The three things which the Turks feared most were a threat to their communications, a charge of cavalry, and a heavy aerial attack. As regards the first, there was, I believe, no instance in the campaign when they fought on to the end after being surrounded, though, on several occasions, Turkish units continued to attack till annihilated.
The losses of the Turks were much heavier than ours in every action of the campaign, even when they were successful, or partially so, as in the two trans-Jordan raids.[1] This fact was largely due to their bad rifle shooting. While our troops were good enough shots to pick off Turkish soldiers showing their heads above rocks and trenches, the Turks, as a rule, could only hit our men when standing up during an advance. When the enemy made his great effort to retake Jerusalem, on the 26th of December 1917, the number of dead Turks found on the position after the battle was greater than our total casualties.
As a set-off to their bad rifle shooting, the enemy troops were supplied with a far larger proportion of machine guns than we were. Their machine-gun companies, which were largely staffed by Germans, were generally effective, and caused us the major part of our casualties during the war.
Their field artillery work in general was slow and inaccurate, but the heavy artillery, manned by Germans or Austrians, was almost invariably good.
The above remarks as to _morale_ should be borne in mind in estimating the tactics of General Allenby.
It will be noticed that he took greater risks in the latter part of the campaign than he had done at the beginning. These risks were fully justified by the very complete knowledge of the reduced state of the enemy's _morale_ which had been acquired by our Intelligence Staff.
In spite of the indifferent _morale_ of the enemy troops, the campaign is of great value to the student of cavalry tactics, being, as it is, the only instance in modern war of cavalry operating on a large scale. It demonstrated once more the soundness of the principles laid down in our training manuals, which appear to be immutable, in spite of aircraft and other devilish inventions of present day warfare.
The value of aeroplanes and armoured cars acting in conjunction with cavalry was very clearly brought out, notably in the final series of operations.