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Undisturbed by the defection of their Chief, the Germans resisted stoutly for a time, both in the streets of Nazareth and in the hills north of the town, but ultimately all were gathered in and sent across the ancient battlefield of Armageddon to join the rest at Afule.
The places of tactical importance on the enemy lines of communication behind his advanced bases were, therefore, the railway junctions at Deraa and El Afule, the ford of Jisr ed Damie, and the towns of Beisan, Jenin and Nazareth.
But the better road from Jenin and El Afule leads across the Plain of Esdraelon to Nazareth and Tiberias and round the northern side of the Sea of Galilee to Damascus. Another road from Nablus leads eastwards, and, dropping steeply down along the Wadi Fara, leads to the Jordan, which it crosses by a ford at Jisr ed Damie.
But the surprise was complete; the fine work of the British airmen had prevented news of the destruction of the front line from reaching enemy headquarters, and their first intimation of our success was the sight of the cavalry streaming over the Esdraelon Plain towards Afule.
Some of them made for Tul Keram, and, passing thence up the Valley towards Nablus, had already reached Anebta before dark, cutting off large bodies of the retreating enemy with guns and transport between Tul Keram and the railway junction at Messudieh. Another strong cavalry force moved farther north. These seized the railway junction at El Afule.
The loot was prodigious, for Afule was one of the main depôts of the enemy, and every house occupied by Germans showed signs of the extreme solicitude they had for their personal comfort; that of the Turks did not matter.
Their chief objectives were El Afule, which might briefly be described as a place where all roads meet, Nazareth, a few miles farther north, the headquarters of the German General, Liman von Sanders, the Commander-in-Chief of the Turks, and Jenin, the headquarters of the enemy Air Force.
Most of the small garrisons on the way were literally taken in their beds, and when the few stragglers who escaped brought the tidings to Afule it was too late to make any great show of resistance. Thousands of Turks surrendered here, without attempting to fight, and when the Germans also had been roped in, the number of prisoners far exceeded that of the attacking cavalry.
The advanced enemy bases at Nablus and Tul Keram were served also by good roads. That from Tul Keram followed the line of the railway up to a point near Samaria, where it joined the main north-bound road leading from Nablus down to Jenin and El Afule.
An Australian trooper told me afterwards that there was sufficient wine in Afule and Nazareth for every man in the Expeditionary Force, at a bottle per head, and added naïvely that he had had his bottle just at the time it was most needed! The column advancing on Nazareth had met with equal though not quite bloodless success.
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