HOW GAZA FELL.

GEN. ALLENBY’S STRATEGY.

FROM W. T. MASSEY. GAZA, WEDNESDAY (DELAYED).

This Philistine stronghold has been captured, and the British Army is a big step nearer Jerusalem. The ancient city has been the scene of many desperate conflicts, but during any hour in the past week there have been more violent shocks in places than in all the battles which have raged about the walls for 4,000 years. General Allenby’s strategy made the fall of Gaza inevitable, though it is puzzling why the city was not the last part of the line to fall. When Beersheba was taken, yesterday’s great victories on the enemy’s shrunken left made the capture of Gaza a certainty. The Turks hurriedly departed just when General Allenby began launching his attack. The Turks had had enough of the artillery preparation. They experienced nothing like it in Gallipoli. For more than a week warships, heavy howitzers, and field batteries poured a terrific, nerve-shattering fire on the defences, cutting enormous gaps into them; but some lines were still sound or reparable. The Turks had not the heart to continue on the left, though a strong trench system two to six miles east of the city was still holding out to-night, the left almost in the air, and pressed on three sides. They had a bad time, but when I was in Gaza to-day the guns from this quarter threw a large number of shells into the streets. Clearly, their part of the line had not yet been reduced.

TURKISH FORCES SPLIT UP.

To troops from the Western Counties and Indians was given the task of attacking along the ridge south-east of Gaza, terminating in Alimuntar or Samson’s Hill. East Anglian and Home Counties men, operating along the seaside, where a few days ago they gave the enemy bomb and bayonet, and cleared him out of the trenches of his first line. The opposition was weak. Only a few men remained in the trenches. The whole place was ours at daylight. Scottish Territorials pushed on through the town. Indian cavalry pursued the Turks nearly as far as Wadi Hesi. At sunset the Turks were holding Besi Hanun, four miles north-east of Gaza, the railway terminus, damaged by the ships’ fire. Three infantry divisions were retiring rapidly, many crossing the Wadi Hesi, harassed continually by us. We securely hold the hills east of the town. Nothing the Turkish division at Awineh hurls against us threatens our possession. This is one of the three detached parts which the enemy forces have been split into In the centre there are two Turkish divisions north of Sheria, which attempted to counter-attack the London Territorials after the latter’s hard hitting yesterday and the rapture of important stores. We have cavalry north of these Turkish divisions at Ameidat, and they may feel a double pressure immediately. Farther east there are two enemy divisions, and part of a third at Mejadil, opposed to men from gallant little Wales and Home Counties troops, whose stubborn guard of the right flank against big odds yesterday kept Kauwukeh for us, and enabled a rapid advance against Kauwukeh Sheria. These Welshmen magnificently avenged their losses in the second battle of Gaza. Abu Harira having been carried at daybreak by Irishmen, who went forward with the bayonet into the trenches, though raked by machine-gun fire, taking 100 prisoners and several guns, the enemy lines are hopelessly split into three parts, with our troops separating each. The situation is promising, but the continuance of abnormally hot weather and the arduous nature of fighting in a country which yields nothing for the troops may prevent a long chase. We have got between thirty and forty guns, and numerous prisoners. Our victory is already splendid.

PLAN THAT SAVED MANY LIVES.

General Allenby’s strategy has saved many lives. Gaza, framed in a deep margin of field fortifications, was taken at the cost of a few casualties. Yet, if it had been defended with the tenacity the Turks usually show, and we had had to assault it, the cost of the victory would have been heavy. The roiling up of the Turks on the left step by step with a large toll of prisoners and guns gave us Gaza at a small expenditure of men. The prisoners taken all thought Gaza impregnable. One officer prisoner ridiculed the idea of its capture. An immense amount of labour had been spent on the defences. I saw many dug-outs with a head-cover of nine thick palm logs, beneath sandbag tops, and winding stairs lea to shelter a dozen feet below the ground. The shell craters all round the enemy lines show how wonderfully accurate was our fire, but, if the Turks had held out, the artillery preparation for a direct assault would have been much prolonged. The guns had played havoc with the thick cactus hedges which made natural defences round the south of the town. Still these were in many places untouched, and a few machine-guns would have held up battalions. With all these advantages remaining to him the Turk had to go. He left some snipers behind, and the bullets’ ping made one walk warily, but all are rounded up now. Gaza at close quarters is a disappointment. The picturesqueness of the red-topped roofs and coloured walls as seen over the olive groves had vanished. Most of the houses had their roofs blown in, and huge rents in the walls show the passage of shells, while the blackened carcases of dwellings tell how the Turks destroyed what they could not appropriate. The city has once more been the victim of war’s devastation. The west part, which our troops call “Belgravia,” is a squalid quarter of mean mud-brick buildings and narrow, winding streets, full of noisome odours. Perhaps a new Gaza is promised; a new enlightened, cleaner, and happier city may grow out of its ruined state, and the inhabitants, all of whom fled or were driven away months ago, will live to bless the day when the terrible gunfire spoke and was heard for civilisation.