page_title: Pursuit to Haritan
section_title: Implementation of the armistice
hierarchical_section_title: Pursuit to Haritan / Aftermath / Implementation of the armistice
caption_attribution_description: English: Ottoman troops being moved by train after the end of World War I Other information Copyright expired access unrestricted
context_page_description: The Pursuit to Haritan occurred between 29 September and 26 October 1918 when the XXI Corps and Desert Mounted Corps of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force pursued the retreating remnants of the Yildirim Army Group advanced north from Damascus after that city was captured on 1 October during the final weeks of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. The infantry and corps cavalry advanced from Haifa and Acre to capture the Mediterranean ports at Beirut and Tripoli between 29 September and 9 October. These captures enabled the inland pursuit to be supplied when the Desert Mounted Corps' 5th Cavalry Division resumed the pursuit on 5 October. The cavalry division occupied one after the other, Rayak, Homs, Hama. Meanwhile, Prince Feisal's Sherifial Force which advanced on the cavalry division's right flank, attacked and captured Aleppo during the night of 25/26 October after an unsuccessful daytime attack. The next day the 15th Cavalry Brigade charged a retreating column and attacked a rearguard during the Charge at Haritan near Haritan which was at first reinforced but subsequently withdrew further north.
context_section_description: The terms of the Armistice are tough. The first, in which our troops are naturally most interested, is that as from today the Dardanelles are opened, with free access to the Black Sea. So what the allied troops failed to do on Gallipoli in 1915, with such tragic loss, has at last been achieved on another front. Other Armistice terms include :
  The immediate demobilisation of the Turkish Army; the surrender of all war vessels; the release of all allied prisoners; the surrender of all Turkish ports, garrisons and officers; and most important, Turkey to cease all relations with the Central Powers.
  There are other views of the armistice and its implementation:
  Unlike Germany, the Ottoman Empire signed an armistice that did not require the immediate demobilisation of its army and the surrender of its weapons. Rather this [demobilisation] would be co–ordinated with the British authorities and would be contingent upon internal and external security requirements. In fact, the Ottoman General Staff, under the newly appointed Minister of War, Ahmet Izzet Pasa, sent out telegraphic instructions concerning the implementation of the armistice on 31 October 1918 that outlined the timelines and geographical parameters of the turn over of strategic points to the allies. By late November, the Ottoman General Staff had completed the reorganisation process and issued orders to all corps and divisions assigning them to peacetime garrisons within the Anatolian heartland ... the Ottoman General Staff itself continued in existence and continued to function as a directing staff.
  The terms of the Armistice required the Ottoman Empire:
  to withdraw their forces from the border province, Cilicia, leaving only the few troops required for internal security and frontier duties ... [but] The Turkish army commanders pleaded ignorance of the terms of the Armistice, they tried delay and evasion ... Mustapha Kemal went so far as to tell Chauvel's representative that he had no intention of carrying out the Armistice.
  Chauvel, from his GHQ at Homs recommended the removal of Mustapha Kemal who subsequently lost command of the Seventh Army.
caption: Ottoman soldiers' train preparing to go through the Taurus Mountain tunnels at Adana.
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