astride the main road, was absolutely
unbreakable, and at Tel el Ful there lay a dead Turk for every yard
of its front. The enemy drew off, but to save the remnants of his
storming troops kept our positions from near Ras et Tawil, Tel el Ful
to the wadi Beit Hannina under heavy gunfire for the rest of the day.
The Turk was hopelessly beaten, his defeat irretrievable. He had
delivered thirteen costly attacks, and his sole gains were the exposed
outpost positions at the Tawil and the quarries. All his reserves had
been vigorously engaged, while at two o'clock in the afternoon General
Chetwode had in reserve nineteen battalions less one company still
unused, and the care exercised in keeping this large body of troops
fresh for following up the Turkish defeat undoubtedly contributed
to the great success of the advances on the next three days.
Simultaneously with their attack on the 60th Division positions the
Turks put in a weighty effort to oust the 53rd Division from the
positions they held north and south of the Jericho road. Whether in
their wildest dreams they imagined they could enter Jerusalem by this
route is doubtful, but if they had succeeded in driving in our line on
the north they would have put the 53rd Division in a perilous position
on the east with only one avenue of escape. The Turks concentrated
their efforts on Whitehill and Zamby. A great fight raged round the
former height and we were driven off it, but the divisional artillery
so sprinkled the crest with shell that the Turk could not occupy it,
and it became No Man's Land until the early evening when the 7th Royal
Welsh Fusiliers recaptured and held it. The contest for Zamby lasted
all day, and for a long time it was a battle of bombs and machine
guns, so closely together were the fighting men, but the Turks never
got up to our sangars and were finally driven off with heavy loss,
over 100 dead being left on the hill. The Turkish ambulances were seen
hard at work on the Jericho road throughout the day. There was a stout
defence of a detached post at Ibn Obeid. A company of the 2/10th
Middlesex Regiment had been sent on to Obeid, about five miles east
of Bethlehem, to watch for the enemy moving about the rough tracks
in that bare and broken country which falls away in jagged hills and
sinuous valleys to the Dead Sea. The little garrison, whose sole
shelter was a ruined monastic building on the hill, were attacked at
dawn by 700 Turkish cavalry supported b