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Updated: May 24, 2025
The loss of Tel Jezar meant that we could get to Latron and the Vale of Ajalon, and the action of the 6th Mounted Brigade on the morning of the 14th gave it to us. The Berks Yeomanry had had outposts on the railway south-east of Naaneh since before dawn.
I have referred to the importance of Jezar as dominating the approaches to Latron on the north-east and Ramleh on the north-west. Jezar, as we call it on our maps, has been a stronghold since men of all races and creeds, coloured and white, Pagan, Mahomedan, Jew, and Christian, fought in Palestine.
Their army was cut in two, one half retiring on Jerusalem, the other going north towards Jaffa. In their efforts to speed the heels of the former the Yeomanry again made a wonderful charge against a high hill, a few miles from Latron on the Jerusalem Road, strongly defended by the Turks.
The principal body was moving up what is called the main road from Deir Sineid, through Beit Jerjal to Julis, to get to Suafir esh Sherkiyeh, Kustineh, and Junction Station, from which they could reach Latron by a metalled road, or Ramleh by a hard mud track by the side of their railway.
I have left all that to you. I do not know the country as you do." "Papa, we set off so late, we shall not be able to get further than Latron to-night." "What place is that? is it any place?" "Supposed to be the Modin of the Maccabees." "Have you brought any books, Daisy?" was papa's next question. "No, papa, except 'Murray' and the Bible." "We ought to have more," he said.
Some miles beyond, the road, at the time the infantry advance was made, had degenerated into a cart-track from the battering it had received from Turkish traffic. About ten miles from Ramleh was Latron, a malaria-haunted swamp in the rainy season and a plague-spot of flies in summer, and from here onwards the road became increasingly difficult and dismal.
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.
There is only one road the main one and this about three miles east of Latron passes up a narrow defile with rugged mountains on either side. There is an old Roman road to the north, but, unused for centuries, it is now a road only in name, the very trace of it being lost in many places. In this strong country men fought of old, and the defenders not infrequently held their own against odds.
General Allenby motored into the suburbs of Jerusalem by the road from Latron which the pioneers had got into some sort of order. The business of war was going on, and the General's car took its place on the highway on even terms with the lorry, which at that time when supplying the front was the most urgent task and had priority on the roads. The people had put on gala raiment.
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.
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