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Altogether the British Army of Palestine was, when the final campaign opened, as near to perfection as any force ever was. All ranks were veterans and all were animated by that spirit which every army feels when confident of victory and happy in its leaders.

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This was the scheme. We faced the Turks on a fifty-mile line running from a point on the Mediterranean coast about twelve miles north of Jaffa south-eastward across the Plain of Sharon, thence eastward over the Mountains of Samaria at a height of 1500 to 2000 feet, falling to 1000 feet below sea-level where it crossed the Jordan Valley, and terminating in the foothills of the Mountains of Gilead. The Sharon Plain sector was some fifteen miles in length, across Samaria fifteen miles, and the stretch in the Jordan Valley about eighteen. The Turkish position was a strong one. On Samaria, or the Central Palestine Range, south of Nablus, the enemy had ideal defensive country, rugged and broken, yet well served by rail—on the north-west to Haifa, and on the north-east across the Jordan at Beisan and by way of Damascus to Turkey; he had also good roads to Haifa and to Damascus by way of Nazareth.