Western Ottoman Empire showing the travels of Rafael De Nogales, Inspector-General of the Turkish Forces in Armenia and Military Governor of Egyptian Sinai during the World War, from his book Four Years Beneath the Crescent.
Legend for the author's travels for the years 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918.
"A few minutes after our arrival at Beersheba we met a German sergeant who told us, in reply to my question as to where he was going, that he was following Lieutenant Ande, who had set out a half hour previous with his machine-gun detachment, in the direction of Shellal. At once we suspected that something of grave importance was underway. We hurried on therefore to our encampment; and reached it at the precise moment when Essay Bey sallied forth with the entire garrison of Beersheba to take part in the First Battle of Gaza."
Rafael de Nogales was a Venezuelan mercenary and officer in the Ottoman Army who had been Inspector-General of Turkish Forces in Armenia. In 1916 he served under German General von der Goltz in Mesopotamia. In January, 1917 he was in Palestine where he heard the news that the British had advanced 'beyond El-Arrisch and were at the gates of the city of Gaza.' He had just returned from a failed mission to destroy the chief pumping station of the British pipe line when he found the First Battle of Gaza beginning.
Four Years Beneath the Crescent by Rafael De Nogales, page 326, copyright © 1926, by Charles Scribner's Sons, publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, publication date: 1926
1917-03-26, 1917, March, Gaza, First Battle of Gaza