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Our advance had hitherto been northwards along the low country, and had already reached a point on the Maritime Plain some miles north of the parallel of Jerusalem. It now wheeled to the right and struck into the Hills, with the object of getting astride the Jerusalem-Nablus road and of thus capturing the Holy City.
The remainder of the leading brigade thereupon captured a commanding position about a couple of miles to the east of Biddu, and 2-1/2 miles short of the Jerusalem-Nablus road. This commanding position was Neby Samwil. Neby Samwil, one of the most prominent heights round Jerusalem, must always have been a place of considerable importance.
However, we had now completed a road through from Latron to Ram Allah and the Nablus road, so that a further advance was possible as supplies could now be brought up. The corps had been more or less stationary across the Jerusalem-Nablus road for six or seven weeks, though there had been a lot of activity on the eastern flank towards Jericho.
The enemy could thus get quite close to our positions before we could deal with them, and their attacks were also favoured by an intense volume of artillery fire from 5.9's placed about the Jerusalem-Nablus road and, as some people in Jerusalem afterwards told me, from the Mount of Olives.
If the enemy increased his strength south of Jerusalem to oppose the advance of the 53rd Division, General Chetwode proposed that the 60th and 74th Divisions should force straight through to the Jerusalem-Nablus road, the 60th throwing out a flank to the south-east, so as to cut off the Turks opposing the 53rd from either the Nablus or the Jericho road.
On the day after the XXth Corps became responsible for this front General Chetwode had a conference with Generals Barrow, Hill, and Girdwood, and after a full discussion of the situation in the hills decided to abandon the plan of getting on to the Jerusalem-Nablus road from the north in favour of attempting to take Jerusalem from the west and south-west.
Against us were the 27th Turkish Division and the 7th and 27th cavalry regiments south of the Jericho road, with the 26th, 53rd, 19th, and 24th Divisions on the north of that road and to the west of the Jerusalem-Nablus road, one division being in reserve at Bireh, the latter a new division fresh from the Caucasus.
The only metalled roads were the Jerusalem-Nablus road, running north from Jerusalem, and the Jerusalem-Jaffa road, running west and north-west, passing Latron about four miles from our camp at Yalo. The rest were mere donkey tracks over cultivated unbottomed ground in the valleys, and winding up wadis, over boulders, and through trees in the uplands and hills.
The 53rd Division held the line south-east and east of Jerusalem from Bir Asad through Abu Dis, Bethany, to north of the Mount of Olives, whence the 60th Division took it up from Meshari, east of Shafat to Tel el Ful and to Beit Hannina across the Jerusalem-Nablus road.
The scheme was to strike with the 53rd and 60th Divisions astride the Jerusalem-Nablus road, and at the same time to push the 10th Division and a part of the 74th Division eastwards from the neighbourhood of Tahta and Foka. The weather again became bad on December 14 and the troops suffered great discomfort from heavy rains and violent, cold winds, so that only light operations were undertaken.
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