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The preservation of the Sinai Front is a primary condition to the success of the Yilderim undertaking. With this reinforcement the defence of the Sinai Front by the IVth Army is assured. General von Falkenhayn takes up the position that he does not consider the defence assured, and that the further reduction of Yilderim forces is to be deprecated under any circumstances.
General Allenby's force was so disposed that any suggestion of the Yilderim operation being put into execution was ruled out of consideration.
I must, however, in any case be able to dispose of more forces than at present, either for the completion of Yilderim, or for the replacement of the very heavy losses which will certainly occur in the Syrian attack.
If these two infantry divisions were given up, the Vth Army would have only five infantry divisions of no great fighting value, a condition of things which is perhaps not very desirable. For the moment my decision is: Defence of Syria by strengthening that front by one infantry division, and prosecution of the Yilderim scheme.
He admitted that the Yilderim operation was only practicable if it had freedom for retirement through the removal of the danger on the Palestine front. With that end in view he advocated that the British should be attacked, and suggested that two divisions and the 'Asia Corps' should be sent from Aleppo to move round our right.
The news now to hand reinforcement of the British troops in Egypt, taking over of command by Allenby, the demands of the British Press daily becoming louder makes the preparation of a British attack in Syria probable. Jemal Pasha wishes to meet it with a defensive. To that end he demands the divisions and war material which were being collected about Aleppo for Yilderim.
This appreciation was written by Major von Papen of Yilderim headquarters on August 28, 1917: Enver's objections, the improbability of attaining a decisive result on the Sinai Front with two divisions plus the 'Asia Corps' and the difficulty of the Aleppo-Rayak transport question, hold good.
The latter avoided battle, but all the infantry divisions had heavy casualties. That the moral of the Turkish Army was not high may be gathered from a very illuminating letter written by General Kress von Kressenstein, the G.O.C. of the Sinai front, to Yilderim headquarters on September 29, 1917.
Several documents captured at Yilderim headquarters at Nazareth in September 1918, when General Allenby made his big drive through Syria, show very clearly how our Palestine operations changed the whole of the German plans, and reading between the lines one can realise how the impatience of the Germans was increasing Turkish stubbornness and creating friction and ill-feeling.
The situation on the Sinai Front will then be clear. Naturally it is possible that the position here may demand the inclusion of further effectives and the Yilderim operation consequently become impracticable. This, however, will only prove that the determining factor of the decisive operation for Turkey during the winter of 1917-1918 lies in Palestine and not in Mesopotamia.
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