September 26, 1918 
LAND &> WATER 
t 
mentioned that there also lay behind the four divisions 
east of Jordan, and served- by tliis road and railway, the 
fertile district of the Hauran. The profound narrow trench 
down which the Jordan runs is not crossed, by any bridge 
or road until one gets right up north near the Sea of Galilee, 
where the railway to Damascus and the road cross the 
stream. 
West of the Jordan apparently eight divisions held the 
line between the river and the Mediterranean. About half 
this force must have stretched across the highland of Judea 
just north of Jerusalem, the remaining half across the foot- 
hills and the Hat sea plain. 
The British plan was to neglect the divisions east of 
Jordan, to hold the Turkish centre upon the highlands of 
Judea by a strong attack, and then, having prevented this 
centre from reinforcing its right, to strike suddenly and very 
strongly against that right in the sea plain. 
The plan was carried out with complete success. The 
attack on the British right — the Turkishleft centre — sufficiently 
engaged the enemy to pin him completely on to those posi- 
tions. The attack on the British left in the sea plain against 
the Turkish right broke right through, and the success was 
so complete that for the first time in this war, with the excep- 
tion of a few. isolated examples in the East of Europe, the 
cavalry was able to use the breach made and to go forward 
to the north and on to the upper Jordan — even later, within 
three days, to seize the fords of the Jordan and so wholly 
envelop the Turkish forces between the Jordan and the sea. 
The result was that the whole right wing of the Turkish 
Army — that is, the two divisions towards the sea — were not 
only overwhelmed, but cut off. It is they who must have 
furnished the greater number of prisoners, the total of which 
may come to something like, twenty thousand. Their trans- 
ports and their artillery were equally lost, and the cavalry, 
hurrying up northward, reached on the third day the group 
of hills west of the Sea of Galilee. 
Later it proved possible to seize at once in this 'sweeping 
movement round by the north the point of Nablus or Shechem 
where the roads converge, and the whole of the Turkish Army 
west of Jordan was enveloped and destroyed. There was a 
moment when it seemed that such a feat was impossible to 
cavalry alone. The valley of Samaria which runs up from 
the sea plain to Nablus was held by the enemy, and Nablus 
was covered for a sufficiently long time to permit the retreat, 
or perhaps it would be better to say the flight, of the Turkish 
centre up by the main Jerusalem road and towards the fords 
of the Jordan. But they could not get away down those 
precipitous hills and across those muddy fords with a tangled 
growth of vegetation all about them, the mass of their 
wheeled transport and artillery ; just in time the fords were 
seized, and the whole Turkisli force west of Jordan was lost, 
and whatever has escaped is wholly disorganised. 
The forces beyond the Jordan, if they were informed in 
time of the disaster to the west, may- have time to retire. 
They have both a road and a railway. It is true the railway 
has been cut by the Arabs on the third day. But there is 
no force present on the north able to cut off their retreat, if 
indeed it began the moment of the Turkish break at the 
other extreme of the line against the sea. 
The fruits of the Operation so far may be thus summarised : 
First and most important, it is a heavy blow delivered 
against an enemy whose political position was already very 
difficult, and whose government cannot stand further defeat ; 
secondly it has not only diminished the Turkish Army by 
direct loss, but it has also compelled a call fop reinforcements 
which can only be moved forward and supplied with great 
difficulty. Thirdly, the British force now for the first time 
' possesses a tolerable harbour at Haiffa, and this js a point of 
considerable importance to supply for further operations 
northward. Fourthly, the fertile district of the Hauran should 
fall into British hands in a short delay, and further embarrass 
the difficult problem to the enemy of his supply. 
The Word "Germany": By Hilaire Belloc 
THE enemy is being beaten. He is being beaten hands 
down. One can never tell what the political fortunes 
of a military problem may be, and often its mere military 
elements are obscure eiiough. But the mere military elements 
of our military- problem to-day are quite clear. 
