in Palestine the strategy was of the best, and in the working out of a
far-seeing scheme, victories so influenced events that on this front
began the final phase of the war--once Turkey was beaten, Bulgaria and
Austria-Hungary submitted and Germany acknowledged the inevitable.
Falkenhayn saw that the Bagdad undertaking was impossible so long as
we were dangerous on the Palestine front, and General Allenby's attack
on the Gaza line wiped the Bagdad enterprise out of the list of German
ambitions. The plan of battle on the Gaza-Beersheba line resembled
in miniature the ending of the war. If we take Beersheba for Turkey,
Sheria and Hareira for Bulgaria and Austria, and Gaza for Germany,
we get the exact progress of events in the final stage, except that
Bulgaria's submission was an intelligent anticipation of the laying
down of their arms by the Turks. Gaza-Beersheba was a rolling up from
our right to left; so was the ending of the Hun alliance.



CHAPTER II

OLD BATTLEGROUNDS


It was in accordance with the fitness of things that the British Army
should fight and conquer on the very spots consecrated by the memories
of the most famous battles of old. From Gaza onwards we made our
progress by the most ancient road on earth, for this way moved
commerce between the Euphrates and the Nile many centuries before the
East knew West. We fought on fields which had been the battlegrounds
of Egyptian and Assyrian armies, where Hittites, Ethiopians, Persians,
Parthians, and Mongols poured out their blood in times when kingdoms