sketch

Field sketch by Turkish Artillery officer showing the 4th Battalion Front Line in Palestine. The foreground depicts in plan, four Turkish field guns and the ranges towards a depiction of their target, a tree line, annotated in Turkish. This was made by the artillery officer responsible for laying his battery’s guns on to the section of the British line held by the 1/4th Battalion. Part of the training of any officer involved field sketching to convey a situation to others. The estimated ranges were of course most important to anyone firing. Since the Turkish Army had withdrawn to Gaza across the land now held by the Norfolks, the ranges on this sketch may well be measured rather than estimated. Captain Buxton describes the initial British attack in the Second battle of Gaza meeting “a perfect hell of artillery and machine-gun fire” no doubt pre-registered on sketches such as this.