Battle of Samakh

Battle of Samakh
Part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I
German Headquarters, Samakh
Date 25 September 1918 Location Samakh on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias) 32°42′17.51″N 35°35′15.25″E / 32.7048639°N 35.5875694°E / 32.7048639; 35.5875694 Result Australian Light Horse victory
Belligerents
British Empire  Australia  New Zealand	Ottoman Empire  German Empire
Commanders and leaders
Edmund Allenby Harry Chauvel Henry West Hodgson William Grant	Cevat Pasha Otto Liman von Sanders
Units involved
Australian Mounted Division 4th Light Horse Brigade's Headquarters 11th Light Horse Regiment 12th Light Horse Regiment 4th Machine Gun Squadron	Yildirim Army Group remnants from the Seventh Army Eighth Army formed into rearguard
Casualties and losses
17 killed, 60 wounded, 1 missing	98 killed, 33 wounded, 331 unwounded prisoners

The Battle of Samakh was fought on 25 September 1918, during the Battle of Sharon which together with the Battle of Nablus formed the set piece Battle of Megiddo fought from 19 to 25 September 1918, in the last months of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. During the cavalry phase of the Battle of Sharon the Desert Mounted Corps commanded by the Australian Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel, captured the Esdraelon Plain (also known as the Jezreel Valley and the Plain of Armageddon) 40–50 miles (64–80 km) behind the front line in the Judean Hills on 20 September, when the 3rd Light Horse Brigade captured Jenin. The 4th Light Horse Brigade, Australian Mounted Division was deployed guarding supply columns, and prisoners, before being ordered to attack and capture Samakh on the shore of the Sea of Gallilee. Here the Ottoman and German garrison had been ordered by the commander of the Yildirim Army Group to fight to the last man.

Samakh, in the centre of a rearguard line stretching from Tiberias through Samakh and on to Deraa was intended to cover the retreat of three Ottoman armies. The rearguard was set up to delay the advance of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) cavalry in the Desert Mounted Corps after the British Empire infantry victories in the Judean Hills at the Battle of Tulkarm, and the Battle of Tabsor during the Battle of Sharon. These and other battles fought during the Battle of Nablus including the Third Transjordan attack, also part of the Battle of Megiddo, forced the retreat of the Ottoman Fourth, the Seventh and the Eighth Armies north towards Damascus.

On 20 September, German General Otto Liman von Sanders, the commander of the Yildirim Army Group, ordered Samakh's German and Ottoman garrison to prepare a strong rearguard defence of the town. By dawn on 25 September, when a regiment and two squadrons of the Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade attacked Samakh, the rearguard was strongly entrenched. The assault, which began with a mounted cavalry charge, ended two hours later after close quarter fighting in the village and the railway station. After fierce fighting with bayonets and swords, from room to room in the railway buildings, the town was captured. This victory, which captured the centre of the rearguard line, concluded the Battle of Sharon section of the Battle of Megiddo and opened the way for the cavalry pursuit to Damascus, which was captured on 1 October. By the time the Armistice of Mudros between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire was signed at the end of October, Aleppo had been captured and fighting was in progress further north.