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[Page 61]
3. It must be an error if your Excellency assumes that the Army rushed an unplanned attack against the bridgehead - the Army Headquarters had no such incomprehensible arrangement, but only ordered that the Infantry of the 48th Infantry Division should press forward resolutely into the old positions, and that the Artillery should keep the Jordan Bridges under continuous fire.
4. In yesterday's telegram, your Excellency referred pointedly to my personal responsibility. From this I must assume that your Excellency believes that I was not aware of my responsibility as Chief of Staff, and did not fulfil my duty during these days. This is the first time in my military career that this reproach has been addressed to me.
Therefore I respectfully beg your Excellency to grant my immediate relief from my present position, and to employ me as a Battalion Commander on a battle front.
(Signed) Von PAPEN.
These documents were found in Yilderin Headquarters, Nazareth.
CAPTURED DOCUMENT.
Letter to KIAZIM PASHA, C.G.S. Yilderin from (apparently the letter is unsigned) DJEMAL PASHA, G.O.C. IV Army.
I humbly thank your Excellency for the kind words which you have been so kind as to address to me. In this fifth year of War we are all accustomed to misunderstanding. In the meanwhile the point in question is that the Commander of Army must possess the entire confidence of the Army Group Commander if he is to work successfully.
I learn from the discourse which his Excellency, the Marshal, has directed to me in writing, that the decisions of the Army had not met with the approval of his Excellency.
Your Excellency I beg to be allowed to take the following stand with regard to these criticisms:-
1. The Marshal is of the opinion that Salt should have been taken during the night from the North with the infantry of the 8th Army Corps, while simply a light infantry screen should have left on the front of the 8th Army Corps. This solution which perhaps appears possible according to the map, is as a matter of fact a tactical impossibility.
At the first attack on the morning of 30th April, the foremost positions of the 48th Infantry Division, that is, the right wing of 8th Army Corps, had already been lost.
If the 8th Army Corps was to hold on - which was an absolute necessity then no man could be withdrawn out of its front.
This alone would have been wrong on account of the moral reaction on the troops who were fighting. Till 4 p.m. the Army Command had positive hopes of holding Salt. If the Army Command had withdrawn from here earlier, the defence would have probably been smashed by midday. The position of the Army Command was therefore close to Salt.
If the Army Command had joined up with the 8th Army Corps after the fall of Es Salt it would have been able to effect this by about 4 p.m.
An order given at this hour for the concentration of the infantry of the 8th Army Corps on its right flank could have been carried out somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. next morning. An attack on Salt could not have been made with less than 3 Battalions. They would have had to be taken from Lufty Bey's Division which itself is only three Battalions strong. In that case this infantry would have had to carry out a six hours night march from Jebel Hot (unlocated) to Salt from a South Westerly Direction. Hence follows the technical impossibility of the operation required by His Excellency. If it were determined on, the danger was imminent that the front of the VIII Army Corps would be crushed in, and the attack on Salt, which could not be managed with this infantry from the North, would likewise miscarry.
There is not the slightest doubt that Salt must be captured from the enemy