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The Battle of Samakh was fought on 25 September 1918, during the Battle of Sharon which together with the Battle of Nablus formed the set piece Battle of Megiddo fought from 19 to 25 September 1918, in the last months of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. During the cavalry phase of the Battle of Sharon the Desert Mounted Corps commanded by the Australian Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, captured the Esdraelon Plain (also known as the Jezreel Valley and the Plain of Armageddon) behind the front line in the Judean Hills on 20 September, when the 3rd Light Horse Brigade captured Jenin. The 4th Light Horse Brigade, Australian Mounted Division was deployed guarding supply columns, and prisoners, before being ordered to attack and capture Samakh on the shore of the Sea of Gallilee. Here the Ottoman and German garrison had been ordered by the commander of the Yildirim Army Group to fight to the last man. Samakh, in the centre of a rearguard line stretching from Tiberias through Samakh and on to Deraa was intended to cover the retreat of three Ottoman armies. The rearguard was set up to delay the advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) cavalry in the Desert Mounted Corps after the British Empire infantry victories in the Judean Hills at the Battle of Tulkarm, and the Battle of Tabsor during the Battle of Sharon. These and other battles fought during the Battle of Nablus including the Third Transjordan attack, also part of the Battle of Megiddo, forced the retreat of the Ottoman Fourth, the Seventh and the Eighth Armies north towards Damascus. On 20 September, German General Otto Liman von Sanders, the commander of the Yildirim Army Group, ordered Samakh's German and Ottoman garrison to prepare a strong rearguard defence of the town. By dawn on 25 September, when a regiment and two squadrons of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade attacked Samakh, the rearguard was strongly entrenched. The assault, which began with a mounted cavalry charge, ended two hours later after close quarter fighting in the village and the railway station. After fierce fighting with bayonets and swords, from room to room in the railway buildings, the town was captured. This victory, which captured the centre of the rearguard line, concluded the Battle of Sharon section of the Battle of Megiddo and opened the way for the cavalry pursuit to Damascus, which was captured on 1 October. By the time the Armistice of Mudros between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire was signed at the end of October, Aleppo had been captured and fighting was in progress further north. ==Background== Following the First Transjordan and the Second Transjordan attacks in March–April and April–May 1918, by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF), which had been responsible for the Sinai and Palestine Campaign since March 1916, its commander General Edmund Allenby ordered the occupation of the Jordan Valley. He also ordered the front line be extended across the Judean Hills to the Mediterranean Sea. Most of the British infantry and Yeomanry cavalry regiments were redeployed to the Western Front to counter Ludendorff's Spring Offensive and were replaced by British India Army infantry and cavalry. As part of re-organisation and training, these newly arrived soldiers carried out a series of attacks on sections of the Ottoman front line during the summer months. These attacks were aimed at pushing the front line to more advantageous positions in preparation for a major attack, and to acclimatise the newly arrived infantry. It was not until the middle of September that the consolidated force was ready for large-scale operations.〔Falls 1930 Vol. 1 p. 97, Vol. 2 pp. 302–446〕 On 19 September, the XXI Corps commanded by Lieutenant General Edward Bulfin had, with the support of a creeping barrage, broken through the Ottoman front line during the Battle of Sharon. In the afternoon the XX Corps commanded by Lieutenant General Philip Chetwode was then ordered to begin its own attack, supported by an artillery barrage. These attacks by both the XX and XXI Corps continued until midday on 21 September, when a successful flanking attack by the XXI Corps, combined with the XX Corps assault, forced the Seventh and Eighth Armies to disengage. The Seventh Army commanded by the Ottoman Army Ferik or Birinci Ferik, Mustafa Kemal retreated from the Nablus area towards the Jordan River, crossing at the Jisr ed Damieh bridge before the rearguard at Nablus was captured. The Desert Mounted Corps commanded by Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel advanced through the gap created by the XXI Corps infantry during the morning of 19 September to almost encircle the Ottoman forces fighting in the Judean Hills, capturing Nazareth, Haifa, Afulah and Beisan, Jenin and Samakh before advancing to Tiberias. During this time, Chaytor's Force commanded by Major General Edward Chaytor captured part of the retreating Ottoman and German column at the Jisr ed Damieh bridge to cut off this line of retreat across the Jordan River. To the east of the river, as the Fourth Army began its retreat, Chaytor's Force advanced to capture Es Salt on 23 September. Amman was captured on 25 September during the Second Battle of Amman where a strong Fourth Army rearguard was defeated on 25 September.〔Falls 1930 Vol. 2 pp. 447–555〕 Samakh was regarded by both Allenby, the British commander of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, and the German General Otto Liman von Sanders, commander of the Yildirim Army Group, as a key strategic point. The town controlled the most direct road to Damascus on the Ottoman lines of communication and the Palestine Railways which ran across a series of bridges across the Jordan River from Deraa.〔Grainger 2006 p. 235〕〔Bruce 2002 p. 240〕 During the unsuccessful attack of the 5th Cavalry Division on Nazareth in the early morning of 20 September, Liman von Sanders accompanied by General Kiazim, Major Prigge and Rittmeister Hecker, had escaped on their way to Damascus. They arrived at Tiberias during the afternoon of 20 September, before continuing on to Samakh and Deraa.〔Falls 1930 Vol. 2 p. 527〕〔Carver 2003 p. 235〕〔Keogh 1955 p. 251〕 He alerted the garrisons he passed to the advance of the EEF and ordered the establishment of a rearguard line. The line was to run from Deraa down the Yarmuk River Valley, across the Jordan River and west to Samakh, around the shore of the Sea of Galilee to Tiberias and northwards to Lake Huleh. Two main roads and the railway lines to Damascus, would be protected and time gained for the development of the defence of Damascus, if the garrisons were not defeated.〔〔Hill 1978 p. 172〕〔Wavell 1968 p. 222〕 Liman von Sanders described Samakh "as the essential link between the two main sectors of the line" but also "the weak link between the two-halves."〔Wavell 1968 p. 223〕〔Falls Vol. 2 p. 542〕 He reinforced the garrison at Samakh with German machine gunners and ordered the commander, a German officer to hold the town to the last man.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Samakh」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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