The enemy had, by last winter, got rid of all militafy 
opposition in the East. He had caused the organised, armed 
forces of his opponents to disappear from the Black Sea to 
the Baltic. He had there obtained a decision. How he 
got that decision has nothing to do with the military problem. 
The fact that he did not get it directly by victory in the 
field destroying the Russian and Rumanian armies, but 
indirectly through the break-up of thfe Russian State under 
the strain of war ; the fact that the Russian State was dis- 
integrated by an international gang with men like Braunstein 
at their head ; the fact that Russia would not have broken 
up under a strong head (for that also is a fact) — all these 
facts do not modify the military element in a military pro- 
blem. The enemy by last winter had got his decision in 
the East. A military situation is said to be decided when 
one of the two opponents is put out of action ; and whether 
it is put out of action by envelopment, as at Sedan ; by 
shock, as at Waterloo ; by pestilence, as at Valnuy, the 
result is the same. 
Now the enemy, having got his decision in the East, was 
released to throw his whole weight elsewhere — save for a 
few inferior divisions retained for police work upon the 
marches of what used to be the Russian Empire. "Else- 
where" meant the Mesopotamian, Syrian, Balkan, and 
Italian fronts, besides the main western front between the 
Alps and the North Sea, where alone the war can be won. 
The Italian front sufficiently occupied the mass of the Austro- 
Hungarian Army. The Bulgarians and Turks were both 
unable and unwilling to leave the Balkan, Syrian, and Meso- 
potamian areas. The main front, therefore, fell to the 
province of the Germans. Their new situation, their power 
of massing here in tlie West the total of their force, save for 
a few police divisions in Lithuania, Finland, and the Ukraine, 
gave them an immediate superiority in numbers over the 
Franco-British line. To this advantage they added a new 
and superior tactical method, itself indirectly the product of 
their new superiority in numbers ; for only this new tactical 
method which was to prove so terrible a menace to us, was 
only made possible by the special training of many divisif)ns 
spared from the fighting line, and withdrawn ff)r rest, instruc- 
tion, and reorganisation. 
With this new tactical method, and using their superiority 
in number, the Germans seized the initiative in the West 
and fought that great series of actions, no one of which 
achieved its true object, but each of which was victorious, 
in a greater or less degree, from March 2ist-22nd of this 
year to July 15th. 
The only element unfavourable to the enemy during this 
process was the deferred but ultimate menace of the growing 
American contingent. He must put the Western armies 
out of action by rupture or envelopment, or by the political 
effect of menacing a capital, or by the interruption of maritime 
communications, before the growth of the American con- 
tingents should put him at last — say, by the late autumn of 
this year — at a serious and increasing numerical disadvan- 
tage. 
He that possesses the initiative can command — or, at least, 
envisage — success even when his numbers have been passed 
by his opponents in the race. But if their numerical superior- 
ity is growing he cannot envisage such a success indefinitely. 
He may get his decision at a moment when his enemy is 
actually stronger in total numbers than he, but he must get 
it before the difference becomes overwhelming. 
THE FINAL ENEMY ATTEMPT 
The Germans proposed what was to be their last, greatest, 
and most conclusive blow on July 15th. The Allies in the 
West were still less numerous than they, though rapidly 
growing. Had the great battle turned in favour of the 
Germans, the further growth of the Allied armies would 
have been useless. It turned against the Germans. By 
noon on the first day, Monday, July 15th, they had slipped 
on the threshold. At dawn on Thursday, July iSth, they 
allowed themselves to be surprised between Soissons and 
Chateau Thierry. Their whole offensive scheme was ruined, 
the initiative passed to the Allied Higher Command, and the 
war had changed for good.- It was the turning-point. 
The Allies had not even yet superior numbers, but they 
had got the uppei hand, with numbers rapidly piling up 
against the Germans, soon to attain a superiority. It was 
sufficient from that moment onwards to retain the initiative 
by an unremitting series of successive blows, and the rest 
would automatically follow. It is following now. 
In the presence of this victorious future men discuss what 
policy victory shall determine. They express in various 
ways their conception of the peace, and debate the limits of 
