Australian cavalry occupied Damascus on Tuesday morning, twelve days after
General Allenby began his offensive in the Plain of Sharon. Our advanced guards had occupied-Tiberias and Semakh, on the Sea of Galilee, on Thursday week. The following day the Australian Light Horse forced the Upper Jordan, north of the lake, at Jacob's Bridge, while British cavalry, south of the lake, rode due east to join the Hedjaz Arabs at Deraa last Saturday. The two de- tachments then pressed northward by converging roads, dispersing the Turkish rearguards with loss, and surrounding Damascus on Monday night. At dawn the capital of Syria was taken, with seven thousand prisoners. Meanwhile the columns sent across the Jordan from. Jericho had occupied Amman, on the Haljaz Railway, on Thursday week, taking five thousand seven hundred prisoners. They had thus blocked the retreat of those divisions of the Turkish Fourth Army which had been guarding the desert line south of Amman. Last Sunday this force, ten thousand strong, sur- rendered at Kalat Ziza,. General Allenby has now captured seventy thousand Turks and Germans, with hundreds of guns. The isolated garrisons at Medina and further south are also lost to Turkey.
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