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Updated: May 25, 2025
In the meantime the infantry, driving before them the demoralised remnants of the Turkish 8th Army, captured Tul Keram, Turkish G.H.Q., together with a host of prisoners, and then continued east to help the Welsh and Irish divisions in their assault on Nablus.
However, we got up all right about 7 A.M. and managed to get a bit of our precious food disposed of before we received orders to move. Our part in the assault of Jerusalem was to march with all speed to take up a position on Tel-el-Ful, a hill some 2500 feet high, a mile or so north of the town, so as to cut off the Turks from retreating up the Nablus road.
The main directions of our advance, however, now menaced, not so much Jerusalem itself, as the main Nablus road a few miles to the north of the city. All the enemy's prepared defences west and north-west of Jerusalem had been captured, and our troops were within a short distance of the Nablus-Jerusalem Road. That night the Turks withdrew.
It seems as if it were mainly the echo of the cursing of Ebal that greets us as we ride around the fierce little Mohammedan city of Nablûs on Friday afternoon, passing through the open and dilapidated cemeteries where the veiled women are walking and gossiping away their holiday. The looks of the inhabitants are surly and hostile. The children shout mocking ditties at us, reviling the "Nazarenes."
Nablus is the very furnace of Mahometan bigotry; and I believe that only a few months before the time of my going there it would have been quite unsafe for a man, unless strongly guarded, to show himself to the people of the town in a Frank costume; but since their last insurrection the Mahometans of the place had been so far subdued by the severity of Ibrahim Pasha, that they dared not now offer the slightest insult to an European.
It was evident from what was happening on this front, not only where two divisions of infantry had to strain every nerve to hold on to what they had got but where the Yeomanry Mounted Division were battling against enormous odds in the worse country to the north-west, that the Turks were not going to allow us to get to the Nablus road without making a direct attack on the Jerusalem defences.
There is only one first-class road from north to south through this hill-country, namely, that which runs along the ridge from Samaria through Nablus, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron to Beersheba. Communications from east to west are, however, more easy along the spurs and intervening valleys.
My speaking of the husband, by-the-bye, reminds me that he was extremely backward about the great work of recovering his youthful bride. The relations of the girl, who felt themselves disgraced by her conduct, were vehement and excited to a high pitch, but the Menelaus of Nablus was exceedingly calm and composed.
Jacob and Esau met and were reconciled, and Jacob then journeyed onwards to Succoth, "the booths." The site of this village of "booths" is unknown, but it could not have been far from the banks of the Jordan and the road to Nablûs. The neighbourhood of Shechem, called in Greek times Neapolis, the Nablûs of to-day, was the next resting-place of the patriarch.
On the 28th the 53rd Division bit farther into the enemy's line in order to cover the right of the 60th Division, which was to continue its advance up the Nablus road towards Bireh. The 158th Brigade captured Anata, and after fighting all day the 1/7th Royal Welsh Fusiliers secured Ras Urkub es Suffa, a forbidding-looking height towering above the storm-rent sides of the wadi Ruabeh.
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