page_title: Battle of Beersheba (1917)
section_title: Beersheba defences
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Beersheba (1917) / Prelude / Ottoman force / Beersheba defences
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Ottoman soldiers
context_page_description: The Battle of Beersheba was fought on 31 October 1917, when the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force attacked and captured the Yildirim Army Group garrison at Beersheba, beginning the Southern Palestine Offensive of the Sinai and Palestine campaign of World War I. Infantry from the 60th and the 74th Divisions of the XX Corps from the southwest conducted limited attacks in the morning, then the Anzac Mounted Division launched a series of attacks against the strong defences which dominated the eastern side of Beersheba, resulting in their capture during the late afternoon. Shortly afterwards, the Australian Mounted Division's 4th and 12th Light Horse Regiments conducted a mounted infantry charge with bayonets in their hands, their only weapon for mounted attack, as their rifles were slung across their backs. Part of the two regiments dismounted to attack entrenchments on Tel es Saba defending Beersheba while the remainder of the light horsemen continued their charge into the town, capturing the place and part of the garrison as it was withdrawing.
  German General Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein was commander of the three divisions of the Fourth Army.
context_section_description: The natural features around the town favoured defence. Beersheba, on a rolling plain devoid of trees or water to its west, was dotted with hills and tells to its north, south and east. These geographic features were strengthened by a series of entrenchments, fortifications and redoubts. Well-constructed trenches, protected by wire, fortified defences north-west, west and south-west of Beersheba. This semicircle of entrenchments included well-sited redoubts on a series of high points extending up to 4 miles (6.4 km) from the town.
  Defending the east of Beersheba, Tel el Saba redoubt was manned by a battalion of the 48th Regiment and a machine-gun company, while the 6th and 8th Regiments of the 3rd Cavalry Division were deployed on the high ground to the north-east (in the foothills of the Judean Hills) to guard the Jerusalem road and keep Beersheba from being surrounded. To the west and south-west of the town, the 27th Division's 67th and 81st Infantry Regiments were deployed in a fortified semicircular line of deep trenches and redoubts strengthened by barbed wire. These regiments consisted primarily of "Arab farmers from the surrounding region, and although inexperienced fighters they were defending their own fields".
  The defenders were deployed as follows:
  the 67th Infantry and the 81st Infantry Regiments (27th Division), defended Beersheba from the west and from south of the Wadi el Saba,
  the 3rd Cavalry Division was deployed in the high ground northeast of the town,
  one battalion of the 48th Infantry Regiment (16th Division) and a machine gun company defended Tel es Saba, with the remainder of the regiment deployed to the south from the Khalasa road to Ras Ghannam,
  two battalions of the 2nd Regiment of Anatolian riflemen from Chanak (commanded by German officers) were deployed in trenches defending the south-east, facing the open plain south of Tel el Saba.
caption: Ottoman infantry column about 1917 (many soldiers in keffiyehs)
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