chies." Here we were able to carry out a certain amount of training,
and to organize the battalion upon the lines of the new "normal
formation," giving the platoon commander control over each kind of
weapon with which the infantry are armed--rifle, bayonet, bomb,
rifle-bomb and Lewis gun. Gas masks were issued, and all ranks were
instructed in their use. In a couple of weeks this training, or rather
adaptation of our previous training to the conditions of trench warfare
upon this front, had so far progressed that we could enter upon the next
stage of our acclimatization. Individual companies were now sent up
into the front line "for instruction." This consisted of their being
attached to other units that were garrisoning the front line. Our men
were posted in the trenches with men of such other units; and some of
the officers and men accompanied patrols into "No Man's Land." After
three weeks of acclimatization, we moved up to the front line and
ourselves took over a section of the defences. And here we remained
until after the Fall of Gaza.

The Turkish army at this time, as we have seen, held a strong position
from the sea at Gaza, roughly along the main Gaza-Beersheba road to
Beersheba. His force was on a wide front, the distance from Gaza to
Beersheba being about 30 miles. Gaza itself had been made into a strong
modern fortress, heavily entrenched and wired, offering every facility
for protracted defence. The civilian population had been evacuated. The
remainder of the enemy's line consisted originally of a series of strong
localities, which were known as the Sihan group of works, the Atawinah
group, the Baha group, the Abu Hareira-Arab el Teeaha trench system, and
finally, the works covering Beersheba. During the period from July to
October, the defences had been considerably strengthened, and these
strong localities had, by the end of October, been joined up to form a
practically continuous line from the sea to a point south of Sheria,
except for a gap of some 1,500 to 2,000 yards between Ali Muntar and the
Sihan group. The defensive works round Beersheba remained a detached
system, but had been improved and extended. A new railway had been made
from El Tine, just south of Junction Station on the Damascus-Beersheba
railway to Beit Hanun, just north of Gaza, with a subsidiary branch to
Huj, the latter intended to supply the centre of the defensive line. It
was evident, therefore, that the enemy was determined to mak