Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence

BY NOVEMBER, 1917, ALLENBY WAS READY TO OPEN A GENERAL ATTACK AGAINST THE TURKS ALONG HIS WHOLE FRONT. THE ARABS SHOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME IN THEIR SECTOR: BUT I WAS AFRAID TO PUT EVERYTHING ON A THROW, AND DESIGNED INSTEAD THE SPECIOUS OPERATION OF CUTTING THE YARMUK VALLEY RAILWAY, TO THROW INTO DISORDER THE EXPECTED TURKISH RETREAT. THIS HALF-MEASURE MET WITH THE FAILURE IT DESERVED.

October, accordingly, was a month of anticipation for us, in the knowledge that Allenby, with Bols and Dawnay, was planning to attack the Gaza-Beersheba line; while the Turks, a quite small army strongly entrenched, with excellent lateral communications, had been puffed up by successive victories to imagine that all British generals were incompetent to keep what their troops had won for them by dint of sheer hard fighting.