No see Preston page 132 General Allenby now judged the time to be ripe for a raid by our troops on the Hedjaz Railway at Amman which he had long contemplated The immediate effect of such a raid would be to compel the enemy to withdraw the force which had recently occupied Tafile It might in addition force him to call on the Turkish troops at Maan for aid thus weakening the garrison there and giving the Arabs an opportunity to attack the place with some prospects of success A further result to be expected from the raid would be to induce the enemy to keep a large part of his army east of the Jordan thus correspondingly weakening his forces in the Judean hills So the raid did what its was intended to The Ottomans Turkish reinforced the east and weakened their forces in the west In that respect it was a strategic British victory