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…Over the course of early September 1918 Allenby received the first of the reinforcements he had desired since spring. With more forthcoming he determined that he was now ready to launch an assault on the Ottoman lines between Haifa and Dera. Having found an overlooked gap in the hills west of Dera Allenby planned to launch his assault in the west.

Attacking at 4:30 in the morning on the 21st Allenby ripped a massive hole in the Ottoman lines within a matter of hours. Dera had fallen by the end of the 22nd and the Ottoman forces were in full rout. A combination of Allenby’s cavalry and the revolting Arabs organized by Lawrence of Arabia made an enthusiastic pursuit. Damascus fell on September 28th, Beirut on October 4th and Aleppo, the third largest city in the Ottoman Empire on the 20th of October.

The Ottomans however were willing to abandon this territory, the inhabitants were not ethnically Turkish and had proved troublesome. Instead the dug in to defend on the line of the Nur mountains. The Ottomans and the German advisers did not think the line could be held long term, but it would allow them to hold Cicilia for longer and to fortify the Cicilian Gates. Ideally by that point the forces they had sent to the Caucuses over the summer as part of the Army of Islam would have defeated the Armenians and secured Baku, and thus be available as reinforcements for holding the Entente out of Anatolia.

In November the Entente forces were considering how to break through the Ottoman lines without a costly frontal assault through the mountains in winter. An amphibious attack on Alexandretta was proposed to seize the Cicilian gates and cut off the Ottoman forces in the Nur Mountains. Such an assault was believed to be too much like Gallipoli and given the enemy troop densities in the area, too likely to fail.

As a diversion the threat of one proved satisfactory. On December 11th a large force of merchant ships was assembled in Egypt and loaded with newly arrived troops. The Ottomans were well aware of the gathering and transferred reserves to Cicilia to stop it. When the fleet sailed on the 14th they went on alert, one that redoubled when it arrived on the 18th. When the accompanying old battleships, armored cruisers and monitors began a fierce bombardment the next day they were quite certain that an invasion was underway.

They were thus taken by surprise when a hastily trained force of Ghurka’s, freed up by the conclusion of the Mesopotamian campaign and fall of Mosul in early November attacked the Nur Mountain line. Infiltrating at night with special equipment to move over terrain too difficult for other troops the Gurkhas took the defending Ottomans by surprise and made a number of holes in the Ottoman lines. Distracted by the bombardment they believed this was the diversion and did not commit reserves to counterattacking.

By the next day, with their defenses in the mountains disintegrating and no invasion in sight the Ottomans, or rather their German advisers realized they had been fooled. In order to avoid being destroyed the Ottomans withdrew to the Cicilian Gates, leaving the fertile plain of Cicilia to the British forces for minimum casualties.

Some of the assembled ships stayed to unload reinforcements and supplies for Allenby’s Army. A portion, hidden in the shuffle by some fancy sailing, broke off and headed out to sea. On the 30th elements of the French Army landed and seized the city of Antalya which had been denuded of troops to reinforce the Cicilian Gates and the Army of Islam in the Caucuses.

By stopping reinforcements for the Caucuses, to the dismay and protests of Enver Pasha, who was insistent he was near to taking Baku, and stripping garrisons elsewhere the Ottomans were able to assemble forces to bottle up the French landing.

The Germans exerted pressure on their Bulgarian and Romanian allies to send troops to reinforce the Ottomans. They refused saying the Albanian front and occupation of Russia were taking up all of their troops, something blatantly untrue. However the Germans could not spare the forces to physically compel them to contribute. Furthermore the Germans were ignorant of the discussions going on in Athens involving diplomats from both nations…

-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004