Syria and Palestine Front: Showing Cairo, Egypt, the northern Sinai peninsula, Akaba on the Red Sea, Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus, and Aleppo. The Hejaz Railway runs north, parallel to the Mediterranean coast. From Palestine and Syria with Routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia and with the Island of Cyprus by Karl Baedeker.
"The Royal Air Force launched aerial attacks on Daraa on 16 September in a bid to disrupt Ottoman communications and to encourage Liman von Sanders to focus on the defence of the Hijaz Railway. T. E. Lawrence led Arab forces in an attack with armoured cars on the railway south of Daraa, where they succeeded in destroying a bridge. The following day, the main Arab force attacked the railway to the north of Daraa with relative impunity. The Ottomans rushed to repair the line, and Liman called up reserves from the coastal port of Haifa to reinforce Daraa—playing perfectly into Allenby's deception."
Under the command of General Edmund Allenby, the British entered Jerusalem on December 11, 1917, then continued advancing along the Mediterranean coast in Palestine. Allenby failed to take Nablus in an attack launched on March 8, 1918, and further attacks were suspended after the success of Germany's Spring Offensives made the Allied position on the Western Front desperate, demanding men and materiel in France. With the ultimate German failure and the success of Allied offensives beginning in July, Allenby resumed his campaign. He would do so on September 19, attacking along the coast rather than inland. The Daraa raid deceived German General Otto Liman von Sanders who commanded Turkish and German forces in the region. T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, worked with the Arabs opposing the Turks and led a campaign sabotaging the Hijaz Railway that ran from Medina in Arabia, north to Maan, Amman, and Damascus.
The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan, page 374, copyright © 2015 by Eugene Rogan, publisher: Basic Books, publication date: 2015
1918-09-17, 1918, September, T. E. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence, Lawrence, Otto Liman von Sanders, Liman von Sanders, von Sanders, Sanders, Edmund Allenby, Allenby, Palestine, Hijaz, Hijaz Railway, Daraa,
