100 Years Ago - Russia and Palestine

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-bolshevist-collapse-3l6sl8dlt


february 26, 1918

The Bolshevist collapse

“Their knees are on our chest and our position is hopeless.” That is the argument by which the Bolshevist chief Lenin urged the Soviet to submit to the terms dictated by Germany. Harsher terms have seldom been imposed upon a conquered foe by the unbridled will of triumphant “militarism”. But the argument was unanswerable, and the body which has filled the world for months with its protestations of undying devotion to the extremest development of ultra-democracy and with its pledges to fight to the last in the sacred cause has meekly yielded to the Kaiser’s orders.
Lenin’s pretence that the peace is accepted only “as a respite” until the Bolshevists can make ready their “decisive resistance to the bourgeoisie and to Imperialism” can hardly have deceived the silliest of his comrades. Their defeat at the conference table has been not less shameful than their defeat in the field. In a few short months this self-constituted Government of talkers and doctrinaires have brought Russia to her present plight. She lies, crushed and humiliated, at the feet of foes who trembled before the impending advance of her armies but a year ago. They are driving her soldiers before them like sheep, they advance where they please into what were her territories, and they insolently tell her that, if she desires to escape further chastisement she must sign without demur the conditions laid before her.

The Bolshevists have posed before the world as the high priests of a pure and fiery brand of super-Socialism. Not many weeks ago M Trotsky was adjuring the “working democracies of the Central Powers” to “put in a weighty word” on their behalf. Only a few days back he and Lenin were talking about the time when the German proletariat “shall rise and conquer”. Even now Lenin proclaims that “the proletariat of the whole world will come to our aid.”
The men who deliberately flung away the well-tempered Russian sword and bade their fellow-citizens rely exclusively upon oratory and idealism against the “militarism and imperialism” of the enemy have been forced to promise silence. They have riveted German fetters on the land they undertook to guide in the paths of freedom. They have plunged it into civil war. They have reduced it to anarchy and to ruin.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-02-24/register/three-days-battle-for-jericho-8zpvjcbhj

Three days’ battle for Jericho

February 24 1918

By another brilliant operation the Palestine Army has driven the Turks from the series of mountain ridges east of Jerusalem, forced the enemy out of Jericho, cleared the valley of the west and southern section of the Jordan, and compelled the Turks to burn their storehouses north of the Dead Sea. The operations lasted three days. The London infantrymen and their gunners were irresistible, and carried position after position by magnificent courage, skill, and fine physical strength, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy. Then Anzac mounted troops, moving down from the high country near Jerusalem, got among the crags and boulders of the lower levels and compelled the enemy to leave Jericho and sent him flying east of the Jordan.

No one who has not stood on the Mount of Olives and looked out on the barren, twisted country falling away to the Jordan and the Dead Sea can realize the effort required to turn out an obstinate enemy from the trenches cut and blasted out of these gaunt hills. There is scarcely a flat place in the whole 16 miles from Jerusalem, and throughout their magnificent advance the Londoners were either climbing up steep slopes and stony ridges, or moving along wadi beds worn by the torrents of centuries. One place, the Wadi Farar, has perpendicular cliff sides 500ft high. I watched the Londoners scaling the boulder-strewn hillside, getting over crests, and advancing across open ground in the face of the rapid, heavy thuds of the mountain guns and the whirring rap of the machine-guns, and I can say that their gallantry is unsurpassable. The Turks, with all the advantages in their favour, were completely defeated.
On what the Arabs call the Hill of Blood is Crusader Castle, with little save the moat and vaults remaining of its past glory. When the Londoners reached the top there was a brief fight, and the enemy fled. They made one counter-attack, but the position was gained by 8 o’clock.
Meanwhile, Australian and New Zealand mounted troops moved eastwards, threatening the enemy’s rear, and our mounted troops entered Jericho this morning. There is not one Turk between Jericho and Jerusalem, and it seems safe to prophesy that the Turks will never again attempt to attack the Holy City from the east.