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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
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