W.T. Massey - How Jerusalem Was Won. Allenby's Campaign in Palestine
had begun. The spells of fine weather were getting shorter, and after each period of rain the sodden state
of the country affected all movement. To bring up supplies we could only rely on road traffic from Gaza
and Deir Sineid, and the light soil had become hopelessly cut up during the rains. The main line of
railway was not to be opened to Mejdel till December 8, and the captured Turkish line between Deir
Sineid and Junction Station had a maximum capacity of one hundred tons of ordnance stores a day, and
these had to be moved forward again by road. An advance must slow down while communications were
improved. The XXth Corps inherited from the XXIst Corps the track between Beit Likia and Biddu
which had been prepared with an infinity of trouble and exertion, but this and the main Latron-Jerusalem
road were the only highways available.
General Chetwode's Corps relieved General Bulfin's Corps during the day of November 28, and viewed
in the most favourable light it appeared that there must be at least one week's work on the roads before it
would be possible for heavy and field batteries, in sufficient strength to support an attack, to be got into
the mountains. A new road was begun between Latron and Beit Likia, and another from Enab to
Kubeibeh, and these, even in a rough state of completion, eased the situation very considerably. An
enormous amount of labour was devoted to the main road. The surface was in bad order and was getting
worse every hour with the passage of lorry traffic. It became full of holes, and the available metal in the
neighbourhood was a friable limestone which, under heavy pressure during rains, was ground into the
consistency of a thick cream. Pioneer battalions were reinforced by large parties of Egyptian labour
corps, and these worked ceaselessly, clearing off top layers of mud, carrying stones down from the hills
and breaking them, putting on a new surface and repairing the decayed walls which held up the road in
many places. The roadmakers proved splendid fellows. They put a vast amount of energy into their work,
but when the roads were improved rain gravely interfered with traffic, and camels were found to be most
unsatisfactory. They slipped and fell and no reliance could be placed on a camel convoy getting to its
destination in the hills. Two thousand donkeys were pressed into service, and with them the troops in the
distant positions were kept supplied. It would not be possible to exaggerate the value of this donkey
transport. In anticipation of the advance the Quartermaster-General's department, with the foresight
which characterised that department and all its branches throughout the campaign, searched Egypt for the
proper stamp of asses for pack transport in the hills. The Egyptian donkey is a big fellow with a
light-grey coat, capable of carrying a substantial load, hardy, generally docile, and less stubborn than
most of the species. He is much taller and heavier than the Palestine donkey, and our Army never
submitted him to the atrociously heavy loads which crush and break the spirit of the local Arabs' animals.
It is, perhaps, too much to hope that the natives will learn something from the British soldier's treatment
of animals. It was one of the sights of the campaign to see the donkey trains at work. They carried
supplies which, having been brought by the military railway from the Suez Canal to railhead, were
conveyed by motor lorries as far as the state of the road permitted self-propelled vehicles to run, were
next transhipped into limbers, and, when horse transport could proceed no farther, were stowed on to the
backs of camels. The condition of the road presently held up the camels, and then donkey trains took
over the loads. Under a white officer you would see a chain of some two hundred donkeys, each roped in
file of four, led by an Egyptian who knew all that was worth knowing about the ways of the ass, winding
their way up and down hills, getting a foothold on rocks where no other animal but a goat could stand,
and surmounting all obstacles with a patient endurance which every soldier admired. They did not like
the cold, and the rain made them look deplorably wretched, but they got rations and drinking-water right
up to the crags where our infantry were practising mountaineering. Shell-fire did not disturb them much,
and they would nibble at any rank stuff growing on the hillsides to supplement the rations which did not
always reach their lines at regular intervals. The Gyppy boys were excellent leaders, and to them and the
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