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The XXIst Corps was strong enough to deal with any attack the Turks could launch, and they would have been pleased if an attempt to reach our lines had been made. Next day the Turks were much quieter.
Before the attack on Beersheba had developed, ships of war and the heavy guns of XXIst Corps had rattled its defences. The warships' fire was chiefly directed on targets our land guns could not reach. Observers in aircraft controlled the fire and notified the destruction of ammunition dumps at Deir Sineid and other places. The work of the heavy batteries was watched with much interest.
Here there was a hot tussle, but the Irishmen valiantly pushed through and not only gave XXth Corps the whole of its objectives and completed the turn of the enemy's left flank, but joined up with the XXIst Corps. The working of XXth Corps' scheme had again been admirable, and once more the staff work had enabled the movements to be timed perfectly.
General Barrow's Yeomanry Mounted Division was to remain at Shellal in the gap between XXth Corps and XXIst Corps in case the enemy should attempt to attack the XXth Corps' left flank.
It was always doubtful whether XXth Corps would be able to close up the gap between it and the XXIst Corps owing to the length of its marches and the distance it was from railhead, and the scheme therefore provided that the XXIst Corps should confirm successes gained on our right by forcing its way through the tremendously strong Gaza position to the line of the wadi Hesi and joining up with Desert Mounted Corps.
The bodies had been removed for safe-keeping in the time of the XXIst Dynasty, that of Thothmes I having been found with those of Set! I and Ramses II in the famous pit at Dêr el-Bahari, which was discovered by M. Maspero in 1881. Its frescoes had been destroyed by the infiltration of water.
Like the concentration of the XXth Corps and the Desert Mounted Corps for the jump off on to Beersheba, the preparations against the Turks' extreme right had to be very secretly made. The XXIst Corps Commander had to look a long way ahead. He had to consider the possibility of the enemy abandoning Gaza when Beersheba was captured, and falling back to the line of the wadi Hesi.
The principal operation against the left was to be conducted by General Chetwode's XXth Corps, consisting of four infantry divisions and the Imperial Camel Brigade, and by General Chauvel's Desert Mounted Corps. General Bulfin's XXIst Corps was to operate against Gaza and the Turkish right-centre south-east of that ancient town.
The XXth Corps inherited from the XXIst Corps the track between Beit Likia and Biddu which had been prepared with an infinity of trouble and exertion, but this and the main Latron-Jerusalem road were the only highways available.
The XXIst Corps had not received its additional transport when it gained the ancient city of the Philistines, though it knew some of it was on the way and most of it about to start on its westward trek.
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