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These are they alone who have distinguished Florence by the histories that they have written. The pride of the citizen and a just sense of the value of history, together with sound remarks upon Venice and Milan, mingle curiously in this passage with the pedantry of a fifteenth-century scholar. Poggio's Historia Populi Florentini is given in the XXth volume of Muratori's collection.
We shall see how thoroughly these instructions were followed. When it became obvious that Jerusalem could not be secured without the adoption of a deliberate method of attack, there were many matters requiring the anxious consideration of the XXth Corps staff.
In the evening, after curtaining the windows with blankets, the officers gathered together in the carriage of the General Commanding the XXth Corps, to play cards and drink cognac.
Thus did the 'Die Hards' live up to the traditions of the regiment. Having dealt with the failure of the Turkish attacks against the 60th and 53rd Divisions in front of Jerusalem, let us change our view point and focus attention on the left sector of XXth Corps, where the enemy was feeling the full power of the Corps at a time when he most wished to avoid it.
The Turkish VIIth Army and 3rd Cavalry Division were opposing the XXth Corps, another Division was opposite the 53rd Division and the Imperial Camel Corps with the 12th Depôt Regiment at Dharahiyeh on the Hebron road, the 16th Division opposite our 74th, the 24th and 26th Divisions opposite our 69th, and the 54th against the 10th Division.
The airmen bombed the enemy from a low altitude and also machine-gunned them, and moreover by their timely information gave great assistance during the operations. By the 30th December all organised resistance to our advance had ceased and the XXth Corps consolidated its line, the 60th Division going forward slightly to improve its position and the other divisions rearranging their own.
A warship, taking its line from an aeroplane, fired at the bridge from a range of 14,000 yards, got two direct hits on it and holed it in the centre, and there must have been thirty or forty shell craters within a radius of fifty yards. The confounding of the Turks was ably assisted by the Navy. Now we return to the operations of XXth Corps and Desert Mounted Corps on our right.
The 31st Brigade, 30th Brigade, and 29th Brigade were to operate on the 60th Division's left, with the Australian Mounted Division watching the left flank of XXth Corps.
There seemed to be no risk whatever, so long as we chose to hold the line XXth Corps had won, of the Turks again approaching Jerusalem, but the Commander-in-Chief determined to make the situation absolutely safe by advancing eastwards to capture Jericho and the crossings of the Jordan. This was not solely a measure of precaution.
Had he done so the 10th Division and the Yeomanry Mounted Division would have seized the opportunity of falling on him from Shellal, and the Turk chose the safer course of allowing the Beersheba garrison to stand unaided in its own defences. The XXth Corps' captures included 25 officers, 394 other ranks, 6 guns, and numerous machine guns.
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