ABSTRACT
The arid tracts where soldiers' own troops and General Allenby’s were fighting, and the desert between, spanned the whole land of Holy Writ, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and from Babylon to Shush, the ancient Susa or the Shushan of the Bible. Bers Nimrud, the mound of debris on the left, with the rock-like brick foundations surmounting it, is, according to Arab tradition, all that remains of the Tower of Babel. Only one small detachment, which had been left behind at Diwaniyeh in charge of the stores and the sick during the Turks’ retirement from Samawa to Ramadi, held out at the end of the summer. Diwaniyeh was too far from any of their posts, and soldiers had too much on their hands between March and September to open up communications and to send troops there. It was not until their aeroplanes came and bombed the serai which Mahomet Effendi and his Tartars were holding against the Arabs that he reconciled surrender with honour.
