Fatal Blow at the Battle of Megiddo

By Richard Willis The six-day Battle of Megiddo fought in September 1918 was a decisive climax to the struggle in Palestine between the Ottoman Empire, backed by the Germans, and Great Britain and her allies. In the rush to Damascus, troops from several Allied nations fought with vigor and exuberance in the shadow of the ancient battleground city of Megiddo, where the Egyptians and Canaanites had battled in the 15th century B.C. Far from the Western Front in World War I Europe, Allied cavalrymen rode across Palestine and left behind them the ravages of a Turkish rout. Allied artillery, the Royal Air Force, and the Australian Air Corps pummelled the Turks. Then, swift-riding horsemen in full regimental uniforms and armed with swords and lances consolidated the gains. To many of the participants in the campaign it was a dream; to others a nightmare, as though what had happened in the Holy Land in former times had sprung forth again, breathing fire, sword, and lance from the pages of the Bible. The Turks, shelled or bombed out of their trenches, hid in wadis (ravines), and the moment the Allied cavalry appeared the demoralised Ottoman conscripts often surrendered. The Allied cavalry tended to ride hard and rough, covering great distances in times that the world had forgotten were possible—a foretaste of the German blitzkrieg two decades later. The sight of the ruined city of Megiddo must have made the troops question how many armies had been ground to death by chariots on