Since the two unsuccessful attacks in March and April, Gaza had been put into a powerful state of defence.  The houses of the town are mostly on a ridge, and enclosing the place is a mass of gardens fully a mile deep, each surrounded by high cactus hedges affording complete cover and quite impossible for infantry to penetrate.  To reduce Gaza would require a prolonged artillery bombardment with far more batteries than General Allenby could ever expect to have at his command, and it is certain that not only would the line in front of the town have had to be taken, but also the whole of the western end of the Turks’ trench system for a length of at least 12,000 yards.  And, as has been said, with Gaza secured we should still have had to face the enemy in a new line of positions about the wadi Hesi.  Gaza was the Turks’ strongest point.  To attack here would have meant a long-drawn-out artillery duel, infantry would have had to advance over open ground under complete observation, and, while making a frontal attack, would have been exposed to enfilade fire from the ‘Tank’ system of works to the south-east.  It would have proved a costly operation, its success could only have been partial in that it did not follow that we should break the enemy’s line, and it would not have enabled us to contain the remainder of the Turkish force.

Nor would an attack on the centre have promised more favourably.  Here the enemy had all the best of the ground.  At Atawineh, Sausage Ridge, Hareira, and Teiaha there were defences supporting each other on high ground overlooking an almost flat plain through which the wadi Ghuzze runs.  All the observation was in enemy possession, and to attack over this ground would have been inviting disaster.  There was little fear that the Turks would attack us across this wide range of No Man’s Land, for we held secure control of the curiously shaped heaps of broken earth about Shellal, and the conical hill at Fara gave an uninterrupted view for several miles northward and eastward.  The position was very different about Beersheba.  If we secured that place with its water supply, and in this dry country the battle really amounted to a fight for water, we should be attacking from high ground and against positions which had not been prepared on so formidable a scale as elsewhere, with the prospect of compelling the enemy to abandon the remainder of the line for fear of being enveloped by mounted troops moving behind his weakened left.  That, in brief outline, was the gist of General Chetwode’s report, and with its full acceptance began the preparations for the advance.  These preparations took several months to complete, and they were as thorough as the energy of a capable staff could make them.

CHAPTER IV

TRAINING THE ARMY