General Allenby's cavalry in Southern Syria on Sunday last occu-
pied Rayak and Zahleh, the chief towns on the railway running north- westwards from Damascus through the Lebanon foothills to Beirut. Last Sunday French and British warships entered that famous port, which the Turks had prudently abandoned. The same day our troops moving north along the coast from Acre entered Sidon. From Rayak the Syrian Railway runs northward, through Home, to Aleppo, about two hundred miles away. The Turks am evidently impotent to stay our progress, if we care to go forward, and the Syrians have welcomed the Allies with enthu- siasm. Between September 18th, when the offensive began in Samaria, and October 8th, General Allenby took seventy-five thousand prisoners and three hundred and fifty guns, while the Hedjae Arabs captured eight thousand prisoners. Among these were over three thousand German and Austrian troops. The three Turkish armies engaged in Palestine had a total strength of 103,417 on September 8th, so that very few can have escaped capture or death, except the German Commander-in-Chief, who, like Sir John Cope, was the first to bring news of his defeat to Damascus.
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