pious bequest, or customary place of prayer of whatsoever form of the three religions will be maintained and protected according to the existing customs and beliefs of those to whose faith they are sacred. Guardians have been established at Bethlehem and on Rachel's Tomb. The tomb at Hebron has been placed under exclusive Moslem control. The hereditary custodians at the gates of the Holy Sepulchre have been requested to take up their accustomed duties in remembrance of the magnanimous act of the Caliph Omar, who protected that church. Story of the Campaign The Palestine campaign was laid out by General Sir Archibald Murray, who in January, 1916, succeeded Sir John G. Maxwell as commander of the British forces in Egypt. The execution of his plans was intrusted to General Sir Edmund Allenby, who was transferred from the western front in France. When he reached Egypt the Turks had already been severely jolted by a series of blows received in the Sinai campaign. The attempt to seize the Suez Canal had proved a disastrous experience to a number of Turkish Generals and to at least one German commander, Colonel Kress von Kressenstein. This officer had planned the advance of Djemel Pasha in the Spring of 1915 by three routes across the desert of the Sinai Peninsula. The objective of the main Turkish force was the Suez Canal at a point fifteen miles south of Ismailia. There a battle was fought in which British and French war vessels took part. The British troops included East Indians, Australians, New Zealanders, and British territorials and yeomanry. Their losses were insignificant, 115 killed and wounded, whereas the Turkish casualties were 900 killed or drowned in the canal and 2,000 wounded. Six hundred and fifty Turks were captured. The northern Ottoman army-its base was El Arish, on the Mediterranean-was put to flight in the neighborhood of Kantara, which is on the canal and thirty miles south of Port Said. The southern Turkish army, operating by way of Nakhl, was never dangerous. The British lost an opportunity to pursue and completely rout Djemel Pasha's well-equipped army, as that portion of the Sinai Peninsula (between Egypt proper and Syria) is a most difficult and dangerous country for a foreign army, being waterless in many parts and entirely barren of food. General Murray's Work When Sir Archibald Murray took over the Egyptian command he decided to follow Kitchener's tactics in the Sudan and build a railway along the Mediterranean coast route from Kantara, through Katia and El Arish, to Rafa. When he began to lay rails and water mains the Turks had garrisons at Katia, twenty miles from Kantara, and at El Arish, which was well on the way to Beersheba, the Turkish base. In Colonel Kress von Kressenstein, who assumed command of the Turkish forces, Murray had a much more formidable antagonist than Djemel Pasha. The Turco-German airplane reconnoissance was excellent. In raids and minor engagements the British suffered severely at first, but in a battle at Romani, between Katia and the coast, von Kressenstein's army of 18,000 men was decisively beaten, with casualties of 9,000, including 4,000 prisoners. Thus ended the "second invasion" of Egypt. The El Arish base was abandoned by the German commander, and he left in his motor car for Beersheba. The fighting in this region was all practically in the open, and in this respect was entirely different from the battles in Europe. General Allenby's Success The new campaign of General Allenby began early in October, 1917, when he advanced on Beersheba. The story of the capture of that city and of Gaza and Jaffa is told elsewhere by W. T. Massey. The occupation of Jerusalem was a foregone conclusion, when Jaffa, its Mediterranean port, thirty-one miles westward, fell on Nov. 17. The capture of Gaza, on the coast and fifty miles southwest of Jerusalem, was made after a nine-mile "drive." Gaza had a strong system of defenses and so had Beersheba, the base for the Turkish A Gun Crew Loading One of the 15-inch Guns on the Canadian Front in France. (Canadian Official Photograph from Western Newspaper Union.) expedition against the Suez Canal in the Sinai Peninsula campaign, in which General Murray turned the tables on the Turks. Askalon was taken on Nov. 9. At that time General Allenby reckoned the Turkish casualties at 10,000, exclusive of "missing" or prisoners. Six days later the British seized the junction of the Beersheba-Damascus railway, from which ran a line to Jerusalem. The end of November saw Allenby closing in on that city from the north and west. Already the British flag was flying over Ekron, Gederah, Wadi-el-Chanin, and other Zionist colonies. Jerusalem was supposed to have been strongly fortified by the Germans, but it has yielded, almost without a blow. In fact, the Turks made no very determined stand after losing Gaza. Left to their own devices, they failed to keep up their supply system. Pushing on Toward Damascus The British after taking Jerusalem showed clearly that they would take full advantage of the cool, dry weather which prevails in Palestine in the late Fall to push their campaign before the Winter rains set in. On Dec. 12, two days after the surrender of Jerusalem, it was announced that the British line had been advanced northwest of that city and of the line between it and Jaffa, positions having been carried as far as the mouth of the Midieh. The next objective of the British appeared to be Damascus, about 140 miles to the north. The British, under Lieut. Gen. W. R. Marshall, who succeeded General Maude in Mesopotamia, were reported early in December 150 miles northeast of Bagdad, almost within striking distance of Mosul, an important city on the line of the proposed Bagdad Railway. The Russians, on Oct. 5, were at Nereman, 50 miles north of Mosul, but rested there on account of the state of affairs in Russia. The occupation of Jerusalem and the Mediterranean ports near by, with the control of the Tigris, gives the British a great advantage in supply bases in Syria and Mesopotamia, at the same time threatening the dominion of the Turks and the influence of the Germans in all Asia Minor. British Sovereigns at the Front THE King and Queen of England vis ited the battle lines in France in the Summer of 1917, spending two weeks on the journey and traversing nearly all districts where warfare was in progress. Herbert Maxwell calls attention to the fact that no King and Queen of England had previously visited the seat of a war since 1304. Queen Margaret accompanied King Edward I. to the siege of Stirling Castle. The King caused an oriel window to be built in his house in the town, whence the Queen and her ladies might witness the play of fourteen mighty siege engines upon the castle. Gunpowder was not employed in the war with Scotland till the campaign of Weardale in 1327, but these great machines, the latest masterpieces of military science for throwing stone balls and wildfire, had been brought around by sea to the Firth of Forth, and King Edward took as keen personal interest in their performance as his Majesty King George V. shows in modern armament. The engines were all named as scrupulously as battleships-to wit, the Lincoln and the Seagrave, the Robinet and the Kingston, the Vicar and the Parson, the Berefrey, the Linlithgow, the Bothwell, the Prince's, the Gloucester, the Dovedale, the Tout-le-monde, and, newest and mightiest of all, the Loupde-guerre, which did not arrive in time to be placed in position before Oliphant hoisted the white flag of surrender. King Edward, however, being impatient to try the new engine, bade the garrison take cover while a shot was fired from it into the castle, (tauntge il eit ferru ove le lup de guerre.) So says Sir Thomas Gray (direct ancestor of the late Foreign Secretary) in his "Scalacronica." |