kha. The whole line was now advancing and driving the
retreating Turks towards Samaria and Nablus, and down the roads leading
northwards and eastwards from these points. By the evening of the 20th,
the Turkish resistance had collapsed everywhere on the west of the
Jordan, except on the Turkish left in the Jordan Valley. Our right wing
had advanced slightly, and occupied a line from near El Mugheir to Es
Sawieh, while our left wing had swung round and reached the line
Bidich-Baka-Messudieh Junction--that is to say, we were gradually
closing in on Nablus from the south, south-west, and west. Owing to the
tactical positions behind the enemy lines having been seized by our
cavalry, all avenues of escape which might have been open to the enemy
had been closed, except the fords across the Jordan between Beisan and
Jisr-ed-Damieh.

By the 21st, the retreating Turks had become a demoralized rabble,
fleeing to the fords of the Jordan, like the discomfited Midianites,
under Oreb and Zeeb, had fled more than three thousand years before from
the pursuit of Gideon. Those who fled down the northward road were
captured and collected by our cavalry at Jenin. Those who fled down the
eastward road by the Wadi Fara, hoping to reach the still open ford at
Jisr-ed-Damieh, met with a more cruel fate. This road led down a steep
and narrow gorge, dominated by the heights east of Nablus. A brigade of
the 10th Division was rushed forward by a forced march, and seized these
heights, effectually closing the trap. Our airmen had already got the
situation well in hand here, and the road soon became a veritable
shambles. The enemy had been forced or shepherded by our infantry into
this bottle-neck, and our airmen, swooping down to 200 feet and bombing
the head of the column, soon made the road impassable. That
accomplished, they flew up and down the struggling column, bombing and
machine-gunning without let or hindrance. It seemed as though the
unspeakable Turk had at last been delivered over to vengeance in this
Valley of Death. An eye-witness[11] describes the scene.

"In no section of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow could there have been a
more terrible picture of hopeless and irretrievable defeat. In this area
alone, eighty-seven guns of various calibres, and fully a thousand horse
and oxen-drawn vehicles, nearly a hundred motor-lorries, cars,
field-kitchens, water carts, and a mass of other impedimenta blocked the
road, with the carcases of thou