getting across the road north of Jerusalem by
making a wide sweep over the Judean hills caused a new plan to be put
into execution. This necessitated a direct attack on the well-prepared
system of defences on the hills protecting Jerusalem from the west,
but it did not entail any weakening of General Allenby's determination
that there should be no fighting by British troops in and about the
precincts of the Holy City. That resolve was unshaken and unshakable.
When a new scheme was prepared by the XXth Corps, the question was put
whether the Turks could be attacked at Lifta, which was part of their
system. Now Lifta is a native village on one of the hill-faces to the
west of Jerusalem, about a mile from the Holy City's walls, and, as
it is not even connected by a road with any of the various colonies
forming the suburbs of Jerusalem, could not by any stretch of
imagination be described by a Hun propaganda merchant as part
of Jerusalem. I happen to know that on the 26th November the
Commander-in-Chief sent this communication to General Chetwode: 'I
place no restriction upon you in respect of any operation which you
may consider necessary against Lifta or the enemy's lines to the south
of it, except that on no account is any risk to be run of bringing
the City of Jerusalem or its immediate environs within the area of
operations.' The spirit as well as the letter of that order was
carried out, and in the very full orders and notes on the operations
issued before the victorious attack was made, there is the most
elaborate detail regarding the different objectives of divisions and
brigades, and scrupulous care was taken that no advance should be made
against any resisting enemy within the boundaries not only of the
Holy City but of the suburbs. We shall see how thoroughly these
instructions were followed.

When it became obvious that Jerusalem could not be secured without the
adoption of a deliberate method of attack, there were many matters
requiring the anxious consideration of the XXth Corps