Читать книгу Australia in Palestine онлайн

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Ten weeks after Rafa, on 26th March, came the first battle of Gaza. The scheme for the capture of this old gateway of Palestine proper was similar to that which succeeded so decisively at Rafa and Magdhaba. We were to move by night and envelop and isolate the town, with a view to its capture before the Turk could bring up reinforcements. But it was a far bigger enterprise than the two earlier raids. Modern Gaza is a fairly compact old town, which, before the war, contained 30,000 inhabitants. Most of the houses are of mud and straw, but there are also many substantial modern residences. The little city is graced by many mosques and minarets. Standing on a low hill on the inland edge of the wide belt of sand dunes, which, on this coast, everywhere fringe the Mediterranean, it is bounded on the north, east and south by an occasional fine orange grove, wide areas of olives and an intricate network of huge, sprawling cactus hedges surrounding hundreds of tiny fields. The Turks were soundly dug in, and well supported by many guns in commanding positions, while the irregular system of cactus hedges made an ideal barrier between them and the naked plain over which the attacking troops had to advance.