ve or six miles north of Beersheba. The other advance was
not so fortunate; something went wrong with the supplies both of water
and ammunition, and strong opposition was encountered. Also, it was
impossible country to campaign in; practically roadless, and very much
broken up with wadis and rocky precipices, which made it most
difficult to maintain communications, even though a mounted brigade
was thrown in to help.

The situation up here was much the same next day. No great progress
had been made, nor were good communications established, but they had
managed to get through both water and ammunition. Other divisions
were, however, kept on the move. The 74th were moved up to take over
some line from the left of the 53rd, the 60th were concentrated some
three miles N.W. of Beersheba, and one brigade of the 10th was moved
to Irgeig. This was an anxious day, as the 53rd seemed to be quite
held up at Kuweilfeh and not too well provided with supplies, and
there was considerable doubt, in view of the general scarcity of
water, whether it would be possible to carry on the campaign, which
involved rolling up the Sheria and Kuwauka defences from the east.

Our Intelligence Department had for the moment "lost" a Turkish
division, which complicated the situation very much as, if it were
suddenly to appear on the right flank of our attack on Sheria, a most
serious situation would be created. However, on the afternoon of the
5th, word was received from the 53rd Division that they had captured
prisoners from numerous different battalions, some of which were known
to belong to the missing division. This settled the question, as it
was quite clear that the 53rd were keeping them too busy at Kuweilfeh
for them to be able to send any serious force to Sheria. The "lost"
division it seems was one which had been sent to reinforce the forces
defending Beersheba, but by the time it got to Sheria the Beersheba
defences were taken, and it was obviously no use going there. It was
accordingly then sent to Kuweilfeh in anticipation of an attempt by
us to turn their extreme left flank.

On the afternoon of the 5th orders were rapidly issued for the attack
next day on the Sheria defences and the Kuwauka system.

As most of the troops destined for the Sheria attack were at this time
in the outpost line, this meant a concentration and deployment by
night in an unknown country where map reading was very difficult
indeed, and it was most creditable