Category: Anzacs WW1

Nine officers and 195 men of the 37^th & 38^th Battalions raided south-west of Warneton and penetrated to the second trench capturing 33 prisoners and claimed to have killed 102 of the enemy. The raiders had 39 casualties including Lieut. Crowe and Lieut. Dixon killed in action. The raid gained General Birdwood’s congratulations.

Two days after the official surrender by the Turks and exactly six weeks after the fall of Beersheba, General Allenby, commander of the EEF, made his formal entry into Jerusalem. Among the mounted units to accompany Allenby into Jerusalem were the 10th Light Horse Regiment and and a representative of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade. At this time the 12th Light Horse Regiment was in the Judean Hills on the front line near Kuddis, where the disposition of the Ottoman defenders was static and quiet.

In light of the recent Russian proposal for peace talks across all fronts, the Australian Prime Minister telegraphed to the Secretary of State for the Colonies: “I am seriously disturbed by the position on the Italian, Russian and Western Fronts and desire to know the views and intentions of the War Cabinet re Trotsky’s peace proposals and prospects on the Western Front and generally. I earnestly hope that His Majesty’s Government will not waver in its resolution to press on at all costs. Though recognising the appalling difficulties…. I am profoundly convinced that to recede one inch from the position taken up and set out by Lloyd George would be absolutely disastrous. Please communicate this telegram to members of the War Cabinet.” Six days later Lloyd George insisted that there could be no true peace for the Allies without reparation.

The British Army in Flanders went into its winter positions and for I Anzac Corps, relieved from their front line positions, they proceeded to the quiet front at Messines. The Ypres fighting from September to November 1917 had cost the Australians 38,093 officers and men, and with the dwindling stream of reinforcements from Australia, anxieties were growing whether they would be able to reinforce sufficiently. For General Birdwood the focus was now turning to the winter and how to keep the troops well and avoid the illnesses and trench foot that had caused many casualties the previous winter on the Somme. Sports and entertainment were given high priority.

After a period of stalemate in Southern Palestine from April to October 1917, on 31^st October General Edmund Allenby, who replaced General Murray in June, attacked the Turkish garrison of Beersheba with some 47,500 rifles of the XX Corps and about 15,000 troopers in the Anzac and Australian Mounted Divisions (Desert Mounted Corps). Orders were issued for a general attack on Beersheba by the dismounted 1st and 3rd Light Horse Brigades and the mounted 4th Light Horse Brigade. As the leading squadrons of the 4th Light Horse Regiment of Victorians, and the New South Wales’ 12th Light Horse Regiment came within range of the Ottoman riflemen in defences directly in their track, a number of horses were hit by sustained rapid fire. While the 4th Light Horse Regiment attacking these fortifications dismounted after jumping the trenches, most of the 12th Light Horse Regiment on the left rode through a gap in the defences to gallop into Beersheba to capture the garrison. The Turkish defenders suffered many casualties and between 700 and 1,000 troops were captured, paving the way for the British capture of Gaza.

During a night gas attack the 5^th & 6^th Batteries on Anzac Ridge were put out of action. Between mid–October and mid-November there were over 1,300 casualties in the Australian Field Artillery alone, and although only a small number, 20, were quickly fatal the effects lasted for years to come. The condition of the worst cases was pitiful with eyes swollen and streaming, voices gone and bodies blistered. Whole battalions came out of the line hoarse.

The AIF 3^rd Division in the II Anzac Corps Line was relieved by the Canadian 4^th Division, with the Canadian 3^rd Division relieving the New Zealand Division the following day. 

For four nights between the 14^th & 19^th October the Germans drenched the valleys behind the Australian lines with mustard gas, causing 116 casualties in I Anzac Corps area on the 16^th alone. The 43^rd Battalion in II Anzac Corps had to evacuate 40 men blistered and gassed after work on the railway near Zonnebeke.