page_title: Capture of Afulah and Beisan
section_title: Prelude
hierarchical_section_title: Capture of Afulah and Beisan / Prelude
caption_attribution_description: English: Battle of Megiddo. Sketch Map 30 Megiddo positions of armies at zero hour, 19 September 1918.
context_page_description: The Capture of Afula and Beisan occurred on 20 September 1918, during the Battle of Sharon which together with the Nablus, formed the set piece Battle of Megiddo fought during the last months of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of the First World War. During the cavalry phase of the Battle of Sharon, the 4th Cavalry Division of the Desert Mounted Corps attacked and captured the main communications hub at Afula, located in the centre of the Esdraelon Plain, and Beisan on the plain's eastern edge near the Jordan River, some 40–50 miles behind the front line in the Judean Hills.
  Infantry attacks by the British Empires XXI Corps had begun the Battle of Sharon on 19 September, along an almost continuous trench line from the Mediterranean across the Plain of Sharon and into the foothills of the Judean Hills. These attacks captured the Ottoman front line at Tulkarm, Tabsor, and Arara, in the process outflanking and decimating the Ottoman Eighth Army on the coast. During the attack on Tulkarm, the infantry created a gap in the Ottoman front line defences, through which cavalry from General Edmund Allenby's Egyptian Expeditionary Force rode north.
context_section_description: According to David Woodward, "concentration, surprise, and speed were key elements in the blitzkrieg warfare planned by Allenby." Victory at Megiddo depended on controlling the skies by destroying or dominating German aircraft activities and reconnaissances, through constant bombing raids by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Australian Flying Corps (AFC), on Afula to disrupt communications between the Yildirim Army Headquarters at Nazareth and the Seventh and Eighth Armies' headquarters at Tulkarm and Nablus. Victory also depended on artillery barrages of sufficient intensity and effectiveness, to enable the infantry to quickly outflank the Ottoman defenders on the coast, and drive a gap in the Ottoman front line, for the Desert Mounted Corps to ride through on their way to the Esdraelon Plain, on the first day of battle.
caption: Falls Sketch Map 30: Situation at zero hour, 19 September
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