COULD NOT BE MORE COMPLETE

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 85, 7 October 1918, Page 7

COULD NOT BE MORE COMPLETE

THREE TURKISH ARMIES

DESTROYED

ECSTATIC WELCOME IN DAMASCUS

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION,—-COPiRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) . LONDON, 4th October.

Mr. W. T. M&ssey, writing from Damascus on Ist October. say 6: "General Allenby's triumphant march northward into Syria this morning drove the Turks completely oat of Damascus. The city was enveloped by the British, Australian, and Indian troops, and the King of Hedja's Arab army has marched in. A few Turksfgot away, scattered and demoralised, but fully 12,000 Germans and Turks were taken prisoner in and about the city. A number of guns were captured. The roads were a shambles where the enemy resisted. His transport was smashed, and most of the war material that was left behind was destroyed by ihe Germans, though-..'eoine valuable transport, including a park cf artillery limbers, was untouched. The number of prisoners captured since 19th September is probably over 60,000. : General Alienby has crushed out of existence the Turkish 4th, 7th, and Bth. Armies. It would 1m impossible for the triumph to be more cpmflate. Our.casualties were very slight. "Our army received a great welcome from the population. The people threw off their stolid exterior, received us with ecstatic joy^ closed their chops, »Dd acclaimed the day a« the greatest in Damascus in its four thousand years of history* Turks and Germans who had gone into hiding came forward and surrendered as Boon as our presence ensnred their security; Tn some cases whole companies of Turkish soldiers were marched in under the escort of a few Arabs. Never were tables more thoroughlyHiirned. We released Dr. Fordes, a. missionary of Jerusalem, who had.been a prisoner for two and a-haJf years in Damascus. Three Englishwomen were also rescued. They bad . been serving •as nurses at the Victoria Hospital, which had been converted into a Bed Crescent hospital, and were all well. It was good to hear that a number of British civilians who had been interned in various parts of Central Asia Minor had lately been removed to Constantinople, with &■ view to their exchange for Turkish prisoners.

"Damascus bears evidence of the permajience of German aspirations here, including that furnished by a huge wireless st?Jion, one of the most powerful in the vurld, which had been established since the war began. I There ate also enormous bakeries and printing works."