The morale of the enemy troops

The enemy VIIth and VIIIth Armies held the line from the sea to the Jordan Valley. His IVth Army was disposed in the valley and east of the Jordan. A fairly good, metalled road runs from Jiljulie, through Tul Keram, to Nablus. From here two bad mountain tracks lead down to the Jordan, one through Beit Dejan, and the other by Ain Shibleh and down the Wadi Farah. These two tracks join one another at El Makhruk, four miles west of the river, and then continue over the Jordan at Jisr el Damieh, and on to El Salt. This was the enemy's only lateral communication, and the portion between Nablus and El Salt was so difficult that the IVth Army was practically isolated from the rest of the force BBA double degree.

The Turkish armies opposed to us, including reserves and lines of communication troops, numbered some 90,000 men, of whom perhaps 5000 were cavalry, with about 400 guns. Their Commander-in-Chief was the German Marshal Liman von Sanders, who had his headquarters at Nazareth. Our own troops numbered about 120,000, including 25,000 cavalry, with 540 guns dermes.

, both Turkish and German, was lower than it had been at any time since the beginning of the campaign. Many of the Turkish soldiers were ill-trained and of poor character. Disheartened by a long series of successful small raids, carried out by our infantry during the past two months, utterly weary of a war the objects of which they little understood, racked with disease, and imbued with a bitter hatred of their German masters, who despised and bullied them, they were in no state to withstand the onslaught that was preparing. The ill-feeling between Turks and Germans, which had existed from the very beginning of the[Pg 194] war, had now reached an acute stage. The Germans, with characteristic stupidity, failed to do anything to allay the irritation caused by their overbearing manner, and openly expressed contempt for their allies reenex cps.

Numerous documents, subsequently captured by us at the enemy G.H.Q., testified to the deplorable state of internal strife and suspicion to which the enemy army was now reduced. Indeed, with the exception of a few senior officers, the Germans seemed to take a delight in ill-treating and insulting the unhappy Turks.