staff. They took
over from XXIst Corps at a time when the enemy was still very active
against the line which they had gained under very hard conditions. The
XXth Corps, beginning with the advantage of positions which the XXIst
Corps had won, had to prepare to meet the enemy with equal gun power
and more than equality in rifle strength. We had the men and the
guns in the country, but to get them into the line and to keep
them supplied was a problem of considerable magnitude. Time was an
important factor. The rains had begun. The spells of fine weather were
getting shorter, and after each period of rain the sodden state of the
country affected all movement. To bring up supplies we could only rely
on road traffic from Gaza and Deir Sineid, and the light soil had
become hopelessly cut up during the rains. The main line of railway
was not to be opened to Mejdel till December 8, and the captured
Turkish line between Deir Sineid and Junction Station had a maximum
capacity of one hundred tons of ordnance stores a day, and these had
to be moved forward again by road. An advance must slow down while
communications were improved. The XXth Corps inherited from the XXIst
Corps the track between Beit Likia and Biddu which had been prepared
with an infinity of trouble and exertion, but this and the main
Latron-Jerusalem road were the only highways available.

General Chetwode's Corps relieved General Bulfin's Corps during
the day of November 28, and viewed in the most favourable light it
appeared that there must be at least one week's work on the roads
before it would be possible for heavy and field batteries, in
sufficient strength to support an attack, to be got into the
mountains. A new road was begun between Latron and Beit Likia, and
another from Enab to Kubeibeh, and these, even in a rough state of
completion, eased the situation very considerably. An enormous amount
of labour was devoted to the main road. The surface was in bad order
and was getting worse every hour with the passage of lorry traffic. It
became full of holes, and the available metal in the neighbourhood
was a friable limestone which, under heavy pressure during rains, was
ground into the consistency of a thick cream. Pioneer battalions were
reinforced by large parties of Egyptian labour corps, and these worked
ceaselessly, clearing off top layers of mud, carrying stones down from
the hills and breaking them, putting on a new surface and repairing
the decayed w