they could command the ridge in flank.  A hostile counter-attack developed against the Dorsets, but this was crushed by the Berks battery and some of the 52nd Division’s guns.  Two squadrons of the Berks Yeomanry in the meantime had charged on the left of the Bucks and secured the hill immediately to the south-east of Abu Shushe village, and at nine o’clock the whole of this strong position was in our hands, the brigade having sustained the extremely slight casualties of three officers and thirty-four other ranks killed and wounded.  So small a cost of life was a wonderful tribute to good and dashing leading, and furnished another example of cavalry’s power when moving rapidly in extended formation.  To the infinite regret of the brigade, indeed of the whole of General Allenby’s Army, one of the officers killed that day was the Hon. Neil Primrose, an intrepid leader who, leaving the comfort and safety of a Ministerial appointment, answered the call of duty to be with his squadron of the Bucks Hussars.  He was a fine soldier and a favourite among his men, and he died as a good cavalryman would wish, shot through the head when leading his squadron in a glorious charge.  His body rests in the garden of the French convent at Ramleh not far from the spot where humbler soldiers take their long repose, and these graves within visual range of the tomb of St. George, our patron saint, will stand as memorials of those Britons who forsook ease to obey the stern call of duty to their race and country.

The overwhelming nature of this victory is illustrated by a comparison of the losses on the two sides.  Whereas ours were 37 all told, we counted between 400 and 500 dead Turks on the field, and the enemy left with us 360 prisoners and some material.  The extraordinary disparity between the losses can only be accounted for first by the care taken to lead the cavalry along every depression in the ground, and secondly by rapidity of movement.  The cavalry were confronted by considerable shell fire, and the volume of machine-gun fire was heavy, though it was kept down a good deal by the covering fire of the 17th Machine Gun Squadron.

I have referred to the importance of Jezar as dominating the approaches to Latron on the north-east and Ramleh on the north-west.  Jezar, as we call it on our maps, has been a stronghold since men of all races and creeds, coloured and white, Pagan, Mahomedan, Jew, and Christian, fought in Palestine.  It is a spot which many a great leader of legions has coveted, and to its military history our home county yeomen have added another brilliant page.  Let me quote the description of Jezar from George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land, a book of fascinating interest to all students of the Sacred History which many of the soldiers in General Allenby’s Army read with great profit to themselves: