During the first half of March the 60th Division again descended into the valley, and, after some very stiff fighting, succeeded in establishing our line north of the Wadi el Auja, from the Jordan to the mountains. Thereupon the Turks withdrew their bridgehead at Ghoraniyeh, and retired to the east bank of the river.
This operation cleared the lower Jordan Valley of the enemy, and established a base broad enough to enable a raid to be undertaken against the Hedjaz Railway, the Turkish line of communications for the force operating against the Arabs round Maan.
The Arab forces, which were under the control of General Allenby, were based on Akaba, at the north end of the Red Sea. They were supplied by us with arms, ammunition and light guns, and largely led by British officers, chief among whom were Lieutenant-Colonels Lawrence and Joyce.
Though intolerant of anything in the nature of discipline, and constantly at war among themselves, many of the Arab tribes of the Hedjaz had joined the standard of the old Sherif Hussein, moved thereto by their hatred of the Turks. Under Hussein's energetic son Feisal, they had carried on a successful guerilla warfare against the scattered Turkish garrisons since June 1916. Their operations were directed especially against the Hedjaz Railway. Under the leadership of the daring and beloved Lawrence, train wrecking was elevated among the Arabs to the status of a national sport. Many of the wrecked trains yielded rich booty to the Sherif, and on one occasion the haul included £20,000 in Turkish gold. Eighteen months of this warfare had given the Arabs valuable experience, and numerous minor successes had induced many tribes who were wavering to throw in their lot with the Sherif.
By the end of 1917 the Emir Feisal's forces were strong enough to undertake more serious operations. In January 1918 he seized the high ground a few miles south of Maan, while another force, under a local leader, destroyed a large part of the Turkish light railway which had been built from Kalaat Aneiza on the Hedjaz line to the Hish Forest, and was used to transport wood as fuel for locomotives. Shortly afterwards another force raided a station on the Hedjaz line, some thirty miles north of Maan, destroying the station buildings and some engines and rolling stock. In this raid the Arabs took over 200 prisoners, and killed a large number of Turks. Farther north, Arabs of the Huweitat tribe captured Tafile, which is only fifteen miles south-east of the south end of the Dead Sea. A considerable Turkish force, with guns and machine guns, which was sent, towards the end of January, to recapture this place, was decisively beaten by the Arabs, with a loss of 500 killed and 250 prisoners. In March a larger body of Turkish troops, reinforced by a German battalion, reoccupied Tafile, the Arabs withdrawing to the south.[16]