This campaign had always been fought with only the margin of strength which could be spared from the greater contests in the West. But it had moved patiently to its appointed end, for it was carried on in the true tradition of those dogged earlier wars of Britain which had created her Empire. Our feet might be stayed for a season, or even retire, but in the long run they always moved forward. The Last Crusade was now approaching its climax, and the Crusaders were such as would have startled the souls of St. Louis and Raymond and Richard of England, could they have beheld that amazing army. For only a modest portion of it was drawn from the Western peoples. Algerian and Indian Moslems, Arab tribesmen, men of the thousand creeds of Hindustan, African negroes, and Jewish battalions were among the liberators of the sacred land of Christendom.
In September 1918 the Turkish armies of Syria held a front from the coast north of Jaffa through the hills of Ephraim to a point half-way between Nablus and Jerusalem, and thence to the Jordan, and down its eastern bank to the Dead Sea. On the right lay the VIIIth Turkish Army, in the centre the VIIth, and east of Jordan the IVth. Far on their left flank they were threatened by the Arabs under Sherif Feisal and Colonel T. E. Lawrence. Allenby's plan was to defeat the enemy west of Jordan, and so either to isolate or compel the retreat of the IVth Army. The communications of the Turkish centre and right wing were poor, and if their front could be broken and our cavalry sent through, it was possible that these might be cut. Allenby therefore thinned his front elsewhere, and concentrated his main energies on breaking up the VIIIth Army in the Plain of Sharon, and thus opening the route for his cavalry.
At 4.30 on the morning of the 19th September British cavalry attacked and won an immediate victory, sweeping through the enemy's defences in the Plain of Sharon. The VIIIth Army was in utter rout, pouring along the northern roads, while the main body of our cavalry was riding for Esdraelon to cut them off. That night the VIIth Turkish Army was also pressed back in the centre. By noon that day the leading troops of our cavalry were 18 miles north of their old front line; that afternoon they were through the barrier of the Samarian hills; and early next morning they reached Nazareth, and all but captured the German commander-in-chief. On the night of the 20th one cavalry division reached Beisan, 80 miles from their starting point, and so shut the last outlet from the south. In thirty-six hours the trap had been closed. Every track and road was choked with the rout. Camps and depots were in flames, and our airmen steadily bombarded each section of the retreat.