File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎275r] (558/834)

Afterwards I rode out westwards till I met the outposts of
the Fourth Division (British) and guided them into Deraa. They
only stayed there one night and early on the 29th they left for
Damascus, after assigning to us the duty of right-flank guard.
Accordingly, we marched up the Hejaz line, which suited us very
well, for first our three hundred Rualla and Abu Tayi horse, and
then our nine hundred Rualla camels, caught up with our Hauran
cavalry harassing the Turkish Deraa column near Mesmiye.
Elie aeroplanes had reported this column as six thousand
strong. At Sheikh Miskin on the second day it looked about
five thousand strong. At Mesmiye it was said to be three
thousand strong, and at Kiswe, where our horse headed them into
Greneral Gregory’s Brigade, there were about two thousand of
them. The whole of this gradual attrition was the work of the
irregulars, since the Arab Regular Army, not being skilled camel-
men, marched little faster than the British cavalry, and never came
into action after Deraa. The Kiswe fight was a satisfactory affair.
The Turks came along the valley of the Hejaz line, in a long,
straggling column, halting every few miles to bring their guns into
action against the Arabs. Nasir knew that the leading brigade of
the Fourth Division was nearing Khan Denun, so he galloped
forward with his slaves, and Nuri Shaalan and his slaves, about
thirty in all, headed the Turkish column off between Jebel
Mania and the trees of Khiata, and threw himself into the trees
to delay them till the British were ready. The British had not
seen or heard of this enemy column, and were in order of march,
but as soon as they had learned what was forward they got their
cavalry to north, west, and south of them, and opened oji them
with their Horse Artillery. It was just sunset when the affair
began, but before it was too dark to see, the Turks were a
scattered mob, running up the steep slopes of Mania and over it,
in their ignorance that the Wuld Ali and Abu Tayi were waiting
for them there in force. This ended the history of the Fourth
Army. Old Auda, tired of slaughter, took the last six hundred
prisoners. In all we had killed nearly five thousand of them,
captured about eight thousand (as we took them we stripped them,
and sent them to the nearest village, where they will be put to
work on the land till further notice) and counted spoils of about
one hundred and fifty machine guns and from twenty-five to
thirty guns.
Our horse rode on that evening (September 30) into
Damascus, where the burning ammunition dumps turned night
into day. Away back at Kiswe the glare was painful, and the
roar and reverberation of the explosions kept us all awake. In
Damascus, Shukri el-Ayubi and the town council had proclaimed
the King of the Arabs and hoisted the Arab flag as soon as
Mustafa Kamel and Jemal had gone. The Turk and German
morale was so low that they had marched out beneath the Arab
flag without protest: and so good was the civil control that little
or no looting took place.