The enemy held a line approximately facing our Kushel-Neby Samwil line, protecting Jerusalem from attack from the west or north-west, his front line being distant about three miles from the city, and artillery and machine guns being posted in the outskirts of the city itself. He had two good lines of supply or retreat, namely the north road from Nablus and the eastern road through Jericho and across the Jordan to Amman Station on the Hejaz Railway. It will be remembered that, in the words of the Psalmist, "The Hills stand round about Jerusalem." The Turks were able to select positions of considerable natural strength in these surrounding hills. In fact, the country is one continual succession of hills and valleys, the hillsides steep and rocky, the valleys deep and strewn with boulders. These positions of natural strength the enemy had improved by the construction of trenches and strong points and other devices of modern field engineering.
The general idea of the operations for the capture of Jerusalem was the simultaneous pressure of three Divisions, whereby the enemy should be driven off his main roads, and the city be isolated, and so forced to surrender. The 60th and 74th Divisions had already arrived in the fighting zone and were occupying positions in the line, the 60th on the right, about Kushel, and the 74th about Neby Samwil. On December 4th, the 53rd Division commenced their march from Beersheba up the Hebron-Jerusalem Road. No opposition was met, and, by the evening of the 6th, the head of this column was ten miles north of Hebron. The infantry were directed to reach the Bethlehem area by the 7th, and a line about three miles south of Jerusalem by dawn on the 8th. The 8th was the date fixed for the commencement of the renewed operations against Jerusalem.
"On the 7th the weather broke, and for three days rain was almost continuous. The hills were covered with mist at frequent intervals throughout the fighting, rendering observation from the air and visual signalling impossible." Great was the discomfort caused to the men by this rain, fog and mud. The cold was intense, and soldiers who had borne the brunt of a long day's fighting could not sleep, but just lay huddled together longing for the dawn. An even more serious effect of the rain was to jeopardise the supply arrangements, by converting the roads into seas of liquid mud, rendering them almost impassable, in places quite impassable for camels and mechanical transport.