at the same time.  The next night—­November 1-2—­was the opening of XXIst Corps’ great attack on Gaza, and though the enemy did not leave the town or the remainder of the trenches we had not assaulted till nearly a week afterwards, the vigour of the attack and the bravery with which it was thrust home, and the subsequent total failure of counter-attacks, must have made the enemy commanders realise on the afternoon of November 2 that Gaza was doomed and that their boasts that Gaza was impregnable were thin air.  Their reserves were on the way to their left where they were urgently wanted, there was nothing strong enough to replace such heavy wastage caused to them by the attack of the night of November 1 and the morning of the 2nd, and our big gains of ground were an enormous advantage to us for the second phase in the Gaza sector, for we had bitten deeply into the Turks’ right flank.

Like the concentration of the XXth Corps and the Desert Mounted Corps for the jump off on to Beersheba, the preparations against the Turks’ extreme right had to be very secretly made.  The XXIst Corps Commander had to look a long way ahead.  He had to consider the possibility of the enemy abandoning Gaza when Beersheba was captured, and falling back to the line of the wadi Hesi.  His troops had been confined to trench warfare for months, digging and sitting in trenches, putting out wire, going out on listening patrols, sniping and doing all the drudgery in the lines of earthworks.  They were hard and strong, their health having considerably improved since the early summer, but at the end of September the infantry were by no means march fit.  Realising that, if General Allenby’s operations were successful, and no one doubted that, we should have a period of open warfare when troops would be called upon to make long marches and undergo the privations entailed by transport difficulties, General Bulfin brought as many men as he could spare from the trenches back to Deir el Belah and the coast, where they had route marches over the sand for the restoration of their marching powers.  Gradually he accumulated supplies in sheltered positions just behind the front.  In three dumps were collected seven days’ mobile rations, ammunition, water, and engineers’ material.  Tracks were constructed, cables buried, concealed gun positions and brigade and battalion headquarters made, and from the 25th October troops were ready to move off with two days’ rations on the man.  Should the enemy retire, General Hill’s 52nd (Lowland) Division was to march up the shore beneath the sand cliffs, get across the wadi Hesi at the mouth, detach a force to proceed towards Askalon, and then move eastward down to the ridge opposite Deir Sineid, and, by securing the bridge and crossings of the wadi Hesi, prevent the enemy establishing himself on the north bank of the wadi.  The operations on the night of November 1-2 were conducted by Major-General Hare, commanding the 54th Division, to which General