Berkusieh Ridge, 12 Nov 17, Palestine - Turkish involvement

[Bill Woerlee]

Mates

In examining the Battle of Berkusieh Ridge which took place 12 November 1917 various Turkish units were deployed including about 4-6,000 fresh troops from Et Tine.

To clarify the situation, I have included a map from the OBWH detailing the action.

There are two questions that arise from the battle:

1. What was the Turkish plan for the battle?

2. What was the nature of the units deployed? We can see that there was the 3rd Cav Div, 19th, 26th, 53rd & 54th Divs involved but essentially we don't know who they were - origins, commanders, strength etc. and what role they were to play in the attack.

When I look at the unfolding operation, I can only see a frontal assault with no real objective in mind except maybe the airfield and rail station at Arak el Menshiyeh. This would open up alternative communications with Jerusalem via Bethlehem through Beit Jibrin - a decent strategic objective. But to achieve this would have placed their troops in a potential sack. This would leave the Turkish forces exposed to being surrounded as a consequence of an attack against Junction Station which occurred a few days later. Junction Station was taken by the Gurkhas in fierce fighting - a battle that would have been much easier for the Gurkhas while the Turks remained in occupation of Berkusieh Ridge. Perhaps the thinking was that the Turks might have been able to retreat to Bethlehem if Junction Station fell but this would have been an escape route available to very few. The route was winding through the hills and thus movement would be slow, just the right sort of thing for air interdiction. Straffing and bombing of the retreating forces would have inflicted heavy losses as they would have had no where to hide. thus movement could only have been effected at night time. By attacking Berkusieh Ridge, the Turks exposed themselves to the loss of all the formations within their whole southern flank which very nearly happened.

Perhaps the idea was a bit more grandiose with the objective to pivot at El Faluja and Arak el Menshiyeh, and then carve a path through the rear areas of XXI Corps to the sea with the thought of bagging 20,000 or so Allied forces. But that would be an excessively ambitious plan for the numbers deployed.

That is what confuses me about this action. It was a frontal assault which had no potential to upset the control of the southern coastal plains by the British. Even had they achieved their objective, the Turks would have lost big time once Junction Station was taken. So if there was no military objective, perhaps there was a political objective by Djamal Pasha which was forced on Kress. I still cannot fathom why Kress would order such an attack.

Cheers

Bill

[stevebecker]

Bill.

There are a number of reasons for this attack by units of the 7th Turkish Army.

The first was Von Falkenhayn was concern that the two Turkish Armies (7th and 8th) were being broken apart and could be destroyed singlely. IF you notice the Div's of the 7th Army were withdrawaling threw the mountains while the 8th Army had the open plains and the 8th Army was falling back to fast exposing the units of the 7th Army.

Secondly he needed time for the 8th Army to form a line on the Wadi Sarar to stablize the retreat. Part to this was to form the line but also to slow the British down for the 7th Army to either catch up.

To help this units of the 7th and 8th Army were to counterattack to check the advance of the British and allow time to form some line and hold the retreat.

These are the basic reasons for the counterattack but the effect soon became known when the coastal British forces broke threw the 8th Army lines forcing the Armies to again continue the withdrawnal.

Cheers

S.B

[Bill Woerlee]

Steve

G'day mate

Thanks for the thoughts - makes sense to me.

Cheers

Bill