Gaza line but which would be insufficient to inflict upon him a really severe blow, and to follow up that blow with sufficient troops.  No less than seven infantry divisions at full strength and three cavalry divisions would be adequate for the purpose, and they would be none too many.  Further, if the Turks began to press severely in Mesopotamia, or even to revive their campaign in the Hedjaz, a premature offensive might be necessitated on our part in Palestine.

The suggestion made by General Chetwode for General Allenby’s consideration was that the enemy should be led to believe we intended to attack him in front of Gaza, and that we should pin him down to his defences in the centre, while the real attack should begin on Beersheba and continue at Hareira and Sheria, and so force the enemy by manoeuvre to abandon Gaza.  That plan General Allenby adopted after seeing all the ground, and the events of the last day of October and the first week of November supported General Chetwode’s predictions to the letter.  Indeed it would be hard to find a parallel in history for such another complete and absolute justification of a plan drawn up several months previously, and it is doubtful if, supposing the Turks had succeeded in doing what their German advisers advocated, namely forestalling our blow by a vigorous attack on our positions, there would have been any material alteration in the working out of the scheme.  The staff work of General Headquarters and of the staffs of the three corps proved wholly sound.  Each department gave of its best, and from the moment when Beersheba was taken in a day and we secured its water supply, there was never a doubt that the enemy could be kept on the move until we got into the rough rocky hills about Jerusalem.  And by that time, as events proved, his moral had had such a tremendous shaking that he never again made the most of his many opportunities.

The soundness of the plan can quite easily be made apparent to the unmilitary eye.  Yet the Turk was absolutely deceived as to General Allenby’s intentions.  If it be conceded that to deceive the enemy is one of the greatest accomplishments in the soldier’s art, it must be admitted that the battle of Gaza showed General Allenby’s consummate generalship, just as it was proved again, and perhaps to an even greater extent, in the wonderful days of September 1918, in Northern Palestine and Syria.  A glance at the map of the Gaza-Beersheba line and the country immediately behind it will show that if a successful attack were delivered against Gaza the enemy could withdraw his whole line to a second and supporting position where we should have to begin afresh upon an almost similar operation.  The Turk would still have his water and would be slightly nearer his supplies.