The Story of the Great War, Volume IV

and Second County of London Yeomanry. But the British hopes of a decisive engagement were blighted by the general retirement of the Turkish army with their reenforcements.

They crossed the desert successfully, thanks to the organizing skill of Kress von Kressenstein and Roshan Bey, and set off for the Turkish base at Beersheba, spreading the news along the road that they had won a victory and would soon return to Egypt and achieve another, this by way of keeping the Syrians reassured that success was on the Moslem side.

In January, 1915, the commander of Turkish troops at Fort Nakhl, hearing that the Government quarantine station at Tor was undefended, sent a body of men under two German officers to occupy the place. The raiders found on their arrival at Tor that about 200 Egyptian soldiers were in occupation and waited there until they received reenforcements, which brought their force up to 400 men. For the time they occupied a small village about five miles north of Tor, occasionally firing