THE WAR IN PALESTINE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 39, 9 November 1917, Page 5

THE WAR IN PALESTINE

j A FAMOUS RIVER GAZA AND ITS DEFENCES j / In the following article a correspondent of tho "Manchester Guardian" with tho Egyptian Expeditionary Force gives an interesting description of the country in which the liritisn offensive in Palestine is now developing. The river of Gaza, or the Wadi Guzzeh, as it is called on the maps, is to the Palestine front what the Itiver Sommo was for so long to tho Western front. A fow miles ahead of its scrpentino nieandcrings, from tho sea to tho mountainous backbono of the Holy Land, run tho lines of trouches which cover tho armies attacking and defending Gaza, now in deed as well as in uanio a Strong Place. It is not, indeed, a full, broad stream like the river of tho Western front, but for the most part a dry river-bed Hollowed botireon stoop banks. In tho summor a thin silvery streak of water, runs between the stones, and hero and there widens to a pool fringod_witli reeds and oleanders. In tho winter, when the rains pour down from tho hills, it is B aid to be a rusffing torrent which overflows its banks and tears through tho sandv soil to tho sea. ■Tho Wadi Guzzeh is a narrow ditch in comparison with the Wadi EI-Ariah, which sprawls out at its mouth a fair half-mile in breadth. But for that reason it is moro headlong. At Shollal, where the Turkish army had takon up its main position to meet out advance in March, it falls in regular rapids. The name Shellal, in fact, is tho Arabic for a fall; and hero, as at the moro famous Shellal above Assouan, British engineers will one day construct a dam to bring «. new fertility to tho country around. An Ancient Battlelip.e. The river of Gaza runs in curious and devious windings from its sourco abovo tho Byzantine ruins to Khala6ea to tho Bca, and all the way it is full of history. It has been at all periods the defonsivo line between Syria and Egypt, along which tho armies of the Pharaohs faced the hordes of the Hittites, Assyrians met Egyptians, Selucid conquerors countered tho Ptolemies, and Crusaders fought with Saracens, and now for nearly six months Britons and Turks havo fought 'ach other here. The relics of war aro imprinted on its banks. Tracing its career backwards, at its mouth we find large deep caves now inhabited by owls, but once the "dug-outs" of warriors. Thea pasing Om Djerrar, the Gerar of the .Bible, where Abraham and Isaao dwelt, we como to the fastness of Tel-el-Djemmi. It Is <a towering earthwork where man's hand has improved on Nature. Our amateur antiquaries declare it to be a Crusader's bastion, because the skeleton of a man was found there with crossed knees. At Shellal, a few miles beyond, our amateur archaeologists, to wit a squadron of Anzao,cavalry, lighted on a eplendid. mosaic pavement, with a design and an inscription which proclaimed it Byzantine of the oarly centuries of the Christian era. .The pavement was lying half-exposed in one of the Turkish prepared positions, and is to find its way to one of the museums of the Dominions. Beyond Shellal, again, rises another of those dominating mounds, Tel-el-Fara, which is likewise ascribed to the Crusaders, and provides a providential placo for an observation post. Thence tho ■ wndi runs eastwards, almost at right angles to its original course, and is known now as tho Wadi Shanag, and later as the Wadi Khalasra after the ancient stronghold at the meeting of its sources. Gaza in the Distance. Tho country on either side of the riverbed is a rolling greasy plain, brokon with sandy ridges. Beautiful in the Bpring, when the barley waved for miles, it has been sadly cut up by the engines, wagons, and guns which have passed over it, till it ib now almost as arid as tho desert, save where the shells of some enemy battery secure respect from our transport. Here and there a splash of bright green marks a garden or an orchard, and an occasional homestead stands out of the plain, while in the distance southwards is the wooded oasis of KhanYunis, and northward the entioing "orchards and olive groves of our immediate gaol—Gaza of the Philistines. To-day the wadi is the great watering-place of the British army. It is fortunate that the Turks abandoned their lines on the southern side, which they "Sad elaborately prepared from Sheikh-Nuran to Shellal. Had they been able to hold them the summer might have gone more hardly for ns: as. it is, we are safe from the trials of thirst. Although its bed is apparently dry and stony, the wadi has a wealth of water underground,- and men, horses, and camels" get thou- drink from it all along the line. For miles you pass from one inclosed area to another, each the jealously guardecf watering-place of some unit, and hedged around with friendly wire and a chevaux-de-frise of waving tins. The inextricable maze of barbed coils we reserve for the Turks, but as a sign of property over man's most precious commodity wo hang out these ornamental fences. The British Lines, In front of tho wadi are our systems of trenches, skilfully devised along the slopes of the hills that rise up around Gaza and continually drawing closer to that objective. Batteries are hidden away in every unlikely spot and sequestered nook—irriteblo things which are ever ready to spit out Ire when thoy soe, or think they soe, something or somebody moving ahead. It is at night that they vent their x full spleen, and when they are all irritated together thoy make a terrible din. By the morning wo usually find it has been much ado about nothing, and as a display of fireworks the illumination hardly compensates for the noise. But we have the oonsolation that the enemy appreciate it still_ less than ourslves. Behind the wadi is gathered the. more peaceful apparatus of war—troops in reserve, ambulance and dressing stations, supply depots with stacks of forage and biscuits high as the earthworks that dominate the river itself, treoless parks of all kinds—parks of barbed wire in coils, parks of motorcars, parks of wagons and limbers, parks of catorpillar-traotors. Thero also are the companies of camels in their thousands. Boads innumerable cross the river-, bed from the peaceful to the warlike region, over which at night the motors, tho tractors, the wagons, and tho camelß wend their way. Tho Seine at Paris has not more bridges than the wadi has of those well-made crossings. To-day tho river of Gaza is a highway of the ,commerco of destruction, but in the good days to come,' when the waters from its upper sources are properly husbanded, it will be a highway of the commerce that reclaims and creates prosperity.