W.T. Massey - How Jerusalem Was Won. Allenby's Campaign in Palestine
since the early days of the war. They had proved sterling soldiers in the desert war, hard, full of courage,
capable of making light of the longest trek in waterless stretches of country, and mobile to a degree the
Turks never dreamed of. There were six other regiments of Australian Light Horse and three first-line
regiments of yeomanry in the Australian Mounted Division, and nine yeomanry regiments in the
Yeomanry Mounted Division. The 7th Mounted Brigade was attached to Desert Corps, as was also the
Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, formed of yeomen and Australians who had volunteered from their
regiments for work as camelry. They, too, were veterans.
All these divisions had to be trained hard. Not only had the four infantry divisions of XXth Corps to be
brought to a pitch of physical fitness to enable them to endure a considerable period of open fighting, but
they had to be trained in water abstinence, as, in the event of success, they would unquestionably have
long marches in a country yielding a quite inadequate supply of drinking water, and this problem in itself
was such that fully 6000 camels were required to carry drinking water to infantry alone.
Water-abstinence training lasted three weeks, and the maximum of half a gallon a man for all purposes
was not exceeded, simply because the men had been made accustomed to deny themselves drink except
when absolutely necessary. But for a systematic training they would have suffered a great deal. The
disposition of the force is given in the Appendix.[1]
[Footnote 1: See Appendix v].
CHAPTER V. RAILWAYS, ROADS, AND THE BASE
To ease the supply problem a spur line was laid from Rafa to Shellal, on the wadi Ghuzze. In that way
supplies, stores, and ammunition were taken up to our right flank. Shellal was a position of great strategic
importance. At one time it appeared as if we should have to fight hard to gain it. The Turks had cut an
elaborate series of trenches on Wali Sheikh Nuran, a hill covering Shellal, but they evacuated this
position before we made the first attack on Gaza, and left an invaluable water supply in our hands.
At Shellal the stony bed of the wadi Ghuzze rests between high mud banks which have been cut into
fantastic shapes by the rushing waters descending from the southern extremities of the Judean range of
hills during the winter rains. In the summer months, when the remainder of the wadi bed is dry, there are
bubbling springs of good water at Shellal, and these have probably been continuously flowing for many
centuries, for close above the spot where the water issues Anzac cavalry discovered a beautiful remnant
of the mosaic flooring of an ancient Christian church, which, raised on a hundred-feet mound, was
doubtless the centre of a colony of Christians, hundreds of years before Crusaders were attracted to the
Holy Land. Our engineers harnessed that precious flow. A dam was put across the wadi bed and at least a
million gallons of crystal water were held up by it, whilst the overflow went into shallow pools fringed
with grass (a delightfully refreshing sight in that arid country) from which horses were watered. Pumping
sets were installed at the reservoir and pipes were laid towards Karm, and from these the Camel
Transport Corps were to fill fanatis - eight to twelve gallon tanks - for carriage of water to troops on the
move.
The railway staff, the department which arranged the making up and running of trains, as well as the
construction staff, had heavy responsibilities. It was recognised early in 1917 that if we were to crush the
Turk out of the war, provision would have to be made for a larger army than a single line from the Suez
Canal could feed. It was decided to double the track. The difficulties of the Director of Railway
Transport were enormous. There was great shortage of railway material all over the world. Some very
valuable cargoes were lost through enemy action at sea, and we had to call for more from different
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