decided that the moment the enemy was found to be fully committed to this attack the 10th Division and one brigade of the 74th Division would fall on the enemy’s right and advance over the Zeitun, Kereina, and Ibzia ridges.  How well this plan worked out was shown before the beginning of the New Year, by which time we had secured a great depth of ground at a cost infinitely smaller than could have been expected if the Turks had remained on the defensive, while the Turkish losses, at a moment when they required to preserve every fighting man, were much greater than we could have hoped to inflict if they had not come into the open.  There was never a fear that the enemy would break through.  We had commanding positions everywhere, and the more one studied our line on the chain of far-flung hills the more clearly one realised the prevision and military skill of General Chetwode and the staff of the XXth Corps in preparing the plans for its capture before the advance on Jerusalem was started.  The ‘fourth objective’ of December 8-9 well and truly laid the foundations for Jerusalem’s security, and relieved the inhabitants from the accumulated burdens of more than three years of war.  We had nibbled at pieces of ground to flatten out the line here and there, but in the main the line the Turks assaulted was that fourth objective.  The Turks put all their hopes on their last card.  It was trumped; and when we had won the trick there was not a soldier in General Allenby’s Army nor a civilian in the Holy City who had not a profound belief in the coming downfall of the Turkish Empire.

Troops in the line and in bivouac spent the most cheerless Christmas Day within their memories.  Not only in the storm-swept hills but on the Plain the day was bitterly cold, and the gale carried with it heavy rain clouds which passed over the tops of mountains and rolled up the valleys in ceaseless succession, discharging hail and rain in copious quantities.  The wadis became roaring, tearing torrents fed by hundreds of tributaries, and men who had sought shelter on the lee side of rocks often found water pouring over them in cascades.  The whole country became a sea of mud, and the trials of many months of desert sand were grateful and comforting memories.  Transport columns had an unhappy time:  the Hebron road was showing many signs of wear, and it was a long journey for lorries from Beersheba when the retaining walls were giving way and a foot-deep layer of mud invited a skid every yard.  The Latron-Jerusalem road was better going, but the soft metal laid down seemed to melt under the unceasing traffic in the wet, and in peace time this highway would have been voted unfit for traffic.  The worst piece of road, however, was also the most important.  The Nablus road where it leaves Jerusalem was wanted to supply a vital point on our front.  It could not be used during the day because it was under observation, and anything moving along it was liberally dosed with